Chapter 16: Tribulation – Jacob’s Trouble
“How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of Jacob’s Trouble, but he will be saved out of it.”{cdxxv} The time of Jacob’s Trouble is referring specifically to the last three and a half years. We read in this verse that there will be no time like it. What I find interesting is reading the previous chapter of Jeremiah. He writes a letter to the exiles telling them to build houses, marry, plant gardens, and generally live life as you would live if you were in the Land. Why? The Lord says, “When seventy years are completed, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.”{cdxxvi}
Jeremiah rejoices at this. He prophesies in Jeremiah 30:3, “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their forefathers to possess.” Yet, in the very next verse we read the beginning to the statement, “Cries of fear are heard – terror and not peace.” Jeremiah even asks the question, “Can a man bear children? Then why do I see every strong man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor, and every face turned deathly pale?” Jeremiah prophesies of the return, and rejoices at that return. But then his focus turns, and he asks, “What is this that I see?”
Somehow, the return from Babylon wasn’t the ultimate fulfillment that the prophet expected. He expected a return from Babylon and the Lord to redeem His people. He expected the Messiah to destroy Babylon and rule over Israel on the throne of David. But instead Jeremiah sees a future time after the return from exile that is “terror, not peace.” It is this context that Jeremiah 30:7 is given. The time of Jacob’s Trouble is to be the worst time in the history of Israel. Jesus even said of this time, “Then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never equaled again.”{cdxxvii}
This was the word spoken to Daniel the prophet concerning when Michael shall stand up and cast Satan out of heaven: “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.”{cdxxviii} Maybe the words of Psalm 42:3 are somewhat prophetic in their declaration: “My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God’?”
We looked in chapter seven at how the current state of Israel cannot be the same as the redeemed Israel that comes out of this time of Jacob’s Trouble. Isaiah prophesied about that final purging with the words, “I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities”.{cdxxix} Remember that Ezekiel had prophesied of a time near the end when God would bring Israel back to Jerusalem only to pour out His wrath upon them.{cdxxx} He called Jerusalem “the furnace of my affliction,” because he was going to smelt the House of Israel. “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh – Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all who live in the desert in the distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole House of Israel is uncircumcised in heart”.{cdxxxi}
This last dealing with Israel is not only a last dealing with Israel. It is a final Tribulation in which God is going to “punish” all the nations. The only safe haven is the Church of Jesus Christ. Just as Israel was in Egypt, but was not plagued, so too the Church will be in the nations, but will not be plagued. In Luke 21:22-24, Jesus warns of this time that, “There will be great distress in the land,” and, “they will be taken as prisoners to all the nations.” We’ll explore later in this chapter that Israel will be scattered through all nations. For the introduction, the point only needs to be made that God is not only sifting Israel through the nations, but is also sifting those nations. The great question at the judgment is, “What did you do unto the least of these my brethren?”
Ezekiel 5:12 says, “A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third will I scatter to the winds and pursue with a drawn sword.” God is serious when He says, “I will gather you to Jerusalem to pour out my wrath.” He was very serious when He said through the prophet Zechariah, “two-thirds will be struck down and perish”.{cdxxxii} The context is about Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the furnace of His affliction.
The heavenly Jerusalem is the perfect intention of God. As long as the earthly Jerusalem does not reflect the heavenly Jerusalem, there shall be the words of judgment to come to her. These are not easy words, but they are true words. “When terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none. Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost, as will the counsel of the elders.”{cdxxxiii}
The people Israel will be judged. What exactly is their crime? “You thought I was altogether like you.”{cdxxxiv} They have made God to be in their image, and therefore have made Him an idol. The people that God has said they shall be a nation of priests unto Him have treated God as though He is just another god among many. The rejection of God upon Mount Sinai was reflective of a heart issue, and not a communication of the substance of their fear. The proof is in the pudding, and these are the same people that killed all the prophets. How is it that Jesus was able to make such a claim about the generation where there had not been a prophetic voice for 400 years? God Himself stood before them in human form, and they desired to kill Him.
The sin of Israel is their rejection of God. It is the same sin we have all indulged in. God need to break that people, but not before He breaks we who call upon His name currently. Deuteronomy 28 gives some frightening words of how God might be going about to “break their power”: “Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you”.{cdxxxv} This is speculative that the people will eat their children in the last days, but it has happened in the past. It is the history and pattern of Israel that they would do such things when the enemy inflicts.
“You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you.”{cdxxxvi} The point is not to simply destroy, but to redeem. God’s judgments are always redemptive acts. God does not judge for the sake of punishment, but instead for the sake of repentance. Though “a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt; the earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left,”{cdxxxvii} God also establishes that “the Lord Almighty will reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before its elders, gloriously”.{cdxxxviii}
Yes, this time will be “a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah”,{cdxxxix} but God does not destroy without building. He does not root up without afterward planting. God will make “man scarcer than pure gold, and more rare than the gold of Ophir”.{cdxl} He asks, “Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers?”{cdxli} The nations conspire, “let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no longer,”{cdxlii} but God promises, “Oh Israel, I will not forget you”.{cdxliii}
Antichrist Wars with the Saints
While the Antichrist is raising hell for Israel, we also see that he is tormenting the saints. A quick look through Revelation 12 shows us a woman who births a man-child. This man-child is taken up to heaven – obviously the Messiah Jesus. That woman, then, must be Israel. The red dragon then pursues the woman into the wilderness (verse 6 is elaborated in more detail in verses 13-14). The dragon spews out of its mouth a flood. We’ve already cross-referenced this with other Scriptures. It is the Church that opens its mouth to swallow up the water. How do I know that? As soon as the water has been swallowed, the very next verse is about the dragon then making war on “the rest of the woman’s offspring” (verse 17). Then, if that weren’t enough, the explanation of who they are is given: “those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”
Why would the dragon make war on those that hold to the testimony of Jesus? It is because they were the ones to hide the woman. They are the ones who swallow up the water, which is a reference back to Matthew 7:24-27. Jesus tells His disciples, “the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house.” The house that was built upon the rock stood strong, but the flood took the house that was built upon sand away. The rock is Christ Jesus, our foundation.
In Daniel 11:33-35, we see that there are a people that are wise who instruct many during this time. The wise are the believers in Christ that have built upon the rock. They have understanding of the times, and are therefore able to respond instead of react. “Those who are wise will instruct many, though for a time they will fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered. When they fall, they will receive a little help, and many who are not sincere will join them. Some of the wise will fall, so that they may be refined, purified, and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time.”
What exactly these verses mean is not clear to me. What is obvious is that the wise will be murdered. Those who are not murdered will be captured or plundered. It doesn’t sound joyous, but the result of this is that “they may be refined, purified, and made spotless until the time of the end.” Now, I’m not convinced that this statement is about the wise as much as it is about those who join that are not sincere. However, we do find in Revelation 7:9 and 19:7-8 that the Bride that comes out of the Tribulation is now clothed in white robes, fine linen, bright and clean. The fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.
Speaking of the end times, Jesus promised His disciples, “You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me”.{cdxliv} Whereas it is said for Jerusalem that two-thirds will perish, it is mentioned from Revelation 12:4 that a third of the church is killed.{cdxlv} It is not that we’re under judgment, but instead that we endure a redemptive suffering. Just as Christ had the ultimate victory over Satan through the cross – by allowing Satan to win, God won – we too will “love not our lives even unto death,” and in that death we shall obtain the victory.{cdxlvi}
There is a pattern of God that has been established. The persecution of David led to a faithful Israel. The stoning of Stephen led to the salvation of Saul. Rachel dies giving birth to a son named Ben-Oni (son of my sorrow), but Israel renames him Benjamin (son of my right hand). Likewise the Church suffers great and terrible sorrows, but is promoted to the right hand with Christ. The remnant people of God are persecuted, even unto death, so that “all Israel might be saved.”{cdxlvii}
It is given the beast (Antichrist) power to overcome the saints.{cdxlviii} He is given the authority to war against them.{cdxlix} He also wears the saints out.{cdl} These are not very joyous verses to contemplate. Maybe we can better understand from the connotation of these verses what Christ was dealing with in Gethsemane. Jesus did not suddenly become a coward. Instead, there was something about the judgment that He was soon to drink down on behalf of mankind that caused Him to anguish. The prayer in Gethsemane cannot be understood simply because we intellectually aspire to something. It must be understood on the basis of embracing it. We, too, will go through our own Gethsemane experiences. The victory of the cross was found in the garden, and the blood of sweat poured out in anguishing prayer was redemptive. I wouldn’t doubt if our Gethsemane will come during the first three and a half years, not necessarily because of persecution, but because of the magnitude of the soon coming calamity that we will be forced to endure.
Israel’s flight
We saw in Revelation 12:6 that Israel shall flee to the wilderness. The warning of Jesus was for those in Judea to flee to the mountains.{cdli} We see in Ezekiel 20:33-35, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I will rule over you with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with fury poured out. I will bring you from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered – with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with fury poured out. I will bring you into the desert of the nations and there, face to face, I will execute judgment upon you.”
It is said in Amos 9:8-10, “Surely the eyes of the Sovereign Lord are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth – yet I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob, declares the Lord. For I will give the command, and I will sift the house of Israel through all nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. All the sinners among my people will die by the sword, all those who say, ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us’.”
God says that He will sift the people Israel through all nations. He will destroy the sinful kingdom. What is that sinful kingdom? It is the state of Israel that continues to have that name and continues to use the promises as means to proclaim their “inheritance,” yet has nothing to do with the Lord in any other way. What is sinfulness or wickedness but doing that which you know you should not do? To take liberty in claiming those promises of God, but to take God out of the equation and out of politics and society, is to use His name in vein. God will judge that. Ironically, that kind of vanity is not found most prevalently in the atheistic or secular Jews, but instead in the most devout and religious.
During the Nazi time, the Polish Jews that were the most religious and devout were the ones to suffer the worst. Is it possible that God has an issue with their devotion to an idol? They have rejected their Messiah so that they could continue to worship the tradition of men, something Moses even condemned.{cdlii} They care more for their traditions and their culture than they do for God, and that is why it must all come crashing down. God will give them the desire of their heart, and that is a fearful thing. When the rug is pulled out from beneath them, chaos and panic will be the only thing seen or heard. Religion is deadly, because religion is something that tells us that we are in the right with God without needed to even consult God. Religion tells us to perform certain works, without the corresponding faith, and as long as we do the formula we’ll be fine.
The point of Israel’s flight is made obvious in Deuteronomy 8:2: “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.” The point is to humble Israel. They will be provided for in the midst of the desert the whole time. It isn’t that God sends them out to see how they fare. God provides for them, both supernaturally and naturally through the Church. It is in this manner that He has decided to meet with them “face to face”.{cdliii}
“They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and water gushed out.”{cdliv} As it was at the beginning, so it shall be at the end. God led Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness for 40 years; at the end He shall take Israel out of the world system and sift them through the wilderness for 42 months. The Church will be Moses to them, both in bringing the word of the Lord and in leading them through the wilderness safely. God Himself will be made manifest to them through that Church.
Yet, even with this, the prophecy is still, “So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away. For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God, fomenting oppression and revolt, and uttering lies our hearts conceived”.{cdlv}
The reason for this goes back to 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3. We talked earlier about how when people say “peace and safety” sudden destruction comes. The people of the world don’t expect the end, but we are children of the light. Why are we children of the light? God is in us. He is light, and He is the light of men. When men reject that light, then even in the daytime they stumble around in darkness. Israel must endure this, because nothing else will have them make the confession, “Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our sin.”
At what point in Israel’s history has that confession been made? It can’t be at the time of Nehemiah, because even the prophets at that time were saying, “Return to me, and I’ll return to you”.{cdlvi} Ezekiel 37, the valley of the dry bones, says that this vision is about a time when Israel will proclaim, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off”.{cdlvii} “I said I would scatter them and blot out their memory from mankind, but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this’.”{cdlviii} This is God’s doing, and Israel needs to acknowledge that.
As long as the people Israel continue to play the victim card, they will never find healing. As long as we evangelicals and Zionists continue to pamper them and tell them that it is an attack of the devil, they will never find healing. That people need to know that they are in the wrong, not because we are bitter toward them, but because it is true. As long as they continue to reject their Messiah and put faith and trust in a faulty religious system, we cannot any longer condone what they practice. Our “interfaith relations” are an abomination to the Lord. To validate and call their faith “legitimate” is as much a forfeiting of our faith, as was their crucifying the Messiah.
God has bigger plans for that people than having “the most moral military in the world” (as Benyamin Netanyahu recently told the U.N.). God’s plan for Israel is a glory, and anything less than that glory is apostasy. We cannot settle. “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to posses. You will not live there long, but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the people, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you… The Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed them by oath.”{cdlix}
God confirmed the covenant with their fathers. What covenant is being spoken of? It is the eternal covenant; the covenant they rejected at Sinai. “The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
“This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar – the Lord Almighty is his name: Only if these decrees vanish from my sight, declares the Lord, will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me. This is what the Lord says: Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because all they have done.”{cdlx}
“Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; their men of rank will die of hunger and their masses will be parched with thirst.”{cdlxi} Israel needs to go through this kind of drastic distress. It is through enduring this kind of extremity that we learn God’s character all the more acutely. His judgment is His mercy. They are interwoven inseparably. If Israel is to come out of this being redeemed and knowing the Lord their God, it will be because they experience a Calvary of their own. They will bear a cross and learn the faithfulness as well as the mercy and love of their God. Though they taste of the stings of death, they shall come out of that death resurrected and asking, “Where, O death is thy sting?”{cdlxii}
“I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped.”{cdlxiii} The trouble that we are currently seeing in the Middle East against the Christians is only a foreshadowing of an event to come upon Jerusalem. The terrors that are causing people to flee Iraq from the Islamic hatred are only birthing pangs. It will get much worse, and it will not be contained to only Israel. It is said in Amos 9:9, “I will sift you through all nations.” We read about Jesus’ words that those who do not fall by the sword will be taken as prisoners to all nations.{cdlxiv} Do not think that the Jewish communities in America are safe. Expect calamity, and expect furor.
“How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, even the animals and birds have perished.”{cdlxv} “Though they dig down to the depths of sheol, from there my hand will take them. Though the climb up to the heavens, from there I will bring them down. Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them.”{cdlxvi}
The Lord does not mince His words. Not only are these words harsh, apocalyptic, and exaggerated, but they come from the mouth of God. This is the same who said, “You will give an account for every idol word that you speak.”{cdlxvii} If God takes our words that seriously, and even is called “the Word”, how much more sobriety ought we to have when reading such texts as this? It is not fun to listen to all of the devastation and horror. Apocalypse is not a message that anyone desires to bear. God is after something, though. The same language is used with Simon Peter in Luke 22:31: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
The Greek word here, “Satan has asked to sift you as wheat,” is plural. Though Satan is asking to sift Simon, the Greek word is plural to remind the reader of the message in the previous chapter of a coming time when Israel will be sifted like wheat. They must endure this for the same reason that Peter had to deny the Lord three times. It was in seeing his flaws that he was better equipped to follow the Lord unto the ends of the earth. Jesus told him, “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” It shall also be so for Israel, that when they have turned back, they shall “bless” all the families of the earth.
What is a blessing? A blessing is only a blessing when it stands for truth and truth alone. It is only a blessing when it brings the receiver of that blessing into a right standing before God. The blessing that Israel is required to produce over the nations is one that requires for themselves to first pass from death unto life. It is through this final sifting that God will redeem His people, and therefore they will be re-grafted into their roots. We find in Romans 11 that they have received blindness in part. It isn’t every Jew. It isn’t everyone in Israel that is doomed and lost and damned. There is a remnant, but it is a remnant. In regards to ‘all Israel shall be saved,’ Paul says, “For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”{cdlxviii} The redemption of Israel means life to the nations as nations. There is more at play here than an individual’s salvation. The nation of Israel will be saved, and that salvation will be the first fruit of national salvations. The other nations will also be redeemed when Israel is resurrected.
Strength and Power of Israel Broken
If Israel is to be a priestly people, they must be a broken people. It was required of the High Priest to offer a sacrifice for himself first, and then he could offer sacrifices on behalf of the people on the Day of Atonement.{cdlxix} Likewise, Israel must also have her sins atoned for before there can be any other nations that will be nationally atoned. We currently experience redemption on an individual level. Some haughtily covet Israel’s calling and claim that they will bring salvation to the nations, but in reality that will never happen until God has a literal nation of priests. Just like the people of the Old Testament did not see the whole blessing of Pentecost, but only a remnant of judges, priests, kings, and prophets were anointed, so too the nations today might be able to experience some sort of salvific and anointed encounter, but it is not the fullness that will come with Israel’s salvation.
It says in Daniel 12:7 that the last part of the Tribulation shall be for a time, times, and half a time. From what I understand, this is based off of the feasts. To cycle from Passover to the Feast of Tabernacles is one time. So, the way that they measured a year was according to the Feasts. A time, times, and half a time, then, is three and a half years – the exact half of the seven year tribulation. The rest of Daniel 12:7 says, “When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be completed.”
The strength and power of Israel is their pride. God must break it off of them if the strength and pride of all other nations is to be broken off as well. When we cross-reference Daniel 12:7 with Leviticus 26:19, we read, “I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be completed.” This pride is a veil so that they cannot see God. “We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read.”{cdlxx}
That ve