A Backward Step

 

 

Some believe in a rapture:

A secret catching away,

And a seven-year tribulation

That can happen any day.

 

The church will be snatched away

The Jews will be left behind,

Theirs will be to evangelize

During those perilous times.

 

Three and a half years of peace

Followed by very harsh times

That will drive many a person

Out of his distraught mind.

 

But Jesus will rescue the Jews

And all that become saved,

All Israel will be saved in a day

By the one they downplayed.

 

Next on these believers’ list

Will be a following millennium

And Jesus will rule from Jerusalem

After the seven-year tribulation.

 

The temple will be rebuilt

And sacrifices will be reinstituted

And during this thousand-year reign

The Law will be reconstituted.

  

To some this is a backward step

And an ignoring of the cross

On which Jesus shed his blood

For the guilty and the lost.

 

A return to the beggarly elements

Is how some see this view

Especially since the Church comprises

The Gentile and the Jew.

 

But God gave a promise

To the nation of Israel

And God must ensure the promise

He made to His chosen people.

 

Some appear to forget

Christ was the promised fulfilment

And to save us from our sin

Was the reason he was sent.

 

Christ once for all sacrifice

Would just go by the way

And to me it doesn’t seem likely

That we will see that day.

 

 

God was in Christ Jesus

Reconciling the world to Himself

And there is no other way

For one to obtain spiritual health.

 

Regarding that backward step!

No, not a chance!

Jesus is the only way

For both Jew and Gentile to advance.

 

I believe the millennium is now

And Christ is on the throne,

The kingdom of God has come

And His subjects are not alone.

 

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

Therefore, if any man be in Christ,

He is a new creature:

Old things have passed away;

Behold, all things are become new.

 

2 Corinthians 5:21

 

For he hath made him to be sin for us,

Who knew no sin;

That we might be made the righteousness of God

In him.

 

Hebrews 11:16

 

But now they desire a better country,

That is, an heavenly:

Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God:

For he hath prepared from them a city.

 

 

Hebrews 12:24

 

And to Jesus

The mediator of the new covenant,

And to the blood of sprinkling,

That speaketh better things than that of Abel.

 

It would be a backward step,

If you see what I mean,

To go back to the types and shadows

Of the Old Covenant scene.

 

Stewart Russell © August 13, 2021