[Note: Our guest contributing author, Mottel Baleston, leads Messengers Messianic Jewish Fellowship.]
Imagine you have just seated yourself in a fine opera theater, anticipating the start of the production in about 20 minutes. You hear the sounds of scenery being moved into place behind the curtain, and before long, the shuffle of feet as actors and singers all begin to take their various places. The orchestra members in the pit are tuning up their instruments. But the orchestra conductor hasn’t taken his place on the podium yet, and there’s still the occasional shifting of props heard behind the curtain. While you are eager to have things start, you understand that it won’t until all the necessary components are in place and everything is ready.
Friends, we are all anticipating the dramatic events of the “Last Days” foretold in Scripture, and we are seeing the participants in that grand drama starting to take their place. Even though we can’t predict the start time, we know things are close because most participants weren’t here years ago, but now they are!
Here are two key verses that lay out a general timeline for the events of the Last Days:
“Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24, LSB)
“Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:25-29, ESV)
While careful Bible students might have slightly differing understandings of how these two verses might be fulfilled, or a timeline for when they will be fulfilled in the future, it’s important to understand that many things in the Bible happened during a “transitional period,” rather than all at once. A well-known example is the pronouncement of death upon Adam and Eve for their disobedience. Through the Bible, we know a period of many years until they actually passed. But in God’s reckoning, the moment that they disobeyed, they lost eternal life and entered into the dying stage. Another example is the transitional nature of the book of Acts, marking the beginning of the “Dispensation of Grace” at the cross. Yet, another 40 years during which sacrifices continued to be offered at the Temple in Jerusalem, only then came its prophesied destruction.
So, let me suggest that there are three ongoing trends that characterize this transitional period in which we find ourselves. I’m going to organize these trends using three keywords: Restoration, Redemption, and Reascendancy.
Restoration
The American novelist Mark Twain had occasion to visit the Holy Land in 1867 and wrote a detailed account of what he found. Twain described the landscape as a “silent, mournful expanse” with a “hopeless, dreary, heart-broken” feeling. He wrote that the hills were barren and the valleys “unsightly deserts”. Regarding the people, he described them as “disfigured wretches” and “squalid humanity” in villages, with many children appearing “in all stages of mutilation and decay”. He described Jerusalem in very negative terms. Earlier European pilgrims described similar or even worse conditions. Compared to the positive portrait the Bible paints of the Messianic Kingdom, what Twain observed was the exact opposite. This is what led many churchmen of the time to dismiss the literal notion of these prophecies and minimize them to being allegorical statements or even as having been fulfilled in a spiritualized form in the Church.
Yet the same literal sort of language which prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, something fulfilled literally, is the same prophetic language found in these passages about the regathering of Israel:
“Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock from all the lands to which I have banished them, and I will return them to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or dismayed, nor will any go missing, declares the LORD.”
(Jeremiah 23:3-7, BSB)
“This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will take the Israelites out of the nations to which they have gone, and I will gather them from all around and bring them into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel…” (Ezekiel 37:21-22, BSB)
While these two passages are multilayered and extend beyond our current concern, they do specifically predict a restoration of the Jewish people from out of the nations in which they were dispersed, back into their land of promise. While Jewish people continued to live in the land of Israel after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., during the Byzantine era before the coming of Islam, through the years of conquest from Arabia, and then living under Turkish rule for hundreds of years, they were always a subjugated people in their own land. Yet the Scriptures predicted they would be restored, and so around the year 1900, we start to see waves of Jewish people from outside the land joining those ancient Jewish communities which had survived. Curiously, the British takeover in 1917 not only meant greater religious freedom, but the growth actually attracted tens of thousands of Arab laborers from outside the land of Israel. Ironically, many of the grandchildren of those Arab laborers now falsely claim to be indigenous “Palestinians” and want to deny legitimacy to the actual indigenous people of the Holy Land—the Jews.
Ultimately, the plan of God moves forward, and in 1948, the reborn State of Israel is recognized by the nations. Immediately, the Islamic nations surrounding them pounced on them violently in an attempt to wipe them out, but their restoration was prophetic, and their preservation guaranteed by the eternal Abrahamic Covenant.
The plan for restoration would move forward in the liberation of the city of Jerusalem in 1967, as it came back under Jewish control. Even more recently, not only is Jerusalem still in Jewish control, but many areas adjacent to the city have been added to the municipal boundaries with large Jewish communities residing there. Plus, new Jewish communities and towns in nearby Judea and Samaria are enlarging Jewish presence and control there as well.
So yes, the first stage of the restoration of Israel is one we are seeing with our own eyes.
Redemption
Not only is the physical return to the land by the Jewish people prophesied, but even more importantly, the return of the Jewish people to the God of Israel is really the ultimate goal. Scripture lays that out over time through a period of transition. I have been privileged to witness the early parts of this. Large numbers of Jewish people came to faith in Messiah Jesus on the heels of Jerusalem’s liberation. I saw that shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War, even in my own New York City Jewish community, numbers of young Jewish people began coming to sincere faith in Messiah Jesus and were born again, as many as a quarter million. I am one of them, coming to faith in the late 1970s at age 21, having grown up in a traditional Jewish home in Brooklyn. Again, these “first fruits” only hint at the greater fulfillment of this redemption of Jewish hearts as they come to faith in the Messiah Jesus, with Scripture indicating that a vast number come to faith during the future Tribulation.
Being in regular contact with several Jewish outreach groups, I am very aware of the increased number of Jewish people who have made serious inquiries, especially after the horrific events of the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023. This past summer, it was my privilege to sit down with two Jewish women who had recently come to faith in Messiah out of an Orthodox Jewish background. The discussions that several others and I in the group had with them resulted in the two of them, one from the Northeast and the other from the Midwest, professing their faith publicly by immersion at the Messianic Jewish gathering we were all involved with. The spiritual redemption of the Jewish people is absolutely central to God’s plan for the ages.
Reascendancy
A careful study of Church history reveals that for the first hundred years in the existence of the believing assemblies, local congregations looked to Jerusalem as their spiritual Mother. The apostles and, later, their direct appointees were seen as having authority to determine doctrine. This is seen sharply in the book of Acts, and historian Eusebius records the names of the first 15 leaders of the Christian Church—all Jewish believers in Messiah Jesus, based in Jerusalem. With the second revolt against Rome in 132 A.D. and the subsequent dispersal of the Jewish believers from Jerusalem, that time period came to an end. Just one generation later, doctrinal truth started to go off the rails, and we see the spread of supersessionism, replacement theology, and the growth of an apostate, institutional church.
Supersessionism = the belief that the Church has superseded the Jews as God’s covenant people.
Yet Scripture looks forward to a time when once again “the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3), a time when the Remnant of Jewish believers will be “the head, and not the tail” (Deuteronomy 28:13). A time is coming when ten Gentiles will grab hold of the tallit (prayer fringes) of a believing Jew and say, “We want to go with you, for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23).
But here’s the difficulty we all have in understanding the reality of the plan. It centers on the fact that God’s timetable is much longer and more stretched out than we would like. The majority of us have lived most of our adult lives within the last seven decades, when all the events mentioned were “current.” They form our present reality; they are not new developments. But when we take the long-term view, biblically speaking, for all of these events to come about in a very short period is truly prophetic. We read in 2 Peter 3:8 (KJV): “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” So let’s get on God’s timetable.
We need to consider this sharply defined event of just the last 50 years, the scheming of some “Kings of the North” as they plan military attacks on Israel. This has only increased in these last decades as countries such as Iran, Syria, and Iraq have actually attacked Israel, with Russia and China having military contingency plans on file for an attack on Israel from the north. Friends, these things are very real and very much in our daily news.
It was Messiah Jesus Himself, speaking directly to each believer, yes, to us, when He said in Luke 21:25-28 (ESV):
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Lift up your eyes all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
Eyes Up!
Brothers and sisters, the evidence for the “Times of the Gentiles” is starting to draw to a close, and the growing nearness of our Lord’s return is all around. Are you watching?
Maranatha!
