I’m writing these three books for people like me who love stories but who also love the truth and, when they’re side by side, it’s a perfect day of reading! I’m writing this series for anyone who wants to dig deeper into Scripture, who wants a closer walk with Jesus, and feels the urgency to tell others about Him.
I’m also writing these books for those inside and outside the church who doubt that God can be trusted or that the Bible is true. I’m writing for those who are unchurched or who have been gone from church for longer than they can remember. Perhaps that applies to you. Within yourself you feel as though you have misplaced or overlooked something of importance, or you sense a deep longing for what you’ve lost. May this series of books with their fictional storyline and Scripture-based study notes be just the beginning of finding what you are searching for.
BE LIKE THE BEREANS
The Time of Jacob’s Trouble is a fictional account of what will take place during Earth’s final years, but make no mistake: The prophecies, as revealed in the pages of the Bible, are true. When I realized that I wasn’t learning about some twenty-seven percent of the Bible in church, I became a student of that twenty-seven percent. As you read through each Where in the Word? section in this part of the book, I encourage you to become a student, too, and ask the Spirit of God for help and understanding as you open your own Bible to learn what the Scriptures say. For myself, I didn’t want to take someone else’s word or theory about the end of the age; I wanted God’s Word as the final authority and studied it, comparing each theory against the Bible.
Regarding the return of Jesus, I determined that I believed as Paul and the early church leaders believed, who were expecting their Lord’s return at any moment. Paul said, “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). Peter said they “were waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God…waiting…to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace” (2 Peter 3:12, 14 ESV). They were “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus” (Titus 2:13 NASB).
Don’t take my word for anything you read in this book! Be like the Bereans in Thessalonica, who “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11). I understand that there are varying opinions about the snatching away of those in Christ and return of Jesus, but I don’t understand the anger and vitriol that often accompany those opinions. This isn’t a salvation issue. The study of biblical prophecy is not meant to ignite fury, anger, or hatred.
Instead, Bible prophecy has been given to us to…
•stimulate holiness in our lives and to teach us to say no to worldly passions and live self-controlled, upright, blameless, and godly lives (see Colossians 3:4-5; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 4:3-5; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Peter 1:13-16; 2 Peter 3:11-14), because “without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
•embolden us to be salt and light and to share the gospel message with others (see Matthew 5:13-16).
•remind us to wake up because the day is almost here. We must strap on the armor of light and live to glorify Jesus, not gratify the flesh (see Romans 13:11-14; 1 Thessalonians 5:6-8).
•clarify that we must not only wake up from our slumber but be alert, watch out that we are not deceived, and be on our guard (Mark 13:5, 9, 23, 33, 35-37).
•urge us to use our bodies in righteous ways because we are united with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 13-20; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Ephesians 5:3-5).
•spur us on to love and good deeds, to assemble together, and encouraging one another—“all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
•encourage us to purify ourselves that we may be more like Jesus (1 John 3:2-3).
There are so many other verses I could include, but it’s clear from the pages of the Bible that the return of Jesus should affect the way we live today because He asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).
There isn’t enough space to cover all the basics about Bible prophecy and the last days here (we’ll cover more in the two books following this one), but these notes are meant to reveal the truth behind the novel portion of this book. Whether you are a believer in Christ or you’re on a journey to discover who He is, I hope these pages encourage your heart, strengthen your faith, bring your doubts into the pages of God’s Word, deepen your walk, fill you with hope, and calm your fears. Perfect love casts out fear, and we should not be afraid at the prospect of Christ’s return, but anticipating it.
SOMETHING ISN’T RIGHT
A couple of years ago I listened to a radio broadcast in which the host was reading from an article about a poll conducted among university professors from around the world. Although the professors couldn’t put their finger on why they felt this way, the majority of them believed that the world was escalating toward some sort of conclusion. Any casual chat among people in general will reveal the same. When we read headlines from around the globe of wars, genocide, terrorism, sex trafficking, murders, the refugee crises, natural disasters, hunger, abortion, drug use, the loss of innocence, and the rise of racism, anti-Semitism, persecution, hatred, rebellion, and anarchy, we feel something in the air; we think, Something isn’t right.
In Matthew 24, Jesus’s disciples ask about the sign of His coming and of the end of the age. Jesus first named deception, wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation, famines, and earthquakes, saying that those were “the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24:8), which means other birth pains will come. And if there are birth pains, that means something is about to birthed, after which the pains will end.
What many don’t know is that God has laid out for us, in His Word, the plan of that ending.
I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, “My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.”…
What I have said, that I will bring about;
what I have planned, that I will do (Isaiah 46:10-11).
The end that is spoken of in the Bible is really a beautiful beginning. God will make all things new: a new refurbished earth with Jesus to rule over it, and it’s all laid out within the pages of Scripture. The Greek word heuriskó means “to discover, to find, to celebrate.” Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” And in 2 Timothy 2:15 we read, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (NKJV).
God designed each of us to heuriskó. We are meant to study, discover, search out, find, and celebrate the Word of God. As we do, we come to know who He is, uncover great treasures of wisdom and knowledge, receive answers to our questions, and learn of His plans for His creation. We don’t need a college education or PhD to study God’s Word; there’s no greater teacher than the Holy Spirit, and I encourage you to ask Him to teach and lead you.
As you heuriskó with me, you’ll discover that what happens in the end has been known from the beginning.
AN ANCIENT JEWISH WEDDING
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3).
In John 14, Jesus promises to
•prepare a place in His Father’s house for you
•come back
•take you to be where He is
When Jesus talked of His Father’s house and said that He would “come back and take you to be with me,” He was using an analogy that the Jewish people would easily understand, which is based on an ancient Jewish wedding ceremony and consists of several st
eps. Follow along, and you’ll see where this is heading.
Step 1: A Marriage Covenant Is Established
In ancient Israel, the groom’s father chose the bride through an agent of the father. On behalf of his son Isaac, Abraham sent his servant, Eliezer, to seek out a bride (Genesis 24:2-4). Rebekah agreed to marry Isaac before meeting him (verse 58).
Today, in the church age, God works through the Holy Spirit to draw people to Christ. Jesus said,
You did not choose me, but I chose you (John 15:16).
And when we ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we become part of the bride of Christ, even though we have not yet seen Him.
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8).
In the same way that Abraham had Eliezer search for a bride for Isaac, God uses the Holy Spirit to call us to become the bride of Christ.
Step 2: A Bride Price Is Set and the Bride and Groom Are Betrothed
Once a bride was selected, the groom would leave his father’s house and travel to the home of his prospective bride so he could negotiate a purchase price with her father. When the price, or dowry, was paid, he would return to his father’s home.
Just as the Jewish groom had to pay a price to obtain his bride, Jesus had to pay a price to acquire us. That price was His blood on the cross.
You are not your own; you were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19).
In ancient Galilee, the groom would offer the bride a cup of wine, and she would drink from the cup. The groom would then drink from the cup, solidifying their covenant, and would say to her, “You are now consecrated to me by the laws of Moses, and I will not drink from this cup again until I drink it anew with you in my Father’s house.” In the same way, during the Last Supper, Jesus offered His apostles a cup of wine to signify a new covenant with them. After the apostles drank from the cup, Jesus said what the Galileans (with the exception of Judas Iscariot, the 12 apostles were Galilean) would have heard in that day: “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom” (NKJV). This was a new covenant that would be made in Jesus’s blood and was marked by drinking the wine. Pastor J.D. Farag, who is from Lebanon, says, “In my Arab culture, you eat from the same bread. You drink from the same cup. The thought is, ‘That which is in you, is in me.’ It is a common union. Communion. No longer two, but one. When Jesus says at that last supper, ‘This is my body given for you—broken for you’—He’s talking as a bridegroom to His bride. When He says, ‘This is the cup of My blood in the new covenant,’ that’s how they would seal the betrothed in the ancient wedding.”2
The bride and groom are now legally bound in a marriage contract, but they don’t yet live together. Next comes a time of preparation. The groom builds and adds living accommodations to his father’s house, to which he can bring his bride. He will remain there for about a year. The bride undergoes a ritual cleansing bath called a mikvah to demonstrate her purity. During all this, the day when the groom will come for his bride is not yet known.
Although we who are the bride of Christ are not yet with Him physically in heaven, we are bound to live a pure life for Him while living on Earth. The hope of His future calling to take us home with Him should motivate us to throw off the chains of sin that bind us and keep us separated from Him.
I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him (2 Corinthians 11:2).
We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure (1 John 3:2-3).
It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we await for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:12-13).
The realization that Christ will call His followers to Him at an unknown hour should encourage us to live prayerful and watchful lives. Be on your guard! Be ready! Be alert! Don’t be asleep! Stay awake! Keep watch! (see Matthew 24:42-44; 15:1-13; Mark 13:5, 9, 23, 32-37).
Step 3: Gathering the Bride
Before the groom could go claim his bride, he had to wait until his father declared satisfaction with the bridal chamber. The groom didn’t know when his father would give consent to send for his bride, which meant that the bride didn’t know when her groom would come! She always had to be ready and prepared, like the wise virgins waiting for the bridegroom in Matthew 25, ready with oil and a lamp at hand.
The taking of the bride would often occur in the middle of the night, when she would be whisked away by her groom. This might sound rude, but it was considered very romantic. According to Renald Showers,
The bride never knew exactly what night it would be. The groom would call his best man and escorts to his father’s house and they would begin a torchlight procession through the city to come and take the bride. As they were coming, bystanders would recognize what was going on and shout, “Behold the bridegroom comes!” The purpose of that shout was to forewarn the bride to get ready.3
The groom would go up to the bride’s door, and he and his escorts would wait outside. Someone would blow a shofar (a trumpet-type instrument made from a ram’s horn), announcing the groom’s arrival. When the bride was ready, she and her bridesmaids would come out and meet the groom. Showers notes that when Jesus comes for His bride, “He doesn’t come the whole way down to planet Earth where the church has been dwelling, but waits outside the earth, in the air, and will catch up His bride to meet Him in the air.”4 (Showers refers to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 here, and we’ll dig deeper into these verses later.)
Step 4: The Groom Takes His Bride Back to His Father’s House
Upon returning to the groom’s father’s house, the groom took his bride into what is called a chuppah (the bridal chamber), and it was in the privacy of that room that they entered into a physical union with each other for the first time, consummating their marriage.
If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (John 14:3).
One day God will tell Jesus to go get His bride, and Jesus will gather her up and take her to His Father’s house. Christ’s bride will be with Him in the bridal chamber during “the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world” (Revelation 3:10). This is the tribulation period, and we’ll learn more about it later in this book.
God is going to remove His Son’s bride from Earth before the tribulation begins—He is not going to bloody, beat up, and execute His Son’s bride, who has kept herself pure as she waited for Him. Ephesians 5:29 tells us, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church” (ESV). God won’t pour out His wrath on the bride of Christ. He nourishes us and cherishes us. Before pouring out His judgment on a rebellious and wicked world, the Father will say to His Son, “Go get Your bride and bring her home.”
At the end of the ancient Jewish wedding, the bride and groom were presented to the world as man and wife and a feast began, a feast that could last seven days filled with food, dancing, music, and celebration. At the end of the seven-year tribulation (there isn’t space in this book to discover how it boils down to seven years, but we’ll dig deeper into that in one of the future books), after a huge celebration in heaven, Jesus will return to Earth at His second coming and will bring His bride with Him (Revelation 19:7-8, 11, 14).
When Jesus spoke the words in John 14:1-3, every Jewish listener would have understood the analogy, and of course only the Jewish believer
s at that time would have taken His words to heart following His death and resurrection, looking up and anticipating His return. Just days following Jesus’s ascension back to heaven, Peter said this in Acts 3:19-21: “…and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”
More than 2,000 years ago, Peter was already looking for Jesus’s return! He said heaven must receive Him “until…” Until what? “Until the time comes for God to restore everything.” Heaven can only keep Jesus for so long. Peter and the early church were already looking up for the return of Jesus to restore everything. Are we so heavenly minded? Or are we like the scoffers Peter warned us about in 2 Peter 3:3-4, questioning and doubting Christ’s return?
Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote,
If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one. Aim at heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”; aim at earth and you will get neither.5
WHERE IN THE WORD?
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