A Fiery Furnace
A Fiery Furnace
(The series of five essays which immediately precedes this message may be read in "The Tribulation Church" at www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz)
The vehement contention of the last of the Last Days is going to threaten existence itself. It is going to push both Israel and the Church to the brink of the abyss of destruction. Therefore, any person (Jew or Christian especially) who actually believes that life on earth will be "business as usual" during this epoch, is either ignorant or crazy...or both!
That is why God is crying out for a revolution in and of the Church. In the days of our "infancy" (Ac 15), the leaders of the Christian Community miraculously embraced and implemented one such revolution, when they "legislated" for Gentiles to become Believers without first of all "converting" to Judaism. This was a monumental paradigm shift. Had these people been unwilling or incapable of making such a massive alteration, it is not unthinkable that Christianity would have remained a little Jewish Sect, which vanished in the inferno of the 69-70AD Roman siege of Jerusalem.
By the 1500s the Gospel was sinking into a quagmire of unbiblical dogma and religious culture. Fortunately, there were those then capable of being spiritually and intellectually stretched beyond measure and "overturned". These began to espouse an expression of Christianity in which the dispensation of the grace of God was not exclusively tied to and thus ordered and limited by a "professional" priesthood and its "legal" sacraments (i.e. "religious ceremony or act regarded as outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace").
Praise God for the shock waves the formidable, German Reformer, Martin Luther, broadsided into the "establishment" when he dared to believe and teach that "a poor serving girl, if she has the Holy Spirit, is as well able to understand the Scriptures as the Pope himself."
Similarly, as the calendar ticked over into the 20th C, there were believers who "got over" themselves and refused to panic when the Holy Spirit moved His Gifts out of the ecclesiastical museum, put them back on the front-burner, and turned up the heat to "high"!
The end of The End is the enthronement of Heaven's King for this planet, which will take place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The challenges to existence itself during this season will therefore have their focus and locus in Israel...people, nation and State. Here are some of the reasons why:
(1) God has ordained that His Son, our King, will return to the acclamation of a believing, Jewish Jerusalem.
"For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' " (Mt 23.39)
This passage of Matthew 23.37-39, contains three distinct prophecies from our Lord Jesus Christ. Two (His rejection by Jewish Jerusalem, and His abandonment of the city and its Temple to destruction and ruin) have already been plainly, and before the eyes of the whole world, fulfilled. The third will likewise be effected. But this will take place in the midst of horrendous, catastrophic conflict (which has been foreshadowed in WW2 and the Holocaust).
At the root of this lies (not only murderous, demonic anti-Semitism) but also "the prince of this world's" utter and complete hatred of the true King. (1) Jesus' enthronement means the devil's dethronement...and he will fight for his own existence, caring for the existence of no one else, not even God! This is no light matter to be addressed by a couple of cutesy-pie choruses, a franchised message, and a pot-luck dinner. It will require a revolution of and in the Church, according to Matthew 21.13, Mark 11.17 and Luke 19.46.
Israel's very existence is again about to be contested and threatened to the uttermost...and with her, existence itself on earth! "How can this possibly be?" I hear you dry-mouthedly enquire.
In the 1930s, a singular, Reformed theologian in Germany went toe-to-toe with the "antichrist" Hitler. His name was Karl Barth (1886-1968). Reflecting later upon this awful (and extremely prophetic) period of history, he wrote (2) that any denial of Israel was "a denial of Jesus Christ and therefore finally, of God Himself...The man who is ashamed of Israel, is ashamed of Jesus Christ and therefore of his own existence."
At present, among those who are sympathetic and supportive of God's Jewish People and the State of Israel, there is a call for the Church to return to its "Jewish Roots"? If this means anything other than a renewed cleaving unto Jesus Himself as the true root of the ancient Olive Tree (into which we "wild olive" shoots have been "grafted" - Ro 11) then the call is bunkum and hocus-pocus.
"If the root is holy, so are the branches." (Ro 11.16)
"The root of Jesse shall come, he who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles hope." (Ro 15.12)
"Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered." (Rev 5.5)
"I Jesus...am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star." (Rev 22.16)
This biblically famed picture of the Olive Tree-Israel-Church, commands Christian love for the Jewish People, ancient and modern. Why? Because they have only ever existed, and exist today, upheld in His Covenant with Abraham, by the Root who "is the same yesterday and today and for ever." (Jn 8.58, Heb 13.8)
That is why one such as Karl Barth can assert that the Lord Jesus "the Servant of God who came from Israel", and Jesus, the "Saviour of all peoples", are "two realities inseparable from each other...for the whole of history, indeed for all eternity. Israel is nothing apart from Jesus Christ...Jesus Christ would not be Jesus Christ apart from Israel."
That is why he even more strongly (perhaps for some, shockingly?) can insist, "Anyone who is in principle hostile to the Jews, must also be seen as in principle an enemy of Jesus Christ." (3)
Who, if not the Church, is going to labour in prayer to oppose the "great red dragon" who has already sought to "devour" the "male child (who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron)", brought forth by the "woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars"?
Who, if not the Church, is going to pray for this "woman", still fiercely pursued by the dragon who continues to pour "water like a river out of his mouth...to sweep her away with the flood"? (Rev 12)
(2) God has gathered His beloved Jewish People into The Land to be saved..."but only as through fire". (1 Co 3.15) The Messianic scholar, David Baron (1855-1926, England) plainly foresees these events in his exposition of Ezekiel 22.17-22: "It is clear that there is a time of purging by fiery judgement awaiting Israel after their return to their land, which will immediately precede their national conversion and the revelation to them of the Messiah, whom, as a nation, they have so long rejected."
The issue of Jesus our King's return, is the issue of the presence of a believing Jewish Community in Jerusalem. And the issue of just such a Company, spiritually awakened and restored unto Jesus, is the issue of remnant-Israel being present in The Land...even as "all the nations of the earth" circle for "the kill"!
satan and his nations will view Jerusalem (and The Land too!) as a vessel of final destruction. But God's grace is to triumph and will make this instrument of apparent death like unto the "burning fiery furnace" of Daniel 3 - to be sure, stoked by "Nebuchadnezzar" (4) - but wherein walks "the Son of God" their Saviour (v25) who "chastises every son whom he receives". (Heb 12.6)
"So all Israel will be saved...the Deliverer will come from (and 'to' according to Isaiah 59.20-21) Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob." (Ro 11.26-27)
"And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of burning." (Isa 4.3-4)
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child." (Zec 12.10)
Who, if not the Church, will toil and go "up into the breaches" (rent by Jewish apostasy and satan's jealous hatred) or build up "a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord"? (Eze 13.5)
Who, if not the Church, is that "man" who will "build up the wall and stand in the breach" before God "for the land", that He "should not destroy it?" (Eze 22.30)
There is really nothing anywhere at this time within the local church movement, which even faintly or vaguely approximates the kind of prayer-engine and intercessory commitment which the days now breaking over us (and intimated above) so completely and totally require.
The revolution required of and in the Church is nothing other than the most radical and unconditional transition from all of the many and various "churches" (family-focused, seeker-friendly, revival, youth-oriented etc etc) to being "a house of prayer".
And this House will be simple and profound; obvious and mysterious! In the Last Hour, the Tribulation Church will give the first, the greatest portion and the best of its prayer (and substance!) for the salvation of "all Israel"...because that is the issue of the glory of God,
"For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen." (Ro 11.36)
It is the issue of the Parousia of the King,
"The Deliverer will come from (& to) Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins." (Isa 59.20, Ro 11.26-27)
And it is the issue of the consummation of this Age (Mt 13.39),
"Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean...for if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" (Ro 11.12&15)
The Last Church will be empowered to "forget itself and be itself", and step out of the frantic and competitive "grace queue", because of the promises of these verses immediately above. God's promises are clearly and unequivocally that Israel's "full inclusion" will mean yet greater enrichment by grace for the Gentiles; their "acceptance" will unlock ultimate revival (during which raising the dead becomes commonplace!) for the world.
The Church as "a house of prayer" is not only God's "ark" for survival through the last of these Last Days..."life together" constructed and maintained through worship and intercession. It will also be the prayer-vehicle whereby God ensures the dispensation of His power to preserve through extreme chastening unto total salvation, every son and daughter of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob alive upon the face of the earth at the time.
Such is our Lord Jesus Christ's agenda. If it fails to become our personal and corporate vision and task, then we risk reducing ourselves to the role of culpable bystander and witness to history's (and even existence's) ultimate moment of crisis and divine intervention.
"The distant sounds of our Master's chariots are already heard," says the Messianic "father", David Baron, "and Jesus Christ is coming quickly to render to every man according to his work.
"Who will be up and doing? Who will rise to the Lord's help against the mighty? Who by their prayers and substance will help to carry the gospel message to poor scattered Israel?"
(1) "And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth." (Rev 12.4) "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt...for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." (Mt 2.13)
(2) "Dogmatics in Outline" by Karl Barth (Harper & Row, NY 1959)
(3) As the Apostle Peter expounds (1 Pe 2.6-7), Jesus is both the "founding" and the "finishing" stone of God's House. It defies all logic, and sanity itself, to accept one completely crucial building block, and reject the other?
(4) Nebuchadnezzar, who invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem, and destroyed it and the Temple.
