Isaiah 10 ALL
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The story begins with a broader look at the full passage in Isaiah, quoted by Paul. It is found in Isaiah 10. This chapter begins with a description of how God will punish Assyria (modern Germany) at the beginning of the Day of the Lord (Isaiah 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 of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him [Assyria] that smote them [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” (Isaiah 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, the time of Jacob’s trouble.
Isaiah also said this about the time when Israel will be freed from coming enslavement: “Shake yourself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose yourself from the bands of your neck, O CAPTIVE daughter of Zion” (Isaiah 52:2).
There will come a dramatic moment in Israel’s future captivity that 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. 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, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald. Put another way, enslavement involved just one tribe (and then only part of it) scattered in two nations.
Jeremiah adds to what Isaiah recorded. Notice this about the escaping Remnant: “And I will gather the REMNANTof 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” (Jeremiah 23:3). This pictures God’s chosen “flock” returning from “all countries” where He had “driven them.”
Later in Jeremiah more is added to this developing 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: “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 with their faces toward it, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten” (Jeremiah 50:4-5).
First, notice—actually remember from the Worldwide Church of God literature of the past—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—and we have not yet begun to connect any of this to the Work of God.
Let’s continue with one more fascinating passage in Jeremiah about this coming second and future great exodus.
Chapter 16, Jeremiah 16:10-12, describe a pre-Tribulation, self-righteous Israel unable and unwilling to see whyGod 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 Jeremiah 16:11 and 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” (Jeremiah 16:13). This is a description of 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 LORDlives, 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” (Jeremiah 16:14-15).
Jeremiah 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”—angelic recovery workers—locating surviving individuals, finally ready to seek God. It becomes evident these “workers” leave none behind.
More Detail From Ezekiel
When God desires a truth to be understood, and wants no room for misunderstanding to be possible by the honest Bible student, He repeats His message for emphasis in different ways in multiple passages, usually adding more details and facts to the tapestry He is weaving toward the full picture.
It should be obvious that the Ezekiel Warning itself would have to speak to the prophecy of Israel’s return from captivity, a captivity she brought on herself because she would not listen to the words of God through the “watchman” sent to warn of the consequences of disobedience to God. It does.
Here is a more detailed description of parts of the punishment leading up to the captivity, and the resultant escape of a remnant: “In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste [by nuclear attack], and the high places shall be desolate [false churches]; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols [the false gods who could not save Israel] may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and you shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezek. 6:6-7).
This describes national calamity and widespread destruction, and death on a staggering scale. Of the initial 600 million people who go into the Great Tribulation, only 200 million will survive the initial effects. The first 200 million, one-third, will be victims of a surprise nuclear attack on the nations of the West. The second 200 million, another third, will die of resultant famine and disease epidemics. (Ezekiel 5:10-12 references and explains these “thirds.”) The first two-thirds are, in effect, the “lucky” ones—because the remaining, surviving third goes into ENSLAVEMENT! We will return to discuss a specific number within this final 200 million when it is time to see how many God says constitute the Remnant.
Ezekiel continues: “Yet will I leave a REMNANT, that you may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when you shall be scattered through the countries. And they that escape of you shall remember Me among the nations wherever they shall be carried captives, because I am broken [God’s attitude toward what He sees] with their whorish heart, which has departed from Me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations” (Ezekiel 6:8-9).
The reason Israel will come weeping from captivity is because the survivors have come to “loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed.” This is because they have come to grips with how God saw their conduct. But what made them able to know His perspective?
Consider for a moment that someone will have to have told these millions what these evils were—WHAT were the abominations—and WHY the captivity came. How else could they, at this point—at the moment of escape and liberation—know what brought their punishment? Recall that Isaiah said Israel would know how to serve God “in truth.” Ask: Who would have told them what “truth” was? How would they have come to understand this?
Ezekiel 20 ALL
The next passage is the longest in this chapter and it all comes from Ezekiel 20. There was no way to shorten the verses included, but they are broken into segments so we can better grasp what God wants His people to comprehend. The setting is how Israel continually chose to pollute God’s Sabbaths. This blatant disobedience is cited by God multiple times through the chapter. The reader would gain from a slow read of this long Bible description.
The passage opens with God’s fury being simultaneously poured out on a sinful world at the outset of the Day of the Lord: “As I live, says the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and withFURY POURED OUT [on the heathen around them as the Day of the Lord begins], will I rule over you: and I willbring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein you are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with FURY POURED OUT.” (Ezekiel 20:33-34). Sobering words!
The next section looks ahead through the remainder of the time up to the Return of Christ, and after, when God will offer Israel a new covenant: “And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, says the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 20:35-36).
Ezekiel 20:37-40 are a kind of inset to God’s thinking. They look past the Day of the Lord to Christ’s Return, about a year after liberation from captivity, to when He will convert the Remnant of Israel:
“And I will cause you to pass under the rod [under the scepter of God’s authority], and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: and I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and you shall know that I am the LORD. As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord GOD; Go you [for the time being], serve you every one his idols [God’s anger is especially against all forms of religious pollution], and hereafter also, if you will not hearken unto Me: but pollute you My holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. For in Mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, says the Lord GOD, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.”
Ezekiel 20:41 and 42 reset the timing of WHEN the earlier verses are to be fulfilled: “I will accept you with your sweet savour, WHEN I bring you out from the people, and gather you out of the countries wherein you have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the heathen. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up Mine hand to give it to your fathers.”
It is unmistakably plain from this passage that God will bring His people back to their homeland of Israel after they have been literally scattered across the world. This Remnant will be mindful of everything in their past that brought this most horrific punishment upon them, and are seen again to “loathe” themselves (next passage below).
Notice that God could have wiped them out entirely but chose not to, leaving the promised Remnant: “And there shall you remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein you have been defiled; and you shall loathe yourselves [there this is again] in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for My name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings [or all would be destroyed], O you house of Israel, says the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 20:43-44).
Notice that Israel comes to “remember her ways” and “all her doings.” Ask again: How does she do this? Whatdid she once hear that is now remembered—and how did she hear it? The only possibility is a warning coming back to mind that went unheeded.
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