On the Anniversary of Israel Independence

 

For sixty years now, God, Our Lord and Savior, has protected the modern yet primarily secular state of Israel from sudden destruction.  The Sixth Trumpet of the Revelation, John Vision at Patmos, sounded the day of Israel’s rebirth.  Immediately thereafter, the four angles (Messengers) who were bound at the great river Euphrates were loose.  The first message to Israel, to finish their transgressions and not embrace secularism was in the form of the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war.  God protected and saved the fledgling nation.  The second angelic message was the 6-day war of 1967; where overwhelming odds against all neighboring Arab nation were defeated with malicious crescendo, and the City of Jerusalem was back in the hands of the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The third angelic message came with ever increasing enemy strengthen, back by an evil empire (the Soviet Union) yet God again saw fit to survive the small nation for another day.

 

So indeed, from the Revelation, we have one final forth angelic message for Israel, and I might add all the nations of the world.  It is a poignant message to the Islamic forces who which to have Israel wiped off the face of the map.  It will not happen.   God is Sovran.  He has demonstrated thrice He will protect Israel for another day; there is no reason he will not do so the fourth time.

 

And what of that fourth time, the very next prophetic event yet to unfold.  It is the killing of one third of mankind by the fire, the smoke and the brimstone by instigating Islamic forces and those once bound at the great river Euphrates.  The description John of Patmos gave was difficult to describe in his day, but we can see the imagery clearly in modern weaponry: nuclear cruise missiles.

 

But there is something much more telling in the last two verses of Revelation Chapter Nine, after this great conflagration that is before us.  We read:

 

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.

[Revelation 9:20-21, NASB]

 

We see clearly the description of those surviving this great conflagration cannot describe anyone who is “in Christ Jesus (Y’shua Ha Messiah).”  Therefore, make no mistake about it, the Saints being caught up in the air with Him has taken place.  The question is: when did that happen?  Did it happen before the conflagration? Immediately before the conflagration?  During the conflagration? Or immediately after the conflagration?  It is a tough exegetical problem to tackle because there is no clear or plane descriptions in Scriptures.  We are left to our own understanding of God’s plan for salvation and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

 

I gravitate to the notion that the rapture of those who were “in Christ” occurs during the nuclear conflagration.  The reason is more of less obvious to me. The number of true Saints today is monumental.  Their rapture would be hard to miss unless some other event overshadowed.   If it were the other cases, panic, chaos and weariness would ensue.  Yet verses 20 and 21 describe none of these things.  On the other hand, if the rapture took place concurrent with the killing of one third of mankind, the event will have been masked, perhaps largely unnoticed.

 

Therefore, it is highly likely the rapture of the Church will occur at some near future time, yet unknown, but concurrent with the killing of one third of mankind by the fire, the smoke, and the brimstone instigated by Islamic forces and those once bound at the great river Euphrates.

 

So what happens next for Israel?   Here I now speak about the whole house of Israel, not just the house of Judah or the modern state.  On the agenda following this great conflagration is the Great Apostasy; we read:

 

Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.  Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.

 [2 Thessalonians 2:1-3]

 

What is being said here by Paul and in harmony with the chronology given to us by John, this great apostasy described in Revelation 9:20-21 comes next.  Following that we shall see the ministry of the two witnesses to all those left behind.  Yet this is not the tribulation of those days.  The antichrist must be revealed first.  He could be revealed during the great apostasy or the ministry of the two; but for certain he is revealed at the time he kills the two witnesses.  Again, according to Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, this Antichrist is revealed before the second coming (to earth) of our Lord and Savior.  In the chronology of the Revelation, the witness of the two come before and the “tribulation of those days,” that is, the time of the beast.

 

After the tribulation of those days, according to the Words of our Lord in His Olivet Discourse, we see cosmic disturbances.  Those are the events described by the Minor Prophets when discussing the Day of the Lord; that time of great judgment upon the inhabitants of the earth.  Here we will see the gathering at Har Megiddo of forces that will battle for Jerusalem, the pouring out of bowl judgments, the casting down of evil doers, and the marriage of the Lamb before the Millennial Kingdom.

jw