Looking at the events happening in the world, we may ask ourselves: “Is God judging the nations for their sins?” Or perhaps the great tribulation has already begun and God’s wrath has been revealed — and why is all this happening? Like other brothers and sisters in the faith, I too am interested in what is happening, or rather in what the Lord is doing and how we should act at this time. So I want to share everything the Spirit of God has revealed to me. I also pray that the Lord will give those who read this word wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of God’s truths.

The acceptable year

When Jesus came to Nazareth, on the Sabbath day, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue and began to read from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” (Luk.4:18-19)

I don’t even know why the Russian Synodal translation has “лето” here [in modern Russian, “summer”; in older Russian the word also meant “year”], since the Greek word used is eniautos (G1763), which is translated as year. Perhaps in the 19th century, when the Scriptures were translated into Russian, summer was the favourable time of year, because in the north the weather is harsh in the other seasons. 😊 At any rate, everywhere else in the New Testament where this Greek word eniautos appears, it is translated as year. But that isn’t the point.

The point is that if we open the prophet Isaiah, verse 2 of chapter 61 goes on, and it also speaks of the day of vengeance, which Jesus did not mention when He read the prophet’s words. An interesting comparison emerges. As for God’s favour, His goodwill and propitiation (for that is how the Hebrew word ratzon (H7522) is translated), it lasts a year, but as for God’s wrath, it is only a day. Yet we often hear quite the opposite from various preachers: as if God’s favour lasts a day and His wrath ten years.

David, who lived under the old covenant of the law but had a grace mindset, compared God’s favour and His wrath like this: “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life” (Ps.30:5). Wow! If in Isaiah wrath and mercy are like a day and a year, in David God’s wrath lasts only a moment, while His favour lasts a whole lifetime.

By the way, in this Psalm the word favor is also the rich Hebrew word ratzon (H7522), which literally means favour, goodwill, propitiation. Its root is the word ratzah (H7521), which means to take pleasure in, to favour, to be well disposed. In other words, while the year of God’s favour continues (and it began at the moment Jesus began to proclaim it, and continues to this day), God goes on showing favour to the whole world, just as He shows favour to Jesus, when the Father said to Him: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased“. (Mat.3:17)

Notice that I wrote that God shows favour to the whole world, not only to believers, because some may say that God shows favour to believers while the acceptable year lasts, but then will punish them for disobedience during the tribulation. To those who believe in Jesus God will show His favour, His goodwill, grace and love forever. Paul wrote that God has made us (believers) accepted in the Beloved. (Eph.1:6) If you are tormented by the question: “Maybe God is angry with me because I disobeyed and sinned in something?”, then look at Jesus and ask the same question: “Is God angry with Jesus?” No, and He never will be, so He isn’t angry with us either, for it is written that as He is, so are we in this world. (1 Jhn.4:17)

As for this world and unbelievers, God will show them favour as long as this year continues, and it continues to this day, only now, instead of Jesus, the Holy Spirit proclaims the acceptable year through God’s apostles, prophets and teachers. The apostle Paul wrote that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Cor.5:19)

So the Year of God’s favour, the acceptable year :-), will continue as long as the Holy Spirit is on earth, but as soon as He is taken up, taking with Him all in whom He lives, the day of vengeance will begin.

The day of vengeance

Well, what about the saints who will be given into the power of the antichrist, and the witnesses of Jesus whom the dragon pursues in the book of Revelation? Friend, if you see the words saints or witnesses of Jesus, it is wrong to associate them straight away with God’s church. Paul wrote to Timothy that he should be “rightly dividing the word of truth”. (2 Tim.2:15) The word translated rightly dividing literally means cutting straight (G3718). That is, we need to rightly cut, or divide, where the old covenant is and where the new, where the apostles are writing to Jews according to the flesh and where to God’s church.

So, speaking of the day of the Lord, or the day of vengeance, among English-speaking Christians there is a whole science called eschatology, where they constantly argue about when the rapture will be: before the tribulation, in the middle of it, or before God’s wrath at the very end. Will God’s church go through the tribulation or not? But as they say, with the Lord everything is simple, and there’s no need to spend days and nights digging through the Scriptures to know the truth. Jesus told the Pharisees that they search the Scriptures for eternal life, but those very Scriptures testify of Him. And if the Holy Spirit lives in us, then, as Jesus said, He will guide us into all truth and reveal everything.

So I asked the Lord: “Show me simply that God’s church will not be part of this tribulation.” The Lord reminded me of a verse from the prophet Jeremiah: “Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, But he shall be saved out of it.” (Jer.30:7) Then He asked me: “Whose tribulation is this?” and then He Himself answered that this is the tribulation not of Israel but of Jacob, and things became clear to me.

And what’s the difference, you may ask, since it is one and the same man? Yes, one and the same, but the different names symbolise different groups of people. Paul, for example, in the epistle to the Galatians compared Sarah with grace and Mount Zion, and Hagar with the law and Mount Sinai. In the same way Jacob symbolises God’s people according to the flesh (the Jews), while Israel symbolises the spiritual people — God’s church, made up of Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus.

Here is how Paul writes about the Jewish people: “But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’” (Rom.9:6-7) The seed here is Christ, so all who are in Christ Jesus are children of Abraham and the true Israel. It’s that simple!

I also want to draw your attention to the words “that day is great” in the prophet Jeremiah, because there will be some who say that the day of the Lord, or the time of Jacob’s trouble, is the great tribulation, and that before it there will be an ordinary tribulation. There are many fantasists who, living in fear themselves, frighten others too, mixing all kinds of scary cocktails. So this great day is the same day of vengeance that will begin right after the acceptable year.

So to say that the acceptable year isn’t over yet, but that God’s church is going through “trials”, “baptism of fire”, “refining” and all sorts of other inventions, is to mix God’s favour and His wrath in one pot. This is the so-called Babylonian “piña colada” that can be heard in many religious places.

No, my friends, it was not for nothing that Jesus stopped at the words “To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD” and closed the scroll. He will begin to open the “scroll” when the day of vengeance begins, and God’s church will no longer be here. As the prophet Isaiah said: “Come, my people, enter your chambers, And shut your doors behind you; Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, Until the indignation is past.” (Isa.26:20)

The beginning of birth pangs

So what is it that is happening in the world? Jesus spoke of it: “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” (Mat.24:7-8)

By the way, “the beginning of sorrows” literally means the beginning of birth pangs. What birth pangs are meant? In Isaiah, just before he said: “Come, my people, enter your chambers, And shut your doors behind you…“, it is written: “Your dead shall live; Together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; For your dew is like the dew of herbs, And the earth shall cast out the dead.” (Isa.26:19). The resurrection of the dead is this birth, and the birth pangs are those of the Earth, of which Paul wrote: “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” (Rom.8:22-23)

Notice that Jesus spoke not only of pestilences but also of famines and earthquakes, which will become more frequent as the birth pangs grow stronger. But what did the Lord tell us to do when we see all this coming to pass? Jesus said: “look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near“. (Luk.21:28)

And indeed, the signs of recent years — the increasingly frequent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storms, natural disasters like warm winters and cold summers, and rumours of all kinds of wars — tell us that the Lord’s return and the redemption of our bodies are near.

Rest your hope on grace

By the way, before the start of this year, 2020, my wife and I didn’t even celebrate New Year’s Eve. We had a sense that hard times were beginning for the world, but that the Lord would keep us under His wings of grace. And as soon as the year began, off it went, and there’s a feeling that this is only the beginning. A great famine is coming over the whole earth.

Perhaps this will frighten someone, but I want to say that when something bad happens in the world, it is a good time for God’s people, for we are not of the world, although we are in this world, and like Noah in the ark, we in Christ Jesus dwell in the secret place of the Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. (Ps.91:1)

When there is a pandemic in the world and people suffer under lockdown, the Lord makes us lie down (gives us rest) in green pastures and feeds us with manna from heaven, as Jesus fed the 5,000 after having them sit down on the green grass. He gives us rest from the daily rush and directs us onto the path of life. When there is famine in the world, in the Father’s house even the hired servants have bread enough and to spare (Luk.15:17).

When I read an article saying that at the beginning of 2020, because of the warm winter, a huge number of locusts had bred, the thought came to me that this is a sign of the coming famine. Then I received a word from the Lord about the coming famine. As I meditated on the story of Isaac in Genesis chapter 26, how Isaac sowed and reaped a hundredfold when there was famine in that land, the Lord showed me that God’s people, in the person of Isaac, do not go hungry but on the contrary grow rich, so that even unbelievers begin to envy them. (Gen.26:12-14)

Isaac in this story is a type of Jesus Christ, who lives within us, and He sows through us and reaps through us an abundant harvest, both spiritual and material. Notice that Isaac sowed after Rebekah had come back to him.

Rebekah symbolises God’s church, which the servant (the Holy Spirit) found for Isaac (Genesis 24), so Rebekah’s return to Isaac is a symbol of the return of believers living under the law, of which Abimelech was a type, to the grace of God, our first love, the heavenly Isaac. Interestingly, she returned to him when there was famine in the land, just as the prodigal son returned to the Father during a famine. Interesting, isn’t it?

An abundant harvest in our lives can only come when Jesus produces it through us, not when we live by our own strength under the veil of the law. The Spirit of God always bears witness to the truth, and the truth is in God’s grace, not in the law. So when we live under grace, whatever we do will bring an abundant harvest and make us rich both spiritually and materially.

Brothers and sisters, I pray for each of you that the Lord will keep you from evil, reveal Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth, give you peace and rest, and bless you for every good work, for the grace of God is with you always. Amen!