Dome of the Rock :: By Jim Towers

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dome of the Rock wasn’t destroyed by a stray missile, and the whole Islamic world would then be at war with the Israelis. This could also happen by a “Lone Wolf hoping to incite the billions of Islamists in the world. It wouldn’t take any more than that incident to spark World War III.

Already, the Houthis of Yemen are/were shooting ballistic missiles across the Red Sea at Israel near where the two primary Islamic Mosques are located. But after being bombarded back to the Stone Age by Israel in retaliation, they have quieted down for now.

The initial action initiated by the terrorist organization known as Hamas was planned months in advance, with Iran leading the way with armaments bought by U.S. taxpayers provided by our own government – through Barack and Joe. But God is on the throne and is flooding some of these countries with Biblical floods, even as we speak.

The U.S. has more Jews than even Israel, and they are still scattered all around the world, usually to the benefit of the host countries. They are innovators, scientists, bankers and the like, which isn’t to say they aren’t capable of sinful activity. In fact, like all the rest of humanity, they too can fall into sin and be a stain on the chosen people of God. But alas, these wayward souls are simply a microcosm of the rest of humanity.

We have to wonder where the gay rights marches will be held this year in Israel or if they will be held at all in the days ahead. Let’s hope these perverts wake up and repent.

I’ve had many Jewish friends during my lifetime and have found them, for the most part, to be benevolent, kind, and understanding. But like the rest of humanity, some can also be brutish. Most have the propensity to be wary of their fellow man, and rightfully so, since from the beginning of the Jewish race, they have been vilified and mistreated.

I just finished reading the book A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson, a British historian. The book is the largest one I’ve ever read and one of the most compelling next to The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico by Bernal Dias De Castillo, which also contained over six hundred pages and was bought at a library sale for fifty cents. The funny thing about obtaining this latest book is that I bought it at another public library for a dollar – thirty years later.

Not only that, but I bought it a day before the war between the Israelis and Hamas! Even before I knew such a thing would happen (I bought it on a Friday, and the war began the day after I bought it – Saturday. The timing couldn’t have been better).

The book was as thorough as a book can get, with dates, names, and places and detailing the events that the displaced and persecuted Jews endured and why. This gives me a greater insight into the reasons for the unbridled hatred of the Jewish people.

As the writer of this book states (and I quote):

No people have been more fertile in enriching poverty or humanizing wealth or in misfortune to creative account. This capacity springs from a moral philosophy, both solid and subtle, which has changed remarkably little over the millennia precisely because it has been seen to prove the purposes of those who share it. Countless Jews, in all ages, have groaned under the burden of Judaism. But they have known in their hearts that it carried them. The Jews were survivors because they possessed the law of survival.

The Jews have been great truth-tellers, and that is one reason they have been so much hated. A prophet will be feared and sometimes honored, but when has he been loved? Yet a prophet must prophesy, and the Jews will persist in pursuing truth, as they see it, wherever it leads. Jewish history teaches, if anything can, that there is indeed a purpose to human existence and that we are not born to live and die like beasts. In continuing to take comfort in the injunction, thrice repeated, in the noble first Book of Joshua: “Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee wherever thou goest.”

Today, the Jews are once again fighting for their very existence and rightful place in life. A place that God Himself gave them. Surely, as in the past, the Israeli Jews will prevail with the intervention of Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We should not be alarmed nor take sides in this historical event since many people will die. Good and bad alike. Instead, we should pray that God’s will be done to bring about the eternal salvation of others.

With Islam warring factions uniting against Israel – it looks like we Americans might be drawn into a larger and protracted war alongside our Israeli allies against terrorism. This to the chagrin of former president Barak Hussein Obama, who is a Sunni Muslim himself and who, in fact, sent billions of dollars to Iran on pallets in the dead of the night while he was yet in office, and with Joe Biden waiting in the wings to do the very same.

In my view, this move by Joe Biden is only to divert attention from his failings and blunders as the leader of the free world and to cover up his shady dealings with Ukraine. Joe continued to pay ransom by sponsoring their war as well. Thank God the conservatives in Washington just stopped him from giving the Ukrainians billions more.

The Turks and Iranians (formerly known as Persia in the Bible) are now saber rattling and making threats of entering this war. Now, everyone is walking on pins and needles, hoping that peace will somehow come about before we Americans are dragged into this cauldron of endless killing. Nevertheless, Joe Biden is increasingly getting us directly involved by sending troops and armaments to further fan the flames of war, while the Israelis were perfectly capable of defending themselves – especially with God on their side.

In doing so, Joe is hoping to deflect the focus off himself and his family from their worldwide criminal activities. (The timing couldn’t have been better. But as God reminds us, “Be sure your sins will find you out.” If not now, surely in the hereafter. “It is appointed unto man, once to die, but after that, the judgment.”)

YBIC

Jim Towers

You can write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit me at www.propheticsignsandwondes.com and www.dropzonedelta.com as well. My spiritual journey is detailed in my book Visions, Miracles, Peace. and Power and is now available on Amazon and Kindle.

Letter to Those Believing the Church Has Replaced Israel :: By Terry James

Note: The following is a most relevant open letter, which is important to all within the Body of Christ to read. Our prayer is that you will read carefully and understand God’s Holy View of Israel in these end times when the Jewish people are again beginning to suffer hatred throughout the world.

Dear Brother or Sister in Christ,

If you are a member of a Catholic or mainline denominational church, you have probably been taught something called replacement theology (and perhaps you don’t even know it has that name). Replacement theology leads those who have adopted it to believe that Israel is no longer God’s people and that the modern regathering of the Jews in their historical land is theologically meaningless. Please know this is an error, and I write this letter to alert you to it so you can study God’s Word and reach your own conclusion.

Replacement theology, sometimes called supersessionism or fulfillment theology, is a doctrine stating either that the Church took Israel’s place as God’s people when Israel rejected Jesus as its Messiah or that the “old” Israel was set aside in favor of a “new” Israel, the Church, upon Jesus’s first coming. No matter how it got there, the Church is now God’s people and the beneficiary of the promises God made Israel in the Old Testament. Consequently, Jacob’s blood descendants have no unique destiny, and modern Israel’s existence has no significance. Because replacement theology is often woven into otherwise sound teachings on redemptive history, many believers aren’t even aware that it is a separate doctrine with its own name.

Nonetheless, replacement theology is enshrined in Catholic dogma and runs rampant in mainline denominations, even among those that otherwise take the Bible seriously.

Replacement theology raises troubling implications about God’s character, not the least of which are: if God revoked his promises to Israel, what keeps him from revoking them again, and does God really change not (as Malachi 3:6 says)? Many who have been taught replacement theology have not considered these implications. Perhaps you have, too, but have dismissed them out-of-hand or rationalized them away, possibly because they are too dreadful to imagine. Unfortunately, ignoring the implications does not make them go away.

Rather than addressing these (and other) broader implications, this letter will instead tackle the assumption that lies at the very heart of replacement theology: did Israel really forfeit its blessings? Did God really forsake or move past Israel? Fortunately, if you read the Bible without bias, it gives a clear answer.

One point is worth making before proceeding: I don’t have the ability or the moral duty to force you to reject replacement theology. Only the Holy Spirit can convict. All I can do is call relevant scripture to your attention and invite you to check it out yourself. That is what I will now do.

To keep this letter short and clear, I will rely only on two passages: Isaiah 6 and Romans 11. (If you are a Reformed believer, you tend to read Revelation figuratively because you have been taught that it is “apocalyptic literature.” I will, therefore, deliberately avoid Revelation’s many passages affirming Israel’s destiny, knowing that you will be unwilling to read Isaiah and Romans figuratively.)  I will cite the King James Version, but any good version will do.

Isaiah 6 contains the well-known “Here I am. Send me” passage in which Isaiah volunteers to convey a message God has for his people:

“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed” (Isaiah 6:8-10).

God informs his people not only that they are hardened (deaf, blind and without understanding), and he is the one hardening them, but also that he has hardened them to delay their repenting and being healed. Note that God does not tell them why he wants a delay.

When the disciples ask Jesus why he speaks “to them” in parables in Matthew 13, he quotes this passage of Isaiah 6:

“He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive” (Matthew 13:11-14).

Paul also quotes this same passage of Isaiah 6 in Acts 28, reminding the local leaders of the Jews that they are hardened.

“And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Acts 28:24-27).

Paul then discloses the reason why God hardened Israel, delaying its repenting and being healed:

“Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it” (Acts 28:28).

According to Paul, God hardened Israel so the Gospel could be taken to the Gentiles.

However, Isaiah 6 continues after the passage quoted in both Matthew 13 and Acts 28. God has more to say to Isaiah about his people. Returning to Isaiah 6, after hearing God’s decree against his people, the prophet begs God for an answer in verse 11, and God gives it to him:

“Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in [the land] shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof” (Isaiah 6:11-13).

God promises that he will lift Israel’s partial hardening during or just after a widespread devastation. This may be a great war, even a nuclear war, given the extent and degree of damage. However, it may be a direct act of God, acting in wrath. Only he knows.

Why, then, did Jesus and Paul’s quotations from Isaiah 6 stop short of verses 11-13? The answer is that they were speaking in the First Century. Isaiah 6:11-13 would be fulfilled in the future. They were only talking about Israel’s hardened condition in those days and not about when it would someday repent. Remember, Jesus was only answering a question from his disciples as to why he was teaching in parables, and Paul was only making the case for taking the Gospel to the Gentiles.

Now, let’s look at Romans 11, in which Paul answers the question his earlier chapters in Romans begged: if Christ is the answer and the law is not, what about the Jews, to whom God had given the law? Has God turned his back on Israel?

“I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal” (Romans 11:1-4).

The answer is an emphatic “God forbid!” God will save an elect remnant of Israel, and God will save them by grace, not the law. To keep the Gentiles from feeling superior to the Jews, Paul goes on to say:

“I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:11-15).

Then, after describing how the holy firstfruits of a lump of dough renders the whole lump holy, how a holy root can render the entire tree holy, and how branches grafted onto a holy tree become holy, even branches that had previously been cut off, Paul reveals a mystery in verse 25:

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25).

Though he does not outright quote Isaiah 6:11-13, he affirms the promise God made in those verses to end Israel’s hardening. The mystery Paul reveals is that the partial hardening of Israel’s elect will end when the “fulness of the Gentiles be (has) come in.”

It is important to note that none of these passages are talking about the Church. God has never hardened the Church. He has only hardened Israel, and only temporarily, for the express purpose of taking the Gospel to the Gentiles and building a Church that encompasses all peoples, nations, and languages. This he did at Israel’s great expense, but he will resurrect and magnify Israel because of it. Consider the supreme irony: God hardened Israel to benefit the Gentiles, and so many churches have returned their thanks to Israel by teaching replacement theology.

God’s reply in Isaiah 6 and Paul’s teaching in Romans 11 raise two questions: when will this widespread devastation occur, and when will the fulness of the Gentiles come in? The Bible gives no clear answer; God wants us to depend on him alone for the timing.

However, we can be sure of this – God will restore the elect of his people Israel. That unambiguous Biblical truth, stated explicitly both to Israel in the Old Testament and the Gentiles of the Church in the New Testament, exposes replacement theology as bad doctrine. Now, it’s up to the Holy Spirit and informed believers to purge the Church of this sad error.

If replacement theology now troubles you as much as it does me, please do me a favor. Consider giving a copy of this letter to a brother or sister who has been mistaught. You will be helping them and doing a good work for God’s kingdom.