Jacob's Trouble

Jeremiah 30:4: "These are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah." Again notice that it concerns Israel and Judah. It isn't the city of Jerusalem that's before Him but it's Israel and Judah. "For thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace." He wants us to understand how they are feeling. His people are now in the land, and the Lord is having His work of judgment with their land and all the nations of the earth about it. They are trembling. There is fear and turmoil. Some of these feelings are expressed in the Psalms. Then we read: "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 understand this chapter, we need to recall what Jacob's trouble was. He was a man who wanted the blessing of God, wasn't he? But what was the problem in his life? Jacob wanted the blessing of God, but he thought he could get it by his own efforts. He even resorted to deceitful means to try and get it. Maybe you have had Jacob's trouble too. Maybe you feel like you can earn or that you deserve the blessing of God, so you strive after it and seek it with all the energy of your nature. Jacob schemed to get the blessing, but God had to teach Jacob that he could never get the blessing by striving for it. He had to learn that God was the Blesser according to His own heart of loving kindness. Man when he strives for himself only gets into trouble.
God's earthly people haven't learned that lesson yet. They are now trying to secure their land and their blessing by their own efforts. But all twelve tribes will be brought into the land and then shall come a time of fear, great trembling and paleness in anticipation of all these enemies that are coming down upon their land. They are there and the Lord is there and they learn that the Lord is with them. He says to them in Jer. 30:10, "Therefore fear thou not, O My servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee.”
Fellow Christians, have we gone through Jacob's trouble? Israel has to go through it, and as we read the Word of God, we can apply these things to our own lives. Prophecy is not a dry, unintelligible thing. From it we learn the moral ways of God with His people and with us.
Here He says, "I will save thee." They have to learn to trust Him to save them. Maybe you need to learn that; maybe I need to learn that in my life. When they learn to trust in the Lord and not in themselves, then, in spite of their apparent helpless position of the enemy coming and they with unwalled villages, we read: "Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid." Why? "For I am with thee. saith the Lord. to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.”
The dispensational dealings and covenants of God with man change with time, but His moral ways are always constant. As you study prophecy you learn His ways with man including yourself.
D. Rule