Israel 1948 What Was God Doing — Art Katz

Jacob’s Trouble and Israel’s Future Trial

Jacob's trouble, which is so clearly delineated in Scripture, and for which there seems to be so little anticipation in the church, and that our celebration seems to imply that all of Israel's sufferings and judgments are past, and that we need not anticipate anything future.

So am I doing you a service to say that as a responsible man of God, 37 years in the faith, and inducted into certain understanding of the prophetic Scriptures, I feel clearly and unequivocally that we need to anticipate a time of future trial for the people Israel, and if we have not that anticipation, that when the suddenness of these afflictions come, many of us will be dispirited and disappointed, who thought that it was past, and will wonder where is God, because Jesus Himself spoke of a time of trouble of such severity that it will eclipse anything that the nation has previously known and will again know, and if that time were not cut short, no flesh would survive, but for the elect's sake, that time will be cut short, and then He makes clear that that time of trouble will have its inception in Jerusalem, and I believe that He's speaking of a yet future calamity for Israel.

So there are many texts that I could give in support of a view of this kind, and that we as believers need eminently to be realistic in our anticipations, and to be praying rightly, and to pray for the peace of Jerusalem that does not anticipate first the severest dealings of God with the nation, and to think that some kind of magical glow is going to take place, and that somehow Israel will progressively come into a character more appropriate to its call, progressively and without the need of any kind of calamitous dealing with God, is itself a presumption and a naivety that may well account for what Paul says would be one of the signs of the last days, namely a great falling away, an apostasy, that I think may have something to do with a disillusionment that will come to naive believers who do not really understand the scripture, and even as I have observed tonight, to hear scriptures being quoted and cited that are millennial, and to invoke them in advance of the time as if these scriptures speak of Israel's present condition rather than her future.

Isaiah 4 and the Purging of Jerusalem

So for example, in Isaiah chapter 4, a text that I've never heard anyone ever preach from, speaking about the day of the Lord, and when seven women shall take hold of one man, saying we will eat our own food, wear our own apparel, in that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped.

So here we have a conjunction of something millennial and blessed, the Lord's own coming as the branch of the Lord, beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent for those of Israel who have escaped.

So there's a conjunction between a promise of fulfillment with the Lord's own presence and coming, Israel being a glory in the earth, for survivors. Survivors from what? Because it shall come to pass in verse 3 of chapter 4 that he who is left in Zion, this is the reference to those who have escaped, and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem.

So evidently there's an issue of survival that indicates some kind of calamity of violence, and yet the result of it will be that the survivors will be called holy, coming through a process of God. Described further in verse 4, when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

Israel’s Present Moral and Spiritual Condition

Well anyone who has a heart for truth and visits Israel as frequently and periodically as I have occasion to do, came to the Lord in Jerusalem 37 years ago, have spoken there many times, but I have to tell you now that if I have to go to Israel, I go reluctantly dragging my feet.

There's no joy for me, because I see a city and a nation not prepared for the advent of the Lord Himself, that there's something that jars one's spirit, and if you know anything about the condition of Israel today, the prostitution rings, the extortion rings in high schools, the Satan clubs, that every kind of evil that is rife in the world has also its expression in Israel itself, and the pierced belly buttons, and the tattoos, and every kind of freaky kind of thing that is unbecoming to Jews especially, has a place of prominence in present Israel, wholly out of keeping with the call that we have as a people.

I almost have the feeling, and I can almost say it with an authority, that God has allowed the establishment of the state of Israel, not for its success, but its necessary failure, and that there's a necessity for us to see in the revelation of our own conduct in the past half-century of the existence of the state, and more rightly now, the increase of corruption, of bribery, of prostitution, as I've mentioned.

The Israelis are the greatest gamblers in the Palestinian-owned and operated gambling casino near Jericho. The increase of violence, the employment of torture, and the interrogation of suspected harmless terrorists.

Why? Because Israel has no alternative. If you have a man in your possession and control, who might be able to reveal information by which a future bus bombing, or some other act of violence might be detected, you're not going to ask him to share that over a cup of coffee.

You're going to use such pressure and such violence as will extort the information that will save Jewish lives. Who is the author of the predicament that requires us to act so un-Jewishly, and to reveal the truth of our nature and conduct as men, that the Scriptures have all along indicated, and that we have been unwilling to receive, and called it a Christian view of human depravity, because we're too humanistic, too celebrating of man, and of our own idealism to agree with God of the truth of our human condition, until, if we will not believe it in the Word, we have to see it revealed in our conduct.

Cleansing, Judgment, and the Glory of God’s Presence

Jerusalem needs to be cleansed, and needs to be purged. The filth and the iniquity of her daughters will increase until the time that the Lord will allow that cleansing to take place by a spirit of judgment and burning, and then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies a cloud, and smoke by day, and the shining of flaming fire by night, for over all the glory there will be a covering.

There'll be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, for a shelter from storm and rain. So, in just a few terse verses, we have an indication of survival, of escape, of violence, of purging, of cleansing, but then, as an eternal statement of the acceptability of the city now purged by the judgments of God, is His presence, as it was over the tabernacle of God in the wilderness, now over the holy city and over Zion, a cloud by day and fire by night, a tabernacle, a pavilion, a place of safety and refuge, the indication that the city has been washed and cleansed and befitted for the King who will now make it His eternal habitation.

I'm saying all that to say this, and then I'll stop. We need to be fitted by Scripture to realistically anticipate those things that must shortly come to pass before God makes of Israel a glory in the earth.

We need to face what the Scriptures speak to us in detail, of cities left without inhabitant, of destruction, of violence, of Israel itself saying Jerusalem has become our destruction, of expulsion, of flight, of captivity, of last day's judgments, of an enemy who not only defeats but intimidates Israel and humiliates her by saying lie down and we will walk over you.

Israel’s Chastisement Before Its Redemption

And I believe that we will see the fulfillment of that Scripture in the intense zeal and fanatical Islamic hatred of Israel that will not be placated or requited by any kind of negotiation and must have its expression and fulfillment will be the rod of God's chastisement for a nation that must bear it before it will be made holy.

So I want to pray for you that you come to a place of realism according to the Word of God and that your celebration, however precious, I don't know that I've observed anything more precious and sweet and delightful and wholehearted as I have seen expressed here tonight.

But let there be in the midst of that rejoicing a solemn awareness, a note of sadness that we have to bear knowing that a lot of our celebration will have to be future and not descriptive of the things that are before Israel that precede the glory that we all expect.

But because we know as believers that there's a suffering that precedes the glory and that Jesus may have to say to us what he said to his own disciples about his own disappointment to them. Oh fools and slow of heart, not to believe all that the prophets have written ought not the Messiah to suffer and to die before he ascends to his glory.

There's something intrinsic in the faith for anything appointed to glory, whether it's the Lord or the nation Israel or the church, that there's a suffering that precedes that glory. And Jesus berated his disciples for their naivety and their unwillingness to see in the scripture and the prophets the necessity for his own suffering and death before he ascends to his glory.

Israel’s Priestly Calling and Messianic Destiny

Israel's destiny is glorious. It's not just the success of a nation-state. It's the Zion of God out of which the law shall go forth to all nations and all nations shall come to it and bring their glory and their riches.

God will exalt this nation above all nations after its humiliation, after its dealing, after the judgments that first come, after the chastisement and the brokenness that will make it a priestly nation and be able to be the blessing to all the earth and the families of the earth that God has intended, which we are not now able to perform because of our arrogance, because of our sin, because of our unwillingness to agree with the Word of God about the truth of our condition as Jews being men and therefore have to suffer those judgments that are inevitable before the redemption and the glory.

The Church’s Preparation for Worldwide Suffering

So let the note of sadness come in not to dim our joy but to bring a reality and an anticipation of that which is future with a realistic understanding that it must first be prefaced by a trial worldwide for which the church needs to be alerted and to be and to anticipate or it's likely that they'll not be any Jewish survival at all.

Remember that the redeemed of the Lord shall return to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads after mourning and sighing shall flee away and I'm saying in the authority that is mine and the call that is mine prophetically in God that there's a mourning and sighing future for present Israel and world Jewry that we need realistically to expect.

A Prayer for Discernment, Refuge, and Redemption

So Lord in Jesus name if I have spoken your heart if you have brought me here to sound a note my God that is unwelcome I'm reluctant to speak it in any way to diminish the precious joy that I see expressed by these saints if nevertheless is there something that needs to come in point of time into their consciousness into their understanding that needs to be factored in to their whole anticipation of Israel's future that they might be realistic and prepared to anticipate and be fitted to provide the mercy by which there shall be survival and redemption for those who shall escape then my God let this word be registered upon the hearts of the people who love your truth because they love you and that they will be able to bear it and search the scriptures and see if these things are true and to be anticipated.

And what realistic preparation must we make if this is not to be confined to the Jews that are in Israel but is a global time of Jewish suffering the time of Jacob's trouble wherever Jacob is and for which reason you have brought me to northern Minnesota a hundred miles from the Canadian border for 27 years to live in Arctic temperatures because we received a divine commandment to establish a place of refuge for Jews in flight from persecution in North America.

So my God take this word if I'm in error if I'm a false prophet I almost prefer that I would be that that we need not expect this kind of painful scenario then dismiss this sharing and let these children come back again into their enjoyment of yourself and their happy expectancy for for Israel's deliverance from her present foe.

But if this is your heart and this is your word let it not fall to the ground let it find a place in in the heart and the consciousness and the consideration of your serious Saints that together with their joy is their realistic anticipation of those things that must shortly come to pass which will fit us to be a redemptive agency of of help save your people to Israel in their final ultimate distress and able even to explain to them what why these things had befallen them and that they were in the scriptures and that we knew it by virtue of the Word of God and by his spirit.

And therefore we have this preparation for you in your time of distress that you might be saved out of it bless this people guide them in their understanding their prayer and in their rejoicing. And thank you my God for the privilege of sounding a note that is not likely to come to them from many speakers but from the one or two or the rare men whom you have appointed to bear the burden of those things prophetic that must be communicated according to the Word of God in Jesus name I pray and God's people as much as they were able said amen.