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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation: 46. Forecast of the Great Storm
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 46. Forecast of the Great Storm
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Forecast of the Great Storm
Now it is of intense interest to note that our Lord Jesus speaks of these same three things, at much length, and with much emphasis; the persecution, the visitation of judgments, and the kingdom. It came to me as a great surprise and with startling force when I realized, after gathering out this summary from the Old Testament, that the three things that stand out so sharply there are the very things Jesus speaks of here with such fulness and emphasis.
He puts special emphasis on the time of persecution as of unprecedented horror and ferocity. He plainly indicates that this will be directed not only against the Jew, but against His own followers. Three times this talk of His on Olivet just before His death is given at much length. [Note: Mat_24:1-51; Mat_25:1-46; Mar_13:1-37; Luk_21:1-38.] That talk is given to a little group of Jewish disciples who have broken with the Jewish leaders, and who become the great leaders of the Church formed at Pentecost.
He speaks of that terrible experience as "great tribulation," [Note: Mat_24:21; Mat_24:29.] "such as there hath not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, nor ever shall be." [Note: Mar_13:19.] We shall find it spoken of in this book of Revelation as "the tribulation, the great one." [Note: Rev_7:14 literally.] It has come to be spoken of commonly as "the tribulation" and "the great tribulation."
With all this fresh in mind, a run back through the Old Testament brings out that it is spoken of there much more than we may have realized. The warning to Israel, at Sinai, as they made the covenant of allegiance with God, of the bitter punishment that would come if they were untrue, has seemed many times as though couched in very intense, almost extreme language. [Note: Lev_26:14-39.] But it is found to fit into these later descriptions of this great tribulation to come. That warning is repeated, in as intense words and with a greater fulness, by Moses in his series of farewell talks in the Plains of Moab, [Note: Deu_28:15-68.] and it runs through the song he left for their use. [Note: Deu_32:1-52.]
The experiences of the people of Israel in Egypt are found to be an illustration of the coming experience at the end, great persecution and suffering, then great deliverance through a visitation of judgment upon their persecutors, and great revelation of God's glory following. And the experience of the three young Hebrew exiles in Babylon comes to mind. They went through the fire, seven times heated, and they had a marvellous deliverance, and then high promotion. [Note: Dan_3:1-30.]
Certain Psalms shine with new light in the light of this terrible truth. Chief among these is the Ninety-first. Quite likely it grew up out of the experience of Israel at the last before leaving Egypt. It, of course, has its practical use in one's daily life. But the vividness and intensity of its meaning will probably never be realized as during the coming tribulation days. Nor will the exultant note running through the nine Psalms immediately following it be appreciated as by those experiencing deliverance when the tribulation is over. The Forty-sixth Psalm, and the Psalms of praise immediately following it, likewise seem to get new light.
It is quite probable that very much, all through this Book of Psalms, will be understood and appreciated fully only by the generation of God's people that go through the tribulation and know the deliverance following. Much of the old Book of God is quite meaningless to the Christian who has had no tribulation experience. That is, I mean who has never known opposition in his Christian faith, or who has slipped easily along when there is opposition.
The outstanding features in the Old Testament of this great experience are terrible persecution of the Jew, deliverance at the very worst pitch of extremity, by a visitation of judgment on their enemies, and by Jehovah coming in person for their deliverance; and then the great Kingdom following.
The outstanding features spoken of by our Lord Jesus in His Olivet talk agree with this, but go much more into detail, especially about the tribulation. The tribulation will be preceded by wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, and persecution. There will be many false religious teachers, many Christians untrue to their faith, and a great increase of wickedness. This is a sort of foreshadowing.
The tribulation itself will find all this enormously intensified. It will begin with some astonishing act of blasphemy in the temple in Jerusalem, run its terrible course, and close with a series of judgment-events, earthquake, heavens shaken, and great distress, ending in the visible appearance of the Lord Jesus Himself, out of heaven on the clouds. And this will be a signal for great penitential mourning among the people on the earth.
This, then, is the simple, broad outline with which the thoughtful reader of God's Word would naturally be familiar as he turns to this prophetic book at the end to get our Lord's last message to His followers.