Great Tribulation Archives - The New Antisemitism

September 28, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 15 Comments

Yom Kippur, The Great Tribulation and the Antichrist…How Soon?

The Jewish civil new year 5783 has come and gone, and to many, it was a bit of a disappointment that the Rapture didn’t take place on Rosh Hashanah (Yom T’ruah or the Day of Trumpets) this year. I am of those who expect the Rapture imminently, but I also understand that we cannot know the day or the hour of that event when Yeshua will come in the sky and call the believers up before the Tribulation. But after Rosh Hashanah comes Yom Kippur, and we should continue to pay close attention. So, how does that relate to Yom Kippur, the Great Tribulation and the Antichrist?

As I have explained before, I see a connection between Rosh Hashanah and the Rapture, Yom Kippur and the Great Tribulation and Sukkot (Tabernacles) and the Millennial Kingdom. The Fall Feasts have a thematic connection to the end times not necessitating an exact day fulfillment. In fact, all the Levitical Feasts of the Lord found in Leviticus 23 have a prophetic significance as it pertains to the redemptive career of the Messiah. It is quite beautiful to behold when we connect all the dots. But again, Rosh Hashanah is behind us, and we are now in the ten days of awe in preparation for the most solemn day of Yom Kippur known as the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16).
Rabbis teach that the fate of all Jews is decided on Yom T’ruah (The Day of Trumpets), but it isn’t sealed until Yom Kippur. This is a time of introspection and repentance when Jewish people go out of their way to seek forgiveness from anyone they might have hurt throughout the year. The sabbath that falls within these ten days is known as Shabbat Shuvah (the Sabbath of repentance).

Leviticus 23:26-32 tells us that the Day of Atonement is all about repentance, humility and affliction: 26 “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. 28 You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God. 29 If there is any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut off from his people. 30 As for any person who does any work on this same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. 31 You shall do no work at all. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. 32 It is to be a sabbath of complete rest to you, and you shall humble your souls; on the ninth of the month at evening, from evening until evening you shall keep your sabbath.”
Yom Kippur is a very serious and solemn day on the Jewish calendar, possibly the most important of the year for Jewish people. It is never referred to as a feast but rather, as a fast. It is known by several names, including Yom Kippur: The Day of Atonement, Shabbat Shabbaton: The Sabbath of Sabbaths (Leviticus 16:31), and Yom Hakippurim: The Day of Atonements (Leviticus 23:27). It is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar and is the only time that a day other than the Sabbath is also called a sabbath.

Biblically, Yom Kippur is never connected to a fast, but based on Leviticus 23:27-29, the rabbis decided that the “affliction” of the soul must refer to abstinence from food. According to Judaism on this day of judgment, all deeds–good or bad– are weighed in heaven and God inscribes one’s name in one of three books (Wicked, In-Between or Righteous), sealing their fate for the next year until the next Yom Kippur. The basic rabbinic principle of Yom Kippur is that man can atone for his own sins through works. It relies heavily on the affliction of the body. Yom Kippur is a time when Jewish people experience affliction of the body more than the traditional affliction of the soul. It includes no eating or drinking. No washing or bathing. No anointing (creams, ointments, perfume). No leather shoes (luxury items). No sexual relations with spouse.
Yom Kippur is a day of repentance and expiation of sins by God, also based on Ezekiel 33:19: But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live by them. The book of Jonah is also read to teach that you cannot run from God and that God will forgive whoever repents like the Ninevites. It is found in three passages of the Torah: Leviticus 16:1- 34; Leviticus 23:26-32 and Numbers 29:7-11. In the Torah, it served three purposes: To cleanse the people and the Tabernacle, to remind Israel of her national standing before God, and to call for individual repentance.

Leviticus 16:1-34 details the duties of the High Priest and serves as the foundation for 16:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.”

Yom Kippur will be fulfilled by the Great Tribulation also known as The Time of Jacob’s Trouble and will culminate with Israel’s national Atonement in the Tribulation.

Ezekiel 20:33-38 sets the stage, “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. 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.

God will purge rebels and regenerate willing unbelievers who seek the righteousness of God through Yeshua the Messiah. This will bring about Israel’s national regeneration. The key word biblically and rabbinically is “affliction,” both of the soul and the body. On Yom Kippur, atonement was made for the nation, not the individual through the sacrifice of the two goats. But national atonement was not achieved unless there was an affliction of the soul at the individual level. Two other key passages to be considered for Yom Kippur’s fulfillment are Hosea 5:15-6:3 and Zechariah 12:10-13:1.

During the seven-year Great Tribulation, “left behind Israel” will suffer the affliction of the body as two-thirds of all Jewish people alive at that time will perish (Zechariah 13:8-9; Hosea 5:15). Additionally, Zechariah 12:10 and Hosea 6:1-3, speak of the spiritual affliction of Israel that will lead to a corporate acceptance of Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel and will usher the physical Second Coming of Yeshua.

There is a beautiful prophetic connection between all the feasts of the Lord and the end times. Believers should really be excited about what is to come and how God has perfectly linked it to His “yearly convocations” but when it comes to Yom Kippur, we all need to reflect. What is so exciting about billions left behind to suffer and die, including half of the world population and within those numbers, two-thirds of the Jewish people alive at that time?

We look forward to the Rapture and rightfully so, and we look forward to the 1,000-year Messianic kingdom on earth when we will tabernacle with God in the flesh. Accordingly, none of us look forward to the Tribulation since we will be taken out before it starts. Yet, we need to think of all those left behind at the mercy of the Antichrist. Things will start with a promising peace treaty (Daniel 9:26-27), but soon the Antichrist will turn on people and demand to be worshipped as god. People will either take the Mark of the Beast and survive the Tribulation, only to be doomed to eternal torment in the Lake of Fire for rejecting Yeshua, or they will reject the Mark and become Tribulation martyrs.

The Tribulation is as certain to happen as the Rapture will. We are still here on earth, and people who don’t know Yeshua are also around us. Now is the time to be bold with the Gospel because the clock is really ticking. If any of the five red heifers turn out to be kosher, we could see the ashes of that animal come to Jerusalem within one year (a plot of land on the Mount of Olives has already been purchased for the sacrifice of the animal). Then, all we need is for the Temple to be rebuilt, and I believe that the Antichrist and his peace treaty with Israel will be instrumental in that part.

Be encouraged to know that any Jewish man you share the Gospel with now could potentially become one of the 144,000 Jewish men used by God to change the world during the Great Tribulation. Now is not the time to be quiet. We know the whole story; we know the players and we know the end. The victory is ours, so, let’s share the Gospel with those who need to become members of the blessed Body of Messiah!

February 14, 2022 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The Rapture and the Second Coming: EXPLAINED!

The topic of the Rapture of the Church has been a controversial one for quite a while now. The pendulum swings from the Rapture being an invention or a myth all the way to being an imminent event to take place before the Great Tribulation, with a lot of adjusted theological positions in between. Additionally, many have come to look at the Rapture and the Second Coming as being one and the same event. The Bible does give us plenty of information regarding the timing of both the Rapture and the Second Coming to know how and when they will take place and who will be included. The differences will be looked at from a pre-tribulation/premillennial viewpoint, which means that the sequence of events is as follows: Rapture, Seven Year Great Tribulation (seven actual years), Second Coming of Messiah, Millennial Kingdom (1,000 actual years) and Eternal Order. Let’s look at the timing, purpose and people for both events.

The Timing of the Rapture: As to the Rapture, the timing is clearly unknown to all people, except that most believers hold to what is known as “imminency”. This means that the Rapture is as certain as it is signless Nobody knows when it will happen, but it will happen and there is nothing that needs to happen prior to the Rapture for the event to take place. The Bible is replete with verses telling us that the Rapture could happen at any moment:

1 Corinthians 1:7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Yeshua the Messiah,

Titus 2:13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Yeshua the Messiah,

Hebrews 9:28 so Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

We must also keep in mind that imminency means certainty as it is inevitable, but uncertainty as to when it will take place. Its imminency should motivate us to share the Good News with the lost and give us hope for the future.

The Timing of the Second Coming: Some people see the Second Coming as a separate event from the Rapture while others will see the Second Coming taking place in two steps: The Rapture and the Return. Regardless of how one looks at the Second Coming (one or two events), it takes place at the end of the Great Tribulation, at the climax of the Campaign of Armageddon, so in that sense, it can be timed with a certain degree of precision. From the signing of the covenant between the Antichrist and Israel, there will be seven years, and then the Second Coming. Over three hundred references about the Second Coming can be found in the Bible (Zechariah 14:1-11; Revelation 19:11-19).

An often ignored, but key component of the timing of the Second Coming, is Israel’s involvement. Yeshua promised at the end of Matthew 23 that Israel will not see Him again until they corporately say Baruch Haba Bashem Adonai, meaning “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”. This is based on the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn,” that will take place at the end of the seven-year Tribulation, after two-thirds of all Jewish people living during the Tribulation will have been decimated

Zechariah 13:8-9 In the whole land, declares the LORD, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. 9 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.’”

If this was to happen today, two-thirds of all Jewish people alive would be 10 million which is almost double the casualties of the Holocaust. God didn’t give us numbers here but a percentage of 2/3 and 1/3. The percentage will never change, and any casualty is a tragedy, but the final number of Jewish people dying during the Great Tribulation can be drastically reduced if Christians share the Gospel with their Jewish friends and more come to the Lord before the Rapture. Truly, today more than ever, time is of the essence.

Honestly, we should boldly proclaim the Gospel to our Jewish friends if we believe that their acceptance would secure them a place during the Rapture and would prevent them from the carnage of the Tribulation.

The reason why this is very important is that by the time Yeshua returns at the Second Coming the clock starts ticking for Satan’s demise and the time is very short. Outside of a short time when he is released at the end of the Millennium (Revelation 20:7-10), Satan’s fate is sealed and he is bound for eternal torment in the Lake of fire without relief. Satan is never the “boss” of Hell, but rather one of the first ones thrown in; and this is because of Israel’s recognition of her Messiah, missed and rejected at His First Coming. The very Jewish people that are the apple of God’s eye according to Zechariah 2:8b, are the people Satan hates the most, and are also the people that will become the catalyst for Yeshua’s Second Coming. If the Jews don’t call on Him, He simply will not return and Satan’s job is secure. Pushing the Jewish people away from Yeshua has been Satan’s entire career. He’s managed to work with antisemitism – by placing that hatred in the hearts of men – and done much damage to the Jewish people over the centuries.

The Purpose for the Rapture: As to the purpose for the Rapture, that should be clear. Messiah is going to come back at some point and call His children to join Him before the start of the Tribulation. Yeshua wants to save His children from the upcoming wrath

1 Thessalonians 1:10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Yeshua who delivers us from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Yeshua the Messiah

Revelation 3:10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.

Now, this is not a view shared by all believers, but for those who agree with the event, we can say that the Rapture is the first phase of the Second Coming of Messiah. This is the phase when He doesn’t land on earth but calls us up. At such a time, two things will happen, as seen in

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 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 Messiah will rise first. 17 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.

So, the dead in Messiah (deceased believers from the birth of the Church to that time) will rise first, closely followed by all other believers alive at the time. This can also be called the resurrection of the righteous. The book of Revelation does not make any reference to the Church after chapter 3. This seems to indicate that the Church will not be part of the Tribulation, since all the damage inflicted by the Antichrist from the middle of the Tribulation forward never mentions the Church once.

The Tribulation seems to coincide with the 70th week of Daniel 9:27 starting after the Antichrist signs a peace treaty with Israel. Simply put, as the first step of the Second Coming, the Rapture will take place because God wants to protect His people from His wrath on earth.

Daniel 9:27 And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

The Purpose for the Second Coming: No one knows how much time will transpire between the Rapture and the Start of the Tribulation, but common sense would dictate that the Antichrist will have to show up quickly and establish his hegemony with authority. At least seven years after the Rapture, at the end of the Great Tribulation, Yeshua will return to earth with those He had raptured. This will take place at the end of the Campaign of Armageddon when He comes to defeat the Antichrist

Revelation19:19-21 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. 20 And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. 21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.

Messiah will come to fulfill His promise of return spoken of in the Old and New Testament (Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 25:31; Acts 1:9-11). Probably the most mentioned in the Tanach, is the fact that Messiah also comes to regather and restore the nation of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6; Jeremiah 30:10; Ezekiel 36:24-38). It will be both a physical and spiritual regathering. He is also coming to judge the living Gentiles (Matthew 25:31-46) and Jews (Ezekiel 20:33-38) who survived the Tribulation.

It is also after the Second Coming that Yeshua will resurrect the Old Testament saints Revelation 20:4-6 and

Daniel 12:1-2 “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Yeshua will also bind Satan (Revelation 20:1-3) and reign as the Davidic King in Jerusalem for 1,000 years (Revelation 19:6; Daniel 2:44) so, this coming is literal, physical and future.

The People of the Rapture: For those of us who believe in a literal Rapture, it is actually quite simple to understand. Only those “in Messiah” will be included in the event, requiring them to be in Messiah by the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13.) That includes all believers who died from the birth of the Church at Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) and all who are still alive, as we learned in Acts 2. The dead in Messiah first and then those alive, not long after. Nobody else will be included at that time.

The People of the Second Coming: Yeshua’s Second Coming will deal with a different group of people. First, He will return with the believers (saints) in their glorified bodies that were raptured seven years prior. Our role in His return will simply be to accompany Him and be observers of the final chapters of history. The Campaign of Armageddon is between Yeshua and His enemies led by the Antichrist. We will be there, but uninvolved. It will be a literal, personal, sudden, visible and glorious return. The Second Coming includes a judgment of all people known as the Great White throne judgment (Revelation 20:12-13). It is for all those who died without trusting Yeshua. Many will be surprised as they thought that religion was the answer, but they truly didn’t have a personal relationship with Yeshua, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21-23). It is different from the Bema Seat Judgment that believers will undergo after the Rapture (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). That judgment of the believers is connected to service to the Lord and rewards for service, but salvation is never in question.

The Rapture is very different from the Second Coming or is at the very least the first part of the Second Coming. The second part is the physical future return of Yeshua on the Mount of Olives to judge the world. Regardless of where one stands on the Rapture, most people will agree that Yeshua is coming back at some point in the future, and when that occurs, a lot of people will not make the cut. The question is: Will you?

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