Hello Mike,

I have another question, as I value your opinions because they are backed with scripture. I’ve recently heard a Babylonian minister talk about “the time of Jacob’s trouble” in Jer 30:7 and refer it to the mythical “rapture” that the orthodox church believes in. I was wondering if you have some insight on what “the time of Jacob’s trouble” is?

Thank you very much, Mike, and God bless you,
D____

Hi D,

Thank you for your very encouraging words, and thank you for your question.
You ask:

I was wondering if you have some insight on what “the time of Jacob’s trouble” is?

Let’s look at the verse which you reference and to which the minister who was preaching the false doctrine called “the rapture of the church” referred.

Jer 30:7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

To properly understand this or any other verse of scripture, we must always remember that Christ Himself has plainly stated that all mankind will live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

If we approach any verse of scripture without this truth in mind, we will fail to see the personal application, and we will by default place the experience of that verse upon someone else, and we “will judge ourselves out of our own mouths” and will appear at a later time to experience those words which have “proceeded out of the mouth of God.”

Are the words of Mat 4:4 words which those who are ‘Jacob’, should want to avoid or be ‘raptured’ out of? If you say, “yes, they are”, then you have so judged. But here is what the scriptures say will then befall all who want only to hear of “smooth things” and who think that they can and should seek to avoid judgment altogether.

Lam 1:21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

“My trouble… that you have done…” is “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” It is a work of God that judges ‘Jacob’ for his sins. We are all ‘Jacob’, and we must all be judged. Will ‘Jacob’s’ enemies who rejoice at ‘Jacob’s’ judgment somehow be raptured out of that judgment? Will any of us avoid God’s wrath upon our sins? Is that what the scriptures teach? What utter deception! What a “smooth” doctrine! Here is what the scriptures have to say about such false and misleading doctines:

Isa 30:8 Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
Isa 30:9 That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:
Isa 30:10 Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:
Isa 30:11 Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.
Isa 30:12 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:
Isa 30:13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.

Verse 13 is a perfect description of the fall of the spiritual towers and false doctrines within us which deny that we must “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” That is the very meaning of “Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path… [from] keeping the things written therein (Rev 1:3). We will not taste of the waters of life until the destructions of those “towers” of lies and false doctrines which deny that “God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against…” our own sins and ungodliness.

Isa 30:25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers [and] streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

We are all “blasphemers of God,” as long as we deny that we are blasphemers, and as long as we deny our need to experience God’s wrath on our ungodliness, and deny that we must “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God [and] keep the things written therein”, His wrath will be on us.

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

1Ti 1:12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;
1Ti 1:13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
1Ti 1:14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

It is God’s grace that judges us and “chastens and scourges… [us] to forsake ungodliness and worldy lusts.”

Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Tit 2:12 Teaching [Greek: chastening] us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

Read these articles on grace elsewhere on the website: You All Are Partakers of My grace and Once In Grace, Always In Grace?

The Truth of God’s Word is that no one will escape that wrath of God upon their sins. No one! “And they shall be like unto me” (Lam 1:21). It is all simply a matter of timing. We are all judged. We will all experience the wrath of God upon our foolish sins, and those sins, weaknesses, and “giants in our land” will all be painfully burned out of each and every descendant of our common father, that “marred clay vessel,” called Adam.

The Truth of God’s Word is that no one will escape that wrath of God upon their sins. No one! “And they shall be like unto me.” It is all a simple matter of timing. We are all judged. We will all experience the wrath of God upon our foolish sins, and those sins, weaknesses and “giants in our land” will all be painfully burned out of each and every descendant of our common father, that “marred clay vessel,” called Adam.

Deu 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

“… By every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live.” The word ‘man’ appears twice in that verse, and both times it is the Hebrew word ‘adam.’

So all who are in ‘Adam’ will experience their own “time of Jacob’s trouble, at their own appointed time, and no one will escape living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. All the lying rapture theory sermons to the contrary, and all the pointing to 1Th 5:9 will not nullify these words of Truth:

Ecc 9:2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

You need to know that 1Th 5:9 is also used to prop up this false doctrine that denies that “all things come alike to all,” and which denies that all of mankind will “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” and which denies that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” and which denies that as long as we are in unbelief His wrath “abideth upon us” and which denies that we were ever the “children of [God’s] wrath even as others.” Here is 1Th 5:9, and here are all those verses I have referenced in this paragraph:

1Th 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Th 5:10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Joh 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Is there any one of us who have never been in “unbelief?” Is Paul contrasting God’s elect with the rest of mankind in 1Th 5:9, or is Paul speaking of mankind as a whole being appointed to salvation in the end? “God has not appointed us [all for whom He died] to wrath, but to salvation.” Is “salvation” only for God’s elect? Did Christ die only for His elect? Look at the very next verse.

1Th 5:10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

Christ did not die exclusively and only for the first fruits. That is not what the scriptures teach.

1Ti 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially [not exclusively] of those that believe.

God’s wrath is upon “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,” including the unrighteousnesses of His own elect, and yet it is “not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world” that Christ died and was resurrected.

What is God’s Word to those who teach any form of avoiding the wrath of God upon the unrighteousness of all men? Here is God’s Word for these purveyors of “smooth things… deceits.”

Jer 25:14 For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.
Jer 25:15 For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.
Jer 25:16 And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.
Jer 25:17 Then took I the cup at the LORD’S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:
Jer 25:18 To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as [it is] this day;
Jer 25:28 And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink.

“If they refuse… ye shall certainly drink.” That may not be a “smooth… deceit” but that is a godly truth. Notice that this whole warning is introduced with this verse:

Jer 25:14 For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.

The “certainty” that no one is excluded from living these words which “proceed out of the mouth of God” is preceded by informing us that “many nations and great kings shall serve themselves” of ‘Jacob’ and his descendants. Now let’s look again at the verse you first referenced and which is twisted to teach the false doctrine of a “secret rapture” to avoid the wrath of God upon our sins.

Jer 30:7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.
Jer 30:8 For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, [that] I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him:

Kings ‘serving themselves of Jacob’ is the “time of Jacob’s trouble.” Will ‘Jacob’ be raptured out of his trouble? No. If he thinks he will avoid God’s wrath upon his sins, the warning is:

Jer 25:28 And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink.

I hope this all helps you to see clearly that being “saved out of it” anything scripturally, is not being “raptured” away before it even gets here. Daniel was “saved out of” the lion’s den. The three Hebrew children were “saved out of” the fiery furnace, and Christ was “saved out of death.” That is also how Jacob and all of us “will be saved out of… the time of Jacob’s trouble.”

Heb 5:7 Who, in the days of His flesh, offering both petitions and supplications with strong clamor and tears to Him Who is able to save Him out of death, being hearkened to also for His piety, (CLV)

Here is “the time of Jacob’s trouble” in the lives of God’s elect:

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

1Pe 4:17 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?

The scriptures teach that “there is one event to all” and they also teach that “all things are ours.” They most definitely do not teach, that ‘all things but the wrath of God on our ungodliness and blaspheming, are ours.

1Co 3:21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

The answer to Peter’s rhetorical question, “What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” is that “them that obey not the gospel of God” will be in a later and less desirable judgment called the “great white throne” judgment, or “the second death,” and “them that obey not the gospel of God” will be in a later and less desirable resurrection called the second resurrection. “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” It is a fiery judgment, and it is the “one event” which is common “to the righteous and to the sinner.” But it is preferred, and it is blessed in a way that will make all the fiery trials we endure now well worth the suffering.

Rom 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

2Ti 2:12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:

Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Then, after the thousand years are expired we will also judge angels and Satan himself.

Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

Rev 20:7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
Rev 20:9 And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and encircled the camp of the saints, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Rev 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Rev 20:11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it; and death and hades delivered up the dead who were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

1Co 6:2 Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3 Know you not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

I will close with a few verses for your consideration:

1Ti 4:15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
1Ti 4:16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

1Ki 8:37 If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, [or] if there be caterpiller; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;
1Ki 8:38 What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:
1Ki 8:39 Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)

“God is not mocked… every man will receive according to his ways,” and “every man will be saved… so as by fire.” The “time of Jacob’s trouble” is the day of His judgment. That day is now upon all who are in Christ. While it certainly is not a smooth thing to have to say, at least it is the Truth. The Truth is that our day of judgment is a “fiery” day indeed, and while it is a “fiery trial which is to try you,” the rewards are more than sufficient for the sufferings we endure.

Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Rom 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike