Are you guilty of teaching the antisemitic doctrines of Replacement Theology?
"Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it." Jeremiah 30:7 (KJV)
What is Replacement Theology? It is the pernicious and false teaching that God is finished with the Jews and national Israel, and has replaced the Jews with Christians and Israel with the Church. Sadly it is taught by many in the Christian world today. You don't have to be a Bible scholar to be able to see the hundreds of verses all through the Bible that show a final restoration of Israel in the end.
"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." Romans 11:25-27 (KJV)
Don't misunderstand me by any means, Israel may have been prophetically regathered in 1948 but they as a nation remain in spiritual rebellion to the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. One generation after the horrors of the Holocaust, hospitals in Israel
now perform third trimester abortions. Tel Aviv has somehow become
the LGBT capital of the world. From a Biblical perspective, which is to say God's perspective, Israel is every bit as wicked a nation as the United States of America. But Israel has something that America will never have. They have a covenant with Almighty God to preserve their nation of Israel forever. America tries in vain to claim the promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14 but alas cannot, for it is a promise to Israel alone.
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)
TRIBULATION AS A CONDITION IS NOT THE SAME AS THE EVENT OF THE TIME OF JACOB’S TROUBLE
God's people are the Jewish people, and "their land" is the literal, visible, physical nation of Israel. Christians are never "God's people" in the Bible, we are His redeemed through the work that Jesus did on the cross at Calvary. We are the Church, the Body of Christ, and as such are wholly separate and distinct from the Jews and Israel. We are "elect of God" but we are not "the elect" as that is always a reference to the Jews. When a Jew accepts Jesus Christ in the Church Age, they from that point on are counted with the Church, not with national Israel.
"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."Galatians 3:26-28 (KJV)
So the coming Great Tribulation is not for the Church, as much as our slothful Laodicean generation may deserve it. It is the time in which God will judge the world and finally reclaim His chosen people, the Jews. The Bible never calls this time the 'Great Tribulation', that is a misquote from Matthew 24 where Jesus says there will be 'great tribulation' as an adjective, but not as a definitive noun. Jesus is describing that time, He is not giving it a name or title. That job is given to the prophet Jeremiah.
"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." Matthew 24:21 (KJV)
The Bible name for this period of time is the time of Jacob's trouble, as you see in the verse at the top of this article. Jacob, you'll remember, one of the three patriarchs of the Jewish people, and in fact the one who the nation of Israel is named after. In Genesis we read how the 'deceiver' Jacob wrestled with the Angel of God all night long and prevailed. What was the result of that? God changed his named from Jacob, meaning deceiver, to Israel which means Prince of God.
"And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." Genesis 32:28 (KJV)
"Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it." Jeremiah 30:7 (KJV)
So why wouldn't the prophet Jeremiah say it is the "time of Israel's trouble" instead of Jacob's trouble? Jeremiah wrote long after Jacob's name was changed to Israel. The answer is simple. Jeremiah was given a vision of regathered Israel from 1948 on, and what did he see? He saw a rebellious Israel, an Israel that claimed the Name of God with their lips but denied Him every way else. He saw that Israel had reverted back to being Jacob.
WHAT IS THE POINT OF PUTTING THE BODY OF CHRIST INTO THE TIME OF JACOB’S TROUBLE?
People say to me all the time that it "doesn't really matter what you believe about the events of the Tribulation", as it is not a salvational issue. But this skewed Laodicean thinking is not only dangerous, it's deadly. It does matter how you view the timeline of the events of the Tribulation because it determines in large part your theology. People who, in error, attempt to place the Church in the time of Jacob's trouble can only do it by putting the Church where Israel should be, and as such are guilty of teaching Replacement Theology. They are guilty of stealing promises made to the Jews and Israel alone, and God will have none of that.
The Church is not raptured out for any other reason except for this one reason alone.The time of Jacob's trouble is for Jacob, for Israel, and it has nothing to do with the Church. The Church is not taken because we deserve to be removed, we don't. The Church is not taken because, as some say, "Jesus doesn't want a battered Bride". Christians for 2,000 years have been battered, bruised and bloodied plenty. The Church is removed because our time and purpose has been fulfilled, and now God will hit the "play button" on the paused 70th Week of Daniel's prophecy, and wind things up in grand style.
No where in the Bible do we ever see the Church working side-by-side with Israel.When the Jews failed in reclaiming the Kingdom in the first seven chapters of the book of Acts, God closed the door to them and opened the door for the gentiles to hear and receive the gospel, thus creating what we know as the Church today. When His purpose for the Church is completed, that door will close in the Rapture and the door will reopen to the Jews and Israel, albeit one that will be forged in the "furnace of affliction".
It's the time of whose trouble? Jacob's trouble! Repeat that aloud a hundred times or so in a row and it will all make perfect sense to you.
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