Isaiah 10:21
21 The remnant [sha'ar] shall
return, [shuwb] even the remnant [sha'ar] of Jacob, [Ya`aqob] unto
the mighty [gibbowr] God. ['el] KJV-Interlinear
21 A remnant
will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. NASB
A remnant is a remainder,
a residue, a very small part of the original whole.
And this number is a
portion of a very large number which is enumerated in the next verse, ‘sand of
the sea.’
And no one can number the
sands of the sea. That is a huge number.
This indicates that not
only will Jewish people still be alive and living on this planet when the end
days arrive, and despite all of history’s attempts to destroy the Jews, their
population will number in huge numbers, ‘sand of the sea.’
Satan is the ultimate
anti-Semitic. He has tried through
various means throughout history, to destroy the Jews and to rid the world of
them. This he does in an attempt to
destroy Gods promise to deliver them in those last days.
Obviously if the Jews are
gone, then God cannot deliver a people that do not exist.
But, Satan and all who
hate the Jews, will fail in their evil attempt to rid the world of them.
Over time this has ended
up in atrocity after atrocity. But God distributed
the Jews, over the centuries, across the planet in order to preserve their
number.
And Satan also has tried
to remove the Jews from the Middle East, because they are to be delivered in
that region, and more specifically, they will be delivered in Jerusalem. Thus the many attempts to keep them out of
the Middle East and especially Jerusalem.
When Rome drove through
Israel back in 70 A.D., most of the Jewish peoples were either killed, taken
captive or they left. And since that time there has been a sprinkling of Jewish
people in Palestine, but never a formal nation.
In the Tribulation, the
nation of Israel already exists historically and prophetically. Remember that according to the Old Testament
chronology, the First advent would be followed immediately by the tribulation and
the seizing of power and the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth.
Our dispensation interrupted
that chronological flow of events.
But when the Rapture
occurs, and since Israel as a nation had been effectively destroyed in 70 A.D.,
then it naturally had to come back into existence prior to the Rapture or at the
very least concurrently with the Rapture.
As we have hindsight, we know that the nation came back into existence
in 1948.
This was not the
prophetical restoration of the nation as called for by the Kingdom of God
prophecy. The official nation of Israel
will not come into existence until the Second Advent, and it will be populated
by the remnant of Jewish believers in Christ, not Judaism, at that time. And the Millennial reign of Christ will begin.
This did not occur in 1948.
Our dispensation, the
Church Age, is not one of prophecy, but one of historical trends. God is maneuvering the nations throughout our
dispensation, to arrange them, and making them ready for those final seven
years of the Age of Israel.
Placing global powers to
the north, south, east and west is a part of that positioning. Re-establishing a nation of Israel, was a
part of that positioning. A rise in
world population, a rise in earthquakes, a rise in technology and so forth, are
all positioning maneuvers by God, readying the world for what is coming.
Both Paul and Jesus
comment that one of the biggest signs, which is not a prophecy, but a sign is a
trend, will be what they called the Great Apostasy.
Apostasy is a turning
away from truth, but not only a turning away but a pursuit of those things that
are not truth.
We see this in the
pursuit of things, or secularism, or false religions and such.
Another thing that we
know is that people in general have an inner need for something of a spiritual
nature. When they lack that, a spiritual
vacuum of sorts develops within them.
When the Rapture occurs,
all believers will be removed from the world.
All restraint on evil will be removed, leaving it unrestrained, and
people will turn to an anti-christ person almost immediately due to his
phenomenal smoke and mirror signs.
Their vacuum of soul,
will pursue the anti-christ just as a vacuum dramatically draws in air when it
is opened up. People entrenched in established religions would not likely turn
that easily to an anti-christ type of person.
That implies that even religions will lose their draw as people turn to
things, or technology, or entertainments and such for their life. This leaves a vacuum, and when the time and positioning's
are in place, then God will pull the lever of history to kick in the next
component of His historical plan into gear.
This will allow the
anti-christ to turn willing world against believers in general and Jews
specifically, bringing them into his confidence initially and then destroying them
in the latter half of the Tribulation.
From sands of the sea, then
a remnant of but a few will survive that destruction. This paints a picture of murder, torture and
general atrocities across the planet that stagger the imagination, and
especially in Israel.
Of Jacob is a specific
reference to the Jewish people.
The mighty God is a
specific reference to the Messiah who is man, and identifies Him also as the
almighty God.
Both God and man, the
unique person of the universe, Jesus Christ.
This remnant did not
occur in 1948, but will occur at the Second Advent, which is still an event in
the future.
