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Israel Oh Israel Where Art Thou? is a book for those seeking truth in today’s world. Much foolishness is being taught and spread in too many Christian churches across the Western World, and as a nation we are paying the price for it. As the author states on the back cover; this book will hopefully open the Church’s eyes and free our spiritual leaders from focusing and teaching the satanic deception of what is called end time prophecy. Worship of the modern nation called Israel is the key cornerstone of this deception, but modern Israel is just another nation among many in God’s eyes; it is no more special than any other.
Most of the nations currently in the Middle East were founded in the early part of the 20th century, and this includes the modern nation of Israel. Shortly after this new Israel was founded the Western Christian Church began to hold it up as something special in God’s eyes; eventually it became the form of idol worship that we see today. America, and the Western World, is currently at a spiritual crossroad and we are potentially headed for some very serious problems. None of this happened overnight, America and the Western Nations have been progressively degrading ever since the Christian Church started worshiping modern Israel, and the Zionist movement, as an idol. The Christian Church in the Western Nations should be fighting our moral battles but instead we are embracing a defeatist, escapist attitude, thinking that we are currently living in the End Times and will soon be Raptured out of this sinful world. America and the Western World's problem is a spiritual problem but until our spiritual leaders purge themselves of this idol worship, and stop teaching these end time fairy tales, we will continue to decline.
As you may notice, some portions of this web site (with the authors permission), has been gleaned, or even taken directly from this book.
As you may notice, some portions of this web site (with the authors permission), has been gleaned, or even taken directly from this book.
Israel Oh Israel Where Art Thou?
102 Pages
Published 2008
ISBN 978-1593523794
Author xxxxxx
(The goal of this web site is to address the false Jewish Identity that has permeated the Western Christian Church, not elevate or promote any individual person. Therefore the author's name is not included here but can easily be found through other sources.)
Contents:
* About the cover
* Back cover wording
* Introduction
* Chapter 1: Parables, Symbolism, Metaphors and God’s Word.
* Chapter 2: Replacement Theology and Dispensational Eschatology
* Chapter 3: The Prophecy Booksellers
* Chapter 4: How the Prophecy Booksellers Affect America and The Church
* Chapter 5: Modern Israel is not the Rebirth of Old Testament Israel
* Chapter 6: Modern-day Jews
* Chapter 7: The Creation of Modern-day Israel
* Chapter 8: Are We All Descendants of Ancient Israel?
* Chapter 9: God’s Chosen People in the Old Testament
* Chapter 10: God’s Principal: First in the Physical, Then in the Spiritual
* Chapter 11: The Arc of the Covenant and the Physical Symbolism in Ancient Judaism
* Chapter 12: A Remnant of Israel
* Chapter 13: The True Jew – the Christian Church is the Spiritual Israel of Today
* Chapter 14: Messianic Judaism – a Christian Cult?
* Chapter 15: Dispensational Eschatology: Satan’s Deception
* Chapter 16: Fallacies Imbedded in Dispensational Eschatology
* Conclusion
* End Notes
About the Cover
Symbolically, the Cross of Christ has its roots in Old Testament Israel; the earthly realm from which the New Covenant, Spiritual Israel, grew. The radiant glow behind the earth symbolizes “The Bright Morning Star” Jesus, the “Bridegroom” that will be coming out of his chamber to receive “His Bride”, “The Church;” that event will usher in an eternity and oneness with God.
The author wishes to now add this clarification:
As stated above, yes the Cross of Christ has its roots in Old Testament Israel, however, it did not grow out of, or have its roots in Judaism as my cover appears to convey. When this book was written, I (the author), like most Christians, believed that most of the people recorded in the Old Testament were Jews. I had heard that all of my life and therefore never questioned it. However, I now realize that Jews, and what was called Judaism, only began near the end of the Old Testament era, after God divorced Israel, and then judged and condemned Judah to Babylonian captivity. What was, and is currently called Judaism, was the perversion of God's Old Testament Law, or as Jesus called it "the doctrines and precepts of men." Moreover, what is now commonly called The Star of David, is an ancient pagan symbol of interlocking triangles, that was adopted by the Zionists in the 1800's, and later became a symbol for Jews. Therefore, if taken at face value, the cover inaccurately conveys what I originally intended it to symbolize. .... I now need to humbly state that if taken as it appears, the cover of my book conveys a lie, and not just a simple lie, but an ignorant blasphemous lie.
The Back Cover wording:
“The American Christian Church has become mentally drunk with what is called End Times Prophecy and its deceptive lies, and as with all spiritual lies, the ramifications of it are very serious. Too many Christians are living this end-time deception instead of confronting the satanic influence that is sweeping our nation. America (and Europe) has been steadily declining as the Church dwells on this foolishness; if the Christian Church does not wake up and start fighting America’s spiritual battles we are headed for very serious problems regarding our religious freedoms.
The anti-God, anti-Christian movement in America is rapidly progressing. God is no longer welcome in our schools and the latest minting of the one dollar coin is a further example. The long standing words “In God We Trust,” for years prominently displayed on the face of our coins, has now been moved to small print along the edge. Laws directly opposing Christians, the Bible, and God’s moral standards are not far behind. When lies such as those in dispensational eschatology permeate the Church, the Church is then following Satan, the father of lies, instead of God’s truth.
Israel Oh Israel Where Art Thou? is a book that will hopefully open the Church’s eyes and free our spiritual leaders from focusing and teaching this deception. Let us pray that this awakening occurs before it is too late and we, along with future generations, pay the price for allowing Satan's lies to guide the Church’s thoughts and actions of today.”
Introduction
In August of 2006, the nation of Israel was engaged in a war on its northern border. While this war was being fought, I attended an informal Bible study where several of my Christian friends voiced the all too prevalent belief that the modern nation of Israel is a special nation of God and a fulfillment of some Old Testament biblical prophecy. I disagreed and stated that Christians (the Church) are the Israel of today because after Jesus the Messiah (The Cross), natural Israel became a Spiritual Israel and the death of physical Israel began. To me that is quite clear when I read God’s Word, yet I am aware that many people, who I un-affectionately call prophecy booksellers, are selling and teaching something quite different. One of my Bible study friends challenged me to biblically prove that position, so with God’s Word, logic, and some reference to world history, I wrote what eventually became Israel, Oh Israel, Where Art Thou?
I initially thought I could show my Bible study friends, in just a quick one-page essay, how the Church became Spiritual Israel after the Cross. However, in much of the American Christian Church, the concepts spread by the prophecy booksellers, about modern-day Israel and modern-day Jews, are so completely interwoven with *dispensational eschatology they are not easily separated. Therefore, it soon became obvious that any written explanation would be much longer than one page and would also need to include much of dispensational eschatology. Yet, what started as a simple essay written for friends, is now available for anyone deceived by the false end time teachings of dispensational eschatology.
I have studied God’s Word for almost forty years but never realized how corrupted it had become, by dispensational eschatology, until I began to write about it. If one stands back and takes an overall look at what is taught in dispensational eschatology, what one sees is a picture of God favoring a small group of people today, called Jews, above everyone else in the world; they are God’s royalty, so to speak. This comes from the dysfunctional way dispensationalists interpret Scripture to justify their conclusions and connect non-related biblical verses to make them fit into current and future events. This false teaching is now so entrenched in so much of the American Christian Church that many Christians will discard this book, after only a cursory review, because it challenges too many of their beliefs. Yet this book does not require the reader to initially agree with everything in order to glean something of value. It can be likened to spiritual seeds sowed upon fertile ground from which the Holy Spirit will direct the growth.
Many may also feel that what is written here is anathema to God’s Word, and as I have already begun to experience, consider me a traitor or enemy to their particular brand of Christian or Jewish religion. Yet that is to be expected. Conveying God’s unpopular spiritual truth is what led to the persecution and death of God’s Old Testament prophets (Acts 7:52). Anyone who challenges an established religious dogma should be ready for some level of persecution; especially if it has the potential to threaten someone’s fame, power or financial interests. However, anyone reading this book, and seeking truth, should never fear having their beliefs challenged because Jesus said that He was Truth, and truth will always stand up to criticism. Scriptural truth does not stand alone, it always agrees with history and sound logic. If these are ever in conflict then something is either incorrectly interpreted or untrue. Biblical truth is like a jigsaw puzzle where all of the parts, not just some, must fit together correctly and completely to get the complete true picture. If your current spiritual beliefs are challenged and will not stand up to the criticism of this book, then you need to find out why. Someday we will all stand before God and will then have to answer whether we honestly sought truth, or only desired to have our ears tickled by “fables fit only for old women” (1 Timothy 4:7).
Israel Oh Israel Where Art Thou? has been kept as short as possible so as to provide a reference that is easily and quickly read, but since it may challenge many of the readers’ current denominational dogmas, for someone seeking truth, it may require additional study on some or even all of the subjects. Jesus is Truth and truth belongs to anyone willing to accept it. The spiritual truths in this book belong to the reader just as much as they belong to the author; anyone can take them as their own. When God gives us truth it is ours free for the taking. Although the written words in this book are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without permission, the spiritual truths within it are not. Truth cannot be copyrighted because it comes from God. Therefore, truth, wherever we may find it, is ours free for the taking.
In Ephesians 6:12, God’s Word tells us, “...our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness; against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Jesus is Truth and Satan is the father of lies; when lies are allowed to displace truth in the Church, the Church is then following Satan’s influence, not God’s Truth. We know that the truth of God’s Word, either directly or by principle, can direct every aspect of life, but it first needs to be learned and applied. God’s Word commands Christians to “examine everything carefully and hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21); the Apostle Paul even called a group that followed that principle, “noble minded” (Acts 17:11). This book is not intended to shake anyone’s faith, but to strengthen it through truth. God’s Word in Hebrews 5:11-14 is about growing in the Lord, and uses the metaphor of moving from milk to solid food. One way to obtain this growth is to study, learn and apply God’s truths. Please read this in the spirit of searching for truth, and as God’s Word commands, to also become “noble minded” by examining the scriptures to see if it is true. The God of the Bible commands us to do exactly that and to repent when we find that we are embracing a lie (The word repentance means to change direction). Hopefully the sin of pride, which was so prominent with many of the religious leaders in the Bible (the Scribes and Pharisees), will not prevent America’s spiritual leaders from changing direction regarding their current teaching of dispensational eschatology.
* Dispensational eschatology is a term used to describe the common theology of end-times prophecy dispensed in a specific sequence and time period.
CHAPTER 1
Parables, Symbolism, Metaphors and God’s Word
Parables, symbolism, metaphors, similes, hyperboles, etc., are throughout God’s Word, but the prophecy booksellers all too often erroneously take these symbolic biblical illustrations and apply them literally instead of spiritually. If you disagree, then please let me show you two examples of how symbolic Scripture can be distorted. These are two examples from fulfilled prophecy, but if they were yet to be fulfilled, I am certain some prophecy bookseller would take them literally instead of spiritually and, therefore, teach something that is entirely wrong. Please read Luke 3:4-6 and Luke 3:16 before reading any further.
Luke 3:4-6, talks about John the Baptist fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, but did he fulfill it literally? Was every literal ravine filled up? Was every literal mountain brought low? Was every literal road made smooth? Of course not. In Luke 3:16 we read about the difference between the baptism of John and the baptism that would come from Jesus. We know that John did baptize with water but did Jesus ever literally baptize anyone with fire? Of course not. No one today takes those verses literally because it is now obvious they were only meant to be fulfilled spiritually, but the prophecy booksellers take similar passages and say they can only be applied literally. Taking symbolic scripture literally, especially in the book of Revelation, is one of the main fallacies used by the prophecy booksellers when forming their complex scenarios in what is called end-time prophecy. Isaiah’s prophecy was symbolism, John did fulfill it, and Jesus did baptize with fire (Acts 2:3), but not literally; these prophecies were symbolic so they were never intended to be fulfilled literally, but only in the spirit.
Symbolism permeates God’s Word from beginning to end starting in the first book of the Bible where Adam and Eve “ate” from the forbidden “tree” of knowledge, and where Jesus will defeat Satan by “bruising” (crushing) his “head.” Symbolism continues until the end where in one of the last verses Jesus is symbolically called the “Bright Morning Star.” All of the parables that Jesus spoke were symbolic, as was His first miracle where He changed water into wine. Water often symbolizes the washing of sins, but the blood of Jesus is what saved the world and wine, as recorded in Genesis 49:11and Mark 14:23-25, symbolized that blood. The people at the wedding feast partook of the wine Jesus had just created, and that wedding, along with the symbolic wine, symbolized God’s future spiritual wedding.
When it comes to biblical symbolism, probably the most symbolic change regarding the move from physical Israel to Spiritual Israel is one that is almost universally missed; it is the change in God’s spiritual language. Prior to Jesus, God’s Word was conveyed almost entirely in Hebrew, but after the Cross, God’s Word was written entirely in Greek, the common language of the nations at that time. Jesus became the Savior for the entire world and God’s spiritual blessing was then for all people. The change in His spiritual language, moving from Hebrew to Greek, also symbolized the end of the physical Jewish era. God’s Old Covenant age had ended, and when it did nothing new spiritually was ever again conveyed by God in Hebrew, the language of the Old Covenant.
In Matthew 15:9, Jesus talked about the religious leaders of ancient Israel as teaching the “precepts of men,” and later in Matthew 15:14 He called them, “blind guides of the blind.” Although He was referring to the Scribes and Pharisees of that time, that principle still applies. It fits many of the religious teachers today, as well as the hundreds of thousands who blindly follow them.
*(Dispensational Eschatology is the name give to the theology of End Time Prophecy as it is dispensed over a period of time)
CHAPTER 2
Replacement Theology and Dispensational Eschatology
Shortly after starting this book, a Christian friend gave me an article by Mr. Clarence H. Wagner, Jr., in which God’s principle of Old Testament Natural Israel becoming Spiritual Israel is called “replacement theology” which he considers to be false teaching. Mr. Wagner also stated that replacement theology has “infected the Church for nearly 1900 years.” To that I must respond. Of course, it has been around 1900 years (actually 1900+ years) because the spiritual Church of Jesus Christ, the resurrected Messiah, began at the Cross which was over 1900 years ago. Mr. Wagner calls it “replacement theology” and uses the word “infected,” but those words actually apply to modern-day dispensational eschatological teaching because that is what has gradually “replaced” and “infected” the Church for almost two hundred years.
The seeds for modern-day dispensational eschatological teachings began in the early 1800’s when the book entitled The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty, written by a deceptive Catholic monk named Emmanuel Lacunza writing under a pseudo name of Juan Josafat Ben Ezra (supposedly a Jew who converted to Christianity), was translated into English. The basic concepts of this book gradually grew to what we have today, with history recording the names of Edward Irving, John Nelson Darby, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, D. L. Moody, and many others as the Christian leaders who first taught, then embellished and promoted, this new “replacement theology.” Therefore, modern-day dispensational eschatology, and the various teachings of the prophecy booksellers, is the true “replacement theology,” not what began 1900+ years ago at the Cross.
Most of the following will be covered in greater depth in other sections of this book. However, for the modern nation of Israel and modern Jews to be considered a special nation and a chosen people of God, one needs to ignore the following:
- That not one group on the face of this earth, whether or not they call themselves Jews, can trace their lineage, as the Bible traces lineage, back 2,000 years to Old Testament Judaism.
- That not one group on the face of this earth is currently following the same religion that Old Testament Israel practiced at the time of Christ.
- That the current State of Israel is by no means a religious state; it is primarily a secular state, and therefore not at all like the Old Testament nation of Israel or Judah.
- That God completely destroyed the Old Testament Jewish Temple in A.D. 70, and to this day all of the physical components of Old Testament Judaism are still gone.
- That nowhere is there a physical holy object or land in Christianity. The only time anything is called holy in the New Testament is when the Spirit of God is dwelling in it. Jerusalem was still called the Holy City as long as the symbolic Temple remained, but after A.D. 70, God removed it.
- That Spiritual Israel, what Mr. Wagner (and others) erroneously call “replacement theology,” began over 1900 years ago, the same time that the New Testament and the New Covenant began, whereas the false teachings of dispensational eschatology began less than 200 years ago.
- That after the Cross, the Bible clearly states that a Jew is an “inward thing” (a spiritual thing) not an “outward thing” (a physical thing).
Most of what is taught in dispensational eschatology is a lie, and spiritual truth shows it to be a lie. Spiritual truth is free for the taking, but it is never forced upon us. Jesus never forced truth upon anyone; He only made it available for those willing to accept it. I hope those reading this book will be willing to do so.
* Dispensational eschatology is a term used to describe the common theology of end-times prophecy dispensed in a specific sequence and time period.
CHAPTER 3
The Prophecy Booksellers
At the Cross, the Christian Church became the end-times “Israel” of the Bible, but that truth has become badly distorted in much of the American Church today. Many Christians today have become mentally drunk by the end-time prophecy peddling of the prophecy booksellers.(#1 in end notes) These people are marketing and spreading what God has told Christians not to do. We are not to seek after humans to reveal the future. In the Old Testament God did reveal the future through men, but the prophecy booksellers of today are not at all like the anointed Old Testament prophets of God. Much of the teaching from the prophecy booksellers comes from financial gain, something that is not new to these times.(# 2 in end notes) False teachings have occurred throughout Church history. Even the Apostle Paul wrote about it in 2 Peter 2:1-3 and Titus 1:10-11. I use the word “drunk” not in the derogatory sense, but as a metaphor and a comparative word. Just as those that are physically drunk have their minds blurred toward reality, so has much of the American Christian Church had spiritual truth blurred by the false teachings of the prophecy booksellers.
To see how prevalent eschatology is today, all one needs to do is go to any Christian bookstore and look at the sheer number of books in the prophecy/rapture section. Even Christian radio seems to dedicate a large portion of their broadcast time to this subject. Entire denominations and many well-meaning Christian leaders have been deceived by these prophecy booksellers; teaching what effectively moves the Holy Spirit back prior to the Cross. (#3 in end notes) They are also promoting a form of future event divination and, as such, they are teaching and promoting sin.
*(Dispensational Eschatology is the name give to the theology of End Time Prophecy as it is dispensed over a period of time)
CHAPTER 4
How the Prophecy Booksellers Affect America and the Church
This false end-time teaching of dispensational eschatology is by no means benign; the ramifications of it are very serious. It is causing too many Christians (and their churches) to focus on this end-time deception instead of addressing and fighting the satanic influence that is sweeping our nation and the world. Many Christians look on the tragic events that are happening in the world with anticipation and a subtle form of inward glee (and sometimes not so subtle or inward), because they think it is fulfillment of some biblical prophecy and therefore their rapture is imminent. Pointing to these tragic events also feeds the ego of one’s human nature that says, “See, I told you so. The Bible is right and so am I.” Yet, even though the Bible (in its original text) is infallible, it does not mean that every human interpretation of it is correct, and in the case of End Time Prophecy (commonly called dispensational eschatology) it is satanic deception from the father of lies. I realize those are very strong words and they will make some people mad, but unless those people can prove that the major premise of this book is untrue, then they are the ones following and promoting lies, and their lies are directed against God and His Word.
The Christian Church is under attack in America by those who want to eliminate any influence of God from our society. If they succeed, the liberties that all Americans cherish will go with it and with that the hopes of freedom for the entire world. The moral foundation of America has increasingly been under attack for over 50 years and many, if not most, Christian churches are acting like spiritual drunks by ignoring the signs around them and focusing too much time and teaching on the foolishness of dispensational eschatology. Spiritual sobriety is a must if the Christian Church is to remain influential in America.
This undermining moral attack also manifests itself in the so called separation of Church and State movement that we hear so often. But that really has nothing to do with a separation of Church and State, because America has never had a mandated State religion, and that freedom was written into, and still exists, in the United States Constitution. No, the current separation of Church and State movement is actually a movement to eliminate the recognition of God from our Government, and that goal is straight from the philosophy of Marx, Engels and Lenin, the fathers and one of the chief purveyors of Communist lies. Karl Marx wrote “religion is the opium of the people”, and Lenin said “Have we suppressed the religious clergy? Yes we have, the unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated. ” Our schools are now spreading the main foundation of Marxism; the philosophy that God does not exist and therefore all life evolved on its own. The Marxist-Liberals in America are out to “liquidate” all Christian influence in our government and eventually suppress all Christians as well.
America Christians may be ignoring what is happening, but astute Christians in other parts of the world see it all too clearly. A persecuted Iranian Christian pastor recently stated that he foresees the day, and in his lifetime, when he can openly preach Christianity in the streets of Muslim dominated Iran, but in America it will be outlawed. You laugh and think that can never happen? The seeds are already planted; the Bible is already called a hate book by many homosexual organizations, the same organizations that so many politicians, the ones who make the laws, are pandering to for political contributions. Some of these same politicians are now introducing legislation that will prevent pastors from reading or quoting anything from the Bible that could be considered opposing homosexually. The State of California, where many trends begin, already has anti-Christian and anti-Bible legislation in place. In 2007, California enacted a law that prohibits school textbooks from using any language, including references to mom or dad, which could be considered as opposing a homosexual lifestyle (California Senate Bill SB777). The anti-God, anti-Christian movement in America is moving ahead briskly; laws directly against the Bible-believing Christians and the Bible’s moral standards are not far behind.
America’s Supreme Court in the early 60’s banned the Christian God from the classrooms, but only the Christian God, because in His place they brought in the gods of the nature based religions, and they did it through the environmental movement. The environmental movement in our nation is America’s new religion, and the term “Eco-Pagans” fits its zealot followers very well. The poorly written Endangered Species Act of 1973, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act were two of their (and Satan’s) key victories, and our nation has been paying the price for them ever since. The earth and the creatures on it are a resource given to us by God, and we are to manage all of it wisely, but none of it is a god, and none of it should ever be treated as God.
The God that our nation’s Founding Fathers prayed to is no longer allowed in our classrooms, yet students are taught to worship nature by holding earth days, and venerating plants, animals and reptiles to god status. Our children now hug trees and are led to believe that animals, plants and even insects, are equal to and often even more special than humans. A form of Eastern and nature based religions is being taught in America’s classrooms, although it is not called that. Those religions are the ones that have sacred lands, animals, reptiles and plants and hold them to a god status. The nature based Pagan and Wicca religion uses the term “Mother Earth,” the same term that grammar school children today are taught to display on the walls of America’s classrooms - while they are not allowed to mention or display anything regarding the God of the Bible.
The Christian Church, by focusing on the teachings of the prophecy booksellers, is neglecting the signs around it and is acting like the Jews in Europe as the Nazis were gaining strength in the 1930’s.
I blame America’s spiritual leaders for what is happening, as inZechariah 10:2-3, when a nation’s spiritual leaders do not lead in truth, and fail to confront society’s spiritual lies, “…the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted because there is no shepherd. My anger (God’s) is kindled against the shepherds…”
If we allow the principals stated in our Declaration of Independence, that our freedoms come from “our creator” (God), to be swept aside, than our future liberties will be at the whims of despots.
Is the Christian Church going to continue letting this cancer grow until it kills off our freedoms and it is too late to do anything about it? My hope and prayers are that Christian leaders across America will start speaking out, and as in years past, again take the lead in fighting America’s moral decline.
This portion of a poem written in 2007 sums it up well:
From Kinsey & Pomeroy our sexual revolution grew
But bigotry and deception were all that they knew
No Jews, Blacks or Christians needed apply
Today through their records we know why
Pedophile was Kinsey and Pomeroy a gay
No wonder moral standards are in a mess today
Moral standards they are in steady decline
The lower they go the longer the lines
Our women were once for men to adore
Now called in Rap music a bitch or a whore
The disease they catered and let to spread
A protected epidemic is where it led
The money from Gays drove the Political Party
As AIDS killed a million once strong and hardy
The Catholic Church a guide for many
Changed their priestly standards to allow any
The Twentieth Century when about half way
They trained young priests even those openly gay
Now they pay the price as did many young boys
Will we learn a lesson from the gay agenda and their ploys?
Murder funds the politician’s blunder
They call abortion a right to kill and plunder
Where children’s deaths once brought our tears
At political conventions it now bring cheers
A pagan religion now drives the land
Bugs and reptiles are now above man
No country can thrive with laws such as this
Only third world nations are where they exist
America once taught “In God We Trust”
Until evolution upon us was thrust
Now our schools give pseudo-science its way
Life evolved on its own from mindless matter they say
Our children worship earth day and go to hug trees
But in school they had better not pray on their knees
We now drug our young boys to keep them calm
In their future will they act more like a dad than a mom?
Civil liberty screams the ACLU
But the lawsuits they file are not Red, White & Blue
They yell “separate the Church and State!”
But the Christian God is what they really hate
Spiritual leadership is seldom heard
Political correctness suppresses their word.
Too many obsessed with a Rapture I’d say
Instead of confronting what’s happening today.
What guided our nation is now pushed to the rear
Spiritual leaders now cower in fear.
Preachers tickle their congregations’ ears
Losing tax exemptions fuels their fears.
Where our Christian leaders once led the fight
Now they sing and shake hands in their meetings at night.
If “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” is all we shall hear,
Then like Jews in the Third Reich our freedoms disappear.
(Excerpt taken from Death of America’s Freedoms, revised version, copyright © 2007)
*(Dispensational Eschatology is the name give to the theology of End Time Prophecy as it is dispensed over a period of time)
CHAPTER 5
Modern Israel Is Not the Rebirth of Old Testament Israel
Most if not all prophecy booksellers claim that the formation of the modern nation of Israel is the fulfillment of some Old Testament verses such as Ezekiel 20:34, 36:24-27, 36:33-35, etc. (#4 in end notes) Yet before we grasp those Bible verses as being fulfilled in modern-day Israel, we need to remember that in every case where a specific Old Testament verse is quoted, those prophecies were written prior to the return of Judah from their Babylonian and Persian captivity and the subsequent rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Therefore, a physical return to Jerusalem has already occurred.
The premise that modern-day Israel is the reincarnation of ancient Israel is one of the main tenets of current eschatological teaching, but that teaching is a lie, as is the vast majority of what is taught by these prophecy booksellers. At the Cross, the church became Spiritual Israel and physical Israel shriveled up and died within one generation, exactly as Jesus said it would in the symbolic fig tree of Matthew 21:19 and the parable of Luke 13:6-9. Jerusalem and the physical Temple were also destroyed as He prophesied in Matthew 24:1-2, Mark 13:1-2 and Luke 19:41-44.
For those who have been raised in a church atmosphere where modern-day Israel is considered a special nation of God and is to be reverenced, then what is written here should cause you to seriously question the foundation of those beliefs. Again, believers seeking truth should never fear having their beliefs challenged; Jesus is Truth, and truth will not falter under critique or criticism. However, if we embrace lies and myths as truth then we are no better than those who follow the lies of the cults (2 Timothy 4: 3-4).
The Israel of the Old Testament is nothing like the Israel of today. Before explaining why modern Israel cannot be the rebirth of ancient Israel, I need to remind you that in spite of the sacred sounding names we hear so often, there are no holy lands or holy objects in Christianity. Even though there are no holy lands, many Christians today come close to, or actually do, revere the nation of Israel and people called Jews; in so doing, they are practicing a form of idol worship. I have actually seen Christian organizations fly the Israeli flag under the American flag, and discuss trips to Israel as if that part of the earth was something special in God’s eyes. When I listen to the hype promoting many of these trips, I cannot help but liken it to a pilgrimage that a Muslim would make to Mecca. Many Christians have been led to believe that modern Israel is a special nation to God and they should therefore hold it in reverence. Yet this is not so. It is just another nation in God’s eyes. It is true that Christianity has its spiritual roots in the Middle East, and that area does have historical significance, but there are no holy lands in Christianity and nowhere does God’s Word command Christians to return to any land anywhere on this earth. God’s Kingdom never was and never will be of this world. Yes, God's Kingdom is in the world but not of this world.
When the state of Israel was founded, much injustice was done to the indigenous people living in Palestine, and this injustice was perpetrated not only against Arab Moslems but against thousands of Palestinian Christians as well. The American Christian Church, almost without exception, refuses to even acknowledge this brutal ethnic cleansing and the hundreds of villages that were destroyed by the new Israelis when their country was founded. For some American Christians, just the mention of this injustice will bring accusations of anti-Semitism, but in so doing, these people show their ignorance of what a true anti-Semitic action actually is. (# 5 in end notes)
The Semitic people were/are the people that lived in Palestine and the areas where Israel now exists. The ethnic cleansing, done by the Zionists that founded Israel, was a true anti-Semitic act. (# 6 in end notes) However, the State of Israel has now been a sovereign nation for over sixty years, and although their past sins will not be forgotten in history, they are also not easily corrected at this point in time. As with almost every nation, including the United States, man’s inhumanity to man will always be a blight on its past. Today, Palestinians comprise the largest group of displaced people in the world. Unfortunately, that will undoubtedly continue to fuel unrest in that area for many years to come.
Today, the United States and much of the free world supports modern Israel, and to some degree that is probably the correct thing to do, but not because Israel is a special nation of God, but for the same reason the free world should support any free democratic nation that is under attack. In addition, Israel, without the support of the Free World would probably cease to exist; that would be a tragedy because as flawed as Israel is, it is about the closest thing to a free democratic country that currently exists in the Middle East.
Psalm 29:11 says that God will bless His people with peace, but even a quick look at modern Israel’s war history, where they have seen no real peace since their inception, will show that Israel is closer to being a nation cursed of God rather than blessed of God. There is a simple explanation for that. The explanation fits into this infallible truth: The closer a nation or society embraces the God of the Bible, without mans’ dogma added to it, the stronger, freer, healthier and wealthier they will be, and the more they will live in peace.
Israel is a nation that rejects Jesus, the God of the Bible, and will not allow non-Jewish Christians to become citizens. As such, it will never reap all the blessings and peace of God. There is also a movement in Israel to someday rebuild the old Temple in Jerusalem which is another indication of their total rejection of the Messiah, Jesus. Old Testament Israel was once a special nation to God, but that nation ended long ago and its people were scattered and dispersed into the world; after the coming of the Messiah, no nation was any more special to God than was any other.
In the Old Testament era, a Jew was a distant descendant of Abraham, and separate from all other people in the world called Gentiles. However, just being a descendant of Abraham did not make someone a Jew. Many other people of that time were also descendants of Abraham but were not Jews. Abraham’s first son Ishmael and his descendants were never considered Jews even though Abraham was his father and his descendants’ grandfather. It was through Isaac, Abraham’s second son, which all nations would be saved (Romans 9:7; Genesis 21:12) because Isaac came through the promise and through Abraham’s faith in God. Ishmael on the other hand did not. He came through the natural physical order of the flesh. These two principles:
1. Salvation through faith (Hebrews 11:1-40),
2. First in the natural, or physical, and then in the spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:46, 1 Corinthians 15:44,1 Corinthians 15:42), permeates the Bible from beginning to end.
Esau, the brother of Jacob (God later changed Jacob’s name to Israel) also had Abraham as his great grandfather, but he took wives from the surrounding nations, and those descendants were never called or considered Jews. The only people called Jews in the Old Testament came through the physical bloodline of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob’s two sons Jacob and Benjamin. The early Jews were called Hebrews or Israel, not Jews. The term Jew never appears in the Bible until 2 Kings (2 Kings 25:25), which is many generations after the deaths of Abraham, Jacob and his sons.
The physical descendants of Jacob (then called Israel) proliferated in Egypt through the political power given to Jacob’s son, Joseph, by the Pharaoh. Yet even at the beginning the descendants of Israel were not a totally separate, genetically pure family. The Bible records Joseph as having two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, from his Egyptian wife, and in the 400+ years their descendants sojourned in Egypt, many of Jacob’s other descendants probably intermarried as well.
Even though the people Moses led out of Egypt were descendants of Abraham, Egyptian (Gentile) blood was, at least to some degree, co-mingled in their lineage. However, it did not stop there. Later in their lineage, Ruth, a Gentile who was a Moabitess, began the lineage that led to one of the greatest kings of Israel—King David (Ruth 4:16-22). David’s son, King Solomon, also took an Egyptian for a wife. He married Pharaoh’s daughter and had many other Gentile wives (as recorded in 1 Kings). There are numerous other examples of mixed or intermarriage within the Israel (and later Jewish) identity and one good example is in Ezra 9:1-4 where those that partook in it are dealt with directly.
The Bible also records many wars between Judah and Israel, so for much of their history they were not a united people; their history is replete with internal conflict and division. The Bible records many of their battles, so even though they were a people separate from the Gentiles, they often acted as if they were two very different peoples of God.
In closing, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel because he would become a father of “a nation and a company of nations” (Genesis 35:10-11).
Chapter 6
Modern-day Jews
No one today can even define what a Jew is without his or her definition coming under dispute. Encyclopedias state that there is presently no Jewish race because throughout the years they have intermarried and become absorbed into other nationalities. Now I realize that encyclopedias are not the Word of God and, therefore, are often wrong. Nevertheless from my research, that is the consensus when one searches for the definition of a Jew. (# 7 in end notes)
After the Israelite exodus from Egypt, and prior to the Cross, God kept the Israelites separate and, for the most part, prevented that from happening. God said, as recorded in 1 Kings 11:2, “…you shall not associate with them, neither shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.”
He commanded the Israelites not to intermarry with the other nations (a command many did not always obey, including Israel’s wisest king, King Solomon), but at the Cross all that changed. God’s Word and blessings now went out to all nations and all people. However, today the most common consensus is if the mother is Jewish then all of her offspring are Jews. This is an interesting change, and a modern one at that, because for the Jews of the Old Testament the lineage was carried and traced through the father, not the mother. That is also why the lineage of Jesus, the first lineage recorded in the New Testament, was through Joseph, even though he was not the biological father of Jesus. Whether it comes through the father or mother, it is still irrelevant because the genealogical records that would tie any modern Jew to ancient Israel do not exist. Some people claim to be able to trace a Jewish ancestry through the modern science of DNA, but since there is no accurate Jewish DNA available from 2,000 years ago, their conclusions are, at best, nothing but foolish speculation.
So, what is the Jewish religion of today and what do they believe? To answer that question I went to the website called Judaism 101 http://www.jewfaq.org/index.htm#Welcome), and copied the list that follows. (# 8 in end notes) Any mature Christian will quickly notice that the beliefs listed, for the most part, are not much different than Christian beliefs. The most notable exceptions are 1) modern Judaism still awaits a Messiah, and 2) they also follow the Oral Torah, better known as the Talmud, and 3) The Bible records that John the Baptist was the greatest prophet, not Moses You will also note that there is not even one physical remnant left of the ancient Old Testament Jewish religion. They still accept and believe the Old Testament scriptures as the Word of God (just like Christians), but none of the physical rituals and sacrifices written in those scriptures are still practiced. That makes perfect sense because God ended the physical aspects of Biblical Judaism almost 2,000 years ago and they will never return regardless of how many times the prophecy booksellers write or say they will. What God ends no man can ever bring back.
The following is copied from Judaism 101 (www.jewfaq.org/beliefs.htm):
“The closest that anyone has ever come to creating a widely-accepted list of Jewish beliefs is Rambam’s thirteen principles of faith. Rambam’s thirteen principles of faith, which he thought were the minimum requirements of Jewish belief, are:
1. God exists
2. God is one and unique
3. God is incorporeal
4. God is eternal
5. Prayer is to be directed to God alone and to no other
6. The words of the prophets are true
7. Moses’ prophecies are true, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets
8. The Written Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) and Oral Torah (teachings now contained in the Talmud and other writings) were given to Moses
9. There will be no other Torah (# 9 in end notes)
10. God knows the thoughts and deeds of men
11. God will reward the good and punish the wicked
12. The Messiah will come
13. The dead will be resurrected
Since none of the physical aspects of Old Testament Judaism are still being practiced, the Jews living at the time of Jesus would certainly not accept modern Judaism as their religion. They would also consider anyone claiming to be a Jew, and then practicing modern Judaism, a heretic. In addition, since the Jewish penalty for heresy was death by stoning, a Jew living at that time, and practicing what is now called Judaism, would be executed by the Jewish religious hierarchy of that day. Although not exactly the same, that is what the apostle Paul—then called Saul—was doing when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was tracking down Jews who had accepted Jesus as their Messiah (they were the first Christians) and, therefore, were no longer following the rituals and dogmas of the Jewish religion. The apostle Paul (Saul) also stood by and gave approval as Steven, the first recorded Christian martyr (an ex-religious Jew), was being stoned to death.
Modern Judaism is often called Rabbinic Judaism and it is much different from Old Testament Judaism. Although the roots of Rabbinic Judaism go back to the Babylonian era, it actually began in earnest sometime around the 6th century A.D. The Talmud, the verbal sayings of the early rabbis, was compiled into written form at that time and directs much of modern religious Judaism. The Talmud adds man’s thoughts and dogmas into Judaism and, as with any verbal communication (especially ones that are carried down through hundreds of generations), are subject to extreme error. (#10 in end notes) When man’s words add to and/or deviate from the written Word of God, it corrupts the original truth. Jesus, while addressing the Scribes and Pharisees in Mark 7:1-13, condemned man’s traditions as a means of righteousness before God.
Modern Judaism is also void of many of the Old Testament rituals and commandments (found primarily in Leviticus and Numbers), and it is, therefore, a different form of Jewish worship than what was practiced at the time of the Christ. Modern Jews, just like any one else, are certainly free to worship in any manner they wish. However, to consider modern Judaism the same religion as Old Testament Judaism is not accurate scripturally, historically or logically.
CHAPTER 7
The Creation of the Modern-day Nation of Israel
The modern nation of Israel came into existence in 1948. Some people hail that date as a special sign from God. However, the seeds of the Zionist movement began in the late 1800’s, primarily by the Ashkenazi genetically Gentile-based Jews, and took almost 100 years to sprout. The fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I gave this movement a great leap forward, but it also allowed the formation of many other nations in that area, i.e., Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, to name a few. Neither Israel nor any of these other nations existed prior to WWI; they all came into existence within the same 30-year period. Therefore, one could use the same logic that is applied to modern Israel, to say that modern Iran is the miracle reincarnation of ancient Persia, modern Iraq is the miracle reincarnation of ancient Babylon and modern Syria is the miracle reincarnation of ancient Assyria. However, no one of prominence that I know of, other than some of the current leaders of those nations, seems to be embracing these foolish thoughts. Also, in case some prophecy bookseller does teach this foolishness in the future, you need to remember that, as with the current nation of Israel, the borders of those nations are not at all similar to any of the old ancient boundaries.
One Bible verse commonly misquoted in the American Christian Church, is that God will bless those that bless Israel. This is usually understood to mean that God will bless those that support the modern nation of Israel and curse those that do not, however, that is not what this scripture says. This misconception is derived from the twisting of Genesis 12: 3 where God says to Abram (God had not changed his name to Abraham yet) that "I will bless those that bless you (you, meaning Abram, not Israel)............and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" When read correctly, God is saying he will bless Abram and his descendants (his spiritual descendants) not some future nation called Israel. Nowhere did God use the name Israel in that verse or anytime in Abraham's entire life, in fact Abraham died many years before God ever used the name Israel in the Bible. The first time the name Israel is used is when God changed Jacob's (Abraham's grandson) name from Jacob to Israel.
The last part of God's statement to Abram "... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" has been fulfilled by one of Abraham's descendants in the flesh, our lord Jesus the Christ.
CHAPTER 8
Are We All Descendents of Ancient Israel?
Let us now apply some reasoning to the concept that the current people called Jews are the only real descendants of ancient Israel. Let us start by asking how many people alive today have an ancestry that has kept accurate genealogical records going back several thousand years? I doubt if anyone can honestly produce records going back that far, and even if some were able (which I seriously doubt), it could only be a few people and it certainly does not apply to the population of Israel today. If some group has actually kept those records, they would have done so contrary to God’s Word. In 1 Timothy 1:4 and Titus 3:9, the Apostle Paul commands the people of his day (and us) to not keep genealogies. If God wanted His people to keep genealogical records after the Messiah had come, do you really think He would command us not to keep endless genealogies? Prior to the Cross, God had the Israelites keep and record genealogies. However, after the Messiah, the need to keep genealogies to trace, point to, and prove the Messiah were no longer necessary.
Now we need to ask, how much has this potential Jewish lineage been diluted or corrupted from purity, and what modern-day people could possibly be the descendants of the Old Testament Jews? Moreover, it is almost 2,000 years later and literally a hundred generations after the destruction and dispersal of the Jews throughout the world by the Roman General Titus in A.D. 70.
Therefore, it is easy to understand that in the genealogy of every person alive today there have been literally millions of births, lives and deaths that are unrecorded and untraceable in history. No person living today can ever know who those people were. It has only been in recent times that the necessary genealogical records have been kept—and then not in every nation. Anyone who had children, even just a few hundred years ago, is likely to have millions of descendants today. A quick way to illustrate how this multiplication factor occurs can easily be accomplished with a modern calculator and, after the next paragraph, you will see how.
As was previously stated, it has been literally one hundred generations (some calculate a generation as 40 years and some calculate it as 20 years. If 40 is used it would be 50 generations) since the Jews of the Old Testament were either killed in Jerusalem, brought back to Rome where they were enslaved or killed, or scattered throughout the populated biblical areas. At that point, the Old Testament Jewish religion, for all practical purposes, ceased to exist. The temple was destroyed, the priests were killed (and with them the priestly lineage), the Holy of Holies was gone, the Ark of the Covenant vanished, the identity of their tribes was lost, and the animal sacrifices ended. The Jews who escaped, or were not in Jerusalem at that time, were scattered into diaspora and were no longer a homogeneous people. Many, if not most, gradually intermarried and became part of the surrounding culture.
Now, let us look at how the multiplication factor works regarding a person’s ancestry. We all know that it takes a mother and father to create a living human being (and yes, even a test tube baby has a sperm donor father!). Therefore, every person comes from the blended genetics of two parents, and each one of those two parents came from the blended genetics of their two parents, and they came from the blended genetics of their two parents, etc. Now take a modern calculator and multiply 2 x 2 one hundred times (2 parents x 100 generations), and you will get the potential number of great, great, great, great, grandparents that your genetic mix from two thousand years ago is derived from. As you will see, the number is staggering! My calculator only allows eight digits for determining the result of the foregoing calculations. Even at that, calculating a mere 25 multiplications of 2 x 2 totaled over 65 million!
If only one of those people in your genetic background had the genetics from an Old Testament Jew, then you are also a descendant, albeit distant, of an Old Testament Jew! Let us not forget that thousands of Old Testament Jews had also, prior to the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, become followers of Jesus (Christians). Therefore, their religious Jewish identity had already virtually been lost as they intermarried with the surrounding Gentile population; these people also helped to spread the Old Testament Jewish genetics throughout the known world. So how many modern, non-Jewish (Gentile) people today could be descendants of those ancient Jews? The answer is billions and that number could very well include almost everyone in the world!
The following statement came from an Associated Press article dated August, 2006, titled Famous Ancestors Adorn Almost All Family Trees, and helps to make this point: “Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say, the odds are virtually 100 percent that every person on Earth is descended from someone famous in one way or another.” (Yes, I know Adam and Eve and Noah and his family are famous, but I do not think they were talking about them.) The article continues: “Millions of people have provable descendants from someone historically famous,” said Mark Humphrys, a genealogy enthusiast and professor of computer science at Dublin City University in Ireland. “The number of people with unprovable descendants must therefore be massive.”
If that statement is even close to being true, and logically I believe it is, then the same could be said that at least one Old Testament Jew (famous or not) is in the lineage of every person in the Western world. Everyone’s genetics is a compilation of the blended genetics of billions of different people, and in this blended genetic mix virtually everyone with descendants from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia Minor has at least one Old Testament Jew in their lineage, and the real number is probably in the multiple thousands.
We all, therefore, have genetic lineage to Old Testament Judaism and who knows what else. We are all the descendants, albeit distant, of God’s Old Testament chosen people, so it is not just a select few today who call themselves Jews. Ironically, even those who vehemently hate or have hated Jews in the past (i.e., Muhammad and Hitler) must also have Old Testament Jewish lineage in their ancestry. Furthermore, those who call themselves Jews today may actually have less true genetic lineage to ancient Israel than many who are now called Gentiles.
When the prophecy booksellers, in their twisted application of biblical prophecy, refer to descendants of God’s chosen people, who in reality are these people? The answer is virtually everyone in the Western world, not just a relatively few people now calling themselves Jews. At the Cross, physical Israel ended and Spiritual Israel began!
Chapter 9
God’s Chosen People in the Old Testament
In the Bible, the Israelites are called God’s chosen people. On the other hand, the Bible also says that no person or nation is more important than any other (Acts 10:34-35; Galatians 3:28-29). Jesus is the Savior of all (1 Timothy 4:10), and “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised” (Colossians 3:11). Is the Bible then in conflict? Not at all!
The people in the Old Testament called Israelites were God’s chosen people, chosen to be in a covenant with God to:
1. Record, carry and protect the oracles (Word) of God (Romans 3:2).
2. Be the people He would use as an example for reproof, correction and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).
3. Keep the genealogical records necessary to prove the lineage of the Messiah (Matthew 1:1-16; Luke 3:23-38).
4. Practice a religion with physical rituals that symbolically represented and pointed to the coming Messiah. (#11 in end notes)
That is what the phrase “God’s chosen people” meant.
Prior to the Cross, Jesus stated in many ways (Mark 7:27 was one), that He was sent to the Jews not the Gentiles but at the Cross all of that ended. Even though the gospel of Jesus was initially being spread by men who were Jews (the apostles and others), they no longer practiced many of the rituals of the Jewish religion. They still carried the name of Jew because it was still their identity (or family) even though the Judaism of the past was no longer their religion. Yet even if they had desired to continue practicing the old Jewish religion, they would not have been able, and Jesus stated that a short time prior to His crucifixion. He prophesied they would be outcast from the synagogue (John 16:2) but since he was about to fulfill the symbolic things of the Jewish religion, that era was about to end anyway. He also prophesied there would be persecution. He said in John 16:2, “Those who kill you will think they are offering a service to God.” It was during that early persecution of the Church, by the Jews, that Saul of Tarsus became a Christian and subsequently changed his name to Paul. The old Jewish era had ended and some natural Jews, after the Messiah had come, were then called members of the Synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9, 3:9). I doubt if God chose that term as a benevolent way to designate a continuance of a special chosen people.
CHAPTER 10
God’s Principle: First in the Physical, Then in the Spiritual
First in the natural (or physical), then in the spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:46, 1 Corinthians 15:44, 1 Corinthians15:42) is one of the main biblical principles found in the Bible. At the Cross, physical Israel ended and Spiritual Israel began. Like the fig tree in Matthew 21:18-19 (also Mark 11:12-14, Luke 13:6-9), which symbolized physical Israel, the era of Old Testament Judaism was to shortly wither away and die. Jesus prophesied in Matthew 23:36 (also Luke 19:41-44, Luke 21:20-24, Mark 13:28-30) that within one generation this would pass away.
That prophecy was fulfilled in A.D. 70 when the Roman General Titus laid siege to Jerusalem and so completely destroyed it that historians of that day recorded that it looked like Jerusalem had never been occupied (Luke 19:43-44). The Jews in Jerusalem were either killed or scattered throughout the world. To this day, the old Jewish religion has never returned and, as Jesus said in the symbolic fig tree recorded in Mark 11:13-14, it will never again bear fruit.
Jesus also said, in Matthew 21:43, that the Kingdom of God would be taken away from the Jews and given to another and it was given to the Gentiles; it was given to all the believers in the world including the modern-day converts from Judaism. This concept can be found in numerous scriptures including the parable of the vine growers in Luke 20:9-16 and 20:19, where Jesus tells how the vineyard will be taken away and “given to others.” That parable was directed to the Jewish religious leaders of that day, and they represented and practiced the physical religion of Judaism.
The original Jewish era was like a book that had come to the final chapter; physical Israel ended at the Cross and as Jesus predicted, it took a generation before it was totally gone. This concept even applied to the criminal charge against Jesus which Pilate had placed above him on the Cross. It said, “Here is the King of the Jews.” The physical “King of the Jews,” Jesus the Messiah, died on the Cross that day and his death ended the physical Jewish age and brought forth the spiritual Jewish age. Men killed the physical “King of the Jews”, but, in so doing, the spiritual King came forth and no man can ever kill that King.
I believe God allowed the Jews of that time one generation to recognize the Messiah and complete His move from physical Israel to Spiritual Israel. Most of Jesus’ apostles were sent to convert the Jews, not the Gentiles. Most early Christians were converts from Judaism and, as Jesus predicted, within one generation physical Israel was destroyed.
The scriptures, called the Old Testament, also ended a few hundred years prior to the destruction of the Temple. The physical Jewish era has ended, so God has added nothing more to them in 2,000+ years and there is no reason to add more in the future. Just like new wine needs to be put into new wine skins, God put his New Covenant into a new spiritual vessel (Mark 2:22). Jerusalem and the physical Jewish Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. As of today, all of the key components of Old Testament Judaism are still gone. The Ark of the Covenant is gone. The Tribes are gone along with their names and symbolic staffs. (Early in God’s Word this was prophesied in Genesis 49:10 where it says, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah…until Shiloh [the Messiah] comes.” The Messiah had come and the scepter [the identity] for Judah and all the other tribes disappeared). The Temple in Jerusalem is gone and with it the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant. The priests are gone and along with them the Levite family, who were the priests. Finally, the animal sacrifice, that symbolically represented the sacrifice on the Cross, is also gone. Without these key components, it is foolishness to say that the same Judaism and Israel of the Old Testament still exists. Nevertheless, even before the physical Jewish Temple was actually destroyed by the Roman army, Jesus had already replaced it with a spiritual one.
In John 2:19 Jesus told the Jewish religious leaders, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.” After the crucifixion, it became clear that He was talking about himself as being the temple. At the Cross, Jesus fulfilled all the symbolic sacrificial rituals that had previously taken place in the Temple. No longer would there be a need for a physical Temple to perform ritual sacrifices. Jesus had fulfilled them once and for all on that day at Calvary.
Today there is a nation called Israel, but it is not a reincarnation of ancient Israel because the Jews of today are primarily from Gentile origin, and the Jewish religion of today is nothing like the Jewish religion of the past. The ultimate Passover had occurred at the Cross, so there was no longer a need for the symbolic things of the past. When the Messiah came there was no longer a need for a Holy Ground or Temple, because we (the Church) are now the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16).
God allowed the apostate religion of Islam to erect one of their sacred sites, The Dome of the Rock, on the exact spot where the old Jewish Temple in Jerusalem once stood. I can only wonder what symbolism God had in mind when He allowed that to happen. (#12 in end notes) Like something that had been used up and discarded, the ground where the old Jewish Temple once stood no longer had any spiritual significance. It is just another piece of dirt that will someday burn up with the rest of the earth (2 Peter 3:10).
This may be hard to accept by many modern American Christians, because they have been indoctrinated to believe that Israel and Jerusalem are still something to hold sacred. Yet, no where in the New Testament are Christians commanded to return to that land. There is no Holy Land in Christianity. Christians are to physically go out into the world and be part of it, not segregate themselves from others as the Old Testament Jews were commanded. Galatians 4:22-31 clearly explains the symbolism and meaning of physical Jerusalem and spiritual Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem that Christians are to embrace is the spiritual Jerusalem from above, not the earthly Jerusalem that represents bondage and slavery. When Jesus the
Messiah came, He forever changed humanity. We no longer need to live in bondage. Too many Christians today are embracing physical Jerusalem (and Israel) as a sacred land, the Jerusalem of the earthly realm, and, in so doing, they are ignoring the true Jerusalem, the spiritual Jerusalem from above. The prophecy booksellers, and those others that teach this, are leading the American Christian Church back into bondage, just as God’s Word warns in 2 Peter 2:22: “a dog returns to its vomit” and “a sow after washing returns to wallowing in the mire.”
CHAPTER 11
The Ark of the Covenant and the Physical Symbolism in Ancient Judaism
What was the Ark of the Covenant? Physically, the Ark of the Covenant was a box, but what was its purpose? Symbolically, it contained the power of God, the Holy Spirit that would dwell in believers after the Cross, but it did not contain the fullness of God Himself. If God did not dwell in buildings made by man (Acts 7:48-50, 17:24), does it make sense that He would then dwell in a box made by man that was located in a building or tent made by man?
I believe God has given the world a symbolic metaphor of the Ark of the Covenant in His creation of metamorphism, where a creature that crawls on the ground changes into a butterfly leaving behind only a dead cocoon. The Spirit of God is no longer symbolically contained in a room, administered by human priests to atone for the sins of the people, because Jesus completed that atonement at the Cross and now fills the position of High Priest (Hebrews 6:20). Jesus, through His blood, also opened for us the veil to the Holy of Holies (Mark 15:38; Hebrews 10:19-20) and the Holy Spirit now dwells in the hearts of his children (1 Corinthians 6:19).
If some group ever erects a copy of the old Jewish Temple, what could it possibly contain? The Spirit of God will not be in it, and the humans that would be called priests would administer nothing. They could never usurp the power from Jesus who is now the High Priest. Nothing spiritually true can ever be done in a reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem that has not already been fulfilled in Jesus. He, as the symbolic sacrificial lamb, completed the final Passover sacrifice once and forever (Hebrews 7:27).
It can be argued that, yes, all of the main components of Old Testament Judaism are gone today, but since the Temple was once physically destroyed and then subsequently rebuilt (after Judah's Babylonian captivity) a newly rebuilt Temple could also happen again. Since it happened in the past that the Temple rituals and sacrifices ceased and then returned, having them return again, even after 2,000 years, already has precedent, so to speak. We know God is sovereign and can do anything He desires, but by following scripture and logic there is no reason for that to occur.
Jesus’ own words in John 4:21 stated that a time would come when believers would no longer worship in Jerusalem. When Judah was in their Babylonian exile, the Messiah had not yet come, so the Temple had to be rebuilt for Jesus to fulfill the Passover and ultimate sacrifice and then reign as the final High Priest. Also, in Hebrews 10:4, we are told it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, the Old Testament Temple sacrifices and rituals were never anything more than symbolic. For the period of time that Judah was in captivity, the only things that stopped were the symbolic rituals that pointed to the future sacrifice of the Messiah. Since Jesus has already fulfilled the symbolic Temple sacrifices and rituals, I see no scriptural reason for God to reinstate them. Furthermore, there is no place in His Word, after the Messiah, where He says He will again reinstate them.
CHAPTER 12
A Remnant of Israel
Another claim by the prophecy booksellers is the reference in Romans 11:5, regarding a remnant of Israel, refers to a future event where Jews return to the newly restored nation of Israel. However, that scripture makes no reference to any future event or time, but clearly states “in the present time.” When the entire paragraph is read, starting at Romans 11:1 and ending at Romans 11:10, it is clear that Paul is referring to the Jews of that day. It is understandable how a Jew of that time, listening to Paul’s teaching about Jesus and salvation by faith, might feel that their Jewish religion was now rejected by God and therefore question what the past Jewish era was all about. One should also read the definition of the children of Israel in Romans 9:6-8 to help understand how natural Jews, listening to Paul, might feel as if they had been rejected. This paragraph in Romans, where the term “remnant” is used, addresses and answers their concern at that time and for anyone else who might ask about it in the future.
CHAPTER 13
The True Jew—The Christian Church is the Spiritual Israel of Today
Ephesians 2:14 states, “For he himself (Jesus) is our peace, who made both groups (Jews and Gentiles) into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.”
The perpetual kingdom that God promised King David was always a spiritual kingdom; it was never intended and never will be an earthly kingdom. In 2 Samuel 7:16, God’s Word says that David’s house shall endure forever and it now will through Jesus the spiritual King and, as foretold in Zechariah 9:9-10, “with his dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.”
Today the Israel of the Bible is a spiritual Israel, not a physical Israel, and the Church of Jesus Christ, throughout the world, has been the Spiritual Israel since the Cross.
God’s Church is a worldwide universal church that encompasses every true believer of Christ with no individual any more important than another. Even though all
Christians are individually unique, all are members of this body (1 Corinthians 12:12-14), with Christ as the head (Colossians 1:18). A Christian believer anywhere in the world is just as much a part of this Church as is a Christian in the United States or Korea or India or Peru or China or Iran or Egypt or Russia, or any other nation (1 Corinthians 12:14-27). The Jews who live in Israel and are Christians are also members of God’s Church, but the modern Israeli that rejects Jesus is no more a part of Spiritual Israel than any other non-believer. Unfortunately, that is the vast majority of the population of Israel today.
We also need to ask a question and do some study to determine who God’s people are today. Would God call unbelievers, especially a nation that rejects Jesus, His people? Christians who can think independently of what the prophecy booksellers are teaching should easily be able to answer that question. The answer is NO! Nowhere in God’s Word are unbelievers called His people, except in a general sense when referring to all mankind. They are part of the lost and certainly not part of God’s people today. Let us not forget -- even at the beginning of natural Israel, when God saved the people out of Egypt, He subsequently destroyed the unbelievers (Jude 1:5).
God’s Word, in Romans 9:6-8, is quite clear as to who the descendants of Abraham and Israel are today. It says, “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants but: ‘Through Isaac your descendants will be named.’ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.” I do not know how much clearer God had to say it than that!
For those that still find it difficult to discard the deceptive teachings of the prophecy booksellers, God repeats it again in Galatians 3:29: “…if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” Also, prior to that in Galatians 3:28, it reads, “There is neither Jew nor Greek (Gentile), there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Romans 2:28-29 says that a Jew is an inward thing not an outward thing, with the mark of circumcision now inwardly on the heart not outwardly on the flesh. The old natural/physical things of the past are finished, and being a Jew, is now the spiritual title given to any believer of Christ; not any physical descendant of a distinct group of people God ended long ago.
In 1 Peter 2:9-10 God’s Word says:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession…for you once were not a people but now you are the people of God….
In every nation, those who are Christians are the people of God who once were not a nation, but are now a people for God’s own possession.
There will never again be a man-made Temple that contains the Spirit of God, either physically or symbolically, because we (Christians) are the Temple of God and the Spirit of God now dwells in us. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?” And in 2 Corinthians 6:16 God’s Word says, “For we are the living temple of the living God.” Again, I do not know how much clearer God had to say it than that!
For someone to tenaciously embrace the concept that modern-day Israel, and the Jews who populate it, are the miracle rebirth of Old Testament Israel and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, one must first ignore:
- That the genealogy of any modern-day Jew cannot be traced back to Old Testament times and, for the majority of Jews in Israel, their genealogy is almost entirely traceable (in general) to an Eastern European Gentile origin;
- That the modern-day religion called Judaism has virtually none, I repeat, none of the physical components of Old Testament Judaism;
- That the borders of Israel today are not the same borders as any time in the history of ancient Israel; and, most importantly,
- That God’s Word clearly states that the descendants of Abraham are not of the flesh, but of the promise, with a Jew being an inward thing not an outward thing.
It is, therefore, utter foolishness for a Christian to claim that the modern-day nation of Israel, and the people called Jews who populate it, are in any way a rebirth of ancient Israel or a special nation to God. To do so is to blatantly ignore not only history, but God’s Word itself.
CHAPTER 14
Messianic Judaism—a Christian Cult?
Since it has been shown that modern Judaism cannot be the Judaism of the Old Testament, I need to include at least a brief discussion on what is called Messianic Judaism. A Messianic Jew is a Jew that accepts Jesus as the Messiah, but usually with strings attached. Messianic Jews, as with Christians, do not all subscribe to the exact same beliefs, so the cult title will apply more to some groups than it will to others.
Unless a group exhibits none of these cult signs, they are, at least to some degree, following and teaching what is defined as a Christian cult. Yet, if someone believes in Jesus as their Savoir and still calls him or herself a Messianic Jew, but does not fall into any of the categories that define a Christian cult, then they are just a Christian like any other Christian, and nothing more. They may still claim a Jewish identity, and that is fine, but spiritually they are really just another member of Christ’s body—the Christian Church.
Anyone who comes to Jesus becomes part of God’s new covenant called Spiritual Israel, and this applies to a modern Jew as much as any one else. However, many Messianic Jews do not fully embrace the Jesus of the New Testament. Many Messianic Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah, but they also exhibit many aspects of a Christian cult. They consider some (maybe even all) of the New Testament to be in error and continue to hold onto many of the Old Testament physical laws as a necessary path to God. This puts Messianic Judaism squarely into what is defined as a Christian cult.
Christian-based cults are quite pervasive in America and can be recognized in many different ways. The following list categorizes some of the signs that point to a Christian cult. This is not intended to be an all-inclusive list, and Messianic Jews certainly do not embrace all of these, but a group need not exhibit all of them to be a cult; embracing only one will often suffice.
Some recognizable signs of a Christian cult:
- God has spoken to individuals with new knowledge or revelations that contradicts the Gospel.
- There are secret revelations which are only available to members of the group.
- Claims by the leader to be one with God or to even be God Himself.
- A Jesus that is different from the Bible (i.e., Jesus is just a prophet).
- The Bible, in either Old or New Testament, is in error and needs to be corrected.
- Only some of the biblical scriptures are from God and these are the only ones recognized as accurate and true.
- Salvation or righteousness before God, either partially or entirely, is through an adherence to some form of physical works.
- Additional revelations are equal to, or even considered more important than the Bible.
Although Messianic Jewish groups are free from most of these they will still embrace at least one, and more than likely, the last three or four. They recognize only the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures as the truly accurate Word of God and claim that the Old Covenant laws of the Torah must still be followed. For many, the Talmud is also considered equal to the written scriptures and puts those Messianic Jews soundly in the area of a Christian Cult.
It is certainly true that many people have come to know Jesus from groups that once erected stumbling blocks in their way of truth and, for a modern Jew, a Messianic Jewish group can often be the first step toward knowing Jesus. I am not claiming that a Messianic Jew is never saved, as only God determines who is saved. However, most modern Messianic Jews, as with people in other Christian cults, have many stumbling blocks obscuring truth in their worship of the Messiah Jesus.
Chapter 15
Dispensational Eschatology; Satan’s Deception
Today, many Christian leaders teach dispensational eschatology in many forms wherein modern Israel is considered a special nation of God. That alone will lead some people to think it must be true. Let us not forget, however, that at one time in history a man named Martin Luther was the only one in the Church of that day, teaching that God’s Word clearly states a salvation by faith, not by works.
Virtually the entire Christian Church of that day was teaching a lie until Martin Luther exposed it. Just because something is repeated often, and/or by someone that is respected, does not automatically make it true. Lies are spread many ways and one famous liar, the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, used many tactics to spread lies. Two of his most famous tactics were:
1. Mix truth with lies.
2. Repeat lies frequently to get them believed.
Satan, the father of lies, in spreading dispensational eschatology uses both of these tactics to deceive Christians and Christian leaders, as well. The prophecy booksellers are repeating these lies at such an intense frequency that they have not only become accepted truth, but, for some people, an integral part of their Christian “articles of faith.” For some of these same people, their favorite prophecy bookseller is the equivalent of a modern-day prophet and to dispute his/her teaching is to deny the Bible itself. However, in so doing, they are blindly following the precepts of men and falling prey to what Jesus warned about in Matthew 15:9.
I do not claim to be the only Christian seeing modern-day Israel, interwoven with dispensational eschatology, as false teaching. I have heard various teachings against it in the past, but, like so many other Christians, I chose to ignore them. I thought, “With so many well-known authors and respected preachers called ‘men of God‘ teaching dispensational eschatology, it must be true.” Nevertheless, as in the time of Martin Luther, a majority can be wrong. Satan can, and has, tricked and perverted the minds of many, especially those who follow the religious teachings and dogmas of man, instead of diligently studying God’s Word and applying what He commands us to do; “examine everything carefully.”
There are also some Christians that, no matter how much evidence is presented will refuse to acknowledge the truth because to do so would threaten their status within their group or church. As with the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, they love the approval of men above the truth of God (John 12:43). In some churches, to deny this modern dispensational false Christian dogma, that the Israel of today is a special nation of God, would be akin to denying Jesus Himself and would cause that person to be shunned or even cast out of the group. Some denominations will not even allow a Christian to become a member of their church if they refuse to hold these dispensational beliefs.
There is also an argument that even if these teachings are false, it is still acceptable because many people have come to Christ through these fearful “End of the World” scenarios. However, no where in God’s Word are Christians instructed to teach lies, especially in God’s name. Jesus is Truth, so only truth should be spoken with His name. We are to follow Him in truth, not in “fables fit only for old women” (1 Timothy 4:7). Teaching these lies may initially motivate some people to come to God, but if they ever come to realize that it is not true, they may reject all biblical teaching as lies. If you are a teacher of God’s Word, and you are embracing and spreading the lies of the prophecy booksellers without thoroughly checking to see if they are true, God says you will be held accountable and, not just accountable, but accountable to a stricter judgment (James 3:1).
CHAPTER 16
Fallacies Imbedded In Dispensational Eschatology
This book is about Spiritual Israel and the Church but with so many fallacies in dispensational eschatology obscuring that truth, I need to address at least some of them.
Nothing in this chapter is intended as an in-depth discussion on any of these subjects as an entire book could probably be written on any one. Another important point is that no human, including this author, truly has all the answers, but there should be enough here for any Christian seeking truth to seriously question the current teachings of dispensational eschatology. I also do not claim to be the final authority on any of these subjects, and as with others subjects, God’s word certainly has much in it that I do not fully understand. Yet when these subjects are examined in a spiritual way they make far more sense than anything I have heard or read from the prophecy booksellers. Please take the following only as additional information and let the Holy Spirit lead you to understanding.
There are many Bible verses the prophecy booksellers use to try to justify their position that modern-day Israel is the reincarnation of Old Testament Israel. Yet in every case where they quote Old Testament verses regarding Jerusalem, its future Temple, etc, the prophecies they quote were written prior to the return of Judah from captivity and the construction of the second Temple in Jerusalem.
A true in-depth study of those prophecies would probably show that most, if not all, of the physical aspects of each have already been fulfilled leaving only the spiritual for the future. Three examples of such are found in the Books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Joel.
Ezekiel 36:24-27 is often quoted by the prophecy booksellers, but what they quote is not about end of the world events, it is prophecy concerning Judah's return from their Babylonian captivity and what will be fulfilled at the coming of the Messiah, Jesus.
Verse 24 is about their return from exile, verse 25 is about their future cleansing by the blood of Jesus, and verses 26 and 27 are about the future anointing by the Holy Spirit. That anointing occurred at Pentecost and is recorded in the second chapter of Acts. Some people may question verse 25 because is says nothing about blood but uses the term water for the cleansing, yet water is often referred to as a metaphor for the cleansing by Jesus. There are many Bible verses relating to water as cleansing, and in John 3:5, Jesus tells a religious leader of Israel that one must be born of water (cleansed) and spirit to enter the Kingdom of God.
Some may also question the next verse, 28, because it says, “that you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers”; they use that verse to justify the premise that God’s people must dwell in the general area of Palestine, but that is not necessarily so. Long before natural Israel, God gave His children the entire earth, so the earth can also be called “the land of our forefathers.” Now with Spiritual Israel, “His people,” not just “a” people, dwell upon and cover the entire earth. Verses 24 through 28 appear to be saying only that His people will be cleansed, anointed by His Spirit, and dwell upon the earth for some amount of time, but of course it may also have a greater meaning than just that.
In Daniel 9: 24-27, God’s Word tells about future events taking place over a period of time represented by a reference of weeks of years. Physically (and probably even spiritually), they have all been fulfilled with Jesus and the subsequent destruction of the natural Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus fulfilled the six prophecies that were to be finished by the people and the holy city:
1. Finish the transgression.
2. Make an end of sin.
3. Make atonement for iniquity.
4. Bring in everlasting righteousness.
5. Seal up vision and prophecy.
6. Anoint the most holy place.
Daniel 9:2 says it would be 70 years “for the completion of the destruction of Jerusalem,” and that happened in A.D. 70.
In Acts 2:16-21, Joel’s prophecies found in Joel 2:28-32 are fulfilled in two events; the events that took place at the crucifixion and then at the coming of the Holy Spirit. In Acts, God’s Word says, “…this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel.” There is no reference to anything more taking place in the future, but the prophecy booksellers cannot seem to accept that and create huge complex scenarios referring to some future modern end of the age physical catastrophe(s). However, the point is that Old Testament prophecy verses do not contradict a future Spiritual Israel but rather reinforce it.
The End Times…
The prophecy booksellers claim that we are living in the last days or the end times, and they are correct because the last days or end times started at the Cross and the world has been living in it for almost 2,000 years (Acts 2:16-17, 2 Timothy 3:1, Hebrews 1:2, 1 John 2:18).
First Peter 4:7, is another reference to the end times, and in this verse Peter says to the people living at that time, “The end of all things is at hand.” Everyone who has lived since the Cross of Jesus has lived in what God’s Word calls “The Last Days or End Times,” and sometime in the future the world will end, but that will come when many least expect it (Luke 12:40).
Many Christians have been led to believe that any reference to an end-time or last day can only mean a short period at the culmination of the world. Although sometimes it may, most of the time it does not. A way to envision this is to liken it to a sporting event, i.e., a football game; the end of the game may refer to the last few seconds of play, but the end actually starts at the beginning of the second half.
The Antichrist…
The antichrist is a spirit of deception not one individual person. In 1 John 4:3 it states, “…every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God and this is the spirit of the antichrist.” 2 John 7 also tell us, “….those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” And in 1 John 4:6 we are reminded about spirits of truth and spirits of error.
The prophecy booksellers take the word antichrist and turn it into something that is not biblical. The verse in 2 John speaks in the plural. It says, “…those who do not acknowledge.” The word “those” clearly puts this verse in the plural not singular tense. The prophecy booksellers also take the word “coming” and put it in the future tense, and that word, by itself, can be used in either future or past tense, but all of the previous verses referring to antichrist are all past tense, and in this verse it is as well. It states, “…many deceivers have gone out into the world.” The key word here is “have” and that tells us that the antichrist is not just for the future. The people who embraced the spirit of the antichrist were in the world then and will continue to be in the world until the culmination of the age.
In the entire Bible, the word antichrist is found in only four verses (1 John 2:18, 1 John 2:22, 1 John 4:3, and 2 John 7), and not one of these verses refers to a distinct future person. Two verses clearly speak in the past tense, and the other two speak of the antichrist in a spiritual or general sense. Nowhere in the Bible can one find a specific verse with the word antichrist where it refers to a future person; to find that one must go to the false writings of the prophecy booksellers. One should also note that the word antichrist is not capitalized in God’s Word as it would be if it were referring to a specific person. One could say, and probably correctly, that a physical antichrist did sit in the Holy place when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. However, if that is true then all that did was complete the end of physical Israel.
So where can, does, or will, the spirit of antichrist dwell? The answer is in the spirit of man! Since believers are now the temple of the Holy Spirit, and a human army (the Roman army) has already destroyed the old physical temple in Jerusalem, then the spiritual temple in man is the only temple the spirit of the antichrist can now occupy—but only in those who embrace it. Remember, the spirit of the antichrist was identified as being in the world since the earliest writings of the New Testament.
The Millennium…
The millennium is the term dispensationalists use to designate the 1,000-year period of time they claim Jesus will return to earth, in the flesh, and reign as King. This false concept of the Messiah, reigning as King on the earth, is not new; it was being spread by the religious leaders of ancient Israel long before the birth of Jesus. They taught that when the Messiah comes He will reign as King and His Kingdom will be on this earth, but as we all know, they were wrong. Jesus never intended His Kingdom to be of this world either then or in the future. In John 18:36 He even tells Pilate that His Kingdom is not of this world. On the Cross Jesus also said “It is finished” (John 19:30), and since His physical life on earth was finished, and He had accomplished His work on earth (John 17:4), there will never be a future “in the flesh” 1,000-year earthly reign by Jesus.
In Luke 17:20-21 Jesus tells the Pharisees, “…the Kingdom of God is not coming with signs that could be observed…the Kingdom of God is in your midst.” We need to note that Jesus told them it had come and was in their midst, not, will come and will be in your midst because the Kingdom of God was already there.
The Bible often uses the term “one thousand years” but when it does, it is used in the general sense to imply a long period of time not a specific period of time. In many places, the Bible uses metaphors, symbolism, and great exaggerations to make a point. In 2 Chronicles 1:9, King Solomon said to God, “You have made me King over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.” When Solomon said that he was using hyperbole, an exaggeration to make the point that the Kingdom God had given him to rule, was extremely large. He obviously did not believe there were more people in his kingdom than the actual specs of dust in the entire earth.
The Bible also refers to general time periods which are never intended to be taken literally. It often refers to years, days and hours which are not actual 365-day years, 24-hour days or 60-minute hours. Some references are specific, such as the three days for the resurrection of Jesus (probably not exactly 72 hours either), but most are used to designate a general period of time. As an example, in John 12:23 Jesus said, “…The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” but that did not occur in that exact hour, it happened five days later (about 120 hours later!). The Bible often uses phrases in a general way just as we do in our everyday lives. A good example is how the term millionaire almost always refers to someone with a large sum of money, not someone with exactly one million dollars.
One of the most often misquoted verses regarding the term one thousand years is 2 Peter 3:8 where Peter writes, “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day.” Some people think that verse gives them a formula to compute time periods in the Bible, and in a very obscure sense it does, but to use it for the dispensational 1,000-year return and reign of Jesus in the flesh is completely wrong.
What I see Peter saying here is that to God time is meaningless; whether it is a day or a thousand years is nothing to the God that lives in eternity. It is like someone saying that for an extremely wealthy man one thousand dollars is like one dollar and one dollar is like a thousand; anything that money can buy is his at his beckoning; to him the cost is irrelevant, one thousand dollars would be nothing more than a mere pittance.
The prophecy booksellers misapply the true biblical meaning of the term 1,000 years just as they do with so many other biblical phrases and concepts.
The prophecy booksellers take the word antichrist and turn it into something that is not biblical. The verse in 2 John speaks in the plural. It says, “…those who do not acknowledge.” The word “those” clearly puts this verse in the plural not singular tense. The prophecy booksellers also take the word “coming” and put it in the future tense, and that word, by itself, can be used in either future or past tense, but all of the previous verses referring to antichrist are all past tense, and in this verse it is as well. It states, “…many deceivers have gone out into the world.” The key word here is “have” and that tells us that the antichrist is not just for the future. The people who embraced the spirit of the antichrist were in the world then and will continue to be in the world until the culmination of the age.
In the entire Bible, the word antichrist is found in only four verses (1 John 2:18, 1 John 2:22, 1 John 4:3, and 2 John 7), and not one of these verses refers to a distinct future person. Two verses clearly speak in the past tense, and the other two speak of the antichrist in a spiritual or general sense. Nowhere in the Bible can one find a specific verse with the word antichrist where it refers to a future person; to find that one must go to the false writings of the prophecy booksellers. One should also note that the word antichrist is not capitalized in God’s Word as it would be if it were referring to a specific person. One could say, and probably correctly, that a physical antichrist did sit in the Holy place when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. However, if that is true then all that did was complete the end of physical Israel.
So where can, does, or will, the spirit of antichrist dwell? The answer is in the spirit of man! Since believers are now the temple of the Holy Spirit, and a human army (the Roman army) has already destroyed the old physical temple in Jerusalem, then the spiritual temple in man is the only temple the spirit of the antichrist can now occupy—but only in those who embrace it. Remember, the spirit of the antichrist was identified as being in the world since the earliest writings of the New Testament.
The Millennium…
The millennium is the term dispensationalists use to designate the 1,000-year period of time they claim Jesus will return to earth, in the flesh, and reign as King. This false concept of the Messiah, reigning as King on the earth, is not new; it was being spread by the religious leaders of ancient Israel long before the birth of Jesus. They taught that when the Messiah comes He will reign as King and His Kingdom will be on this earth, but as we all know, they were wrong. Jesus never intended His Kingdom to be of this world either then or in the future. In John 18:36 He even tells Pilate that His Kingdom is not of this world. On the Cross Jesus also said “It is finished” (John 19:30), and since His physical life on earth was finished, and He had accomplished His work on earth (John 17:4), there will never be a future “in the flesh” 1,000-year earthly reign by Jesus.
In Luke 17:20-21 Jesus tells the Pharisees, “…the Kingdom of God is not coming with signs that could be observed…the Kingdom of God is in your midst.” We need to note that Jesus told them it had come and was in their midst, not, will come and will be in your midst because the Kingdom of God was already there.
The Bible often uses the term “one thousand years” but when it does, it is used in the general sense to imply a long period of time not a specific period of time. In many places, the Bible uses metaphors, symbolism, and great exaggerations to make a point. In 2 Chronicles 1:9, King Solomon said to God, “You have made me King over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.” When Solomon said that he was using hyperbole, an exaggeration to make the point that the Kingdom God had given him to rule, was extremely large. He obviously did not believe there were more people in his kingdom than the actual specs of dust in the entire earth.
The Bible also refers to general time periods which are never intended to be taken literally. It often refers to years, days and hours which are not actual 365-day years, 24-hour days or 60-minute hours. Some references are specific, such as the three days for the resurrection of Jesus (probably not exactly 72 hours either), but most are used to designate a general period of time. As an example, in John 12:23 Jesus said, “…The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” but that did not occur in that exact hour, it happened five days later (about 120 hours later!). The Bible often uses phrases in a general way just as we do in our everyday lives. A good example is how the term millionaire almost always refers to someone with a large sum of money, not someone with exactly one million dollars.
One of the most often misquoted verses regarding the term one thousand years is 2 Peter 3:8 where Peter writes, “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day.” Some people think that verse gives them a formula to compute time periods in the Bible, and in a very obscure sense it does, but to use it for the dispensational 1,000-year return and reign of Jesus in the flesh is completely wrong.
What I see Peter saying here is that to God time is meaningless; whether it is a day or a thousand years is nothing to the God that lives in eternity. It is like someone saying that for an extremely wealthy man one thousand dollars is like one dollar and one dollar is like a thousand; anything that money can buy is his at his beckoning; to him the cost is irrelevant, one thousand dollars would be nothing more than a mere pittance.
The prophecy booksellers misapply the true biblical meaning of the term 1,000 years just as they do with so many other biblical phrases and concepts.
The Beast and 666…
Much foolish speculation has been taught and written about the thirteenth chapter of Revelation. The number 666 is found in Revelation 13:18 and it is supposedly the “number of a man” but the original writings do not have the “a,” it just says “the number of man.” Adding that one letter can immensely change the meaning of that verse, especially if it is looked at in a spiritual sense. The number of “a” man would designate a specific person, but when read as it was actually written, the number of man could and probably does mean mankind in general and therefore refers to the entire human race. One other aspect of 666 that most people are unaware of is that some of the best manuscripts of Revelation, and also the earliest known manuscript, has the number as 616 not 666.
Since 666 (or possibly 616) can be read as the number of mankind in general, then what is the beast? Most of Revelation is symbolic and the description of the beast in
Revelation 13 is certainly symbolic, so one needs to be careful applying any literal interpretation.
It appears that “the beast” symbolically refers to a segment or dimension of mankind. As humans we are three part beings—body, soul and spirit. It is the spirit that separates us from the animals and the beasts of the earth; without the spirit, we are just another beast. Therefore, “the beast” seems to symbolically refer to those who suppress, reject and are therefore void of the Spirit of God. Most of mankind, and all of the world’s despots, fall into this category. I cannot specifically say if that is exactly, or all that God is saying in Revelation 13and 14, but I will say it fits far better than any of the interpretations I have heard or read coming from the prophecy booksellers. As with the term antichrist, the beast appears to be a symbolic spiritual designation not a physical designation. Note: The Greek word translated as “he,” for the beast, is “autos,” which can also mean “it.” Therefore, it is just as proper to call the beast an “it” as it is a “he.”
The Rapture…
As many Christians already know, the word rapture is not a biblical term but is used in dispensational eschatology to describe a future event where the believers in Christ suddenly disappear from the earth leaving behind only nonbelievers; cars are suddenly driver-less, people disappear while talking on one end of the phone, flying aircraft are suddenly pilot-less, etc. Depending on which prophecy bookseller one reads, this supposed event will occur at a different time.
I agree that God’s Word does talk about some kind of future separation occurring, but like most things in dispensational eschatology one must connect dissimilar scriptures, and take biblical symbolism as literal, to construct their fabricated fairy tale rapture event. I have listened to this foolishness for well over 30 years and it has become obvious this teaching is a lie, but I have to admit that when I was a babe in Christ I also believed it for a while. With the prophecy booksellers continually revising their scenarios to conform to current world events (because nothing ever happens as they say, except vaguely as is also the case with fortune tellers and psychics), it became obvious that something was wrong. This continual revision was once solely used by the cults, but with Satan’s deception, it has now become very acceptable to many of the Christian churches in America.
Armageddon…
God’s final elimination of sin and evil will not be coordinated and accomplished by humans battling in the flesh because the Lord does not deliver by sword or the spear
(1 Samuel 17:47). His return at the end of the world (or age) may very well occur at an unprecedented time of violence, and some scriptures seem to indicate that; but of course, only God knows for sure.
Tribulation and the Return of Christ…
In Revelation 1:9, the author John, writing on the island of Patmos, says that he is a “fellow-partaker in the tribulation.” In this verse, he is clearly stating that the tribulation is already occurring; he says nothing about a tribulation occurring at just a future date. He was currently living in that tribulation because it began at the time of the Cross (and maybe / probably even prior), and it will continue until the end of the age.
Before we progress any further we need to remember why God allows his children to go through tribulation. Acts 14:22 tells us “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Romans 5:3-4 also tells us that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance brings about proven character and hope. We never enjoy our tribulations while they are occurring but we often (and should) grow from them.
Chapter 24, in the book of Matthew, is one of the references where Jesus speaks about tribulation. There are several other references to tribulation in the Bible, but
Matthew 24 is one of the primary ones used by the prophecy booksellers to concoct their numerous “End of the World” scenarios. Before analyzing this scripture, or any other scripture, we need to remember that in the original biblical writings there are no chapters and verses, only paragraphs; chapters and verses were added hundreds of years later, and this can sometimes cause confusion. If your Bible does not show the original paragraphs, and you are interested in studying what God’s Word actually says, then you need to get a Bible that does. The paragraphs break thought and content but not always in the same place as the currently numbered chapters; Matthew 24 is such a chapter. Matthew 24 is actually comprised of six distinct paragraphs and different subjects or variations of a subject, not just one as it may appear. These subjects do not conflict, but rather build and complement each other and they need to be looked at individually.
In the first two verses of Matthew 24, Jesus is leaving the Temple and tells about its coming destruction, but at verse 3, a new paragraph begins. At verse 3, He is talking to His disciples on the Mount of Olives. They asked him, “What will these things be? What will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” His disciples, at that time, could not fully comprehend what He was about to tell them because at His crucifixion, which was to occur in a few days, everything was going to change. It was going to be the turning point in world history. The meaning of the Jewish age was to be fulfilled and the world would enter what is called the tribulation. In the next 49 verses, He answers all those questions in a manner where they are all interwoven together. From verse 3 to 14, He gives a general overview of the future with some specifics of persecution that His disciples and some future Christians would soon experience.
From verse 15 to 28, He speaks of the coming destruction of the Temple and the gradual increase of world calamities that will follow. The physical aspect of the Jewish age was to soon end with the destruction of the Temple, and the intensity of the tribulation would increase throughout history like the birth pangs of a woman ready to give birth. If it were not cut short, no flesh would survive…. Note: With the weapons of mass destruction, that are in the world today, it certainly does seem that we are at the end of that era, but of course only God knows if we are and when that final day will actually be.
From verse 29 to 31, Jesus talks about one aspect of His return at the consummation of the age. The sun was darkened when Jesus died on the Cross (Mark 15:33), and the prophecy of Joel which speaks of that (Joel 2:28-32), was fulfilled in its entirety on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2:16 specifically states, “…this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel.” The crucifixion fulfilled the meaning of the Jewish age and began the spiritual Jewish age. The sun was darkened at the end of that Jewish age and Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled, but here Jesus states (along with Isaiah 13:10) that the sun will again be darkened at the consummation of the next age and along with that “the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” He also briefly states how He will send His angels to gather the elect from the earth.
From verse 32 to 44, we are told to recognize the signs of the end of the age. (#13 in end notes) He also states that this generation, the generation of Spiritual Israel, will not pass away until all these things take place. He also tells us that only the Father knows the exact day or hour. Before the paragraph ends, He gives more insight into the final gathering where He says that some will be taken and some will be left. The gathering He is referring to will most likely be that of the wicked since the Greek word translated as “taken” is paralambano, which the Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words refers to as the removal of corruption.
From verse 45 to 51, Jesus commands us to be faithful servants in doing God’s work, but for some He will return when they do not expect; they will pay a severe penalty and be assigned with the hypocrites.
Chapter seven in the book of Revelation also speaks about a tribulation; it speaks about those that have gone through the great tribulation and have been washed by the blood of the Lamb. With this tribulation beginning at the time of the Cross and ending at the culmination of the age, this reference to tribulation easily applies to all believers throughout history.
Summation
I am certainly not so arrogant as to state that God’s word means only what I wrote on those subjects and verses and nothing more, but I will state it makes more sense than almost anything I have heard or read from the prophecy booksellers. It fits God’s principal of first in the physical and then in the spiritual and is therefore consistent with God’s word.
One very important principle that every Bible student needs to remember is that God’s Word was written for all Christians throughout all the ages, not just some group at the future culmination of the world. ... I also do not think God cares about us knowing the specifics regarding future events except in the general way to put forth His eternal principles.
If Christians would remove themselves from the brainwashing that has been spread by the prophecy booksellers, and read the Bible independent of their teachings while asking God for guidance and understanding through the Holy Spirit, they would get a very different message. God’s Word is clear that His children are to embrace Him and walk in faith, but if dispensational eschatology is true, then following the supposed prophetic events where the future is laid out in specific details would no more be an observance of faith than watching actors work in a play after reading their script.
We also need to remember that no one has ever accurately predicted the timing of any specific future event through biblical prophecy, except Jesus and the prophets, and it is quite possible that even the prophets themselves did not fully understand what they were saying and writing. The best example to illustrate this is that many people at the time of Christ, including the religious leaders, studied the scriptures daily, but still never saw or understood the Messiah until after the crucifixion. Only in retrospect has future event biblical prophecy ever been understood. .... In addition, if modern Israel is not the fulfillment of some biblical prophecy then dispensational eschatology completely falls apart.
Conclusion
At the Cross physical Israel became spiritual Israel with Jesus as its King. Jesus never intended His Kingdom to be of this world (John 18:36), in this world, yes, but not of this world. To the disenchantment of the Jewish religious leaders and people of that time, Jesus the Messiah did not come to establish a physical kingdom but rather a spiritual Kingdom. Jesus’ reign as King is a spiritual reign and His people are to walk in faith and embrace Him in spirit and truth. God only desires the spirit that is in us (James 4:5), not the flesh that the spirit dwells in. As God’s Word states in Romans 2:29, a Jew is an inward thing not an outward thing, so one must be a spiritual Jew in order to enter God’s spiritual kingdom and become a subject of the spiritual King, Jesus. Christians, or as also called in the Bible, followers, believers, children of the promise and children of God, are now Spiritual Israel.
In the true sense Christianity is not really a religion, it is a relationship—a one-on-one relationship with God through His Son Jesus who is the physical representation of the invisible God. 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, warns us not to be led astray from the simplicity and purity of our devotion to Christ. The Gospel of Jesus is simple and His burden is light; we become part of the spiritual Kingdom of God by just following the two greatest commandments (which is also the spirit of the Torah, the Old Testament laws), Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself (found in Mark 12:28-34). Our salvation requires nothing more than that.
“TRULY THE YOKE OF CHRIST WOULD BE SWEET AND HIS BURDENS LIGHT, IF HUMAN INSTITUTIONS ADDED NOTHING TO WHAT HE IMPOSED. HE COMMANDED US NOTHING SAVE LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER” (Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1562 A.D.).
A CALL TO ACTION
As in Matthew 5:15-16, the Church of Jesus Christ is to be the light of the world; it is not to stay covered or hidden under the political correctness of any age. Therefore, this book must include a call to action. America’s problem is spiritual and this satanic influence has come upon us in so many small ways that most Christians did not realize what was happening. The Christian Biblical foundation of America has steadily eroded away, and it is primarily due to the lack of direction and action by too many of our Christian spiritual leaders.
Most Christians, along with most of our spiritual leaders, will probably ignore this call and continue embracing the lies of dispensational eschatology; they will continue looking downward at the earthly instead of upward to the spiritual. For those that are the true warriors of God it is time to wake up, change your direction, and engage in battle. If the Churches across our nation will heed this call and learn the anti-Christian (anti-God) platforms in the political parties, then vehemently condemn them (and if necessary even the individual politicians supporting them) a healing can come to our land because the God of the Bible will again become the main influence in America. These are some of the anti-God, anti-Christian platforms in the political parties:
* State supported murder (abortion),
* The removal of God’s moral standards from government (separation of God & State),
* Liberal judges (Judges who continually declare God’s moral standards unconstitutional),
* Sexual moral standards that degrade a society (open sexual conduct and much of the gay agenda),
* Nature based religions (earth worshiping movement called environmentalism),
* Control of the educational curriculums (Marxist-Darwinism instruction that all life evolved on its own and therefore the creator, God, does not exist).
Guidance to prayer and humility must be concurrent with this call to action so I am by no means implying that our Christian leaders should ignore their other spiritual duties and commit entirely to this battle. However, it must take some priority if our religious freedoms are to survive much longer. I am also not implying that we should ever attempt to form a Christian government. There can never be a Christian government run by men because the Bible contains no pattern or structure to establish one, and I am sure God intended it to be that way. The United States Constitution is also clear (and wisely so) that our government will never include a state mandated religion. However, in order for our people to remain free the moral foundation of our nation must once again become based on sound Biblical principals and our government guided by its moral standards. We should never forget that even the strongest nations will loose their blessings when they turn away from the authority and morality of the God of the Bible. Our freedoms come from our creator, God, and our government once openly and proudly proclaimed that we are “One Nation Under God”.
If you are one of America’s Christian leaders and your IRS tax exempt status is preventing you from speaking out and taking action, you have been silenced by the earthly mammon called money. Yet how much is your temporary tax exempt status worth? And it is temporary because it will disappear once the enemies of Christianity are totally in control.
It is true that no individual can continually live up to all of God’s moral standards, but as a nation we should never lower those standards just to make ourselves comfortable. As we have already observed in America (and the Western World), when a society allows that to occur their moral standards will continually decline.
Proverbs 29:2 says, “….when a wicked man rules, people groan.” America’s churches must again provide Godly direction in all areas, including the choice of our political leaders. Hopefully it is not too late to re-establish America’s moral roots before we experience the enviable oppression and bloodshed that comes from a government that no longer recognizes a higher authority than man.
Quote
"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." - Ronald Reagan
Endnotes
# 1. (Chapter 3) One should review 2 Peter 2:1-3, to remind oneself that just because someone is called a “man of God” does not truly make them anointed of God. God’s Word warns us that there will be false teachers that will malign the way of truth and it will be done in their greed. Today there are numerous proponents of dispensational eschatology, and with just a quick internet search on the subject, I found over two dozen. I am sure that number is low as dispensational eschatology is now well entrenched in the American Christian Church. Although these people are helping to spread Satan’s lies one should not consider them to all be intentional deceivers or modern-day Pharisees. Many, probably even most, are good Christians, so we need to heed the old adage that says, “Be careful not to throw the good out with the bad.” I agonized over listing some of these individuals because, in other subjects, I have personally learned from them, therefore, I will not list any and will let you form your own conclusions.
# 2. (Chapter 3) One current trend by the prophecy booksellers is to write fiction books around the principles of their false end-time teachings. As of this writing, just one of the most popular authors has written more than a dozen such novels. Many people consider the reading of such novels as benign or even as enhancing their devotion to God, but it is just another way for Satan to deceive Christians. Satan tricks us into thinking we are enhancing our devotion to God by reading “Christian” literature (which the prophecy bookseller’s publications are not!) while in reality he is actually keeping us from reading the best, true Christian literature—the Bible. Every Christian reading these books would be far better off spending time reading their Bible instead of this deceptive fiction.
# 3. (Chapter 3) If the teachings of the prophecy book-sellers are correct, where Jesus is coming back in the flesh to establish an earthly kingdom for 1,000 years, or any amount of time for that matter, then the Holy Spirit would need to be moved back spiritually prior to the Cross. Jesus said in John 16:7 and John 14:26, that when He departed the Father would send the helper, the Holy Spirit, and that occurred at Pentecost as recorded in the second chapter of Acts. God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one, but if Jesus was to physically return to rule on this earth, then the Holy Spirit that now dwells in the believers would need to be removed or become subservient to Jesus instead of equal.
# 4. (Chapter 5) Ezekiel 36:24-37 was partially fulfilled when the Jews returned from their Babylonian captivity but it was further fulfilled, and maybe even totally fulfilled, by the age of Spiritual Israel. Jesus accomplished what is prophesied in these verses; gathering the people from all the lands (one Church), cleansing them with water, giving them a new heart, and putting God’s spirit within them. All of this was accomplished by the Messiah, our Lord Jesus.
# 5. (Chapter 5) Even though modern-day Jews are not the direct descendants of Old Testament Israel, and nowhere is the religion of Old Testament Judaism still practiced today, the Jewish culture in America (and possibly Israel as well), when looked at in a secular manner, has many commendable aspects. For the most part, modern Jews value hard work, education, family values and embrace many society-enhancing biblical principles. These are commend-able principles that should be considered a standard for any nation desiring freedom and continual advancement.
# 6. (Chapter 5) A Zionist is a person that supports Zionism. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, 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”
# 7. (Chapter 6) a. On page 312 in the book entitled The World’s Religions by Huston Smith, copyright © 1991, it states “…in what does this (Jewish) identity consist? Not doctrine, for there is nothing one has to believe to be a Jew. Jews run the gamut, from those that believe that every letter and punctuation mark of the Torah was dictated by God, to those who do not believe in God at all. Indeed, it is impossible to name any one thing that of itself suffices to make one a Jew.”
b. Quote from the website Judaism 101 (http://www.jewfaq.org/whoisjew.htm). “It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. In this sense, Judaism is more like a nationality than like other religions, and being Jewish is like a citizenship.”
c. Encyclopedia Britannica (online version): “In the modern world, a definition of Jew that would be satisfactory to all is virtually impossible to construct, for it involves ethnic and religious issues that are both complex and controversial.”
d. Encarta MSN Dictionary. “What constitutes Jewish identity came into question during the 19th and 20th centuries, however, some Jews today, especially in Israel, reject the Jewish religion but insist that they belong to a distinct identity, an ethnic or national community. Other Jews, especially in the West, reject the ethnic component of Jewish identity while claiming they follow a distinct religion. Still others in the West define themselves as cultural Jews, meaning that they lack a religious affiliation and feel part of some other ethnic group, but they believe there is a distinctive Jewish culture in which they participate. In all parts of the world there are Jews who insist that Jews are both an ethnic and a religious group. Finally, there are those who insist that Jewish religious law defines Jewish identity. In this view, anyone born to a Jewish mother or anyone who has properly converted to the Jewish faith, is a full-fledged member of the Jewish people and religion. Thus, today there is no consensus on the definition of a Jew”
# 8. (Chapter 6) Rambam is the acronym name of a Jewish rabbi that lived during the middle ages; his name and title was Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon. I have yet to find a more complete list, of what one could call widely accepted Jewish beliefs, than Rambam’s list, but I honestly cannot see how much different any list could be because God eliminated all of the physical components of Old Testament Judaism within one generation of the Cross, and to this day they are still gone.
# 9. (Chapter 6) Many modern-day religious Jews claim that one must strictly follow the Torah to fulfill God’s will, but with the destruction of the physical Temple in Jerusalem that was no longer possible. For almost 2,000 years, not one group on the face of this earth has strictly followed the Torah, and it was, and still is, impossible to do otherwise. Many of the commandments in the books of Leviticus and Numbers must now be ignored to even partially follow the Torah. If the same God of the Bible, the
God that created all things, wanted man to continue following the old ritualistic laws of the Torah, no army on the face of this earth, or any other entity in the entire universe, would have been powerful enough to destroy the physical Temple in Jerusalem. God allowed it to be destroyed (along with many other symbolic things) because His Spirit now dwells in the hearts of Believers, not in a physical building, a Temple made by human hands (Acts 7:48-50, 17:24).
# 10. (Chapter 6) The complete Talmud is comprised of many books the number of which is the size of a small set of encyclopedias. Unlike the Old Testament prophets, the men speaking in the Talmud are conveying man’s thoughts not God’s direct revelation, and therefore what is written is subject to much spiritual error.
# 11. (Chapter 9) The Old Testament Jewish rituals, and their symbolism, could be listed and explained. Yet, if you are not aware of the significance and meaning of the animal sacrifices, priests, God’s Spirit dwelling in the Ark of the Covenant, he Holy of Holies, the Temple, etc, then much of this book will probably be confusing and too advanced for you at this time. You will need to first learn the basics of God’s Word, “the Milk” as it is called in Hebrews 5:12-13, before this becomes clear. I do not say this to be insulting, but just as someone would not be able to intelligently discuss any level of advanced mathematics without first knowing basic arithmetic, it also applies to God’s Word. But remember, everyone begins, as Gods’ Word calls us, “a babe,” and we must first learn the “milk” before we move on to the more advanced knowledge called solid food (Hebrews 5:14).
# 12. (Chapter 10) The Islamic holy site, the Dome of the Rock, is located on the exact spot where the Old Testament Jewish Temple once stood, and God obviously knew that when it was being built. God also knew about, and allowed, the old Jewish Temple to be destroyed hundreds of years earlier, and as we all know, as of today it has never been rebuilt. I believe God has again used symbolism by allowing the placement of this Islamic structure on the same site where the old Jewish Temple once stood. The rituals of the old physical Jewish religion were never intended as a means of salvation for any people; they only represented and pointed to the Messiah Jesus, so after the Cross that site no longer had any spiritual significance. Anyone who still embraces the physical laws and rituals of Old Testament Judaism, as a means of making them-selves acceptable to God, is doing so against God’s Word (Hebrews 10:4). And, any religion that uses “dead works” as a means to become acceptable to God, is a dead religion (Galatians 2:16, Hebrews 6:1 and Romans 3:20) and Islam represents that to more people around the world today than any other religion. Since the religion of Islam takes it foundation from Judaism and Christianity, it is appropriate that one of its major religious symbols would be located on a piece of ground that God has already discarded from symbolic dead works. Spiritually, a religious site on that location, representing a religion of dead works, is like a dog returning to its vomit, and a sow after washing returning to wallowing in the mire.
# 13. (Chapter 16) The reference in this paragraph, to the new leaves on the fig tree, is consistent with a new Spiritual Israel. Jesus cursed the fig tree in Matthew 21:19; he said “no longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.” That fig tree immediately withered and its death symbolized what was soon to occur to the natural nation of Israel. Natural Israel’s death was to soon begin at the Cross with its complete death in A.D. 70. In Matthew 24:32, a new fig tree is sprouting leaves and it symbolizes the new generation of Spiritual Israel which “will not pass away until all these things take place” at the consummation of the age.