Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking again on the subject of dispensationalism. When I spoke on this subject several weeks ago, I realized that there were a number of issues that I didn't have time to deal with, so I want to take the opportunity tonight to do that very thing. I want to begin by addressing some of the specific dispensationalist claims.
The first one we're going to look at is their claim that the Mosaic Law is still valid for Jews and that the temple is going to be rebuilt and sacrifices and feast days are going to be renewed for Israel. Well, actually, the whole Epistle to the Hebrews helps us to see that dispensationalists have this exactly backwards. They think that the old law is the real thing, that the physical temple is the real thing, and that the real Israel of God are the fleshly Jews.
But Hebrews tells us that it's actually the other way around, as it says, "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second." And in that he says, "A new covenant he has made the first obsolete." Now, what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. So the old covenant is obsolete. It was vanishing in the first century. It's gone. It's not coming back because it was totally unable to save. It was merely a shadow of the real thing to come.
Likewise, the tabernacle and the animal sacrifices were merely tokens, figures of the real thing. Hebrews tells us, "For Christ is not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." Not that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood of another. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.
To those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. And again it says, "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect." Therefore, when he came into the world, he said, "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me.
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure." So if God had no pleasure back then, why would he take pleasure again in the future? That makes no sense. Why would we go back to the shadow when we have the reality?
Paul tells us in Colossians, "And you, talking to Gentiles, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us." Now he's talking as a Jew, which was contrary to us. And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
"So let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance is of Christ." He says, "No, let no one judge you." He's telling the Gentiles, "Let no one condemn you for not celebrating these things because they were merely a shadow.
There's no reason to keep celebrating them." And because God knows that words are often not sufficient to get the message across, particularly to hard-hearted people, he ensured that the Jews would get the message. Because when the Romans came against Jerusalem, they not only destroyed the temple, but they destroyed all records of genealogy. So that no Jew today can trace himself as being in the priestly line of Aaron or even being a Levite.
No Jew can prove that he's a descendant from Judah to be able to claim the kingship. God has permanently put an end to all of that. Another claim, and in fact one of the main claims of the dispensationalists, is that Israel is Israel and the church is the church. The promises to Abraham and to Israel are not fulfilled in the church. They can only be fulfilled in the fleshly Jews. Israel means the fleshly Jews.
Now, actually, I don't use the phrase that those promises are fulfilled in the church because the word church can mean too many things. It is understood by Christians in too many different senses. Instead, what the New Testament teaches is that the fleshly Jews are not true Israel, but rather the true Israel is what Paul calls the Israel of God, which is composed of both Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus Christ. Likewise, those same people are the true children of Abraham.
Let's just look at some of the passages, and you're familiar with all of these. I'm sure you've heard them many times. From Romans 9, "For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham. But in Isaac your seed shall be called." That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
As he says also in Hosea, "I will call them my people who were not my people and her beloved who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they shall be called sons of the living God." I mean, that's pretty black and white. That because you are fleshly Israel doesn't make you the seed of Abraham, nor are you really Israel at all.
You are merely a fleshly descendant of Jacob, maybe, and you're merely someone who keeps the Mosaic Law or purports to. But that does not make you Israel, Paul is saying. Again, Romans 2, "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God." Again, black and white.
Because you are outwardly a Jew doesn't make you really a Jew. It's the one who is inwardly a Jew, one who has the faith of Abraham, one who believes in the true Messiah promised to the Jews and who is his disciple.
Paul tells us again in Galatians, "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham." And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Did you notice what Paul says there at the end?
He says, "If we have the faith of Abraham, then we are Abraham's seed." Not that we're his seed in a spiritual sense or sort of we're his seed. No, we simply are his seed. We are real Jews. We constitute real Israel. And he says that we are the heirs according to the promise. So why should we be looking for the promises to be fulfilled in fleshly Jews when Paul specifically says that we're the heirs of the promise? This is the reality. The other was a shadow.
Again, Peter writes, "Coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious." You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
And again, Peter writes, referring to the fleshly Jews, he says, "They stumble, being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed." But you, speaking about Gentiles and Jews who are citizens of the kingdom, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
So why do Christian dispensationalists say that the Jews are the chosen people of God? Peter tells us we're the chosen people of God. Paul said the same thing. It was prophesied way back in Hosea, before Jesus even came. All of this was in God's plan. And you know, it's interesting what Peter says about the nation of believers being a chosen generation, a holy nation, his own special people. Those were exactly the things that God had once said about the fleshly Israelites back in the book of Exodus.
So then it is the Israel of God, the citizens of God's kingdom, who are now God's own special people and a holy nation. So where does that leave the fleshly Jews? Well, notice how Jesus refers to them in his letters to the seven churches. Revelation 3:9, he says, "Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not but lie. Indeed, I will make them come and worship before your feet and to know that I have loved you." Now, you see, the meaning of the word Jew is praised.
That is, someone who is praised by another. Paul says that our praise comes from God, not from men. Well, Jesus refers to the fleshly ones who were opposing him then and still oppose him today as the synagogue of Satan. And they say they're Jews, he says, but they're not. They're lying. Because a real Jew is somebody that I, Jesus Christ, praise. And I don't have praise for those who fight against me.
Another claim that dispensationalists make is that God has two different plans for Gentiles and Jews, and that there will always be a distinction between them. Well, we've already addressed this claim to a large extent, as we just read Paul's words in Galatians, that there is neither Jew nor Gentile.
Paul repeated the same message to the Colossians, where he said, "Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him." Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, and longsuffering.
That's Colossians 3:9 through 12. So again, he says, there is neither Greek nor Jew, Greek being another term for Gentiles. And speaking of this Israel of God composed of believing Jews and believing Gentiles, he says that we are the elect of God or the chosen of God, that we're holy and beloved.
So I don't see how anyone can say that, "Oh, no, there's always going to be a distinction." Let's not forget what Hebrews chapter 11 says about the men and women of faith from the Old Testament, most of whom were Israelites. It says at the end of that chapter 11, they wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth.
And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. So see, his plan was that they would not be made perfect apart from us, that we would all share in the reward together, in the promise together. Notice what Jesus himself said. He said, "I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep and am known by my own.
As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd." The other sheep he speaks of are, of course, the Gentiles. So Christ's plan from the beginning is that we would all be one flock, not that there would be two flocks, one of Jews and one of Gentiles.
One of the reasons why evangelicals are so caught up in the excitement about the state of Israel is that in their minds, this is one of the signs that we are living in the end times. And I think that's the main reason why so many kingdom Christians have been drawn into dispensationalism, or at least part of the teachings of dispensationalism. Now, you may wonder why I even care what kingdom people think about Israel and prophecy. What difference does it make?
I'm concerned because I see in all of this a repeat of Christian history. Let me explain. All Christians were kingdom Christians until Constantine's victory in 312 AD. Now, he purportedly had his soldiers paint the insignia of the cross on their shields before going into battle against Constantine's Roman rival. And it was a battle that Constantine decisively won. And Constantine gave credit to the God of the Christians for his victory, and he began policies to benefit and prosper Christians.
For example, the year following his victory, Constantine and his co-ruler Licinius issued the famous Edict of Milan that legalized Christianity and permanently ended Roman persecution of Christians. To virtually everyone in the church, it seemed quite obvious that God was now blessing the church through Constantine. They had no trouble seeing all sorts of Bible prophecies from the Old Testament being fulfilled in their day, and even New Testament prophecies, particularly from Revelation.
Maybe this was a fulfillment of the prophecies about every knee bending in acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord. They began to believe that now they were entering a new epoch. Perhaps the millennial reign of Christ was beginning. War had been wrong before, but now things were different. Now the Roman government stood for Christianity. And when Christians started going into battle for the first time, they found they were victorious. Well, this seemed to be further proof that God was with them.
They soon dropped the doctrine of the two kingdoms because it no longer seemed applicable. The Roman Empire was now the kingdom of God. And after all, wasn't all of this predicted? Revelation says, "Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.'" The kingdoms of this world would become the kingdoms of our Lord.
Look, prophecy was being fulfilled right in front of their eyes. The largest kingdom of this world, the Roman Empire, had come under Christ Jesus' rulership, or at least it seemed to. Of course, because we know what ultimately happened, it's easy for us to say, "Well, those Christians should have known better." But I don't know if any of us would have been able to properly assess that this was not a blessing from God. Again, from hindsight, we can see that it was a test from God, not a blessing.
And it was a test that the vast majority of Christians of that day failed. But would we have been able to close our eyes to all of the marvelous things happening around us, all these wonderful blessings, and yet be able to say to ourselves, "Christ's teachings don't change. When his kingdom comes in glory, it will not be ushered in with human swords." Or would we have been able to say, "No, Jesus' kingdom is not of this world"? I don't think so.
And what made things even harder is that the stories that circulated made Constantine out to be a saint who loved God's people, who loved his enemies, who worked like Josiah of old to eradicate evil practices in his kingdom like abortion. And in truth, there were a lot of wonderful aspects about Constantine, and I think he genuinely was trying to bless the church, and he genuinely believed that the Christian God was the true God and that his kingdom would be blessed if he would bless Christians.
I don't fault Constantine. I fault the Christians who didn't see this, and yet I'm not condemning them because if I had lived then, well, I may have fallen into the same trap. And so when I look at the situation with modern Israel, I would have to say I seriously doubt that we would have passed that test back in the fourth century with Constantine because that test was much harder than the one regarding modern-day Israel.
For one thing, it was a lot harder to find out about Constantine's dark side than it is about Israel's. What's more, Israel isn't doing anything to benefit Christians, nor is it giving credit for its military victories to the God of Christianity. But see, Constantine was doing all of those things. In my first message on dispensationalism, I gave you a brief overview of the Zionist movement and the founding of the modern country of Israel.
I explained that the founder of the movement, Theodore Herzl, was an atheist, as were a large number of the people involved in the movement. His idea for a home country for Jews wasn't based on any belief in God or Old Testament promises. It was to escape the anti-Semitism that Jews faced in Europe by so-called Christians. What changed his dream into a reality was the fact that Christian dispensationalists got involved politically to help bring his dream about a home for Jews in the land of Palestine.
I think I mentioned that in 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. This was a formal statement of policy by the British government. It's a very brief statement. In fact, I've seen it. It's in the British Library in London where anyone can look at it.
And all it says is this: "His Majesty's government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." Well, at the time of the declaration, World War I was raging, and
Britain was poised to invade Palestine.
It wanted the support of the Jews and in Palestine, particularly the support of the Arabs who were by far the majority there. At the time, Palestine was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and it had been for centuries. But Turkey was aligned against Britain in World War I. And as part of the terms of the treaty that ended World War I, Palestine and most of the Middle East was taken away from Turkey. Britain then carved up this land and created many of the countries that make up the Middle East today.
So there was nothing miraculous in the founding of modern-day Israel any more than there was in the founding of modern-day Syria or Iraq or any of the other countries that Britain created out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire. The European powers had the military might to impose their will on weaker people, and that's simply what they did. Now, today when we think of terrorism, we automatically think of Arabs or Muslims or Palestinians, right?
But did you know that the tactics of terrorism were developed and were first practiced by the Jewish Zionists? Now, the Zionists were the Jews who wanted to create a homeland in Palestine. Now, it's important to note that the majority of the Zionists were not terrorists, but the ones who were killed and terrorized civilians. One of the Jewish terrorist groups, and there were a number of them, was named Irgun. Their policy statement was quite simple. It said, "Every Jew has the right to enter Palestine.
Only active retaliation will deter the Arabs, and only Jewish armed force will ensure a Jewish state." So there was no faith in God, no love for your enemies, nothing. These were the hard facts. We have a right to this land, even though they didn't believe there even was an Abraham or didn't believe in the Old Testament. And the only way we're going to get it is by force.
Well, now, since that Balfour Declaration I read you had stated in it that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, well, Britain eventually restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine when it became obvious that it was prejudicing the civil rights of the people who were already there. So this terrorist group, Irgun, targeted British soldiers and policemen.
Once when the British arrested some of them for their crimes, their fellow terrorists kidnapped two British soldiers and told the British government that unless they released the imprisoned terrorists, they would kill the two soldiers. Well, Britain wouldn't budge, and so they killed the two kidnapped soldiers and hung their bodies from trees. Irgun bombed railway yards, radar stations, and other places in order to drive the British out of Palestine or else to get Britain to accept the policy position of Irgun.
Another Jewish terrorist group bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where the British had their headquarters, killing 91 people. The Irgun also carried out the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948 when civil war broke out in Palestine between Arabs and Jews. Now, Deir Yassin was a small Arab village of about 600 people located near Jerusalem. Well, in April of 1948, around 120 Irgun men attacked the village and killed 107 civilians, including men, women, and children.
These terrorists shot some of the people, and in other cases, they threw grenades into the homes of the people, killing whoever was inside. Now, to be fair, the Jewish leaders did denounce the massacre. However, news of the killings sparked terror within the Palestinian community, and it caused most of them to flee from their towns and villages in the face of the advance of Jewish troops because they were afraid that they would all be massacred as well.
Well, the incident also strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later when Israel declared its independence. Now, some of these things I've described probably sound to you like the things that Muslim terrorists do, and you're exactly right. Terrorism was very effective for the Zionists, and many of the Palestinians eventually decided in the 1960s that the only way they would get their land back was by using some of those Jewish terrorist tactics.
In other words, one evil has spawned another evil. If you're like me, it's hard to think of Jewish terrorists. I never knew such a thing existed. I first learned about it myself just around 10 or 12 years ago. I was reading a book about the Dead Sea Scrolls written by one of the British scholars who was involved in translating them very early after their discovery.
Well, in the course of his discussion about obtaining the scrolls and deciphering some of them, he talked about what was happening in Palestine at that time, and he casually mentions Jewish terrorists and the dangers that they presented. Now, that was a bombshell to me. Jewish terrorists? I mean, that was very hard for me to picture. The only Jews I've ever known were middle-class, law-abiding citizens.
Because of the horrible suffering they endured in the Holocaust, they've been ingrained in my mind as people who are always the harmless victims. And that's what I had always thought about modern-day Israel. They were the victims being attacked by Arab armies and Arab terrorists. But my curiosity had been aroused by that brief mention of Jewish terrorists in the story about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. So I began digging from there, and I kept coming across revelation after revelation.
And this wasn't coming from Muslim or anti-Jewish books or websites. You can find all of this in neutral encyclopedias, history books, in fact, in Jewish literature and Jewish websites. For nearly all of my life, I had pictured Jews both here in the United States and in Israel as these religious people who still kept the Mosaic Law. And so I was utterly shocked to learn that most Jews in the United States don't live by the Mosaic Law. Most of them don't attend any synagogue.
In fact, the vast majority of them don't even believe in the Old Testament. In Israel, it's even worse. The majority of the Jews in Israel are either atheists or agnostics. And I didn't get that information from some anti-Israel source. I got it from a conservative Jewish pro-Israel website. An even bigger shock was when I discovered that Jews were very prominent in the Communist Revolution in Russia and in communist movements in other European countries. As you may know, Karl Marx was a Jew himself.
But did you know that the number two man in the first communist government in Russia was a Jew? His name is Leon Trotsky. I knew about him from world history, but I had never known he was a Jew. Did you know that the communists who murdered the Tsar and his entire family, they were nearly all Jews? It's a surprising fact that many of the Russian communists associated with the worst atrocities were, in fact, Jews. Now, you probably feel uncomfortable with my mentioning these things.
We all feel so awful about the Holocaust that it seems anti-Semitic to bring up anything negative about any Jews at all. But as Christians trying to decipher the significance of the events in Israel today, it's important that we have our eyes wide open. Now, the other side of the coin is that the vast majority of communists have been Gentiles, and that Stalin, probably the most evil communist of them all, was a Gentile.
All Jews don't somehow share in the guilt for what some Jewish communists did any more than all Gentiles share in the guilt for Stalin or Hitler. So this is not an anti-Semitic thing. Most Jews were not communists. And I have no doubt that the many Jews who were atheistic communists became that way because of the centuries of persecution from the so-called Christian government in Russia.
The only reason I'm even bringing these things up is that it's important that we realize that there were radical atheistic movements in the 19th and 20th centuries in which Jews played significant roles. Communism was one, and Zionism was one more. Now, I realize Zionism was not an officially atheistic movement. It's just that many of its leaders and members were atheists, and many of them had no qualms about using terror and whatever force was necessary to bring about their objectives.
In other words, I see the same strain of thinking between the communists and many of the Zionists. It was the same fertile ground that gave birth to both movements. I do think there was a logical reason for the disproportionate number of Jews in these radical causes. They had been marginalized from mainstream society for centuries. They had been persecuted by so-called Christians for centuries. They could only rise to a limited level in conventional European society.
So it's no wonder that radical political movements in which they could rise to the top were attractive to them. Now, at this point, I'm guessing you're probably feeling one of two things. Number one, David's making this up, and I don't believe it. Or number two, you do believe me, but like me, when I first came across this in my research, you're flabbergasted. Now, it's important that you realize that what I've been telling you is history. And I mean that in two senses.
One, that these things are true things that happened. And two, that they happened in the past. American Jews definitely are big supporters of the Democratic Party and liberal politics today. But to the best of my knowledge, the sort of radicalism in which many Jews were involved in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century is not something that very many Jews are involved with today. What's more, the crime rate among Jewish Americans is lower than that of Americans who profess to be Christians.
So your friendly neighborhood Jewish merchant is no doubt just as friendly and upright as he appears to be. Zionism wasn't born out of 21st century American Judaism. It was born out of 19th century European Judaism, and there is a big difference between the two. The facts surrounding the creation of modern Israel should open the eyes of evangelicals, but I doubt it ever will. But kingdom Christians? How can we possibly not recognize that modern Israel is not something from God unless it's a test from God?
I mean, do we believe in the two kingdoms or not? Is God's kingdom simply a sideshow while God focuses on his real kingdom, the earthly nation of Israel? Are God's purposes brought about today through violence, terrorism, and massacres? Does God bless atheists? Or has God suddenly revoked the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount? And to whom did Jesus deliver the Sermon on the Mount? It was to Jews, wasn't it?
They aren't free to say, "No, I'm sorry, God, but we're going to keep the laws and morality of the Old Testament." But that's what we're saying when we believe that modern Israel are God's people and that he's the one who's brought about the establishment of present-day Israel. We're saying that the Sermon on the Mount doesn't apply to Jews. What are we thinking? Why did God take the kingdom away from the Jews in the first place?
Jesus told them it was because they had killed God's prophets, and then last of all, they killed his son. He told them that the kingdom of God was being taken from them and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. Notice that he didn't say that God was going to create a second kingdom while he put his first kingdom on hold. No, there's always been only one kingdom of God. Jesus didn't tell the Jews that the kingdom would be taken from them for a while and then returned to them later.
He said it was being taken from them and given to a people producing the fruit thereof. Period. And has anything changed with the Jews since the kingdom was taken from them? Have they now accepted Jesus as the Messiah and subjected themselves to his teachings? No, they have not. It's just the opposite. God rejected them even when they were still keeping the law and when they fervently believed in him.
Now, not only have they still not accepted his son, they've rejected his old covenant law, and most of the Jews in Israel today don't even believe he exists. So why would God set up then a kingdom with them today? The irony is that while Christians are all caught up in modern Israel as God's people and a fulfillment of Bible prophecy, many, many Orthodox Jews recognize that modern Israel is not of God.
I'd like to read to you part of a speech given by an Orthodox Jew and delivered at a conference of an Orthodox Jewish organization known as Friends of Jerusalem. It reads, "Judaism and Zionism are by no means the same. Indeed, they are incompatible and irreconcilable. If one is a good Jew, one cannot be a Zionist. If one is a Zionist, one cannot be a good Jew." For over 60 years, the speaker is saying, "I have fought Zionism as did my father before me, and I am therefore quite familiar with it.
For those who have been in this fight for only the last 10 or 20 years, what I have to say may be surprising or even shocking. Nevertheless, these matters must be stated clearly and openly because unless the disease of Zionism is diagnosed accurately, it cannot be cured. Zionism is rebellion against God and treason to the Jewish people." Let us make this completely clear. The Jewish nation was not born or reconstituted a generation ago by some Zionist politicians.
The Jewish nation was born on Mount Sinai when the Jews, by their response, said, "Let us do and let us hear," and adopted the Torah given to them by God for all future generations. God said, "This day you become a people." And even though spoken thousands of years ago, it is still valid today. But in what way are the Jews a chosen people?
Every Jewish man anywhere and at any time when called to the reading of the Torah says, "God has chosen us from all the peoples and gave us his Torah." This is the way in which the Jews are chosen. The Jewish people are chosen not for domination over others, not for conquest or warfare, but to serve God and thus to serve mankind. Physical violence is not a tradition or a value of the Jews.
The task for which the Jewish people were chosen is not to set an example of military superiority or technical achievements, but to seek perfection in moral behavior and spiritual purity.
Of all the crimes of political Zionism, the worst and most basic, and which explains all its other misdeeds, is that from its beginning, Zionism has sought to separate the Jewish people from their God, to render the divine covenant null and void, and to substitute a modern statehood and fraudulent sovereignty for the lofty ideals of the Jewish people. One means of misleading many Jews and all too many non-Jews is the Zionist misuse of names and symbols sacred in Judaism.
They use the holy name Israel for their Zionist state. They have adopted as a state symbol the menorah. What hypocrisy, what perversion it is to have the Israeli army fighting under an emblem, the meaning of which is, "Not with armed force and not with power, but in my spirit," says the Lord of hosts. The infamous founder of political Zionism, and he's talking here about Theodore Herzl, said at one point he proposed to resettle the Jews in Uganda. At another, he proposed to convert them to Catholicism.
He finally hit on the idea of a Judenstaat, an exclusive Jewish state. Loyalty to the Zionist state was substituted for loyalty to God, and the state was made into the modern golden calf. Belief in the Torah and fulfillment of religious obligations in Zionist eyes became a personal matter and not a duty for every Jew or for the Jewish people. The Zionists made divine laws subject to party or parliamentary votes, and they set their own standards of conduct and ethics.
Neither the founder of political Zionism nor any of the prime ministers of the Zionist state have believed in the divine origin of the Torah nor even in the existence of God. All the prime ministers have been members of a party that opposes religion in principle and that considers the Bible a document of ancient folklore devoid of any religious meaning. And yet these same Zionists base their claim to the Holy Land on the very same Bible, the divine origin of which they deny.
At the same time, they conveniently forget the Jewish prayer and for our sins have we been exiled from our land and ignore the fact that the present exile of the Jewish people is divinely decreed and the Jewish people are neither commanded nor permitted to conquer or rule the Holy Land before the coming of the Messiah. This love of the land and the Jewish longing for a return to it and for the coming of the Messiah have been exploited innumerable times during the past 2,000 years.
Zionism has had many precursors, and each has been a curse for the Jews. A Jewish World Organization was founded in 1912, and it was formed to represent the true Jewish people in the world and to unmask the unwarranted and unjust claims of the Zionists. Jews in the Holy Land who were opposed to Zionism obtained permission from Britain to declare in writing that they did not wish to be represented by the Zionists.
Shortly thereafter, Jacob de Haan, who was then leader of Agudath Israel in Palestine, initiated talks with Arab leaders with a view toward the eventual establishment of a state therein which Jews and Arabs would have equal rights. Despite threats to his life, de Haan, fully aware of the ultimate dangers of a Zionist state, continued his talks and negotiations.
On the eve of his departure in 1924 for Britain to meet with authorities there, he was assassinated by one of the Zionist paramilitary organizations in the center of Jerusalem as he came home from evening prayers. The greatest leader of another organization, Neturei Karta, or Friends of Jerusalem, was Rabbi Amram Blau, an inspired and dedicated leader whose compassion to equal his courage. He could not keep silent in the face of injustice, immorality, or hypocrisy.
He was beloved by Jews and respected by Christians and Muslims. Born in Jerusalem, he never left the Holy Land during his entire life. In his writings, he stressed many times that Jews and Arabs had lived in harmony until the advent of political Zionism. Rabbi Blau was imprisoned in Jerusalem, not by the Ottoman authorities, not by the British, and not by the Arabs, but by the Zionists. What was his crime?
He defended with vigor and honesty, without regard for his own safety, the holy character of Jerusalem against the innovations and encroachments of the Zionists. He fought for the sanctity of the Sabbath and actively opposed the inroads of indecency and immorality made under the Zionist regime. Unceasingly, Rabbi Blau denounced the establishment of a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah as an act of infamy and blasphemy.
During the first period of fighting between the Zionist state and the Arabs, the rabbis of this movement went toward the combat lines carrying a white flag and stated that they wanted no part in this war and that they were absolutely opposed to the creation of a Zionist state.
In his last proclamation, Rabbi Blau deplored the action of the Zionists against the Muslim and Christian Palestinians and the grievous harm done by the Zionists to the Jewish people in endeavoring to change them from a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to a modern state devoid of spiritual foundation based on pride, built on conquest, and relying on military prowess.
When I first read that speech, I couldn't help but think of Jesus' words to one of the wise Jewish teachers of his day, telling him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." This speaker and thousands of other Orthodox Jews can see what so many Christians can't. Zionism, the political movement that brought Jews to Palestine and established the state of Israel, is not a holy movement, a work of God. It's a snare both to Jews and to Christians.
Incidentally, in case you're wondering, my information about Zionism and about Jews did not come from that organization who sponsored that message. It came from pro-Israel sources. I didn't even know about that organization until I had done all of my research about Zionism. But I have to say that the insights of this Jewish organization are right on the mark, other than the fact that they don't recognize that their Messiah has already come.
But if modern Israel is receiving God's blessings, then God is not true to his own declarations. I mean, we have a long written history of God's dealings with fleshly Israel that are contained in the Old Testament. So we don't have to guess about how God has always interacted with Israel. It's a matter of record. And one of the foundational principles in dealing with fleshly Israel is that he never blessed them when they were unfaithful to him.
Before he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, he required them to demonstrate their faith in him by smearing the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorposts. And even after performing miracle after miracle to bring them to the edge of the promised land, God didn't allow them to enter it because of their lack of faith. So why would he now bring atheists and unbelievers into the promised land? God has never worked that way. In fact, God has promised to punish the Israelites so long as they are disobedient to him.
Look at what he told the nation of Israel in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, right before they entered the promised land the first time. He said, "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country." And then jumping down to verse 15, he says, "But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall be you in the country." So if God is blessing the Israel of today, then he's not true to his word.
They've totally disregarded his commandments for the most part and hold them in scorn. What's more, remember what he told them through Moses about a prophet he would raise up who would be like Moses and that they were to listen to him. Peter quotes from that. It's found in Deuteronomy 18, verses 18 and 19. Peter quotes that from the Septuagint in Acts chapter 3, saying this, "For Moses truly said to the fathers, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.
Him you shall hear in all things, whatever he says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.'" Well, the Jews over there today in Israel don't even acknowledge Christ, let alone listen to his voice. So if he's blessing them anyway and prospering them, then again, his word isn't true. A passage that should really make us sit back and give thought is Ezekiel 33, verses 23 through 28.
"Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, they who inhabit those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, 'Abraham was only one and he inherited the land, but we are many. The land has been given to us as a possession.' Therefore say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God, 'You eat meat with blood, you lift up your eyes towards your idols and shed blood. Should you then possess the land? You rely on your sword, you commit abominations and you defile one another's wives.
Should you then possess the land?'" Now, if God again would not bless them back then, when at least they believed in him and believed in Abraham, why would he bless the ones today who for the most part don't even believe there is a God, who only a small percentage even try to keep the law? And essentially, none of them obey the voice of God given through his son. The truth of the matter is that the modern country of Israel came into power by violating just about every teaching of Jesus Christ.
While we're on the subject of how the Zionists trampled upon Jesus' teachings, I want to recommend a book to you that I found very interesting and very revealing. It's entitled Blood Brothers, and it was written by a Palestinian Christian who was a young boy when the Jewish Zionists forced the Christians out of their village that their ancestors had lived in for centuries. But it's not a hate book. The author is still alive. He still lives in Palestine, and he actively works for peace in the Middle East.
The book did help me to see the irony that American Christians today support the unbelieving Jews in Palestine who used violence to take land and entire villages away from Christians. We support the Jews while we turn our backs on the suffering of our own fellow Christians. Well, before closing, I want to talk just a few minutes about prophecy. Dispensationalists say, "Well, what about all the prophecies that the Jews would return to the promised land?" My response is, "What prophecies are you talking about?
Where in the New Testament does it prophesy about the Jews returning to the promised land?" The passage in Romans 11 we looked at in the first message, it says nothing about that. If you're talking about revelation, I'd have to say, "Please, you can construe revelation to mean anything." Some have pointed out to me Jesus' words about the times of the Gentiles.
In Luke 21, verse 24, Jesus said, "Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." Now, that statement in itself says nothing about the unbelieving Jews returning to Palestine. It only seems to say that because dispensationalist commentators have given it that interpretation. But before the mid-1800s, no Christian had ever given it that interpretation that I've been able to find. And that's because it doesn't say that. To begin with, what does Jesus mean by Jerusalem?
Now, don't be too quick to say, "Oh, he's talking about the earthly city of Jerusalem in Palestine." Remember, Jesus also said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." And he wasn't talking about the literal temple. Would you have been like the unbelieving Jews who accused him of saying he was going to destroy the temple? Paul talks about another Jerusalem in Galatians. He says, "Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children.
But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all." So there is a heavenly Jerusalem as well as an earthly one. And other scriptures indicate that the heavenly Jerusalem is the bride of Christ. Now, I'm not saying that the Jerusalem spoken of in Luke 21 is the heavenly Jerusalem. I'm only saying we need to be cautious when we start thinking we have prophetic language all figured out. Maybe Jesus is saying that his bride, his body, would be trampled on until the times of the Gentiles expires.
And if we're looking at kingdom Christians, that has certainly been the case throughout history, that his true body has been trampled on and persecuted. The early Christians don't talk very much about the meaning of Jesus' words in Luke 21. But I did find this passage from Tertullian where he casually comments on it during his discussion of the resurrection of the dead after Christ returns. It's just a brief comment.
He says this, "Jerusalem was to be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles would be fulfilled," meaning, of course, those who were to be chosen of God and gathered in with the remnant of Israel. So if I'm understanding him correctly, Tertullian is saying that the time of the Gentiles means the time during which the gospel of the kingdom would be preached to all the Gentiles from the time of Christ until such time that the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
This ties in with Romans 11, where Paul speaks about the fullness of the Gentiles coming in and then either the promise or the hope that Jews will begin being receptive to the gospel. So that perhaps the time of the Gentiles is not referred to a period of time during which Gentiles will rule over earthly Jerusalem. Rather, if Tertullian is correct, it's the time during which salvation is offered to the Gentiles.
Another point is that the Greek word ethnos, which is translated Gentiles, is the very same Greek word for nations.
In Matthew 24:14, our Bible says, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." But maybe Jesus was saying, "As a witness to all the Gentiles, and then the end will come." So perhaps Jesus was saying that either earthly or heavenly Jerusalem would be trampled on by the nations or the Gentiles until the fullness of the Gentiles have come into God's kingdom and have been grafted onto the olive tree.
If that's the case, then the fact that the Jews have returned to Palestine is irrelevant. The signs we should be looking for are: has the kingdom been preached to all the world and has the fullness of the Gentiles come in? Maybe that means there will be a time when the Gentiles will no longer listen to the kingdom gospel, and then the Jews will begin listening, followed by the end. Regardless of what Jesus meant, we should be cautious in declaring that prophetic language means this or that.
Nobody correctly understood all of the messianic prophecies until Jesus opened his disciples' eyes and revealed it to them. In fact, I'm not sure anyone understood any of the prophecies correctly until he revealed it. Now, if by prophecies about Israel you mean Old Testament prophecies, you need to realize that all of those prophecies were made either before or at the time that the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon. So generally speaking, those were fulfilled back in Old Testament times.
The Bible demonstrates that quite clearly. Now, I'm not going to go into any further discussion of the Old Testament prophecies because I discussed them in detail in the message that I gave several years ago entitled, "What the Early Christians Believed About Israel in Prophecy," which is still available from Scroll Publishing. Perhaps you're thinking to yourself, "But what about the scriptures that say, 'He that blesses Israel, I will bless'?
Therefore, the United States should be giving military and financial assistance to Israel so the U.S. can be blessed." Well, did you know that nowhere in the Bible does it say that, "He that blesses Israel, I will bless"? The actual quotation is from Genesis 12, and it says this: "Now the Lord had said to Abram, 'Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation.
I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" So that statement was said to Abraham, not to Israel. And we've already looked at New Testament passage after New Testament passage that shows that we, the faithful believers in Christ, we're the children of Abraham, not the fleshly Jews.
The other passage that that statement is sometimes based upon is one of Balaam's prophetic utterances in Numbers. But if you read the entire book of Numbers, it's obvious that the blessings God talks about are contingent on the Israelites being obedient. God says if they do not obey him, he is going to curse them.
What is ironic is that if I were just looking objectively at United States history, I would have to say that America seems to have been cursed rather than blessed for supporting Zionism and the creation of Israel. I mean, America was already the mightiest and most prosperous nation on earth before the creation of modern Israel in 1948. So America didn't acquire that status as a result of supporting Israel. But now let's look at what happened since 1948.
Well, first, a year or two later, Russia acquired the atomic bomb, ironically made possible through Jewish spies. All right, second, before the year 1948, America had never lost a war. But since 1948, America has had almost nothing but problems from a military perspective. First, there was the Korean War. It cost tens of thousands of American lives, and it ended in a stalemate. Then there was Vietnam. Fifty thousand or more Americans died there. And in the end, America lost the war.
America did win the Gulf War, but presently it's bogged down in wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It'd be a little hard to say that America has been blessed militarily for supporting Israel. In the area of godliness, it almost seems like God is cursing us for supporting an atheistic state. Within just 10 or 12 years after the establishment of Israel, various states began passing no-fault divorce laws. A few years later, prayer was banned from public schools.
Ten years later, abortion was declared to have constitutional protection. Then there's been the rise of homosexual rights and their demands now that the government recognize homosexual marriages. Christianity has been pushed further and further from our everyday society ever since 1948. Today, schools can't even have Christmas programs. Cities get sued for putting up nativity scenes.
All I can say is if we are somehow being blessed as a nation spiritually for supporting Israel, I would certainly like to see the evidence of it. By way of clarification, I should explain that I personally do not believe that all of these things have happened to the United States because of its support of Israel. I'm only saying that if someone is claiming that America is being blessed for supporting Israel, that I can make a much stronger case that God is bringing woes on America instead.
And although I don't personally believe the previous things I've mentioned have happened to America because of its support for Israel, the United States has definitely inherited lots of other trouble directly because of its support of Israel. Right after the United States helped Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, OPEC came into power and declared an oil embargo against the United States. I still remember that fairly clearly.
Now, that embargo was eventually lifted, but ever since the United States has been at the mercy of OPEC to a large degree as to the price we pay for oil. If you're under 50, you might think that Muslims have always had the fervor that they exhibit today. But that's not at all the case. There were periods in history when they did. But this whole revival in Islam started after the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War with Israel. And the Islamic fervor has grown and grown since then.
Americans have hurt the spread of the gospel in a major way because of their support of Israel, and they've also caused Christians in the Middle East to be persecuted in places where they had lived at peace for centuries and centuries. Before Zionism, Muslims had no particular quarrel with the United States, but they certainly do today. I can still remember when there were no security checks and very few restrictions on what you could bring on board a plane.
Now, because of the Muslim-Israel controversy, air travel is a real headache. Then, of course, there were the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands of Americans and destroyed the world trade centers. So I guess I'd like to hear the arguments about how the United States is being blessed because of its support for Israel. As a closing thought, I would like to ask you two questions to answer in your own heart. First, has God ever blessed Israel in the past when it was disobedient to him?
Number two, if God is the one who brought about the modern country of Israel, why did he do it by having the Jews violate God's very own teachings?