God’s Grand Finale
Without a doubt, the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the focal point of human history. Yet there is a coming Grand Finale of things, that all of human history is pointing to. This isn’t the world that God created. God will judge this one and bring in a New Heaven and a New Earth. God will redo His planet Earth to what it was like when He created it, with Adam and Eve. There will be no more tears and no more sorrow. At that time we, as Christians, will be in our eternal state, in the presence of God and His Son Jesus. We cannot comprehend that, but we are promised it. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.
The real you is not the body that you inhabit, it's your soul and spirit and that's the you that will live forever. In eternity, God will unite to Himself, those whose sins are forgiven, through the blood of His Son. This is our glorious hope. For the saved, the final judgement of the unsaved world is nothing to be frightened about. God tells us these future things to comfort us and give us hope. Titus 2:13 …looking forward for the "blessed hope," and glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. On the other hand this whole subject should terrify those who reject God's free gift of salvation, by grace through faith in Jesus. We have hope because God is going to make everything new.
Before making all things new there will be a future time of the Judgement and Justice of God. It will be “the great time of testing that will come upon the whole earth to TEST those who belong to this world.” As Christians we have been tested and have passed the test. We came out of the darkness and into the light the moment that we received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We are not appointed to wrath.
During the 7 years of judgement described in Revelation chapters 6-18 Satan will be allowed to use his world leader, that we call the Antichrist, to control the world. Let’s examine that coming time of judgment upon the Earth. It is spoken about throughout the Bible. Revelation, the last book of the Bible, just gives us some of the details. God, who stands outside of time, is powerful enough to tell us what will happen in the future. The Bible says, “That God knows the end from the beginning.”
The apostle Peter is clear that that this must happen before God can usher in his promised Kingdom. He tells us to "look forward" to the end of things, when God will make things new. 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment. 11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness. Like all of the authors of the New Testament Peter believed that this would happen in his life time,
OK, we get the point. God has stood back long enough letting this world deteriorate and revel in their sin. There will come a time of judgement that's called The Day of the Lord. The God and Christ rejecting world will be judged and it will not be pretty! About that, I think we can all agree. Now let’s get to some other aspects of this. Jesus did a major teaching about this time of future judgment in Matthew chapter 24. After describing a whole bunch of it, He says in 24:35 “Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.” Jesus is promising us that all His words are true and will be fulfilled. This Day of the Lord is obviously a time to judge sinners and this God rejecting world, but it’s more than that.
This is very important but easily overlooked. Jesus made a requirement for His return. Remember, He told us that all His words will all come true. Jesus pins His return, the Second Coming, on a statement that He made in Luke 13:34-35 and Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. 39 For I tell you this, you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!’”
The promised requirement for the Second Coming of Christ is that the Jewish people will recognize that Jesus is their Messiah and repent and turn to Him. It is also stated that way in Hosea 5:14 I will be like a lion to Israel, like a strong young lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces! I will carry them off, and no one will be left to rescue them. 15 Then I will return to my place until they admit their guilt and turn to me. For as soon as trouble comes, they will earnestly search for me.”
Throughout the Bible, God was calling His chosen people Israel, the Jews, to stop sinning, repent and come to Him. Like the verses above say, Jesus pins His return upon the Jewish people turning to Him, and recognizing that He is “the One who they pierced." They will do that during the Tribulation, and then Jesus can return as King of Kings.
Zechariah 12:8 On that day the LORD will defend the people of Jerusalem… the angel of the LORD who goes before them! 9 For on that day I will begin to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10 “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me “whom they have pierced” (that's Jesus) and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for Him as for a firstborn son who has died.
Israel is the major theme in the Old Testament. It cannot be allegorized away by saying that the Church is the new Israel and has replaced Israel. Satan hates the Jews and will poison the minds of the world against them. Jesus’s words will come true; a remnant of the Jews will repent during the Great Tribulation and be received back to God, to fulfill God’s Word. It says that in the New Testament also. Romans 11:1 I ask, then, has God rejected his own people, the nation of Israel? Of course not!… 2 No, God has not rejected his own people, whom he chose from the very beginning 27 And this is my covenant with them, that I will take away their sins.” 28 Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people he loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29 For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.
If you don’t see this clear distinction between the Church and Israel, you cannot interpret God’s word correctly. Jeremiah 30:7 calls the Tribulation the time of “Jacob‘s trouble." A time of refining for the Jews in witch 2/3 of the Jews will be killed, Zech. 13:8-9, and 1/3 God says, "I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify them like gold. They will call on My name and I will answer them."
That is why the 7 year Tribulation is called of the time of "Jacob’s trouble" it's about the Jews, NOT the Church. Jer. 30:7 Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, But he shall be saved out of it. That's how Paul can say, "that all Israel will be saved," in Rom. 11:26. He’s talking about the remnant that is comes to faith in Jesus. It’s those that the Antichrist attempts to slaughter, in the last 3 1/2 years that Jesus titled the Great Tribulation, Matt 24:21. This time is for the purifying and refining of a “remnant” of the Jewish people, bringing them to Christ as their Messiah. There is always a remnant, even with the true Church in the Dark Ages.
We as Christians are not appointed to wrath! We will never be judged for our sins, they were paid for on the Cross, by our precious Lord and Savior. We have passed the test. In the book of Revelation after chapter 3 the Church is not mentioned again. In Revelation chapter 2 and 3 the “overcomers” of the Church are given promises. They will be seated with Jesus, dressed in white with crowns and are to be Kings and Priests. In the next chapter the Elders of Rev. 4 and 5 are seated on thrones, dressed in white, with crowns and declared to be Kings and Priests. They are the only group that can sing the song of the “redeemed," by the blood of the Lamb in Rev. 5:9-14. The Elders are the Church and are in the Throne Room, with the Lamb. The Church, the Bride of Christ, is not mentioned in the Judgement of the world which starts in chapter six. Don’t miss this point; it is "the Lamb who was slain" that opens the seals of judgment starting in Rev. 6:1. He's my Savior not my Judge. This time is called “the wrath of the Lamb” in Rev. 6:16. Remember it’s the time that Jesus said would be, "the worst time in human history,” Matt. 24:21 and Daniel 12:1-2.
It can’t be overlooked that Jesus taught that the Church is His Bride. Thank God that we as believers are the "Children of God." Jesus said, Rev. 3:10 "I also will keep you (the Church) from" the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth." Note: If you keep someone FROM a train wreck you don't keep them through it. The Church will be called to Heaven as the Bride for its Groom Jesus. This will happen before the time of testing for the Jewish people and that terrible time that is to test the people that Revelation refers to as "the earth dwellers."
Many in the Body of Christ don't see that there is a role and a time for the Church. It starts at the birth of the Church at Pentecost. The Church Age ends, as seen in 1 Thes. 4:17 that’s when those who died will rise first then those who are alive and remain are taken away, or "caught up," in the clouds to "meet the Lord in the air." At that event Jesus does not come to the Earth. The Bible speaks of two events. The first is after Israel is refined and the “earth dwellers” are judged. That’s at the Second Coming, the return of Jesus in Revelation 19. The other is the “catching away” to meet the Lord in the air, where He comes to get His Bride the Church, who is not appointed to wrath.
There is also a role for Israel, as promised to Abraham, Jacob and David. It's a Kingdom for them, ruled by Jesus, the Messiah. You know the lion will lie down with lamb stuff and that Jesus will rule with a rod of iron. I’ve heard it said that this promise of a Jewish Kingdom is inferred or directly stated 1,800 times in the Old Testament and 300 in the New.
At that time we as Christians will be in our eternal state. Maybe this is where Jesus said, for rewards, some will get many cities to rule, and some fewer. Starting with God saying, “Look, I’m creating a new heavens and a new earth” we are shown this Kingdom in Isaiah chapter 65 verses17-25. It tells of the humans that populate the Earth, in the future Kingdom. They will have children and will live as long as trees 65:22 there will be death also.
These are those, Jews and others, who accept Jesus as their Messiah during the Tribulation, and live through it. They are the ones who make it to the end and then to the "sheep and goat judgement" in Matthew 25:31-34. They will enter the Kingdom as mortals as shown in Isaiah 65, Ezekiel 40-48 and Zechariah 14:16-21. The end of this 1,000 year Kingdom there is a rebellion against God in Revelation 20:7-9. These unsaved mortals who rebel must be the children of the believers who entered into the Kingdom. There is no way you can fit the Church into that scenario. We are in our eternal state. Our role during the Kingdom will be to serve the Lord by ruling over their cities as Jesus told us in Luke 19:17-19.
God tells us the future before it happens, to comfort us. As Christians if we miss that point we miss the whole thing. The justice of God must be served on the unbelieving world, and the Jewish people must repent so that God can fulfill his promises.
Prophecy is our hope not our doom. Peter and the first century Church was "looking forward" for their "blessed hope." That’s when Jesus would catch away his Bride the Church to the Father’s house in Heaven. He talked about this in John 14:1-4. What a comfort Isaiah 53 was to the first century Church, and it is for us today. The prophecies of the First Coming were completed exactly as God said. That is because God stands outside of time, knowing the end from the beginning. The prophecies of the end of things, including the Return of Christ, at the end of the Tribulation, will be fulfilled exactly. In the Bible's last words, Rev 22:20, Jesus says, "I am coming soon", then our response is, "Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!"
Alan Clark May 2024