General Articles

God Sees Our Distress; Our Deliverer Is Coming :: By Jonathan Brentner

Published on: by RR10

I love the words of Scripture. They form the basis for my hope of eternal life, provide needed assurance in times of trouble, and calm my soul during the turbulent times in which we live.

Sometimes a passage or a phrase speaks to me in a new way. Such was the case with Exodus 2:23-25:

“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

I like the phrase at the end of verse 25 in the ESV, “and God knew.” In the Hebrew text, the word is yada, which in its basic form simply means “to know.” It appears 947 times in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.

In Exodus 2, yada reveals God’s awareness of the plight of the Israelites in Egyptian bondage just before He tasked Moses with the job of delivering His people. Yada appears again in Exodus 3:7:

“Then the Lord said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings.'”

After forty years tending sheep in the wilderness, Moses was fully prepared to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. The longsuffering slaves were ready to accept freedom and follow the leader God would send to them. The Lord knew the time was right.

He doesn’t explain why this time was better than twenty years earlier. He doesn’t need to fill in all the blanks for us. We trust His sovereignty and wisdom.

God Hears Our Groaning

Members of the body of Christ suffer from afflictions of a wide variety. Some face martyrdom for their faith, others lose their freedoms, and many endure severe opposition to their faith. We all fight off the relentless attacks of our enemy.

I know many saints who are hurting because of cancer, other ailments, and grief. The afflictions of this life, along with aging, have a way of catching up to all of us.

And like the ancient Israelites, we groan.

I love how the Apostle Paul connects our anticipation of the Rapture with our sighing amid the many hardships of life:

“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:23-25).

The Lord hears the cry of our hearts as we long for Him to appear and take us to glory.

The Lord is not distant as some imagine Him to be; He sees; He hears; He feels all our grief; and He’s our deliverer just as He was for ancient Israel.

Someday soon, the prophetic words of 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 will be past tense, and we will rejoice with our Savior in glory:

“For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”

There are days when it seems as though the perfect time for the Rapture has long since passed. We see the tears of loved ones and watch as violence, wickedness, deception, and lawlessness explode in our world. We often wonder, “How much longer, Lord?”

In the meantime, we rest in the fact that God sees our distress and His Deliverer will come for us. Is it not encouraging to know that the Lord knows all about our distressing circumstances and has our rescue in sight?

The One who has “called us to glory” (1 Peter 5:10) is ever so close to taking us there (Colossians 3:4).

A Glorious Restoration for Israel

The forty years that Moses tended sheep in the wilderness must have felt like an eternity for Israelites in Egypt. It’s likely that most knew about God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and looked for a deliverer to take them to the Land promised to their forefathers.

During the last half of the seven-year Tribulation, a much more frightening scenario will exist for the Hebrew people. Once the antichrist defiles their temple, they will face the darkest time in their history. In the end, only one-third of them will remain alive.

The prophet Zechariah, speaking for God, wrote these words about this future time of peril:

“And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God'” (Zechariah 13:9).

Zechariah 14:1-8 describes the arrival of Israel’s future deliverer, the Lord Jesus. He will fight for Israel as a mighty warrior, destroy all the armies that will have come against Jerusalem, and establish His worldwide kingdom over which He will rule from Jerusalem. Is it not fitting that Moses referred to Jesus as a “prophet like me” in Deuteronomy 18:15-18? The greater Moses will deliver the Israelites at His Second Coming.

It will be a glorious time of restoration for the kingdom of Israel. God will forever protect the Jewish people with His presence in Jerusalem (Zephaniah 3:14-20).

We Trust God’s Timing

We often groan because of personal pain or that of those close to us. At other times, it’s because of a world descending into lawlessness and wickedness, the likes of which we once thought impossible.

In the midst of the distress we feel, the words, “And God knew,” bring welcome relief. We know our Deliverer is surely coming to catch us up to meet Him in the air.

As we wait, we remain confident that:

  1. God is always aware of the plight of those who belong to Him. He sees, He hears, and He loves us more than we can imagine.
  2. Jesus remains ever mindful of the promises we hold dear to our hearts. He’s preparing a place for us in heaven (John 14:2-3).
  3. The Lord will surely come for us before the judgments of the day of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10).
  4. God’s timing often mystifies us, but we trust His purposes, knowing Jesus will arrive at the perfect time.

The words “And God knew” seem so simple, yet they breathe hope into the most distressing of circumstances. Our Deliverer stands ready to rescue us and will surely do so.

In the meantime, we pray for Him to come soon.

Maranatha!!

—

My book, The Triumph of the Redeemed-An eternal Perspective that Calms Our Fears in Perilous Times, is available on Amazon. In it, I connect the dots between God’s keeping of His covenants for Israel in the future and our hope as New Testament Saints.

Note: Please consider signing up for my newsletter on the home page of my website at https://www.jonathanbrentner.com. It will help me reach more people. Thanks!

The Marvelous Transformation in the Resurrection :: By Gene Lawley

Published on: by RR10

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul defines the gospel in the first few verses and declares its effect on their lives, saying, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”

He continues with the core of the gospel: “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.

“After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:1-8).

This volume of Scripture is listed to emphasize the total transformation of Jesus from mortal to immortal in His Son of Man humanity identity. A remarkable fact of His transformation is that He did not experience corruption of His body—it did not return to dust as is the destiny of the human body.

(Job 34:15 – “All flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.” And Ecclesiastes 3:20 – “All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all return to dust.”)

Psalm 16:10 tells us this: “For You will not leave My soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” His body was in the tomb three nights and three days, just as one of those disciples on the road to Emmaus that Sunday afternoon exclaimed, “And this is the third day!” (Tip: Count back three days and three nights to learn what day Jesus was crucified.)

What happens, then, when ordinary mortals like you and me reach our time of departure? In the words of 2 Corinthians 5:8, we are “absent from the body and present with the Lord.” The body goes to the grave, and the soul and spirit go into the Lord’s presence.

All born-again believers in Christ of this present age are waiting for His return for them, for Jesus said this in John 14:2-3, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may be also.”

However, it looks like the scene in Revelation 4 is evidence that the redeemed saints, represented by the twenty-four elders, appear before the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ. No elders are in heaven previously, and no one has been promised a crown for their service to the Lord before this time, except the redeemed ones.

Twelve of those elders apparently represent the twelve tribes of Israel, and the other twelve, the apostles. Will Jews who believed in the promise of a coming Redeemer be among those before His throne at that time? That answer is not clearly revealed. If they are” in Christ,” certainly, they are there. Of course, Jews of all their tribes may have believed in the gospel of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ in this age of grace and are, therefore, among those before His throne, as shown in Revelation 4.

The manner of transformation that takes place when the coming resurrection of the church age believers are caught up is told in 1 Corinthians 15:50-53: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Let’s cross-reference some parallel verses to determine the “whole counsel of God” on the issues:

1 Corinthians 15:53: “For this corruption must put on incorruption.”

John 11:25b: “He who believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

1 Thessalonians 14:16c: “And the dead in Christ shall rise first.”

Romans 8:11a: “If the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you…”

Corruption is in the habitat of the grave, where the body returns to the dust of which it was made. Jesus was raised before corruption would begin after three days, as John 11:39 tells us. We should consider whether Jesus would have suffered corruption at all, having never sinned in His mortal body, but that body was then loaded with the sins of the whole world—past, present, and future! 1 John 2:2 says it plainly: “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

Look now at the mortal persons who are changed as the bodies of corruption will be, from mortal to immortality, passing over death:

1 Corinthians 15:53b: “And this mortal must put on immortality.”

John 11:26: “And whosoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”

1 Thessalonians 4:17: “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord.”

Romans 8:11b: “He who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

It comes down to this: If one is saying there is no such thing as a Rapture, a snatching away of those who belong to the Lord before the seven-year reign of the Antichrist, he must deny the validity of what Jesus said and what Paul further explained in his prophetic disclosures. It defies the certain claim advanced by 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Of course, one can say that those things could happen just before the Second Coming, but the chronology of Scripture has them after Revelation 3 and encased in that invitation in chapter 4: “Come up here!”

God is not the author of confusion, so how could He confuse such an important revelation of His future plan? Therefore, I must reject the concept that this Rapture is coming just before the time of the Second Coming of Christ to the earth. For one reason, the marriage supper of the Lamb must fit in there first. Another is the placing of John 14:2-3 “preparation of places for His believers” and their occupation of them. Of course, the scenario in Revelation 4 should be enough to convince anyone of the Rapture’s timing.

This transformation in the “twinkling of an eye” is not a new creation of theological intrigue, for Job, some 1,900 years before Christ, made this declaration in Job 19:26: “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (KJV). (Restoration and Resurrection.)

The trail through the dust looks like this: “The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (1 Corinthians 15:47-49).

As Jesus said, “You must be born again,” and Paul concluded, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And so it is!

Contact email: andwegetmercy@gmail.com