Content in category Prophecy
[…] The approach builds around the well known story of Joseph, as type and parable of both comings of Christ to Israel. The idea is to begin with a couple of key portions of Old Testament prophecy in order to establish a simple outline of the prophetic future, particularly as it pertains to the relationship of Christ’s two comings to Israel. This will provide a convenient frame of reference that can enable and equip any believer to make the case for the mystery of the gospel in the Old Testament, particularly in its relationship to Israel and the events that conclude the age.
To introduce the subject matter, I sometimes begin with people’s universal familiarity with the story of Bethlehem as an opportunity to show them the amazing prophecy in Mic 5:2, pointing out its great antiquity (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then call their attention to an even less known feature of that prophecy in the next verse. “Therefore shall He (Yahweh) ‘give them up’ UNTIL the time that she who travails has brought forth; then shall the remnant of His brethren return to the children of Israel (Mic 5:3). It is the age long “giving up” of Israel, but we want to identify the cause of this abandonment as something more ultimately provoking of divine displeasure than covenant failure in general. […]
I was recently talking with someone about the Pre-Wrath view. The way I understand it, it seems so close to Post-trib with maybe a few minor distinctions. And it’s all up to the interpreter as well, but what scriptures can we use to defend Post-trib, or does it even matter […]
In reading 2 Samuel 7:14 KJV, I came across a passage that took me aback: “I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:” Jesus did […]
The Jews who read Daniel as inspired prophecy would have understood that the temple that God commanded the returning exiles to rebuild (see Hag / Zech) was, from its beginning, a doomed edifice. As early as they had access to the book of Daniel, they could see that ‘at the […]
[…] Just as the virgin birth was a divine ‘by-pass’ of natural fertility, so is every aspect of the salvation of God. God is supremely jealous for this, because He is supremely jealous that to God alone be all the glory (Soli de Gloria). The cross signifies God’s rejection of all that man is and of anything that man might presume to contribute towards his own salvation. It signifies that the life of the Spirit can only begin at the place of utter death to all natural support (“I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name”). This is why the promised eschatological salvation of Israel is always depicted at the end of their power (Deut 32:36; Lev 26:29; Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:7).
If this principle is true of Israel in the coming day of the Lord, it is no less true of the church of this age. In fact, that is what makes the church the church. Through the transforming power of the revelation of the gospel, the believer receives the salvation of the coming day in unexpected advance of that day. The church by definition is the first fruits of Israel’s coming salvation. The church is the church only so far as it has received the Spirit that will yet be given to the penitent remnant of Israel at the end of the great tribulation. […]
What do you make of the fact the week the British mandate ended and Israel became a nation, May 14 1948, the Torah portion reading included Amos 9? I think it was a token that the Lord is gracious to encourage those who had so lately endured so much that […]
I have heard you say that Satan is the “restrainer”. How can this be? Wouldn’t this put the timing of the end into Satan’s hands instead of God the Father, Who is sovereign over all? You are not alone in mistaking my meaning. Let me be clear: I do not […]
When the general boasts that the IDF is sufficient guarantee that the nation will “never again” suffer another Holocaust, it is nothing new. But surely there is a tragic prophetic irony to be detected when he unconsciously casts the ill-fated promise in the very language of scripture (“no weapon or intent formed against you will prosper”). Whether secular or religious, it is this deep humanism, by no means peculiar to Israel, that condemns the favored nation to another and another, simply because it is the object of God’s special election.
On the question of the time statements, I have written much off and on and really need to collect those observations as many of them, though alive in my spirit, are not all fresh to my memory. But I have written of the unique nature of how the scriptures view […]
This is the kind of mystery (see the post “After Two Days…“) inscribed in the scriptures of the prophets that only Jesus understood in His un-fallen, divinely human mind (“by His knowledge will He justify many”). It is why He was not at liberty to unpack the mystery to His […]
