Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be continuing our discussion of what the early Christians believed about Israel. Now, last night we said there were three points in their belief about Israel. One, that the fleshly nation of Israel was rejected by God, that the kingdom was taken away from them. And we saw that very clear in their writings, and we saw that the scriptures say the same thing.
Now, in rejecting the Jews, that does not mean that God permanently cast them off, that none of them would be saved, that, uh, He was not going to deal with them ever again. Number two, we saw that they believe that all who believe in Jesus Christ, Jew or Gentile, make up the Israel of God. Now, there's not two Israels that God is dealing with. There's only one. And that is the olive tree with the rootstock of Abraham. And it was onto that tree that the Gentiles had to be grafted in.
And then we saw that Paul said that it was definitely allowable that God could graft back in the natural branches, the Jews who had been lopped off. And so it brings us to point three, that the scriptures indicate that sometime in the future, maybe right before the very end, that the blindness of the Jews would be removed, that there would be a turning to God at that time. And that's as far as we got. And we discuss what does that mean.
Does that mean that everyone who's ever been a Jew, ever been an Israelite through all the centuries, would be saved? And after reading the statements of Jesus, that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for those Jewish cities that rejected the witness of His disciples, it doesn't seem like that interpretation is very likely. So I told you tonight I would share with you my understanding of what I think Paul is saying there.
Now, it is certainly possible that there will will be a sudden or mass conversion of the Jews. And it's very likely that some of the early Christians held to that view. Many, perhaps most of them did. But we don't know. As I told you, there's a couple of times that verse is cited, but no real explanation ever given of what they thought about it. And my guess on that is, as it is in so many situations, if the scriptures don't elaborate, they don't try to elaborate either beyond what the scriptures say.
Now, I think Paul is saying something different than that all the Jews living at a given time, when the Gentile times are over, would all suddenly be converted. Again, that's definitely a possibility. But I hear Paul saying something different. Let me share that with you. I read to you yesterday from Romans chapter 2, verses 28 and 29, where he said, "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh.
But he is a Jew who is one inwardly." So he said that the name Jew no longer applies to people who were just genetic descendants of Abraham, who outwardly was living by the law, had a physical circumcision, but rather he is a Jew who is one inwardly, who shares the same faith of Abraham. And we read yesterday from Revelation where Jesus refers to the Jews who were persecuting the Christians as a synagogue of Satan. He says they say they are Jews, but they are not.
And so Paul introduces to us the concept of the Israel of God made up of both Jews and Gentiles. For example, Romans 9, verses 6 and 7, he says, "They are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham." So just because somebody, again, is a fleshly Israelite does not make them of Israel or constitute the Israel of God. In other words, throughout Romans, he uses the term Israel in two senses. One, to mean the fleshly descendants of Abraham.
And number two, to refer to the heirs of the promise of Abraham, the children of Abraham that were raised up from stone, so to speak, from among the Gentiles and from among the remnant of the Jews. And then, again, going through Romans, what, like I say, I think we have to read the whole book. We can't take one verse and jump to a conclusion. Then we come to Paul's description of the stock, the root trunk of the olive tree.
And he says that Gentile branches from the wild olive, so to speak, have been grafted onto that stock. So they're not something over here. God is dealing with the Gentiles, and that's a whole nother thing. And over here, he's dealing with the Jews in a whole different way. No, there's one olive tree, and the Gentiles have to become Jews, so to speak. They have to become heirs of Abraham in order to be saved. They have to be grafted into that trunk. That's not going to change.
And he says that some Jews also are grafted back on. He said, just because they've been broken off doesn't mean that God can't graft them back on. After all, if he can graft Gentiles to the rootstock of Abraham, he can certainly graft Jews back onto it. Now, this tree, this olive tree that he talks about, that will have branches that are Jewish and branches that are Gentiles, but all connected to the stock of Abraham, that tree will not be complete until the fullness of all the Gentiles have been grafted onto it.
It's not complete right now. There are still Gentiles being converted to Jesus Christ, and they're still being grafted onto the tree. So the tree's not finished yet. And he says, once the fullness of the Gentiles is in, then the blinding of the Jews is not permanent. And so he indicates that Jews will be grafted back on in a greater percentage than what we have seen through the centuries. And then finally, the tree isn't totally complete until all of the apostate and faithless branches have been pruned off.
And then we finally are finished. We have the olive tree. When that's done, the tree is complete. Israel is complete. And the whole tree with its Jewish and Gentile branches will be saved. And so this is what I see Paul saying after explaining all of that. He then concludes, "For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion. That blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
And so all Israel will be saved." See, all Israel are the Gentiles and the natural Israelites. And all Israel will be saved because that whole olive tree is going to be saved. Everybody grafted into the same rootstock. Notice Paul's use of that transition word, so. The Greek word there is hautos, which is usually translated thus rather than so. But either way, it refers back to something that's just been said. Okay, what has he just said?
He's just gone through describing that olive tree and that the Gentile branches are grafted into there. And he just got through saying that the blindness that's happened in part to fleshly Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so he says, "Therefore, all Israel will be saved." All Israel, meaning the fullness of the Gentiles and the Jews who come in afterwards or who have come in during the interim centuries. Now, again, that's what I'm hearing Paul saying.
But since the early church is essentially silent on this passage, I'm not representing this as being their view. It's consistent with what they believed about Israel. But I don't know if that's exactly how they understood it. I'm going to guess you would have had a difference of viewpoint among them. The church had no dogma or official understanding on that passage. But regardless of what Paul is talking about there, what he means by that, there's a very important thing we need to remember.
We're still in the period waiting for the fullness of the Gentiles to come in. And it would seem that we still have quite a ways to go in that matter because tens of thousands of Gentiles are making a profession of faith in Christ every year. I mean, they're still flocking in. So the tree is not complete. So we're not to point three yet. That is still sometime in the future, and it may be centuries away. I know we all have a common expectation.
We know we're living in the last days, but they were living in the last days back there in the times of the apostles, that the apostles referred to their time as the last days. And every single generation of Christians through all of these centuries has believed that the end would probably come in their lifetime. And we should be vigilant. We should be ready for the end to come in our lifetime. But we don't know. God hasn't given us a timetable.
And when we start imagining that the end is tomorrow, when maybe it's many generations off, sometimes we become lax. We jump ahead of what God is doing. The other thing we have to take note of is that the spiritual state of fleshly Jews today is far worse than it was when Paul wrote Romans. Now, most Bible scholars feel that when Romans was written, that the Jews made up the majority of the New Testament church.
Now, I would disagree with that assessment, just based if nothing else on what Paul says there in Romans. If the Jews were the majority, then it seems strange that he would talk that way, that the Jews were blind, that it's the Gentiles who are receiving salvation, not the Jews. But regardless, if they weren't the majority, they were still a very significant, large minority of the church. What about today? Well, today, fleshly Jews would make up less than 1% of all Christians.
So the trend hasn't been one of moving for the Jews to become more open for their hearts to be softening. It's been the other way around, that as a people, they have been moving further and further away from Christ. And today, the vast majority of Jews around the world don't even believe the scriptures. They don't believe the Old Testament is God's word. Now, in Jesus' day, they would have all believed that. So like I say, they have been moving away from God.
And yet many Christians today act like we're already to point number three, that there's no urgent need to bring Jews to Christ because, oh, they're all going to be saved. That, yeah, that's just about over with. In fact, some go so far as to teach, or at least they act like the Jews are somehow automatically saved without even having to believe in Christ, that they can be saved through the old covenant. And yet the scriptures are so plain that the only way to salvation is through Jesus Christ.
Now, Paul mentions that God's election remains unchanged. But what was that election that God made towards the descendants of Abraham? Well, it was this. He told Abraham, "In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice." That was the promise. That was the election, that it would be through the seed of Abraham that all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I mean, from the very beginning, that promise included we Gentiles.
His promise to Abraham was not that all of Abraham's descendants would receive eternal life. That was not the election that was made. The election was made that it would be through the seed of Abraham that all nations of the earth would be blessed. And that's eternal. That has not changed, and it never will change. It's always going to be that Gentiles have to be grafted on to the root trunk of Abraham. God has not cast out that covenant. He has not done away with any of that.
That is permanent and binding, unchanging. But Paul does not say that that election means that all Jews will be saved. Well, finally, before leaving Romans, let me ask you this. Does Paul say anywhere in Romans or in any of his other letters about the kingdom being restored to the fleshly Jews? No, he doesn't. Read through that whole book, scour it. He says nothing like that. Does he say that the Jews will return to Palestine, to the land originally promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
No, Paul says nothing about that in Romans. He says nothing about it in any of his letters. There's no promise at all in the New Testament about that. And yet so many Christians jump into reading all kinds of things that aren't there. I mean, they take that one passage in Romans, and pretty soon they expand it to the kingdom is going to be returned to the Jews. They're going to rebuild their temple. They're going to do all these sort of things that Paul says nothing about. Jesus says nothing about.
For anything concerning that, we're going to have to go back to the Old Testament. And that's what we're going to do in a minute. But I say, let's keep it clear what is said where. The New Testament makes no such promise. And so we're going to have to go to the Old Testament to see if there's a promise made there. And in a minute, we're going to talk about the Old Testament prophecies. But before doing that, there's one more thing I want to mention.
That is, if the early Christian view of Israel sounds strange to you, it's only because of some fairly modern teaching that came into the church beginning in the mid to late 1800s. The historic teaching of the Christian church through all the centuries up until then is the view that I've just presented to you, the view held by the early Christians. I mean, all the reformers held to this historic view. For example, let me read to you a quote from Martin Luther.
He said, "When Christ came and found the people gathered out of both Israel and Judah and out of all lands, so that the land was full, he began the new order and established the promised new covenant, and did it exactly in the same physical land of Canaan, and at the same physical Jerusalem as had been promised, where they had been brought back out of all lands.
And although they did not want this covenant, or rather would not accept it, it has nevertheless remained an everlasting covenant, not only at Jerusalem and in that land, but it broke out from there into all the four corners of the world. The Jews hold fast to the name of Israel and claim that they alone are Israel and we are Gentiles. And this is true so far as the first part of the prophecy and the old covenant of Moses are concerned, though this has long since been fulfilled.
But according to the second part of the prophecy and the new covenant, they are no longer Israel, for all things are to be new, and Israel too must become new, and they alone are the true Israel who have accepted the new covenant." The Anabaptists held to this same view. I'm going to read to you from Menno Simons. He said, "To understand it is having reference to the physical children of David, is contrary to the epistle of Paul to the Romans.
For there, Paul says, 'For they are not all Israel which are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. But in Isaac shall your seed be called.' That is, they who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. Therefore, we should not take this seed as referring to the physical children, but to the spiritual seed of which it is written.
When my servant shall have given his life as a sacrifice, then he shall have seed and live long. This seed are all the true children of God who are born again, not a corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God.'" It's from his work entitled The Blasphemy of John of Leiden. John Calvin held to this view. So did John Wesley. For example, Wesley wrote an extensive work on how the Jews, whom he refers to as the ancient church of God, had been hard of heart and disobedient to God.
He then goes on to say, "Such is the general account which the scriptures give of the Jews, the ancient church of God. And all these things were written for our instruction, who are now the visible church of the God of Israel." And that's from his appeal to men of reason and religion. So the early Christian view that I've shared with you, it's not only their view, it was the view of all Christians after that, until, like I say, the mid to late 1800s.
Okay, having shared that with you, let's talk about Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel. Today, most evangelical Christians are convinced that the Bible says that the Jews would return to their homeland and be reestablished as a nation, and that the kingdom will be turned back to them, and that they will be God's nation once again. Now, you won't find anything in the New Testament that says any of that. You'll definitely have to go to the Old Testament to try to prove the Bible says that.
But this is really tricky because prophetic language is anything but clear. It's nearly always open to several possible interpretations. Now, if you're going to say that the Old Testament prophecies that Israel would return back to the promised land, please don't quote to me from Isaiah or Jeremiah, because those books were written either before or right at the time that Judah went into captivity to Babylon. The 12-tribe kingdom had, or 10-tribe, rather, had already been previously led captive by the Assyrians.
Yet those prophets, that is, Isaiah and Jeremiah and many of the minor prophets, prophesied that Israel would be brought back from many nations to the promised land. But that happened. The Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell us how it was fulfilled. And you know, as Martin Luther pointed out, when Jesus came to earth and preached, the people of Israel were there in the promised land. Not all of them, but I mean, the land was populated by Israelites.
It had come true where it had been desolate there during their 70 years of captivity and even longer for the 10-tribe kingdoms. So those prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah had an obvious fulfillment. So please don't quote them to me as proving that there would be a future fulfillment in the nation of Israel after the time of Christ. I'm not saying it's impossible that it could have that. I'm just saying you can't use those prophecies to prove that point since more likely they apply to what already took place.
They were already fulfilled. But I do want to look at three prophecies that persons have quoted to me to argue that the Old Testament prophesies that Jews will return to the promised land and once more become God's earthly nation. The first one that I've heard quoted a lot is Daniel 9, verses 24 through 27. Let me read that passage to you. This is from the New King James.
It says, "70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks. The street shall be built again and the wall, even in troublesome times.
And after the 62 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the Prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood. Until the end of the war, desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of the week, he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation which is determined is poured out on the desolate." Now, the first time that I heard of this passage from Daniel, supposedly predicting that the Jews have to return to their homeland and be reestablished as a nation, was when I was a member of a Bible church and we were going through a book entitled Major Bible Themes. It was at a men's Bible study that we were having once a week with the pastor.
And that book says this concerning this prophecy in Daniel. One of the major prophecies given through Daniel is recorded in Daniel 9, 24 through 27. Here, according to the information given by the angel Gabriel to Daniel, 70 weeks, or 70 sevens, he put in parentheses, 490 years, were to comprise Israel's future history.
Daniel was told, "70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy." The prophecy was to begin with the command to restore and to build Jerusalem, and 483 years of the total of 490 years were to be fulfilled before Messiah the Prince would come.
While I'm still reading from the book, while scholars have differed greatly in their interpretation of this passage, probably the best view is to begin this period of 490 years with the time of Nehemiah's reconstruction of Jerusalem in 445 BC. It would then culminate about AD 32, approximately the time when Christ died on the cross. Recent scholarship has placed the death of Christ as late as 33 AD, although most interpreters dated AD 30 or earlier.
According to Daniel's prophecy, after the Messiah himself was to be cut off, which would occur after the 483 years, but apparently before the last seven years of the prophecy, Jerusalem itself would be destroyed. This historically was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. It is implied in Daniel's prophecy that there is a considerable period between the end of the 483 years, or the 69 weeks, and the beginning of the last seven years, or 70th week, as it includes two events separated by 40 years.
The last week was to be characterized by a covenant apparently made with the future prince related to the people who destroyed the city. As the people who destroyed the city of Jerusalem were Romans, the prince that shall come will apparently be a ruler of a revived Roman Empire. Many interpreters view this as still a future event which will occur after the church has been raptured. This future ruler will make a seven-year covenant with the people of Israel described in Daniel 9:27.
The covenant will be broken in the middle of the week, and the last three and one-half years will be a time of persecution and trial for Israel. This period is a subject of extended prophecy in Revelation 6 to 18 and ends at the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19. Of special interest is the prediction that this future ruler will cause sacrifice and oblation to cease and will make the temple desolate.
This implies a future temple in Jerusalem and a resumption of the sacrificial system of Moses by Orthodox Jews in the period preceding the second coming of Christ. It is significant that the first 483 years have been literally fulfilled. Well, I won't read any further. My first thought when I read that passage in the book years and years ago was, "You've got to be kidding." I couldn't believe that anybody would make such a claim. That passage in Daniel talks about a renewed Israel.
The name Israel is not even mentioned anywhere in that passage. Furthermore, it says 70 weeks, not 490 years. The book says, "Well, the first part was fulfilled literally, and so the last part will have to be fulfilled literally." But the whole claim was, "No, it wasn't literally 70 weeks. It was actually 70 weeks of years," which is not what Daniel said. So if it's 70 weeks of years, then the prophecy is not fulfilled literally, is it? Secondly, it says the city would be destroyed by a flood.
It was not a flood that destroyed Jerusalem. It was the Roman armies. So again, that was figurative or symbolic, not literal. The book says, "Well, it's implied that the last half of the 70 weeks, that there's a big gap in the middle of that week." Really? Does that passage say anything about a gap? Does it say there's two periods of 40 years between there? That's nowhere in the passage whatsoever. It doesn't even say who it is. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.
I've read various scholarly books that detail how this was all fulfilled in the time of the Maccabees, the time of Antiochus, the Greek ruler, and how all the dates fit and all that. I've read other very scholarly presentations that show how all of this was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and the end of offering is when he died with his sacrifice, the curtain in the temple was ripped in half and no longer were sacrifices valid being made in the temple, and then it culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem.
So to say this proves that by reading this, then this means there has to be another Israel and they have to have a government and all of this, and they're going to return to, they're going to rebuild the temple and turn back to the sacrificial system. I mean, none of that is in there. You're inventing all of this and then putting it out like this is fact. I mean, any prophecy, you take any passage in Daniel, in Revelation, and maybe anybody's guess is as good as the next person.
I'm not saying that all of this is impossible. I'm just saying none of that is there. See, the issue is we know that fleshly Jews are back in the land of Palestine and that the city of Jerusalem is under the Israeli government right now. I mean, we all know that. The question is, are they there because of Bible prophecies being fulfilled, or are they there in unbelief, in rebellion against God? That's the question.
And the book of Daniel, certainly, nobody reading that would, I think, honestly come away with the view that, "Oh, this shows that Israel is going to be reestablished in the latter times," because it doesn't say anything about that. You already start with the conclusion, "Oh, Israel has regathered." Aha, look at this prophecy and you make the prophecy fit the situation when it's not there at all. All right, let's move on to the next one. Next one is Zechariah 14, verses 1 through 12. Let me read that to you.
It says, "Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as he fights in the day of battle, and in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west, making a very large valley. Half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through my mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to Azal.
Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah. Thus the Lord my God will come and all the saints with you. It shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light. The lights will diminish. It shall be one day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time it shall happen that it will be light. And in that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, half of them toward the Eastern Sea and half of them toward the Western Sea.
In both summer and winter it shall occur. And the Lord shall be king over all of the earth. In that day it shall be, the Lord is one and his name one. All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin's Gate to the place of the first gate and the corner gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's wine presses.
The people shall dwell in it and no longer shall there be utter destruction, but Jerusalem, excuse me, shall be safely inhabited. And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem. Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet. Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets and their tongue shall dissolve in their mouths. Again, that's Zechariah 14.
I've read a number of evangelical books, tracts, and magazine articles in which the authors state categorically that that prophecy is going to be fulfilled very literally, and it's going to be fulfilled in the modern Jewish nation, the Israelis of today. But is that necessarily the case? I've gone through the early Christian writings to see what they would have to say about this passage, and not surprisingly, it's virtually not quoted there.
The early Christians were a whole lot less apt to speculate about Bible prophecies than Christians are today. As one of them said, "Prophecy is best fulfilled, excuse me, best understood once it has been fulfilled." Now, Tertullian mentions this briefly in one of his writings, and you'll be surprised at his application. He's quoting from the New Testament. He says, "In the daytime, he was teaching in the temple," talking about Jesus.
And Tertullian says, "Just as it had been foretold by Hosea, in my house they found me, and there I spoke with them." Still reading from Tertullian. "But at night he went out to the Mount of Olives, for thus had Zechariah pointed out, and his feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives." So he understood that to be something fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Now, your first response may be, "Well, that's an absurd interpretation. He's given a highly figurative rather than a literal interpretation of the prophecy.
He's acting like it was fulfilled in Jesus' day instead of the end times." Now, I don't know if Tertullian's take on that passage was a general view of the early Christians. I doubt there was a uniform view because, like I say, the church was very slow to speculate on things that God has not revealed to us. I do know this, however, that the passage immediately preceding the one that I read to you was fulfilled in Jesus' day.
It says this, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion," says the Lord of hosts. "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered. Then I will turn my hand against the little ones, and it shall come to pass in all the land," says the Lord, "that two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it." So the passage is just immediately before this, and again, Zechariah was not divided into chapters and verses.
That's something that's been done, you know, much, much later. So, I mean, it's all one passage there in Zechariah, and that passage, we know from the New Testament, was talking about Jesus. "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." Scriptures say this was fulfilled when Jesus was arrested and his apostles fled.
So it's not absurd to understand this whole passage to be dealing in that time because the part that we know was talking about Jesus says that two-thirds of the ones in the land shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it. What was that? How was that fulfilled? I can't even venture a guess as to what that is talking about. Certainly nothing that happened that we are aware of right in Jesus' time.
So Old Testament prophecies cannot always, in fact, rarely can be looked at to be fulfilled exactly literally. Part of it will be literal and part of it won't. I mean, even the part here about Jesus, there wasn't a shepherd or sheep being scattered. We understand, "Oh, well, that's figurative. That's talking about a man," and the sheep are talking about the apostles. But see, literally it says the shepherd and the sheep. It's been said that the one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.
How many people correctly predicted what the Messiah would be like when he came? The answer is nobody. Not one single person was able to accurately figure out in advance what the Messiah would be like when he came. And nobody figured out that there would be two appearances of the Messiah. Jesus' disciples followed him because they saw the evidence in him that he was sent by God, not because they had studied all the Old Testament prophecies and had everything figured out.
In fact, the religiously educated Jewish religious leaders who had studied all of the Old Testament prophecies over and over were quite certain that Jesus couldn't possibly be the Messiah. And so they stumbled over Jesus because they thought they had all of the Old Testament prophecies all figured out. The Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament are clear to you and I now only because the Holy Spirit has revealed to us their fulfillment in the pages of the New Testament.
But before then, they weren't clear to anybody. Luke chapter 24, verse 45 tells us that after Jesus was resurrected and he met with his apostles, it says, "He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures." And then he explained to them how the Messiah was to suffer and would be killed. Before then, even having spent three years with Jesus Christ himself, they still didn't understand those prophecies.
In fact, unless the Holy Spirit had revealed to us in the New Testament and pointed out how these prophecies were fulfilled, I don't think any of us would even recognize some of them as being prophecies.
For example, Matthew tells us, Matthew 2:15, it says, "When he arose," talking about Joseph, "he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, 'Out of Egypt I called my son.'" Well, that seems straightforward enough. Have you ever gone, though, back to Hosea to read what Hosea says there that Matthew's quoting from? This is what it says.
"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. As they called him, so they went from there. They sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to carved images. I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms." Now, if Matthew had not quoted that passage, would any of us have recognized that that was a prophecy about the Messiah? I mean, it seems to be obviously talking about the nation of Israel. I mean, did Jesus go after other gods and burned incense to carved images?
See, it's hard to even understand Old Testament prophecy and the way that it's fulfilled because this is different from the way you and I are used to thinking. My point is that it's very difficult to understand all of the prophecies made in the Old Testament. As I said, quite often they were fulfilled in a very different way than you and I would expect.
For example, look at Malachi 4, verse 5, which says, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Now, it says there that Elijah the prophet would come before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. It doesn't say there would be a prophet like Elijah or in the spirit of Elijah. It says Elijah would come. But look at how it was fulfilled. Again, in Matthew, Matthew 11, 13, and 14, Jesus said this, "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come." He wasn't saying that John the Baptist was Elijah reincarnated, but that was the fulfillment of that prophecy. Certainly, we would have expected a very different fulfillment. Let's look at another Messianic prophecy, Isaiah 7, 14 through 17. It says, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a sign, rather.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel." Now, we all recognize that as being fulfilled in Jesus. But keep reading, "Curds and honey he shall eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings.
The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people and your father's house, days that have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah." Well, now the very first part of that was literally fulfilled, the virgin conceiving and bearing a son. But was his name called Emmanuel? No, his name was called Jesus. You can read all four Gospels. No one ever addressed him as Emmanuel. I mean, we know what Emmanuel means, God with us.
And so we can see how, oh, that was fulfilled, but not in the way that you would expect reading that. You would be looking for a man named Emmanuel. You find a man named Jesus, you'd say, "Oh, no, that can't be it because the prophecy says the name will be called Emmanuel." It was fulfilled very differently than what we would have expected. It's easy to see it now, but it wouldn't have been before it was fulfilled. Do the scriptures say anything about Jesus eating curds and honey?
What about this part about the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings? What is that? How was that fulfilled? And did the Lord bring the king of Assyria upon the Jews and Israelites? I mean, if this is being fulfilled in Jesus Christ, which we know it was, how was that fulfilled? It isn't clear at all. And that's the thing we should learn.
You can't take Old Testament prophecies and go down them like a checklist and, yep, that's fulfilled, and then we check this next point off, aha, this little detail, it says this, okay, check that off, yep. It's not like that at all. If we're wise, we will learn from that lessons of history.
And when we look at the fulfillment of prophecies in Jesus' day that have been pointed out to us by the Holy Spirit, we should immediately realize that they were fulfilled so often in ways that we would not expect, that there were literal parts of the prophecy, or I should say parts of the prophecy were fulfilled in a very literal way, and other parts were fulfilled in a very symbolic or figurative way.
So going back to the prophecy of Zechariah that I read to you, you know, the truth is we don't know whether that prophecy is something in the future or whether it was fulfilled long, long ago. Maybe it's talking about events that happened during the time of the Maccabees, when the Grecian ruler Antiochus had tried to stamp out Judaism, and a small band of very brave, very dedicated Jews overthrew their Greek conquerors, even though Greece was the world power of that day.
See, maybe that's talking about things that happened back then. Or maybe as Tertullian thought, it was fulfilled in Jesus' earthly ministry and in the establishment of his kingdom. Maybe all of that about Israel and Jerusalem is talking about the Israel of God. It's talking about the Jerusalem above that Paul tells us about. I mean, we know for certain that part of that prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus' day because the scriptures tell us that.
Maybe these are events, as a lot of people think, that are going to be fulfilled before Jesus comes back. On the other hand, maybe these are things that are going to be fulfilled way into the millennium in ways that we don't even vaguely comprehend right now.
The answer is we simply do not know, but we have no grounds for taking the prophecy there of Zechariah and treating it as though it's predicting all these specific events that are going to happen with the present-day state of Israel, since so far none of the things that Zechariah talks about have been fulfilled in that state of Israel.
Well, one last one I want to look at that's been quoted to me as showing that God is predicting that the Jew, God had predicted that the Jews would be brought back to their land and not when they were returned to their land after the fall of Babylon, but something after the time of Jesus. This is Joel chapter 2, verses 18 through 27. Now, this is a fairly long passage, so I'm not going to read it all since it's not material to our discussion, but let me just read you a few key excerpts.
It says, "Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and pity his people. The Lord will answer and say to his people, 'Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations, but I will remove far from you the northern army and will drive him away into a barren and desolate land. Fear not, O land. Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done marvelous things. Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field.
Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God, and there is no other.
My people shall never be put to shame." Now, if I tell you that the early Christians believed that this prophecy of Joel had already been fulfilled in Jesus' day, I imagine many of you will probably roll your eyes and think to yourselves, "Oh no, here comes another absurd interpretation." But what if I tell you that the Holy Spirit has said that this prophecy was already fulfilled in Jesus' day? Well, he has.
Because the very next sentence of Joel says this, "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. And also on my men servants and on my maid servants, I will pour out my Spirit in those days." Now, I think all of you recognize that passage because Peter quoted it on the day of Pentecost and said that it was being fulfilled that very day.
And yet Joel in his prophecy says that this pouring out of the Spirit would occur afterwards, after what he had already prophesied concerning Israel returning to the land and that his people would never be put to shame. So I think obviously the fulfillment applies largely, or maybe totally, to the Israel of God because the fleshly nation of Israel was indeed put to shame when Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem. Well, let's move on to modern Israel. What about the modern nation of Israel?
Does its existence show that the end is right around the corner? Does it show that the things the Bible has prophesied are coming true right now in front of our own eyes? Well, do the scriptures prophesy that after the Romans would destroy Jerusalem, that sometime later the Jews would return to Palestine and create their nation anew there in Palestine? Well, let's think about the New Testament. Is there any prophecy in the New Testament which does prophesy the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in AD 70?
Is there anywhere there a prophecy about the Jews being restored to their land after the destruction of Jerusalem? No, there's not one single prophecy in the New Testament to that effect. Is there any specific Old Testament prophecy that specifically speaks about the Jews after the period of Roman dominion that says that they would return to their land afterwards? No, there's no Old Testament prophecy like that either.
What we have are passages like the one that I read to you above from Zechariah that we don't know for sure about. May have been fulfilled in the Israel of God. May have been fulfilled in fleshly Israel before the time of Jesus. May be something that's going to happen in the millennium. But there's no clear prophecy that in this life, in this world, before the second coming of Jesus, that the Jews would be restored to their land.
And I can say something absolutely, and that is there is no prophecy anywhere in scripture that says that God would bring restoration to the Jews while they still remained hard-hearted and unrepentant of their sins. God has never worked that way in the past. Think about when he brought the Israelites out of Egypt. It was only after they turned to him and repented and prayed and prayed. And yet even after bringing them out of Egypt, when they acted in disobedience, he let them die there in the wilderness.
What about during the period of judges? When they were unfaithful, did he fight their battles for them? No. It was only when they were faithful that God worked on behalf of his people and did miracles on their behalf. The same way, when did he bring them back to Israel, to the land of Israel from Babylon? Was it when they were still worshiping idols and those sort of things? No.
It was after they had totally repented of all of the wicked things they had done and called upon God that in his mercy he restored them to the land. And that hasn't been the history of the modern nation of Israel. I want to talk to you a little bit about the founding of Israel and the political movement known as Zionism that led to the creation of the state of Israel.
To the shame of professing Christians, what spurred the eventual establishment of the modern state of Israel, what spurred the Zionist movement, was persecution from European governments, particularly Russia and Eastern European governments, all of which claimed to be Christian. And what a terrible thing that what prompted the Jews to want to get to their own land was to escape the persecution from professing Christians.
But the founder of the political Zionist movement, which eventually led to the creation of Israel, was a secular Jew named Theodor Herzl, who felt that Jews in Europe, he lived in Eastern Europe, he felt that the Jewish Europeans would never be able to have equal civil rights with Christians. So it was he who came up with the idea of gathering the scattered Jews together from all over Europe and other parts of the world and creating a state of their own. His motives were purely political and social.
They were not religious. He was a secular Jew who didn't even believe in the scriptures. Now, this was in the late 1800s. And he was joined by David Ben-Gurion, who was another secular Jew. And these were the two prime leaders of the movement that brought about the state of Israel. So from the very start, the Zionist movement was secular, not spiritual. It was not led by any Jews who had repented of their unbelief and turned their hearts back to God.
It was not even led by religious Jews, still clinging to the Old Testament, still in unbelief and rejection of God's Messiah. Now, something else you need to realize is that from the very beginning, the Jewish leaders of the Zionist movement were supported and helped by fundamentalist Christians who had embraced what was then very new theology, the theology that today is known as premillennialism.
And part of this theology was that God would restore the Israelites to their land and restore them as a nation, and they would be his people again. And so the belief in that went hand in hand with the secular Zionist movement that was wanting to create the state, but not with any thought of God. For example, a fundamentalist evangelist named William Blackstone in the late 1800s vocally advocated the reestablishment of a Jewish state in the ancient land of Palestine.
In fact, in 1891, Blackstone presented what is known as the Blackstone Petition. It was signed by 413 prominent Christian and Jewish leaders urging the United States to give Palestine to the Jews. Now, at that time, Palestine was part of the Turkish Empire, but that empire was in a state of decay. So the thought was a world power like the United States, which was just emerging into the world scene, could just take that land away and give it to the Jews.
Well, the United States State Department circulated the Blackstone Petition. I mean, you could read about this in secular history books to various European powers. The thought was pure and simple. Europe and the U.S. were strong enough to simply take Palestine away from the Turks and give it to the Jews. Now, all of this was brewing. All of this was being planned when World War I broke out. And Turkey was one of the powers that fought in World War I, but they were on the losing side.
And the victorious superpowers like the U.S. and Britain at the end of World War I took Palestine away from Turkey, and Britain was given control of it. In fact, it was turned over to the League of Nations who gave the mandate to Britain to rule over Palestine. Well, with this, of course, both the Jewish Zionists and the Christian fundamentalists lobbied long and hard in Britain and at the League of Nations to create a Jewish state in Palestine.
And as a result, in 1922, the League of Nations passed legislation to create a Jewish state in the land of Palestine. Now, I'm going to read to you just some key excerpts from it. You can again find this in any history book dealing with this era.
It says, "Whereas the principal allied powers," these were the victors in World War I, "have agreed for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations to entrust to a mandatory selected by the said powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them." And then it goes on to state how Britain had been given this mandate over Palestine.
And then it says, "The mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative, and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home as laid down in the preamble and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion." So the original plan of the League of Nations was that this would be a homeland for the Jews, but it would
be a place where Jew and Gentile alike, Jew and Arab alike, would enjoy equal civil and religious rights.
Now, at that time, 90% of the population in Palestine was non-Jewish. But see, that last part never happened. But that's getting ahead of myself. Now, during the 1920s and 1930s, while Britain controlled Palestine under the authority of the League of Nations, they opened the floodgates for Jews to immigrate to Palestine from all over the world. And as a result of this, as the flood of Jews came in, they eventually became either the majority or a considerable part of the population.
Now, imagine how the people who were living there in Palestine felt about this, talking about the Palestinian people, the Arabs who were there. I mean, their ancestors had lived there for over a thousand years. And now what was happening is the Western powers were essentially taking their land and giving it to foreigners, most of whom were Westerners. These were primarily from the United States and Europe. Westerners, not Eastern Jews.
Well, as the Jews were flooding into Palestine, at the same time, the Jewish settlers immediately began arming themselves and drilling, preparing themselves for war. Well, Britain's mandate over Palestine expired in 1948. And as soon as it did, I mean, the day it did, the Jews immediately declared themselves to be a free political state, the State of Israel. And as you can guess, the surrounding Arab countries tried to prevent this, declared war on Israel, but they were unsuccessful.
Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was a secular Jew who didn't even believe in the scriptures. As a result, one of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects in Israel who was living there denounced the Israeli government in these words, saying it was a regime of blasphemers. So from the very start, the modern nation of Israel has depended on its own human resources and upon the considerable help it has received from the West. It has not depended upon God.
In fact, almost immediately after the Jews declared Israel to be an independent country, the U.S. sent $135 million in aid to Israel, even though it was just a tiny country. In fact, do you know what country, year after year, receives the most foreign aid from the United States? Well, I would have always thought it would be a poor country like maybe Sudan, where people are starving to death. But no, it's Israel. Israel receives more foreign aid year after year than any other country in the world.
Last year, the United States gave $2.2 billion of economic and military aid to Israel. So there's nothing miraculous about Israel's military strength. Almost from the beginning, they've had the latest technological weapons and have had the support of Britain and the United States. Their Arab opponents have always lagged considerably behind economically and militarily. Now, I know a lot of Christians think there was something miraculous about the Six-Day War back in 1967.
I remember hearing it on the news at the time when it was happening. But what we weren't told back there in the newscast is that it was Israel who had attacked its neighbors first. I mean, listening to the news, what was coming over here at the United States, I thought all of the Arab countries had attacked Israel and Israel was fighting a defensive war caught by surprise. Now, it may be that the Arab countries were planning to go to war against Israel. That's what Israel claims.
But what happened, regardless of whether that's true or not, is that the Israeli Air Force launched a surprise attack on Egypt and bombed the entire fleet of Egyptian planes while they were still sitting idle on their airfields, totally wiped out their Air Force before any war had even started. And they made similar surprise attacks against other Arab countries. So there was nothing miraculous.
Had the war ended in six days, they had knocked out the advanced weapons that were needed by the other countries to successfully launch a war against Israel. But because a small power is successful in war, it's not proved God is behind it or that there's anything miraculous taking place. Was Hitler's rapid conquest of nearly all of Europe in such a short period of time miraculous? What about Japan's rapid conquest of the Far East, of huge countries like China during World War II? Was that miraculous?
I don't think any of us would claim that. In fact, one reason I think personally that it's unlikely that modern-day Israel is a work of God is the very fact that Israel has won all of its wars. Because you see, in the scriptures, God never fought for the Israelites when they were unfaithful. This was one of the ways he brought them to repentance. It was the normal way he brought them to repentance, letting their enemies have victory over them, letting their enemies subjugate them.
And more than that, even when they were faithful, God never let them depend upon their existence on their military might. He brought a severe judgment on Israel in David's time. When David numbered, took a census of the Israelites so he would know how many men of war that he could rely upon. You remember the terrible plague that God brought on Israel as a result of David's sin. Make no mistake about it, modern Israel is even more opposed to God than were the Jews of the first century.
Nearly all of Israel's leaders today have been secular Jews who don't believe in the Bible, let alone believing in Jesus as the Messiah and the Savior. The Orthodox Jews there in Israel are fierce opponents of Christianity. I want to read to you an article from the CNN News Network. This is dated February 13th, 1998, from Jerusalem. It says this: "The dwindling number of Christians in the Holy Land are facing yet another threat.
Militant Jews and Israelis are trying to force members of other religions from seeking converts in the country. Most alarming to Christians is a newly proposed law that would let authorities jail anyone who shares Christian literature." It could even include the New Testament because, after all, that is certainly a document Jesus would say, "Go out into the world and make disciples," Pastor Ray Lockhart of Christ Church in Jerusalem says.
Still reading from the CNN News release, "The proposed legislation is aimed at those who possess, print, reproduce, distribute, import, track, or publicize information meant as an inducement to religious conversion. We are a Jewish state," explains Israeli Knesset member, that's their parliament, and Bill co-sponsor Nefim Zilli.
"We want to remain a Jewish state." And they quote from Lockhart again, "I see this as being quite contrary to human rights," he says, "particularly to the right of religious freedom and choice of religion." Still reading from CNN, Zilli's reply, "Stop your missionary activity in Israel. Stop it." Well, the report ends, "The legislation has cleared its first parliamentary hurdle. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes it." And incidentally, he was a secular Jew.
He didn't oppose it because he felt kindly or believed in Christ or things like that. But some believe it could pass over his objections, especially if Orthodox Jews decide to engage in muscle flexing. I've been unable to find what happened to that legislation. There's like a news blackout on things like that that happened in Israel. But a friend of mine who travels there periodically, a missionary friend of mine, he's not a missionary to Israel, but he speaks over there to churches.
He's told me that you cannot proselytize. You cannot do door-to-door evangelism or preach on street corners or parks or anything like that in Israel. Could it be that modern Israel is a counterpart to Ishmael of old? You remember Abraham and Sarah couldn't figure out how God could give them a son in their old age, and yet he had made these promises of what he would do through their seed.
So they had come up with the idea that Abraham would have a son through Sarah's concubine, Hagar, and then this would be the heir. But God didn't accept that. He was going to bring them an heir his way. He wasn't going to let them try to work things by human means. Modern Israel is very similar. Fundamentalist Christians back in the late 1800s believed that God was going to reestablish the nation of Israel, and they worked through human political means and the military might of the West to bring it about.
But when God brings about fulfillment of prophecies, he does it through his own power. When we use human means to bring something about, whatever it is we accomplish, it's not going to be the work of God.