When Will the Remnant of Israel Be Saved?

 

When Will the Remnant of Israel Be Saved? - Dennis Edwards

Will the Jewish people who have often used the name of Jesus as a swear word, finally come to accept the name of Jesus as God the Son, the Holy One of God? In the writings of Zechariah, it seems to indicate one-third of the Jewish population living in Israel at the time of the Battle of Armageddon, (or Ezekiel 38-39 or Daniel 11:36-45), shall come to Christ, be saved, and call upon His name. Let’s look at some of the verses.

First, we’ll look at Zechariah 12:9.

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”

Remember, it is the Antichrist forces found in Ezekiel 38-39, and likewise found in the king of the north in Daniel 11:40-45, that have come down to chastise or eliminate the Israelis. In Psalm 83 we read, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.” That’s the aim of the Antichrist forces: eliminate the Jewish people once and for all.

In Ezekiel 38:16, the Lord tells us He will use Gog, who is the Antichrist, to punish Israel for her sins against humanity. “And thou shall come up against my people of Israel; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the nations may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.”

God allows Gog, who is the Antichrist or beast of Revelation 13, to come down and punish Israel for her sins. Zechariah 13:8-9 tell us that two-thirds of the Jewish population of the state of Israel shall die in the war that will take place. One-third will survive because they have turned to Jesus and repented of their unbelief.

“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, says the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and I will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord (Jesus) is my God.”

The turning to the Lord seems to take place at the end of the tribulation period. Remember, during the 1,260 days of tribulation the two sack-clothed prophets shall prophesy in Jerusalem. They seem to have supernatural power reminiscent of Elijah and Elisha, or Moses of old. Let us read from Revelation 11:5-6.

“And if any man will hurt them, fire proceeds out of their mouth, and devours their enemies: and if any man hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.”

Just before Jesus returns in the rapture/resurrection event of Matthew 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days,” the two prophets will be killed by the Antichrist forces, Revelation 11:7.

“And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified, (in other words in Jerusalem). And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them,” Revelation 11:8-12.

It seems the two prophets will be killed at the end of their prophesying during 1,260 days of tribulation. They will lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three and a half days before the rapture/resurrection event occurs at the end of the tribulation. The seventh angel will sound the seventh trumpet and shout, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever,” Revelation 11:15.

Remember, there are seven trumpets of tribulation found in Revelation 8-10. There are seven vials of the wrath of God found in Revelation 16. The trumpets of tribulation bring a one-third destruction when they are sounded. The vials of the wrath of God bring a more total destruction. Christ returns in the clouds to rescue His elect at the seventh trumpet before the vials of His wrath are poured out.

“For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so, shall we ever be with the Lord,” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

In 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 Apostle Paul tells us that it’s at the last trump, the seventh, when the Lord will come in the clouds in the rapture/resurrection event.

“Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep (in death), but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

Strangely enough in Revelation 10:7 when the seventh trumpet is to be sounded by the seventh angel, “the mystery of God should be finished, as He has declared to His servants the prophets.” Could the mystery that John was told not to write about a few verses early, and told to seal up, in fact be the rapture/resurrection event. Apostle Paul, as a cross-reference, unveils that mystery in 1 Corinthians 15, when he says, “Behold, I show you a mystery.”

Going back to Revelation 11:18 we see that “the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and should destroy them which destroy the earth.”

We see that the wrath of God is beginning on earth. God will judge those that were destroying the earth with their bombs, their instruments of war, with their chemicals, and atomic waste. At the same time, the raptured/resurrected saints are being judged and rewarded according to their works in the Heavenly realm.

It is at the time of the rapture/resurrection event that that one-third of Israel finally come to believing in Jesus as the Messiah, and Son of God. We read it in Zechariah 12:10-11a.

“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications (prayer): and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem. … And the land shall mourn every family apart.”

When would the Jewish people be able to “look upon Him whom they have pierced?” As usual, Scripture will interpret Scripture. Where else does it talk about seeing Jesus coming in the clouds? Let’s look at Revelation 1:7.

“Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.”

Now let’s look at Matthew 24:30-31, which speaks of Jesus coming in the clouds immediately after the tribulation.

“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, (the seventh trump), and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Therefore, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the Jewish people, that one-third still surviving from the wars of the Antichrist, will see Jesus coming in the clouds. They will see the two prophets who were dead come back to life, stand on their feet, and be raptured into the heavens. They will look upon Him whom they had pierced. Though the Roman soldier actually pierced Jesus’ side and out came blood and water, but the Roman soldier was only fulfilling His obligation. It was the Jewish religious and secular authorities who demanded Jesus’ death, when the secular Roman ruler, Pontus Pilate, was willing to let him go.

The repentance at that time in Jerusalem will be complete. All the different levels of Jewish society will repent and mourn and accept Jesus as their Lord.  “They shall call on My name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord (Jesus) is my God,” Zechariah 11:9b.

As a results, In Zechariah 14:1-4 we read, “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, … For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, … Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle (in the past). And His feet, (of the Messiah Jesus Christ at His second coming), shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.  … and the Lord My God shall come, and all the saints with the.”

There shall be a great earthquake that causes Jerusalem to split in two. During the seventh vial of the wrath of God, just before the beginning of the Millennium we find the same earthquake.

Revelation 16:17-18 “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. … and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”

We find the same imagery in Ezekiel 38. In the beginning of the chapter God had called Gog to come and punish Israel for her sins. From Zechariah we see that two-thirds of the Jewish people are killed in the war that takes place. At the rapture/resurrection event, one third of the Jewish people convert to faith in Jesus. Jesus decides to fight for them and destroy the Antichrist and his forces. At the end of the battle, only one-sixth of the Antichrist’s fighting men are living, Ezekiel 39:2a.

We can read from Ezekiel 38:18-23.

“And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog (who is the Antichrist) shall come against the land of Israel, says the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel, (an earthquake); So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

“And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, says the Lord God: every man's sword shall be against his brother, (sounds like civil-war), And I will plead against him (Gog who is the Antichrist) with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus, will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Gog, who is the Antichrist, shall get judged on the mountains of Israel. Jesus shall land on the mount of Olives. A great earthquake takes place. The wrath of God is finishing up and the Millennium is about to begin. A new thousand-year period of peace on earth begins, with Jesus and His saints ruling the world from Jerusalem.

To view the difference between the Tribulation and the Wrath of God click here.