[...] God is making a point that will reverberate in the Jewish soul for a thousand years. I want to show in what follows that it is very significant to God’s purpose that the Jerusalem that falls under the power of the Antichrist (Rev 11:2; 13:5) has first come under the control of the orthodox, if not entirely, at least to an unprecedented extent. (Compare Ps 83:12; Isa 28:14-15; 63:18; 64:10-11; Dan 8:13; 9:26-27; 11:22, 31, 36-37; 12:11; Mt 24:15, 20; 2Thes 2:4. ).

The picture one gets from these passages is of a Jerusalem that has accommodated the desire of certain orthodox sects of Judaism to rebuild the temple and restore the ancient ritual of animal sacrifice. This suggests sweeping changes in the current policies of the secular government, since under present circumstances; such a scenario is clearly out of the question. Something’s got to give! [...]

[...] The goal of Jacob’s trouble is to bring the Jew to an end of His own power. It is significant that this is precisely the place where Jesus is revealed to the Jewish heart, namely, at the end of power (“when He sees that their power is gone …” compare Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7). This is because the strength of the veil that is over the Jewish heart, and indeed over every natural heart, stands in what scripture calls, “the pride of your power” (Lev 26:19). It is what Paul calls, “confidence in the flesh” (2Cor 1:9; Phil 3:3-4). When this is taken away, so is the veil in the revelation of the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor 3:18; 4:6).

I believe the suffering of the Jews during the time of Jacob’s trouble will be different from all other times of covenant curse and judgment, because this time, their suffering will be in the full light of a powerfully declared and fully vindicated display of prophetic fulfillment. (Prophecy as mercy! Rev 19:10).

The presence of a prophetic people that have the key of interpretation (Dan 11:33) and who, because of the liberating power of the gospel, love not their lives unto the death (Rev 12:11), will be the difference between Jacob’s trouble and the Holocaust. One ends with the ultimately humanistic declaration, “never again!” While the other ends by the acceptance of Israel’s history of tribulation as all together just and not unequal to the nation’s corporate guilt (Lev 26:41-43; Hos 5:15; Zech 12:10). Such a corporate acknowledgment will indeed be a miracle of revelation and grace.

So we are to bring into Israel’s consciousness something much more than the case for the supernatural fulfillment of prophecy. We are to study how to press upon Jewish consideration the ancient covenant contention that has burned throughout the long age of exile and that must continue to burn to the end of Jacob’s trouble, when the face of God will be no longer hidden from a then fully regenerate (Isa 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; 66:8; Jer 31:34; Ezek 39:21, 29) and restored nation. [...]

[...] When it comes to Israel’s unbelief, it is amazing to see all that conspires to reinforce it. Not only centuries of “Christian” antisemitic behavior, but even how certain verses are translated, let alone interpreted, compounds the distance between church and synagogue. Take for example the Jewish translation of Zech 12:10. Compare it with most Christian translations and you will see what I mean. Of course, Christian linguists, such as Walter Kaiser in his book, “the Messiah in the Old Testament” argues the translation question with decisive evidence for the messianic interpretation. But the average believer must take considerable pains to be informed. It may be effective on some occasions, but it’s not always quite as easy as quoting Zech 12:10 as proof that the Jewish nation pierced their own Messiah. .

Or take Dan 9:25-26. Our translations stress our Christian conviction that the anointed one that is “cut off” is the Messiah by capitalizing the word for anointed and translating the passage with a definite article, “the Messiah the Prince”. This is all legitimate, but the informed Jewish position sees this as speaking only of “an anointed prince,” which they typically interpret as referring to Onias III, the officiating high priest who was murdered when Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Jewish alter in the 2nd century B.C, who, of course, became the great archetype of the Antichrist in later apocalyptic literature. [..]

[...] The approach builds around the well known story of Joseph, as type and parable of both comings of Christ to Israel. The idea is to begin with a couple of key portions of Old Testament prophecy in order to establish a simple outline of the prophetic future, particularly as it pertains to the relationship of Christ’s two comings to Israel. This will provide a convenient frame of reference that can enable and equip any believer to make the case for the mystery of the gospel in the Old Testament, particularly in its relationship to Israel and the events that conclude the age.

To introduce the subject matter, I sometimes begin with people’s universal familiarity with the story of Bethlehem as an opportunity to show them the amazing prophecy in Mic 5:2, pointing out its great antiquity (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then call their attention to an even less known feature of that prophecy in the next verse. “Therefore shall He (Yahweh) ‘give them up’ UNTIL the time that she who travails has brought forth; then shall the remnant of His brethren return to the children of Israel (Mic 5:3). It is the age long “giving up” of Israel, but we want to identify the cause of this abandonment as something more ultimately provoking of divine displeasure than covenant failure in general. [...]