Romans Lesson 30: Israel is Blind for Now :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR7 Category:General Articles, Sean Gooding

Chapter 9:30-33 

“What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:

“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

Jesus found great blindness in Israel as He walked the streets and by ways of Israel. There were, of course, the physically blind, and there are many accounts of Jesus healing blind men. But what broke His heart was the spiritual blindness of the people whose job it was to help others see Him. Sadly, many who are spiritually blind prefer to stay that way. Such was the case in Jesus’ day as well. We have an example of Nicodemus in John 3 who wanted to see; and when he saw Jesus, he believed, but many of his colleagues in the Pharisees and Sanhedrin refused to see Jesus for who He was.

I fear that we have a similar thing today in the Lord’s churches. We have substituted fame for substance. We have watered down the Gospel for the sake of popularity, and we have made the Lord’s churches too comfortable. Jesus made life uncomfortable for the people to whom He ministered. From the woman at the well and her admission to having 5 husbands, to Mary and Martha and the importance of listening to Jesus over being busy, to admonishing Peter not once but three times, calling him ‘Satan’ one time, we find that Jesus did not pull a lot of punches when dealing with people. He was lovingly blunt; we would call Him offensive in our politically correct culture today.

Israel was already blinded when Jesus got there. They had so polluted the truth with traditions that one could hardly see the truth anymore. Wow! I am having this very discussion with some brothers in the Lord right now. There are so many traditions in the North American churches that we have a hard time separating preference from precepts. I grew up in Barbados, a beautiful little island in the Caribbean. I was saved at 14 years old one Monday night in the spring of 1981 at an outdoor service hosted by the Billy Graham ministries. My younger brother was saved the next night after we moved indoors because of rain. The salvation that was taught those nights was the same Gospel I teach today, that one is saved by faith in Jesus only.

One can be saved only by trusting in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus for salvation. It is the same Gospel that many local churches all around the world teach daily under trees in Africa, in homes in Japan, in garages in South America, and all around the world. However, once one is saved, then where you live is fraught with tradition that can thwart one’s growth. There are a lot of religious things that are not of God, even seemingly good things. Once we begin to put these manmade, tangible things into place as landmarks, they can take over and choke the true spiritual growth.

We are all different. Things like learning to forgive, being a good servant, loving unconditionally and being selfless, learning to give financially to the Lord, and things like being available to the Lord at all times – these are the true spiritual growths that are universal to all cultures and peoples. But things like haircuts, whether the ladies wear pants or skirts, or if they wear makeup, if the music is contemporary or traditional, whether you meet in a building or a house or under a tree, these things do not matter.

We have built a Christianity that has made being a Christian cheap. We have traded external change for true genuine change; we have traded the spiritual disciplines of humility and sacrifice for whether we hold our hands up and cry at the watered-down and repetitious singing that we call worship. We are blinded; even the saved are blinded for the most part. Every day I listen to interviews with lost people of all ages who are completely sold on evolution, abortion on demand, that men and women are the same, and that being a man or woman is subjective and not a matter of science-based on XY and XX chromosomes. They believe that their gender is fluid and they can be anything they want to be.

They don’t fear answering God one day and think they will school God on His mistakes. They are blinded by the lies of this world. Sadly, many Christians have fallen into the trap that they are the Social Justice Warriors (SJW) of the world as well. They think that loving people means accepting them and their sinful lifestyles; who are we to judge? This is hogwash, and we are called to call out sin; we are called not to be hypocrites but to admit first that we are sinners and then to call out sin.

Many of our churches are no longer separated unto Jesus and thus offer no real refuge from the world system. Many pastors interpret the Bible in today’s words and not as it was written. They want the Bible to be relevant; well, it is written by an ever-present God; thus, its teachings are as relevant today as they were then. They do not need to be reinterpreted; they need to be taught and applied.

I have just read through the book of Romans in my personal devotions, and once again I see the promise to Israel that their blindness is temporary. The time of the Gentiles is coming to an end. The end of the church age is quickly coming to an end; and soon, the eyes of the Jews will be opened, and they will see Jesus. 144,000 Jewish men will be called as missionaries in Revelation 7 to go throughout the world and call the Jews from all corners of the world to come home. Once the Jews’ eyes are opened, the Gentiles of the Tribulation world will be, for the most part, blind. But for now, we can see; you need to be saved from your sinful condition, and Jesus is the only answer.

He will send His Holy Spirit to open your eyes if you are tired of being blind, and like Paul in Act 9:18, the scales of blindness will fall off, so to speak, and you will see Jesus as He was crucified and glorified. This is the Jesus that you need, the Jesus that calls out sin, the Jesus that convicts the heart of right and wrong, the Jesus who breaks us and then remakes us in His image, the Jesus who calls for the total surrender of both ourselves and our possessions for His Kingdom. That is the Jesus that you need. The one who gave His all for us and continues to stand for us and with us daily. The Jesus who carries us when we cannot carry ourselves, and the Jesus who never changes.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Zechariah 5:5-11 – Homecoming: Babel Returns Home :: By Mark A. Becker

Published on: by RR7 Category:General Articles

[Note: This author is a pre-Tribulation rapture believer, and this article reflects that view.]

Introduction

This article is written as a follow-up to “A Combined Interpretive Scenario of Revelation 17 and 18,” which can be found here: https://www.raptureready.com/2020/08/05/a-combined-interpretive-scenario-of-revelation-17-18-by-mark-a-becker/ or https://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=204830 Please read this article first to get a complete understanding to this study of a possible interpretation of Zechariah 5:5-11.

The above-mentioned article summarizes my belief that the Antichrist will set up his “throne” in a rebuilt Babylon, in modern-day Iraq, after the 10 kings destroy the “Whore of Babylon the Great” and the city where she sits, described in Revelation chapters 17 and 18. I likewise suggest that after the Abomination of Desolation (Daniel 9:27), the Antichrist will also have a base of operations in Jerusalem.

I believe this interpretation of Zechariah 5:5-11 shows the Babylon connection to the Antichrist and his Mark that controls all commerce, human surveillance and tracking, and the enforced worship system of himself as God.

I would like to break down this passage of Scripture into sections and add a commentary to each, in an attempt to make this more easily comprehensible.

First, the passage in its entirety.

Zechariah 5:5-11

“Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth. And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.

“Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base” (Zechariah 5:5-11).

“Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth.”

An “ephah” is a measuring basket used mainly for grain. This conjures up an image of the third seal – the black horse – in Revelation 6:5. This passage uses the measures of wheat and of barley; the same substances measured when using an ephah.

This seems to indicate that the ephah is a symbol for the essential dry foods in a person’s diet, and as a picture of necessary commerce for the sustenance of human life. What’s left of the world economy (which has been decimated by the first three and one-half years of God’s judgment and depopulation) is represented by the ephah.

The phrase, “their resemblance,” is the translation of a single Hebrew word, “ayin,” meaning “an eye.” When taking the literal “an eye” translation, the statement would read, “This is an ephah that goeth forth. This is an eye through all the earth.”

The New English Translation translates it, “This is their ‘eye’ throughout all the earth.”

This is extremely interesting to me. When thinking of an ephah as food commerce that has “an eye though all the earth,” one can’t help but see a picture of Revelation 13:17, “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark…” The Antichrist’s “eye” will track all buying and selling of basic commodities “through all the earth” by the means of his Mark of The Beast economic system.

“And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.”

The talent of lead is keeping “a woman” inside the ephah. Some suggest that this is against the will of the woman, but I don’t see anything in the text that confirms this thought. Notice that the woman is “[sitting] in the midst of the ephah.” She isn’t struggling to get out. The imagery is that of the angel pulling the woman out of the ephah to show Zechariah and then casting her back inside and covering up the ephah with a lead weight, where she was already sitting comfortably.

The Hebrew word for “woman” is “ishshah” and is equivalent to the Greek word for woman in the New Testament, which is “gune.” I point this out only to suggest that the words are pointing to the same symbolic entity: that is, they both are referring to a false religious system. We find the Greek word “gune” referring to the Roman Catholic church in Revelation 17, over and over. Women in prophecy are always identified as a religious system (unless specified), and I don’t see any exception to that cohesiveness here.

This is especially confirmed, in the identity of the woman, when the angel says, “This is wickedness.”

This imagery of the woman sitting comfortably inside the ephah, sealed with a lead weight, shows that the basic necessities of economic commerce and a religious system are intricately linked; they are melded together. The Mark of The Beast system will be that of basic sustainable human commerce and worship of the Beast as God, under the all-seeing eye of the Antichrist himself.

“Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven.”

“Two women,” in keeping with the understanding that women represent religious systems, would indicate two other religions escorting the new religious system of the Antichrist to its destination.

The Antichrist’s system of self-worship actually has two other established religions that are extremely compatible with what he will be setting up, and they each have their respective influences in the Eastern and Western hemispheres of the earth.

The first is Hinduism in the east. The second is the offspring of Hinduism in the west, known as New Age. Both have pantheistic and panentheistic teachings; that all is God, and all is in God. The link between these two “religions” is, of course, meditation, which opens up the meditator to a demonic agent to operate within the psyche through the act of stilling the mind. This technique, invariably, results in demonically influenced doctrines, climaxed with the understanding that he or she is God.

Antichrist will claim to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4), and I can think of no other religions that will help acknowledge that claim better than these two.

Once the ecumenical uniting of all religions under the Roman Catholic church has been destroyed by the 10 kings (Revelation 17:16-17), and they give their earthly empire to the Antichrist, these two religions, it seems, will unite with Antichrist and “escort” – or promote and back – his brand new Mark of The Beast economic and worship system to the location described in the next verse.

Notice, also, that the ephah was lifted up “between the earth and the heaven.” Again, this symbolism, for me, hearkens to Scripture describing Satan as being “the prince of the power of the air… “(Ephesians 2:2). This is the atmospheric positioning where all of mankind’s satellites orbit and will be the means by which the Antichrist will have “an eye through all the earth” to track all transactions, locations, and activity of every human being on earth.

“Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.”

As most know, the “land of Shinar” is where Nimrod and the peoples of the earth had set up the first worldwide attempt at a unifying governmental, economic, and religious system at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).

Although some young-earth Creationists (which I am one) believe the area of the ancient city of Babylon in modern day Iraq was originally under water that soon after the flood, and that Babel was probably in another location nearby, the city of Babylon in Iraq will probably be that city in the “land of Shinar” where the Antichrist will set up shop.

The “house” that is built to set the system up “upon her own base” could very well be a “temple” that will almost assuredly include the surveillance equipment needed for the Antichrist to track every person on earth.

It appears that the False Prophet will set up an image in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem (Daniel 9:27) after the Antichrist commits the Abomination of Desolation and declares himself God (Revelation 13:11-15 & 2Thessalonians 2:4), and it certainly could be possible that another “image” will be stationed in the “house” in the “land of Shinar” as well.

The question arises: Will there be two “images,” one in Babylon and one in the temple in Jerusalem, or does the Antichrist take the “image” he sets up in Babylon and relocate it to the temple in Jerusalem? It could be either. But I actually see no reason why there couldn’t be two images, whatever the images will, and may, entail. It seems the Antichrist will have a base of operations in both cities during the last three and one-half years of the Tribulation, which I detail a little more in “A Combined Interpretive Scenario of Revelation 17 & 18” – https://www.raptureready.com/2020/08/05/a-combined-interpretive-scenario-of-revelation-17-18-by-mark-a-becker/ or https://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=204830

Conclusion

The imagery in Zechariah 5:5-11 symbolizes the Antichrist’s Mark of the Beast economic and worship system, melded together as one cohesive unit, the system’s absolute control over the entire earth, and the location this system and Antichrist will operate from.

Even though I believe this to be the correct interpretation, I always like to remind others that, in regard to future prophecy, “I think I’m right – but I could be wrong.”

Future prophecy can be a difficult subject to undertake.

Although we have a much clearer perspective of future prophecy than generations before us, no one will know the exact playing out of the events of God’s prophetic plan this side of the fulfillment of these prophecies.

There are many interpretations and scenarios that have been suggested throughout the years, but the picture will become much clearer and more defined to the prophecy student as time moves on.

But thank our mighty God and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we won’t be here to see the final climax of history, as He will be taking His bride back to the Father’s house to forever be with Him (John 14:1-3). What a glorious day that will be!

Love, grace, mercy, and shalom in Messiah Yeshua, and Maranatha!

Email: mab10666@yahoo.com