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The Mystery of Israel and the Church
by Art Katz

Israel and the Time of Jacob's Trouble - Chapter 15 (part 2 of 3)

The frequency of those words clearly indicates that Israel's last experience in her history is the memory of mourning, sighing, and sorrow, even as everlasting joy now comes upon their heads.  This has never been descriptive of any return to Israel, including the advent of the State in 1948, but it will be descriptive of the return that will come after the time of Jacob's Trouble.  They will return as the redeemed of the Lord, with mourning and sighing fleeing away.  In many other places, God's promise is that Israel will no longer sorrow, no longer be afraid, and no longer experience terror.  This indicates that the last historical experience of Israel, both in the nation and in the world, is fear, terror, violence, being devoured, being swallowed up and a mourning and sighing.  Mourning and sighing must precede the rejoicing and the dance, both young men and old together.  God is explicitly the agent, both of the expulsion and the judgment, as well as the return and the comfort.  Israel must know that "I am the Lord Who has spoken and done this."  God Himself will turn their sorrow to joy.
And the ransomed [redeemed] of the Lord will return, and come with joyful shouting to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isaiah 35:10.  Parentheses mine).
They will obtain from their God comfort and joy.  Israel must know God in this totality, both in the severity of their expulsion, and in the gladness and joy of their return, when they will obtain it, and not before by some humanly achieved alternative.
Part of my controversy with other prophetic spokesmen, who claim that the time of Jacob's Trouble was the Nazi Holocaust, and therefore, in the past, is resolved by the fact that the time of Jacob's Trouble does not have its inception in Europe, but in Israel itself, in the Land.  And this also indicates, therefore, something that has not yet taken place, although the stage is being set for that eruption and expulsion by the present Jewish presence in the Land.  Our mistake is to misconstrue the current resettlement, however extensive it is, to be the final return out of the chastisement of the Nazi Holocaust, and to continue in that error will bring about a tragic disappointment and a shameful unpreparedness to be to Israel what we will need to be for them in that hour.
And Jacob shall return, and shall quiet and at ease, and no one shall make him afraid (Jer 30:10f).
If Jacob's trouble and the return have already taken place, Israel should be experiencing a condition in which "no one shall make him afraid."  On the contrary, present Israel is riddled with fear, terror, apprehension, and anxiety, not knowing when the next human bomb is going to explode at a shopping mall or discotheque.  The fact that they are afraid clearly indicates the time of Jacob's Trouble is future.
And if Jacob's Trouble is future, and we are not giving warning and making preparation, then Israel and the Jew are going to suffer a sudden devastation without the mercy of someone telling them.  And we believers will be equally undone at the coming catastrophe, for which we have no expectation, at the very time when we should be providing refuge for a fleeing and panic-stricken remnant.  There are other unmistakable signs that indicate what is future or past, as we will see from other texts, and most important of the statements that God makes is, "In that day, Israel will know that it is God who has both spoken and performed it."   Israel does not know that now.
You may ask, where is the justice and righteousness of God, that He would expel them again, having brought them from Russia and Ethiopia in their hope for security in the Land?  What kind of righteous God is this?  Have they not suffered enough?  Is He a God who will bring calamity merely to serve His purposes, or are His judgments altogether righteous and true, and in exact proportion to the sins of the people who are experiencing them as judgment?  The judgments of God are not arbitrary; He is not cruel and malicious; He does not inflict without reason:
For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the punishment of a cruel one, because your iniquity is great and your sins are numerous (Jer. 30:14).
There are many acts of injustice and violence presently being perpetrated on the stranger in the Land: imprisonment without cause, brutal beatings, intimidation, fear, threat, and the kind of conduct that we could well understand coming from Gentile nations, but shocks us as coming from Jews.  God is allowing to be revealed what is in our hearts as man, and especially Jewish man, because Jewish man is not exempt from the nature of man.  God will allow it to have its expression so that our sins will judge us and find us out.  Being devoid of divinity, we shall be devoid of humanity.
The Land, we must remember, is not automatically guaranteed to Jewry, but the possession of it is relative to our covenantal obedience, and walking in the light of that enablement alone makes possible the understanding of how to treat the stranger in our midst.  Increasingly, there are certain sectors of Jewish society (40% in a recent poll) that would see the 'stranger' ruthlessly expelled without any mercy.  History has come full-circle, and ironically, Jews, who were once persecuted in other nations, are increasingly finding themselves in the role of the persecutor because of the presence that threatens their own security and preservation!
As a nation, Israel is exhibiting character of another kind, which will only worsen, and not get better, despite their own intention.  It must be so, and God will do whatever it takes to show them their self-deception.  Though God, in His sovereignty, allowed the resettlement of Israel in 1948, men were certainly prominent in effecting that return by their own finances, strength and prowess, so, my conclusion is that God has preserved them through previous wars because of the necessity of giving them this experience, that they might compare their own failed attempt with that which He Himself will bring when He will restore them and plant them in the Land.
In the final analysis, and much more than we know, it is our own lusts and desires that affect our theology and doctrine. So, what is the lust and desire here but an unwillingness that Israel should again face calamity; a wanting so much to see them succeed, particularly by Gentiles whose consciences have been bruised by the Holocaust and Jewish suffering, and who are unable to consider the Holocaust as the judgment of God, but rather as the failure of the Church, and want now to make up for it, and to encourage Israel to every false assurance of their safety.  It is a well-meaning desire, but as it is commonly said, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
A careful examination of the prophetic Scriptures indicates calamities for Israel that are yet future, because the things that follow are millennial blessedness, security, acceptance, restoration and the knowledge of God, for which there is no evidence in present Israel.  Present Israel is only 'of God' in the sense that it is a necessary preliminary to the full, true and ultimate return.  If there were not a nation to experience defeat and exile, there would not be the brokenness and dependency upon God that will characterize the final and enduring Israel.  There would not be the spiritual and heavenly unless there was first a natural (see I Corinthians 15).  It is 'of God,' which saves men from condemning and judging Israel, "Look at how they are failing.  Look what they are doing with the Palestinians."  We must remember that Israel must fail in the sense that there must be the death of their hope in themselves and of themselves in order to become the witness nation of God that they are meant to be.
Our failing to understand this may well be due to our failure to open our own lives to such dealings from God, where He will allow us a measure of success only to bring it to the place of failure, disappointment and heartbreak.  God wants to show us that we cannot have our confidence in ourselves, and we cannot learn that principle in any academic or abstract way, but only out of our own painful experience unto death.  You call that a loving God?  Yes, absolutely, especially in the light of eternity.  It is because we have wanted for ourselves to be spared the pain of God's dealings, that we want to spare Israel from similar such dealings.  We have been guilty of thinking only in terms of ourselves, and not in terms of "the glory of God forever" (Rom. 11:36).  That is why we have an inadequate view, because our focus has been on the issue of the avoidance of pain and suffering, rather than the issue of God's glory.
There is another unmistakable sign that can show us the difference between the judgments of God in the past, and those that are future: it is how God Himself judges the Gentile nations which bring His severity to Israel.  Look at verse 16 of Jeremiah 30,

Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured; and all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and those who plunder you shall be for plunder, and all who prey upon you I will give for prey.
Has Germany been devoured?  From other texts we know that what we today call Jordan (Edom) and Syria (Moab) are among those nations that will be judged; they are annihilated as nations.  God's judgments are severe upon those nations that have inflicted themselves upon Israel.  The fact that this has not yet taken place shows that we are speaking of something future.
...because they have called you an outcast (verse 17).
Let that word sink in.  An outcast is someone who has been cast out.
It is Zion, no one cares for her (verse 17).
That means that there was no evidence of any mercy being afforded this people.
The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back, until He has performed, and until he has accomplished the intent of His heart; in the latter days you will understand this (verse 24.  Emphasis mine).
Jeremiah 31 brings us into the New Covenant that is made with His restored people, but look first at verse 2,
Thus says the LORD, "The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness-Israel, when it went to find its rest."
Out of the debacle of devastation, flight, persecution, exile and being cast into the wilderness, a remnant of Israel will yet find grace there.  God will prepare for them a place of safety and rest in the wilderness.  There is a further symbolic description of this in Revelation 12:6 where the Dragon seeks to devour the woman, who flees on the wings of an eagle into the wilderness, to a place prepared for her, where she can be fed for three-and-one-half years.  Look how God speaks in Jeremiah 31:4a,
Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel!
Though Jerusalem is called 'the Sodom and Gomorrah' where the Lord Himself was crucified, here God speaks of Israel as a virgin!  How do we understand that?  It is the precious redemptive language of God, despite Israel's historic sins and the fact that we have blasphemed Him in every nation where He has driven us.  When He restores us, it is as if the past is blotted out and the remnant is called 'the virgin' and 'the redeemed of the LORD, with everlasting joy upon their heads."  This is our resurrection glory.  We have a new life and character that is virginal, which is what happens to us when we are saved, but now it happens to a complete nation for the first time.  God's redemptive dealings move from individual salvation to national salvation, and Israel is the first of the nations to experience it.
With weeping they shall come, and by supplications I will lead them (verse 9a).

What will be the root of this weeping?  It is not the sentimental 'kissing of the ground' that we see on our television screens when Jews make return [aliyah] to Israel.  It is the weeping of the recognition of God, whom we have blasphemed and rejected, who has now proven Himself to be our very Deliverer out of a condition in which we would otherwise have found ourselves to be entirely hopeless.  God's returning of Israel to the Land will be one of the greatest miracles of the Last Days.  There will be no confusion at that time as to whether it was the work of man in his own ability and financing rather than the work of God.  It will be utterly supernatural, and at the same time, the magnitude of our sin will be revealed to us.  We will see our condition, our judgments, and God's mercies, and if that does not break our heart for weeping, then nothing will!  It will be the deepest national contrition and remorse ever seen in the history of the human race.  If a grace were not given, we would not be able to bear it.  We will be racked with convulsive sorrow, unable even to repent before each other:
And the land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves.... (Zechariah 12:12).
There will be an incredible depth of recognition of the historical sins of our fathers and ourselves, and the mercy of God that has yet saved us out of it.  Notice the admonition to the nations in Jeremiah 31:10:
Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare in the coastlands afar off, and say, "He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock."
It is not men who have scattered Israel, neither is it adverse nations, the P.L.O. or Arafat.  God may employ such, but it is God who will scatter Israel.  The same God who is the God of severity and judgment is also the God of mercy and return.  Tell that to the nations, because they need to know it.
For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.  And they shall come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the bounty of the LORD-over the grain, and the new wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; and their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again (verses 11-12).
This is clearly a description of something that has not yet come into the experience of Israel as a nation-but it will.  When God promises that they will never languish again, He is speaking of the millennial blessing.  Those who are now trying to bring a false comfort, and saying that Israel need not fear these things, are prematurely invoking a millennial blessedness before the time.  Has there ever been such a moment as this, when careful exegesis of the Scripture is a critical issue of a life-and-death kind for the Church?  We are being required to search the Scriptures, because the issue of whether something is past or future affects everything.
Then the virgin shall rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old, together, for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and give them joy for their sorrow (verse 13.  Emphasis mine).
All of these references to sorrow, mourning and fear are clearly a description of something future.  There is a joy, but this joy will come when God alleviates the mourning and sorrow His own judgments have precipitated; this joy shall be their eternal condition.  There shall never again be a blight of this kind, for there can only be a sorrow and mourning of this kind when one's deepest hope has been made absolutely desolate.  When our hope for a place of security among the nations of the world, exhibiting a character of Jewish civilization of a superior moral and ethical kind,  and which we thought we could have, finally crumbles and goes up in smoke, then shall the sorrow and mourning ensue.  It will be more than just a grief for physical loss; it will be a sorrow and mourning that comes when human hope, devoid of God, is made absolutely barren.
Thus says the LORD, "Restrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded,' declares the LORD, 'and they shall return from the land of the enemy" (verse 16).
For the most part, present emigration to the Land has come from nations that cannot be described as, "the land of the enemy," so, does this scripture describe those who are yet to be their enemies?
And there is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall return to their own territory (verse 17).
It is a final, redemptive event:
Bring me back that I may be restored, for Thou art the LORD my God (verse 18b).
Here is Israel acknowledging their God:
For after I turned back, I repented (verse 19a).
Notice that even the issue of repentance is the work of God, and not of men.  God does not even give Israel the liberty or luxury of performing that act on the basis of their own ability.  In Zechariah 12:10a, God says,
And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son...
That is to say, except that that Spirit be poured out, the depth of mourning necessary for the required repentance will not take place.  Look how absolute God is in His insistence upon Himself being the sole agent of Israel's total redemption.  God is determined to not allow Israel to be the agent of its own restoration, or even its own repentance, that even their capacity to repent is contingent upon the Spirit being poured out upon the house of David!  He will not trust us in anything, so that we can say afterwards, "It was my repentance that turned me," and that "I saw. . ." etc.  If He had not given them that grace, they would not have been able to repent.  God will not share His glory with another.
Israel represents Man in his self-sufficiency, therefore, God has got to demonstrate through Israel that in man, there is no good thing at all; that He is all in all, and must be the God of their restoration as much as He is the God of their judgment.  God is insistent, because, as we have said earlier, Israel needs to see the comparison of millennial Israel, built by God out of His own power, compared to her previous Zionist state, built on her own human prowess and ability.
God must go this far with that nation because Israel and the Jew are mankind in its stubborn and perverse humanity, and God is not going to give us an inch to do anything in which we can boast.  For it will be "from Him and through Him," even the repentance, in order that it might be "to Him" as glory forever.  If we have problems with this view, it is because we are not as absolute as Paul was for God's glory.  We ourselves want to mix in a little bit of what we do with what He does, that we might somehow catch a little bit of that glory.  Our inability to see God's dealing with Israel is the statement of our inability to see God for ourselves.  As the Church, we are projecting on to the state of Israel the liberty that we desire for ourselves, and have not recognized how absolute and jealous God is with regard to His glory forever.
How many of us like to live with God that way?  How many people want to be this destitute of any ability in themselves 'to do' for God?  Paul was not being poetic when he said, "For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things."  He knew this from the reality of his own life in God.  His statement, "For to me, to live is Christ" was not a little generality, but it was the most profound description of Paul's apostolic life and, unless it becomes ours, there will be no fulfillment of the mystery of the Church and Israel.
In Ezekiel 36:23, God's gives His last historical statement to the nations of Himself, by what is to be demonstrated in His conduct towards Israel:
"And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst.  Then the nations will know that I am the Lord," declares the Lord of Hosts, "when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight."
In other words, "You have blasphemed My name in every nation where I have driven you, and do not think that I am bringing judgment on you for your sake, but it is for My holy Name's sake.  Your very expulsion from the Land is the statement of the blasphemy of your sins which demanded this kind of dealing from Me.  But I will be sanctified through you; My holiness will be proven and made apparent to all; through My dealings with you, My name will be rescued and honored again before all nations, and they will recognize that I am your Savior, Redeemer and Restorer, the Mighty One of Jacob."
This clearly does not correspond to any past restoration in Israel's history.  There has been the same pattern of sin, judgment and expulsion, but never this kind of witness or testimony to the nations, or even to Israel's own recognition of the Lord as Lord.  This acknowledgment is crucial, because the nation has a calling to bless all the families of the earth, and we cannot understand the extremity and length to which God will go in this dealing with Israel in painful judgment, devastation, expulsion and return, unless we consider it in the context of Israel's destiny and calling to be a nation of priests and a light unto the world.  The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. They must be fulfilled; His word and covenant must be honoured.

continues >> part 3 of 3 in Chapter 15