Like them that dream

A Reuters news service headline story from Jerusalem two days ago told of “the hundreds of hideouts, ranging from just a few metres deep to seemingly unending labyrinths that are popular among Israeli archaeologists and adventurists.”

The article informs that these ancient subterranean mazes “are virtually unknown to foreigners--even if you go looking for them, as designed, they are easy to miss.”

"These tunnels are an amazing secret that tourists unfortunately don't know about," veteran guide Asael Lavi was quoted saying. "It's possible to spend an entire day or two crawling in the different systems and experience the fear, grief and even excitement that the rebels must have felt."

What the article didn’t mention is that there are many references in the Bible about how in the “last days” the believing remnant in Israel will hide out from their enemies in the caves and rocks.

A central them in the whole Bible is about God coming and bringing salvation out of Zion, returning His people back to their position of blessing.

Psalm 126 is a great preacher’s psalm (they especially love to preach out of verses 5 and 6) that starts out: “When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
[2] Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
[3] The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
[4] Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.”

Israel’s hope all along, and the thing they pray for and look for, is to have their captivity turned around into deliverance. God promises them this and what’s so fascinating is that every time you see them waiting on God’s promise, the Book of Job is there.

Jordan explains, “James 5 says that in the last days one of the things the little flock of Believers is going to do to edify themselves and teach themselves the patience they need to endure through the time of affliction is to teach the Book of Job. So when these passages in Psalms, Joel, Hosea, Zachariah, on and on, are being fulfilled in the last days, while they’re being fulfilled the teachers of Israel are going to be teaching them the Book of Job according to James 5:11.

“They are to understand the captivity they’re in, the things that are happening to them have an end, and they can be patient like Job was, suffering according to the will of God and committing the keeping of their souls to a faithful Creator. They would learn about that faithful Creator and what it means to them.

“When I talk to you about their being so much information in Job about creation (there’s more information about creation in Job and Proverbs than all the rest of the Bible!) I’m trying to say to you that book contains information that is going to equip that little flock in the last days to understand the purpose and trust the plan of a faithful Creator.

“Those books are about the heart of the believing remnant that are specifically going to be taught to them in those last days for their edification to keep their heart trusting the plan God has laid out for them in Isaiah to Malachi in the Prophets. Israel needs a heart that is willing to trust that plan; not just know it, but TRUST it!

“Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon build into their heart an understanding of this one who has this plan that will be executed.

"This is what I Peter 4:17-19 says in one comment: ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
[18] And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
[19] Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.’

“One of the most amazing passages, Ezekiel 36 . . . In Deuteronomy 30 it says that when God turns their captivity, He’s going to circumcise their heart and give them a new one. How’s He gonna do that? The New Covenant.”

*****

Ezekiel 36 promises, in part, “And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
[29] I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you.
[30] And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.”

Jordan says, “This land that was desolate and useless all of a sudden is going to spring forth like a rose garden, bear abundantly and be like the garden of Eden.

“It’s going to take a real change of heart for Israel to want to go have God give the Gentiles what He gave them, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen in the kingdom. God told Abraham, ‘I’m going to bless you and make you a blessing, and all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed in you.’

“God’s going to redeem Israel and put His new heart in them, but His heart wants not just Israel to be blessed, but everybody.

“He says He’s going to give Job twice as much and what He’s going to do for Israel in their kingdom is give them double the blessings. If you read earlier in Isaiah, He said He gives them double because He gave them double for their sins.”

*****

In Zechariah 9, a passage about the coming of the Messiah and the deliverance of Israel, verse 11-12 says, “As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.
[12] Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;. God tells Israel that when I deliver you out of the captivity into your blessings, I’m going to give you double.”

Jordan says, “You know what He does at the end of Job? You’ve heard of the ‘patience of Job’ and you’ve seen the end of the Lord. What does the Lord do at the end of Job? He turns Job’s captivity and puts a new heart in Job where he’s got a different attitude toward his friends than he had before, and now God gives him twice as much as He had before.

“Go back to Job 42 and watch what happened as soon as God did that. Verse 11 says, ‘Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.’

“We’d never have time to go through all the verses in the Prophets about how the Gentiles are going to come and bless Israel, but all those acquaintances of Job--they wouldn’t have anything to do with him earlier.

“You ought to go back to Job 19 and read what he says about them: ‘All my buddies, all my friends, it was ‘Job who? Huh? Don’t know ya. Walk away.’ Even the house servants, his butler and his chauffeur, wouldn’t even acknowledge knowing him. You could expect that of a lawyer or something, but your chauffeur?! Your gardener?!

“And then he says, ‘My breath was a stranger to my wife.’ You got to get close to somebody to know what their breath is like. His wife left him. She took up the devil’s line and literally said to Job what Satan was saying to God that Job would say.

“Notice in that verse that his wife didn’t come back. He got back double everything else but his wife. Now that may have been a blessing in and of itself considering the kind of wife she turned out to be. But God didn’t restore curses to him and she was a source of the working of the satanic policy of evil in Job’s home.

“You go over and study 1 John and he tells this believing remnant how to know whether you’re in the true fellowship or not. How you’re really the Israel of God or you’re not. And he tells them how they could really know whether they had the Spirit of God working in them or whether they were phony.

“I John equips them to be able to know. II John says this issue of being able to discern the seducing policy of the Adversary has to be very carefully practiced in the home. III John says it has to be practiced in the ministry in the local church.

“And the two things he adds on to I John as appendixes, II and III John, don’t tell them how to do it but tells them WHERE to do it. People like to quote II John about separation, but that’s not about ecclesiastical separation; that’s about separation in a home, in a house, among a family. That’s what’s happening in Job’s house.”