Israel in the Tribulation
Selected Scriptures
The article says the world is coming to an end. That is a valid assumption. Everything does some time. Nothing lasts forever. How soon the end? In this it says, "Probably in about five billion years." That is the assumption of "the end of the world which is a show that has opened under the great dome of the Hayden Planetarium in New York."
This was put together by a man named Mark Shartran who is the Planetarium astronomer. He says "The most probable estimate is that in five billion years the sun will poop out from old age, expand into a giant star, and engulf Mercury and Venus and send out enough heat to melt lead on earth, which also would melt the spirit of man, cockroach and germ."
Then he says, "There is another alternative to the end of the world. The moon will fall. Don't know this notion. The moon right now is getting farther away." But he says, "For reasons known only to God, Isaac Newton and Orson Wells," that's pretty funny really, "in about 200 billion years the moon will have reached as far as it can go and it will start back very fast. Then watch out." So either the world is going to exist until five billion years when the sun poops out or 200 billion when the rubber band holding the moon reaches its...reaches its limit and it springs back and collides with the earth.
I'll tell you something friends, the Bible has something to say that makes those kind of comments idiocy. The world is not going to come to an end five billion years from now because the sun gets old or 200 billion years from now because the moon comes back and collides. The world is going to come to an end because Jesus Christ is going to return, literally. We believe that. And we've been studying that in our series on prophecy.
This tonight will be really what is the tenth message in our prophetic series. And the title of it is Israel in the tribulation. Now we began our study with a message on why Jesus must return. And we presented evidence for the fact that Jesus Christ is coming back to earth, the same Christ that was here on earth some 1,900 plus years ago.
That message was followed by a discussion of the catching away of the church. And we discussed the fact that when Jesus does come, the first thing he's going to do is take out the church. And then we discussed for at least three different weeks, will the church go through the tribulation. For immediately following the catching away of the church is a period known as the tribulation. And we determined that church goes first and then the tribulation.
And when the church leaves, we discussed what happens. We discussed the rewards of the church or the rewards of believers. Then next, we move back to earth and with the church removed we began to discuss what was going to happen in the tribulation under the subject of terrors of the tribulation. And we saw that Christ is coming to remove the church and reward the church and the judge the world in a time called the tribulation.
Now our progress has led us to discuss the subject of the tribulation and so tonight we're going to looking at one feature of the tribulation. And in weeks to come, we'll look at other features, but the thing we want to concentrate on tonight is the place of Israel in the seven year tribulation.
Scripture is very explicit on the fact that the seven year tribulation will really center around the nation and the people of Israel. This fearful seven year period, when God is going to judge and when Christ is going to take back the earth, is most significantly Israel's time. In fact, it is so called in Jeremiah 30, verse 7 the time of Jacob's trouble.
And we remember that in Deuteronomy Chapter 4, and I'm going to suggest a couple of scriptures to you so that the review will set your mind in the right frame. Deuteronomy 4:29, "But if from there thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him. If thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God and shalt be obedient unto His voice."
Now here God promises to Israel that God will hear their cry, if in the time of tribulation they turn to Him. This indicates that there will be a future time of tribulation. It says in the latter days for Israel. In Daniel Chapter 9, verse 27 there is a description of the covenant that Israel makes during the time of tribulation called the 70th week and we'll talk about that in a few moments.
In Matthew 24, you have a description of Israel's place in the land during the tribulation. And the promise of Jesus to those disciples listening on Olivet when He spoke what is recorded in Matthew 24 was the fact that Israel would be in the tribulation and they would see the worst of it.
And so the Bible has pointed out very clearly that there is coming a great time of severe judgment and Israel is going to be involved in it. And was we look at the book of Revelation and we'd like you to turn to it for just a moment to the 7th Chapter, but as we look at the book of Revelation, we find that as we study the tribulation features outlined in the book of Revelation, they repeatedly involve Israel.
For example, in Chapter 7, in verse 4, we are introduced to a group of individuals in the tribulation. And it says that there were 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Revelation 7, verse 4. And it goes on to name the tribes. So Israel is seen in the tribulation in Chapter 7. Then if you will, Chapter 11, verse 8. Here again, we find the indication that the headquarters of the whole world system and the tribulation, the whole false antichrist system is in Jerusalem, verse 8.
And you remember they kill the two witnesses. The world kills these two preachers and they like in the street, "their dead bodies lie in the street of the great city spiritual Sodom where our Lord was crucified." What city is that? Jerusalem. So Jerusalem then is pinpointed in the tribulation. Then if you go over, interesting, to verse 13. "The same hour was a great earthquake, a tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men," and the word for men means famous men, men of renown, "seven thousand." When Jerusalem gets hit, world leaders get killed, which means that the whole system is going to set up in Jerusalem.
And if you go to Chapter 12, in verse 13 you find again the mention of Israel. Israel is seen under the figure of woman. The woman in Chapter 12 is Israel who gave birth to the child who is Christ, the dragon obviously is Satan. But verse 14 says...well, verse 13 that Satan is going to persecute the woman Israel. And verse 14 "To the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, she might fly into the wilderness into her place," and so forth.
And so Satan is going to persecute Israel. So Israel appears very, very significantly in various features of the tribulation and those are just some suggestions not exhaustively presented at all. But it's interesting to note this and I only say this by way of a footnote that the vast majority of Christianity, the vast majority of theology has accepted the fact that God is through with Israel. Now if you're going to accept the fact that God is through with Israel, you have two alternatives. One...well you have maybe three.
One, you just plain deny the inspiration of scripture and say well when the Bible said something was going to happen to Israel, they made a mistake. So that the Bible is wrong if it says Israel's going to be around in the tribulation. They just...that's just an unfortunate mistake. And then you're tampering with inspiration.
The second alternative you have is to spiritualize it all the way. To say that the 144,000 doesn't really mean Jews. It means the best of the Jehovah's witnesses. Or it means the best of whatever happens to be your cult or it means maybe the best of Christians, which some have even said. Or you have a third alternative. You can just that whatever Israel has used after the cross it always means the church.
So you either destroy inspiration or you destroy interpretation and you just spiritualize everything away. Those are people who would spiritualize it all would be the same people who would say that the thousand year kingdom doesn't mean a thousand years and the seven year period doesn't mean seven years and nothing means nothing.
I had a professor like that in college. He went through the book of Revelation and when he got done, nothing meant anything. And he was well versed in the book and along with his view of it knew nothing. The other alternative is that you make the church Israel. And when you do that, you destroy the character of God because you make a liar out of God, who made promises that He did not keep.
Now we do not believe that you need to replace Israel. We believe that God is still dealing with Israel. You say oh but the Bible says that we are the seed of Abraham by faith. But we are in a sense spiritual Israel, of course. Of course we can be spiritual children of Abraham, but that doesn't mean that all other promises to Abraham are void. Do you know there's only one thing that makes you a spiritual seed of Abraham? Do you know what it is? The fact that you came to Jesus Christ.
And when God looks at you He sees you in Christ, right? Now if He sees you in Christ, Christ is of the seed of Abraham, therefore, by virtue of union with Christ you are a spiritual child of Abraham. You are not a physical child of Abraham. And just to assume that because I am spiritually a child of Abraham, that means that all the promises to the national Israel, to the physical seed, are negated is not really a fair approach.
We are only added in a sense to the blessing by faith. And we are by faith the children of Abraham, not by birth. We are in the eyes of God spiritual Israel only in the sense that He sees us in Christ and sense Christ is of the seed of Abraham, He sees us in Christ as Abraham's spiritual seed.
But keep in mind that does not invalidate God's promises to the nation Israel. Now we've covered this in detail and we'll cover it even in greater detail because I think when we finish these series, we're going to study the book of Galatians.
Now, we then believe that Israel, when it's talking about Israel in the tribulation, it means Israel. That is it means the Jewish people. It's not talking about the church, although there are some in the church who are Jews and it...and of course, they can't...they won't be in the tribulation anyway, right? Because the rapture's going to take all of them out. And when it talks about Israel in the tribulation, it means Israel.
When it talks about Jerusalem, it means Jerusalem. When it talks about 12,000 from every tribe, it means 12,000 from every tribe. God has a marvelous ability to say what He wants. He's a lot less confused than some people. Now then, assuming that Israel is in the tribulation what and where and how do they fit into it? And I want to just share with you six or however many we can cover areas that indicate Israel's place in the tribulation.
Now remember the church has been taken out and God's going to go back to dealing with Israel. When we finish this study, we'll study the Gentiles in the tribulation and see what's going on with the nations. But for this study, what's happening to the nation Israel? Remember that God had prophesied for Israel's history, 70 weeks of years, 69 of them have passed. God has one week to go of Israel' history. What is involved in it? First of all, we're going to look at the covenants with Israel. The covenants with Israel, then the collecting of Israel, the chastisement of Israel, the comfort of Israel, the conversion of Israel, and the commission of Israel.
All right, first of all, the covenants with Israel. And this is a most important subject. Now let me say there are two very definite covenants, now when I say covenant, I simply mean pledges from God promises. There are two very definite covenants that demonstrate Israel's place in the tribulation. Number one is the divine covenant. And for that, you must turn to Genesis Chapter 12.
Now if we're going to talk about Israel and the tribulation, we're going to go clear back to the 12th Chapter of Genesis. Genesis 12:1, "Now the Lord had said unto Abram," before his name was elongated. "The Lord had said to Abram, get thee out of thy country," remember he lived in Ur of the Chaldeans a pagan place, "from they kindred, from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, I will bless thee, make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee. And in these shall all families of the earth be blessed."
Now here we have what is known as the Abrahamic covenant. God made a promise to Abraham. It was a multiple promise. One, it was personal. Notice the personal nature. Verse 2, "I will make of thee a great nation. I will bless thee. I will make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing." Very personal. A great nation, he would be blessed, his name made great. In fact, it says in verse 3, "that everybody who blessed him would be blessed and everyone who cursed him would be cursed."
And then He went on to say did God that the extension of this would be to all the families of the earth. Secondly, the promise was not only personal, but it was to a nation. There would come from the loins of Abraham a nation. And the same promise would be good for them.
Verse 7 of the same chapter. "And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, unto thy seed will I give this land." So here God extends what was very personal in verse 2 and 3 to something national to the nation that comes out of thy loins. And He says, "I'll give this land." Now what land? Look at verse 14 of Chapter 13.
Over to Chapter 13, verse 14. "And the Lord said unto Abram, after Lot was separated from him," now God's talking to him, "lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever." For how long? Forever. "And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it for I will give it unto thee."
Now here you see is the promise of God to give the land and it was a forever promise. Now go over to Chapter 15 and here's a description of the dimensions of the land. "In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying unto thy seed have I given this land. From the river of Egypt," the Nile, "to the great river, the river Euphrates." Way over in the fertile crescent to the east. The Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, Rephaims, the Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites." That's the peoples involved in all this land.
Now notice verse 1 of Chapter 17. "And when Abram was ninety years old and nine," 99, "the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him I am the Almighty God. Walk before me be thou perfect. I will make my covenant between me and thee and multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face and God talked with him saying as for me behold my covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful. I will make nations of thee and kings shall come out of thee." Now, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant. To be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land where thou art a sojourner. All the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession."
Now let me pull it all together. God promised then an everlasting possession to Israel. That they would be in the land possessing the land for as long as it existed in the mind of God for eternity. Therefore, I believe this covenant binds God to fulfillment and I believe He must give the land to Israel. Now beloved, they don't have that land. Do they have the land from the Nile to the Euphrates? Of course not.
They will have it, but the Bible also says they will have it in the kingdom. Now the kingdom follows the tribulation. If they're going to be around