From a January 2016 GFW Saturday night Bible Study, this Session was on Isaiah 17.

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Full Transcript below:

Tom, it would be an interesting exercise to go through the prophets. Of course, actually, not just the Old Testament, because the New Testament is very clear that Jerusalem is the special object of Antichrist’s hatred, the treading under foot for 42 months. So this is not some Old Testament thing that a bunch of, you know, hyper literalists are latching on to here.

But this is everywhere. This is everywhere you read about the Day of the Lord. Everywhere.

Not only when that name, that word is particularly used, and it’s close associated terms in that day and in those days, etc. And then often the things that will be accomplished at that day are mentioned that have fulfillment in no other time. I mean, I know there’s some partial fulfillment throughout history, but.

So all roads lead to the Day of the Lord. And I just want to give a little story. It had to do with something that John Piper wrote some years back, and Art gave it to me, and Art was impressed with it, and I somewhat was, too.

Art said, what do you think of this? In other words, is he right? My answer was yes and no. Well, that was tentative at the time. Right now it would be a resounding no.

But it was very appealing because it asked this question, does Israel, in their present unbelief on this side of new covenant righteousness, do they have, and he used this term, talk about a slippery term. I don’t suggest at all that he did it consciously, of course, but it’s a disarming term. The word is, and some of you all may have heard this, does Israel in their present state have a quote-unquote divine right to the land? Well, first of all, that’s disarming, because how can you at once speak of grace and right? You know, there is no right, yet, you know, God has put his whole big picture together around one nation.

That’s the nation that gives the framework and the context, not only of the past, but of the future. And let’s see, where I want to go with this is this, so the idea is, is that Israel’s pretty much fair game. They’re like any other nation.

I heard one leading pastor use such a crass term as, there’s no more significance to modern Israel or to the to the Middle East conflict, biblically, than a border war between, I think he said Paraguay and Uruguay, but I don’t think those nations are actually, there’s not a natural border there. I don’t know what, but you get the point. In other words, he reduces it to a non-significance that has all to do with the Jewish apocalyptic dream, they’re back in the land.

And yet, Phil, I believe it was, one of you just a moment ago, read Joel chapter 3, verses 1, 2, and 3 there, and that clearly is the day of the Lord. And all through the scriptures, the day of the Lord is all about the the climax to a ultimate showdown in the Middle East between Israel and her neighbors most immediately, but a trembling Jerusalem, a burdensome stone that has brought all the nations into a vortex and entangled and engaged all nations in a way that they cannot disentangle themselves from. And so, you know, God is flushing something to the surface here.

And so I began to think about that, and I thought, well, when has Israel ever been in New Covenant righteousness? There is always, as June was just saying, there’s only ever been a remnant like Joshua and Caleb who had a different spirit. Moses himself knew for himself the circumcised heart, but he said to his Jewish compatriots, to his people, he says, but I know you guys, I know that you will not prolong your days in the land. You will go into the land, and you will possess it.

And be very sure, Deuteronomy chapter 9, that this is not about your righteousness, because you’re like this and not like that, and so on. In other words, this is nothing to do with any merit on your part. But it’s true that, now, and I didn’t let you go in until the iniquity of the Amorites had been fully fulfilled.

And by the way, he will bear in that land a largely unbelieving Jewish nation, as he has many times over and through many generations, so long as their iniquity has not reached a certain intolerable threshold with God. God is all, he’s very well aware that he’s only got a remnant, and for the sake of that remnant, and for the sake of his larger purpose, he bears that nation with much long-suffering. And he blesses them with common grace, and more than common grace, he blesses them with families, with a measure, but they’re always under the looming, hanging, you know, jeopardy of the covenant.

They’re under the threat of a covenant that, okay, God will be patient, he will bear, he will send prophets, but there is a threshold, just like the Amorites had a threshold of iniquity, that when you reach that threshold, Tom, you’re frozen there. Is there something going on technologically here that, I mean, can you guys hear me? I can hear you. I don’t want to get in too deep here, I’ve been enjoying, I don’t want to, but so the great, they’re coming into the land, yet Moses says, you will not be able to keep the land until I see ahead to a future time.

It’s in the latter days, and he gives it the name that the prophets are going to carry and develop the great tribulation. Now, the prophets will call it trouble, affliction, distress, many names, calamity, but it’s the great tribulation, and only at that time of great tribulation, at that time of transitioning crisis, will all the nation know him, because until then, there’ll only be a remnant, and that remnant that is righteous will, may, as we’ve often pointed out, may forestall, may give a moment of revival, may forestall captivity and exile, but can never finally prevent it. They can be assault and a lie, but they can never finally prevent the ever-present threat of the covenant and the cycles of judgment and of exile.

As you know, Daniel and Ezekiel and others went right down into exile and suffered with their nation, but always they were aware, they knew they had a new heart, they knew they even had the sure mercies of David, they would speak about the peace and the righteousness that they had by the Spirit, they had the Spirit, but they knew that was never enough. Only when all of Israel, after a time of final purging and final discipline, at the end of their power, when they would all have at that time a circumcised heart, what the later prophets will call a new heart or a sprinkled heart, only then would the Kingdom of God be able to come on earth, because it cannot come on earth unless that people and not another, I want to stress that, that people and not another are able to inherit that land and keep it forever. Now, the point I’m making against Piper’s thesis and many of these others who have joined in, is that they’re saying, well, Israel can’t really have a divine right to the land until they qualify under the new covenant, but never in their history did they qualify as a nation that was for the larger part, even for the larger part, let alone in that new covenant righteousness, in that righteousness, of course, that, and this is difficult because, you know, well, the new covenant wasn’t here until Jews was here.

Yes, in a way, the regenerating work of the Spirit was certainly here, it was on the basis of what Jews would accomplish in history, in His blood, but all of history has waited for this nation to be altogether righteous in that land, no longer subject to the threat of their enemies, no longer subject to be uprooted and put out into the nations, or even in a way where that, now, by the way, that does not mean, and the scriptures are very clear, that millennial Israel will be without sin. There’s a sin offering right in the midst of the land, there’s a continual reminder, just like we have, we’re reminded continually of our continual need of cleansing. They will have that.

The terms of the new covenant existed before Jeremiah would particularly call it new, and it was given in Psalm 89, 2 Samuel 7, you know, verse 10, a lot of places, 1 Chronicles 16, other places, where this everlasting covenant was something that was presented as present and active, but it would not, it would not be fully secure to Israel until the coming in of the everlasting righteousness, which would come at the great day of the Lord, for them, for them. It’s come already for the church, it’s come already in Christ, but this, there is an outstanding abiding not yet, and what the age is waiting for is for that nation, for ungodliness to be turned away from Jacob. So God has put all of his marbles, so to speak, all of his investment, with the bringing in of that historically impossible people, you know, intractable, you can’t, you know, you can plead with them, but for the larger part, Israel would always tend to backslide.

The new covenant promises a final victory over that tendency, the tendency to slide away backwards. The new covenant promises that, and that is given, that will come to Israel, it’s already come to the church, to the masculine, to the believing remnant, but it waits to the time when it would come to Israel, when the face of God would no longer be hidden from that nation again forever, and when they would possess that land from the Euphrates. So it’s all about, it’s all about God’s original word and his original promise that he would bring that people in, and they would be able to keep that land forever, but that would only come at the end of a final tribulation in the latter days, when not just a few of them had the circumcised heart, because there was always a remnant, but where now, all of them would have the circumcised heart, and they would no longer need to teach everyone his neighbor, but they would all know him, speaking particularly of Jewish families, would all know him from the least to the greatest, and all their children after that would be taught of God, and his spirit that was upon Isaiah, and would be upon Israel in that day, would never again depart, not only from them, but not even from their children’s children.

So now you have real security in the land by a nation who has been brought into a righteousness, not just of a few, but of a whole nation, but that righteousness, and back to what you’re saying, Tom, was never the righteousness of even the best of well-intentioned man, it was the righteousness of God. It could not be any other righteousness than the righteousness of the Spirit, working, quickening and working in the believer, and that’s why I like to talk about this point about stumbling. Adam was talking about stumbling at this thing where how we see the Jew in the last day.

What we do with these, his brethren, when they’re in their beleaguered, imperiled, in flight, you know, what we do with them in that day being very telling of our eternal destiny. I mean, he says, as you did it to them, you’ve done it to me, as you overlooked and neglected to do it to them, and while that’s true in principle of anyone, you know, of mercy and of whatever, but this is particularly, we talked about this before, this is particularly true of how people view Israel. Now, we know that we’re not saved on the basis of how we view Israel, let’s be very clear, nor are we saved by some end-time righteous work of hiding Jews.

No. What’s clear, though, is that these things are a manifestation of a disposition and bent of the heart, that we love what God loves, that we are in touch and even in fellowship with what God is doing and what he has chosen to do, and we’re in sync and we’re in step with the Holy Spirit and with the intentions and purposes and goals of God and in union with God. So, the Jew then becomes very telling.

Art would call him a litmus test. They become very telling of our true relationship with God. How we really, what kind of knowledge of God do we really have? Do we have a knowledge of God where his word is just as true and if Israel remains in exile forever, if they’re never brought in, if ungodliness is never turned away from the natural branches, is that going to be okay? Or are we really looking to God to vindicate his word and to avenge his great covenant promise and to know that we’re in the thick of it with God, like the prophets of old.

We may indict Israel, we may call Israel’s hand on their neglect of God and of his covenant and their need of a new heart, but we love Israel. We are completely in travail, like a midwife, till Christ be formed. Our heads are full of tears, God helping us.

Our heads are full of the sorrow of Paul, not because Paul warned his countrymen, say, but because God, Paul wanted the glory of God in his name vindicated and famous throughout the earth. And that the principalities and powers that began this whole war on the word that goes all the way back to Eden, they began by asking, has God really said? That’s what they’re still asking. And what significance is an unbelieving Jewish people in the land? And why does God, at the great day of God, take it out on the nations and avenge himself so absolutely, fiercely, when the people of Israel were absolutely the objects of Hitler, they were sitting ducks for divine discipline.

They had really brought upon them, through their provocation of God, through their making a covenant with death that held with very Antichrist, they had brought upon them the final throes of Jacob’s trouble itself, the greatest and most unequal time of Jewish suffering, dispersion, and throughout, you know, of history, another Holocaust. So yet, the people that are under that, by their own deserving, by their own provocation of divine wrath, and the nations, like the Assyrian being the very instrument of that wrath, yet God says, you know, woe to you who are the instruments. Woe to you who are the unwitting and willing despisers of Israel, because in your despising them, you’ve despised me.

When you laid hands upon them, and this is not just true of the last days, it’s true of all days, when you laid hands upon them, humanistic, unknowing, undiscerning hands, you were laying them on me, just like they laid them on me when they manhandled my own son. And so, Israel stumbled before Jesus came. Before Jesus came, before they stumbled at the stumbling block, Paul says they had already stumbled.

Where is that? That’s Romans 9. It says Israel stumbled at the stumbling block, and he didn’t just give that stumbling the name Jesus. Jesus would be the perfect and ultimate embodiment of an ongoing condition of truth. And that condition was summed up this way.

They had the right standard, but they had the wrong approach. They sought the righteousness that was represented in the law as if, when it never was, but as if it was a righteousness of works, when in fact it was a righteousness of faith. How they perceived and how they sought it, it was very telling of the condition of their heart.

So Jesus came and exposed an already existing condition. Now, what I submit is that what’s going to happen with Israel, and just this week I’ve learned of close friends and families and sterling homeschool families that already some of their more academic sons and so forth, they’re actually entertaining and buying in to anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian. I mean, it’s sad.

And at the same time, European Jews are feeling increasingly unsafe all over the world. There’s this circulating doctrine throughout the church that, oh yeah, the natural branches may come in someday, but they have no right to that present land. They’re nothing until Jesus comes back.

They have signified nothing but Jewish dreams and Jewish aggressions and Jewish occupation. That’s going on all throughout evangelicalism. Do you see what’s the writing on the wall? The rising tide of anti-Semitism and its resurgence.

I mean, these things should sober and make us understand. We’ve got to tell the church that, you know, I once heard a very well beloved and reputable minister who, and I know he meant well, but he says, you know, Jehovah is not in covenant with Ahab. I was a young guy when I heard that. It’s very respected that I look up to this guy.

I go, wait a minute, something’s wrong with that. You know what? Jehovah is not in a new covenant relationship with Ahab. That’s so true. But Jehovah is in covenant with Ahab, and that’s why Ahab gets a double discipline.

The Jewish people are in covenant even when they’re outside of Christ, as witness history and their exposure to a double discipline that someday will meet with a double glory. But right now and until that day, they remain under a double discipline of God. The scriptures are very clear.

You only have I known among the nations. Amos 3:2. Therefore I will punish you. Well, anyhow, so I’m talking about a couple things.

This war on the word. Has God really said? That’s what’s at stake. In Numbers 14, when God said to Moses, step aside.

The great question was, can I and will I and have I spoken concerning this people? And Moses reminds God, of course God fully knows that he would be stirring the intercessor Christ and Moses would then plead. God had already ordained he would answer that prayer. So God says, you know, indeed I’ve heard your prayer and I will forgive this people.

I will not desert them or sign off on them or go to another more cooperative people or make a nation out of a godly Moses. I will not relinquish or relent on my pursuit to bring this people in. The people that I brought out, though they be ever so recalcitrant, ever so, you know, corrupting of themselves, I will not sign off.

I will persist until my glory fills all the earth. Why? Because when the Jews return and they look upon them and unbelief is purged away forever from Israel, it will be like the parting of the Red Sea. Certainly Jesus will be back.

He will crack the sky. His feet is touched down. But at the same time, that seismic event is still happening.

The Jewish people, the heart of the Jewish people are being rent. At the same time, the Mount of Olives is dividing. Their heart is being rent as they look upon Him.

And it’s an absolute end. Now the collective veil is taken away from the Jewish people and God’s name is vindicated. So my point is, Israel stumbled at Jesus.

Jesus exposed an already existing condition. He embodied a principle. Did they know God? People knew God.

Nathaniel was an Israelite indeed. People knew God and they would prove that they knew God by hearing this carpenter’s, this prophet’s words and recognizing who he was by the Spirit. They would, whether they knew God or not, would be found out by this stumbling block in their midst.

Whether people know God or have they true Jesus. You know, there’s another Jesus. Paul speaks about another Jesus, another spirit.

That will be proven, not made one way or the other so much as proven and exposed, found out and revealed by how they will respond to the crisis of Israel. How they will understand the the controversy of Zion and what God is doing. God is closing in on the Jew.

He’s not, He cannot, His name and in words is at stake. He cannot leave them in that condition. So the issue of the Jew is the issue of a righteousness that is God’s alone.

They can build a Tower of Babel, they can have, you know, they could, they can, they can reconstruct their temple, have all their sacrifice, they can do everything. But unless they have come into what’s called the righteousness of the Lord Himself, the righteousness that is everlasting, that is to say the righteousness of the Holy Spirit. Until they come into that righteousness and seeing that unsealed, revealed mystery, the gospel, they are condemned to continue the cycle of judgment.

They remain completely vulnerable and exposed to further covenant discipline, which will in the tribulation include another dispersal. I mean, you can’t, they come down to scatter my people. I tell you, they accomplish it.

They don’t just come down there with intentions to scatter the Jewish people, they accomplish to scatter the Jewish people. And everything waits on that people coming to the end of that power and to the end of that veil that’s over their hearts, and knowing Him, not just a few, but that remaining remnant, so that every one of them that goes in the Millennium know Him from the least to greatest. What does the end of the covenant really, therefore, say? That God cannot rest until Jerusalem is appraised in the whole earth.

And what does that mean? That means the Jews have come into such a righteousness as that they will never again depart. Jeremiah 32 verse 40. To such a righteousness that no enemy can ever threaten their peace again, that they lie down safely and none can ever again make them afraid.

That’s the day when the present boast of never again will become a true fulfillment of divine promise. And so, God, the war, it’s on the Word. That’s what Israel is all about.

That’s why Satan goes after the woman with such a vehemence, because his time is short. If they come into that land and possess it as an all-righteous nation, it’s over. His tenure over the nations is utterly broken, and God’s name and Word is openly, publicly vindicated.

And so, God is the proof of the pudding. It’s not just, you know, we know and believe in Christ’s resurrection, but He was seen of chosen witnesses. His resurrection was not a public event.

It was in the sight of heaven, but it was known of hell, but it was only known of witnesses and those who would believe through their word. The resurrection of national Israel will be open and public to the confounding of every gainsaying spirit, because the mystery of God will be finished and the veil that covers the nations will be removed. When? In one day.

That’s why we get here at the end of Isaiah 17:14. Behold, an evening in trouble. You know, the Assyrian that was contemporary, that was local, that was threatening Israel, that made Isaiah’s contemporary prophecy have contemporary relevance, that guy went home after he was frustrated at the walls of Jerusalem and lived several more years.

Now, his kingdom began to decline and would later give way to Babylon, but all the prophecies that talk about this Assyrian, who, by the way, we’ve made a great case in our other gatherings, this is the Antichrist. He’s cut off in one hour, just like Israel was born in one day, this guy is destroyed in one hour, and it’s repeated many places. This evening time sounds very much like Zechariah 14, in, you know, it shall not be evening.

In other words, that one day that’s known to the Lord is the day of the Antichrist’s destruction, is the day when the Lord appears to destroy him with the brightness of his mouth, and I believe there’s a great case to be made that that’s the same day that Israel was born again, not as a secular nation, largely secular, but as a holy nation in one day. This is the Antichrist. This is not the contemporary Assyrian.

He passed off the scene, you know, and he went back home and survived a number of years, but this guy, the one that he was a mere, you know, he was a mere type of this ultimate anti-type, he is cut off in one day. So, before Jesus can come, the mystery of iniquity’s got to be fulfilled. Think with me now.

Go to 2 Thessalonians 2. Christ cannot come back right now. Why can’t he come back right now, Paul? Let no man deceive you by any means. That day will not come, except there come a falling away first, the man of sin be revealed.

Now, why? Because the mystery of iniquity has all together to do with this final man of sin who will embody this principle that was in some measure shown in all these former great aggressors and oppressors of Israel. But this guy is the ultimate embodiment of this principle, of this Lucifer, this king of Babylon, this Assyrian, same, different guys with same spirit, same essence, must come to a final climactic embodiment in this Antichrist who’s destroyed in one day. Why? Because he’s the one that’s the rod of God through which Israel is smitten and brought down to the end of their power.

And his destruction is their resurrection, is their revelation of the gospel and of the mystery of the gospel. They see Jesus like Paul saw him on the road to Damascus in one day. And I wish we had a little time, you know, if you check it sometime, just look up the word hour and you’ll see how often this Antichrist is destroyed by the voice of the Lord in one hour, in one moment.

It’s the same moment that Israel is looking upon it. It’s from that day and forward they know him, for the iniquity of that land will be cleansed in one day, and so on we could continue. But this is a crisis critical moment.

Israel is at the end of their power. This man has ruled oppressively, you know, ruled the nations for 42 months and he’s trampled Israel down for 42 months. This is what we’re looking at and his destruction is a picture of all those who have this ancient anti-semitic hatred in their heart.

God is going to use the issue of Israel and the end times to flush this out, to bring this out in the open and hearts are going to be divided and exposed over the issue of Israel. In some cases more clearly than the issue of Christ. Christ would come and expose who really knew God and who knew him not.

Israel is going to expose the hearts of those who call themselves Christians and are not. I better quit, but you see what you see that this is this is the big picture. There is this commitment of God to bring this people in because it’s his ultimate vindication against the continual hatred and opposition of Satan.

His name is at stake. That’s what Israel means and Israel is showing that no other righteousness than the righteousness that raises the dead and and preserves someone in a holiness and a righteousness that is not their own. Only a righteousness of that kind of perpetuity, of that kind of continuance can see an all-saved nation and that salvation extend to children’s children.

No wonder the commentators and theologians say that has to happen. Why? Because they can’t conceive of literal Jews on this literal planet having literal children born with natural fallen natures who before they’re of any mature age already know the Lord and that every one of them know the Lord from the least to greatest and every one of their children born to them for a thousand years of divine demonstration, of burning bush testimony and witness to every spirit that says, oh he can’t bring them in. They’re too much for him.

I tell you the Jews not too much for God any more than Paul in the road to Damascus was too much for God. For in the day of his power, the scripture says, they will be made willing. When the time to come and the time to favor Zion, yes, the set time has come.

God knows how to bring the people to their end and quicken them in a resurrection authority and power, not literal. There’ll be literal resurrection but there’ll be a spiritual resurrection for the Jews that go into the kingdom in their natural bodies and that resurrection life will show itself in that people for a thousand years. They won’t be perfect and they won’t be sinless but they will be holy and they will keep covenant and therefore the covenant will be so kept by the power of the new nature, by the power of the the outpoured spirit that they’ll never go back again or slide back and become exposed again to the threat of the broken covenant.

So those are the things that we need to simplify, clarify, make plain on tables, show the case, make the case and then put it before the nations because God will not come back and judge a world that has not become very, very accountable through the prophetic anointing and authority of clearly spoken witnesses. Like Travis’s loves that word, the credible witness of the church. That church has got to come to fullness.

Thank you, June, for that. It’s got to come to fullness. Everything waits on the church.

It’s got to come to fullness. Everything waits on the church and yet the church also waits on God because only God can take us where we corporately would not have gone. He is the one who must intervene and straighten us with a straightening of his own wise choosing that we could never get it together with all of our brilliant, you know, there’s never been a time when I’ve seen a greater dearth for the word, yet there’s a glut, simultaneously a glut of every kind of wonderful, even evangelical, even sound and accurate.

I mean, it looks like anything but a dearth for the word and yet subtly and there’s a hidden holocaust almost of a dearth for the true prophetic Word of God in its cutting-edge holiness and calling and preparation of a people unto death for the sake of this worldwide witness that must go out because the nations come down against Israel are coming down there over the dead body, so to speak, of chosen witnesses that will have spoken very clearly and confronted them. They will be confronted. They will know or have opportunity to know what they’re doing and we won’t just go out and say, oh, God loves Jews.

He chose the Jews. We’re going to be giving them the reasons why God chose the Jews. What’s at issue? What is God’s great point? Now, first of all, it’s certainly just enough that he did choose them and that’s his word.

Don’t go against his word, but God wants you to fellowship. He wants you to come on in and understand his thinking. Why he chose the Jew is not so peculiar once you begin to understand the purposes that he’s invested in them so that he could attain those great goals which have all to do with his glory in all the earth through no other means than choosing a people who would show themselves absolutely unable forevermore to get it together and yet for all their inability God would accomplish a miracle that would bring them to a place of apostolic priesthood like Paul and make them the light to the nations they were first called to be.

The age can’t end without that. We can’t just skip a millennium. We can’t just go, you know, straight to new heavens and new earth and be done with this whole Israel thing, divesting the modern state of Israel of any particular significance, making it just a war between aggressive people and victim people and all these other things.

This is God who’s brought them back and the nations are very, very accountable and I think we’ve seen nothing yet. We’ve seen nothing of how very accountable the nations are going to be when this war begins to gel and the strands begin to pull together and we begin to be very clear and this vision is made plain on tables. It will be compact, pressed together, and it will literally really challenge hearts, but it’ll give the hungry and the weary and the willing and it will give them an opportunity for glory, but it’s a costly glory and it’s going to be important that they taste that glory because only a taste of that glory will give them the stamina to be objective and not look for pre-trib raptures or some other, you know, excuse, but to prepare them to go the distance in such incredible difficult times, only it’s going to be by the same means that Jesus went the distance because the joy that was set before Him.

Unless we’ve seen and tasted the glory, it’s not about just a happy life, you know, God gives that in measure, but that’s always something we must leave and sacrifice for the glory. God is in it for the glory. He’s the only being in all the universe who literally must, in consistency with His own nature, seek His own glory because His glory is the best thing for this whole world.

So I love it when He says to Moses, I will forgive this people, this intractable nation, I will not go and find a more compliant people, I will not leave, I knew who they were and what they would be like before I even called them, you know. He called Jacob from the womb. He called him before the womb, that it might be very clear that before the children were born, that his basis for calling and the election of Jacob had nothing to do with Jacob’s merit or works and that’s the issue with Israel.

You hit it right on the head, Tom. It’s the issue of a righteousness that is not our own. And unless we attain to that righteousness, which is only attainable by faith and by the gift of the Spirit, I don’t care what you accomplish, I don’t care how you cultivate, you know, by every studied discipline you can conceive, by every accurate consent to every truth, unless that righteousness is your righteousness, then your righteousness and the best that you can do cannot stand before an infinitely holy God.

It will writhe in retreat because it’s unbearable to stand before that God without the covering that’s only provided through Messiah’s blood. That’s our task. I think we’ve got a task to the church to bring them up to with Israel of what he’s invested, why the end of the age climax is around the Israel, the issue of Israel, and why it’s not a separate issue from the gospel, but it’s intimately related.

And then the next, that’s so educating the church, but we also have to bring to the Jewish attention that anti-semitism is not just assigned to the church, it’s assigned to them, that their calamities must continue, that they must be continually exposed from one cycle of judgment to the other until their proud boast of never again comes down in the dust and they are raised into a righteousness that is not their own. But this issue, in it, Romans 117, in it is the righteousness of God revealed. I was thinking the other day, I’ve talked about the word, I think Art gave the term apocalyptic evangelism.

We’ll see. What we’re really preaching is an apocalyptic righteousness. It’s a righteousness that can only be and is only revealed by the Spirit.

It’s only found in Christ and that alone fulfills the law and it’s all of its demands. And that righteousness must be revealed by the Spirit, not by mere teaching. I mean teaching has its preparatory, preliminary role, but that’s a righteousness that must be quickened.

When Peter said, when Jesus said to Peter, upon this rock I will build my church. He wasn’t just talking about Peter’s accurate confession. He certainly wasn’t talking about Peter the man, like in Roman Catholicism, but he was talking about Peter’s revelation, which the flesh and blood could not mediate or communicate.

You must have a revelation to be alive to God that flesh and blood is powerless to quicken or communicate. You must know God by the Spirit, by the Spirit of revelation. And only when you’ve seen his face are you changed from glory to glory.

And that’s only by the Spirit. Flesh and blood cannot reveal it. The teaching can bring you up to a point and ideally it brings you to the point of crisis.

And crisis brings you to the point of weakness and self despair. And that weakness is the issue of the veil. Then the revelation of God comes.

Where does it come? It comes to those who have been touched by the finger of God that’s brought them to a death that they could never have come to. To a sense of sin and its exceeding simpleness that they could have never known except by the Spirit. So it’s all about the Spirit.

And Israel is the great test that will test the hearts of those that claim they love God and know God when they do not understand the lengths to which God will go and must go to to bring Israel back under the bond of the covenant. He’ll spare nothing. Who hates his child is the one that spares his child.

Israel will not be spared. And for those who know what Israel must go through and not have a broken heart and all they can occupy themselves is with those those immoral Jews who have gay parades in Tel Aviv. That’s all they’ve got.

That’s really knowing Israel after the flesh. That’s not knowing God’s heart. That’s a moralistic self-righteous um you know It misses the whole point.

Part of that very point is these people are helpless to lift themselves out of the quagmire of their own corruptions. They are helpless. The leopard cannot change his spots.

The Ethiopian cannot change his skin. These people that are cut, they cannot. You can count on one thing from the natural man.

That’s the natural man will act naturally. And so certainly Israel’s a bit guilty of aggressions and things that are not that not even in keeping with some of their own ideals and ethics, but that doesn’t change anything of God’s election. And the way that we presume that God is in this thing looking for a few good guys like the marines, that’s completely a misunderstanding of grace and the way it even works.

But Israel exists to demonstrate grace. They are the open public. I’ve always said, you know, they’re the window through which we see ourselves.

But if you just see them, you haven’t seen anything. But in looking at them, if you see yourself and you know that there’s no difference, then you’re seeing something and then you can be instructed. Anyhow, you opened some very rich questions, Tom.

I hope I spoke to some of them and maybe you can call out from some of that. But yeah, God is in covenant with Ahab because Ahab belongs to a corporate entity of which the gifts and calling are never revoked based on behavior. Ahab will die and go to hell without Christ, but Ahab will pay a double price on the way to hell.

That nation endures a special chasing. That is God’s national son. Prodigal? Yes.

But elect and beloved forevermore. They are his eternal nation. Other nations come and go.

And I loved what Adam’s saying, you know, you don’t see God speak of any other nation like people’s very eternal destinies being bound up with their attitude towards other nations. He is, God is born with these nations rising up and swallowing up and whatever. He’s rebuked it.

He’s judged it. He’s prophetically condemned it, but he’s born it. He’s tolerated.

But this time when these nations come down upon a rehabilitated nation of Israel that’s been in the dust of exile for 18 centuries, 19 centuries, and they sweep down like the wolf on the fold, upon that nation they’ve crossed a red line and his fury comes up in his face and says, you’ve gone too far. I’m dealing with my people. I will discipline them.

I will bring them to their end, but there’ll be redemption. But for those of you that win now, you’ll lose forever. And for the Jew that loses now, he’ll win forever.

And there’s a great table-turning thing. And so antisemitism, do we owe it to the world to warn them of the cost and the high price of it? And how come the church is falling under it, making all kinds of adjustments to begin to see, oh, they’ll even say, you know, the Jews will someday be grafted back in in some way into some end-time evangelism. And then when Christ comes and the Christians inherit the earth, the Jews may have some pinch of it and there may be some significance to the land then.

But right now there’s no significance to that land. Right now there’s no particular significance to a people that have come back against all odds for, you know, after centuries of peculiar, strange, divine chastisement, persecution, hatred among the nations. And the Jews know it.

I mean, listen to Bibi Netanyahu. He speaks about this. He says, it’s nothing new to us, this Jew hatred.

It’s nothing new. And you guys are acting like it’s nothing. And you’re letting it go.

It’s building up again. He sees it coming. And all they can do is try to muscle up and answer an insoluble dilemma in the only way they know, through strength.

And yet the only strength that God can receive is His own strength, through faith. So who cannot see Israel as a pitiable race, a byword spoken against and, you know, bowed down always. And, you know, sure, a lot of them are in Hollywood and doing, you know, prospering or whatever.

But for the larger part, they’re haunted. Even those that are in Hollywood that are living it up, they’re haunted by what happened only a generation ago to their people and what now is building up again. We have got to exploit the neurosis and fear and the natural concern in the Jewish heart to bring the great issues of the covenant and the claims of the covenant back to their consciousness.

And use that as a crowding, pointing effect to point them to the only righteousness that can ever fulfill the covenant, which is to say, is the Lord our righteousness, Jesus. And God help us. I just hope that we can be clear, because it is a rather multifaceted issue.

And it’s not enough just to say, oh, the Jews are God’s chosen people. You’ve got to show what God is doing with them. He is testing hearts.

He’s saying, what do you do with my people? Just like what do you do with my son? What do you do with them? What do you do with the Jew in your midst will be very telling of what you have done and will do with God. Even in their offensiveness, even in their unbelief and in their opposition and their vexations, God has made them that way so that we’re not loving them on the basis of some impressive morality or high standard of democracy or whatever. In other words, those cannot be the reasons that we love and receive and pray for and intercede and travail for the Jewish people.

The reason has got to be the glory of God and, of course, the mercy upon their souls. And that’s what I… Go ahead, Tom. Take it on.

Amen. Excellent. And I just have a prayer in my heart to ask the Lord to… Lord, send laborers into the harvest and send this message.

Lord, send warning to the nations that are gathering against Israel. Send warning, Lord. And send the gospel to Israel, Lord.

Gospel warning to hide yourself from the wrath to come. Lord, send laborers. Send this message.

Send your heart and speak it forth, Lord, in the earth. Send, oh God, send. You are the great sender.

It’s futile to go unless one is sent, Lord. So invest in that sending and, Lord, hasten your work in us, path in us, till we’re filled with your glory and we’re telling your story over the land and sea. Lord, publish it among the nations.

You said the Lord gave the word and great was the company that published it. That everyone that has truly read by the Spirit, Lord, will have a fire that cannot be quenched until they run and indefatigably run throughout the nations, Lord, with a witness that cannot be easily gain said or resisted, that removes the cloak and the covering and the hiding place. Lord, make us clear as simple as that a child could write it, Lord.

Let us use these complex and difficult issues, but Lord, reduce them to a simplicity that makes it accessible to the wayfaring man. Lord, make it plain. Make it simple.

Make it clear. Make it pure, unadulterated, unmixed, unconfused, and let your own claims and your own challenges be clear so that the world has a clear choice in Jesus’ name. Thank you, Lord.

Come and shut the mouths of those high speeches that are spoken against you daily. Those that lift up themselves in our universities and all throughout the world. Those who know so much and yet they know so little.

And Lord, that you would even give many of them repentance, just like you gave many of those that were official priest and Pharisees repentance. Some of them also believed. Lord, open that wonderful gate, that glorious gate of whosoever will.

But let it, Lord, come so clear that the choice is before us. And let us make that connection, the Jerusalem-Jesus connection. Let us make it clear so that the power of the prophetic scripture to blow away all the hiding place of unbelief, to expose it, and to force the choice.

And Lord, I know that not a hungry, weakened, desperate, needful person, Lord, it will not elude them. But you’ve hidden it from the wisdom of this age, Lord. Even though it’s declared, you said, I will do a work in your day, a work which you shall in no wise believe no man declared to you, Lord.

But it won’t be because it wasn’t clear. It won’t be because you had not spoken and done works which no other one can work, Lord. It won’t be because you did not bring your church to fullness and prepare the way.

Oh God, I pray, Lord, that a great line in the sand will be drawn and that the issue of anti-Semitism, we’ll know in wisdom how to use that issue to save many alive and to turn many to righteousness, Lord, and how to use the issue of God’s relentless covenant pursuit of Israel to bring them to the end of themselves and therefore to an end of the law for righteousness in the face of Jesus Christ. I just pray, God, for wisdom, you were so simple and clear. Your parables were so amazing.

Lord, give us that kind of simplicity. Lord, we don’t care that any one of us have it, but that all of us together contributing and working and laboring and sharing thoughts and helping each other, Lord, would forge and form a clear word that the young people can use with one another and that, you know, housewives and others can use to teach and to share with their loved ones. Lord, something that will be a standard lifted, a clear trumpet sound, Lord, that will go to the nations and, Lord, that many, many, Lord, will instruct many.

Lord, raise up that company. I know it’s not numerical. It is qualitative.

Raise up that company that will instruct the many and let that instruction begin now, Lord. Lord, don’t defer and wait only till the tribulations upon us, but let there be a clear word in the earth so that no one has a truly justified excuse. We just thank you, God.

We just thank you. Come, Lord. It’s you.

You paid for it. Lord, this is your day, Lord. Make your way back, Lord.

Make straight your own way back, Lord. Bring the rest of the outstanding things that you have yet to be fulfilled. Bring them to pass, Lord.

Lord, accomplish it. Fulfill your two days. Lord, bring quickly, Lord, your kingdom.

Lord, not the American dream, not just another day in paradise, but Lord, bring your kingdom, Lord, and let us love your glory more than our own comforts, enough that we will sacrifice and tremble and move with holy fear, and Lord, we repent. We repent. We’ve not been in that kind of place, but you know how to get us there, Lord.

Give us repentance, Lord. Break our hearts, Lord. Make us, Lord, a people who do not—oh, God—who do not hold back.

In Jesus’ name.

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“For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.” — 2 Corinthians 3:11

What is the “end” here in mind? This has to be in reference to the law of Moses (as a means of justification!), not the law itself. Am I correct in stating this?

I think the law ends, not as instruction, or its divine use to drive the sinner to Christ, but as a killing letter ministering death.

That has ended by a death, His death, of course, but also our death to the law as an accusing power, threatening the conscience with all the thunderclaps and black terrors of Sinai.

This ministration of death ends with the ministration of the Spirit of liberty!

Until the Spirit comes, until He is given on the sole basis of the gift of faith in Christ’s perfected obedience under the law offered up in His atoning death, we are dead in our sins. Regardless what admirable virtues or piety we may seem to have, we are yet in the flesh, and therefore alive to the law and dead to Christ.

This is the condition of every heart that has not been born again, Christian or Jew, that trusts in anything more or other than Christ’s righteousness and His finished work “ALONE”. To add anything of our own doing is to spoil, rob, and nullify the efficacy of Christ (whole letter to the Galatians).

Romans 7:4, 6

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God … But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Galatians 2:19

For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

Also, I do not favor any interpretation that leaves the impression that the OT saints were saved by the law and now that’s all done away as a means of salvation. The law was NEVER a means of salvation! Nor did it contribute towards salvation by any partial obedience to it.

Christ was always the only Savior, since it was impossible at anytime to know Yahweh (born by the Word, union with the divine nature, Spirit of Christ “IN them”, see 1Pet 1:23; 2Pet 1:4, 11) except by the quickening of the Spirit’s revelation of Him to the Word and Spirit-humbled heart. And this is as much true of the born again OT believer as the NT believer, since to know the Father “BY THE SPIRIT” was also to know the Son by the same Spirit because these are one. It is impossible to “know” (intimate experiential union) the one without knowing the other.

So when the spiritually alive OT saints knew God, they necessarily knew the Son (“kiss the Son” – David’s Lord) though not yet revealed in His humanity in history and the full revelation of the mystery of the gospel.

So we’re done with the law ONLY in the sense that we’re done with the flesh, since we now put no confidence in the flesh (human ability) to contribute anything to what Christ has finished once for all, and what the Spirit alone can quicken and reveal to the dead spirit of unregenerate man.

Our object now is to trust not in ourselves but in the God who raises the dead, which is impossible apart from the Spirit’s gift and power.

2 Corinthians 1:9

But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

That’s impossible for the flesh. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Affectionately yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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It should be no secret that before Israel’s final deliverance at the Lord’s return to Zion (Isa 59:20; Dan 11:45; Joel 3:16; Zech 14:4; Ro 11:26), the fledgling new nation, recently regathered back to the Land, yet in a state of unbelief (Jer 30:3; Eze 22:19-22; 38:8; Joel 3:1-2; Zeph 2:1-2) would pass through their greatest trial as a nation.

Jeremiah would call this time of unequalled tribulation, “the time of Jacob’s trouble” compared to a woman in labor (Jer 30:6-7). Daniel would call it “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time”, and Jesus would cite Daniel’s prophecy using nearly the same words, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21).

This time would come in the “latter days” (Jer 30:24; Eze 38:16; Dan 10:14; 12:1), not only after a single generation of 70 years, as prophesied by Jeremiah (Jer 25:11-12; 29:10), but this time after “many generations” of Jewish absence and perpetual desolation of the Land” (Isa 61:4; Eze 36:4; 38:8).

After this preliminary return in unbelief, but before the great, unparalleled trouble, several verses in the OT mention a dangerously deceptive false peace that would compromise Israel’s vigilance and be broken by the sudden and unexpected invasion of the last aggressor, called by several names in scripture but commonly known as the man of lawlessness or the Antichrist (Isa 14:25; 30:31; 31:8; Eze 38:1, 17; hes 2:4, Dan 7:8; 8:23-24; 11:36-37; Rev 13:4-5).

Much could be said about this false peace that Isaiah calls Israel’s ill-fated “covenant with death and hell” (Isa 28:15, 18 with Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 9:27; 11:23; 1Thes 5:3), but until very recently, any realistic prospect of peace, even the illusion of peace, seemed an elusive, unrealistic dream.

But since the advent of the “Abrahamic Accords”, and now with what appears the neutralization of the Iranian threat, a new unified partnership for peace has emerged that has put the unlikely dream into realistic reach. This is unprecedented!

In 1Thes 5:3, Paul makes this statement that is familiar to the readers of the NT:

“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”

Since the context shows that this false illusion of security will be the sign that the day of the Lord is imminent (1Thes 5:2-3), it would seem quite certain that Paul has in mind the false peace that the Hebrew prophets said would precede the great trouble ending in the everywhere mentioned day of the Lord (Jer 30:7; Eze 39:8, 22-29; Dan 12:1-2).

So what does this imply for the church?

Does the church have a stewardship of responsibility to use the miracle of fulfilled prophecy to explain the meaning of the final world crisis foretold to erupt in the Mideast over the question of the Jew, the land, and the city of Jerusalem, called by the prophets, “the controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3)?

Paul calls the church “the pillar and ground of the truth”. (1Tim 3:15). That’s a tall order, and it implies that the church is God’s prophetic voice of witness in the earth in “those days” (Mt 24:19, 22, 29), as Daniel says,

“but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. And they that understand among the people shall instruct many … and turn many to righteousness” (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3) during the final greatest persecution of the church and Israel (Dan 7:21, 25; 11:24; Rev 12:6, 11, 14; 13:7; 20:9).

It will be the church’s finest hour because, according to Dan 11:32-33; 12:3; Mt 24:14; with Rev 7:9, 13-14; 11:2-3; 12:11; 14:6), the time of the greatest trouble (“the tribulation the great”) will also be the time of the greatest harvest of souls in all of history.

To that end, I offer this brief quote from G. H. Lang (beloved mentor of F. F. Bruce) from his, “The Histories and Prophecies of Daniel”:

“When this agreement shall have been confirmed, the wise will know that the final seven years has commenced, that the end days are present, that the consummation of the age has arrived. They will expect the violation of the covenant after three years and a half, and will not be overwhelmed with surprise, having been told beforehand by this prophecy. Then will it be seen in fullness that the knowledge of prophetic scripture is simply priceless.”

The post The Mideast Crisis and the Witness of Prophecy appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

“And so all Israel will be saved,as it is written:
The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;” (Rom. 11:26)

“Following our recent meeting, I gathered the below. Feel free to add to these lists.” – Maor S.

Verses about All Israel saved in the day of the Lord after the GT being the remnant that survived the Sword of the Covenant:

Isa.4:3 (“For those of Israel who have escaped”) also see Isa. 66:19
Isa. 10:20-21 (“such as have escaped…”)
Isa.11:11 (“to recover the remnant of His people who are left”)
Isa. 26:1-2 (“In that day…the righteous nation…”)
Isa. 27:12-13
Isa. 30:26 (“…seven days….binds up the bruise of His people…”)
Isa. 32:15 (“Until the Spirit is poured…”)
Isa. 41:8
Isa. 44:3
Isa. 45:17, 25 (“But Israel shall be saved by the Lord…”)
Isa. 53:6 (“All we like sheep…[All the Jewish people who are left will say this])
Isa. 54:7-10,13 (“For a mere moment…”)
Isa. 59:20-21
Isa.60:15-16,21 (“also your people shall all be righteous…”)
Isa. 61:1-11.
Isa. 65:23
Isa. 66:8
Jer. 30:22 (“you shall be My people…”)
Jer. 31:1-2 (“all the families of Israel ” “survived the sword”)
Jer. 31:33-34 (“for they all shall know Me…)
Jer. 32:37-42
Eze. 20:40-44 (“…there all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, shall serve Me;”)
Eze. 28:24-26
Eze. 34:25 (“I will make a covenant of peace with them”)
Eze. 36:33 (“Thus says the Lord GOD: “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt.”)
Eze. 37:23-25 (“Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God”)
Eze. 39:22-29 (“‘And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,’ says the Lord GOD.”)
Hos. 1:10 (“…you are the sons of the living God”)
Hos. 3:5 (“Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.”)
Hos. 14:4-7 (“I will heal their backsliding…”)
Joe. 2:18-19
Joe.3:16
Mic. 7:18-20
Zeph. 3:12-20
Zech.8:7-8
Zech. 10:6-12
Zech. 12:10 + Rev.1:7
Psa. 14:7 (“salvation of Israel “)
Dan. 2:44 (“…and the kingdom shall not be left to other people;”)
Dan. 12:1-2 (“…And at that time your people shall be delivered, Every one who is found written in the book…”)

All Israel never to depart after the everlasting righteousness of the everlasting covenant is realized:

Isa. 59:20-21
Jer. 31:34
Jer.32:40
Eze. 36:27 – They will be persevered in holiness

Verses related to the Hiding of the Face theme:

Deut. 31:17-28
Deut. 32:20
Job 13:24
Job 34:29
Isa. 8:17
Isa. 45:15
Isa. 54:8
Isa. 57:17
Isa. 59:2,9
Isa. 64:7
Jer. 33:5
Ezek. 39:23,24,29
Psa. 10:1
Psa. 13:1
Psa. 30:7
Psa. 44:24
Psa. 89:46

Blessings,

Maor

The post All Israel Shall Be Saved (Podcast and List of Scriptures) – [AUDIO] appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Without doubt, what seemed so hopelessly remote and improbable only two years ago appears to be moving at an unprecedented pace towards the deceptive Mideast peace that sets the stage for the final sequence of events leading to the Lord’s return. Just what form this will take or how long it will be in its development remains to be seen, but prophecy clearly shows that a disarming illusion of peace is the necessary prelude to the shock that must come to Israel and the world.

The danger that besets these exciting developments is the tendency to make premature announcements that discredit prophecy just when its greatest potential for witness and warning is nearing the appointed time when it will be time to say with assurance and authority, “this is that!” (Acts 2:16). Even now, well meaning prophecy watchers are making premature declarations that the final seven has already started.

Others are more cautious to say only that the conditions necessary for the peace that begins the final seven are falling fast into place. Although a necessary first step, the enforcement of a multi-national peace arrangement is not by itself sufficient to signal the start of the last seven, UNLESS this is accompanied by certain equally foretold conditions and signal events. This is what we want to look at in what follows, as it will be a safeguard against the false alarms and premature announcements that are sure to fill the air.

It might be time well repaid for serious students of the scripture to become at least somewhat familiar and respectful of the kind of difficulties and perplexities that have baffled Daniel scholars of all schools (Prov 18:13<; 2Tim 2:15). It is well to remember that according to Daniel’s prophecy, certain outstanding details will not be unsealed till the end is very near (Dan 12:4, 9). Yet, the scripture is equally clear that these things will be revealed well enough before the end to ‘prepare a people to prepare a people’ (Dan 11:33; 12:3, 10).

So while we can expect the signs that Daniel reveals to come into increasing clarity as the time nears, caution, patience, and humility is appropriate, since no other book has given rise to more diverse and conflicting interpretations.

Not only this, but Daniel has been the most tortured object of critical attack by so-called higher criticism than any book of the canon. This should not surprise us, since Satan knows that the end of his rule has been set according to Daniel’s timeline (Rev 12:12).

The difficulties that have plagued Daniel scholarship is not a call to resigned despair or neglect, but to prayer and patient waiting for the promised unsealing that is divinely set to serve its greatest purpose at “the time of the end” (Dan 8:17; 11:27, 35, 40; 12:4, 9, 13). Part of that purpose will be the compelling witness of fulfilled prophecy and its meaning as a catalyst for what scripture more than hints will be the greatest worldwide harvest of souls in history (compare Dan 11:33; 12:3; Mt 24:14; Rev 7:9, 13-14; 14:6).

Paradoxically the great number that will be saved out of “the tribulation, the great one” (double use of the definite article in the Greek) will take place during the time of the greatest deception and revolt against the truth (Mt 24:4-5, 11, 24; 2Thes 2:11; Rev 13:14).

The difficulties that have baffled and divided Daniel scholarship only further confirms that God has chosen to keep certain mysteries under wraps till the appointed time (Isa 8:14-17; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9). It is also no surprise that Satan is fully invested to obscure and discredit this most embattled of all biblical books.

The unequaled tribulation of the final half week begins with a war in heaven. Michael “stands” to thrust Satan down to earth. This is the moment Satan fears most, since it means his tenure as “the god of this age” has been reduced to a final 3 ½ years (compare Dan 12:1, 11; Mt 24:15, 21, with Rev 12:7-14).

Because “he sees his time is short” (Rev 12:12), his total focus will be to defeat the promise by wiping out the Jewish race before it reaches the finish line at Jesus’ post-tribulational return to “finish the mystery of God” (Amos 3:7 with Rev 10:7). Hence, it may well be said that the downfall of the devil is in the details of Daniel, since the unsealing of Daniel’s prophecy sets in motion the final unmasking of Satan in the revelation of the ancient mystery of lawlessness in the revelation of the man of lawlessness (2Thes 2:3-4, 7-8).

Until then, there is much that can be known that will be decisive in whether we are prepared to recognize what is most urgent to know in the time most urgent to know it. Until then, we should approach the mysteries of Daniel with humility and patience, in the faith conviction that difficulties that seem to defy easy resolution do not exist by chance but by sovereign design. God intends that His children know they are searching out a divinely ordained mystery that is not intended to yield its full light apart from the mercy and grace of our sovereign teacher, the Holy Spirit.

Those will be most blessed in the time of full disclosure who have “searched and inquired diligently” (1Pet 1:10). Blessed are those who, in trembling dependence on the Holy Spirit, have “set their heart” to understand (Dan 10:12) the divine secrets that it has been God’s pleasure to conceal from the prideful, self-reliant wisdom of this age (Mt 11:25-26; 1Cor 2:7-8).

Not that we will resolve every question, but we want to know what the evidence rules out, rules in, or leaves open to question till the time. We want to identify any safeguards that the scripture provides that will protect us from the peril of presumption, as prophecy has been so marred and discredited by the false alarms of prophetic speculation.

But there is a time to sound the alarm, and it is always time to study and prepare ourselves to recognize the time when it arrives. We want to be neither early nor late when it is time to announce that “the time is fulfilled” (Dan 11:33; 12:3; Hab 2:2-3; Mk 1:15).

From our study, it seems most probable that the scripture intends that we look for the Antichrist to arise from somewhere to the north of Israel. Since the pattern of the past often prefigures the future in Hebrew prophecy, it becomes significant that the final aggressor, whose end coincides with the redemption of the great day, is specifically called “the Assyrian” in the typology of the pre-exilic prophets, Isaiah and Micah (Isa 10:5-6, 24:17; 11:4; 14:25; 19:23; 30:31; 31:8; Mic 5:1-7).

In Isaiah and Jeremiah, the foe from the north (“north country”) is identified with the Chaldeans under the king of Babylon (Isa 14:4, 12-14, 25-26, 31-32; 23:14; 47:1, 6, 9; Jer 6:22; 10:22; 50:9). In Ezekiel, the last aggressor is Gog. Clearly, this is the final aggressor, long foretold, not only by Ezekiel but by the many prophets of Israel (see Eze 38:17).

The nations under his command surround Israel from all sides (Eze 38:5-7, 9), but his descent is always depicted as coming from the “far north” (NKJV; NIV) / “uttermost parts of the north” (ESV; ASV) / “distant north” (NLT) / “remotest parts of the north” (NASB / CSB  (Eze 38:15; 39:2).

Here too, there is cause for caution. Who is Gog? When does he attack and how long does the battle last? How far north is his country or countries of origin?

Since Gog’s multinational invasion begins when Israel is in a state of unsuspecting false security (Isa 28:14-18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 11:23-24; 1Thes 5:3) but ends with Gog’s destruction at the Armageddon “great day of God Almighty” (Eze 39:8 with Rev 16:12-19) and Israel’s everlasting salvation (Eze 39:22, 28-29), the only conclusion that fits all the evidence is that this battle comprehends the entire 42 months of the great tribulation. It starts with the shock of an unexpected invasion that violates the illusory presumption of peace and ends with Israel’s post-tribulational regeneration and everlasting salvation.

This is significant because the full cast of nations that are gathered by the seduction of demon spirits to Armageddon (compare Dan 11:40-45 with Rev 16:12), do not join the fray until very late towards the end of the tribulation (compare Dan 11:40-45 with Rev 16:12-17; Eze 39:8). This means Ezekiel’s comprehensive vision of Eze 38 & 39 may include nations that come in at the end and are not necessarily one of the union of ten that strike Israel at the beginning of the tribulation.

Furthermore, since Gog is called a “chief prince” over many nations (Eze 38:2-3; 39:1), this may imply something more than only a human leader. According to Paul, “his coming is after the working of Satan with ALL power, signs, and deceiving wonders (2Thes 2:9). Never before has the world seen anything like this.

The case is too involved to enter upon here, but we believe the “mystery of lawlessness” (2Thes 2:7) that is revealed in the man of lawlessness is the revelation of Satan in the flesh, the antithesis of the mystery of God manifest in the flesh (1Tim 3:16). I mention this because the scripture calls the archangel, Michael, “one of the chief princes (Dan 10:13).

This suggests that “THE chief prince” over the nations of the gentiles (Gen 10) could be Satan himself, cryptically referred to as Gog. Gog would then double as both Satan and the Antichrist because he fulfills the mystery of Satan in the flesh. This understanding explains why this title is again used to apply to Satan’s post-millennial release for the “little season” of futile threat to the everlasting peace of regathered Israel (Rev 20:3, 7-9).

But beyond this general reference to the southward descent of the northern invader, depending on how certain debated passages in Daniel are interpreted, it is possible that the typology of the scripture points us to a much narrower, more specific territory from which the final Antichrist may be expected to rise. The passages in question are Dan 8:8-9 & Dan 11:3-21. These verses specify the territory ruled by Antiochus Epiphanes IV. He was the Greek tyrant who attacked Jerusalem and famously desecrated the temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar and erecting a statue of Zeus in 167 BCE.

Because Antiochus arose out of one of the four primary divisions of Alexander’s kingdom, scholars usually identify him as the “little horn” of Dan 8:9 who also abolished the daily sacrifice in Dan 8:11. But while Antiochus IV was certainly a type of the “coming prince” (Dan 9:26), we will show in what follows why we cannot accept that he was the complete and ultimate fulfillment.

In notable contrast to Antiochus, the coming “little horn” of Dan 7:8 (the final Antichrist) is one who rises up from among ten nations to lead them in a united invasion Israel. The end of the little horn comes, not three years after the abomination of desolation is placed, as in the case of Antiochus’ desecration (Dec 164 to Dec 167), but 3 1/2 years later with the completion of the predestined half week of Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11).

Such often neglected distinctions are placed in the text to protect the careful interpreter from a hasty presumption that a near parallel or partial fulfillment in the past has sufficiently satisfied the language of the text. It is certain that Jesus was not satisfied that Antiochus’ desecration sufficiently fulfilled Daniel’s reference to the abomination of desolation. He puts it fully in the future in relation to the unequaled tribulation that ends with nothing short of His return in glory and the resurrection of the righteous (compare Mt 24:15, 21, 29-31 with Dan 12:1-2).

Moreover, so far from being a “little horn” who “becomes strong with a small people” (Dan 11:23), Antiochus rose to power in the largest of the four “notable horns” of Alexander’s divided kingdom (Dan 8:5, 8). The territory of the Seleucid Empire stretched from Antioch (named after his father, Antiochus III) to the Mesopotamian regions of Babylonia and Assyria, all of which had been under Macedonian control after the division of Alexander’s kingdom among his successors (Dan 8:8-9; 11:3-21).

On this basis, it has been long expected that someone would rise up from within that general territory towards the end of Hosea’s 2nd millennial day (Hos 5:15-6:2). For this reason, many were reasonably considering whether Jolani (aka Amed al Sharaa) might be the fulfillment of one who would stand up in the estate of Antiochus IV, the great eschatological prototype of the final AC.

The problem with Jolani’s candidacy for the one who enters into an alliance with Israel (Dan 11:23) is that he did not come into power “peaceably”, nor by deceit and smooth promises, as stated in Dan 11:21, but by force of arms. I’m aware that some translations translate, Dan 11:24 “at a time of peace, or tranquility” but that too fails to fit the conditions by which Assad of Syria was so suddenly replaced.

And yet, never has there been a more credible and promising prospect for the kind of deceptive, false peace that the scripture depicts as necessarily preceding the sudden and unexpected outbreak of the final tribulation as we’re now seeing unfold before our eyes (compare Isa 28:14-18; Jer 30:3-7; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 9:27; 11:24; Mt 24:15-16, 21; 1Thes 5:3; Rev 11:2 with Joel 2:1-3). Ominously, this is all taking place after the greatest upsurge of rabid world antisemitism, not seen since the Hitler time. By any fair reckoning, the stage is being set.

Whether the territory once ruled by Antiochus IV significantly narrows the general area of the AC’s origin will depend on our answer to a very important question debated by scholars. Does the “ vile / despicable person” of Dan 11:21 refer to Antiochus or the future Antichrist, or both? If to Antiochus, this would mean that the willful king who exalts himself over all forms of deity in Dan 11:36-37 is someone else entirely, already nearly 22 centuries removed from Antiochus’ time. You see the puzzle.

The far greater consensus among Daniel scholars is that Dan 11:21 & Dan 11:36 are speaking of two distinct individuals separated by many centuries. This means that both do the same thing, as described in nearly precisely the same words. Both take away the daily sacrifice (regular burn offering) and place the abomination. To reiterate, this would mean that Dan 11:31 (assumed to be past) is a completely different event from Dan 12:11 (assumed to be future).

So, is it only Antiochus, (as a highly descriptive type of the coming Antichrist) who is introduced in Dan 11:21? Or is it the Antichrist himself? All will agree that Antiochus functions as a type, but “if” Dan 11:21 does not introduce the Antichrist, then looking for him to rise somewhere within the estate (general vicinity) of Antiochus IV loses its primary support. It opens the field for him to come from a more expansive area, albeit necessarily to Israel’s north.

Antiochus came into the estate of his deceased brother, Seleucus IV, who succeeded his father, Antiochus III. This becomes significant if Antiochus is a type of the Antichrist, but especially if the person who comes to power in verse 21 is the same person who exalts himself in Dan 11:36-37. I want to show in what follows that there is no exegetical justification to find the break between antiquity and the time of the end between verse Dan 11:35 & Dan 11:36, but much more likely between Dan 11:20 & Dan 11:21.

We begin by pointing out where agreement is almost universal. Due to Paul’s verbatim quotation of Dan 11:36-27 in 2Thes 2:4, few will dispute that Daniel’s willful king is Paul’s man of lawlessness. Nor is there any disagreement that Jesus quotes the language of Dan 11:31 & Dan 12:11 to identify the sign that He expects His disciples to recognize as the event that starts the unequaled tribulation (Dan 11:31; 12:1, 11 with Mt 24:15-16, 21).

But is the abomination of Dan 11:31 the same event as the abomination of Dan 12:11? This is the very question that has divided Daniel scholars. It will decide whether the events spanning from Dan 11:21-35 have relevance for the future.

Though several reputable commentators over the years have offered a compelling defense of the position we take (I have a few in my library), we remain in the comparatively rare minority. This is not the place to recount them all, but there are notable details in Dan 11:21-35 that do not agree with certain aspects of the well documented history of Antiochus Epiphanes IV’s career leading up to his desecration of the temple. We will look at just a couple of examples:

With rare exception, most conservative scholars assume that because Antiochus was such a remarkable type of the coming man of lawlessness that the references to the removal of the sacrifice in Dan 8:11 & Dan 11:31 can only apply to him as the complete and final fulfillment, leaving only Dan 9:27 & Dan 12:11 to have a future fulfillment.

Let us look more closely at what this postulate implies. If Dan 11:31 has in view a different time and event than Dan 12:11, this would mean that mention of the abomination and removal of Tamid (regular burnt offering) of Dan 12:11 is NOT referring back to the familiar event mentioned earlier in Dan 11:31. Instead, it means that Dan 12:11, while a very similar event, is already nearly 22 centuries removed from the abomination of Dan 11:31, despite its being described in so nearly the same words.

These are the very words that Jesus will use to describe the sign that marks the beginning of the final tribulation that will surpass anything in the past or future (Mt 24:15-21). Even His reference to the unequaled time of trouble in Mt 24:21 is a direct quotation of Dan 12:1. Therefore, to NOT expect a future repeat of a very similar act in “Judea”, comparable to Antiochus’ desecration, amounts to a blatant denial of Jesus’ own, manifest understanding.

This is why Jesus sends His disciples to read and understand Daniel’s account of this particular event (Mt 24:15). He knew that by these unmistakable connections the time and nature of this massively transitional event would be recognized by His sheep, visibly, unmistakably, beyond any question (Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). This will be their strategic advantage for the final thrust of the gospel before the end (Mt 24:14).

Should we then accept the verdict of the far greater number of commentators who believe that Dan 11:21-35 should be interpreted to apply to Antiochus, not as an archetypal foreshadowing of that last aggressor, but as completely fulfilled in 167 BCE by his desecration of the temple? This would also mean that Dan 11:32-35 are applied, not to the tribulation of the end, but to the ensuing persecution of Antiochus that ended in the triumph of the Maccabean warriors and rededication of the temple almost exactly three years later in 164 BCE.

While not all agree that 11:21-35 is past history, there is broad consensus that the abomination and removal of the daily sacrifice of Dan 12:11 is the start of the half week of Dan 7:25; 9:27; 11:12:7; Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). On this we agree. We do not agree that Dan 11:21-35 can be consigned to the past. This means Dan 11:31 & Dan 12:11 are both equally future. Dan 11:31 was partially prefigured by Antiochus’ desecration, but both 11:31 & 12:11 have primary and ultimate reference to the same event.

So to summarize: Because Paul is so clear in his duplication of the words of Dan 11:36-37 applied to the man of lawlessness in 2Thes 2:4, most scholars locate the gap of centuries between versus 35 & 36. From this point to the end of the book, there is common agreement that the topic is the future Antichrist and the unparalleled tribulation of the final 3 ½ years.

This is not in dispute. Our difference lies with the view that Dan 11:21-35 has been fulfilled by Antiochus IV in the second century BCE. Antiochus was a type and pattern of the one to come but he did not satisfy some of the necessary details of the prophecy, thus demanding a future and more complete fulfillment, arriving at the end that is “determined” (Dan 9:24, 26; 11:36) / “appointed” (Dan 8:19; 11:27, 35).

In several notable particulars, Antiochus does not well enough match the profile that history provides. His rise to power certainly did not begin in the way described. He was certainly no “little horn”, since he never began with a “small people” but inherited directly and at once his father’s and brother’s rule over the greatest of the four “notable horns” (Dan 8:9; 11:5).

To argue for the break of centuries to be located between verses Dan 11:35 & Dan 11:36 would mean that the “willful king” of vs 36 introduces another individual entirely, but the continuity of the preceding succession of pronouns militates against such a conjecture. In all, the cumulative evidence weighs against the view that Dan 11:31 & 12:11 are completely different events, signifying two different ends of two different times, centuries removed, despite being described in by the words in the the same prophecy. How likely? You decide.

The stakes are high in this decision, because “if” commentators are wrong in their consignment of Dan 11:21-35 to antiquity, a substantial number of revealed details about the first half of Daniel’s 70th week risks being robbed from the knowledge and witness of the church. We can hardly begin to estimate how invaluable this knowledge will prove to be in its appointed time.

So much is at stake whether the godly remnant will be able to recognize and benefit from a knowledge of the events that occupy the first half Daniel’s 70th week that run from Dan 11:23-30.

So, we ask, does the “appointed time of the end” in Dan 11:27, 35 refer to a completely different end than the “time of the end” in Dan 12:4, 9, 13? The far greater number of scholars think so. What do you think? Will it matter then? Doesn’t matter now?

Notice too that the reference in Dan 11:27 to “the appointed time of the end” comes before the first mention of the abomination of desolation in Dan 11:31. How then can we say that the same “appointed end” mentioned in Dan 11:35 refers to a different end than described in Dan 12:4, 9-13? The details of the text must take priority whether history confirms a complete fulfillment or only partial fulfillment, designed to function only as a type and pattern of a more complete and comprehensive fulfillment in the future.

As mentioned, many, actually most commentators make “appointed time of the end” in Dan 11:27 & Dan 11:35 to be speaking about the end of the Maccabean struggle over the Seleucid armies of Antiochus IV. According to this interpretation, this is NOT the same “time of the end” referred to in Dan 11:40, 45; 12:4, 8-13. Instead, most commentators treat this undeniable similarity as two distinct ends of two different (albeit very similar) times of assault on Jerusalem, its temple and sacrifice, nearly 22 centuries apart.

The extreme awkwardness of this view can be illustrated by juxtaposing two parallel passages of undeniable similarity, but are they the same? Do they signify the same time? Most say yes. A few say no. You make the call.

Dan 11:35:

“And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.”

Dan 12:9-10:

“And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”

This alone is enough to cast doubt on the Antiochus interpretation, not that he did not prefigure and typify the coming Antichrist in his attack on the holy covenant centered in Jerusalem, but he falls significantly short in certain particulars that do not match some of the details of Dan 11:21-35. This argues for a fuller, more exact and complete fulfillment of every yet outstanding detail.

Alls to say, if Dan 11:21-35 is wrongly relegated to the past, then the witnessing, prophetic body of Christ risks being robbed of crucial end time information that is intended for their advantage and the greater glory of an infallible scripture that requires that not a single jot or tittle pass unfulfilled.

On the other hand, if we are correct that the AC is introduced in Dan 11:21, we are justified to be looking for one who has or will come to power in an initially small country of modest beginnings somewhere to the north of Israel. This will not be through natural succession, but apparently, seizing upon a momentary vacancy, he snakes his way to the top by “flattery” (slippery fair promises), as implied in Dan 11:21-23. This description stands in notable contrast to the historical account of how Antiochus came to power by wresting the throne from a usurper accused of assassinating his brother, Seleucus IV. Again, there are points of notable variance between the details of the prophecy and the historical record of Antiochus’ accession to the throne.

So, unless we are overlooking something (always a real and present danger), there may yet be a longer wait between what we’re seeing now and the “alliance” of Dan 11:23 that ‘appears’ (?) to be the same time that “he” (i.e., the coming prince of Dan 9:26) “confirms” (makes firm / strengthens) the covenant with the many to begin the final seven (Dan 9:27).

If Dan 11:21-35 is retrieved as yet future, then from the alliance of Dan 11:23 to the abomination of Dan 11:31, we have been given a clear chronological sequence of events that occupy the first half of the week.

Sometime after the alliance of Dan 11:23, but before the abomination of Dan 11:31, the sacrifice (regular burn offering) will be restored. If not already apparent, this will remove all doubt that we have crossed over into the final seven.

But there is more that will confirm that we are in the final seven. “AFTER the league made with him” (11:23), he attacks and overcomes a king to his south (Dan 11:25-27). This conquest of the southern king does not appear to impinge on the security of Israel. The conquered king is not killed but joins his conqueror in a secret plot to destroy the holy covenant at Jerusalem, but the plan comes to nothing because the time is not right (Dan 11:27).

These are things those living at that time will see. From this, they will be able to anticipate what comes next, play by play.

Manifestly, the alliance of Dan 11:23 is made with Israel in particular, but since Dan 9:27 says he confirms the covenant “with many”, it seems possible, I think probable, that the AC will be only one among many other nations that are united in common consent to recognize (confirm) Israel’s right, not only to a portion of their promised Land, but also their return to the temple service in Jerusalem as commanded in the law.

This is why the covenant that is confirmed by political expedience while fiercely hated by the AC is called “the holy covenant” (Dan 11:28, 30). It is this recognition of the “holy covenant” in particular either by the AC alone, or more likely an international cast of several nations that starts the seven.

So is the league / alliance of Dan 11:23 the same event described in Dan 9:27? It appears likely, but can’t say with final certainty. If the alliance and the confirming of the covenant are part of a single event, then we can see a certain sequence of specific events that will precede the abomination.

After the alliance of Dan 11:23, the Antichrist makes two distinct southward advances before a third whereupon he invades the Land and places the abomination of desolation (Dan 11:31).

The first is the successful conquest of a nation to his south that increases his power base (Dan 11:25-28). The second southward move is intercepted and repulsed by the “ships of Chittim” (Kittim in some translations). This momentary frustration fills him with rage against the holy covenant centered in Jerusalem (Dan 11:30).

It is inviting to speculate that it is just here that he secretly unites the ten nations that have waited for an opportunity to destroy the peace and recapture Jerusalem for the Caliphate. The check and restraint of the guardian naval power stationed in the Mediterranean is short-lived, as the now fully united ten nation confederacy floods the Land with overwhelming force (Isa 28:2, 15; 59:19; Dan 9:26, 11:22; Eze 38:9, 16; Rev 12:15-16), whereupon he captures Jerusalem (Zech 14:2), enters and defiles the “holy place” by taking away the regular burn offering and placing the abomination of desolation, as he exalts himself “above all that is called God or that is worshipped” (Dan 11:31; 36-37; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4) and begins 3 1/2 years of treading down the holy city (Isa 28:18; 63:18; Mic 5:5; Dan 8:13; ; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2).

Now the question: Why and how would Israel in the modern context ever so completely relax their guard as to be taken as much by surprise as they were on Oct 7? How does Israel come to such a presumption of peace as described in Isa 28:14-18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; 1Thes 5:3?

I would propose that this comes, not only when peace is initially declared and internationally imposed upon dissenters, but it comes with the glaze of false security that will steal over the minds of the population when the ships of Kittim (US? NATO?) turn back the threat of the AC’s second southward advance. This is when the boast of peace and safety will soar (Amos 9:9-10; Isa 28:14-18; 1Thes 5:3).

I’ve always speculated that the ill-fated declaration of 1Thes 5:3 has most particularly to do with what Israel will feel after the ships of Chittim have successfully checked the second southward advance of the northern king. After such a show of seemingly impregnable protection, the peace will ‘seem’ invincible.

Now ask this question: How formidable would the naval power have to be that can halt and turn back the man who in just the next verse (Dan 11:30-31) will rally and return, this time with a confederacy of ten nations united in their commitment to overwhelm and destroy, not only unsuspecting Israel, but the west may very well find itself suddenly incapacitated, unable to mount a successful resistance against the Antichrist’s all prevailing military supremacy? (Dan 11:31with Rev 13:4).

Could this happen in conjunction with an unexpected nuclear strike on the west? That’s where I see the cumulative evidence pointing.

There will be gaps in our knowledge and doubtless surprises, as more becomes un-sealed as the day approaches, but who will not consider that the unprecedented alignment of foretold events happening right before our eyes represent giant steps that perfectly align with what prophecy gives us to expect?

A fragile peace appears to be in the making, potentially unprecedented and against all odds only two years ago. When consolidated and set in place, a growing sense of security will doubtless follow. At length, the growing presumption of lasting security will become the ill-fated boast of Isa 28:15, 18; 1Thes 5:3. That boast is against the warning that prophetic witnesses will be sounding throughout the nations (Ps 19:4).

The warning will be generally dismissed at first, it will continue to speak to Israel during the time of their wilderness flight from the face of the Antichrist (Isa 28:16-19; Dan 11:32-33; 12:3; Rev 12:6, 7-14). The Antichrist’s pursuit of Jewish blood must continue until the light of the gospel breaks through the veil, as the penitent Jewish survivors of the tribulation see the one whom the nation pierced coming in the clouds of divine glory (Zech 12:10; Mt 24:30; 26:64; 1Thes 4:17; Rev 1:7). It is no accident that our president confidently announced, “eternal peace in the Mideast!”.

That declaration, while the equivalent of Jeremiah’s, “Peace, peace!” When there is no peace (Jer 6:14; 8:11), is no less a piece of sovereign divine providence. Such an extravagant expression of optimism reveals the very self-reliant humanism that boasts of accomplishing by natural means what God has reserved to Himself alone, namely, “eternal peace in the Mideast” by the long-awaited advent of the Prince of Peace. “Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord!”

So let us guard against the tendency to assume that the long-awaited peace will necessarily include the Antichrist’s confirmation of the covenant that starts the last seven. It may but it may not.

Recognition of the futurity of Dan 11:21-35 leads us to consider that the covenant of Dan 9:27 may be more than a presumed “peace treaty” with the Antichrist. It is more likely his confirmation (strengthening / support / endorsement) of the “holy covenant” of Dan 11:22, 28, 30, 32.

This has implications for the revival of the ancient sacrifice and restoration of the “holy place” in the temple at Jerusalem (Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). Hence, we must be careful and cautious to distinguish things that are not the same, lest we misidentify and thus mislead.

To be sure, at some point, what could hardly be imagined only two years ago, will exist. There will be a disarming illusion of peace, doubtless protected by one or more of the great world powers.

In its early stages, this remarkable achievement may not immediately include the AC’s “confirmation” (recognition) of the covenant of Dan 9:27, but it will be the framework that makes provision for it.

Why this caution? According to Dan 9:4; 11:22, 28, 30, 32, the covenant is not merely a peace pact, as many have perhaps too hastily assumed. In all other uses of the word throughout the book of Daniel, the covenant is God’s covenant with Israel. So if the covenant of Dan 9:27 signifies nothing more than a peace pact, this one verse would be the only exception. However, if the covenant of Dan 9:27 is the same as THE “holy covenant” of Dan 11:28, 30, a whole new vista comes into consideration.

This would mean that the AC, with “many” others, will be confirming the very covenant that has come down through Abraham’s promise of the Land, through Moses’ institutions of temple service, and through David’s acquisition of the elect city of Jerusalem. If this is the “covenant” that the AC confirms to begin the final 7 [years], then it is more than a peace pact with the AC.

Yes, a preceding peace agreement will certainly need to be in place for the “holy covenant” to be confirmed, whether as part of the initial peace plan or a later event made possible by the peace plan. In other words, it is at least possible that the covenant (assuming it is the same as the “holy covenant” of Dan 9:4; 11:22, 28, 30, 32), may not be confirmed at the same moment the peace is first initiated. It remains to be seen.

In this case, it is NOT the peace agreement that starts the seven years but the confirming of the covenant, even the covenant that Dan 11:28, 30 calls the “holy covenant”. Although inextricably related, the peace plan that may soon be implemented may not immediately include the confirmation of the “holy covenant”.

It is possible the peace plan may come into play and be agreed on by the major parties and exist for some time before the AC confirms the holy covenant. It is also possible that the he is only one of “many” nations that will unite to acknowledge, not only Israel’s right to exist, but their right to temple access to sacrifice again.

As remote as such an eventuality may seem at the moment, it MUST come about, since for the sacrifice to be stopped, it must first be started, and it must conform to the pattern of the past in the passages where Antiochus serves as an importantly instructive type.

So we must guard the delicate balance between watchful vigilance and hasty presumption, but we must also be prepared in the scriptures to “instruct many”, not only in the tribulation but even now. We need to show others how to show others how the signs that confirm certainty can be recognized with certainty.

In short, God doesn’t waste ink! These things were revealed to be unsealed in their appointed time, that the one who reads may run (Dan 12:3 with Hab 2:2-3).

There may be much that remains unclear, but sufficient clarity is given that many of the false alarms of prophetic speculation can be safely ruled out as incongruent with the scripture.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov 13:12). Great confusion threatens where these distinctions are not taken into account and carefully considered.

In His precious service, Reggie

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https://www.jewishhistory.org/a-mystical-view-of-exile/  (from jewishhistory.org)

Notice these extracts from the above article:

“What sin of the Jewish people was so great that it required such a long, bloody and painful exile – with seemingly no end? The Jews may have sinned, but if we compare the Jews’ behavior to many other nations and religious groups in history, it is difficult to place them at the bottom of the ladder. We are not found to be that wanting morally or spiritually. The punishment seems disproportionate to the sin.”

“What purpose does this exile accomplish?”

“The exile was transformed from being viewed as a punishment for the sins of the Jewish people into a vehicle for redemption”

In this last sentence and what follows, we see the problem of the exile being collapsed into one aspect of a common Jewish answer to the so called, “problem of evil”:

“only through darkness could light shine.”

This softens the blow of the traditional view of exile as punishment for sin. It doesn’t deny sin, but it makes sin, and evil in general, to be the means by which the nobility of innate human goodness can be applied towards some eschatological ’re-assembling’ of the good, ultimately purged and freed of the power of evil through good deeds.

How much more optimistic of a properly “educated” and incentivized human nature could there be than this?!

Kabalistic Judaism is an enormous leap of faith in man as the ultimate cooperator to assist God to put the world right. At best, God can do no more than help us “get ourselves back to the Garden”. The golden age dawns when this elusive mutual endeavor has been achieved.

The Hebrew prophets who continually describe a golden age of peace held no such optimism concerning man’s role in bringing such an age into existence. Only an apocalyptic in-breaking of supernatural divine power would ever be sufficient to break unending cycle of wars and rumors of war.

According to Judaism’s boundless optimism in the potential of human nature, the messianic era waits for man to come around to a sufficient cooperation with God to finally end the exile, but for how long? How long can the messianic era, once it comes, be expected to endure apart from a radical change at the root of human nature?

This is precisely where we must make much of the promise of the Holy Spirit as indispensable to the hope of the nation then, “in that day”, and the individual now, in this day.

We must show in our Jewish evangelism that the hope of the nation is the same as the hope of the individual. That is the indispensable necessity of vital regeneration. “You MUST be born again!”

The prophets recognized that only the outpouring of the Spirit on the “whole” of the surviving nation (ALL Israel) is the indispensable necessity that marks the end of exile (see Isa 32:15; 44:3; 59:21; Eze 39:29; Zech 12:10). It is Zechariah who reveals the ground of this great eschatological event as a transforming revelation that will come to the Jewish survivors of the tribulation, as it came to Isaiah when he saw the Lord (Isa 6:1-8; Jn 12:41 with Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Ro 11:26 with Joel 3:16 & Rev 1:7).

The NT will make explicit what was implicit in the OT, that the eschatological promise of the Spirit would be given on the basis of faith in “the blood of the everlasting covenant” in Yeshua’s atoning sacrifice. According to Paul, the apostolic proclamation was to be presented as the revelation of a mystery, fully foretold in “the scriptures of the prophets” (Acts 26:22), but kept secret until the appointed time when the Holy Spirit would be “sent down from heaven” (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11-12).

We might ask how nearly our approach to evangelism conforms to Paul’s?

What follows is an overview of something that began with a text exchange with Adam this morning:

The exile (i.e., the Jews driven from the Land that God gave specifically to them as an everlasting possession) was once looked upon as a shocking and puzzling anomaly:

“Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?” (Deut 29:24 KJV).

For the Hebrew prophets, the healing of the nations would not come until All Israel would be All righteous (Isa 60:21), ALL back in the Land (Eze 39:28), dwelling in everlasting security, “never again” to be menaced by the enemy within or without.

Therefore, an Orthodox Jew who reveres the scriptures and interprets them literally MUST deal with the fact that so long as his people are not ALL back home in that particular Land, ALL preserved in abiding holiness by reason of a new heart and new spirit (Isa 59:21; Jer 31:34; Eze 37:26, etc., etc.), an apocalyptic end of unequaled distress yet awaits his nation. It is crucial that this be stressed in our witness.

This unequaled trouble (“the time of Jacob’s trouble”) will bring about the deepest national humbling and breaking in the nation’s history (Deut 32:36 with Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1, 7; Mt 24:21). It will accomplish the permanent end of exile in the spiritual rebirth / resurrection of the nation in “one day” (Ps 102:13; Isa 66:8; Eze 39:8, 22; Zech 3:9).

Only an ultimately climactic, ultimately transformational event could ever hope to reconcile the great tension that exists between the unconditional, unilateral covenants promised to Abraham & David and the many conditions necessary to secure the inheritance that would be subsequently introduced at Sinai. That built in tension pointed to a covenant that could not be defeated by conditions that would invariably be broken through human weakness. Unlike the covenant mediated by Moses, this covenant would be incapable of EVER being broken again (Jer 31:31, 34; 32:40).

This is NOT because the stipulated conditions of obedience would be conveniently removed, but because all conditionality would be provided for, and guaranteed by the atonement of Messiah’s atoning blood and the promised gift of the outpoured Holy Spirit, poured out, not only on the perennial remnant, but on the whole of the newly born (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9), newly raised, holy nation of born-again tribulation survivors.

This covenant that would subsume, supersede, and fulfill all others is what the prophets would call, “the everlasting / new covenant”. It would not be fully enacted with “ALL Israel” until AFTER the unequaled trouble when the Deliverer would come out of Zion “to turn ungodliness away from Jacob” (Isa 27:9; 59:20-21; Joel 3:16; Ro 11:26).

Because the Hebrew prophets entertained no such optimism concerning the intractability of fallen human nature, they cast their focus on a future apocalyptic event of ultimate divine intervention, comparable to the power of the original creation, the supernatural birth of Isaac, or the resurrection of the dead. Nothing less would avail. “Not by might not by power but (ONLY) by My Spirit, says the Lord.”

So the very concept of the Day of the Lord grows out of the logic of what we might call the crisis, or dilemma of the covenants.

To know both the extravagance and the certainty of the unilateral promises to Abraham and David, and to compare this to the hopeless weakness and predictability of the human condition is to raise the searching question: “what’s it going to take?” Surely nothing less than “the God who raises the dead” (2Cor 1:9).

Herein lies the unspeakably glorious resolution that the mystery of the gospel will reveal after Christ’s ascension at Pentecost. The shed blood of the Lamb of God would be the means by which the gift of the Spirit would secure the blessings of the everlasting covenant for “all the seed” (Isa 45:24-25 with Ro 4:16).

So contrary to popular replacement presumptions, the ultimate goal of the everlasting covenant does not reach its climax with the crucified and risen Messiah but with the age ending resurrection of an internationally impaled Jewish nation at His return.

That question: “What’s it going to take?”, must be pressed! It should be a pivotal point to be made in our apologetic to Israel.

This is because, according to any plain reading of plain language, an unparalleled time of devastation looms over the fledgling nation locally, and world Jewry internationally. Nothing could be clearer: Covenant chastisement cannot end until the exile has ended with every Jew filled with the Spirit, safe at home in his own Land (Eze 39:28-29).

With any opportunity, we must be careful to stress that while this time of unequaled trouble will touch everyone everywhere, it will be centered around the age old, “Jewish question”. When its implications are duly unpacked, this question is divinely designed to evoke an even more central question, namely, the Jesus question, and the question of the nature of justifying righteousness (Acts 13:38-39).

Before coming to the question of Jesus, we should point out that the fate of the nations hangs in the balance over an ancient covenant contention, namely Yahweh’s (“quarrel” KJV) controversy with “My people” (Lev 26:25; Mic 6:2; KJV).

Even God’s “controversy with the nations” (Isa 34:8) will be over how they see and interpret His controversy with His people (Joel 3:2; Eze 38:17), since both points of great divine contention revolve around the greatest and most decisive of all questions: “whom do men say that I, the Son of Man am? … what think ye of Christ?” Not only that Jesus is the promised Messiah, but that His is the only acceptable perfection of righteousness imputed to the believer that can stand in the judgment (Isa 45:24; 54:17; Jer 23:6; Dan 9:24; Ro 1:17; 3:21; ;1Cor 1:30; 2Cor 5:21; Phil 3:9)

The question of why a future great tribulation must yet come upon the Jewish nation locally and the Jew internationally, leads to the issue of the Holy Spirit received by faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, as the only resolution to the perennial problem of covenant failure for both Jew and gentile. This is the resolution that the gospel reveals to the praise of the glory of His grace in Christ.

To summarize:
According to the prophets’ manifest interpretation of the divine covenants of Abraham and David, the world can never know abiding, unthreatened peace, until ALL (not some but ALL) the Jews are safe in their own Land, not only home, but “home free”, home to stay in an “everlasting righteousness” that extends to the entirety of an entirely saved Jewish population, unto children’s children (Isa 4:3; 45:17, 25; 44:3; 59:21; 60:21; 65:23; 66:22; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 20:40; 37:25; 39:22, 28-29; Zeph 3:13, etc.).

The question why this should be so leads to the greater “glory of the story”. The end time proclamation that will bring the Jew at last to “consider” what the nation has been so reluctant to consider (Deut 32:29; Isa 1:3; 42:25 with Jer 23:20; 30:24) will be no less effective to reach the gentile, according to the approach of Ro 16:25-26.

These are the divinely ordained questions that an anointed and empowered ‘maskilim’ (those who “understand”) will be prepared to answer at a time when all the great questions of the faith will be pressed upon the nations, as the question of Jesus was pressed on first century Israel (Dan 11:32-33, 35; 12:3, 10; Mt 24:14; Rev 7:9, 13-14; 14:6).

The post Jewish Wrestlings with the Tragedy of Exile appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

It is generally well known that earliest Jewish and Christian eschatology (study of the future) shared in common the view that God’s final defeat of the demonic powers of this age would come only after a brief period of unequaled great tribulation. In Judaism this period is typically called ‘the birth pangs of Messiah’. The tribulation was expected to end with the apocalyptic ‘day of the Lord’, which would realize the end of exile with the deliverance of besieged Israel, and the enthronement of Messiah. The Christian gospel is understood as ‘the revelation of the mystery’ contained in the prophetic writings that Messiah would come twice (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12), a first time to suffer making atonement, and a second to restore all things (Acts 3:18-21). The redemption would be accomplished in two stages rather than one as in Judaism. In both views, the final redemption comes at a time of unparalleled distress and desolation called ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’. The common view was that the events that distinguish and define Jacob’s trouble would culminate in the final deliverance of Israel at the climactic ‘day of the Lord’.

Rightly considered, few themes of scripture are more invested with greater divine significance than the coming time of Jacob’s trouble, also called ‘Zion’s travail’ (Mic 5:3; Isa 13:8; 66:8), also ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Jer 30:7; cf. Dn 12:1; Mt 24:21; Rev 7:14). Though brief in duration, it holds the key to the final defeat of Satan with the restoration of Israel, and the bringing in of the age of righteousness (Rev 12:6-14). It is therefore of utmost importance that the church as God’s prophetic voice of witness among the nations rightly understands what God has invested in this short time and why. Because to understand Jacob’s trouble, not only in fact but in principle, is also to observe a pattern in all of God’s redemptive ways (Acts 14:22). For this cause, we are interested in more than the mere recognition of a coming time of unprecedented trouble; we want to understand its place and purpose in the larger intention of God, since through it, all the covenant promises of God will be publicly vindicated in the sight of all nations.

Jacob’s trouble is the point where all roads meet. It is the transition between the two ages. It signals the final defeat of the rebellious powers that hold this age in bondage and that resist the final triumph of the kingdom of God. Their ultimate dethronement in history and the principle by which their power is broken in the personal life of the child of God is much better understood in the light of God’s prophetic purpose in history, particularly as it concerns this ultimately transitional period.

In the necessarily brief introduction that follows, we want to simply open for further study and discussion some of the many questions that arise when considering the time, circumstance, and purpose of Jacob’s trouble and its relation to Israel and the church. We also want to draw particular attention to what is at stake in deciding between competing interpretations that have turned the time and nature of the last tribulation into a matter of greatest controversy and heated dispute. All of which is not the least surprising if we take seriously what this particular period of time threatens for the kingdom of darkness. Scripture makes plain that Satan’s final eviction, exposure, and defeat is bound up with the last 3 ½ years, which is the time that the prophets Daniel and John give as the duration of the tribulation’ (compare Dn 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11 with Rev 11:2-3; 12:6-14, 13:5).

It is furthermore important for the church to understand how and why Satan’s overthrow is bound up with the fulfillment of a well defined set of events and conditions that though not without parallel, are never realized so particularly and intensely as during the time of Jacob’s trouble. All of which is designed to crowd God’s elect into a transitional crisis that ends in glorious revelation and restoration. The revelation that quickens the dead and brings salvation comes at the point of utter weakness and destitution (Jonah 2:1). Through the final crisis of Jacob’s trouble, the pride of self-sufficiency is fatally shattered, and with the revelation that comes at the end of strength comes also the regeneration (Lev 26:19; Deut 32:36; Ps 102:13-17; Dn 12:7). This is the pattern for all salvation. The way of faith is the way of weakness and broken humble dependency on the Word of God.

Significantly, the same process that ends with the salvation of ‘the preserved of Israel’ accomplishes in the meantime the further refinement of those that are the appointed witnesses of the most prolific and public fulfillment of prophecy that the world has ever known. These are called in Hebrew ‘the Maskilim’. “Those that ‘understand’ among the people shall instruct many … those that are ‘wise’ shall turn many to righteousness” (see Dn 11:32-35; 12:3, 10). The term is in particular reference to those that ‘understand’ Daniel’s sealed vision (12:4, 8-10).

It should not fail our notice that the time that Daniel’s sealed vision is opened to the ‘wise’ is also the time of the greatest harvest of world evangelism. The reference in Revelation to the countless number that comes “out of great tribulation” (Rev 7:14) does not simply refer to the common experience of all saints. The double definite article in Greek suggests not simply tribulation in general, but more specifically, “the tribulation, the great one.”

It is well known that the witness of the apostolic church was carried out with great urgency under the shadow of an imminent destruction of Jerusalem as prophesied by Jesus. Others also expected the great tribulation to begin in connection with the Antichrist invasion of Jerusalem. The desert ascetics of Qumran were among the apocalyptic sects within Judaism that were expecting the tribulation judgments that would drive Israel again into the wilderness. This expectation was based on a number of prophecies, but Daniel’s in particular is the background of Jesus’ warning to flee into the wilderness. Physical survival will depend on speedy escape from Judea from the time that the Antichrist places the desecrating sacrilege in the holy place at Jerusalem (Dn 11:31-36 with Mt 24:15-21; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 11:2).

Prominent throughout the prophecies of exile and return is the theme of a new exodus.¹ In the perspective of the prophets, the day of deliverance comes only after Israel has been brought once more into the wilderness for a final time of testing and divine pleading as at the first (Ezk 20:34-37; Jer 31:2; Hos 2:14-15). This raises the question of the time of fulfillment. The context is decisive; it is the critical point of transition that ends with final salvation and return to the Land. Israel’s flight into the wilderness is made expedient by the violence of Antichrist; the remnant flee from ‘the face of the destroyer’ (Isa 16:1-5; Jer 4:7; Ezk 35:5,12; 36:2-5; 38:17; Obad 10-14; Mic 2:12; Mt 24:16-21; Rev 11:2; 12:6). Some of the prophecies depicting the final return represent the remnant as returning not only from many nations but also from desert locations from neighboring regions outside the Land (Isa 16:4; Isa 26:19; 27:12-13; 42:11; Ezk 20:35; Dn 11:43).²

It is not hard to understand why many in first century Israel would share this perspective, because this is the meaning that one would naturally attach to a literal reading of the prophets. Hence, it was fully expected that the final redemption cannot come until after the nation has passed through its darkest hour of extremity and affliction, and this was expected to entail another return to wilderness conditions, as Jerusalem is ‘trodden down’, albeit briefly, by the Gentiles (Isa 28:18; 63:18; Dn 8:13; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2). The flight is made expedient by the firmly expected multinational assault led by the Antichrist against the ‘holy covenant’ (Dn 9:27; 11:21-31; 12:11; Joel 3:2; Zech 12:2-3).

In this certainty, Paul speaks of his own time as “the present distress” (1Cor 7:26). This sense of urgency has been lost to the church in proportion to its loss of the apocalyptic perspective that characterized the apostolic period. Paul’s expectation would soon be vindicated by history, but the full end of prophetic hope passed unrealized. Jesus did not return in relation to Jerusalem’s destruction as expected. Did prophecy fail? Was the fulfillment deferred to the future? Or, is it a question of spiritual versus literal interpretation?³

Scholars make a case that the unexpected ‘delay of the parousia’ (Greek for coming or presence) created a crisis of faith in the early church. The problem of apparent delay is not unique to the New Testament. The Jews returning from Babylon surely expected the immediate fulfillment of the glorious events depicted in the prophecies of ‘the return’ as apparently accompanying the end of exile.

Taken alone, many of the prophecies of return do indeed give the appearance that the final redemption happens in immediate connection with the return from Babylon. There is no clear distinction; they appear as one event. Thus, it is natural that the Jews returning from Babylon would have expected the millennial splendors typically featured in connection with the prophecies of return to immediately attend their arduous trek back to the Land. Instead, they met with enemy opposition and the disappointment of delay and hope deferred (Ezra 3:12-13). The hard fought gains of those early days were at best a “day of small things” (Zech 4:10).

Daniel’s prophecy would address this crisis of delay by his further revelation that the final redemption would not quickly follow the first return. Rather, an additional seventy sevens are ‘determined’ (9:24). With Jeremiah’s prophecy of the seventy years in mind (Jer 29:10-30:7), Daniel sees ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’ as the last 3 ½ years terminating in Israel’s national deliverance and the resurrection and reward of the righteous. Jacob’s trouble is the last half of the last week of Daniel’s seventy weeks of years (compare 7:25; Dn 9:24-27; 11:31-45; 12:1, 7, 11).⁴

The prophets living after the exile would see the return from Babylon as only a first installment (first-fruits) of a much greater world wide return that waits the still future day of the Lord (Zech 8:8; 10:6-10). Isaiah had said that the exiles would be gathered ‘a second time’ (Isa 11:11). This return must be distinguished from any previous return in that it is both universal and complete. After the final deliverance of the day of the Lord, all return; not one is left behind (Deut 30:4; Isa 11:11-16; 27:12-13; 43:6-7; esp. Ezk 39:28; Amos 9:9; Zech 10:8-9). This means that the present return must be regarded as only a preliminary first stage of a further gathering that is much more comprehensive and complete. Only such a universal and complete return can fulfill all the details of the return that Isaiah calls ‘the second’. The order of the return can be easily confused if we fail to recognize the distinction between the age-long Diaspora (which was unknown), and the very brief exile of the unequaled tribulation of the last 3 ½ years (which was well known).⁵

Although the prophets recognize a final return that comes with the day of the Lord at the end of the tribulation, it is important to note that there was no explicit indication that the tribulation would be postponed beyond the first century. Daniel’s seventy sevens (490 years) would naturally be expected to terminate within the first century. While many looked for a crisis of national devastation that would send Israel again into the wilderness in flight from Antichrist violence, this expectation carried no thought of another age-long dispersion that would require yet another preliminary return in national unbelief in order to prepare the stage again for a still future tribulation.

Although hinted in a few scattered prophecies,⁶ the extent of the Roman exile was unknown. It belongs to a hidden interval that forms part of the mystery of Messiah’s twofold advent. As much as Christ’s return is “immediately AFTER the tribulation” (Mt 24:29), an interval of indefinite duration must be observed to exist between the sixty ninth and the seventieth week of years. This is evident because the sixty ninth seven terminates in the messianic atonement (Dn 9:26), whereas the seventieth week (last seven years) is clearly occupied with the eschatological Antichrist and the final 3 ½ years of unequaled tribulation (8:11; 9:27; 11:31-36; 12:11; Mt 24:15-21; 2Thes 2:4). Therefore, it follows that the seventieth week could NOT have followed the sixty ninth in unbroken succession. This can only mean that a hidden interim exists between the sixty ninth and seventieth seven. All of which belongs to the greater mystery of the two advents of Christ (Rev 10:7).

The Roman destruction failed to bring about the expected end. This and the prolonged absence of a significant Jewish presence in the Land seemed for centuries to lend support to the view that the tribulation is past, or that the fulfillment of prophecy does not require a Jewish national existence. Still, it is well documented that many throughout history have stood, often quite alone, in their insistence that there must be a preliminary return of Jews to the land in unbelief in order for the events of the great tribulation to be fulfilled in a way that is consistent with the language and intention of the prophets. Such an insistence seems now much closer to vindication, as the amazing reappearance of the nation of the Jews and the ripening alignment of the foretold preconditions cannot be too greatly urged on the attention of the church and the world.

So what of the present return? Certainly a preliminary gathering to the Land is requisite towards establishing the conditions necessary to the literal fulfillment of prophecy. This alone is sufficient to invest the modern miracle of Jewish survival and national repatriation with the greatest prophetic significance. However, the end is not yet. ALL of the prophecies describing the events of the last days depict the nation in unbelief, abiding still under the judgment of a yet unfulfilled covenant. One of the primary purposes for the severities of Jacob’s trouble is to bring Israel back under ‘the bond of the covenant’ (Ezk 20:37; see also Deut 32:36 with Dn 12:7).

While many prophecies depict Israel as situated in the Land before the tribulation, still in unbelief and under the abiding threat of continued covenant discipline, there are a few remarkable passages that show that the judgments of the last tribulation break forth on a people that have only recently returned to the Land (Jer 30:3-7; Ezk 22:17-22; 38:8; Zeph 2:1-2; Joel 3:1-2). The language suggests that the holy places have been only lately recovered into Jewish possession when the City is suddenly invaded and ‘trodden down’ by the Gentiles (Isa 63:18; 64:10-11; Dn 8:13; 11:23 with Isa 28:15-18; also Lk 21:24 with Rev 11:2).

Since there are certain close and subtle distinctions that are sometimes difficult to recognize in the order and stages of Jewish return, it is easy to succumb to the error that was embraced by the early defenders of Jerusalem, namely, ‘the inviolability of Zion’. This is the view that the city of Jerusalem will ‘never again’ be successfully taken by an enemy. It is essentially the view that many take today. With the modern miracle of renewed nationhood and the marvelous success of Israel’s early wars, some see the future of the nation as essentially secure. Advocates of this view grant that Israel may indeed by threatened and even buffeted by implacable enemies, but God will be her defense, and so nothing of the scale and magnitude of the unequaled tribulation is to be expected. Recently, the view has been advanced that Jeremiah’s prophecy of Jacob’s trouble has already been fulfilled by the Holocaust of Nazis Europe. This view has met with wide international acceptance and has gained great currency among the messianic believers that live in Israel today. But the tribulation depicted in prophecy begins not in Europe but in Jerusalem (Dn 11:31; Mt 24:15-21). The prospect is almost too painful to consider, but as certainly as the tribulation is future, Jerusalem must again fall under Gentile control (Dn 11:45; Mt 24:15-21; esp. Rev 11:2).⁷

It is beyond the purview of this introduction, but the approach of the great tribulation that begins in Jerusalem is marked by definite signal events (Isa 28:15-18; Dn 11:23-31; 12:11). These will be recognized by those that have understanding (Dn 11:32-35; 12:3, 10). Jesus enjoins the reader of Daniel’s prophecy to ‘understand’ the critical importance of the abomination of desolation as signaling the start of the great tribulation (Mt 24:15-21). Jewish survival depends on this critical ‘understanding’, as this event signals the urgency of flight out of Judea into the neighboring wilderness (Mt 24:16; Rev 12:6, 14).

There must be no mistake; the scripture makes it clear that Israel’s last trouble eclipses any former tribulation in severity, scale, and scope, as it extends even to the devastation of nature (Mt 24:22). It begins in Jerusalem with the abomination of desolation, proceeds for 3 ½ years according to the well defined events outlined in Daniel’s prophecy, and ends with nothing short of Christ’s return and the resurrection and reward of the righteous (compare esp. Dn 12:1-3, 13 with Mt 24:21-29). Therefore, any other tribulation of past history that doesn’t answer to these specific criteria cannot be “Jacob’s trouble”.

Nor can any earlier return guarantee security in the Land apart from the everlasting righteousness of the final redemption. Only a righteousness that is forever can guarantee the everlasting continuance of covenant promise. Any security that is not based on this eternal righteousness is at best temporary and at worst ultimately deceptive (Isa 28:15-18; Ezk 38:8, 11, 14; 1Thes 5:3). Therefore, any earlier return remains precarious, as Jewish residence within the Land grants no immunity from the wrath of the covenant (Lev 26:25; Isa 10:6; Lk 21:23), and it is clear that the discipline of the covenant will include another last, albeit brief, expulsion and flight into a renewed wilderness experience of divine pleading (Ezk 20:35-37; Mt 24:16; Rev 12:14).

The oracle concerning the time of Jacob’s trouble follows Jeremiah’s earlier prophecy that the Jews would return after seventy years in Babylon (Jer 29:10-14).⁸ Many of the prophecies of return that appear in the earlier prophets are often represented in terms of millennial peace and righteousness. However, when Jeremiah looks for the peace that typically appears in connection with earlier prophecies of return, he is astonished to see instead the staggering vision of Israel’s most incomparable national disaster. “For thus says the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask now, and see, whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale? Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer 30:5-7). The eschatological tribulation is not without precedent or analogy in the earlier prophets. Jeremiah’s prophecy builds on the earlier prophecy of Moses (Deut 4:30; 30:1-10; 31:29) and the theme of Zion’s travail appears also in Isaiah, Micah, and others.

Daniel does not specifically refer to another return or mention the day of the Lord, but his revelation of an additional seventy sevens of years served to explain the ‘already and the not yet’ of much of Old Testament prophecy. Daniel’s apocalyptic form of prophecy is primarily occupied with the mystery of iniquity that must precede the final redemption. The six stated goals of the final redemption are realized according to a predestined chronology of events that accomplishes the final conquest of evil and the bringing in of the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of covenant promise (9:24 with Jer 31:34; 32:40).

According to the logic of the covenant, the prophets understood that there can be no guaranteed continuance in the Land as long as the larger part of the nation is prone to backslide. The presence of a righteous remnant might forestall but never finally prevent the judgment of exile. Thus, the only permanent solution for Israel’s intractable tendency to backslide is the bringing in of an ‘everlasting righteousness’ (Isa 45:17; Jer 32:40; Dn 9:24). This, since only an enduring righteousness, extending not only to a mere remnant, but to ‘all Israel’ without the exception (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; Ro 11:25-27) can make the promise eternally secure from the threat of further judgment through the jeopardy of covenant failure (Isa 45:17, 25; 54:17; Jer 23:5; 32:40; Dn 9:24).⁹

The collective regeneration of the surviving remnant is represented by the prophet Isaiah as the miraculous birth of a nation, “in one day … at once” (Isa 66:8; Ezk 39:22; Zech 3:9). Deeply sifted by the events of Jacob’s trouble (Deut 32:36; Dn 12:7; Amos 9:9), the ‘escaped of Israel’ are saved suddenly and at once by the transforming revelation of Christ at the day of the Lord in remarkable analogy to Paul’s experience on the Damascus road. The day of revelation and regeneration of ‘all Israel’ is also the day that ends the ‘times of the Gentiles’, as the dominion of the Gentile superpowers that have so long stood astride over the grave of captive Israel is forever broken. Satan is bound and the millennium dawns by the transforming power of the day of the Lord, which Christians know as the revelation of Jesus. For Israel it will be the revelation of Joseph to His brethren (Mic 5:3; Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39).

Therefore, so far from presenting ‘a problem for faith’, the mysterious postponement of certain features of the return prophecies and the delay of the final redemption becomes instead ‘an encouragement to faith’, when seen in the light of the apocalyptic mystery of the gospel. In a planned article, I hope to show that the apparent delay and age-long deferment of certain prophecies actually forms the structure for the apocalyptic mystery of God (Rev 10:7). The so-called ‘gap’, so smugly scorned by some interpreters, actually forms a glorious and supernatural framework for the mystery of Christ’s two advents, and accounts for the mysterious interim that must be seen to exist between many prophecies that depict Israel’s return from Babylon in terms of the final redemption. Failure to recognize the mystery of a divinely intended parenthesis has been the cause of much misinterpretation and unwarranted spiritualization. It is often invoked as evidence of failed prophecy. I call it the ‘glory of the gap’, because this characteristic of prophecy has been divinely employed to hide the glories of God’s hidden counsel from the proud wisdom of this age (Mt 11:25; 1Cor 1:9; 2:7-8), while at the same time demonstrating that all was foretold (Mk 13:23; Acts 26:22), and all provably contained in the prophetic writings, albeit in a mystery (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12).

True to the prophecy that Jesus gave His disciples on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem would indeed be destroyed within the space of a generation. However, the age did not end as expected with the return of Christ to raise the righteous and to restore the surviving remnant of Israel at the end of the great tribulation. Because of this apparent failure, the evidence shows that towards the end of the second century many began to re-interpret prophecy as never intending a literal fulfillment, applying the greater balance of prophecy to the church as the new spiritual Zion. Those objecting to this practice call this approach ‘replacement theology’. They see it not only as a flagrant violation of the language and intent of the prophets, but potentially nurturing of a triumphal attitude of presumption that effectively displaces the covenant promise that Paul argues is not fulfilled apart from the eschatological ‘re-engraftment’ of the ‘the natural branches’.

Many that have adopted the so-called ‘spiritualizing’ approach to prophecy over the centuries have doubtless seen it as the only viable alternative to the apparent non fulfillment of the prophecies that seemed to fail of a literal fulfillment. However, we have come full circle! For the first time in nearly two millennia since the Roman period, the church is once more living under the shadow of an impending world conflict over the so-called “Jewish problem’, as Jerusalem is made once more an international “cup of trembling” (Zech 12:2-3), and all nations are plunged into what the Isaiah calls “the controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8). Through an amazing providence that includes the Islamic fixation with Jerusalem based on a 7th century myth,¹⁰ modern events continue to move us in the direction of the early church’s fervent expectation of an imminent end that comes by an international controversy that rages over Jerusalem. But unlike the early church, the modern church is largely out of touch with the apocalyptic perspective that animated the first Christians. Moreover, there is the modern problem of competing interpretations that greatly obscure the issues and rob the church of vital certainty.

It is important to consider that the far greater part of world wide Christendom supposes that Jacob’s trouble was fulfilled during the Babylonian captivity, or else it is believed that the time of unequaled tribulation prophesied by Jesus was fulfilled by the events of 70AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. That is the consensus report of most of the historic churches. The exception is another sizeable group within evangelicalism that looks for a future tribulation in relation to national Israel, but sees itself as safely removed from the scene by way of a pre-tribulation rapture. These two dominant views, held by the far greater number of Christians throughout the world, have something significantly in common. BOTH effectively remove the tribulation from any vital concern for the church. The reader is urged to seriously contemplate and review the implications if neither of these suspiciously convenient interpretations happens to be true. It will not be the first time that God has hidden His intention so that the wisdom of this age would be made to stumble. So the issue is one of greatest urgency.

The post The Approaching Time of Jacob’s Trouble appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

As never before, the whole flow of history is moving exactly in the direction that the plain person’s plain reading of prophecy would have led them to expect. God Himself has made the issue of Israel and the so-called, “Jewish question” a watershed of international division.

Just imagine trying to explain the irrevocable election of Israel, based on grace alone, to a generation that is being fast pre-conditioned, almost overnight, to despise the very suggestion of such an unthinkable notion. Talk about a calculated offense!

So yes, how we see the times we’re in does indeed come down to a question of one’s hermeneutics, but also to a question of the heart.

The pragmatic pastor will want to ask, how is this relevant to the gospel? If a pure gospel is well established in the heart, isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t such details of prophetic speculation be left to the mystery that God intended, nice to know but not critical, since the sheep will surely make it through, come what may?

Indeed, the gospel and the saving righteousness of Christ is centermost. But this center has a Divinely chosen context that must not be neglected, not only for our benefit, but much more importantly, for the glory that God has invested in His foretold plan, precious to savor at all times, but particularly now, as chaos and deception is about to explode on a scale eclipsing anything ever witnessed before.

We must remember that the NT revelation of the mystery of the gospel is built around Christ’s coming, departure, and return to Israel, specifically the Mount of Olives from whence He ascended. He must return to the place where He was crucified under the placard that said, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

Why end the age just there, in that physical locality? Why has God constructed the end of the age around an ancient land dispute that is divinely calculated to plunge the nations into an insoluble crisis from which none will be able to extricate themselves? (Zech 12:2-3). Why would God bind together the issue of the mystery of the gospel with the mystery of Israel?

I would submit that part of the answer regards His deliberate intention that both comings would be surrounded by an element of mystery, designed to elude the pride of self-reliance (Mt 11:25-26), just as Paul warns in Ro 11:25. Just as the mystery of Christ’s twofold coming so deeply searched and tested Jewish hearts, just so, the mystery of Israel is designed to test and sift the hearts of the nations, even gentile believers.

But there is one important difference: The mystery of Christ’s cross and twofold coming was not only hidden from Peter and the disciples (Mt 16:22; Lk 18:34); it was hidden even from the angelic powers (1Cor 2:7-8). Not so the mystery surrounding the Lord’s return.

Those well marked days will only come “as a thief” upon the unregenerate church and the unbelieving world, but not upon the faithful children of the light (1Thes 5:4). We know this because Daniel’s prophecy is clear that the vision will be unsealed and known to the wise (maskilim) at the time of the end. They will be doing great exploits, instructing many, and turning many to righteousness, even a countless number will be saved out of, “the tribulation, the great one” (Rev 7:14; noting the significant double use of the definite article).

But the larger answer to the question has all to do with the completion of an ancient covenant promise. It is the age-ending climax of the “everlasting covenant” that forms the framework of the future. In the larger context of God’s eternal purpose in Christ, this is what defines how and why the age ends just as the prophecy of both testaments so fully describes.

Towards the goal of seeing the big picture, I believe the Lord Jesus Himself has given us the key to establish what I like to call a “plumbline of simplicity” that will align and pull many of the strands together into a coherent clarity. The object will not only be to know what is most important to know, but how best to show others how to make the case from scripture without getting bogged down in details, in a way that will equip others to equip others.

If observed, I believe God has given us an amazing, and now especially timely, provision to equip the body, not only to escape the manifold forms of end-time deception, but to have the Lord’s own, personally commended key of interpretation that will enable them to “instruct many” and “turn many” to righteousness” (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10).

I would like to expand a little on how Daniel aligns and sets in order, not only the end-time events, but also the whole covenantal framework of the judgments and promises, as traced from Gen 3:15 to the final perfection of the last two chapters of Revelation.

Daniel is the key to organizing the whole of scripture around the main themes of kingdom, covenant, and mystery. But it is Jesus’ Olivet prophecy in particular, and the emphasis He puts on one centermost event, that becomes the key that opens not only Daniel, but also sets all the prophecies spoken concerning the coming day of the Lord in clearest covenant context.

Referencing and building upon Moses and the earlier prophets, Daniel gives us not only the timeline and the order of events related to both comings, but he also reminds us of the covenant curses that must continue until Israel’s everlasting deliverance and final security in the Land, all in glorious analogy to the story of Joseph and his brothers (compare Mic 5:3-4, with Zech 12:10).

Rightly instructed believers will weep with those who weep, not only in their bitter distress, but in the glory that will break upon the beleaguered survivors of Israel when they will look upon Him whom they pierced and say with one voice, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mt 23:39).

In this way, we can begin to see God’s mind and purpose behind the great judgments and the unrestrained evils that would be otherwise inexplicable, and the occasion for the greatest offense to the natural mind.

But back to my point:

In my experience I found that when I chose to take very seriously Jesus’ command to read and understand Daniel’s prophecy concerning the abomination of desolation, I was challenged when I saw that this light did not come to him until he first, “set his heart to understand”. Looking to understand this particular event and its full significance, I would be astonished at just how much more this simple obedience would open to discovery in pulling the great strands of biblical themes together. Jesus well knew what simple compliance to His wise directive to pay attention to Daniel would set in motion.

Not only did I discover the event, and the events that follow throughout the second half of the week, I discovered a number of events that would mark and distinguish the first half. What a priceless advantage this first half of the week will provide the body for their readiness for the second half. We will see it coming!

But more than all of this, Daniel became the key to what I like to call, “the glory of the story”. This is because Daniel, like no other book, reaches all the way back to Israel’s beginnings and outlines the whole sweep of Israel’s history of crisis and covenant discipline, reaching to its glorious resolution in the kingdom that has come on earth as it is in heaven.

It is important to note that the abomination of desolation is the very event that Paul was careful to elaborate during his short, three-week stay with the Thessalonians. This should underscore the importance he attached to Jesus’ Olivet prophecy and His emphasis on Daniel’s order of events.

We know this because when the false alarm arose that Christ’s return was immediately imminent, he corrected the error by appealing to what he had gone over with them on his earlier visit. “Do you not remember that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?” (2Thes 2:5).

Paul speaks of a coming man who is yet to be revealed. He will be possessed of “all power”, capable of signs, wonders, and cunning deception. He will enter the temple of God in Jerusalem (Mt 24:15-16), and there, exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped (2Thes 2:4). But there are some dots we need to connect.

Jesus doesn’t mention the man, but only this event and its location (“Judea”). But both Paul and Jesus use language that is taken almost verbatim from Daniel chapter 11, where both the man and the event are described within four verses of each other (see Dan 11:31-37). So the scripture itself shows us how the dots should be connected.

Manifestly, Paul did not regard knowledge of the basic order of endtime events as a matter of no serious concern. Notice Paul’s urgent tone when he echoes the Lord’s similar grave warnings concerning the peril of deception on this very matter. “Let no man deceive you by any means!”

You can almost hear the exclamation point.

That sounds like the beginning of Jesus’ opening answer to His disciple’s question, “What shall be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” Significantly, Jesus’ first words were, “take heed that no man deceive you”, again, the exclamation point. No other theme is so repeatedly reinforced throughout His prophetic discourse.

Paul’s response to the error concerning the order of events preceding the Lord’s return implies that something far more serious was being threatened than to merely prompt the slackers and busybodies to return to their ‘day jobs’ and occupy till He comes, as some commentators seem content to assume. Rather, Paul is seeing where this error can lead in light of the confusion that Jesus warned would reign, particularly over thie time and manner of His return (Mt 24:23-31).

The abomination of desolation is THE prophetic key to the believer’s preparation to instruct many of the meaning, not only of the events of those days, but the great issue of the promise of an “everlasting righteousness” that is the Lord’s own righteousness, available to believers now, but promised to come to all the penitent survivors of Israel in that great day (Isa 45:17, 24-25; 54:17, Jer 23:5-6; Dan 9:24). This is the glorious free gift that gives hope and meaning and comfort, even in the face of the staggering evil, deception, and suffering of those days, like the shattering event we so recently witnessed on Oct 7, a tragic foretaste of Zech 14:2.

But clarity concerning this decisive event achieves much more than might first appear. The abomination of desolation cannot happen in a vacuum. It must be preceded by certain definite, traceable events and preconditions.

For one thing, before a sacrifice can be removed it must exist. If it does not now exist, it must start. But before it can start, a long-standing stalemate must yield to a radical change in the current status quo. For these kinds of necessary preliminary conditions to come about, we may expect seismic changes to come to the region, sufficient to move nations from their former intransigence to make unprecedented concessions for peace.

The logic is clear. In order for the Jews to have sufficient access to the forbidden Temple Mount, some kind of political peace arrangement, however presently remote, seems necessarily implied, and indeed foretold in scripture (compare Isa 28:15, 18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 9:27; 11:21, 23-24, 31; Mt 24:15-16; 1Thes 5:3). You see then how those who will have obeyed the Lord’s command to search out and understand this particular event foretold by Daniel, will also be able to recognize at least some of the preceding events that signal its approach.

This is where an understanding of Daniel’s 70th week will prove invaluable for the church’s readiness. For this, we must see God’s investment in the first half of the week as a divine strategy to prepare the church for the second half. But for this, we must see that the 70th week did not follow the 69th week in unbroken succession.

I will give only the briefest possible argument why the 70th week must be seen as future. The basic, highly condensed argument is this:

Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11, particularly vers 11, will show beyond reasonable dispute that the abomination of desolation, with the simultaneous removal of the daily sacrifice, starts the last 3 ½ years (the half week of Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7; Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). It is the ‘time like no other’, also called, “great tribulation” and “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21: Rev 7:14).

Observe that this last and greatest tribulation on earth ends with nothing short of the final deliverance of Daniel’s people and the resurrection of the righteous dead, including Daniel’s personal resurrection (Dan 12:1-2, 13). Thus, it is not far to see that this is the event that divides the final week in two equal halves in Dan 9:27.

So far as it is agreed that the 69th week terminates at the cross of Christ (i.e., Messiah “cut off”; Dan 9:26 with Isa 53:8), nothing within the range of the seven years following the cross arrived at the kind of “end” / “consummation” as described in Daniel, most particularly Dan 12:1-2. Advocates of the unbroken continuity of the 70 sevens are hard pressed to identify what events within that time frame can be said to fulfill the goals reached at the end of final the 3 ½ years, most specifically and undeniably the deliverance of Daniel’s people (Jews / “natural branches”) and the resurrection of the righteous (Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11).

Therefore, to speak of an unbroken continuity between the 69th and 70th weeks is highly anticlimactic, to say the least. Such would be a complete short-fall of the end goals, not only of Dan 9:24, but of Daniel’s apocalyptic visions in general, all of which were aimed at the final and eternal end of exile and the coming in of the post-tribulational kingdom of God on earth at the end of the last persecution.

Time forbids an account of the genius and logic of all six goals of the seventy sevens (Dan 9:24) and the mystery of the interim that divides the 70th seven from the former 69 weeks of years, but for now, our purpose must be limited to underscore how invaluable this knowledge will be in preparing the church, now, but even more especially in the first half of the week for what it must be to Israel and the nations in the second half that ends in Christ’s post-tribulational return at the Day of the Lord.

This strategic advantage threatens to be lost to the church’s benefit unless we are able to identify the distinguishing markers that show we have entered into the first half of the week. I offer this brief quote from G. H. Lang (beloved mentor of F. F. Bruce) from his, “The Histories and Prophecies of Daniel”:

“When this agreement shall have been confirmed, the wise will know that the final seven years has commenced, that the end days are present, that the consummation of the age has arrived. They will expect the violation of the covenant after three years and a half, and will not be overwhelmed with surprise, having been told beforehand by this prophecy. Then will it be seen in fullness that the knowledge of prophetic scripture is simply priceless.”

I conclude with this appeal: Certainly every inch of ground in the confusing smorgasbord of eschatological options is hard fought and hard won, but there are keys of simplicity that make a plain path through the maze. One of those keys I have mentioned, but just how best to use that key to equip the church belongs to another discussion.

But regardless, whether you believe the preterist position that the abomination and the great tribulation is past already, or the classic dispensational view that the Olivet prophecy is to be seen as “Jewish ground”, not directly applicable to the church that is expected to be gone during this time. In any event, I soberly appeal to you to at least treat the grave warnings of deception and the antidote that Jesus prescribes with at least a ‘just in case’ sense of responsibility for the sake of your flocks.

If Jesus put such stress on the relationship of this event to offset some of the prevailing deceptions of “those days”, such as the present massive upsurge of antisemitism, just reflect on how regrettable it would be if you had failed to prepare those under your care with at least the means to recognize these things if you might just happen to be sincerely mistaken.

All’s to say, a careful knowledge of Daniel’s prophecy of the end is a pain well worth taking. It is only as we are instructed that we will be in a position to instruct (Dan 11:33; 12:3).

If Paul can rightly call the living church of the living God “the pillar and ground of truth” (1Tim 3:15), it would seem inconceivable that the last witness of the gospel to Israel and the nations would be made in its absence. If we take the view that to be alive “in Christ”, whether before, during, or after the tribulation, is necessarily to be part of His body, then it follows that “the voice of the bridegroom AND of the bride” (Rev 18:23) will be heard far and wide during a final witness, sealed in the blood of the tribulation martyrs (compare Dan 7:21; 11:35; 12:10; Mt 24:14; Rev 6:10-11; 12:11; 13:7, 15; 14:6; 20:4).

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