Understanding Israel’s place

                   in Bible prophecy

      When Jacob wrestled with GOD saying, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me” (Gen.32:26) his overcoming faith in GOD’S deliverance led the LORD to give Jacob a new name: “Israel.”

      Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob carry special significance for us as Christians because each played an important role in establishing the family through whose lineage the Saviour of the world would come. Abraham, the father of the faithful; Isaac, born from above; and Jacob, the overcomer are the key character traits for a successful faith. And all three held the knowledge of the coming of Jesus Christ. Said Jesus to the Jewish leaders, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” Jn.8:56. GOD gave a vision to Abraham showing him the Son from his loins that was to save the world from sin with all its sufferings. This knowledge was passed down through the generations. Even in the time of the prophet Daniel the knowledge of “the Son of God” was held and shared (Dan.3:25).

      Today’s nation state of Israel refutes the knowledge of Christ. Because of this, the unbelieving Jews have no spiritual right to take the name of Israel when they corporately stand against the very GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

      Jesus and His Apostle Paul marked the end of the orthodox Jews’ right to claim any superiority over other men: “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” Matt.21:43; 23:38; Acts 13:46.

      At their rejection of Jesus Christ they sealed their fate, of which the “Seventy weeks” (or 490 year) prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 signified as the time-frame of GOD’S forbearance with the Jews whose incurable apostasy led them to murder the world’s Messiah, the very One they were educated for 1,875 years to recognize and embrace (Jn.8:56). Had they dealt honestly with the Scriptures they never would have rejected Him (Lu.16:31). The stoning of Steven in 34 A.D. brought an end for the Jewish nation forever as GOD’S “peculiar treasure” (Ex.19:5; Dan.9:24; Acts 7:55). The Jewish race is no longer GOD’S special representatives to the world. They now stand equal with all men: to hear or to forebear the truth, "as the truth is in Jesus" (Eph.4:21).

      This same dishonesty with the Word of GOD has existed all throughout Roman Catholic Church history. When the Reformers unanimously saw the Bible prophecies pointing directly to the pope as the great Antichrist of Bible prophecy, with all the sins, murder and theft he condoned, to counter this theology, the Jesuit priest, Francisco Ribera, in 1575, established a theology that removed the pope from any Biblical condemnation. To accomplish this he fractured the 70th week from Daniel’s prophecy, placing the last seven years at the end of earth’s history. It is this Catholic doctrine that rules Protestant thinking today; and this accounts for the popular theology of “the seven year tribulation,” the fabricated “future Antichrist,” “the secret rapture,” “the restored Jewish temple,” “144,000 Jews finishing the Gospel work,” and “the global battle of Armageddon taking place in the tiny valley of Megiddo.” Protestants teach this theology as if the Bible endorses it, when it does not. The last seven years of Daniel’s prophecy is about the coming of Jesus Christ, not Antichrist.

      The trusting flocks have been betrayed by the shepherds all because maintaining a selfish authority is more important to the leaders of the church than “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn.14:6). But GOD knows His own in every walk of life and will gather them “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.” Mal.4:5.

      What then is the purpose of Israel today? Christians teach that the orthodox Jews still worship the GOD of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: that both Jews and Christians worship the same GOD. Christians have succumbed to the Jews continuing declaration, “We alone are GOD’S chosen people,” and using verses of Scripture to threaten those who refuse subservience to the dictates of Orthodox Judaism. Let’s examine this. The orthodox Jews today (whose Pharisaical theology extends back to the days of Christ) will never believe what the Bible teaches: that Christ is the “Maker of heaven and earth:” that He commands the preservation of civilization (Col.1:16,17): that it is He Whose sacrifice has delivered from sin those who believe in Him and are loyal to His Ten Commandment Law. And they will never believe His words when He declared Himself as the Great “I AM” (Jn.8:58). But the Bible is clear: He was the One who brought Eve to Adam in marriage. He was the One who brought Enoch and Elijah to heaven before their deaths; spoke to our father Noah; our spiritual father Abraham; as well as Job, Moses and all the prophets of old. He delivered the Hebrews from Egypt, escorting them for forty years in the wilderness; commanding manna to rain from the sky providing their food; cooling the temperature with a cloud by day; warming the temperature with a pillar of fire by night. He opened the earth for their drinking water; “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Ex.31:18). His Presence was the Shekinah Glory that filled the temples of Moses and Solomon (Ex.40:34; I Ki.8:10,11). The Levitical priesthood served Him in the sanctuary on earth as a type of Christ as our “High Priest” serving before our Father in heaven (Heb.8:1). In the days of Judah’s final apostasy and downfall (Eze.ch.9-11) He was the One who slowly stepped down from the Mercy Seat and left the Most Holy Place in Solomon’s temple, never to return; for the sins of priests eternally demanded His departure (Isa.30:7), and Christ never stays where He’s not wanted (Matt.8:34). Our Creator has always been and will ever be with them that desire Him: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Matt.28:20. As a result of these simple facts of Scripture the orthodox Jews do not serve “the GOD of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” for if they did they would be proclaiming Jesus Christ to the world. The Jewish nation today is without Christ and a Saviour no less than the day when they crucified Him. They spit at the mere mention of His Name. Christ’s declaration to the unbelieving Jews of old is no less true for the unbelieving Jews today: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” Jn.8:44. How then does this fact of standing condemned before the LORD Jesus Christ secure their supremacy before the other nations of men?

      “Our Father which art in heaven” is tender hearted with the Jews as He is with all people who sit in the betrayal of ignorance and pride. In light of this, the nation of Israel today has but two purposes in the LORD’S plan of salvation:

1. GOD ordained the Jewish people to handle the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments (Deut.31:9). Through their hands GOD will allow His Law to be restored to public view when He brings them out from Jeremiah’s grotto where they have been hidden for over 2,600 years. The timing of their exhibition is precious with GOD, for the world is consolidating against His Holy Precepts, and GOD will bring them forth just at the time they are needed the most so people can reevaluate what is being said to them by the ruling Christian leaders verses what GOD has said to them in the permanence of stone.

2. The LORD, in His great mercy remembers the prayers of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the salvation of their children. GOD will honor their prayers by providing the best possible chance to reach the minds and hearts of the Jewish people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, calling them to repent and believe on the Son of GOD. GOD will speak one last message through the lips of His servants (Isa.57:19), that through His compassionate plea some will sense His drawing love founded on the plain “Thus saith the LORD” and will stand with the people of GOD through to the end “of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”

      Christians in America today are deceived into believing a prophetic scenario that the Bible declares is not authentic. This is proven due to men mingling sin in the midst of their religious practice. While GOD will overrule the plans of men to His Honor & Glory, all that has taken place, including establishing the modern nation state of Israel is the fruit of the union of Jewish bankers with Rome’s counter-reformation theology whose distortion of Bible prophecy has removed the pope from all condemnation. And when the Rothschild Bank took control of the wealth of the papacy in 1823, and by 1900 held control of 50% of the world’s money, this opened the financial freedom for the papacy to fulfill the prophecies of their own devising and mold society into accepting their version of end time events. They have led the church to believe that these prophetic doctrines are of GOD, when in fact they are the sole fabrication of the Jesuit Order. Said Jesus, “If any man will do his [the Father’s] will, he shall know of the doctrine.” Jn.7:17. What is the Father’s will? “Shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” Ex.20:6. The history of Rome is a history of transgression against GOD’S Commandments, and therefore, they are untrustworthy to lead souls to salvation. And yet, here they are, seated on the throne of the religious world.

      In closing: United with the belligerent schemes of men is the deceiving power of Satan who eagerly misleads the church through miracles, and thus, harden men in their course of sin. The LORD warned of this long ago, “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.” Deut.13:1-5.

      As the competition between the true and the false continues, with each swelling to their peaks of influence, the only safe course for GOD’S faithful children is in the Scriptures as Paul said, “the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” II Tim.3:15. Within the safety-net of the Bible there is seen a hard reality in what is taking place at this time, and it needs to be exposed. And the reality is this: as the Jews and Romans united to crucify the Son of GOD nearly 2000 years ago, so the Jews and Romans have united once more, but this time to kill Christ in the person of His saints (Matt.25:41-46). This is the grand finale of sin’s lust for domination in the Earth. But Jesus addressed this last test for His faithful children, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Jn.16:33.