"Pre-Evident Grace" -- a.k.a. The Real Meaning of Foreknowledge

This was a post I made in the comments on one of Elizabeth Prata's recent posts about Calvinism. I had remarked that the Bible itself was the strongest argument for the doctrines of grace, because after you hear all the preachers make their case, you are left with the undeniable fact that the Bible says God elects people for salvation not based on what they do. In fact, the Bible says faith is a gift, so how can faith be something you give to God to make Him save you? It can't.

I ended my first post by saying that those who don't accept Calvinism, ultimately, then, are not treating the Bible as if it is inerrant or authoritative. Someone replied that non-calvinists can believe the Bible's inerrant. I agree, it's possible, but here is what I had to say:


If you believe the Bible is inerrant in theory, then show that you believe it in practice.

When the Bible says this: "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. " (Romans 8:29-30),

then acknowledge that God decides where someone will spend eternity BEFORE the call (contemporaneous with regeneration and initiation of conversion), and before they become a believer who has faith in God (which is justification). The eternal destiny is set before belief begins. How then can anyone say that God decides to save people based on what they will believe? You can say that God knows the future, that is undoubtedly true -- BUT it misses the point that the logical sequence of God's actions from God's perspective are laid out in these verses, and it shows that God follows a sequence.

Foreknowledge is, (and this is yet another exciting proof of the doctrine of Illumination, because I had reasoned to this before) as John MacArthur recently said in a radio broadcast, not a mere knowledge of the future. In fact, the verse specifically does NOT say that it is the *future* that God knows (He does know it, but it's not the context), it is **those He justifies** that He knows.

This is an article from Grace To You confirming my statement about JMac's view.

What then is foreknowledge? God has an intimate relationship with certain people, others He does not. And as a merciful God, He would never enter into close communion with someone and then cast them off afterward. The point of foreknowledge is to show that God doesn't choose people based on their belief in Him -- He chooses people based on what sort of relationship He is going to have with them. Those whom He will be to as a Father, those He will secure eternally for salvation, and ensure that before earthly death, that He will justify them by faith and give them the right to be called children of God.

When I understood this passage, I understood why I naturally comprehended the qualities of God like omniscience, omnipotence, goodness, Biblical infallibility etc, long before my crisis of faith that led to my conversion whereafter I *consciously* apprehended the Gospel and can claim salvation by grace through faith. I was a nominal believer before, but I can see God's hand in my life keeping me from the kinds of behavior patterns (sexuality and drugs being obvious examples) that beset so many others I've heard stories from. I was morally upright, in a limited human sense, and it was by the grace of God, because I was not spiritually regenerate, just well behaved and with a good brain. I believe that God, knowing that I *would* be brought into a right relationship with Him as His child, extended "pre-evident grace" (if you will humor me making up a new word) to me even during the time of my life that I lived without the full knowledge of salvation.

That is foreknowledge. It is not "knowing that I would choose Him." It is knowing that He would choose ME, and ensuring that as a consequence, He would lead me by His Spirit to come to an eventual understanding of the Gospel that I might be saved through the hearing of the word preached.

If someone insists that Romans 8 implies that God saves men based on knowing that they will believe on their own, then they are not honoring the Word and even if they insist that it is infallible, they are not submitting to what it plainly says and are not in practice treating the Word as if it is true, or authoritative.

That is my lengthier treatment of this matter. I hope I neither seemed too harsh or too soft. It's a serious issue but it doesn't make someone a heretic -- it does require your repentance, though.

Thanks for reading.

~ Rak Chazak

Blog Post #300! and "The Audacity of Nope"

In just under two years, I've posted 300 individual articles on this blog. That's an average of one every two days, or 3 a week, or 10 a month. Not quite so much as to be a distraction for me from life in flesh and blood, and not quite so rare as to be defunct, a blog of little potential impact on others. I'm happy with what I've been able to accomplish with it, while because of the comparably light expenditure of effort it takes to blog, I'm driven to seek to do more.

I do have a deadline, after all. I have a list of content I want to get through within the next 2 years, particularly subjects pertaining to basic theological truths and also some contemporary treatises (addressing persecution, eschatology, and "how then shall we live?" type questions) -- because once I am married, I can't exactly write as a 'Single Christian Guy' anymore, can I? And while I'm working on "finishing/completing" the blog, I'll be undertaking academic and professional efforts to become financially self-reliant, to free me to be able to responsibly engage a young woman in courtship. Have you noticed that my biggest running goals are directly tied to two of my core identities (which are really emphases of one)? -- To glorify God as His servant, and to be a Christlike husband for a woman who I will in the course of time be introduced to.

I am ever grateful to God for having freed my mind from worldly thinking, so as to enable me to comprehend marriage as He designed it, and to be able to love a woman with the same character of sacrificial love that He exhibits for us. I yearn for the opportunity to give back what I have gained, in the most powerful way possible on this side of eternity.

*   *   *   *   *                    *   *   *   *   *

That brings me to the second part of this post. Love is a great thing to give and receive, but the thing about love is that it's volitional. That means that it's a conscious choice. And anything subject to choice is subject to the possibility of the choice being either "YES" or "NO." So the existence of love implies the existence of the right of volitional agents (human beings) to choose not to love.

A universe where the creations can love is a universe with greater displays of God's qualities (one of those being Love), and therefore is a more perfect universe than one wherein which there is complete obedience but no love because there is no free agency, no volition.

This leads to some shocking contrasts between God's nonhuman creations and rebellious humans. Here are two quotes, one by a Church father of recent history, and one from a contemporary pastor, that make use of this point to challenge those who defy God.

"I set before you an open door. I set before you Jesus the Savior who died for sinners on the cross, Jesus able to save to the uttermost, Jesus willing to receive. Go to Him first and foremost if you would know what step to take. Go to Him in prayer and cry, "Lord, save me or I perish! I am weary of sleeping—I desire to sleep no longer." Oh! "awake you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light."

Sun and moon and stars are all witnessing against you; they fill their place in creation, and you do not. Sabbaths and ordinances are witnessing against you: they are all proclaiming there is a God, there is a judgment, and you are living as if there were none. The tears and prayers of godly relations are witnessing against you: others are sorrowfully thinking you have a soul, though you seem to forget it. The very gravestones you walk past this night are witnessing against you; they are silently whispering, "Life is short and death is near," all, all are saying, "Awake! awake! awake! "Oh, brethren, the time past may surely suffice you to have slept. Awake to be wise, awake to be safe, awake to be happy. Awake, and sleep no more!" ~ J C Ryle, The Ten Virgins

“God beckons storm clouds and they come. He tells the wind to blow and the rain to fall, and they obey immediately. He speaks to the mountains, 'You go there,' and He says to the seas, 'You stop here, and they do it. Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator...until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say, 'No.” ~ David Platt, Radical

Do not be amazed when you see the amazing intricacy of created nature, and then look to nations and families and individuals and see chaos and disorder. Do not be amazed. If something is wrong in the world, it is because we have refused to do things God's way. Do not be amazed. We were told beforehand.

Knowing this, can there be any wonder why I'm so excited to pursue God's model of romance? How I can get such delight from contemplating it as my duty to first and foremost serve my wife, for her greatest good? It's how God wants us to live. Selflessly. There was never anyone more selfless than Jesus Christ, who gave up His right to sit comfortably in Heaven and rule, in order to die in our place for the sins we deserve Hell for, to make it possible that we could be forgiven without dispensing with God's perfect justice that required a penalty to be paid. This is love. And if the Bible teaches that I symbolically represent Christ as the husband in my marriage to my wife, then how could I possibly approach that union with the idea that my own comfort and pleasure is paramount? I derive so much more joy out of living out the expression of grace and unconditional love and inseverable commitment that I've been extended by my Savior; imitating my King in grateful submission to His will, since I know His precepts are given to me for my good.

Is there a woman out there who desires a man like that?

I'll meet her at exactly the right moment. "Many are the plans of a man, but the Lord directs His steps."

~ Rak Chazak

Treatise: Confessions of a Smart Guy

Originally posted in late December 2012 in Journal Green. Names have been changed.

In Journal 8 earlier, I was writing about how I mistakenly overestimate people’s capacity to understand me (and in many cases in online arguments, the ability to think clearly and reason logically). I’m averse to thinking about this, because I realize I’ll have a tendency to be dismissive and “look down on” their intelligence. This is rather arrogant, since I’d be acting as if I’m so much smarter and wiser and more knowledgeable. But then, experience has repeatedly proven to me that I AM smarter than most people I encounter, and this makes things confusing for me. In theory, I realize acknowledging that you’re smarter or wiser than someone else/others isn’t inherently arrogant or presumptuous, if it happens to be true. So the danger then is in thinking highly of oneself for being smart. If I want to tell myself that I’m more intelligent than the vast majority of people out there, in order to make sense of reality (mind you), then I must do this in such a way that I do not think of myself as being better than others because of it. Pan out for a bit and consider that this is difficult or impossible to do if you don’t believe in God. If your universe is naturalistic and materialistic, what is your standard for determining if something is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or if one thing is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than another? Your estimate of worth would likely be pragmatic or merit-based. Without God, if you are smarter than someone else, then clearly you are better than they are, at least in that one sense! This kind of reasoning is inevitable when you pay no heed to the Cross and what it means—in this context, what it means about human goodness and the question of what makes one thing ‘better’ than another.

Consider briefly some evidence to confirm my reasoning here. Men without the Spirit—or men denying the Spirit’s power—will inevitably reveal that they think they are better than you (if not you per se, then at least someone). Christlessness is arrogance, because the fruit of the Spirit is humility [note: I checked and this one is not directly mentioned by name in the Galatians 5 passage, but it certainly wouldn’t be inconsistent]. Atheist Libertarian Guy thinks he’s better than me because he has more money—was born into more privilege. Grumpy Old Man thinks he’s better than me because of his age and life experience (and strangeliest, his daughter’s accomplishments). Depraved Greek Orthodox Guy thinks he’s better than me because of his academic accomplishments and (supposed) intelligence (Grumpy also boasts of his two Master’s Degrees). These are the more obvious blokes of which I have recent memory. I posit that their desire to assert themselves as being better than me has its foundation in their lacking theological views. Both Grumpy and Depraved would claim to be christians, but assuredly believe in a works-based soteriology. Libertarian Jerk, not having the luxury of pretending to belong to the Church, naturally has only the works-based option open to him. But the Cross says that there are none who do good—none, then, who are good. We are all in the same bucket, believers and unbelievers alike. God the Father looks down from heaven and sees two kinds of people: bad people, and Jesus. That’s it! Being a Christian does not mean nor make (by definition) you a better person. It means you are better off.

Likewise, then, I can take this knowledge and apply it to my intellect. See, I only have this wonderful ability to think the way I do by the Grace of God. My intelligence is a gift from my Father. And salvation is also a gift from God. You can’t earn a gift, and receiving a gift is not because you’re better than those who did not receive it. A gift reflects on the character of the giver, not the recipient. And so, if all the things I have, salvation included, are free gifts from God, then in the same vein as of salvation, none of these gifts are an avenue for me to brag. They are not for me to think highly of myself, but of God. They are not occasion for me to boast, or to make my name great. What God has given, God can take away.

About that Scarlet Thread.

I flipped on the radio as I drove up to the YMCA parking lot yesterday, and someone on one of the Christian-radio stations I get in my area was reading from Genesis, specifically the scene where Joseph ultimately reveals himself to his brothers. But first, he tests them.

For those who don't know, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, out of envious anger because he was their father's favorite son. They then deceived Jacob, their father, into believing that Joseph was dead. Benjamin was Joseph's brother by the same mother (the 12 tribes of Israel being born from 4 different women), and the youngest and most cherished of Jacob's children after the loss of Joseph. Joseph, now a governor in Egypt, hid a silver chalice in Benjamin's rucksack and then pretended that Benjamin had stolen it, in order to demand that Benjamin would remain behind as the other brothers returned to Jacob.

It was a clever plan. It would ensure that Jacob would come to Egypt, so that Joseph could be reunited with his father. And even if not, he now had his only immediate brother with him, either way.

Then this happened:

Judah Intercedes for Benjamin18 Then Judah came near to him and said: “O my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord’s hearing, and do not let your anger burn against your servant; for you are even like Pharaoh. 19 My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ 20 And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age,who is young; his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.’ 21 Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’ 22 And we said to my lord, ‘The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ 23 But you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall see my face no more.’24 “So it was, when we went up to your servant my father, that we told him the words of my lord. 25 And our father said, ‘Go back and buy us a little food.’ 26 But we said, ‘We cannot go down; if our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we may not see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ 27 Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons; 28 and the one went out from me, and I said, “Surely he is torn to pieces”; and I have not seen him since. 29 But if you take this one also from me, and calamity befalls him, you shall bring down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave.’30 “Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound up in the lad’s life, 31 it will happen, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die. So your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father with sorrow to the grave. 32 For your servant became surety for the lad to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father forever.’ 33 Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers. 34 For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me, lest perhaps I see the evil that would come upon my father?”

I highlighted verse 33 for a very particular reason.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2014/02/25/free-ebook-the-scarlet-thread-through-the-bible/
As the above link reveals, the "Scarlet Thread" is a reference first used in a mid-20th-century sermon, and it refers to the existence of a "Story within the stories" of the Old Testament--that the story of Redemption, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is interwoven and echoed or paralleled in the vast majority if not every major Old Testament account. I had heard of this before and accepted the concept, but I hadn't realized its relevance to Judah the patriarch of the tribe of Israel by the same name.

"Now therefore, please let [Me] remain instead of [the one who you have determined is guilty] as a slave to my lord, and let the lad [be free to] go up with his brothers." What is this but the essence of substitutionary atonement and the kinsman-redeemer concept? Judah is revealing to Joseph--unknowingly, since he's unaware that Joseph is his long-lost brother--a drastic internal change, from a man who put himself first at the expense of his brother and his father's joy, to a man who puts his brother and father first, and willingly offers himself to take the punishment he doesn't deserve. Judah has become an illustration of Jesus Christ** in this passage.

General Disinterest in Valentine's Day

A lot of criticism about this holiday can be generated and focus on a long list of different aspects. But I'm going to stick to my theme of criticism for the "Christmas" holiday and others like it, where the expectation is that people ought to give gifts to each other, and where the gifts are always implicitly material in nature, and criticize the very underlying premise of Valentine's Day.

http://singlechristian1.blogspot.com/2013/12/symbolism-in-christmas.html

"Giving items to one another is a thing that can be done year round, and is more joyous when done spontaneously, not as a requirement. When a special occasion comes around that offers reflection on the past and the future, I think memories are the important thing to create."

Here's the problem with the expectation of getting a gift. If you don't do something, it causes resentment. This is wrong. It's not what generosity and gifts is about! A person getting a gift is grateful and pleased with the giver. But if they're expecting to be given something, then the gift is no longer a gift, it's a payment--a debt owed to the person getting the "gift." This is why a person would get angry if they don't get a gift--they're experiencing the same emotion as they would if the giver was in their debt, and defaulted on their loan--if they made a late payment.

This is not what holidays should be about, or foster!

This is why I am so strongly against the idea that a specific day of the year should be set aside to give gifts to your family, or to be especially romantic with your significant other. Do we not love them on all the days of the year? Can we not be romantic all the time; is it really so much effort to be a generous lover? On some level, this concept applies to birthdays also. I'm a much bigger fan of using special dates as opportunities for reflection, or of making memories by doing something together (which can still be a sort of gift, I realize--there's nothing wrong with that), and of giving gifts spontaneously throughout the year, catching your loved ones by surprise and making them grateful, instead of resentful that you didn't give them what they expected, when they were expecting it.

A person who gets material objects of desire on certain days each year develops an expectant desire for them, and experiences bitterness when they don't get them. But if on your children's birthdays each year, you take them on an exciting adventure to a park or nature preserve they haven't been before, to explore God's creation and spend time together, even if this counts as a gift, think, what will they look forward to on those special days in years to come? Spending time with family and grasping the bigger picture of what makes another year of life so special: the fact that we are stewards of God's creation and He has blessed us with the double gifts of getting to enjoy His world, as well as being saved through His mercy via the Cross, for the enjoyment of a more perfect world for eternity to come. It makes a huge difference!

I refuse to participate in Valentine's Day. This is an easy thing to say for a guy who's never had occasion to spend money on a sweetheart, but having the time to think about it has led me to realize that it's not such an auspicious time of year after all. Romance is something you create on your own, and if you need help, you may be in trouble. And those who depend on cultural expectations to get things they desire may have their priorities wrong--desiring the 'gifts' more than the gift-giver. When you think about it, V Day and how you approach it is a perfect parallel to how you approach God and the Gospel. Do you desire Him, or do you just want a sugar daddy God who will give you things? It's very closely connected, on a spiritual level.

I therefore choose to not participate in expected gift exchanges or purchases of teddy bears, chocolate or flowers on Valentine's Day, because of what it symbolically demonstrates about the Gospel.

This is a preferential decision I've made, based on dogma I hold to. I wouldn't dogmatically require others to follow along with my preference. I plan to talk about this in an upcoming post.

After reading this, are you more or less inclined to participate in the cultural expectations surrounding February 14th?

~ Rak Chazak

Spurgeon on Calvin

I loved the short quote in this, the first time I heard it. It encouraged me, because I had been researching Calvinism and was unsure whether it had been believed through history, or was a recent invention. What had "big-name" pastors and preachers of the past said about it? Spurgeon was a name I'd heard mentioned positively in the theological circles I'd been crossing into. So this served to unify my understanding, and conclude that "these guys are on the same team. We are on the same team."

If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.

The website I chose to use for the source text is Spurgeon.org. Please read the whole sermon, called "In Defense of Calvinism."

~ Rak Chazak

Video Post: Discernment & Duck Dynasty

I used to pray for wisdom, in my mid to late teens. I was inspired by the way that God responded to Solomon's request for wisdom. Clearly the better thing to ask the Giver for is not things, but the correct understanding of how to utilize the things you have. I was amazed, years later, to consider that the end result of all the theological, historical and scientific education I'd gotten with regard to Biblical truth online had been an answer to the prayer I had made a habit of praying on night walks by the road. My mind is bursting with valuable, helpful information about an extremely wide and deep assortment of topics concerning the Christian Faith, and my concern now is how to best use this knowledge now that I have it, so that the last word won't be that all of the facts I knew were simply random trivia.

Discernment is the next step of wisdom. Whereas wisdom is the proper application of knowledge, discernment is the accurate and consistent application of wisdom. Let's say you could wisely conclude that a course of action is appropriate. But if you never took the time to reach that conclusion, and never acted, then your wisdom was in vain, because you didn't use it. Suppose that you know that certain song lyrics are not appropriate for your children to hear, but you don't know that your child is listening to a singer who employs such lyrics. You have the knowledge to determine what the lyrics are. You have the wisdom to determine that your child shouldn't be influenced by such music. But you lacked the discernment to identify the bad lyrics under your nose so as to take action against letting your child listen to them. This 'last step' is what I want to improve on, because my great fear is that I won't successfully identify and separate what's good from what's bad, and everything "in between," and reap the consequences of that inability.

My new prayer is for discernment. And to show an example of what I mean by drawing a distinction between "wisdom" and "discernment," please watch the following video. I have the knowledge of what is orthodox soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). I have the wisdom to know that I shouldn't promote people as Christian brothers whose doctrine is heretical on the topic of soteriology. But I am uncertain that I could identify, on my own, that a certain person is espousing a heretical soteriology, if it wasn't directly and obviously stated.

That's where men like Todd Friel come in. I discovered him first when I investigated whether Roman Catholicism was authentic Christianity or not, and someone had uploaded a video of him comparing Catholic and Christian positions. I liked his style and the information delivery in each of his short video uploads I would find, so I've eventually come to consider him an online, impersonal mentor figure in my Christian walk. Every young person ideally should have an older, more mature Christian of the same gender from whom to receive advice and take cues from as they model the Christian walk for you, so that you can grow in the faith, etc etc. I'm still working on finding such a relationship in person, but thanks to the Internet, I've been able to benefit from Todd's podcasts and video clips from his show, Wretched, and continue to polish up on my theology and practice. He has seemed to me on more than one occasion to serve the purpose of a theological watchdog, on the alert for errors, heresy, and other dumb-but-not-damning silliness that ought to be avoided. Following is a video clip of him helpfully analyzing a segment of Phil Robertson talking about salvation. Phil is one of the "Duck Dynasty" characters, which is the most popular reality show of all time, and their family's faith is bound to be a huge influence in America going forward. So just what do they believe? The nuance is very important, and Todd explains it below. Please check it out.

~ Rak Chazak

What About the Jews?

Should We or Should We Not Pray for God to Come Back Soon?

Poem: "What of the Jews?"

I recently wrote a poem exploring the conundrum I've had regarding whether it's best to ask for God to come back as soon as possible or whether it's best for Him to be as patient as possible, letting history drag out and waiting for more people to be saved before the final 7-year period of Earth history known as the Tribulation.

I think I explain the issue pretty well in the rhyme scheme itself. Without further ado, please enjoy the below poem, and feel free to read the footnotes for background information on the things I make reference to in the poem. It is my favorite poem I've written yet, because of how much complex thought I was able to fit into it without upsetting the scheme. 

Reading note: Lines will have the stress on the second syllable, a la "dut-duu," unless there is an asterisk -- * -- at the beginning of the line, in which case the stress will be on the first syllable, a la "duu." 

What Of the Jews?

A thought about the Rapture’s¹ struck my mind in recent days
It came about as I was contemplating how to pray
Should I petition for the Lord to come to Earth with speed?
Or should I ask that individual Jewish souls be freed?
The Bible says that, in the end, “All Israel shall be saved.”²
But in the years before that, many more go to their graves³
* What, then, ought my focus be in praying for my friends?
* What will give them the best chance to make it in the end?
The way to life is death, as their whole hist’ry goes to show⁴
I yearn for them to sooner meet the Savior that I know
Before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble,⁵ many will refuse
A “partial hardening”⁶ has become the norm among the Jews
I wish it were not so, but it is hard to reach them now*
As a nation, one could say, their heart is far too proud.⁷
Could this be reason, then, to hope for Tribulation⁸ come?
That hardship would ensure all live, instead of only some?
But if the Tribulation came today, what of my friends?
* Would they be unsaved if they should meet untimely ends?
The fear of asking carelessly is keeping me awake
And anxiously considering the lives which are at stake
* What’s a bigger roadblock to a Jew’s accepting Christ?
Is it prosperity or is it deadly human strife?⁹
* War can make a man more urgent, peace can make him slack.
* Should we then hope that the Jews come soon under attack?
* May it not be so! Let me suggest another way:
The many  Jewish tribesmen sealed descend from those today¹⁰
Implicit in that they believe is that they’ve heard it preached—
The Gospel cannot save the men to whom it hasn’t reached¹¹
So whether they believe through trial, or escape before
The answer to my doubt, it seems, is: Preach the Gospel more!
We can’t assume the end will come so soon s’ as to be lazy
Few things in life are truer than [that] the future is quite hazy
* We don’t know when time runs out. We can’t afford to quit
So carry on, and do God’s will—yes, every little bit!
I love the Jews, and want them saved, from great to very small
But best of all for them ‘s to join us at the Trumpet call¹²
“Escaping all these things,”¹³ to spite their stubborn ancestry
Rejoicing at the Wedding Feast¹⁴ about God’s majesty
* Meanwhile, those we left behind will have another shot
To flee their sin, repent and put their faith and hope in God¹⁵
* Stubborn Israel took two thousand years to learn the truth:¹⁶
That God, in choosing men for heaven, cares not what we do
* We can only e’er do any good by His great grace
To try to work our way to Him is, in His eyes, disgrace
* My dear Jewish friends, I hope you’ll come to Faith today
But if you don’t, as we have seen, God still will have His way.
Baruch HaShem¹⁷

Footnotes for those curious:

1. The Rapture is a Biblical concept supported by the theological reasoning behind the purpose of the present Church Age and future Tribulation. Put shortly, in the final 7-year period of human history before the return of Jesus Christ, God punishes the pagan gentile nations and disciplines rebellious Israel. As the Church is neither pagan gentiles nor rebellious Jews, there is no reason for it to be present on earth during this time. Concurrently, the book of Revelation nowhere mentions the Church after the description of the end-times begins, although Israel is mentioned many times. The letter to the Thessalonians explains why the Church is not present by saying that all believers in Christ will be “caught up” (Grk. harpazo, Lat. rapturo, from which we get ‘rapture’) 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 introduces this doctrine, and 1 Thessalonians 5:9 supports it by saying “we are not appointed to suffer wrath.” A subsection of the Tribulation period is known as The Wrath, where God releases His righteous anger on the world. See Revelation 6:16-17. Logically, 5:9 indicates that the Church won’t be on earth during that time period. For clarification, the Church is defined as the sum total of all those who are saved by faith in Christ. It does not refer to a building or religious institution. The Roman Catholic Church is not THE Church, and neither is any other church. There are unsaved people in every religious institution that calls itself “christian,” and there are probably at least some who are saved, in every such institution as well. Do not be mistaken: affiliation with a religion does not save you, only faith in Christ can save you.

2. Romans 11:26

3. This refers to two things: one is that for as long as the Church Age draws on, Jews will continue to live and die natural lives and most of them will remain in unbelief, dying in their sins, and this is a great tragedy. The other thing is that it is quite possible that even though many will come to faith in the Tribulation, many will also die, and it is presently unclear to me whether there is any guarantee in Scripture against the possibility that those who die before the Return of the King will be unsaved. If there is no such guarantee, then the Tribulation will result in the deaths of many unbelieving Jews, and thus for those who do not convert before the end of the 7-year period, and die, the calamity means nothing but damnation for them, and not salvation. Such a possibility urges me strongly against wanting to ask for the end to come soon, lest I inadvertently be praying damnation on someone.

4. The first part of this, “the way to life is death,” refers to Christ dying on the Cross for us. His death made possible our eternal lives, if we repent and receive His sacrifice as a substitute for the punishment we deserve because of our sin. Consequently, Romans 6:11 “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” To live, we must die. The second part of the line is just a clever artistic reference to the fact that it is the very history of the Jewish race that has brought us the message of life as delivered to them by God, through continual national calamities after calamities. Even today, the Jewish story is not yet over, because even though they are still killed throughout the world, and will yet be in the future, those who are alive at the end of the Tribulation will be alive in Christ even as the whole world has died – and those who live now have the opportunity to live by the power of God through dying to their Jewishness and accepting the Gospel of salvation through faith and not nationality.

5. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble is another name for the Tribulation, further lending support to the doctrine of the Rapture of the Church. Jacob is Israel. The primary reference for this is Jeremiah 30:7 “How awful will that day be! No other will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it.”

6. Romans 11:25

7.  That the Jews have stumbled because of a general case of religious-nationalist pride (being the “Chosen Ones,” you know – it can make you arrogant, and it did) is a common theme in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament where the prophets preach continuously against their countrymen’s sins. Here is how Paul—the Jewish Pharisee—puts it in Romans 10:19-21 :

“Again I ask, Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding,” And Isaiah boldly says, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.””

8. The term Tribulation comes from Jesus’ discourse in Matthew 24:21, where the word He uses to describe the future events He’s foretelling about has historically been translated ‘tribulation,’ meaning distress, trouble, etc.

9. Proverbs 30:7-9, the sayings of Agur:

“Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you, and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”

10. Simple logic. Revelation 7:4-8 describes 144,000 people of Jewish descent, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes, as being “sealed” by a mark on the forehead before the earth was subjected to the Trumpet and Bowl judgments, but after the Seals (read Revelation for more details. The three categories described are telescoping sequences of catastrophes unleashed on the earth during the Tribulation period). Those sealed were supernaturally protected from death and suffering throughout the course of the Tribulation, in the vision John saw. The hope that these could be Jews who turn to Christ very shortly after the Rapture and Seal judgments is a potential motivation to pray for God’s Second Coming to happen soon. Revelation here blatantly guarantees that 144,000 Jewish people who were NOT believers prior to the Rapture WILL be saved. This is very encouraging news. And so the logic that I lay out in the poem above is, if they come to faith, they must have had access to New Testaments and/or the preaching of Christians prior to the Tribulation, so that the events would have provoked them to faith in Christ. The reasoning for this is in the point below.

11. Romans 10:13-14 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved  (ref: Joel 2:32). How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”  The following verses go on to say, “How can anyone preach unless they are sent?...Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” The conclusion, then, is to preach the Gospel so that the Jews may hear and believe.

12. The ‘trumpet call’ phrase is inspired by the line in the song “Days of Elijah” by Twilah Paris, that goes, “behold He comes, riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, at the Trumpet call.” In comparing Matthew 24:30-31 with 1 Thessalonians 4:16, these passages identify a trumpet of some sort with the Rapture, as well as informing that God Himself will make a “Second Appearing,” coming down but not touching down on earth, before the Tribulation, but not to be confused with the Second Coming.

13. Luke 21:36 (Luke 21 is the parallel passage to Matthew 24 in Luke’s Gospel).

14. Revelation 19:6-9. The Wedding Feast of the Lamb is a celebration that takes place in heaven during the Tribulation, where all those who belong to God participate in glorifying Him. It is called a Wedding because the Church is symbolically represented as a bride, such as in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her…”

15. Romans 9:31-32. “But the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.”

16. I don’t mean anything concrete by this. It simply indicates that if the end of history is within the next century, then it took roughly 2,000 years after the Messiah came for the Jews to finally believe in Him, one and all. It doesn’t mean that no Jews ever have. Remember, it was a partial hardening. Romans 11:23 says, “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.”

17. This is a common Hebrew phrase meaning "praise God," "thank God," or literally, "blessed be the name of the Lord."

Further reading about Israel: Romans 9-12.

Note: the verse quotations were taken from my NIV Bible. I have a KJV and NIV, so the way I phrase something may appear to look different from the actual quote I put up, but this is simply a matter of translation. For that matter, the verse pop-up feature uses the ESV version. Variety is the spice of life!

~ Rak Chazak