[...] The church that understands the issues related to Jacob’s trouble will be able to benefit from the divine intention that God has invested in that time to bring both the church and Israel into their place. Knowledge and acceptance of this truth is crucial if such great and costly judgments and the glorious fulfillment of the prophetic Word will not be lost on our understanding, since it is also through that understanding (particularly of Daniel’s vision) that the true remnant of the church will be able to instruct many (Dan 11:33; 12:3). This instruction will result in the salvation of an innumerable multitude (Rev 7:9) that will come to faith during the time of “the tribulation, the great one” (Rev 7:14; literal translation of the Greed double article). The key of interpretation and understanding will be the difference between life and death. It has always been so, but this is particularly said of “those days” (Dan 12:7; Mt 24:19, 22, 29) in particular.

Not only will Jacob’s trouble straighten Israel to its appointed place; it will also further purify and perfect the church (dn 11:33-35; 12:10). When the first travail of the heavenly woman (“the mother of us all,” i.e., all the elect) is completed with Michael’s eviction of Satan at the mid-point of the last week, then the travail of Israel can begin, which ends in the sudden and supernatural birth of the nation “in one day” (Isa 66:8; Ezek 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10 with Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26 with Isa 59:21; Joel 2:31; 3:14-16 with Mt 24:29).

All the great issues of God’s name and nature, his covenant contention, and pleading with the church, Israel, and the nations will come to its concentrated intensity and fullness, so that the mystery of God can be finished (Rev 10:7; 11:15) with the return of Christ to destroy the Man of Sin (2Thes 2:8) and to re-instate the natural branches for the millennial establishment of the “everlasting covenant”. [...]

[...] That Paul has the same trumpet in view in 1Cor 15:52 is put beyond reasonable question when it is considered that he tells us precisely which time and which resurrection is in view. It is the time of the resurrection of the saints of the Old Testament Isa 25:8; 26:19). It is plainly evident that Paul is deliberately associating the time of the church’s translation with the time of the resurrection of the Old Testament saints. He clearly says that the time of the ‘last trump’ is also the time of the resurrection mentioned in Isa 25:8. This is precisely what Paul is doing when he says, “Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written …” (1Cor 15:54).

When is “then”? Well, to the chagrin of pre-tribulational teaching, “the saying” is written in Isa 25:8, which is undeniably situated in a post-tribulational context. This is ignored by pre-tribulational teaching. Paul’s statement, “then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written,” is passed over in convenient silence. However, then means then, and Paul’s “then” is manifestly the time of the last trump. [...]

[...] Pre tribulational Dispensationalism is a comparatively recent branch of a much larger tree. It is only one form of premillennialism, which has a much longer history. Most of the early church fathers can be quoted to show clearly that they were premillennial, literalistic, and futuristic in their reading of prophecy. The allegorical approach to prophecy, basic to all forms of replacement theology, came much later with Origen and Augustine and has since dominated both Catholicism and Protestantism, but not without many great lights all through church history that continued to hold the plain reading of the prophetic scriptures.

There is one note of ‘half truth’ in this writer’s wild claims. Historically, wherever the scripture has been interpreted literally, there has been a favorable disposition towards the Jew. I believe this owes to one thing in particular. Any plain reading of Scripture gives the strong impression that though God is sometimes especially angry with this people, a closer look will reveal that this special anger is related to a special love, so that regardless how one understands the precise nature of divine election, one gets the impression that whatever it is, the Jew is God’s special witness to it. The Jew represents God’s divine right to choose as He will choose, which is precisely what is being so deeply tested and exposed through the issue of the Jew historically, as will be especially apparent in the coming “controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3). [...]

[...] Through the mystery of the gospel, this grace (the salvation of the coming day) has appeared to all men in unexpected advance of THAT DAY. This is the revelation of the one new man through the mystery of Christ in you (even you gentiles), but this takes nothing from the promise that the gospel will yet be revealed to the beleaguered remnant at the end of Jacob’s trouble. That will be the time of the “restitution of all things spoken by all the prophets since the world began.” To conceive of that restoration as NOT including God’s covenant promise to ‘post-tribulational Israel would have been unthinkable, as it surely was to Paul. Instead, the church, for the larger part, continues to “boast against the branches” to this day, even while Jerusalem trembles (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2), threatening the “literal” fulfillment of all unfulfilled prophecy that has been denied for most of church history.

So despite Jewish unbelief concerning Christ, the covenant places and institutions are still divinely regarded as “holy”. Therefore, when we speak of the rage of the Antichrist against the “holy covenant” (Dan 11:28, 30), we are speaking of Satan’s hatred of Jewish election and right to the Land on the basis of divine predestination. We are NOT suggesting that Jewish worship counts for anything apart from faith in Christ. Manifestly, it does not. Otherwise, their worship would be acceptable. That it is NOT acceptable is shown by the fact that Israel’s greatest discipline and judgment comes at the very time their religious self assurance is reaching its heights [...]

When I was a very young boy, I used to worry deeply about the Jews. I knew nothing of any promise concerning a future hope for them. I knew only that unless they were able to somehow forgive those who had done such things to them, they could not be saved, since Jesus had said [...]