I thought they were pretty common.
Posted on 04/09/2002 7:19:26 AM PDT by truthandlife
I thought they were pretty common.
Maybe this heifer is related the the White Buffalo...  |
What if they had sacrificed it before it sprouted white hairs?
"Shhhh . . . if this is true then hundreds of FReepers... will have nothing to do to occupy their time . . ."
Karl Marx recognized the importance of those he called "the useful idiots" to the furtherance of his agenda. So does the religion racket.
The Great Premillennial HOAX
In 1970, Hal Lindsey came out with his monstrous best-selling book (15 million sold), "The Late Great Planet Earth." Since then, much of Evangelical Christianity has been obsessed with the signs of the times.
From 1971 until 1986, I was an active, visible participant in the Lutheran Charismatic Movement. Since the movement was highly influenced by Pentecostal thinking, in addition to adopting the theology of the Holy Spirit, many Lutheran Charismatics also adopted the eschatology of Pentecostals. I guess you might say, "We got the Holy Spirit, feathers and all." I adopted and also taught the Premillennial view of the end times. In fact, given the circumstances in the world, there was little doubt in my mind that this was the accurate understanding of Biblical prophecy.
May 13, 1981
The evening of May 13, 1981, was the regular meeting of the Ladies' Guild of Bethel Lutheran Church in Howard City, Mich. As pastor of the congregation, I attended the meeting and presented a topic for discussion.
May 13, 1981, was a very special evening for prophecy buffs. It could very well have been the last night that Christians would spend upon this earth. For if everything being said by the modern-day experts in Biblical prophecy was true, May 14 was the day of "the Rapture."
As the pastor, I felt it was my responsibility to share the why and wherefore of this momentous event with these women. Being good, traditional, Lutheran laypeople, they knew very little, if anything, about Biblical prophecy. It was my task to warn them of the event that might transpire within the next 24 hours.
By sharing this story with you, I hope to impart the essence of Premillennial thinking.
The Generation of the Fig Tree
The Biblical scenario I presented to these unsuspecting women, proving that the rapture would take place the next day, began with an interpretation of Matt. 24:32-34. Jesus said:
Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
What generation was Jesus talking about? Many scholars believed that it was the generation of the people that Jesus was addressing and that the events He was predicting were not the end of the world, but rather the destruction of Jerusalem. In fact, within 40 years, Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed.
While that is all well and good, there was another way of looking at these words of Jesus - a way that caused these predictions to become very real in the here and now.
From the notes in my Scofield Bible, I knew there would be a future restoration of Israel in the land. In Ez. 34:13, the prophet predicted that God would gather the Jews from the nations and bring them into their own land. Writing his notes in 1908, Scofield stated that this referred to a future restoration of the nation of Israel, or, as some perceived it, the budding of the fig tree. In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was referred to as a fig tree. In Matt. 21:19, Jesus cursed the fig tree because it had no fruit. This was perceived as a rejection of Israel.
Well, on May 14, 1948, the fig tree budded. Israel became a nation as a result of a United Nations declaration. This date was vital to all Biblical prophecy experts. Israel was in the land. The countdown to the end had begun. We were indeed the generation of the fig tree. It was this generation that would see the end of all things. Since a generation was 40 years, the end would be in 1988.
Those who taught this view also taught, from Scripture, that before the end of all things, there would be a tribulation period of seven years according to the prophecies of Daniel. Rev. 7:14 speaks of the Great Tribulation. During those seven years, the anti-Christ would arise. He would be a political figure and, according to Dan. 7:24-25, he would be given authority by ten kings. Since the European Common market was forming and nearly ten nations had already come together, the time of the anti-Christ was soon upon us.
Other signs of the rise of the anti-Christ were obvious. Given the fact that scanning devices were beginning to become evident in grocery stores, could the "mark of the beast" be far behind? We would soon be in the position of having to make a choice when the government brands us with a mark on the right hand or forehead, without which we would not be able to buy or sell, according to Revelation 13.
In addition, Ezekiel 38 and 39 warned about the invasion of Israel by "Gog and Magog." According to the notes in my Scofield Bible, this referred to a time when Israel was in the land and Russia, advancing from the north, would invade them. The politics at that time allowed for this to be a very real possibility. The book of Ezekiel stated that God will destroy the Russian army and the buzzards would eat their flesh. A tract was being circulated that claimed the buzzards were laying twice as many eggs in Israel in order to have enough troops to eat the Russians. (I often wondered how they knew this.)
In 1967, the armies of Israel had captured the old city of Jerusalem, including temple mount. According to Ezekiel 40ff., the millennial temple was to be built. Everything was in order. An interesting rumor circulated that the stones for the temple were already carved out of Bedford, Ind., limestone and were hidden in caves. Other rumors stated that the Ark of the Covenant had been discovered under the temple site and that plans to rebuild were underway.
It was happening!
In 1978, I led my first trip to the land of Israel. There were four groups of Lutheran Charismatics taking the trip. I led one of the groups. The purpose of the trip was to attend a "Prophecy Conference" in Jerusalem, led by Derek Prince. Since so much of my thinking had been influenced by the popular Premillennial prophetic notions of the day, it was an exciting trip. Things were happening in the land. The people were restored. God seemed to be on their side as they went to battle against the enemies who surrounded them.
Prince spoke on the subject of parallel restorations, comparing the events in Israel with the events marking the growth of the Charismatic Movement. In 1948, when Israel became a nation, both the Billy Graham crusades and the Latter Rain Movement (early roots of the Charismatic Movement) started. In 1967, when Israel took the old city of Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon Roman Catholics at Notre Dame. In 1971, the Yom Kippur war broke out in Israel while the Holy Spirit moved mightily on the different denominations. For one participating in these events, these connections were obvious.
What was happening at the Dead Sea was very interesting. Zechariah 14 spoke of the return of the Messiah to the Mount of Olives, causing a great earthquake that would split the mount in two. Living water would flow from temple mount.
This stream of living water coming out of temple mount would flow to the Dead Sea and, according to Ezekiel (47:8ff):
This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds - like the fish of the Great Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt.
Well, parts of this prophecy were already in place. The Dead Sea had been divided due to the lack of water flowing down from the Sea of Galilee. The fresh water from the Galilee was being pumped into the desert so that the "desert was blooming," as Is. 35:1-2 stated.
This lack of water to the Dead Sea divided the sea. As Ezekiel predicted, a portion would be left for salt after the rest of the Sea had been sweetened with the living water pouring out of temple mount. We even took a dip in the Dead Sea at En Gedi, rejoicing that one day this would be sweet water after Jesus returned. In fact, our guide, who catered to end-of-the-world-minded Christians, showed us fish ponds near the northern-most part of the Dead Sea which, according to his explanation, were being prepared for the time when the Dead Sea would be sweetened.
Back to May 13, 1981
A very important ingredient in the Premillennial scenario was "the rapture." Christians would not pass through the great seven-year tribulation. They would be taken out or snatched away and be with the Lord. In Matt. 24:38-41, Jesus spoke of one being taken and one being left. Also, 1 Thess. 4:17 "clearly" spoke of the Rapture:
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
The Rapture of the church was imminent. Hal Lindsey had stated that it was the next event in the prophetic scenario. I had a bumper sticker that read, "In case of rapture, this car will self-destruct." My favorite song was "The King Is Coming." According to the Premillennial scenario, the end of all things would be in 1988, or 40 years after Israel occupied in the land and the "fig tree blossoms." If you deduct seven years for the Tribulation, this means that on May 14, 1981, the rapture of the Church would take place. Therefore, this was a very exciting evening to be alive!
I shared every detail with the women of the Bethel Lutheran Church Ladies' Guild. After my presentation, one little elderly woman said, "Reverend, why are you scaring us?"
Well, May 14, 1988, came and went, and nothing happened. In fact, 1988 came and went and nothing happened. Since that time, the Soviet Union has disbanded. The European Common Market now includes far more than ten members and Israel is giving land back to the Palestinians. When the events did not pan out, some prophecy "experts" redated the blooming of the fig tree to 1967, when Israel occupied the old city of Jerusalem. This would put the time of the end in the year 2007 and the "rapture" in the year 2000. The Y2K scare also fueled the notion that this would be the start of the tribulation. Again, it didn't happen.
Having bought into this Premillennial way of thinking and living with great expectations that came to absolutely nothing brought me to the conclusion that this theology is the greatest hoax ever visited upon unsuspecting Christians. The hoax lives on. Despite of unfulfilled predictions, the thinking persists.
The Roots of the System
I embraced the Premillennial Dispensational way of thinking because it appeared to be the most reasonable explanation of the events that were occurring. It is the primary end-time position taught within much of modern Evangelical Christianity, even though all the predictions that have arisen as a result of this view have come to naught. What is the source of this teaching? How did it arise?
In 1832, Edward Irving (1792-1834) established the Catholic Apostolic Church and taught the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Irving believed there had to be a reestablishment of the 12 apostles before Jesus would return. He appointed these 12 apostles. Of course, one by one, they eventually died and Jesus never returned. John Nelson Darby, who founded the Plymouth Brethren in 1847 in England and Ireland, spearheaded the dispensational interpretation of the Bible. He was widely influenced by Edward Irving. Darby taught that Biblical history is divided into seven "dispensations" or periods of time. The final dispensation would be the 1000-year millennial reign of Christ on earth. An important key to understanding Dispensationalism is the notion that God will reestablish an earthly kingdom with the nation of Israel. For this reason, the events in Israel are of vital importance for the Premillennial Dispensationalist. Before the coming of Jesus, the temple would be rebuilt and the sacrificial system reinstated.
Because this kingdom was offered and then refused by the Jews, it would be offered again in the future. By crucifying Jesus, the Jews rejected the kingdom, but God did not reject Israel. As an after-thought or a parenthesis, Christ then went on to establish the church because Gentiles now believed what the Jews rejected. This is the "Church Age" spoken of by Dispensationalists and it must end before God can re-establish His primary work with the Jews. The church age ends with the rapture. Darby's Dispensational ideas caught on like wildfire in America, and were widely spread by the Scofield Reference Bible. Scofield, ____a layman___, having studied Biblical prophecy for 30 years, added notes to the text of Scripture promoting Darby¹s Dispensational theology. Many Christians today regard Scofield's notes as being equally inspired as the Bible itself.
Apparently, however, neither Darby nor Scofield originated the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture. Darby was inspired by **a woman** named Margaret MacDonald who reported a revelation given to her by God during a healing service in Port Glasgow, Scotland, in 1830. MacDonald reported that in her vision, there was a two-stage process to the Second Coming of Christ. The first stage, the rapture, removed the church from this world. Christians would be caught up before the great tribulation and be taken to heaven. After the tribulation, Jesus would return to earth and establish His millennial kingdom. These ideas were embraced by Darby, promoted by Scofield and developed more fully in many of the Bible schools like Moody, Fuller and especially Dallas Theological Seminary during the 20th century in the United States. Many of the more FANATICAL proponents of the premillennial view are graduates of Dallas Theological Seminary.
Bad Theology
This theological system is replete with errors.
1. The present-day nation of Israel is no more involved in God's plans for the future than is France, England, Germany, the United States, etc. The teaching of the New Testament is very clear - Jesus fulfilled everything pertaining to Israel and formed the New Israel, His church. It is an abomination to claim that the church is merely a parenthesis or an afterthought in the divine scheme of redemption. In fact, the Bible clearly states that the plans of God and the wisdom of God will be revealed in His church (Eph. 3:8-11).
2. Much of the "tribulation prophecy" in the Old Testament prophets, the Olivet discourses of our Lord Jesus, and the Book of Revelation was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. When Jesus said in Matt. 24:32-34 that "this generation will not pass away," He was not referring to some future generation that would see the political nation of Israel established by the United Nations. He was referring to the generation alive at the time He spoke the words. His words were fulfilled. In 70 A.D. Jerusalem was utterly destroyed. In fact, there is a view of Biblical prophecy called Preterism. Those who hold the view claim that all futuristic prophecy was fulfilled in the First Century.
3. The teaching of two "second comings" of Jesus is not Biblical. As the Apostles' Creed simply states, "From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead." On the mount of Ascension the angels told the disciples that He would come again in the same way they saw Him depart into heaven. Nowhere does the Bible teach two "second comings." The language of 1 Thess. 4:17 does not allow for the "rapture" teaching. The phrase "to meet the Lord" literally means "to meet for the purpose of welcoming back." The Greek phrase "to meet" ( eis apanthsin) is only used on four occasions in the New Testament. In each case it means to go out to meet for the purpose of welcoming. (See, for example, Acts 28:15.)
Conclusion
Premillennial Dispensationalism is a deceptive teaching. Those who promote these views and fill the minds of God's people with this nonsense are perpetrating a hoax.
Jesus is coming again. This is our glorious hope. Jesus told us to be about the business of preaching and teaching His Gospel and not speculate about His second coming. Those who believe in Jesus and trust His blood and righteousness for their salvation are prepared for His coming. "Even so, come Lord Jesus!" [end of article]
Rabbi Shmaria Shore examines a red heifer seen by some as a sign for Jews to rebuild the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. (Globe Photo/Heidi Levine)
KFAR HASIDIM, Israel - She stares out at the world through dewy eyes, stumbling on awkward legs, dipping into her trough with abandon, oblivious to the soaring hopes and apocalyptic fears that have spread with the news of her birth.
Watched over by an armed guard in a skullcap and visited by rabbis and other seekers of meaning, this rust-colored six-month-old heifer is hailed as a sign of the coming of the Messiah and decried as a walking atom bomb.
Of a variety believed extinct for centuries, the red heifer is seen by some as the missing link needed for religious Jews to rebuild their ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Sacrificing the animal in its third year and using its ashes in a purification rite would allow Jews to return 2000 years later to the Temple site, a spot holy to both Jews and Muslims.
With tensions already high over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to build a Jewish neighborhood in the section of Jerusalem Palestinians consider theirs, many fear that the calf's arrival could create an explosive situation.
``That cow represents the risk of a massive religious war,'' said Avraham Poraz, a member of Parliament from the leftist Meretz Party. ``If the fanatics get a hold of it and try to take over the Temple Mount, God knows what will happen. It only takes a few crazies to endanger all our lives.''
In terms of historic gravity, some have drawn a loose analogy with Dolly, the cloned Scottish sheep. But if Dolly stands on the frontier of science, the calf of Kfar Hasidim harks back to the most ancient tribal ritual.
Born to a black-and-white mother and brown father on a northern Israeli farm run by a religious high school for troubled and orphaned students, the calf was brought to the attention of Rabbi Shmaria Shore shortly after its birth.
Shore, a native of Providence, said he had his doubts and, after checking with ancient texts, invited a number of rabbis from Jerusalem to come to give their views. They did so several weeks ago and quickly spread word that something truly miraculous seems to have occurred.
To understand the significance of the heifer requires a knowledge of long-abandoned practices in the extinct Temple as well as a grasp of the place the Temple holds in the collective unconscious of religious Jews.
For strictly Orthodox Jews, the Temple stands for the Jewish people's direct link to God, its place as His chosen people. Built by King Solomon around 950 BC and destroyed and rebuilt and expanded over the succeeding centuries until its final destruction by the Romans in AD 70, the Temple was the center of Jewish life where daily animal sacrifices were overseen by the priestly classes of Levites and Cohens.
The Temple's destruction meant that Jewish religious life had to be re-created. Prayer, Torah study and good works became substitutes for animal sacrifice as a means of seeking favor and forgiveness from God, a development that many modern Jewish thinkers have welcomed. But a yearning for the days of the Temple has never entirely died.
One byproduct of Israel's victory in the 1967 war that brought the Old City of Jerusalem under Israeli control is the revival of interest among a small number of Jews in rebuilding the Temple because of the link they believe it offers to God and the cosmic centrality it might signify for Jews everywhere.
This has caused concern not only because few Jews wish to return to animal sacrifices and priestly classes but because the site of the Temple has been occupied for the past 1,300 years by the third-holiest shrine in Islam, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.
Holy to Muslims and Jews
Those mosques were built when Islam spread through the region in the 7th century. Most scholars say the mount was chosen for their location precisely because of the belief that it was a holy place. The Prophet Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven from there.
A few Jewish fanatics have been caught trying to blow up the mosques to make room for a new Temple that would anchor a renewed Jewish kingdom and trigger the arrival of the Messiah. Most everyone else believes such a move would launch a war with the world's 1 billion Muslims.
The fear of such an act is nonetheless keen. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat recently showed a meeting of the Islamic Conference Organization in Pakistan a photo montage sold by Temple advocates that depicts the mount with the ancient Temple in the place of the two mosques.
Arafat indicated that the current battle over a Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem is but the first step on a path leading to the new Temple. Last September, when Israel opened a new exit to an archeological tunnel near the mount, Muslims rioted, saying the Jews were seeking to bring down the mosques.
The vast majority of Jews fiercely reject dreams of returning to the mount, content to have the one remnant of the Temple, the Western Wall, as a symbolic link to a bygone era and leave it at that. And they have been generally unworried about the zeal of a handful of Temple faithful for two reasons.
First, to avoid friction with Muslims, the Israeli government forbids Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. And second, the rabbis have ruled that religious Jews may not even walk on most of the mount for fear that, in their impure state, they will pollute the holiest of earthly places.
But that is where the new heifer comes in.
In the days of the Temple, all who entered it had to be made spiritually clean by being sprinkled with a substance whose main ingredient came from the ashes of a red heifer burned in its third year.
A rare breed
The sages described the heifer as a rare breed. Only nine were recorded in religious texts to have existed and the strain has long been assumed extinct, thus making it impossible to contemplate a return to Temple ritual.
Orthodox Jews still pray three times a day for the rebuilding of the Temple. But, Jewish scholars say, most have not taken the prayer literally.
``It has always been a kind of nostalgia,'' remarked Daniel Sperber, an Orthodox Jew and professor of Talmud at Bar Ilan University, outside Tel Aviv. ``Most people relate the rebuilding of the Temple with the coming of the Messiah. Until he turns up, we don't have to worry much about it.''
But most religious Jews consider the mount to be an exceptionally holy, if temporarily occupied, spot. They will not speculate on when the Temple will replace the mosques but many believe that, one day, it will.
The creation of Israel and the recapture of Jerusalem have reawakened a belief among the rapidly growing ultra-Orthodox community that something divinely inspired is unfolding here. The red heifer is simply the next sign.
A dozen rabbis have examined the calf and said she is the long-awaited ritual heifer, meeting, so far, all the criteria described by the ancients. If the calf lives unblemished for another 18 months, she can theoretically be put to use.
``It is written that it is the 10th heifer that the Messiah will discover and here we have the 10th heifer. This is a clear sign that the Messiah is near,'' said Rabbi Ido Weber Erlich of Jerusalem in an interview on Israel Radio.
For the workers at The Temple Institute, on a cobblestone alley inside the rebuilt Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, the arrival of the heifer is an inspiration.
The institute recreates the implements of the Temple, from the pale flaxen robes worn by the priests to the golden incense jars and lyres used at prayers. There is already a portrait of the new heifer on the institute wall.
``For us, the heifer is a milestone,'' said Rabbi Menachem Makover, deputy director of the institute. ``During the diaspora, everything was missing. No one knew about the crown worn by the high priest, for example. Now we see that everything that was gone is slowly coming back.
``We used to say, `We don't have this,' or `We don't have that,' but that is no longer an excuse. We still have political problems with the Arabs. But from above someone is leading us to these tools. We didn't ask for the red heifer. Suddenly it came.''
This is the kind of talk that makes Arabs and many Israelis nervous.
David Landau, a journalist with the liberal daily newspaper Haaretz, and himself an Orthodox Jew, wrote an opinion piece recently titled, ``The Red Heifer: It's No Joke.'' in which he called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security services to take this problem in hand now.
Landau says that while a bullet to the head of the calf might be the ticket, less radical action might also be considered since any blemish or irregularity to the calf would ruin it for liturgical purposes.
Rabbi Shore, who presides over the religious school here, says the only execution carried out by Israel was that of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann 35 years ago and if the state were to do the same to the red heifer, ``I don't know whether I'd laugh or cry.''
Some rabbis are urging that the calf be used to breed a herd of red heifers so that such an attack not end what has begun.
Shore says the heifer's arrival poses other, still-unsolved problems, such as finding a ritually pure member of the priestly Cohen class to slaughter it. But many difficulties in the renewal of Jewish life in Israel have already been solved, he said, and this, too, might have a solution.
``Some people say, `Blow up the mosques,' but I don't see it that way,'' he said. ``The Temple is at the core of the spiritual life of the Jews, and it must come when the Jews are truly ready for it. Of course, rebuilding the Temple may come as something violent and hostile.
``The Temple Mount is the source of blessing for the entire world. It is not just a piece of real estate. So this opportunity we have must not be wasted.''
Bartenders in the Mideast are famous for their vibrant cocktails, mixing equal parts religious fervor, political ambition and ethnic hatred – along with a dash of gunpowder for that certain something. Best served flaming hot in a broken glass, quaffers and elbow-tippers should ready themselves for the drink's poison. In Palestine, the mickey is the drink.
Christians around the world closely watch the bloody revelry, convinced the brawl is of – hit the deck, incoming cliché – biblical proportions.
We can blame God for this. When He decided to tell His story, He sent the cast and crew to Israel and the surrounding environs. Very little was shot off-location. Hence the grand handle: The Holy Land. Christians look intently at this thin sliver of real estate as the lightning rod of biblical prophecy – the epicenter of God's future rumblings.
The Bible says the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will play host to an encore by Jesus Christ. The creeds of Christendom affirm this fact as crucial to the faith. What's still undecided is the order and significance of the events preceding that coming.
Currently the chic view is that espoused by prophecy pundits like Tim LaHaye and my fellow WND columnist Hal Lindsey.
In their scheme, the events of Revelation and other prophetic books will soon erupt, literally, in Israel, reaching out and engulfing much of the world. Christ will come back only after the imminent unpleasantries are finished.
Hal Lindsey recently wrote that "The Middle East is about to explode into all-out war," which was "predicted thousands of years in advance."
Tim LaHaye's fictional "Left Behind" series, co-written with Jerry Jenkins, kicks off with such a conflagration. Taking their cue from Ezekiel 38-39, LaHaye and Jenkins explain that Russia, allied with various Arab nations, will attack Israel, which they say is their "binding, overriding, passionate, and common hatred."
The views of Lindsey and LaHaye are wildly popular – both have sold multimillions of books. But they do not represent the only approach to applying Scripture to the bloody scraps in the Middle East.
"End Times Fiction," by Gary DeMar, published late last year by Thomas Nelson, is billed as a "biblical consideration of the 'Left Behind' theology." In the book, DeMar takes various portions of "Left Behind" that detail LaHaye's last-days views and compares them with Scripture.
For instance, in the first "LB" novel, "Buck" reads Ezekiel and immediately recognizes it as predictive of the battle in Israel he had witnessed at the start of the story. But how? "The battle in Ezekiel 38-39 is clearly an ancient one," writes DeMar. "All the soldiers were riding horses (38:4, 15; 39:20). The horse soldiers were 'wielding swords' (38:4), carrying 'bows and arrows, war clubs and spears' (39:3, 9). The weapons were made of wood (39:10), and the abandoned weapons served as fuel for 'seven years' (39:9)."
LaHaye follows what he calls "The Golden Rule of Biblical Interpretation"; unless the context clearly militates against it, the reader must opt for the most literal interpretation. But how does this square with LaHaye's interpretation of those references to ancient weapons as "war planes," "intercontinental ballistic missiles" and "nuclear-equipped MiG fighter-bombers"?
"There is nothing in the context that would lead the reader to conclude that horses, war clubs, swords, bows and arrows, and spears mean anything other than horses, war clubs, swords, bows and arrows, and spears," writes DeMar. "And what is the Russian air force after? Gold, silver, cattle, and goods (38:13). In what modern war can anyone remember armies going after cattle?"
LaHaye and Jenkins invent a fictional motive for the attack, a growth-enhancing botanical compound, which is admittedly sexier than cows. But just like the plot device, the interpretation is also contrived.
The details of the battle, DeMar points out, mirror closely those of a battle described in Esther – so closely, in fact, that it appears much more probable that Ezekiel's prophecy has long been fulfilled, in biblical times no less. A better hermeneutic than "The Golden Rule of Biblical Interpretation" is "Scripture Interprets Scripture Better than do Newspapers."
What about the "wars and rumors of wars" mentioned by Christ in the Gospels? Surely even if Ezekiel is wrongly applied by LaHaye and others, this one applies to the Israeli situation, right? Wrong.
DeMar points out that Tacitus, chronicling the events at the time of Christ and after in the Roman Empire, "describes the era with phrases such as 'disturbances in Germany,' 'commotions in Africa,' 'commotions in Thrace,' 'insurrections in Gaul,' 'intrigues among the Parthians,' 'the war in Britain,' and 'the war in Armenia.' Wars were fought from one end of the empire to the other in the days of the apostles." In other words, been there, done that, bought the toga.
The impulse by Christians to look for prophetic clues to events foretold in the Bible by keeping one eye on CNN and the other on sensationalistic books by men like LaHaye and Lindsey reflects a prejudice – however innocent – that none of those events could possibly have happened already. DeMar's "End Times Fiction" makes a powerful case that many of them have.
Much excitement has been generated by the arrival of a "Red Heifer"1 in Israel. The birth of a red heifer (cow) on a farm in the religious youth village of Kfar Hasidim (near Haifa) has excited sectors in the Israeli religious community.
A delegation of numerous experts have visited the farm and have concluded that it is, in fact, an acceptable red heifer according to Torah requirements.
However, the cow must be at least two years old before it can be used. Until then, the cow will be carefully watched to ensure that nothing occurs to invalidate its status.
Why All the Excitement?
A red heifer was to be the means for the congregation of Israel to purify themselves, as specified in Numbers 19. It is this Torah connection which drives some of the religious Jews of today to prepare for the coming priesthood and temple services.
The red heifer must meet certain physical criteria and must be sacrificed in a certain way. Once sacrificed, the ashes are to be mixed with "clean" water and it is this mixture which is sprinkled over the "unclean."
According to the Torah, the red heifer must be without blemish, must be without defect, and must never have worn a yoke.2
The sacrifice3 must be performed outside the camp; the blood must be sprinkled seven times in front of the tabernacle; the entire heifer must be burned before the priest; cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet are added to the fire. While the primary purpose was for ritual cleansing, some believe it may have had medical implications as well.
The cedar oil came from a kind of juniper tree that grew in both Israel and in the Sinai. This cedar oil would irritate the skin, encouraging the person to vigorously rub the solution into their hands.
The hyssop oil is actually a very effective antiseptic and antibacterial agent. Hyssop oil contains 50 percent carvacrol, which is an antifungal and antibacterial agent still used in medicine today.4
The Water of Purification5 is then prepared by a priest, who is clean, who gathers the ashes, adds water to the ashes6 and then stores it outside the camp in a clean place.
Prophetic Significance
The Talmud claims that the red heifer sacrifice was the only one of God's commands that King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, claimed he did not understand.
The red heifer, as well as all the other specifications in the Torah, was an allusion which ultimately pointed to Jesus Christ, as Paul points out in Hebrews 9:13, 14:
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Solomon apparently did not understand why Numbers 19 declared that the priest would be "unclean until evening." This unusual sacrifice symbolically pointed to Jesus Christ and His sacrifice because our Lord, who was perfectly sinless, judicially took upon Himself the sins of the world so that we who are sinful could become righteous before God.
Just as the red heifer was sacrificed "outside the camp," in contrast to all other sacrifices that took place in the Tabernacle or Temple, Jesus was sacrificed outside the city of Jerusalem, on the very spot, we believe, on which Abraham offered Isaac two thousand years earlier.7
(Also, it was the Water of Purification, resulting from the ashes of the red heifer and reserved for ritual cleansing, that was the water used by Jesus when He turned the water into wine at the wedding at Cana.8 One cannot fully appreciate the significance of this event unless one understands the background of Numbers 19, et al. He was, to His disciples only, declaring Himself the Lord of the Torah.)
The Coming Temple
It is this water, the Water of Purification, which is required by the Israelites today. It is needed to "purify" today's Levitical priesthood and to "purify" the temple mount in preparation for the building of the Third Temple.
We know that this temple will be built because Jesus, John, and Paul all make reference to it.9
Since Herod's Temple was destroyed by the Roman emperor Titus in 70 A.D., no flawless red heifer has been born within the Biblical land of Israel, according to Rabbinical sources. Since there has been no temple, nor sacrifices, since the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, the availability of the necessary purification agents would seem to pose a problem.
Furthermore, the Jewish people did not see the recreation of the State of Israel until 1948, nor the recapturing of Jerusalem until 1967.
There are, however, some well placed and respected experts who believe they know where the ashes of the last red heifer are presently hidden.
However, to discuss this further would put some people at risk. If this turns out to be in error, then perhaps the presently available candidate may prove very significant after all. Being only about 9 months old, it will not be eligible until its third year: 1999 or so.
The only real obstacle to the rebuilding is not the missing ashes, but political access to the Temple Mount. Everyone has their own conjectures as to how this will ultimately happen, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Just as Zechariah predicted,10 Jerusalem is indeed becoming "a cup of trembling" and a "burdensome stone" to all the nations of the earth. The rebuilding of the Temple will be another intensifying aspect in the present Middle East imbroglio.
We understand that the Vatican has offered to "internationalize" the Temple Mount: let the Muslims use it on Friday (their holy day); the Jews use it on Saturday (Shabbat), and the Christians on Sunday. This appears consistent with their ambition and agenda to lead the worldwide "ecumenical" movement.
If the southern conjecture (supported by some current researchers-see sketch on page 12 by Tuvia Sagiv) proves to be the correct location of the Temple, it seems it could be built without disturbing the present structures!
Southward, the bedrock drops enough to permit a sanctuary to be built below the present structures, disturbing neither the Dome of the Rock nor the Al Aksa Mosque.11
This is only a provocative proposal and there is no clear reason to view it as acceptable to the religious Jews. Any proposal at all will, of course, be unacceptable to Islam.
However, the Coming World Leader, who ultimately is destined to desecrate this Temple himself, is first going to prove attractive to both the Jews and the Muslims,12 while posing as a replacement for Christ.13 (Somehow his acceptability apparently may exploit Islamic eschatology as well!)
The very emergence of these topics into the mainstream news media is provocative. The rebuilding of the Temple would, of course, be an exciting milestone on the forthcoming prophetic scenario. We will just have to watch and see. Jesus said,
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. (Luke 21:28)
Exciting times, indeed. Are you really ready?
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