The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble Quotes

“There is still quite a bit of debate about [the future restoration of Israel]. I remember sitting on my porch in Boston in 1967, and watching on television the Jewish soldiers coming into Jerusalem, dropping their weapons and rushing to the Wailing Wall, and weeping and weeping. Immediately I telephoned one of my dear friends, a professor of Old Testament theology, who does not believe that the modern day [State] of Israel has any significance whatsoever. I asked him, ‘What do you think now? From 70 A.D. until 1967, almost 1900 years, Jerusalem has been under the domination and control of Gentiles, and now the Jews have recaptured the city of Jerusalem. Jesus said that Jerusalem will be trodden underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. What’s the significance of that?’ He replied, ‘I am going to have to rethink this situation.’ It was indeed startling.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“The dark “midnight” of the “time of great tribulation”[519] before the coming of the “Bridegroom” will soon be upon us. In that hour we will need “oil in our lamps,”[520] not only that we ourselves may see, but that we would be able to light the path for our Jewish companions in the extremity of their final affliction. In that hour we will be called upon by our great God and Savior to lay our lives down to serve and sacrifice for “the house of Israel,”[521] to whom “belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises...the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.”[522]”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Love to Israel, such as Moses and Paul felt, is a ray from that ineffable ocean of light which is in God.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“The church that refuses to stand with the Jewish people in their final distress will not be the Church of Jesus Christ. Of this we can be sure.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Martyrdom will become so pronounced in the years preceding the return of the Lord primarily because of the eschatological intensification of “the controversy of Zion.” When the Church expresses her unwillingness to stand tolerant and idle as the Jewish people come under the tyrannical strong arm of the Antichrist and the wrath of the nations he commands, consequences will follow her stand. The Church’s identification with the Jewish people in that hour will mean that we will share in their temporal fate.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Standing with Israel is not a political mandate. It is a prophetic mandate.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Consider the professing Christians in Europe that either endorsed or stood in silent or fearful indifference to the systematic annihilation of the Jews in the Nazi Holocaust. The true nature of their relationship with Jesus was revealed through the nature of their relationship to the Jew in their midst.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Our identification with Israel is the grounds upon which our professed salvation by grace through faith will be tested and authenticated in the sight of God and the Gentile nations at the end of the Age.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“What your attitude to Israel should be, is plainly shown in the Word of God.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Jesus came to the whole nation; Israel as a nation rejected him. Jesus, as we read in the Gospel of Matthew, was taking leave of the whole nation. He spoke to the Pharisees; He spoke to the Herodians; He spoke to the Sadducees; and after having given, as it were, the last word unto each representative part of the Jewish nation, He sums up all in that heart-rending farewell: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children’ — the whole nation as a nation — ‘under My wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house shall be left unto you desolate.’ “But the farewell is not for ever. It is a farewell only for a given and definite period. ‘Ye shall not see Me, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!’ The Saviour, ere He was crucified upon Golgotha, had in His own loving and sorrowing heart the living and assured hope that the same nation, which as a nation had rejected Him, would again as a nation welcome Him as the Messiah that cometh in the Name of the Lord. And after He had died upon the cross, and appeared again to His disciples, before He ascended up into heaven, He ratified to the apostles the promise that was given of old, that He would come and restore the kingdom to Israel.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Surely it becomes a wise man, at a time like this, to turn to the pages of prophecy and to inquire what is yet to come. At a time like this the declarations of God concerning His people Israel ought to be carefully weighed and examined. ‘At the time of the end,’ says Daniel, ‘the wise shall understand’ (Dan. 12:10).”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“It is high time for Christians to interpret unfulfilled prophecy by the light of prophecies already fulfilled. The curses on the Jews were brought to pass literally:–so also will be the blessings. The scattering was literal:–so also will be the gathering. The pulling down of Zion was literal:–so also will be the building up. The rejection of Israel was literal:–so also will be the restoration.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“When the unparalleled scope and magnitude of the final scattering and the incomparable glory and finality of the final regathering are rightly understood, we view the recent return to the Land as probationary and preliminary in nature as we anticipate with great longing and fervent desire the epic regathering to come. It will be the final regathering when “those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.”[336]”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“If Israel’s darkest hour occurs in the Land, then it is fitting that we abandon the unwarranted optimism that pervades so much of the Church concerning the fate of this modern State.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“I agree with Art Katz who said, “The State of Israel exists not for its success but for its necessary failure;”[305] that is, that through the “death”[306] of the unbelieving and unrepentant political State the glorious “resurrection” of the prophetically promised Nation will come.[307] This is the inner-most meaning of Ezekiel’s vision of the “Valley of the Dry Bones” in Ezekiel 37.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“What!’ you say, ‘will not all the sufferings of Israel through all these centuries suffice? Is there a yet future baptism of fire, through which they must pass?’ Yes, this is clear.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“The present-day State is not intended to satisfy the ultimate intentions of God for national Israel; it is a preliminary provision that sets the stage for future crisis and greater glory.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“I might show you by scriptural evidence that the Jews will probably first be gathered in an unconverted state, though humbled, and will afterwards be taught to look to Him whom they have pierced, through much tribulation.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“If we dismiss or neglect the issue of Israel, we also must forfeit the grace that is required to serve the Jewish people, for there are depths of authenticity and maturity to which the Church cannot and will not go apart from being provoked by Israel’s blindness to provoke her to salvation. God will mature the Church at the end of the Age by requiring us to serve hardened and blinded Israel in such an authentic Pauline[234] and Christ-like way so as to “provoke them to jealousy.”[235] This is what is implied by the phrase in Revelation 12:6 concerning Israel being “nourished in the wilderness for 1260 days.” Israel will be nourished by a prophetic Church who will meet her in the “wilderness” of her great “final”[236] hour of “trouble.”[237] This prophetic Church of this great Christ-like stature[238] will be nourished herself by the revelation of Israel’s belovedness for the sake of the fathers.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“the salvation of Israel isn’t so much about Israel as it is about the vindication and justification of the character of God.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Jacob’s trouble won’t conclude with Jacob’s annihilation. It will end with Jacob’s salvation.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Centuries have passed since the discourse on the Mount of Olives, but still the intimations which our Lord gave have not taken place; in other words, the fig-tree has not yet budded. If we desire to use the truths which Christ then spoke, we have still to turn our eyes to the spot which He has marked out for us, and wait to see the appointed intimations.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“The issue of Israel’s eschatological suffering is the issue of Israel’s eschatological salvation and deliverance.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“This is the immediate prospect after restoration to Palestine of the people who rebelled against the Most High, and rejected His Son, and always resisted the Holy Spirit—a furnace seven times heated, and anguish as acute as are the pangs of a woman in travail. Alas! poor Israel, who desire the day of the Lord, to what end is it for you? Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light, even very dark and no brightness in it? But, blessed be God, His anger will not endure for ever; ‘though weeping may endure for a night, joy will come in the morning.’ And even when Israel sits in darkness—a deeper darkness than they have ever been in yet—the Lord shall be a light unto them; and, although their tribulation and anguish shall be so great that there has been none like it, in the midst of wrath God will remember mercy; and, according to His promise, He will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“Between AD 70 and 1967 Jerusalem was occupied and governed by Gentiles. This is no insignificant matter. Other than the generation of the apostles, we are the only generation in the past nineteen centuries who have witnessed Jewish presence on Jewish soil.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“For the first time since the generation of the apostles, it is possible and probable that we will witness an international assault on the Land of Israel and the decimation of Jerusalem. We are, like the apostles of the first century, living under the shadow of what they themselves assumed would happen in their lifetime (which, in a limited sense, did in AD 70).”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“the final [Age-ending] provocation of divine wrath comes in response to an ultimate arrogance of the nations against the covenant, particularly as it touches the question of the Jew and the Land (cf. Joel 3:2; Ezekiel 38:16-19; Daniel 11:39; Zechariah 12:2; Matthew 24:15-16; Revelation 11:1-2). This is the Eschatological context in which the gospel was first preached ‘for a witness’ to all nations; it must be so again (Matthew 24:14 with Revelation 19:10b). The first disciples lived under the shadow of an imminent, age-ending judgment of Jerusalem.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“In the same prophecy where God is promising the “New Covenant”—which indeed focuses on a heart change—He marries the terminology with the language of a physical, national, State. This passage alone, I believe, should settle the dispute over the issue of Land.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“In so far as prophecy has been already fulfilled, that fulfillment has been a literal one. Take the predictions regarding the Messiah. His being born of the house of David; of a virgin; at Bethlehem; being carried down to and brought out of Egypt; His healing diseases; His entering Jerusalem on an ass; His being betrayed by one of His disciples; His being left by all His familial friends; His being smitten, buffeted, spit upon; His side being pierced; His bones being unbroken; His raiment divided by lot; His receiving vinegar; His being crucified between two thieves; His being buried by a rich man; His lying three days in the tomb; His rising on the third day; His ascending up on high, and sitting at the right hand of God; these and many others, have all been fulfilled to the very letter; far more literally than we could ever have conceived. And are not these fulfillments strong arguments in favor of the literality of all that remains behind? Nay, do they not furnish us with a distinct, unambiguous, and inspired canon of interpretation.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People

“I believe that the Jews shall ultimately be gathered again as a separate nation, restored to their own Land, and converted to the faith of Christ, after going through great tribulation.”
― Dalton Lifsey, The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People