Chapter Twenty-Seven – An Israelite Remnant
Back to 1The Bible’s Greatest Prophecies Unlocked!
The Bible contains another colossal, but little recognized, prophecy having to do with the nations of Israel today. Most have never heard of this prophecy, never mind understood it. Yet it carries implications almost beyond imagination. For those who can comprehend what they will now learn, this chapter will be incredibly exciting. In fact, it will leave you stunned at knowledge that almost no one knows.
The significant majority of those of Israel alive today have never been told of what the last chapters of prophecy have in store for the descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel! These many millions simply have no idea what is coming on our lands, and on our peoples!
Since no human parent would ever punish a child for something that the child had not been told (warned) was wrong, I repeat, neither would God do this with His children. The patient and all-wise God of the Bible is literally obligated to explain to all today why “the sword” is coming on 600 million people in 22 Israelite nations and territories around the world. Only a parental monster would neglect such a responsibility to so many “children” (of Israel) who hang in the balance. And recognize again that the generation alive today is the most rotten in the history of the world, and we saw is one that Jesus likens to both the universal corruption of Noah’s day (Matt. 24:37; Luke 17:26-27) and the awful perversion of Sodom and Gomorrah (Luke 17:28-30).
Take a moment to glimpse a tiny snapshot of this final generation reflected in Proverbs 30:11-14. The God of the Bible would never shirk His duty to trumpet a warning to such an abominable “filthy” generation—just one of several descriptive terms Solomon recorded.
This chapter will examine a great many passages from the Old Testament, some of them extensive, all of them graphic. These verses form a picture, at the same time both beautiful and ugly—wonderful and horrible. Together, they present a reality more astonishing than one could believe—almost beyond comprehension for those who try as hard as they can to grasp it. Yet, these sobering and cataclysmic prophecies must be comprehended!
You are about to take a truly extraordinary journey into and through the immediate future of modern nations.
“For Our Admonition”
One of the greatest principles of the Bible is found in I Corinthians 10:11, and references the Old Testament: “Now all these things happened unto them [Israel] for ensamples [types]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
This passage speaks to God’s people alive at the “ends of the world,” and how they are to learn from Old Testament “ensamples”—not examples, but rather types applicable for us today. This volume has already covered numerous “types” from history.
I Corinthians 10:1-33 itself opens with a remarkable statement about a past event. Notice 1Cor 10:1: “Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.” You will soon see ancient Israel’s exodus from Egypt as but a tiny type (ensample) of what will be repeated—and in the very near future!
What I Corinthians 10:1 states is one of the greatest applications of this principle in the Bible. The succeeding chapter will bring one more enormous application of such duality.
Romans 9 and Isaiah 10
The story begins by examining Romans 9:27-29. Paul recorded, “Isaiah also cried concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant [take note how often this word appears] shall be saved: for He [God] will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth [Hosts] had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah.”
Notice Paul was quoting Isaiah here. Let’s take a broader look at the full passage in Isaiah, found in chapter 10, for context. This chapter begins with a description of how God will punish Assyria (modern Germany) at the beginning of the Day of the Lord (Isa 10:3), after Assyria has carried out the punishment of His people, Israel.
Let’s notice: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant [note again the term] of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him [Assyria in context] that smote them [the Israelites]; but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed [on Israel] shall overflow [in] righteousness” (Isa 10:20-22).
This first passage sets the stage to understand all that will follow. A surviving “remnant” of Israel (referenced four times in just this passage) is foretold to “escape” and “return” from captivity at the end of the Great Tribulation to serve God “in truth.”
Isaiah also said this about the time when Israel will be freed from coming enslavement: “Shake yourself from the dust; arise, and sit down [only possible if lying prostrate], O Jerusalem: loose yourself from the bands of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion” (Isa 52:2).
There will come a dramatic moment in Israel’s future captivity when she will be told by God to get up and move, that the enslavement is over and a very different future lies ahead. Let’s watch this develop in other passages.
Jeremiah Adds More
We saw that Israel escapes the “bands” of Assyria. We also saw that during World War II the tribe of Judah was enslaved in death camps and murdered on a grand scale by this same Assyria, utilizing places in Germany and Poland such as Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Sobibór, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald. Put another way, enslavement then involved just one tribe (and only part of it) sent into two nations. The picture continues to grow.
Jeremiah adds to what Isaiah recorded. Notice this about the escaping remnant: “And I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase” (Jer 23:3). This pictures God’s chosen “flock” returning from “all countries” where He had “driven them.” Let this and other passages speak to you in the plain language presented.
Later in Jeremiah more is added to this expanding picture of Israel being brought by God out of captivity and back to her homelands. The next passage describes Israel’s attitude—that of a people who have been shattered by nuclear war, famine, disease, and the final capstone of abject enslavement under the brutal hand of her enemies. She is seen at this point to view herself very differently than the attitudes evident in these same nations today. Let’s read: “In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion [the general location of the modern nation of Israel in the Mid-East] with their faces toward it, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten” (Jer 50:4-5).
First, notice that more than Judah is involved in this captivity. As with the original escape from Egypt, all twelve tribes, here called the children of Israel and Judah, leave enslavement. Then notice the attitude of “weeping,” with a readiness to “join [to] the Lord their God” as they “ask” directions back to their homeland, Zion.
While an incredible canvas should already begin to be unfolding in your mind, there is a great deal more to understand.
Let’s continue with one more fascinating passage in Jeremiah about this coming second and future great exodus.
Chapter 16, Jer 16:10-12, describe a pre-Tribulation, self-righteous Israel unable and unwilling to see why God has “pronounced all this great evil against us.” She asks, “What is our iniquity?” and “What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord?” Jeremiah is instructed in Jer 16:11-12 to be sure he tells Israel WHY the captivity—that they would not listen to God’s warning to repent!
The result is “Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that you know not, neither you nor your fathers; and there shall you serve other gods day and night; where I will not show you favor” (Jer 16:13). This is a description of enslavement but also the loss of all religious freedom. The context continues with God’s promise that He will regather Israel to her own land: “Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord lives, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord lives, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north [Assyria], and from all the lands [we will see that these are nations all over the world] whither He had driven them [there this is again]: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers” (Jer 16:14-15).
Jer 16:16 offers an absolutely fascinating vision of how God will regather His people. Let’s read it before comment: “Behold, I will send for many fishers, says the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”
At the end of the Tribulation, the remnant of Israel is left literally scattered all through the nations of Earth. Collecting her involves the work of “fishers” and “hunters”—no doubt angelic recovery workers—locating surviving individuals, finally ready to seek God. It becomes evident these “workers” leave none behind.