The Sin of Christian Zionism
Note: The first time the name Zion is mentioned in the Bible is 2 Sam 5:7 and it is called "the City of David." The name Zion can be found in many places in God's Word, but the term Zionism can not.
Zion, Judaism and Zionism are not synonyms: they are not one and the same
Zionism & The Sin of Christian Zionism
Christian Zionism is an Idol Worship Sin spread by far too many leaders of the Western Christian Church (Ezekiel 14:3).
Not all Jews are Zionists, but many Jews are, and many non-Jews are as well, with Christian Zionists being the most prevalent group among the non-Jews.
Beginning in 1948, the year modern Israel was founded, Christian Zionism has gradually become pervasive within the Western Christian Church. For many Western Christians modern Israel has evolved into an object of worship within the Church.
Disagree?
There is an old saying: if you ever want to know what someone worships, just find what they adamantly defend and will not let you criticize. In many Western Christian churches, to criticize modern Israel is akin to blaspheming God Himself. Moreover, just the mention of modern Israel will generate applause, and even cheers, in most Evangelical Christian Church services. Some Christian organizations even go to great lengths, spending large amounts of money, promoting and supporting Israel.
Webster's dictionary defines Zionism as:
"an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel."
The latter, the support of modern Israel, is where many within the Western Christian Church have become not just Zionists, but Zionist zealots. Many Christians have been taught to believe that modern Israel is a special sacred nation and virtually any action taken by Israel is planned and coordinated by God, and therefore should be supported, and even praised by the Church.
It seems hard to believe that any Christian leader would embrace and teach this since Israel is not a nation that welcomes Christianity, rather Israel is hostile to Jesus and the Christian Church (see page 11).
Modern Israel, by the Biblical definition, is an antichrist nation. Israel is also the only nation in world history that has ever been founded around the religion that directly rejected, and currently rejects, Jesus. Other nations have embraced the Biblical definition of the spirit of antichrist (1 John 2:22, 1 John 4:3 & 2 John 7) but only one, the modern Christ rejecting Jewish state of Israel, has ever been founded around it.
Moreover, Christians need to understand, and come to terms with what Jesus taught, and that is, rejecting Him is also rejecting God the Father (Luke 10:16). Therefore modern Israel was founded not only as an antichrist nation but as a God the Father rejecting nation. Christianity and Judaism do not worship, or even acknowledge, the same God (also see page 15).
Therefore, instead of considering Israel as an anointed special nation of God, Western Christians need to realize that modern Israel was founded as, and still is today, a Godless, antichrist state.
Please understand that those last paragraphs pointed out .... that the modern state of Israel is a Godless antichrist nation. However instead of recognizing that fact, much of the Western Christian Church has not only welcomed it into the Church but given it a position of reverence.
..............A brief history of Zionism..........
Zionism began in the late 1800's and although some claim that its true beginning was earlier and by others, Theodor Herzl is usually credited as its founder. His goal was to create a Jewish state in the area of Palestine.
At that time Palestine was and had been under the authority of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, but after World War 1 that all changed, the area of Palestine then came under the control of Great Britain. (It should be noted that during the reign of the Ottoman empire both Jews and Palestinians lived in peace and Jews even held some government positions.)
The British, Balfour Declaration, in November 1917, officially endorsed the Zionist movement by supporting the concept of a future Jewish state in Palestine.
Some claim that the Zionist movement, in the beginning, was based more on political and financial interests rather than ethnic or religious ones, and statements made by members of the Rothschild banking empire gives some credence to that claim.
Some historians also record that the main inducement for British leaders to support a Jewish state in Palestine, and therefore issue the Balfour Declaration, was the Zionist Rothschild's claim that they would bring the United States into World War 1, on Britain’s side, if the British Government would officially support a future Jewish-Zionist state in Palestine. Whether or not that is totally true is subject to debate, and what transpired behind closed doors may never be truly know, however the United States did enter the war, as a British ally, shortly before the Balfour declaration was officially announced. .........
......... (Note: We received the following link via E Mail. Although unverified by us, and primarily dealing with a subject other than Zionism, it does show a 1917 correspondence between Lord Balfour and Lord Rothschild. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/452693/New-world-order-pledged-to-Jews-80-years-ago )
After World War 1 and in the time period between World War 1, and World War 2, the Zionist movement had only marginal success. Palestinian Arabs resisted Jewish Zionist immigration into their homeland and numerous clashes occurred. However after WW 2, and the subsequent Jewish oppression by the Russian Communists and NAZI socialists, the Zionist movement gained much political support.
In November 1947, a little more than two years after the end of World War 2, one of the initial moves of the newly founded organization, the United Nations, was to recommend the partition of western Palestine into two states, a Jewish state and an Arab state.
Shortly thereafter the initial goal of the original Zionist movement was fulfilled, when In 1948, the modern nation of Israel became a sovereign independent state.
In the years following Israel's creation it has continued to expand its territory well past its original borders, and the regions name, Palestine, has gradually disappeared from the vocabulary of the Western World.
....The Sin of Christian Zionism....
Christian Zionism is the sin of idol worship.
Christian Zionism is the Idol worship of modern Israel, and to a somewhat lesser degree, Jews and modern Judaism. (Ezekiel 14:3)
It is usually based on 3 false assumptions, which are:
LIE #1........ modern Jews are actually the traceable descendants of ancient Israelites, and that the Bible teaches that they are God's chosen people and called the "apple of God's eye."
LIE #2.......... modern Judaism is a continuance of God's Old Testament Law and what was called Judaism at the time of Christ.
LIE #3........... the nation called Israel today is a special sacred nation, ordained by God, and miraculously resurrected from the remnant bones of ancient Israel after almost 2000 years.
All three premises are false, with the first two based on extreme ignorance of Biblical truth and even logic.
As for:
LIE # 1.
.....modern Jews are actually the traceable descendants of ancient Israelites, and that the Bible teaches that they are God's chosen people and called the "apple of God's eye."
False.
No person alive today can directly trace their ancestry back to ancient Israel. This fact needs to be repeated often; no person alive today can directly trace their ancestry back to ancient Israel.... NO ONE!
This fact is important, if someone cannot trace their ancestry back to ancient Israel then they have no legitimate claim to being a traceable physical descendant of Abraham (Abraham is considered to be the "Father" of the Israelites and what was later called the Jewish race).
Therefore a modern Jew has no more of a traceable ancestry to ancient Israel (traceable the way ancestry is traced in the Bible) then does an Eskimo (See page 7 and page 8). Of course it must also be noted that neither does anyone else.
Modern Jews can claim a connection to other Jews alive today or even several generations back, however they cannot legally claim a connection to being a descendant of any Biblical Jew. Some people claim the ability to trace their Biblical Jewish ancestry through the modern science of DNA, however since there is no accurate Jewish DNA from 2000 years ago, their conclusions are, at best, unprovable foolish speculations.
The lineage of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38, shows the pattern of how a complete and traceable physical lineage would need to be for someone to legitimately claim an ancestry back to ancient Israel. No person alive today can do that. God ended the traceable earthly physical lineage shortly after the Messiah Jesus brought salvation into the world at the cross. It has been gone for almost 2000 years; therefore unless God brings forth a miracle revelation, any earthly traceable lineage, to ancient Israel, is gone forever.
As for Jews being called a special chosen people of God, that comes from the teachings of men, not from the Bible. To begin, God only begins using the name Jew near the end of the Old Testament era, therefore most of the noted people in the Old Testament were not Jews. It is easy to check this yourself, get out your Bible concordance and see where God begins to use the name Jew. What you will find is that God only began to call anyone a Jew after most of the noted people of the Old Testament (i.e. Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Saul, King David, etc.) were dead. Any scriptural reference that could be considered as being a chosen people of God (meaning special, blessed and anointed) occurs prior to God calling anyone a Jew.
Nowhere in the Bible are Jews called God's chosen people, meaning special, blessed and anointed. Some Hebrews and Israelites in the Old Testament were called people chosen of God, but never anyone who called them self a Jew (Note: Jesus was called a Jew by others but He never called himself a Jew). However, 1 Peter 2: 9-10 clearly states who the chosen race is. It is referring to the New Covenant followers of Jesus.
Moreover, after God divorces the northern Kingdom of Israel (Jer 3:8), and then judges the southern Kingdom of Judah by sending them into Babylonian captivity and ending His covenant with them, symbolized by forever removing the Arc of the Covenant, those who are then called "my people" are those who were, and were to be, spiritually redeemed by the Messiah Jesus.
The phrase the "apple of God's eye" can be found in the Bible in Zechariah 2:8, however, God is not referring to Jews in this passage. The paragraph this verse is taken from begins at verse 6 and continues to verse 13. Therefore, when the entire paragraph is taken in context, it is obvious that what God is calling the "apple of His eye" are the future believers of the Messiah Jesus. (See page 16 for more detail.)
To deny these facts is to embrace a lie, and these lies have become entrenched foundational lies within much of the Western Christian Church today.
When we pompously feel that we are embracing only pure theology based on God's word, but then refuse to examine everything carefully, and abandon the lies we are holding as truth, we become, in many ways, no better than those embracing the lies of the cults (1 Thessalonians 5: 21 & Acts 17:11).
LIE # 2.
.....modern Judaism is a continuance of God's Old Testament Law and what was called Judaism at the time of Christ.
False.
Modern Judaism is not based on the Bible, it revolves around the Rabbinical teachings in the Talmud, not the Word of God in the Bible. Therefore the Talmud, what Jesus called the doctrines and precepts of men (Mat 15:9 & Mark 7:7), is Judaism's highest, and holiest, authority not the actual word of God, the Bible. The Talmud's authority takes precedence over the Old Testament scriptures. Therefore, in Judaism, and primarily modern Orthodox Judaism, the scriptures of the Bible are relegated to a subservient position. (See page 10 for more on this subject)
With the scriptures of the Bible relegated to a subservient position, modern Judaism is therefore no different than any other religious cult that claims extra superior revelation apart from God's Word, The Bible.
Moreover, modern Jews do not follow most of the Old Testament Law or practice the religion of the Biblical Israelites. They do not practice even the corrupted version practiced by the Jews at time of Christ (what Jesus called the doctrines & precepts of men), and since God has eliminated all the physical religious aspects of the Old Testament Law, the Temple, the priests, the Arc of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies, animal sacrifices, etc., it would be impossible for them, or anyone else, to do otherwise.
Therefore for Western Christians to consider modern Judaism as a continuance of Biblical Judaism is foolishness based on ignorance.
LIE #3.
......the nation called Israel today is a special sacred nation, ordained by God, and miraculously resurrected from the remnant bones of ancient Israel after almost 2000 years.
Both: False & True.
The False part:
For a Christian, or anyone else for that matter, to consider modern Israel as a totally unique miraculously resurrected nation of God, one needs to remember that almost all of the current Middle East nations (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Araba, etc.) were created after World War 1, not just Israel.
Prior to that the land area they each now occupy had been part of the Ottoman Empire. None of them were independent sovereign nations. This even includes the current nation of Egypt (except for the period, after Napoleon, when the area now called Egypt was a conquered providence of France).
Therefore, to consider the formation of modern Israel as any more amazing than any of the other Christ rejecting nations in the Middle East, is to forget that the nation of Israel becoming a new nation is not any more unique and special than any of the others.
Moreover, Israel is a nation that rejects Jesus and therefore God the Father, making it just another Godless, antichrist nation in that area. (see page 11 ).
The True part:
Jeremiah 8:1-3 tells about a future time when the symbolic remnant of Biblical Jews, symbolically called the bones, will be resurrected and brought back. However, God does not call it special and sacred but that it will be as "dung" on the face of the earth.
Therefore, for the Western Christian Church to revere as special and sacred, the Christ rejecting modern nation of Israel, is foolishness at the least and outright blaspheme of God's truth at the worst.
To sum it up, Christians need to understand that Modern Israel is a nation who:
* Formally rejects the God of the Bible, Jesus (see page 11).
* Persecutes God’s people, Messianic Jews (& Palestinian Christians).
* Fights against God’s Kingdom to come (God's bride composed of believers; Christians).
* Totally rejects and discards God’s New Covenant teachings; called the New Testament.
* Nationally supports the modern religion called Judaism where the doctrines and precepts of men, the Rabbinical teachings of the Talmud (see Pg. 10 - Talmud), are elevated above God’s written word.
Therefore the Idol worship of modern Israel, known as Christian Zionism, is a major sin that needs to be purged out of the church.
.... BUT ....
Israel still needs to remain an object of Christian prayer.
However instead of praying for Israel out of some sort of sacred reverence, Israel, like all the spiritually lost nations in that region, need prayers for enlightenment, peace, and deliverance through Jesus.
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