Editor’s Perspective

Sodom Didn’t Have Bibles

The Lord said that the cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom which were destroyed by God for their wickedness, would have repented of their sins long ago if they had seen the miracles and experienced all of the things they had seen in their time. The people of Bethsaida, Korazin, and Capernaum saw the Lord and experienced all these miracles, but they didn’t believe, repent of their sins, and turn to God. So Jesus said that they would suffer an even greater judgment than Sodom (see Matthew 11:20–24).

To whom more is given more is required. We who are alive in this generation will be judged by the measure of moral light that has been made available to us. For those who live in countries with a Biblical heritage and a long history of Christianity, such as England or United States of America will receive the highest measure of God’s judgement.

Jesus tells us, “For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12:48) In his book Sodom had no Bible, Leonard Ravenhill observed:

Sodom had no Bibles, we have millions, Sodom had no churches, we have thousands, Sodom had no preachers, we have ten thousand plus thousands, Sodom had no Bible schools, we have at least two hundred and fifty, Sodom had no prayer meetings, we have thousands, Sodom had no gospel broadcasts, as a nation we are richly blessed with Christian broadcasts. Sodom had histories of God’s judgements to warn it of danger. We have volumes of them. Sodom perished in spite of all these disadvantages. America (or the West in general) is living only by the mercy of God. The only reason we are not smoking in the fire-wrath of a holy God is mercy—m-e-r-c-y, prolonged mercy…. One thing that and one thing alone that keeps us from complete decay in this hour—the Church, the true Church, the blood washed remnant (that has not bowed its knees to the Baal of materialism and that cannot be intimated by the threats and scorn of scientific humanism)

‘Gay Marriage’ and the Beginning of Sorrows

Absent a miracle from God or unprecedented massive wave of popular protest by America’s Christians (which would be a miracle in itself), the United States Supreme Court will declare a constitutional right to “gay marriage” by judicial fiat sometime this year.

Justice Ginsberg (who along with Justice Kagan has actually performed same sex “wedding” ceremonies and should but won’t recuse herself) warned the left just before the Windsor decision (in thinly veiled comments about Roe v Wade), that her pro-homosexuality majority was not going to go that far in striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 2013, though the result that all wanted would come in due time.

Her Cultural Marxist pals at the grassroots and in the federal judiciary then waged a campaign to “legalize” homosexual unions by systematically striking down voter-established state DOMAs over the next eighteen months, beginning with the most conservative states. The plan was to engender a sense of resignation in the public so that the upcoming “gay marriage” ruling would not so shock the nation that the common people would revolt against it like they did (and still do) against Roe v Wade.

The fact that SCOTUS has now taken up the issue (with oral arguments set for April) means that the leftist majority on the court believe the time is at hand to finish the job.

Spiritually speaking, the official endorsement of “gay marriage” by the most powerful and influential nation on earth, and more importantly the only nation in the history of the world (other than ancient Israel) to be established on a Biblical foundation, is an act of rebellion against God not seen since Noah’s Flood.

Indeed, the ancient Hebrew rabbis taught that “same-sex and bestial marriages” were the final insult to God that triggered the great flood (Talmud, Genesis Rabbah 26:5:4). And Jesus alluded to this when he warned that in the time leading to His return, wicked people would be “marrying and giving in marriage” “as in the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:38), when “every intent of the thoughts of [their] heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).

The only incidents in Biblical history that come close to that level of wrath are Sodom’s rebellion in Genesis 19 (ending in a rain of fire and brimstone), and the extermination of the Canaanites for committing (on a grand scale for many generations) the sins listed in Leviticus 18 (essentially incest, child sacrifice, homosexuality and bestiality).

Importantly, though homosexuality was a central factor in both of these acts of God’s wrath, widespread, socially-celebrated “gay marriage” was not seen in either case, nor even in the secular history of the final debauched days of the Greeks or Romans. Our present time is truly, and uniquely “like the days of Noah.”

Blood Moons, Jubilee, and Tribulation

“Coincidentally,” prophecy-oriented Christians have been intently focused on the year 2015 for several years now. The current Shemitah, a seven-year cycle of prophetic timekeeping kept by the Hebrews since first outlined by Moses in Leviticus 25, ends in mid-September 2015, when many believe the next (perhaps last) of the 50th-year Jubilee celebrations begins. This timetable corresponds with a prophecy about the last days given by Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel in 1215AD, most of which has already been fulfilled to the letter.

And 2015 is the second and final year of the dramatic “tetrad“ of four lunar eclipses (called “blood moons” in scripture) that fall precisely on the Hebrew feasts days (which are outlined in Leviticus 23).

Such tetrads are extremely rare and have occurred roughly in conjunction with the most monumental of events in Hebrew history. For example, the only two tetrads of the past 500 years coincided with the establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948 and the 1967 return of full control of Jerusalem to Jewish hands for the first time since the Roman expulsion of all Hebrews in 135BC.

Perhaps unique in all of history, during this tetrad a corresponding pair of solar eclipses (considered an ill omen for the Gentile world) will fall precisely on the two New Years days in the Hebrew calendar in 2015.

News reports state that the “gay marriage” case will be officially filed in “late March.” The first of the solar eclipses will occur on March 20th, followed by the third of the four “blood moons” on April 4th. The “gay marriage” ruling by the court is expected to come down sometime in mid-2015.

I expect some sort of severe judgment to fall on America in conjunction with this process.

Clearly homosexuality is not the only factor that will trigger the wrath of God. America bears the blood guilt of over 50 million unborn babies who have been slaughtered over the past half-century, a modern parallel to what God warned against in Leviticus 18:22.

And we have broken the foremost commandment of the Decalogue and officially set other gods before Him through SCOTUS rulings in Everson v Board of Education (1947) and Torcaso v Watkins (1961), setting secular humanist government above God “and every so-called god or object of worship” (2 Thessalonians 2:4) in the policy we call colloquially “religious pluralism.” Obama’s hostility to Israel probably factors in as well.

If the speculations about the blood moon tetrad and the timing of the Jubilee are accurate, America will not stand alone in judgment. The coming calamity will almost certainly be a part of some larger act of God’s punishment on the entire world, most likely the Great Tribulation prophesied by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21).

There are various beliefs about the sequence of end time events in Jesus’ prophecy, but a natural reading of it suggests a simple chronology that starts with “the beginning of sorrows” (birth pangs), after which a seven-year tribulation begins, bifurcated by the unmasking of the Antichrist after 3 ½ years.

The “beginning of sorrows” is the time of the infamous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Revelation 6), described in the Olivet Discourse as false Christianity (the white horse), wars and rumors of wars (the red horse), famine and pestilence (the black horse) and death (the pale horse).

What would the “beginning of sorrows” look like if it were to unfold in 2015? (Let me be clear this is purely an educated guess. I am not claiming divine revelation).

In my view the white horse is best exemplified by the phenomenon of “gay theology,” the heresy of our age, advanced by a growing army of self-righteous political activists claiming to represent Christ in a campaign to declare good evil and evil good.

They and their unique brand of apostasy are clearly described in the last-days prophecy of 2 Peter 2:1-10, which specifically invokes Sodom and warns in part that “[m]any will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.”

Importantly, like the LGBT movement today, the rider of the white horse in Revelation 6 (symbolic of the Antichrist who is still masked and unrecognized at this stage) holds aloft a “bow” (rainbow), the misappropriated symbol of the presence and authority of God (Ezekiel 1:28, Revelation 4:3).

I would expect the white horse to be unleashed very soon in coordination with the “gay marriage” battle, generating a wave of apostasy far beyond anything we have seen thus far in the culture war.

It would not be an exclusively American phenomenon, but a global campaign pushing some version of “gay theology” while proclaiming the dawn of a new era of Christianity (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Remember, the end-time Antichrist is the ultimate Luciferian deceiver, an Angel of Light, and only the elect will recognize what is actually unfolding (Matthew 24:24) — the rest, even many who claim Christ, will embrace the heresy (as is already occurring on a smaller scale).

The red horse is war, and I would expect to see the outbreak of major regional if not world war soon as well, almost certainly involving Israel and various Moslem nations, backed by various allies. There are any number of plausible scenarios based on current tensions around the world.

The war would trigger a global economic meltdown and varying degrees of collapse of the financial and political infrastructure of the nations of the world, ushering in the black horse: famine and pestilence. There would be social chaos on an unprecedented scale, resulting in the breakdown of civil order, farm and factory supply chains, medical care and sanitation.

The pale horse represents the massive harvest of the grim reaper as potentially millions of human beings are killed by war, starvation, disease, unchecked sectarian violence, ethnic cleansing, and a series of earthquakes and natural disasters.

The Rise of a False savior

After weeks or months of global chaos, when the nations are sufficiently broken and the peoples of the world desperate for a return to order, a hero will step upon the world stage to end the crisis.

In the human context he will secretly represent the globalist elites who have planned and prepared for this opportunity to impose a new world order: a new global government with a new economic system.

In the spiritual context he will be enacting a Satanic plot to usurp the role and identity of the Messiah and gain the adulation of the world.

Wielding great military power this self-aggrandizing human savior will force an end to war and impose a secular humanist paradigm and religious pluralism as a remedy to the various forms of “discrimination” which he will blame for the world crisis. Everyone will be given the choice (at first) to join the new order and gain immediate integration into its cradle-to-grave socialistic bounty.

Just sign this oath to reject and renounce all divisive and discriminatory beliefs and “supremacist” theologies,” he would say, “and take this mark of membership on your hand to receive free food, housing and medicine and all other benefits under our enlightened new order of tolerance and inclusiveness.

Who would not rush to accept such relief after such a season of horror? Who would not offer heartfelt fealty to the one who provided it? — Only those willing to choose continued suffering and deprivation rather than to “take the mark” and renounce their faith.

In this speculative scenario of mine, the date on or around which this false messiah would emerge is Yom Kippur, September 23, 2015, the first day of the Jubilee — the day/year of liberation.

Just as Christ began His earthy ministry by declaring the Jubilee in Luke 4:17-21, the false messiah would do the same, but in modern terms: “I hereby declare a global Jubilee of all debts, both public and private,” he would proclaim, “We are wiping the slate clean to start over on a foundation of social justice and cooperation.” He would not yet be exposed to the world as the Antichrist, but the Biblically literate would recognize him.

The fifth stage of the end-time chronology is persecution of the believers (Matthew 24:9), who, in this scenario, would be characterized as “black marketers” who refuse to support the new economic system and are thus blamed for its many inadequacies and hated by its adherents.

Even as the rest of the world lauds its “savior” and embraces his government, the Christian believers (and Torah-faithful Jews) would be increasingly reviled and hunted.

Under the Antichrist kingdom, Jerusalem (the center of the universe for prophecy study) is described in Revelation 11:8 as “mystically called Sodom and Eqypt,” implying in part that both homosexuality and pantheism (religious pluralism) define its culture.

I don’t think there is any question, Biblically, that the cultural celebration of “gay marriage” portends judgment from God. The only real question in my mind is whether it truly signals the imminent “beginning of sorrows” or is just another step in the path leading to God’s wrath at a later time. God is long-suffering, even to the most wicked of societies and He does not act until their iniquity is “full” (Genesis 15:16).

If we are on the verge of “birth pangs” we will likely know it by Passover, but in either case we should brace for serious judgment on the United States in the form of natural and/or man-made disaster if the Supreme Court established sodomy as a basis for marriage under our constitution.

Dr. Scott Lively is the President of Defend the Family International. An attorney, pastor and international human rights consultant, he has travelled the world for many decades promoting and defending the Biblical view of family and sexuality. Website

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Pastor Scott

Freezing Time: Beating the Biological Clock for Motherhood

According to a CBN report:

Women are waiting longer than ever to start a family. If they wait too long, however, it can be more difficult to get pregnant. Now there’s new hope. The technology of egg freezing can slow down the biological clock.

 [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84n-WXiTu9g]

Apple and Facebook are offering to freeze their female employees’ eggs, in an effort to attract more women on to their staff. “This is what a working woman really wants, According to The Guardian, Apple, the world’s most valuable brand, said it would offer the perk to US-based staff from January:

Apple cares deeply about our employees and their families, and we are always looking at new ways our health programmes can meet their needs,” said the company……We continue to expand our benefits for women, with a new extended maternity leave policy, along with cyropreservation and egg storage as part of our extensive support for infertility treatments … We want to empower women at Apple to do the best work of their lives as they care for loved ones and raise their families.

What kind of “empowerment” is this? What if this is just a false hope that, these frozen eggs will produce a child who would have inconvenienced your career back in your prime age?

Ashley Skidmore is a 24-year-old writer living in Los Angeles. Biologically, right now is the best time for her to have a baby. But that doesn’t exactly fit with her lifestyle plans. She’d rather wait a while.

“I definitely want to have kids some day…10, 15 years, maybe,” she explained. “I mean, I’ve got a career to take care of first before I can take care of a human being.”

She’s not alone. Today, 20 percent of women are waiting to try to have their first child until after age 35. That is a 150 percent increase since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One of the main reasons women put off getting married and starting families is the demanding careers and they can’t find “Mr. Right.”

But the question is: where can you find “Mr Right”? There is no “Mr Right or Mrs Right.” God is the one Who finds a helper suitable, adapted, and complementary just for you in a marriage relationship. (See Genesis 2:18-22) Most women don’t want to admit that feminism has in some ways backfired. Ruth Prince the wife of the late Derek Prince said that:

She was reflecting on the role of women in the body of our Lord. She saw that God had created Eve for the sole purpose of meeting Adam’s need, that man was not complete without his God-given mate. It seems to me that in contemporary Western society and in much of the church, too many women are endeavoring (often loudly) to do something that they were never created to do: to succeed in life as independent, solitary entities. For a number of years, I myself sought fulfillment in that way as a career woman. But when I entered into a relationship with Jesus, my life was redirected. I began to see that under these circumstances it is women who are the losers, along with the men who are not able to achieve the wholeness God intended for them in union with their mates.

Social legislators and corporations have championed the notion that having both parents working would raise their standard of living and bring prosperity to families. But still the standard of living has declined and it now takes two incomes to barely survive where one used to be just fine. This has resulted in the replacement of traditional two person married family with homes being led by only single mothers, less time for families, inflation, more stress and eventually divorce.

Apart from making headway toward equal pay for equal work, women have been liberated from their commitment to honour and obey their husbands. The men also have been liberated from their commitment to be faithful to one woman. So after the man gets tired of his wife, he walks out. After that men cannot fulfill their responsibilities which are to protect and provide and the women to uphold and to encourage. Therefore the women are left to struggle and raise the children on their own or pursue their own careers.

Listen to Journalist Claudia Connell sharing her painfully lengthy honest account of how she came to be living alone in the middle age. She writes:

With at least another 20 years ahead of me, I don’t know whether I’ll be comfortably off or stony broke, and I hope that good health I’ve enjoyed so far won’t desert me later on. One thing I’m pretty sure of, though, is that I’ll be on my own, with no spouse to look out for me or children to visit. At the age of 46, I accept that my opportunity to have to have a family has gone and the chances of meeting a descent man aren’t looking too rosy either…. For me, the single girl lifestyle that I embraced and celebrated with so much enthusiasm in the 80s and 90s has lost much of its gloss, and is starting to look a little hollow. I was part of the Sex and The City generation—successful, feisty women who made their own money, answered to no one and lived life to the full…. What none of us spent too long thinking about in our 20s and 30s was how our lifestyles would impact on us once we reached middle age……..

When I look around at all my single friends—and there are a lot of them—not one of them is truly happy being on her own. Suddenly, all those women we pitied for giving up their freedom for marriage and children are the ones feeling sorry for us. In the 90s, we professional, single women conducted our love-lives according to a best-selling book called The Rules—a dating bible that dictated that we should be aloof and hard to get, that we should not return phone calls, and we should always make a man pay on dates. Any man who didn’t conform was to be kicked to the curb until the next poor sap came along. What I never considered, though, was that one day they’d stop coming along altogether. I really wish I’d known that once you’re in your late 30s, men are pretty thin on the ground. And once you’re in your 40s, it’s as though they’ve been wiped off the face of the earth…..

All the successful men I know have married sweet, uncomplicated women who are happy to forfeit their careers to support their husbands….Freedom is great when you can exploit it; but when you have so much that you don’t know what to do with it, then it all becomes a little pointless.

These are the words that build a window onto a much larger problem.  Every problem of society is blamed on family women and as Betty Friedan in her book The Feminine Mystique reminds us,

The women who grow up wanting to be “just a housewife” are in much danger as the millions who walked to their own deaths in the concentration camps.

In Misconceptions Truth, Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood, author Naomi Wolf argued that corporate life has thrived on the fruits of this pressure on women to conform to its relentless rhythms”:

Work places emboldened by egalitarian language of second wave feminism that often insisted women could do the job just like men, (1970s feminism, for instance, objected to employee benefit guidelines that gave women reduced hours for pregnancy, categorizing the condition as “disability” have covertly coerced working women to delegate the details of pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood to some offstage setting—as if all this were some messy slightly alarming private hobby….

Ticking Biological Clock

In a CBN report, Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, a Los Angeles fertility specialist, further explained,

Women are most fertile from basically the time they get their first period up until about their early 30s,”…..There’s every reason to believe a woman’s eggs can be successfully frozen indefinitely.

Unfortunately, some of these eggs are not in good shape because the woman waited too long to try to freeze them. Eighty-percent of women who attempt to freeze their eggs are over the age of 35….. The advantages of egg freezing don’t dawn on most women until they’re in their late thirties, which for some, is already too late.

According to the journal Fertility and Sterility, greater than 80 percent of the patients who did not have children earlier said it was because of the lack of a partner. The prophet Isaiah foresaw a time when the ratio between marriageable men and women will be one to seven in Jerusalem.

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread and provide our own apparel; only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach of being unmarried. (Isaiah 4:1)

Could it be the same today, after all men who would have married all these beautiful ladies are decreasing? The World Almanac estimated that over 57 percent of the enlisted men in World War I became causalities and those in World War II have been estimated at 33 million. Not counting deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and other conflicts since World War II. This wasn’t like that in previous centuries. Remember most of these wars involve young men between the ages of 18-30.

Another problem is a generation of young people between the ages of 20-45 year olds who are still in a state of extended adolescence, avoiding the trappings of responsibility—marriage, a home, and children—as long as possible. But the question is, Can we blame them?

The Western governments and corporations think they can solve every problem known to mankind. It has been argued by Dave Breese in his book, 7 Men Who Rule the World from the Grave that,

In the economy of God, the government has never been appointed to be the father, the mother, the rich uncle, the provider, or the savior of each one of its individual people. When the government begins to play God, it will find itself increasingly satanic in its activity and in its reputation.

The family has been financially squeezed. This is why many people are deciding not to marry at all. In the United Kingdom alone, according to the Office for National Statistics, more than 50 percent of women under fifty have never been married.

Forty years ago men got married at twenty-four and women at twenty-two. Currently, the average age at which people marry is thirty-two for men and thirty for women. Women who are getting married in their late thirties and forties have almost doubled in the last ten years.

Starting a Family in Mid Life

It is true times have changed, but there is no consistent scientific or religious evidence that the ages thirty-five to fifty is some kind of turning point in a woman who wants to start a family and bear children. God is a God of second chances, even if you’ve messed up so many times before. I know a well-known Christian lady who divorced twice and had a healthy baby with her third husband at the age of forty-seven.

Older ladies who have not yet married: don’t lose hope. Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6) The Lord God is still on His throne; His ways are not the world’s ways. He will bless you with a wonderful marriage and He will still give you the grace to deliver children better than younger mothers. He is a merciful and gracious God!

Image Credit: Jill’s House Tebow Hosts ‘Night to Shine’ for Special Needs Kids 

One night, one prom, but in 50 different cities at once the Tim Tebow Foundation, headed by former Heisman trophy winner and NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, celebrated its five year anniversary with a “Night to Shine” prom for children with special needs.

The prom simultaneously happened in partnership with 45 different churches in 26 states and two countries, Uganda and Kenya. The foundation’s mission is to bring faith, hope, and love to those in their darkest hour.

One of the prom celebrations took place at Jill’s House, a 45,000-square-foot facility in Vienna, Virginia, with Christian trained caretakers for children with special needs, giving their families a much needed break.

The event began with a red carpet entrance and the children being greeted with their own personal host for the evening.

“Well for tonight the goal is to just celebrate these children, to create an atmosphere where they feel accepted and loved and just celebrated,” Dana Hecht, director of Family Support at Jill’s House, told CBN News.

“The Tim Tebow Foundation’s desire is to celebrate individuals with special needs and to give back, and obviously that’s what we do so it was a win-win,” Hecht said.

Getting the VIP treatment, the children received flowers, hair, and makeup and even a shoe shine. Some of the children from Jill’s House returned for this special night, including Anna.

“Just the attention she gets here, it’s really awesome, just individualized, personalized attention,” Anna’s mother Kelly told CBN News. “And she’s not wondering if she’s going to be competing with the sibling to get attention. Someone’s just here to talk to her and to work with her.”

After learning about Anna’s excitement for the prom, a group of nurses got together to create a beautiful princess dress just for her to wear. Anna said she felt like Elsa from ‘Frozen’ but “with sass.”

Each child in attendance was crowned Prom King or Queen, while also taking home prom favors and a smile that was nothing short of contagious.

“So many of the families say that the world feels like a place that their children don’t fit and so tonight it’s all about them being able to bring their kids here and having them fit in for exactly who they are and to celebrate who they are,” Hecht said.

Source: Angela Zotopek Reporter CBN News 700 Club

For more than three centuries, Christians in Britain had nourished a vision, based on the Bible, that God desired to make of the Jewish people a sovereign nation once again in their own land. The church leaders’ interest in the restoration had a background in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and were driven by the subsequent return of our Lord Jesus Christ, their interpretation of Scripture, a sense of justice, the desire to rectify the wrongs committed by Christians against God’s chosen people, and a feeling of sympathy for the Jews and their aspirations.

For example, when John Owen (1616 – 24 August 1683) who was a theologian, pastor and academic administrator at the University of Oxford, was preaching before the House of Commons in 1649, he spoke of “the bringing home of His ancient people to be one fold with the fullness of the Gentiles…in answer to millions of prayers put up at the throne of grace for this very glory, in all generations.

Revivalist and founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley stated in his notes on Romans:

So many prophecies refer to this grand event (of the restoration of Israel), that it is surprising any Christian can doubt of it. And these are greatly confirmed by the wonderful preservation of the Jews as a distinct people to this day. When it is accomplished, it will be so strong a demonstration, both of the Old and New Testament revelation, as will doubtless convince many thousands of Deists, in countries nominally Christian.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne (21 May 1813 – 25 March 1843)

In 1839 the Church of Scotland sent a delegation, including R. M. M’Cheyne, to the Holy Land on a mission of enquiry. Upon his return, he preached a sermon in Dundee on “Our Duty to Israel,” in which he said:

The greatest glory and joy anyone can experience is to be like God, and to care first for the Jews is to be like God…. The whole Bible shows that God has a special affection for Israel…. There are some, of course, who will say that God has a special affection for Israel…others say that God has finished with Israel. But the whole Bible contradicts such as an idea: Did God reject His people? By no means! (Romans 11:1)…. They will give life to the dead world: The remnant of Jacob will be in the midst of many peoples like the dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass, which do not wait for man or linger from mankind (Micah 5:7)

Bishop J. C. Ryle (10 May 1816 – 10 June 1900)

In May 1868 Bishop J. C. Ryle of the Church of England, and one of the prominent Bible teachers of the last 200 years, preached a sermon at Rectory Church, Mary-le-Bone, entitled “Scattered Israel to be Re-gathered,” using Jeremiah 31:10 as his text. In it he said,

However great the difficulties surrounding many parts of unfulfilled prophecy, two points appear to my own mind to stand out as plainly as if written by a sunbeam. One of these points is the second personal advent of our Lord Jesus Christ before the Millennium. The other of these points is the future literal gathering of the Jewish nation, and their restoration to their own land.

He goes on to say,

Out of the sixteen prophets of the Old Testament, there are at least ten in which the gathering and restoration of the Jews in the latter days are expressly mentioned. I believe there is one common remark that applies to them all. They all point to a time which is yet in the future. They all predict the final gathering of the Jewish nation from the four quarters of the globe, and their restoration to their own land…. I ask you, then, to settle it firmly in your mind, that when God says a thing shall be done, we ought to believe it.

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892)

Considered to be England’s most influential non-conformist preacher, Charles Spurgeon voiced the question of the restoration of Israel as well. He linked the restoration of the nation of Israel with their acceptance of Christ as their Messiah. “It is certain that the Jews, as a people, will yet own Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David as their King,” he said, “and that they will return to their own land, and they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the old cities, the desolations of many generations.” Spurgeon reminded his listeners:

If the dispersion was a mark of God’s judgment, according to the prophets, then Israel’s return to the land is the mark of God’s grace. In fact, so astounding will be the future return of Israel that it will make the exodus from Egypt seem small in comparison.

The London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst Jews, which later came to be known as The Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People, was also founded in 1809. The society began in the early nineteenth century when leading evangelicals, including members of the influential Clapham Sect, such as William Wilberforce and Charles Simeon, decided that there was an unmet need to promote Christianity among the Jews. The original vision of the society was to:

• Declare the Messiahship of Jesus to the Jew first and also to the non-Jew;
• Endeavor to teach the church its Jewish roots.
• Encourage the physical restoration of the Jewish people to Eretz Israel—the Land of Israel;and
• Encourage the Hebrew Christian/Messianic Jewish movement….

The Political Expression

History tells us that the nation of Britain made a unique contribution to the establishment of the state of Israel but unfortunately the political will had also other sinister motives.

In 1917, it was the Balfour Declaration made on the behalf of the British government that set in motion the political processes that was issued, thirty-one years later, in the establishment of the state of Israel.

What is significant about this correspondence is that Lord Balfour was a Freemason but God used him to bring about His purposes. Jewish Bible prophecy teacher Dough Camp writes:

According to researcher Dr. Stanley Monteith, Balfour was a high ranking Mason (we note, however, that God often allows and uses the wicked to bring about His own purposes i.e. He used the Assyrians to punish the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C. see also 2 Kings 21:14). In fact, we will see that the Masons were centrally responsible for Israel’s reestablishment.

Doug quotes Israeli author and reporter Barry Chamish who states the Masonic administration over the establishment of Israel in no uncertain terms:

Without British Freemasonry there would be no modern state of Israel. In the 1860s, the British-Israelite movement was initiated from within Freemasonry. Its goal was to establish a Jewish-Masonic state in the Turkish province of Palestine. Of course, that would mean dealing with the Turks at some point down the line, but first the country would have to be repopulated with Jews. And the idea wasn’t to bring in more of the same religious Jews who already were the majority in Jerusalem and elsewhere, but the kind of Jews who would eventually accept the Masonic view of history.

Initially, British Jewish Masonic families like the Rothschilds and Montefiores provided the capital to build the infrastructure for the anticipated wave of immigration. However, luring the Jews to Israel was proving difficult. They, simply, liked European life too much to abandon it. So Europe was to be turned into a nightmare for the Jews. This led to the rise of pogroms and Zionism…..Then things began moving quickly. British Masons like Arthur Balfour and Herbert Samuel led the campaign for official British recognition of a Jewish homeland during World War One. At the same time, a million British troops, badly needed in the trenches of Europe, were sent marching to Palestine to oust the Ottomans.

When the war ended, the campaign for a Jewish state went into full speed at Versailles. In 1919, The Royal Institute of International Affairs was founded in London and two years later, the Council on Foreign Relations began its nefarious activities in New York. Their agendas called for a world governmental takeover and a global religion based in Jerusalem….The above evidence strongly affirms that the Masons were behind the establishment of the modern state of Israel. Given their intense interest in the Temple and their desire to rebuild it, such testimony becomes strong circumstantial evidence that the Masons were behind the re-establishment of Israel because they desire to rebuild the temple which is central to their entire dogma. We can only guess they desire the temple rebuilt because their dark lord, Lucifer desires to have his savior to the world, the Antichrist, go in and declare himself to be god.

In the 1830s, among those that favored the restoration of Israel and who were active to that end were Winston Churchill, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Palmerston, and Edward Bickersteth. Shaftesbury drew up a state letter urging Turkey to hand over Palestine to the Jews for “their indestructible Messianic hope. He wrote,

The ancient city of the people of God is about to resume a place among the nations, and England is the first of all the Gentile kingdoms that ceases to tread her down.

And in 1840 the British ambassador to Turkey strongly recommended the Turkish government to use every encouragement to urge the Jews to return to Palestine. Again in the 1840s Charles Henry Churchill, ancestor of Sir Winston, spoke and wrote of a “pledge of England’s friendship” and bonding union with the Jewish nation.

May the Jewish nation regain its rank and position among the nations of the world….At an important public meeting he stated that “God has put into my heart the desire to serve His ancient people.

The End of the Empire

In May 1947 the United Nations had created a committee to study the Palestinian question. The Arabs refused to participate and the committee recommended the partition of the remaining 23 percent of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem as a free international city. However, this committee forgot or ignored the fact that Britain had already divided Palestine in 1922 and created an Arab state called Transjordan. Britain supported only the international status of Jerusalem in this resolution.

It was submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations, which passed the resolution thirty-three to thirteen and gave the necessary two-thirds majority. The British abstained because of her recommendation in the Balfour Declaration in 1917. The British, who had been so supportive to the Jewish homeland, were now opposed to the formation of a Jewish homeland.

In fact a document known as the The Churchill White Paper divided Palestine along the Jordan River, creating an Arab homeland in Palestine known as Transjordan (later Jordan). This document overturned the Balfour Declaration and specified four stipulations that proved disastrous to the Jewish people:

1. It called for an independent Palestinian state established within ten years, governed by both Jews and Arabs.
2. The Jewish immigration to Palestine under the British mandate was to be limited to 75,000 over the next five years, after that it would depend on Arab consent.
3. Jews would only buy land in areas where they were already the majority population.
4. Jewish immigration would be limited to the economic capacity of the country.

In 1945 Churchill was forced out of office by the new labor government led by Clement Atlee. Again, when the war ended, Palestine remained closed to the survivors of the concentration camps, who had now become homeless. Their homeland was allowed to take only a few thousand immigrants each year. Most of them were returned to the very concentration camps from which they had been freed.

Many writers have concluded that the British Empire disappeared within a comparatively short period of time after its refusal to vote for Israel’s restoration at the UN in November, 1947. The God of Israel is the God with whom every nation will have to deal, and to whom every nation will have to give an account.

When the Holy Spirit spoke through Paul at Athens on Mars Hill, he told them that,

God made from one [common origin, one source, one blood] all nations of men to settle on the face of the earth, having definitely determined [their] allotted periods of time and the fixed boundaries of their habitation (their settlements, lands, and abodes)…. (Acts 17:26)

So God draws the map and allots every nation its time and space. Historians and other Bible teachers believe it was God who brought the British Empire to an end. For instance, British Bible teacher and author David Pawson says,

When he was a boy the school atlas was largely red. It was possible to travel right round the world and never leave British soil. What happened to this great empire? The answer is that Britain washed its hands of God’s people, Israel. So God said, “If Britain can’t look after Israel she can’t look after anybody; and within five years the empire went.

But another question worth considering is: How could they have voted for Israel’s restoration yet they wanted only the kind of Jews who would eventually accept their Masonic view of history? Something to think about!

Reclaiming the Land

Under the United Nations Partition Plan, the Jews were denied sovereignty over Jerusalem, their ancient capital, but they gracefully accepted the Partition Plan that had been recommended. The first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, appealed to the UN to support the partition, saying:

We realize that we cannot have the whole of Palestine. God may have promised Palestine to the Jews; but it is up to the Almighty to keep His promise in His own time. Our business is to do what we can in a very imperfect way.

The first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion also reiterated that God would overrule in reclaiming the whole Promised Land by saying:

I know that God promised all of Palestine to the children of Israel. I do not know what borders He set. I believe they are wider than the ones proposed. If God will keep His promise in His own time, our business as poor humans who live in a difficult age is to save as much as we can of the remnants of Israel.

One teacher of prophecy noted that it matters very little as to how much land Israel relinquishes for peace, as ultimately they will take over all the land from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq.

The Land was Barren and Desolate

After the temple was destroyed and the Jewish people scattered throughout the nations, the Bible says, the Land was destined to become barren and desolate. This is exactly what happened when the children of Israel went into exile. The prophet Ezekiel and others proclaimed that God will re-gather the Israelites from the ends of the earth and reestablish them in their own land. (See Ezekiel 36:22-28; Isaiah 11:10-12)

Over a period of nearly two thousand years, various Gentile nations made attempts to settle on the land, but none was successful. Pilgrims and travelers who passed through the region noted that the country was nearly un-inhabitable. During the nineteenth century, the American author Mark Twain visited the Holy Land and he vividly described what he saw:

Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes….desolate country whose soil is rich enough but given over wholly to weeds….we never saw a human being on the whole route…There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere…Nazareth is forlorn…. Jericho the accursed lies a smouldering ruin…Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Savior’s presence.

Of the city of Jerusalem he wrote:

Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary and lifeless. I would not desire to live here…

Scottish preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne also visited the Holy Land in June 1839, with other pilgrims including his biographer Andrew Bonar. Rev. M’Cheyne had a very clear view of the destiny of the Jews in the purposes of the God of Israel. He once wrote: “We should be like God in His peculiar affections; and the whole Bible shows that God has ever had, and still has, a peculiar love to the Jews.” As they walked through the Judean hills up to Jerusalem, he wrote down in his journal:

The terracing of all the hills is the most remarkable feature of Judean scenery. Every foot of the rockiest mountains may in this way be covered with vines. We thought of Isaiah wandering here, and David ad Solomon. Still all was wilderness. The hand of man had been actively employed upon every mountain, but where were these laborers now? Judah is gone into captivity before the enemy. There are few men left in the land; not a vine is there…. Jerusalem is indeed like heaps. The quantities of rubbish would amaze you, —in one place higher than the walls. Judah’s cities are all waste, except Bethlehem.

In 1918, Sherif Hussein who was the Arab leader with whom the British government had been dealing with also made a thought provoking statement regarding how the land was desolate:

The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the amazing things until recent times was the Palestinian used to live his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain its hold on him.

God’s Covenant with Abraham

The rest of the land which was taken over by Israel in 1948 was an ownerless desert and very desolate. When the Jewish people came back in large numbers in that same year, when Israel became a Nation again, the land started to blossom as God said it would. The land would not produce for anyone except the Jewish people. Why? Because the covenant promise was through Isaac not Ishmael.

Abraham loved Ishmael and wanted him to have the inheritance; and God declared that “I have blessed him….. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. (Genesis 17:20) God blessed the Arab people through Ishmael by giving them prosperity, vast areas of land and oil… But the promise and a certain area of land known as the Promised Land was given through Isaac and Jacob…..But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year (Genesis 17:21).

As Christians we are to ask the Holy Spirit for a burden to pray and intercede for the Arabs. They are also the sons of Abraham. It is the Holy Spirit that will break the barrier between the Jews and Arabs that they may be a home and a blessing for both of them. The Lord makes it clear that the gospel is for everyone.

There is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all people, both the Jews and the Arabs. The most remarkable prophecy concerning the future salvation of Arab remnants is found in the Book of Isaiah where the Lord says that when the Lord strikes Egypt and Assyria, they will turn to Him and He will have compassion on them and “heal them” (See Isaiah 19:16-25).

In Jesus Christ those who have been enemies will unite in love and become brothers and sisters. The Lord will break every barrier and Egypt, Assyria and Israel will leave together in peace, worshipping the same living God! What an amazing picture.

In a nutshell, God cannot break His covenant. If He did, He would destroy Himself. God’s covenants are eternal, unbreakable. Those who teach that God broke His covenant with the Jewish people are not teaching the whole counsel of God. This is what the Lord says concerning His covenant with Israel:

Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord (Jeremiah 31:37 AMP).

Now who can measure the heavens or explore the foundations of the earth? Of course no one. Therefore God says that Israel is eternally His people.

God does not show Favoritism

In Romans 2:11 Paul also says “For there is no partiality with God.” He chose the Jews, not to be a repository of His blessings, but to be a vehicle through whom He would bless all the nations of the world, including the Palestinians and all the Arabs. But the main condition to receive God’s blessing–for both Jew and Arab, as well as all people—is to accept God’s gift of love in Jesus Christ by believing, repenting and obeying Him as Messiah.

When we consider God’s grace towards the Arab people, we are again reminded of what Paul wrote when he considered God’s grace towards His brethren the Jews:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unfathomable (inscrutable, unsearchable) are His judgments (His decisions)! And how untraceable (mysterious, undiscoverable) are His ways (His methods, His paths)! (Romans 11:33 AMP)

The message of God’s amazing grace towards the Jews and Arabs is available to all of us. There is no sin that is so dark that God’s grace is not stronger still and nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. He only requires that:

…..All people everywhere to repent (to change their minds for the better and heartily to amend their ways, with abhorrence of their past sins). Because He has fixed a day when He will judge the world righteously (justly) by a Man Whom He has destined and appointed for that task, and He has made this credible and given conviction and assurance and evidence to everyone by raising Him from the dead. His name Jesus Christ. In Hebrew Yeshua Hamashia which means salvation (see Acts 17:30 AMP).

Israel is the key nation because all end time prophecy revolves around the Jewish people and prophecy is not given to us in Scripture just so we can know beforehand what will happen in the future. It is given so we will humble our hearts in repentance and seek God, to find out how God would have us participate in that prophecy, and to pray earnestly for its fulfillment.

Prophecy is given not only so we can understand our times, but so we can be part of God’s plan. Until that day of redemption comes we must not retreat to complacency and compromise. We must obey the Word of God and also bless His people. His Word calls us to watch and pray:

I have set watchmen upon your walls, O Jerusalem, who will never hold their peace day or night; you who are His servants and by your prayers put the Lord in remembrance [of His promises, keep not silence, and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes her a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62:6-7 AMP).

Further Resources:

Franz Kobler, The Vision was There (now-out-of-print book published in 1956 written by a non-Christian, Jewish author.

The Forsaken Promise 2 DVD Disk Set from Hatikvah Films

Kelvin Crombie, For the Love of Zion–Christian Witness and Restoration of Israel

Hugh Kitson, Jerusalem The Covenant City

In his letter to the Romans, Paul answers this question emphatically: Of course not! (Romans 11:1) As far as his natural heritage is concerned, the apostle Paul was a Jew who belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, a heritage greatly esteemed among the Jews. From this tribe had come Israel’s first king, Saul (1 Samuel 10:20-24). The tribes of Benjamin and Judah were the only two tribes to return to Israel after the Exile (Ezra 4:1). He was of the party of Pharisees and studied under Gamaliel who thoroughly trained him in the law of his ancestors (Acts 22:3). His calling from the Lord was to take the Gospel to the Gentiles.

We should remember that the Jews hated Paul.(See 2 Corinthians 11:24-26) He was considered a traitor to Judaism…However, in spite of all this, Paul still felt great sorrow for the Jewish people, to the point of being willing to be placed under God’s curse, if it would help his brothers, his own people, his own flesh and blood—the people of Israel.

He loved his own people, the Jews, so much that he said he would even give up his own salvation if it would lead them to the Lord. However, even with such great love for his people, God did not call Paul to the Jews but to the Gentiles. (See Galatians 2: 6-8)

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 9:1-5 KJV)

Paul knew Israel alone received the glory, the covenants, the Law, the instructions for tabernacle worship, and the promises. Next was the Temple worship which was a symbolic portrait of the Tabernacle which explains the revelations concerning God’s plan for man. They are the patriarchs, the prophets, and, ultimately, they are the human source of Jesus Christ. The promises of redemption are to be fulfilled by their Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. Israel alone is referred to by God as “My son.”

It was only the Jewish people that experienced the Shekinah glory, which means “the glorious presence of God.” The glory was visible in the pillar of fire that led Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land. (See Exodus 13:21; 33:9; 40:36-38 Ezekiel 1:28; 3:23; 9:3; Numbers 12:5; 14:14) The covenants are theirs and those who teach that God has broken His covenant with the Jewish people are teaching a false doctrine.

Some churches started teaching that the Jews had murdered the Messiah and were therefore beyond any hope of salvation. With this misappropriation and corruption of the Gospel came the erosion of the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. For example at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE a deliberate decision was made to sever the Church from its Jewish heritage—for instance Passover was replaced with the pagan festival of Easter, and the birth of Christ was celebrated at another pagan festival which became known as Christmas. The New Covenant, it was said, belonged to the Church and the Old Covenant, which they claimed had been abolished, belonged to Israel.

In other words the Church had replaced the nation of Israel as far as God’s promises were concerned. It was taught and it is still taught by some that where the Old Testament speaks of the promises and blessings of God for Israel, ‘Israel’ should be taken to mean ‘the Church’; and where it speaks of judgment and curses, then Israel should be taken to mean ‘Israel’. And the receiving of the Law which is called the Torah…the written Word of God was given to the Church, but the Word was given to the Jewish people thousands of years before the Gentiles knew it existed. This is what we call “Replacement Theology.”

Israel in God’s Plan

Paul’s letter to the Romans is crucial in understanding the place of Jews. The Gentiles were tempted to think that they were the new Israel, having replaced the Jewish people, in God purposes. When Paul wrote the book of Romans to the Church in Rome in about 54 A.D, he rightly pointed out that Israel rejection was not final. I am really surprised that you don’t really hear many preachers, teachers, or pastors, preaching the chapters of Romans 9, 10, and 11. In chapter 11 Paul has to remind his readers that God has not finished with the Jews, just because they had rejected Him.

I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. (Romans 11:1-4)

Paul then tells the Gentiles not to be proud because the Jews were cut off so that the Gentiles will be grafted in.

You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

Furthermore, he says that we shouldn’t be ignorant of this mystery lest you should be wise in your opinion. What mystery was he talking about?

A hardening (insensibility) has temporarily befallen a part of Israel to last until the full number of the in-gathering of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved. As it is written: The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins…… And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (See Romans 11:1-36 NKJV)

Merrill Bolender in his book, When the Cross became a Sword points out the major differences between the “wild olive branches” and the “natural” branches:

The “wild olive branches” are the Gentile Christians from the New Testament era to the present time who were grafted into the olive tree. They did not have the same perspective as the Hebrew believers….They could not fully appreciate or identify with the Jews and the Jewish Scriptures, written by the Jews, to the Jews in a Jewish culture. To truly understand the Old and New Testament Scriptures, one needs to interpret the Scripture from a Hebraic perspective. The “natural branches,” or the Jewish people, understood Scripture from a Hebraic perspective. Their roots were grounded in the Jewish festivals, the Jewish community, and the coming Jewish Messiah who would fulfil all the Old Testament prophecies. The early New Testament Church was made up of Jewish people, with their roots still established in the fertile soil of the first-century Judaism. The Jewish Apostles who wrote the New Testament were intimately familiar with Judaic customs and traditions. We as the Church need to recapture the richness found in the roots of the Jewish olive tree. Our perspective needs to be that of that Hebrew people. This will enrich our view of Jesus and of the Scriptures.

The Forever Covenant God has with Israel

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you [with abundant increase of favors] and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a blessing [dispensing good to others]. And I will bless those who bless you [who confer prosperity or happiness upon you] and curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you; in you will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed [and by you they will bless themselves (Genesis 12:2-3 AMP)

……..God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” Then He finished talking with him, and God went up from Abraham. (See Genesis 17:1-22)

In blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply your descendants like the stars of the heavens and like the sand on the seashore. And your Seed (Heir) will possess the gate of His enemies, and in your Seed [Christ] shall all the nations of the earth be blessed and [by Him] bless themselves, because you have heard and obeyed My voice. (Genesis 22:17-18)

With regards to the covenant, Paul makes it very clear about the future of the nation of Israel when he cities the conclusion of Isaiah 59, in verse 27 which again refers to the New Covenant mentioned by Jeremiah:

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34 NKJV)

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews who did not identify himself but must have been well versed in the Old Testament, gives an exposition of this New Covenant exactly as it as originally written, insisting that it is a covenant with house of Israel and the house of Judah.

When God speaks of a new [covenant or agreement], He makes the first one obsolete (out of use). And what is obsolete (out of use and annulled because of age) is ripe for disappearance and to be dispensed with altogether. (Hebrews 8:13 AMP)

The mistake the Church made over the centuries was to try and rob the nation of Israel of the covenant which had been graciously and unconditionally promised to her by God. As we’ve already mentioned, this is known as Replacement Theology and it’s been the main cause of anti-Semitism. The Scripture clearly tells us that God chose the Jews to be the people through whom the rest of the Gentile world could find salvation:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. (Romans 1:16 KJV)

Conclusion

Neither Israel nor the Church deserves God’s grace. Both Israel and the Church are dependent on God’s unmerited free supernatural grace. That is why Paul tells us that it is by the grace of God that we Gentile Christians have been grafted into the olive tree and therefore we become partakers of the New Covenant. Yes, the Jewish people are witnesses of God’s amazing grace. And the same grace is available to all of us, whether we are Gentiles or the Jews. God set the Jews aside and put them under discipline because of their disobedience, but He did not cut them off from His grace. He intends to bring them back home. The prophet Hosea says,

This shows that Israel will go a long time without a king or prince, and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests, or even idols! But afterward the people will return and devote themselves to the Lord their God and to David’s descendant, their king. In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and of his goodness. (Hosea 3:4-5)

There is another key to the Jews’s significance. They continue to serve today as a chosen witness of God’s grace. This is manifested in their very existence, for the Lord tolerated for so long a people who were stubborn and rebellious, therefore they continue to be witnesses of what it means to have a relationship with God. Their history reveals that when we are faithful to the Lord and His Word, He blesses us; when we are unfaithful, He disciplines; and when we repent, He forgives, forgets and starts blessing again. This is the constant cycle that is patterned in almost all the Scriptures:

Jesus Christ the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua is the divine, eternal Son of God, who became a member of the human race by virgin birth. He led a sinless life, died on the cross as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of all humanity, was buried and rose again in bodily form from the grave on the third day. He ascended into heaven, whence He will return to earth in person, to judge the living and the dead. Everyone who repents of sin and trusts in the sacrifice of Jesus receives forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life.

The question is: Who are the real Jews? After all the internet is replete with articles and information that Jews are the ones causing the entire world’s problems including creating this New World communist order, printing money, causing depressions etc. The historical involvement of many Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the reality of many Jews in the political landscape in America and Western Europe, has led many to conclude that Jews want to take over the world.

Some hold the view that the modern-day “Jews” did not physically descend from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they instead descended from the Khazars, which are a Turkish, non-Semitic race that ruled the Khazar Empire located between the Caspian and Black Seas (now southern Russia). They believe they converted to Judaism during the early centuries.

Others believe that occupants of modern-day Israel are Jews who are mainly the descendants of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, as these were the main tribes living in Israel at the time of Christ and were then dispersed after the revolt against the Roman Empire in AD 70.

Another common view is what some have termed “British Israelism,” which is the belief that many of the world’s English-speaking peoples, like the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, are direct descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Furthermore, since God looks kindly upon the descendants of Israel, those who claim this relationship often believe God favours them.

Those who hold this view believe that this is the main reason why they’ve come to possess the richest portions of earthly wealth. Most of these maintain that when the Assyrians conquered Samaria, Israel’s capital in 721 BC, the northern tribes of Israel were captured and enslaved by the Assyrians.

So these northern tribes never returned from their captivity and they contend that these “ten lost tribes” of Israel made their way to Northern Europe, the British Islands, and some migrated as far as North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and around the world.

These theological doctrines have been attributed to Mr. Herbert M. Armstrong (1892–1986), who is the founder of the Worldwide Church of God. Though his interpretation is very complicated and tedious, he concludes that England descended from Ephraim and the United States from Manasseh. Some prophecy teachers reject his interpretation and have claimed that he takes passage after passage out of context. In his book The Late United States, author and Bible prophecy teacher, Mark Hitchcock rightly notes:

The northern tribes have been not been lost. Many of them have been dispersed, but not lost. God knows where every man, woman, and child of them is located.Those who doubt that God will literally appoint 144,000 Jewish males during the end times are lacking a biblical view of God (see Revelation 7:4–7). Even though tribal identities may be forgotten by mankind, God has never lost track of them—who or where they are. And in our time we are witnessing the initial stages of the final re-gathering of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland…. These ten tribes are not, nor have they ever been lost. And they are not in any way related to the United States. The United States is not the ten lost tribes of Israel, nor the tribe of Manasseh. Israel is still Israel and will fulfill its central role in the events of the end times, just as the Bible predicts.

The Sin of Anti-Semitism

We can understand that Jewish hatred and anti-Semitism have more to do with God and His purposes rather than the Jewish people themselves. This does not mean that the Jews are better or worse than anyone else. It is because God chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to bring redemption to the world, the Messiah Himself being a Jew. So in that light, it will be a bad day for all the anti-Semites when they realize that the all-powerful King coming in a flaming fire is a glorified Jew.

As Christians, we should be careful not to be anti-Semitic when it comes to dealing with the Jews. We have to remember that some Jews and their leaders are just as secular as American humanists. Those who think that it’s the Jewish or Zionist conspiracy that is creating the New World Order and causing all the world’s financial problems should understand this conspiracy involves participants of all races, tribes, and tongues.

The Bible describes a time when Israel will be isolated from the rest of the world and attacked by kings of the north, east, south, and west. Does this sound like a nation that will secretly take over the world? Just like some of the framers who wanted to replace Christianity with a religion of human reason, even today there many other humanist Jews and Gentiles who hate anything that has to do with Yeshua and Christians.

This is essentially a struggle between good and evil. It is not a Jewish problem as people are portraying it—it is anti-Semitism, and on a deeper level occultic, as it was in Nazi Germany. There is overwhelming evidence in the Word of God to indicate that anyone who curses the true descendants of Abraham, whether individually or as a nation, will be cursed (see Genesis 12:3). The laboratory is Europe. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn believed:

The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century. The first of these was World War I and II and much of our present predicament can be traced back to it. It was a war (the memory of which seems to be fading) when Europe, bursting with health and abundance, fell into a rage of self-mutilation which could not but sap its strength for a century or more, and perhaps forever. The only possible explanation for this war is a mental eclipse among the leaders of Europe due to their lost awareness of a Supreme Power above them.

There is no doubt that one of the main reasons for the present lukewarm and powerless condition of the Church in Europe is due to anti-Semitism even in the pulpits. The record on religious freedom in Europe is much worse than across the Atlantic.

It’s been noted that secular humanists exercise more control in positions of leadership in Europe than they do in the United States. Four per cent of the British people attend church services. Why is this? Some believe it is because Bible-believing Christians in America understand the spiritual implications of blessing Israel; therefore, they’ve been blessed in many spiritual ways.

Despite its many mistakes, America has experienced more religious freedom and prosperity than any other nation partly because of the churches and individual Christians’s desire to support the Jewish nation. They recognize that the Jews are God’s chosen people, not because they deserve it, but because He chose them like He chose the church. As believers in Yeshua, we are to bless Israel because of the following reasons:

• God says He will bless those who bless them (12:3; Isaiah 60:12).
• We owe them a debt for the blessings we have received through them (Romans 9:4-5; 15:27)
• God’s gift and call on Israel has not been revoked (Romans 11:28).
• God has promised to bring them back to their land. The re-gathering of Israel is prophesized in Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah and even by Jesus Himself in Luke 21:24.
• The times of the Gentiles are almost fulfilled (Luke 21:28).
• We are to comfort God’s chosen people (Isaiah 40:1-2; 49:22-23).
• Teaching against anti-Semitism where is most deeply entrenched.

Are believers supposed to support everything the Jewish nation does? Absolutely not! We should understand that the notion of protecting Israel from her adversaries has been exploited by the military-industrial complex and made life even more dangerous for Israel.

We are also advised not to participate or get involved in the rebuilding of the temple Why? We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and some believe the anti-Christ will defile this temple.

Israel still has a geographical promise which they will have to claim in due time. Whereas, the Church has been given no such promise. The Church is a chosen nation and we hold no political identity.

Our task is to be a light to the world and to proclaim that Jesus alone saves us from eternal death…. there is salvation in and through no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by and in which we must be saved, (Acts 4:12) and that He is coming again. Maranatha… Come, Lord Jesus…

There is a story concerning Frederick the Great who, in frustration, demanded from his cabinet that somebody provide him with proof of the existence of God. There was a monetary silence before one of his counsellors spoke up: “Have you considered the Jew, your Majesty?” He asked. The continuing existence of the Jew is one of the many evidences of God’s existence.

The Jews are the physical evidence of God on earth. You can dispute and scientifically explain away the Hebraic-Christian concept, and every human evidence of God’s existence, but you cannot explain away the Jew. John Adams, America’s second president said,

The Jews have done more to the civilization of mankind than any other Nation. They are the most glorious Nation that ever inhabited the earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more, and more happily than any other Nation, ancient or modern.

In the epilogue of his work A History of the Jews, historian Paul Johnson writes,

In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus describes Abraham as a man of great sagacity; (exceptional or extraordinary discernment) or who had “higher notions of virtue than others of his time.” He therefore determined to change completely the views which all then had about God.” One way of summing up 4,000 years of Jewish history is to ask ourselves what would have happened to the human race if Abraham had not been a man of great sagacity, or if he had stayed in Ur and kept his higher notions to himself, and no specific Jewish people had come into being. Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without Jews it might have been a much emptier place.

But where did these values and principles of the modern world that Johnson is talking about come from? In his well written and researched book, World Perfect: The Jewish Impact on Civilization Rabbi Ken Spiro notes that while developing an idea for a lecture program, he conducted a series of surveys over two years, asking people to list the fundamental values and principles which they felt we needed to uphold to make our world as perfect as is humanly possible.

In total, some fifteen hundred individuals were questioned. Overwhelmingly, his respondents—predominantly Westerners, from the United States, Canada, South America, England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc–came up with remarkably similar answers, which could be grouped into these six categories:

1. Respect for Human Life. In a perfect world, all people would be guaranteed certain basic human rights, paramount among which must be the right to life. They should be able to live that life without constant fear of its loss and with certain basic dignity.
2. Peace and Harmony. On all levels—whether communal or global—people and nations should co-exist in peace and harmony with respect for each other.
3. Justice and Equality. All people, regales of race, sex, or social status should be treated equally and fairly in the eyes of the law.
4. Education. Everyone should receive a basic education that would guarantee functional literacy within society.
5. Family. A strong, stable family structure needs to exist to serve as the moral foundation for society and as the most important institution for socializing/educating children.
6. Social Responsibility. On an individual, community, national and global level, people must take responsibility for the world. This should include an organized social network to address basic concerns such as disease, poverty, famine, crime, and drug-related problems, as well as environmental and animal protection issues.

Yes, it is true as Ken Spiro states that our moral values do not originate from one of the great civilizations, but have been bequeathed to us by a small, otherwise insignificant nation inhabiting a tiny piece of real estate in the Middle East that was chosen to disseminate some of these values to the world as the Lord Himself said:

For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:6-8 NKJV)

This was the story they told from the time they appeared on the world scene around 1300 BCE, hundreds of years before the ascent of the Greek civilization. Back then, they were still a newly emerging nation that functioned more like a large extended family, all family members tracing their ancestry to a man named Abraham who had lived somewhere around 1,800 BCE. They were a strange people with an even stranger religion:

• They believed in only one God — all-powerful, infinite, and invisible — who had created everything known to man, a notion totally foreign to every ancient people that preceded them.
• They claimed that all of them — some 600,000 men and untold number of women and children — had miraculously escaped from slavery in Egypt, then the mightiest empire on earth, through the miraculous intervention of their God.
• They claimed that after their great escape, they reached a mountain in the wilderness, Mt. Sinai, where they all had an encounter with God; during that encounter, and through the person of their leader Moses, they supposedly received a code of behavior — compiled in a holy book known as the “Torah” — which they scrupulously followed.

Yeshua is the Greatest Blessing

The Scriptures through the Holy Spirit make us to understand that God chose the Jews to be the people through whom the rest of mankind could find salvation through His Jewish Son Jesus Christ. About four thousand years ago God chose a man called Abram later renaming him Abraham. In Genesis 12:2-3 the Bible tells us:

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you with abundant increase of favors and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a blessing (dispensing good to others). And I will bless those who bless you who confer prosperity or happiness upon you and curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you; in you will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed and by you they will bless themselves.

The Lord Jesus Christ, all the twelve apostles, and the original Christian church were all Jews, as were the Old Testament patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, along with his twelve sons. Moses was also Jewish, as were the prophets Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Amos, Micah and the kings of Israel, like David, Solomon, and Hezekiah.

No one had been on David’s throne for 600 years until Jesus who would be the rightful King. The gospel according to Matthew sees Jesus as the King of Jews, the one who fulfills the promises of the prophets. Without the Jews, there would be no Bible, no gospel, and no salvation presented to the entire world. In fact, without the Jewish Jesus, there would be no Christianity.

Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing the world has ever possessed. And all the true blessedness the world is now or ever shall be possessed of is owing to Abraham and his posterity. The Jews are the stock on which the Christian church is grafted. (See Romans 11:13-22) Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of the Jewish people. For that reason our spiritual lineage extends all the way back to Abraham.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) who wrote one of his best-known books Ethics emphasized that:

Western history is, by God’s will, indissolubly linked with the people of Israel. Jesus Christ is the sign of the free mercy-choice and of repudiating the wrath of God. Paul reminds us of this, “Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off” (Romans 11:22). That is why an expulsion of the true Jews from the West must bring with it the expulsion of Christ, for Jesus Christ is first and foremost a Jew.

In the 1760s the government of Poland persecuted and targeted the Jews. Desiring freedom, most of them fled the country and traveled throughout Europe. One of those Jews was a man by the names of Haym Salomon (1740–1785), who believed America to be a country where Jewish people could safely live. It has been noted by different historians that a number of Jews played significant roles in the founding of the American nation, men like Francis Salvador, a Jew who was the first patriot to be killed in Georgia.

In Charleston, South Carolina, almost every adult Jewish male fought on the side of freedom. Many historians believe that had it not been for the faithful efforts of Haym Salomon and other Jews, things would have turned out differently.

Not only did Salomon use personal finances to provide interest free loans to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and numerous other public figures, he also personally paid the salaries of some government officials and army officers. He was twice arrested by the British, who suspected him of being a spy, and was thrown into a disease-infested prison where he became ill, probably with the tuberculosis that later claimed his life.

Virtually all of the delegates of the Constitutional Convention knew Haym Salomon. Six of the delegates had long been dependent on his generosity for their own livelihoods or for the maintenance of the particular government function for which they were responsible. James Madison, the future president, sought out Salomon. Madison’s papers record his indebtedness to the Jewish financier, who refused both a note and interest.

Though Article 6 dispelled the cloud of bigotry and gave freedom of each of the American people to express their individual faith according to the dictates of their own hearts, we should not forget that it was the same that opened the door for Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians to serve in official governmental capacities. It became the initial means by which America was transformed from a monotheistic Christian nation to a polytheistic one. Article 6 and the First Amendment’s impact upon equal rights for American Jews is summed up by Michael Alexander:

Although the Constitution of the United States does not specifically mention Jews, its religious liberty provisions in essence granted Jews the honor of citizenship. The United States was thus the first non-Jewish country, ancient or modern, that included Jews as political equals. The Constitution of the United States prohibited a religious test for government (Article VI), and the First Amendment prohibited Congress from establishing any religion, thus permuting Jews to participate as equal citizens on the federal level. By 1820, most state constitutions eliminated religious qualifications that had kept Jews from participating in public affairs and government office.

Author Ted Weiland, called it a “compromise is a journey halfway down the road to surrender…. Though many Christians today laud the constitutional idea of freedom of religion, which allows gods other than God to be worshipped in America. Thanks to Article 6 and so-called Christians then and now, the ambassadors of those other gods are now government leaders who are helping to establish their god’s morality as the laws of the nation.”

The ban on the Religious Test Clause was not because the federal test was deemed unnecessary in light of the states’ constitutions, but instead to pave the way for deists, atheists, and even anti-Christians to hold public office. It was not the intent of the constitutional framers to leave the decision of religion solely to the states.

While it is true that the prime motivation for the two religious clauses found in the Constitution appears to have been liberty of conscience in religious matters, the framers were not opposed to non-Christian or even antichrist religions. The framers had liberty for all religions in mind when they forbade Christian test oaths, as evidenced in their writings.

This compromise led to a more secular state that replaced piety as the spirit of science fostered critical thinking and rationalism. What followed was the unequal yoking with other religious beliefs and following Jesus Christ, and Christian test oaths were considered religious extremism and fundamentalism. God’s eternal principles were slowly replaced by an atmosphere of open-mindedness and tolerance, and it became more acceptable for faith to assume different forms.

The Enlightenment preached the sacredness of every individual—a principle that would become a cornerstone of the American democratic ideal that all men are created equal, and that their Creator endows them with certain unalienable rights.

Marquis de Lafayette, who fought with the colonists during the American Revolution, wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which was adopted by the French National Assembly on August 16, 1789—a document that served as the key philosophic foundation of the French Revolution, drawing on the American Declaration of Independence. It declared, “All men are born, and remain, free and equal in rights.” This theory of natural rights is related to the theory of natural law.

During the Age of Enlightenment, natural law theory challenged the divine right of kings. The term “natural rights” is a humanistic concept and is not compatible with the Bible. Deuteronomy 30:19–20 specifies that we don’t have a human or civil right to do anything we want. Rather, we are given the choice between life and death, blessing and cursing.

If any of us have embraced new age thinking or Enlightenment views, then we might be having a very different idea of Who or what God might be to us. We possibly believe in polytheism—that there is a multiplicity of gods. God has not only revealed Who is He is in the Scriptures, but He clearly tells us that there is no salvation outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus states,

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to Father except through Me” (John 14:6). And Isaiah declares: Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God. (Isaiah 44:6) I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no Savior. (Isaiah 43:11)