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JF Thrive Connection Group
The Road to Rewards
(Part 4)
1. Introduction
In our last lesson we discussed the Judgement Seat of Christ that is a reward ceremony for to believers who were part of the Body of Christ that began on the Day of Pentecost and will end at the Rapture of the Church. On that day a believers will be judged by Judge Jesus concerning their faithfulness as believers during their lifetime. Rewards will be given to those who were faithful. Those who were unfaithful will receive either very few rewards or will receive no rewards. Even though they may not have any rewards, they are there because they trusted in Jesus as Savior during their life on earth. A believer’s sin will not be judged on this day because their sins were forgiven when they trusted in Christ as their Savior.
The Judgement Seat of Christ will most likely occur in heaven shortly after the Rapture. Another event that will occur in heaven at the end of Tribulation is the Marriage of the Lamb to His Bride, the church. The church will remain in heaven until the seven years of Tribulation has ended. At the end of the seven years of Tribulation, the church will return to the earth with Jesus at Second Coming.
2. Events at End of the Tribulation Period and the Second coming of the Messiah
A. Seventy-Five Day Interval
When Jesus returns to the earth at the second Coming, He will not immediately be reigning in His Messianic Kingdom. There will be a 75-day interval that proceeds His 1000-year reign. So, there is a 75-day period between the second coming and the beginning of the 1000-year Messianic Kingdom. Let’s now explore where we find where the 75-day interval in Scripture and what may occur during that interval.
Some compare the time between the second coming of the Messiah and when the1000-year reign of the Messiah begins to the interval between the time a president is elected on the first Tuesday in November to when he takes the oath office on January 20 to begin his 4-year term in office. Before the president elect takes the oath of office on January 20, he uses this time to make plans and to make decisions to prepare to take office. He uses this time to choose his cabinet, to make appointments to different offices, etc. In the 75 -day period between the second coming and the official beginning of the Messianic Kingdom, the Messiah also has important tasks to accomplish before taking His’ Messianic throne in Jerusalem. Some of these tasks will include judging and giving positive and negative rewards to certain groups of people on His’ Bema or His judgement seat. The Messiah will assign different people the authority to rule and hold different offices in His Kingdom such as the 12 disciples ruling over the 12 tribes of Israel and King David ruling Israel as He, the Messiah, rules the world from His throne in the Temple in Jerusalem.
The 75-day period before the Messianic Kingdom officially begins is found in the Book of Daniel. In Daniel chapter 9 the angel told Daniel that the second half of the Tribulation Period, called the Great Tabulation, would last 1260 days or 3 ½ years. In Daniel 12:11 we find that the last 3 1/2 years will begin when the anti-christ sets himself up as god in the Temple in Jerusalem. Initially those reading thought the Messiahs reign in the Kingdom would begin at the second coming of the Messiah or 1260 days after the Great Tribulation began. The angel told Daniel in chapter 12 verse 11 that the 1260 days before the Messiah Kingdom would begin would be extended 30 days to 1290 days. In Daniel 12:12 the length of time before the Messianic Kingdom would begin would be extended 45 more days to 1335 days. The extended days would now be 75 days that extended days beyond the end of the Tribulation. It appears that the judgement of living Israel and the judgement of the nations, along with other events, will occur during this 75-day extension period.
B. The Judgement of living Jews
The next judgement we will study is the judgment the Jews who survive the Tribulation at the second coming. Let’s begin with Daniel 12:1 that discusses some of the events that will occur at the end of tribulation period. This is a vision given to Daniel about Israel concerning the Tribulation period.
1 Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.
There are only three angels named in Scripture. Michael is one of them. Who are the other two? - Gabriel and Satan. Michael is the only angel in Scripture that has the title of archangel. An archangel is an angel who is high in the celestial hierarchy. Michael is the chief angel. Daniel also calls him “the great prince.” We usually think of a prince as the son of a king. The word translated prince here does not mean the son of a king. It indicates one who is a leader in various capacities and situations. In the New Testament Beelzebul is called the prince of the demons.
One of the responsibilities that Michael had as an archangel and a great leader was to stand guard over the people of Israel. At the right time MICHAEL, the archangel, will appear or come on the scene to help rescue the people of Israel from the anti-christ and the Gentile nations whose aim was to eradicate all of them. Daniel, after seeing the vision, was concerned about his people’s destiny. The angel revealed several things to Daniel. 1. The people of Israel will be delivered by help of the intervention of Michael. 2. There would be a time Daniel of unprecedented distress for Israel as Satan and the Gentile nations would try to eradicate Israel. This is not referring to the Holocaust. It’s referring to the Great Tribulation that Jesus referred in Matthew 24:21.
“For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.
Daniel’s people will be in the midst of great distress and turmoil and will be part of Satan’s effort to prevent the return and reign of Christ. Two-thirds of the people living in Israel during the second half of the Tribulation will die as we see in Zechariah 13:8-9.
8 “It will come about in all the land,” Declares the Lord,
“That two parts in it will be cut off and perish;
But the third will be left in it.
9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire,
Refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name,
And I will answer them;
I will say, ‘They are My people,’
And they will say “The LORD is my God.’”
Jeremiah used another phrase to describe the Great Tribulation.
‘Alas! for that day is great. There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved from it.
Jeremiah calls the Great Tribulation “the time of Jacobs trouble (KJV, NIV1984) or distress (NASB95, ESV). Note also that Jeremiah says that Israel “will be saved from it.” Michael will be one of God’s instruments for delivering Israel. The nature of this deliverance will be national in scope, as well as individual. In Jeremiah 30:7 we see the national aspect of Israel’s deliverance. As we shall see, the national deliverance includes both those who are spiritually saved but also those who are spiritually lost as we see in Daniel 12:1. The phrase “everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued” includes those who will be delivered in the fullest sense ie. both physically and spiritually. Even after the Tribulation Period and at the return of Jesus, not every Jewish person will believe and escape the Lake of Fire.
Both in Zechariah 12:10 and Romans 11:26-27 speaks of the spiritual salvation or deliverance of the remnant of Israel.
Zechariah 12:10
I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
… and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.” 27 “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”
At the second coming, the Jews who survive the tribulation period, will either trust in Jesus as the Messiah or they will not, just like today. In either case, wherever Jews are in the world, they will be translated to the wilderness outside the borders of Israel.
We see this translation of the Jews from four corners of the earth to this desert location in Matthew 24. Matthew 24 focuses on those who survived the tribulation and those who trusted in Jesus at His second coming. Matthew calls them the elect.
29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. 31 “And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
Now let’s not look at a parallel section of Scripture in the Old Testament about the translation of the Jews who survive the tribulation. Let’s see their fate.
33 “As I live,” declares the Lord GOD, “surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be king over you. 34 “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out;
35 and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. 36 “As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord GOD. Amen
37 “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant;38 and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.
38 and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus, you will know that I am the LORD.
After God brings Israel in the wilderness from the four corners of the earth. The wilderness represents an uninhabited place that is dry and where living vegetation and living creatures are sparse. It represents a place of divine judgment.
In the wilderness He will begin the process of eliminating those who had rebelled but allowing those who had trusted in the Messiah into the Kingdom. He gives the picture of a shepherd making his sheep pass under His staff. By this, He would bring them into the bond of the covenant (v. 37). Sometimes sheep from other flocks would get mixed in a shepherd’s flock. This pictures a shepherd holding out his rod and forcing the sheep to pass under it single file so his sheep could be separated from sheep who were not his. The shepherd would allow those sheep that were actually his to enter the fold, a place of protection. In this instance the fold was “the bond of the covenant.” The “covenant” refers to the New Covenant when He restores her to Himself. Let’s read The Promise of the New Covenant promised to Israel and Judah in Jeremiah 31:31-33.
31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Jews who have trusted in Jesus will enter the Messianic Kingdom. The process of purification will mean that only His true sheep will enjoy the blessing of the New Covenant.
The unrighteous Jews whose survive the Tribulation and do not trust in Jesus at the second coming will receive their reward at the end of the Messianic Kingdom at the Great White Throne Judgement. Those who survive the Tribulation and trust in Jesus the Messiah at the second coming will not, as far as I know, have any rewards because they just got saved. I don’t know if Scripture even addresses that issue.
We will talk more about the rewards given to the saved and to the lost Jews and Gentiles in several weeks.
Application
The application I have for the subject matter at hand is that we need to get the gospel to Jews and Gentiles now for several reasons:
1. They can have their sins forgiven and a personal relationship with Jesus the Messiah now.
2. If the Tribulation is near, they will be raptured and will not have to go through it.
3. Even if they were to go through the Tribulation and survive and will witness the Second Coming of Jesus in all His glory, there is certainly no guarantee they will see Jesus for who He is and trust Him as the Messiah. Therefore, their road to reward is the one spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14.
13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Who is the narrow gate according to John 10?
SELAH
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