Posted on 11/06/2022 5:28:44 PM PST by Roman_War_Criminal
“Israel’s future guarantees our salvation.”
Amir Tsarfati began his sermon with these words while speaking a few years ago at Calvary Chapel Church in Kaneohe, Hawaii, JD Farag’s church. As I listened to his message and thought about his startling claim, I realized his assertion was totally correct.
In my book, The Triumph of the Redeemed, I wrote the following:
“Consider this: If God can break His covenants with such Old Testament champions of the faith as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, what does that say about His promises regarding our salvation? If God can renege on His unconditional promises to Israel, ones He repeated many times throughout the writings of the prophets and in the Psalms, what does that say about our security?” [i]
You might wonder how Israel’s future relates to our glorious hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing. Does its significance extend beyond our security as believers?
Yes, it does. Those who deny a restoration of Israel carry over their mistreatment of Scripture to New Testament passages referring to the Rapture and to the book of Revelation. And since they do not recognize any prophetic significance to Israel’s reemergence as a nation, they remain blind to the signs of the approaching seven-year Tribulation and fail to warn others of the approaching doom.
It’s for these reasons and more that I always begin my defense of the pre-Tribulation Rapture with the biblical teaching regarding the future restoration of Israel. Such biblical teaching validates our glorious hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing because it confirms the veracity of the prophetic texts supporting it.
As the foundations of our world crumble into dust, we need the encouragement that the Bible gives us regarding our anticipation of the Lord’s return for us. He is the anchor of our hope!
Every day, NATO and Russia creep closer to the start of World War III, which might have deadly consequences for millions of people. Many credible voices predict disastrous worldwide food shortages during 2023. A great many people in Europe and in Ukraine will die his winter as a result of the ongoing battle between Zelenskyy and Putin that has caused a shortage of the natural gas needed to heat homes. In addition, globalists continue their steady campaign of depopulation (click here).
Because of these perilous realities, we need the validation of our glorious hope, which begins with what the Bible tells us about the certain and future restoration of a kingdom to Israel.
1. The Father Cannot Break His Promise to His Son.
In Psalm 2:7-8, we read this promise of the Father to the Son:
“The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.’”
The pledge of the Father to the Son in these verses verifies that there will be a reign of Jesus on the earth at a time when sin is possible, as evidenced by the need for the Lord to exercise severe discipline during His rule.
The context clarifies that this is a physical rule over the nations of the world, during which time Jesus brandishes a “rod of iron” and dashes the nations “in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalm 2:9-10).
Psalm 2 cannot apply spiritually to the church age since Jesus never deals with believers in such a manner. Nor can it represent Jesus’ rule in the eternal state since sin is present.
The only possible fulfillment for the words of Psalm 2 is the future thousand-year rule of Christ, which we refer to as the millennium because of the repeated reference to a thousand years in Revelation 20:1-10.
2. A Future Restored Israel Maintains the Integrity of Scripture
One cannot deny the reality of a restored kingdom for Israel and at the same time interpret the prophetic words of Scripture in the way the authors intended them at the time they wrote them.
Zechariah prophesied about a time after Jesus’ crucifixion when a great number of the Israelites would repent and recognize Jesus as their Messiah. Using references in the context that cannot apply to anyone else, the prophet foresaw a time when Jacob’s descendants would recognize the One “they have pierced” as their true Messiah and weep, signifying their regret and repentance (Zech. 12:10-13:1).
Zechariah 14:9 later depicts the Lord as “king over all the earth.” This occurs in Jerusalem during a time when rebellion remains possible on the earth (see vv. 16-19). The prophet is not talking about a spiritual reign, nor can one apply these words to the eternal state since there’s again the possibility of disobedience and sin in the context. The words must refer to Jesus’ reign over the nations from Jerusalem.
If Scripture can mean one thing when written and have an entirely different sense at a later time, then we would no longer be able to trust it.
That’s why we must reject the retrofitting of God’s promises to Israel in order to make them apply spiritually to the church.
3. Consistency of Biblical Interpretation Refutes Replacement Theology
When Dr. David Reagan, Bible Scholar and founder of the Lamb and Lion Ministry, appeared on Jan Markell’s radio show, he explained how he came to believe in a future restoration of the nation of Israel. It happened as he noticed how Jesus literally fulfilled all the prophecies in the book of Zechariah related to His first coming. That led Dr. Reagan to conclude that there must be a literal fulfillment for the prophecies that remained unfilled regarding Israel and Jesus’ future reign.
The consistency of Bible interpretation demands that we apply a literal interpretation to texts that speak of a future restoration of Israel and reject the spiritualization of such texts.
Isaiah 9:6-7 shows how consistency of interpretation necessitates Christ’s millennial rule. Those who deny a future for Israel agree that Jesus fulfilled this passage when He came into the world as a baby in Bethlehem. However, they switch to a much different mode of interpretation and suddenly regard words in this closely-knit text regarding Christ’s future rule from the “throne of David” as merely symbolic.
If that is the case, why would the angel Gabriel repeat these words from this passage when he announced the Savior’s birth to Mary (Luke 1:32-33)? Why would he tell Mary that Jesus would “reign over the house of Jacob forever” if the passage in Isaiah is symbolic rather than literal? These words relate to a physical kingdom, which is the only possible way that Mary could have understood the words of Gabriel at the time.
4. The Sun Is Shining Outside My Office Window
Lest you think I’m crazy for including this as an argument for Israel’s future restoration, let me refer you to Jeremiah 31:35-40.
Those who subscribe to the errant teaching that God has replaced Israel with the church tell us that the descendants of Jacob no longer exist as a viable nation in God’s sight. The Lord Himself nixes such teaching in Jeremiah 31:35-36:
“Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord of hosts is his name: ‘If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.’”
According to the words of the Lord, the continuing existence of the sun, moon, and stars tell us that Israel remains a nation in His sight. As if He anticipated those who would seek a faulty spiritual interpretation of these words, God added a physical description of places in and around Jerusalem, stating that after the city’s future restoration, “It shall not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever” (Jeremiah 31:38-40).
So yes, the sun shining outside my window today confirms Israel’s continuing existence as a nation because the Lord gave us that as one of the signs of it.
5. Replacement Theology Opens the Door to Heresy
History demonstrates that over time, replacement theology leads to a further erosion of biblical truth, thereby opening the door to further doctrinal error. When one retrofits biblical texts in order to make the physical prophecies of a kingdom apply spiritually to the church rather than physically to Israel, it always erodes the integrity of God’s Word. Such teaching always, always leads to heresy over time!
The events of January of 2020 show how such denying a kingdom for Israel leads to further erosion of biblical truth. It was then that churches in Scotland and England, long immersed in replacement theology, disinvited Franklin Graham to speak due to his views on the LGBTQ agenda. Bryan Kerr, a Church of Scotland pastor in Lanark, said this, “Franklin Graham isn’t the voice of Christianity.”
Replacement theology, or amillennialism, always, over time, opens the door to heresy. Absolutely without fail.
The apostle Paul clearly stated that “God has not rejected Israel” (Romans 11:1-2). The proponents of replacement theology tell us that the Lord has rejected Israel. Can you see from just this one example how this errant doctrine erodes confidence in the words of Scripture and later leads to heresy?
6. God’s Covenant of the Land for Israel Remains in Effect for Israel.
God could not have made it any clearer than He did in Chronicles 16:14-16 and in Psalm 105:8-11. In these texts, the Lord states that His covenant of the Land with Abraham, Isaac, and the descendants of Jacob remains in effect forever. Why would God say it’s “an everlasting covenant” if he did not intend us to understand it “as an everlasting covenant?”
If the Lord says something is “everlasting,” it’s exactly that! It just doesn’t just go away because of bad behavior or reach fulfillment in some other mysterious way. The promise of the Land for the descendants of Jacob remains in effect because God assigns the words “everlasting” to it.
7. The Seventieth Week of Daniel Remains Unfulfilled
In a previous post, The Biblical Necessity of a Third Jewish Temple, I follow the thread of prophecies from Daniel 9:27 through the New Testament, demonstrating that Daniel’s prophecy regarding the desecration of a future Jewish temple remains unfulfilled. Please go to this post for a thorough argument as to why the seventieth week of Daniel, something exclusively for Israel, remains unfulfilled.
Since the antichrist’s sacrilege of the Jewish temple during this final week of years remains unfulfilled, the entire seventieth week of Daniel 9:24-27 must also await a future fulfillment. In other words, the full scope of God’s purposes for choosing Israel has not reached completion.
There must be a time when God’s attention returns to the descendants of Jacob. This alone makes it impossible for one to claim that God has replaced Israel with the church.
8. Jesus’ Response to the Disciples’ Question
In Acts 1:6, the disciples asked Jesus this question moments before His ascension; “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6)?
The Savior responded to their question with these words, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” (Acts 1:7)
Please notice that Jesus did not contradict, ridicule, or refute the premise of their question that He would restore a kingdom to Israel. Instead, He simply told his disciples they could not know the timing of this restoration as it was something the Father alone had “fixed by his own authority.”
In the Old Testament, the Lord repeatedly promised to “restore the fortunes” of Israel. The disciples had a firm scriptural basis for their question regarding the future restoration of Israel, one that Jesus did not refute or contradict.
9. We Have Witnessed Prophecy Fulfilled in Israel’s Existence as a Nation
Besides the above reasons, we recognize God’s hand at work in the miraculous emergence of Israel as a nation in 1948 and in God’s supernatural of the nation since that time.
Perhaps the most tragic error of those that promote replacement theology is that they remain blind to the signs of the time and don’t believe that we live in the last days. Those who deny the prophetic significance of Israel’s reemergence as a nation also fail to heed Jesus’ command that we watch for His coming.
They might say that Jesus can come at any time, but everything else they teach concerning eternity pushes it to a far distant time that they refer to as “the end of the age.” Sadly, they leave those in their audience totally unprepared for what’s happening in our world and tragically unaware of the nearness of Jesus’ appearing.
All this is to say that the Lord keeps His covenants with and promises to Israel. Likewise, Jesus will keep His promises to us and soon will catch us up to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Israel’s future restoration validates our hope as New Testament saints in Jesus’ imminent appearing. Just as God will keep His promises to Israel, so will He fulfill our hope of glory at His appearing.
The apostle Paul stated with great clarity that “God has not rejected Israel” (Romans 11:1-2). The proponents of replacement tell us that the Lord has rejected Israel. Who do you believe?
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Maranatha!
God is not done with Israel or the rest of His children. If you trust Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you are one of His chosen people.
Thank you. I needed to see this today.
Ping for later, but very good article!
The Jewish people don’t consider Jesus the Son of God. He is only considered a prophet and not a very good one according to a Jewish fellow that I talked to.
Thanks for posting that. In my mind it settles the discussion I was having with someone here last week. God made too many promises to Israel for me to think they could be disregarded.
Hebrews Chapter 8.
Thanks for posting this.
Well, I guess you mean Jews who follow rabbinical Judaism.
And those consider Jesus to not be a prophet, leave alone the son of God. The Talmud had particularly rotten things about Jesus.
By rabbinical Judais, to explain: when Jesus died until 70 AD, there were multiple sects of 2nd temple Judaism:
1. Sadduccees who rejected everything except the first 5 books of the Bible.
2. Samaritans who accepted the first 5 books and some prophets
3. Pharisees who arose in 300 BC as local preachers and accepted the whole old testament but also the “Oral Torah”. Note that this Oral Torah was later, in the 5th to 9th century AD written down as the Talmud.
4. The Zealots
5. The Essenes
6. The Jesus movement
1, 4 and 5 were centred on the 2nd temple in Jerusalem as the core, the heart of their religion. 2 was somewhat centred
The Samaritans had Mt. Geraset in northern Israel, the Pharisees had synagogues but they took on more emphasis post 70 AD.
And the Jesus movement said the temple wasn’t critical as Jesus Himself was the new temple. But their claims were laughed at while the 2nd temple still stood.
Then in 64 AD the Roman authorities started persecuting Christians. The Sanhedrin and the Pharisees redoubled their persecution. So the Jesus movement was nearly destroyed. This was the GREAT TRIBULATION that john wrote about. It lasted 3.5 years, 42 months.
In 67 AD the non-jesus, non Samaritans started the first Jewish Roman war. They lost after 3.5 years/42 months/1760 days. And the temple was destroyed.
The Jesus movement said “we told you so” and expanded.
The Samaritans shrugged and went to mt gerizim (and had their own wars with the romans)
The Essenes, Sadduccees died out.
The zealots fought again and again until 136 when their messianic leader, Simon Bar kochkba (Bar kochkba means son of the star, ie son of God) failed in the 3rd and last Jewish Roman war.
The Pharisees were in a quandary. Finally in 70 AD, they had the council of Jamnia led by Rabbi Yohannan bin Zakkai.
At that they created rabbinical Judaism which explicitly rejected the Jesus movement claims, rejected the Septuagint as it was used by the Jesus movement and rejected old testament works that the Jesus movement used as justification.
Thus rabbinical Judaism is, strangely, younger than Christianity and a sister/rival religion to Christianity.
So it rejects Jesus and says the was not born of a virgin, was not crucified etc.many of these along with Jesus being in hell are written in the Talmud
Some references for the post above
1. The Talmud, a biography. https://www.amazon.com/TALMUD-BIOGRAPHY-CENSORED-BURNED-SUPPRESS/dp/1916002307
2. First century Judaism in crisis, Yohannan bin Zakkai and the renaissance of the Torah by Rabbi Neusner. https://www.amazon.com/First-century-Judaism-crisis-renaissance/dp/0687131200
3. The Samaritan Problem: Studies in the Relationships of Samaritanism, Judaism, & Early Christianity https://www.amazon.com/Samaritan-Problem-Relationships-Samaritanism-Christianity/dp/0915138042/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1PHMMQRPYFITH&keywords=Samaritans+first+century&qid=1667795713&rnid=283155&s=books&sprefix=samaritans+first+century+%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C204&sr=1-3
4. The Jewish wars by Josephus. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2850/2850-h/2850-h.htm
There are a few others I can recommend to add in if you wish
They aren’t disregarded.
Remember two points
1. Tye nation of Israel was to be a priestly nation. Priests to the whole world.
2. Israel spread from one man, to his family, to his clan, to his descendants in 12 tribes, to a nation. Jesus expanded it further.
Notes for Jews look at Jesus :
As a very distant cousin who was mostly a good guy, who was very idealistic (in wanting to get rid of the Roman-induced corruption of the Priesthood)…but foolish to allow himself to come to the attention of the Romans as a revolutionary. Got himself killed for it…and then his followers (starting with Paul, but continuing for literally centuries) completely changed his message and even went against the Torah that Jesus himself said would not change one “jot or tittle” until the final redemption (which we haven’t seen yet).
As a (potential) prophet, he sucked. The test to even have a shot at being called a prophet is that each and every one of your prophecies has to be true in every detail. Well, Jesus said to his followers that the final redemption would come before some of them tasted death. WRONG! Oh, and necessary prerequisites for the final redemption include world peace, the universal recognition of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the one and only deity, the ingathering of ALL Jewish exiles and the building of the 3rd Temple. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and WRONG - not a single one of those things happened during his life, shortly thereafter or at any time in the nearly 2000 years since then. So…NOT a prophet of any kind.
He was also not born of a virgin (that’s a deliberate mistranslation of a passage that was taken completely out of context), and was not THE messiah for many reasons, including his unqualified genealogy and his failure to do ANYTHING required of that person, as laid out in Jewish scriptures. That failure, btw, is exactly why every Christian talks about a do-over (the “2nd coming”), because they KNOW that he failed. FYI, this also shows the Christian theologians can’t count - because according to them he lived (1st coming), died and came back (that’s 2) without accomplishing anything, and is still expected to come back (that would be the THIRD coming). By that standard (incorrect genealogy and a couple failures), pretty much ANYBODY could be THE messiah.
Anyone (of any religion) wanting to know more about the Jewish perspective on Jesus and the religion created by his followers should go to YouTube and watch either Rabbi Tovia Singer or Jews for Judaism. Both of their channels have a wealth of information, backed by specific references to both Jewish and Christian scriptures.
This from a Jewish friend.
Calling someone who rejects Christ and Christians a "friend" takes a lot of HUTZPAH !
Anti-Christian Jews of the 1st century were responsible for Christ's death. Anti-Christian Jews have been persecuting Christians ever since. We've heard the Jewish anti-Christ argument and lies for 2000 years. Christians reject Jewish anti-Christian lies!
The sequence of the Rapture Departure event is revealed in 1 Thess 4:13-17. And 1 Cor 15:51-58 reveals even more about the unfolding of that event: God puts all of His born agains, alive or long dead, into new glorified bodies real on a higher dimensional plane, THEN Jesus gathers us to Himself in the first heaven, and returns to the Father's House. THAT is our blessed hope. Fiollowing this departure, Israel amplifies their Sin of unbelief by making a pact with 'the man of sin', and seven years of horror unfold until Israel Believes in Jesus Whom God sent two thousand years earlier and they rejected. At that point of Belief, Jesus returns to Earth in this 4D realm and rescues remnant Israel.
The Jews have been around a lot longer than Christianity and worshiped God. In fact most of the Old Testament is about the struggle of the Jewish people which Christians respect and study, So how do you reconcile the Old and New Testament’s.
Jesus was a Jew himself, explain that.
We have to go back to the Council of Nicene in Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine to understand a lot of which we look at in the Bible today.
And just where was Jesus for 15 years, no record on that, was he married, did he have children, what was he doing all that time?
Who wants to know?... were you there when God spoke worlds into existence?
I am asking questions.
If you got ‘answers’ from the field, would it effect your belief in Jesus as the One God sent for your deliverance? Even if Jesus was married, you do realize that oned of the requirements fro a Rabbi back then was that he be married if possible. But think about what that would mean if Jesus was married and denied His wife during His ministry. And if no children were conceived, in that day it would bring a sort of shame on the woman. And as to your question regarding where He was during the un disclosed years, since He had the Holy Spirit in Him from His conception, what could be added to His capacity even if He went to India? The very act of asking the questions tends to detract from His deity. And that is sin because it is unbelief in Him as God with us. When Jesus told His disciples tha He woud send the comforter who would convict the world of Sin, righteousness, and judgment, the sin He referred to was the only thing God is focused upon, unbelief. Unbelief is the ONLY sin which can send someone to hell! When I was born again in 1972 it took years for me to come to the realization that God takes responsibility for the changes in my life -to His glory not my effrots- so the ONLY sin he is concerned with is the one I am responsible for, unbelief. He takes responsibuility to change the behaviors if we just believe in Whom He sent for our deliverance.
Please read Hebrews chapter 8. I believe it will answer the question.
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