Tribulation and the Sinner (02/27/23-02/28/23)

I am going to touch but lightly on this subject, I think, though certainly Scripture has plenty to say about it.  For one, much that needs to be said has already been considered under the subject of judgment.  But there are a few passages I would like to consider concerning the way in which sinners will experience this period of the Tribulation.  I’m actually going to work more or less backward through the texts this time, starting in the New Testament before proceeding back to the Old.  I’ll begin with Jesus, speaking at the time that He was preparing his disciples to go out in pairs ahead of Him.  He has instructed them on how they are to pursue their way, and what to do in the face of rejection.  And it is in light of that last aspect, that we hear this.

“Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!  If the miracles which occurred in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long since have repented in sackcloth and ashes.  It will be more tolerable for them in the judgment than for you.  And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven will you?  No!  You will be brought down to Hades.  The one who listens to you listens to Me.  The one who rejects you rejects Me.  He who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me” (Lk 10:13-16).  I have asked before whether the Judgment and the Tribulation are one and the same thing, and here, it seems perhaps I should change my answer to yes.  But I think it might be more reasonable to utilize an answer that comes up often in discussions at work.  “It depends.”  Are we talking judgment as in final assessment?  Then I think we must conclude these remain separate.  But as we consider the day of the Lord, which we have observed is ever near and seems to come upon various peoples at various times, then yes, I believe we could say they are indeed the same.  The Tribulation is, at least for the unrepentant sinner, a downpayment of sorts on final Judgment.

And hear it!  I mean, these folks knew what had come of Tyre and Sidon.  They had been pretty thoroughly destroyed.  These had been strongholds in their day, cities of prominence and power.  They had been arrogant, fierce, pitiless in exercising their strength.  But it had come to nothing in what amounted to mere moments.  We can point to Alexander the Great and his involvement in these things, if we care to observe the human agency by which the end came about.  But really, that means no more than did Nebuchadnezzar’s involvement in Jerusalem’s destruction, or any of the other agents used of God to punish or to discipline.  And I must observe that whereas the destruction of Jerusalem had come as discipline, I see no real evidence of any such intent for Tyre and Sidon.  And with that in mind, I think one must conclude that the assessment made of Chorazin and Bethsaida is dark indeed.  No hope is being held out here.  Of course, we cannot make this a blanket statement for the whole populace, any more than we could of Tyre and Sidon.  Even there, we must suppose, God had His remnant.  Even in Nero’s government, there were those who would be saved.  And even in the coming destruction of Jerusalem – coming we should note as fulfillment of Jesus’ own prophecy – there would remain those who would be saved.  Again, taking up a thread from the last section, the redeemed are not rescued from facing this tribulation, but are preserved through it.  That seems clearly to be the case, and it is the case in every event of judgment.  It was so when Israel first came into the land, else there would be no Rahab of Jericho, and thus, no Boaz, no David, no Jesus.  But the assessment is made.  “By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient” (Heb 11:31).  None so far gone in sin that God cannot rescue.  None so secure in it that God cannot destroy.

Let’s change scenes.  We come to a point when Paul has returned to Jerusalem after years away in ministry.  He is not particularly welcome, though he comes seeking to demonstrate his continued adherence to the fundamentals of Mosaic Law and Jewish faith.  For him, Christianity remains not a rejection of Judaism, but a reformation of it, a return to true purposes.  But they will not have it.  They have among them those who have taken religious vows to pursue his death!  Isn’t that something?  Here is how we shall serve the God of the living:  By seeking the death of one of our own.  To be clear, Mosaic Law could indeed require just such a response to one who was found to be an unrepentant and flagrant violator of that Law.  Of course, by this stage, Israel was powerless to legally impose such penalty.  We saw that with Jesus.  They wanted the death penalty, but being subject to Roman governance, that authority was taken from them.  They would have to get Rome to act.  These men, though, were unwilling to count on Rome.  They fully intended to take matters into their own hands, and effectively vowed to holy God that they would become criminals.  Just not a winning gambit.

So, Paul is taken into Roman custody, in part for his protection, but also because there is something of an assumption that if he is stirring up such anger amongst the Jews, there must be some sort of crime here.  But they can’t find it, and so, Paul langers in prison.  The governor, Felix, heard the accusations, as well as Paul’s statement, but determined to hold off on rendering a decision (Ac 24).  He wanted, he said, to hear from the commander Lysias first.  This, of course, was the commander who had first taken Paul into custody, and sent him hence.    Felix, it happens is married to a Jewish woman.  He is also, we are told, knowledgeable about the Way.  At any rate, Felix finds himself with this prisoner, and gives Paul audience, perhaps looking to assess the case, perhaps just curious to learn more of this Way.  And Paul obliges.  He presents the gospel.  He speaks about faith in Christ Jesus.  And he speaks without holding back, it would seem.  So, we come to this.  “As he was discussing righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened.”  He sent Paul away (Ac 24:25).  “Go away.  When I find time, I’ll call you again.”  Of course, we are told his real hope was to obtain some bribe from Paul’s friends for his release.  But that wasn’t happening, and for two years things continued in relative stasis, Felix repeatedly sending for Paul to converse.  He’s an interesting guy, this Felix.  It seems maybe he had some leanings towards faith, but couldn’t quite make the leap.  And eventually, he is replaced.  It seems likely his time of opportunity had passed.  But we don’t really know, do we?

So, why do I bring this up here?  For that one observation:  Hearing of righteousness, self-control, and of the judgment to come, he got frightened.  Why?  Well, the obvious conclusion would be that he knew he had little enough of self-control, and the notice of his expectations demonstrates pretty clearly that whatever respect he may have had for Roman justice, he could hardly claim to be righteous.  Nor did he have any intention of changing.  And so, being possessed of ‘more exact knowledge’ about the Way, and being married to a Jewish wife, he must have had some sense of the validity of this Way, and the very real threat that lay behind God’s promised judgment.  I’ll put it to you this way.  He was wholly convinced that this judgment to come would indeed come.  He was also wholly convinced that he would stand condemned when it did.  And that is very good reason for being terrified.  One would think such a reaction might lead him to repent and come to faith.  But this, we must bear in mind, remains an option wholly under the control of the Father.  “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:44).  “No one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father” (Jn 6:65).

For those who would insist that it’s all about our choice, our response to the gospel, I have to ask:  How do you look at these clear and plain declarations of Christ and conclude so?  How can you look at the case of Felix, who, it seems to me, had strong interest in this gospel, and seems very much inclined to accept that truth of it, and yet, given his terrified response, cannot bring himself to come to faith?  How shall we explain this staunch resistance to so great an offer even among the many who find it in themselves to accept and admit the existence of God?  If you know these things to be true, how is it that you persist in choosing death?  And yet, they do.  I can only posit what Jesus has said.  They can’t come to Him, because the Father has not granted it.  They could no more repent and be saved than could Pharaoh.

And so we see it proclaimed from of old.  “Wail, ‘Alas for the day!’  For the day is near, the day of the LORD!  It will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations” (Eze 30:2-6).  A sword comes against them and they fall.  The list of nations leads us south from Israel, but that is hardly to point of concern.  The sole reason for this, it would seem, is that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is to be the tool by which God brings this judgment upon those nations.  Clearly, this doesn’t make Babylon holy.  We know well enough that they will in due course face their own day of the Lord.  We know, too, that from that same region will come at least one who, though he has power over the people of God, yet blesses them and sees them reestablished in their lands, and their temple restored.

But here, the message is dire.  It is a time of doom.  Judgment has been determined, and it is to be executed.  Here again I would observe that the judgment executed upon these earthly nations remains but a downpayment, a foretaste of that final judgment that is to come about when our Lord returns and establishes His final victory over sin and death, and takes up His place of immediacy amongst His people.  It’s challenging to frame the distinctions of that day, for He is already Lord of all, and His kingdom is from all eternity.  And yet, we know all too well the need for restoration in His kingdom, the need for purging and cleansing and setting back to rights.  That usurping power, that serpent of old, has yet to be fully removed from the land, and the effects of his disastrous influence have yet to be repaired.  But the day comes, and until it does, there come these early salvos, if you will.

It puts me back in mind of those signs Jesus set forth.  There will be wars and rumors of wars.  Well, yes, of course there will be.  The day comes for this nation and for that.  Face it, the world has not known a truly godly realm.  For all that we hear dire concerns over the rise of any sort of theocracy, the reality is that there has never been one.  The reality is also, simultaneously that there has always been one.  But those who take up positions of power over us have ever been seekers after their own ends.  Some may have had a sense of the divine, but for most, that sense pointed them back to themselves.  We wind up with Pharaohs, with Caesars, with those who, for all their broken humanity, would be acclaimed as gods in their own right.  And even those who do not make such grandiose claims have yet the seed of such desire in them.  They may tame it enough to avoid blatant claims of divinity, and yet, they show themselves addicted to power, adoration, or both, if they can obtain it.  We don’t call it idolization for nothing.

Behold the man on his pedestal.  Bow down to him.  Give him all laud and honor.  But no.  We cannot.  We can no more exalt the one who comes to us as a hero, who promises all manner of benefit to his rule over us, than the early Christians could acclaim Caesar as Lord.  They knew better.  We should, too.  There is one God, one Lord of all.  To Him we will bow down.  To Him we will give all reverence, all honor.  For in Him is all power, all glory.  If it be that we have earthly rulers of some worth, it is because He has set them in place for their season.  If we have earthly rulers of no discernable worth, it is yet because He has set them in place for their season, and for His reason.  And we would do well to seek His reason, and seek to correct what needs correcting that we might have a more godly man to rule over us in this interim.

“Indeed, those who support Egypt will fall, and the pride of her power will come down.  From Migdol to Syene they will fall within her by the sword,” declares the LORD GOD.  Egypt, though apparently a direct, geopolitical point of reference as concerns the immediate outfall of this prophecy, is also emblematic of worldliness.  Here is the kingdom from which you were drawn when God drew you to Himself.  Here is a constant temptation to return to former ways.  The Israelites knew it in the wilderness.  This is too much.  Let’s go back.  At least we had variety in our meals back then.  Somehow, the hardship, the persecutions are forgotten in the glowing review of memory.  But judgment comes, and Egypt comes to an end.  Now, obviously, that cannot be taken literally, for Egypt remains even to this day, though hardly the powerhouse she once was.  And may I just say that we have some evidence as to the other part of this prophecy.  (“Thus I will execute judgments on Egypt, and they will know that I am the LORD” (Eze 30:19).  We know that the church survives in Egypt, in spite of years of official oppression.  And again, I would stress our need to move beyond that relatively small region along the Nile, and recognize that Egypt stands as placeholder for the world at large.  And here, too, we can look about and see that the church remains in spite of all that comes against her, whether from without or from within.  Of course she does.  For the LORD is her God, her head, and she His body, His temple.  It is not preserved by the art and skill of man, but by the irresistible power of her Lord.

With that, let me turn to one more prophecy, that of Isaiah.  He takes us closer to this, the final and ultimate day of judgment, though he speaks from a farther distance.  “In that day the LORD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent.  He will kill the dragon” (Isa 27).  And so, in that day, “A vineyard of wine!  Sing of it!!  And I, the LORD, am its keeper.”  The tone has changed.  The focus has changed.  That dark, usurping force which has so poisoned the world has been met with God’s fierce and great and mighty sword.  That business is over.  But we know how it goes with battle.  There are always those noncombatants who suffer directly or indirectly from the effects of such conflict.  But hear it.   Hear it and take it to heart.

“I water it every moment.  I guard it night and day, lest anyone would damage it.  I have no wrath.  If someone gives me briars and thorns in battle, I would burn them completely.  Or let them rely on My protection and make peace with Me” (Isa 27:3-5).  This is an incredible promise, is it not?  Oh, let us not lose sight of it.  But let us also not lose sight of what’s going on here.  God did contend with them, with His own.  God did banish them and drive them away.  That, after all, is the place from which Ezekiel prophesies, and it’s a place Isaiah saw coming clearly enough.  But hear it.  “Through this Jacob’s sins will be forgiven.  This will be the full price of his pardon:  When all his little altars to foreign gods have been pulverized, and his Asherim torn down.”  It matters not how strong the city was.  It is isolated now.  It matters not how fruitful the fields were.  They’re a desert now.  The orchards no longer fruit, but are barely suitable even for firewood.  There was indeed a punishment for His own, but a punishment not of perishing finality, rather a punishment of discipline and restoration.

Let us hear the end of it.  “The LORD will start His threshing from the Euphrates to the Nile, and one by one, you will be gathered up, O sons of Israel.  A great trumpet will be blown, and those perishing in the land of Assyria, and those scattered in Egypt, will come and worship the LORD in the holy mountain of Jerusalem” (Isa 27:12-13).  It was not a destruction, but a winnowing, a purifying.  It was needful that we be forced to foreswear our idols.  It is as needful for us in our modern-day dependence upon wealth and politics as it was for Israel in their day.  And just as Egypt must be recognized as presenting us with the worldly, so Israel must be recognized as presenting us with the godly.  It is not a question of geography.  It’s a question of covenant.  Do you belong to God or not?  Has He extended His covenant to you or not?  If He has, then the message for you is, “You will be gathered up.”  It matters not where you are.  It matters not whether you are physically alive at the time.  You will be gathered up.  If, however, He has not set His covenant upon you, the message is of slaughter, of punishment, of utter destruction alongside the serpent you have followed and served.

It must be understood that there are no neutral parties in this.  The atheist may think himself above such things.  He may put no stock in gods or devils.  And yet he serves just the same.  It’s become almost trite to say it, but Bob Dylan was onto something when he wrote, (“Everybody’s gotta serve someone.”  Thus it has ever been and ever shall be.  And so, the age old call of Joshua continues to echo down, even to us.  “Choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the Lord your God, or whether the idols of the nations” (Josh 24:14-16).  Oh!  Hear him!  Fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth!  Put away those gods you served in Egypt.  Make a choice.  As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!  What say you?  And those standing there answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD and serve other gods!”  May we likewise answer the call.  And may we, by the grace of God and the aid of His power, prove more honest about it.  May we truly forsake and even destroy the idols that have tempted us away day by day, and serve Him fully, as He is worthy to be served.