Photo: Athey Creek Fellowship

The following talk by Oregon pastor Brett Meador (from 2013) will be very helpful in understanding the biblical view of Israel and the Jews. Because anti-Semitism and replacement theology are becoming more and more prevalent within the church, it’s important to have a good understanding of this issue. We think this talk will help.

http://atheycreek.com/teachings/15566/the-history-of-israel/

We have been shocked and utterly dismayed at witnessing a growing distain for Israel and the Jews by those within the evangelical camp. Sadly, we have learned that even some who read Lighthouse Trails fall in this category. That has been surprising to us because we have been very vocal about where our sympathies lie since our inception. While not everyone who has crossed our path has been upfront about their own views on Israel and the Jews, Lighthouse Trails has never kept this a secret.

Recently, we heard a sermon online by an evangelical pastor who said that those who hold a special regard for the Jews need to repent. In a day and age when anti-Semitism is growing rapidly and were there are only 14 million Jews left in the world, we were very troubled by this pastor’s comments. He elaborated on how much evil the Jews had done to the world as if they were especially evil and wicked. This is a sign of the times.

As a reminder, here is what we believe about Israel and the Jews:

We believe God made an everlasting covenant with Israel. We do not believe the church replaces Israel (replacement theology). We believe there is biblical prophetic significance with Israel today. While we believe that individual Jews need to hear and accept the Gospel just like every human being does, the Bible is clear that Israel and the Jews are the apple of His eye, and as believers, we have been grafted in.

We reject and detest every form of anti-Semitism (which we are shockingly seeing growing strongly within the evangelical church today). We have published two books by living Holocaust survivors and carry numerous other materials about the Holocaust, finding it to be one of the most atrocious acts every committed against humanity and particularly against the Jews. We believe Satan hates the Jews and Christians with a special vengeance.

We have posted numerous articles in the past several years that illustrate our concern for and interest in Israel and the Jewish people. In 2011, we began carrying Tony Pearce’s book, The Messiah Factor, which we find to be one of the best books we have read regarding Israel and the Jews. Below are a couple extracts from that book. We have also posted some articles by Pastor Bill Randles and Mike Oppenheimer, both who have written extensively about Israel. Below are some of those articles as well as others we have posted. Hopefully, these articles will clearly show our views regarding Israel and the Jewish people.

We realize there are Christians who will not agree with us, and to you we say, there are many websites that will side with you, but Lighthouse Trails is not one of them.

Israel in comparison to Arab countries: Israel – Red; Arab Countries: Green

SOME OF OUR COVERAGE OF ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE:

LT Statement on Luther and His Later Views Toward the Jews by Lighthouse Trails

Hitler’s Plan to Replace Christianity with a “New” Christianity  by Tony Pearce

Who Really Killed Jesus? (A word to those who hate the Jews)  by Tony Pearce

Israel/Flotilla Coverage You May Not Hear in the Mass Media – “Israel Should Go Home to Germany!”

Balaam, On Being Paid to Curse Israel  by Bill Randles

New York Times: America’s Policy Towards Israel Officially Shifts from The Berean Call

The Anti-Israel Revelation

Holocaust Remembrance Day 2012 – Resistance in the Midst of Travesty

Why the Heathen Rage in a World Gone Amiss  by Bill Randles

Obama and the Mourning of Israel Video with Bill Randles

Media misleading on Jews evicting Arabs from Jerusalem  by WND

Interesting Times? . . . Actually it is the End Times  by Bill Randles

Israel and Prophetic Proof  by The Berean Call

A Right and Left Hook to the Bible  by Mike Oppenheimer

“Former senior White House correspondent renews venom [against Israel and the Jews] at Arab conference” by WND

Vatican synod calls for end to Israel’s ‘occupation’ – “no longer a chosen people.” by Jerusalem Post

U.N. Human Rights Council Retaining Its Bias Against Israel

Obama Defends “Robust Support” For Israel – Administrative Record Proves Differently  by CSN News

UN Textbooks for Palestinian Children ‘Explosively Anti-Semitic, Anti-American and Anti-Israeli’  by CSN News

It’s Official: Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes; Insists They are Moderate

By Tony Pearce
(excerpt from The Messiah Factor)

Those who blame God for the Nazi Holocaust should note that the roots of the Nazi ideology lay in a definite rejection, indeed a bitter hatred of not just Judaism, but the God of the Bible and authentic Christianity. In this connection it is interesting to note the following thoughts written by Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher who first proclaimed that “God is dead.”

That the strong races of Northern Europe have not repudiated the Christian God certainly reflects no credit on their talent for religion. (1)

[Speaking of the Christian concept of God] The God of the great majority, the democrat among gods (NB Nietzsche loathed democracy), has nonetheless not become a proud pagan god; he has remained the god of the nook, the god of all dark corners and places, of all the unhealthy quarters throughout the world. (2)

What is good? – All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power increases, that resistance is overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but proficiency. The weak and ill constituted shall perish; the first principle of our philanthropy. And one shall help them to do so. What is more harmful than any vice? Active sympathy for the weak and ill constituted: Christianity. (3)

Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands in the antithesis to the tonic emotions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: it has a depressive effect. Pity on the whole thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction: it defends life’s disinherited and condemned. (4)

This philosophy of 19th century German atheism clearly has a spiritual link to Nazi ideology. One wonders what Nietzsche would have thought of the strong, powerful, pitiless ones, the SS, “selecting” the fittest specimens as they ran past them naked – the strong to be worked to death in concentration camps, the weak and “ill-constituted” to be taken away to the gas chambers. What does the modern world need, hard, pitiless anti-Christian men and women, or those who will follow the one Nietzsche despises so much? He said:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God (Jesus speaking in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5.3-9).

There was no doubt what kind of people Hitler wanted. He said “Antiquity was better than modern times because it did not know Christianity and syphilis.” His main reasons for rejecting Christianity were as follows:

1. It was the religion which sided with everything weak and low.
2. It was purely Jewish and Oriental in origin. “Christians bend their backs to the sound of church bells and crawl to the cross of a foreign God”.
3. The religion began 2000 years ago among sick and despairing men who had lost their faith in life.
4. Christian ideas of forgiveness of sin, resurrection and salvation were just nonsense.
5. The Christian idea of mercy was dangerous. One must never extend mercy to an enemy. “Mercy is an un-German concept.”
6. Christian love was harmful. Love paralyses.
7. The Christian idea of equality of all human beings before God meant that the inferior, the ill, the crippled, the criminal and the weak were protected. (5)

The Nazis may have marched into battle with “Gott mit uns” (God with us) as their motto, but their god was a pagan antichrist god, and they followed a false messiah, Adolf Hitler, and bowed down before idols of power, physical force and the dream of world domination by the Teutonic Master Race. Is it surprising that the fruit of this demonic ideology was the nightmare of destruction and slaughter which followed in their wake?

They may also have professed some sort of Christianity, but their aim was to replace authentic Christianity with a programme for a new German Christianity:

1) Throw out the Old Testament – it is a Jewish book. Also throw out parts of the New Testament.
2) Christ must be regarded not as Jewish, but as a kind of Nordic martyr put to death by the Jews, a kind of warrior who by his death saved the world from Jewish domination.
3) Adolph Hitler is the new Messiah sent to earth to rescue the world from the Jews.
4) The swastika replaces the cross as the symbol of German Christianity.
5) German land, German blood, German soul, German art – these four things must become the most sacred things of all to the German Christian. (6)

In effect the Nazis were replacing Christianity with a new paganism which drew its strength from Wagner’s music and the Nordic myths of pre-Christian times. One of the prime movers in this direction was Alfred Rosenburg to whom Hitler awarded the National Prize, Germany’s version of the Nobel Prize, in 1937. Rosenburg wanted a return to the old Teutonic religion of fire and sword. There was even a hymn for the new German Faith Movement:

The time of the Cross has gone now,
The Sun Wheel shall arise,
And so, with God, we shall be free at last
And give our people their honour back. (7)

(This has been an excerpt from Tony Pearce’s book, The Messiah Factor.)

Notes:
1. Nietzche, The antichrist (Penguin version), p. 2.
2. Ibid., p. 7.
3. Ibid., p. 17.
4. Ibid., p. 19.
5. Louis L. Snyder, Hitler and Nazism, p. 87.
6. Ibid., p. 90.
7. Ibid., p. 91.

Courtesy and Comments by Understand the Times, International

Click to enlarge at source page.

When it comes to rulings promoted by the United Nations against Israel, there is only one way to make sense of the nonsense. Israel is despised by the nations of the world just as the Bible predicted that it would be in the last days. The God of Israel is the God of the Bible and will not be mocked. It is only a matter of time until Bible prophecy will be fulfilled and the nations that come against Israel will be judged. – Understand the Times.

From CBN (Posted for informational and research purposes):
May 3 – UN’s ‘Absurd’ Birthday Present to Israel: Resolution Brands Them ‘Occupiers’

On the same day Israel celebrated its 69th birthday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO, passed a resolution declaring Israel an “occupying power” in Jerusalem.   “All legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the “basic law” on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith,” the resolution stated. Last October, UNESCO passed a similar resolution denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, declaring them Muslim “holy sites.” The resolution also passed a day before President Trump is due to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.  Read Full Article

Today, it is the 2017 Holocaust Memorial/Remembrance Day, and around the world people will be stopping to remember the atrocities committed against six million Jews and around five million others, murdered because of the madness of one man – Adolph Hitler. For those of you who follow the writings of Lighthouse Trails, you know we hold a special place in our hearts regarding the Holocaust, and indeed have two Holocaust survivors for authors (one a Jewish Christian and one a resistance worker). What we are about to say is prompted because of our commitment to bring the things of darkness to the light.

During the preparation of our two Holocaust books (Trapped in Hitler’s Hell and Things We Couldn’t Say), we turned to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) for photographs of the Holocaust that we could use in our books. The USHMM has thousands of photos, which are proof against any delusion that the Holocaust never happened. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; well think of what thousands of pictures are. So the world should be ever grateful to this Museum that has done well to preserve the past with the hope that such would never happen again.

Eight years ago, during the 2009 Holocaust Remembrance Day observations, when we learned that the USHMM had asked Barack Obama to be the keynote speaker for their ceremony, we realized that the true message of Holocaust remembrance was being lost. We could see that true message is being replaced with ideologies of tolerance, unification, globalism, and so forth. A 2009 press release put out by the USHMM stated:

We are honored that President Obama will participate in our Days of Remembrance ceremony,” said Fred S. Zeidman, Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “At this critical moment, with hatred and anti-Semitism on the rise in so many parts of the world, and genocide still a reality, we are reminded of the continued relevance of the Holocaust and the urgency of its lessons. What the Holocaust teaches us with such moral clarity is the power of the individual and the responsibility we all have to not stand silent in the face of injustice.”

The Bible says that unless a person is born again, he cannot comprehend the things of the Spirit. So we understand why the world views things the way they do, but unfortunately they have missed the real reason why the Holocaust happened, and why it may possibly happen again. While liberals and homosexuals are cashing in on the new Holocaust message of tolerance in order to propagate their agendas, the real meaning is being buried and ignored by most.

This true message is found within the pages of Scripture. In the Old Testament, God made a covenant with the Jews, and in the New Testament, God offered man a promise of salvation and eternal life for all who accepted this new covenant, which was sealed by the blood of Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection. Within the pages of Scripture are details about God’s enemy, Satan, who hates God’s covenant with man. From the beginning of the Jewish people, they have been hated by Satan, and after the resurrection, when Christianity began, he has hated Christians as well.

The wrath that was poured out by Hitler, particularly to Jews (and anyone who helped them, of which many were Christians) was instigated, not because Hitler wasn’t “tolerant” or because he wasn’t a “globalist.” It was because he was indwelled with an anti-Christ spirit that hates anything to do with the covenant God has made with man. As the Bible explains, Lucifer (Satan) has the aspiration of being “like the Most High” (Isaiah 14). The Bible says he is the father of lies, confusion, and every evil thing. Christians who have studied the Holocaust and read about the horrible rage that was released against the Jews know that no one man could have done this alone. We understand that Hitler was demonically inspired.

The “tolerance” message deceives people into thinking that it cares about people being treated equally and justly, but in reality it is an anti-God, anti-freedom message. Hidden within its core is the idea that no one belief system can be the only way to God or truth; hidden within its core is an anti-Christ zeal that determines to lash out against God’s covenant with man. For instance, to say Christianity is true and Islam isn’t would be seen as intolerance and therefore evil. But in essence, both faiths are diametrically opposite of each other (even though they may share certain moral values) to how one is brought into a right relationship with God. Islam portrays human effort as being the primary catalyst for such a relationship, whereas Christianity’s emphasis is on a Savior who puts a person in a right relationship with God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, not of man’s own doing. Since Islam rejects this, a devout Christian has to reject Islam. Thomas Merton knew that doctrinally the two beliefs could never come together; he came to believe that it was only through mysticism they could unite. In Ray Yungen’s book, A Time of Departing he discloses Merton’s views on this:

In a dialogue with a Sufi leader, Merton asked about the Muslim concept of salvation. The master wrote back stating:

Islam inculcates individual responsibility for one’s actions and does not subscribe to the doctrine of atonement or the theory of redemption.

To Merton, of course, this meant little because he believed that fana and contemplation were the same thing. He responded:

Personally, in matters where dogmatic beliefs differ, I think that controversy is of little value because it takes us away from the spiritual realities into the realm of words and ideas … in words there are apt to be infinite complexities and subtleties which are beyond resolution. . . .  But much more important is the sharing of the experience of divine light [mysticism] . . . It is here that the area of fruitful dialogue exists between Christianity and Islam. (emphasis added)1

Merton was basically saying that the doctrine of redemption and atonement through Christ was “of little value.” This also reflects the view of the emerging church that tolerance is more virtuous than faith, and that faith can actually be unvirtuous. As illustrated in the movie, Doubt, doubt and uncertainty unites. The priest in Doubt does a homily on doubt, and the fundamentalist in the movie (Meryl Streep) sees that as dangerous but in the end, she herself doubts. The point of the film is that uncertainty is good. Father Flynn is a Thomas Merton type priest in the sense that firm conviction is not necessarily a good thing. This is consistent with the emerging church and where emergent leader Tony Jones says in his book, The New Christians that uncertainty (including uncertainty of Scripture) is better than certainty and where Brian McLaren says we still haven’t got the Gospel right (A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 293).

The world thinks that if it teaches “tolerance,” that the Holocaust will never happen again. But the very message behind this kind of “tolerance” could actually cause it to happen again because tolerance, according to the world, is against the God of the Old and New Testament and against the people with whom He has made a covenant. But until Jesus Christ returns, which He has promised to do, Satan will be free to attack and destroy. The Bible says that as the days of Christ’s return draw closer, what takes place in the world will be like the birth pangs of a woman in labor. The pangs intensify the closer the birth becomes. And that is why spiritual deception continues to expand, quite quickly now.

While we have appreciated the efforts of the USHMM to preserve the evidence of the Holocaust, we are disappointed that they have latched onto the “tolerance” message that ultimately will reject the Jews and the Christians.

We must add something here too about homosexual activists, because they are the strongest and most out-spoken group for “tolerance.” But they have used the Holocaust and many of its stories, such as The Diary of Anne Frank, to compare their “plight” with that of the Jews in World War II. While it may be true that Hitler did eventually lash out against homosexuals, a number of the prominent Nazis, such as Ernst Rohm, were homosexuals.

For those who may be skeptical, read the following, which is from William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, perhaps one of the best works ever written on understanding Hitler:

He who was so monumentally intolerant by his very nature, was strangely tolerant of one human condition – a man’s morals. No other party in Germany came near to attracting so many shady characters. As we have seen, a conglomeration of pimps, murderers, homosexuals, alcoholics and blackmailers flocked to the party as if to a natural haven” (p. 121-122).

Later, pressure was put on Hitler to rid his organization of these types. But he was not intolerant of the homosexuals – that wasn’t why he turned on them. Hitler was intolerant of anything that stood in his way to bring about a super race of people that excluded, in particularly, the Jews and those who loved them.

We want to make one thing clear. Lighthouse Trails does not advocate persecution of people of any race, religion, or persuasion. We do not believe any person should be treated with hateful or cruel behavior, either physically or verbally. What we are trying to get across is that the tolerance message is too binding in a theological sense and restricts the preaching of the Gospel. It will never work for biblical Christianity because, as Christians, we have to insist that the blood of Jesus Christ is the only way to be reconciled with God, and the tolerance message rejects such an approach.

Some may wonder how this all ties in with Obama speaking for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum ceremony. Obama represents a new kind of “Christianity,” one that looks more like Brian McLaren’s spirituality than biblical Christianity and one that lines up with the “tolerance” message in that Obama believes that other religions are legitimate paths to God:

Obama does clearly believe that the form of Christianity that he committed to at Trinity Church in 1985 is not the only path to God. “I am rooted in the Christian tradition,” he has said. Nevertheless he asserts, “I believe there are many paths to the same place and that is a belief there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.” He first saw his broad embrace of faith modeled by his mother. “In our household,” he has explained, “The Bible, [t]he Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf . . . on Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to a church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.”2

It is the following words that Satan hates and does all he can to destroy, but try as he might, he never will. It is the light that shines in a dark world. And a merciful, patient God calls out.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father [God], but by me. John 14:6

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. I John 4: 9-10

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Revelation 1:5

It is our prayer that many Jews around the world will come to see Jesus Christ as their Messiah and not be deceived by this “tolerance” message that in the end will hate them and persecute them. Historically, the Jewish people have been a trusting people . . .  this is one message we hope they won’t buy into.

Notes:
1. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing (Eureka, MT: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2nd ed. 2006) p. 59, citing Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Editors, Merton and Sufism (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999), p. 110.

2. Stephen Mansfield, The Faith of Barack Obama (Thomas Nelson) p. 55, quoting from Audacity of Hope, Obama, p. 203. (See our article.)

The article above was originally posted on the Lighthouse Trails Research blog in 2009 but remains relevant today.

Related Articles and Resources on the Holocaust:

 Oprah Winfrey’s New Age “Christianity” (Part 2) – Neale Donald Walsch, “God,” and Hitler

Lighthouse Trails Resources on the Holocaust

LTRP Note: As we approach this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day (April 24th) and in view of a recent article we posted where we referred to God’s view of Israel, we are reposting Mike Oppenheimer’s article/booklet titled Israel: Replacing What God Has Not, which we originally released four years ago. And if you have never watched Caryl Productions documentary film Christian Palestinianism, we highly recommend it. In view of secular media’s bias against Israel and much of the Protestant and evangelical church turning against Israel as well, this is an issue that Christians need to understand. We hope the DVD as well as Mike Oppenheimer’s report will help with that. Both are from a scriptural perspective.

Israel: Replacing What God Has Not
Mike Oppenheimer

At a time when a clear and biblically sound understanding of  Bible prophecy is most important, we find the church, paradoxically, having less knowledge of it, especially as it relates directly to Israel.  Most evangelical Christians throughout history have supported the Jews and the modern state of Israel, but things are changing. The church, from its infancy, believed God had a future plan for Israel based on Scripture (Acts 3:19). This plan included the national  restoration of Israel to the same land from which they were eventually  dispersed. As time went on and the church drifted further and further away from her Jewish beginnings, many began to erroneously believe the church had replaced Israel. But in this day and age when we see biblical prophecy being fulfilled on such an unprecedented and unparalleled scale—with God’s continual protection and restoration of the Jews to their land, there should not be those who walk in disbelief with regard to God’s promises. But there are!

A growing number within the church are holding to the position that Israel as a people and a nation has no further place with God and that Israel is eternally cast off for their rejection of the Messiah. They believe national Israel no longer has a future in any part of God’s plan. They also believe all the promises given to Israel have not only been revoked but transferred to the church and that the church is now the “true Israel.” Some even go so far as to make disparaging and untruthful remarks, which suggest the Jewish people are now no longer a “chosen people of God” and are cursed because of their unbelief or that they have inherited all the curses of the law found in Deuteronomy 28–33.

They believe all the blessings belonging to Israel have now been transferred to the church, but they neglect to include the curses found in Deuteronomy 28. If one is going to lay claim to the blessings of Deuteronomy 28, then one must lay claim to the curses as well. Nor can we live under the Old Covenant and the New Covenant at the same time. But, these teachers would strip the Jews of the inheritance God pledged to them (and never revoked) and apply all these blessings to themselves. But God sees through the arrogance, and jealousy, that is being rekindled in these last days. Ironically, those who have taken such a stance have proclaimed curses on themselves, for God said He would curse those who curse Israel. Deuteronomy 28 is a conditional covenant of Moses that God extended to the nation of Israel, but we would do well to hold fast to the New Covenant of grace that has now been extended to both Jew and Gentile.

Adherents of this Replacement Theology teaching claim the church was already in place in the Old Testament and was an assembly of believers. Therefore, the church, in their mind, becomes the continuation of Israel. Since Pentecost of Acts 2, the term “Israel” now refers to the church, they say. However, if one takes a closer look at how the words in the Book of Acts are used, one will see this is not so. If this is true, then why are there so many distinctions made between Israel and the church throughout the Book of Acts and why are so many distinguishing statements also made throughout Paul’s epistles? Such inconsistency can only originate from a man-made doctrine built on a false presupposition at best.

The very first occurrence of the Greek word ekklesia in the New Testament is found in Matthew 16:18. The word “church” (ekklesia, or assembly) is often thought to mean Israel by replacement theologians as a generic meaning for an assembly of worshipers. Thus, they assume the word church is a Greek word for Israel. They believe this is what Jesus the Messiah meant in Matthew 16:18 for the word church (it is only used again in the New Testament Gospels in Matthew 18:17). This would mean there always was the church (i.e., “the church” is Israel continued in the New Testament). However, in Matthew 16:13–20, the word “church” literally means “those called out,” referring to those who confess Jesus is the Son of the Living God—something that was not yet revealed in the Old Testament (this will be further explained as we look at Romans 11). These “called-out ones” are not in reference to the Mosaic Law that was given to the nation Israel but to a whole New Covenant.

In the New Testament, the term is used also in the narrower sense of a single church, or a church confined to a particular place. There is the church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (Romans 16:5), the church at Corinth, the churches in Judea, etc. As I stated earlier, if one were to keep substituting the word Israel for church throughout the New Testament, they would soon begin to see the problems it would create.
In Acts 8:3, Saul persecuted the “church” from house to house. He certainly was not persecuting Israel.

Acts 2:47: “And the Lord added to the church [Israel?] daily such as should be saved.”

Acts 8:1: “And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church [Israel?] which was at Jerusalem.”

Acts 11:26: “And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church [Israel?], and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”

And in Acts 15:4: “And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church [Israel?], and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them.”

The fact that Jews were called out of unbelieving Israel to be part of the church does, in every sense, go against the church being Israel.
In the same way, if one uses the word “church” or “the church” interchangeably for Israel, even more problems occur.

Matthew 2:20 says, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel [church].”

Matthew 8:10: “[T]o them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel [the church].”

Matthew 10:6: “But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel [the church].”

Matthew 15:24: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel [the church].”

Matthew 19:28: “[Y]e which have followed me . . . ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel [the church].”

Luke 24:21: “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel [the church].”

Would it not be prudent then to let the word “Israel” mean what God would have it mean in its consistent, designated, biblical
context, and the term “the church” be what God would have it mean in its longstanding, God-given context as well?

[T]hey asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6. See also Acts 3:12; 4:10; 13:24.)

Was he restoring the church? Of course not.

As Israel rejected the chief Cornerstone, Peter remarks that the believers are, “coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious . . . as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4–5).

You “are built up a spiritual house”—oikodomeisthe. These have become a congregation of faith among those who disbelieve.

The Nation Israel
Israel was always referred to as the nation made up of Jews who are physical descendants of not just Abraham (as are the Gentiles) but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Seventy-three times in the New Testament the term “Israel” is used. In the majority of the instances given, Israel is referred to in the national, ethnic sense. There are three main passages used to try to prove the church is Israel. They are as follows: Romans 9:6, 11:26; and Galatians 6:16. I Corinthians 10:18, however, cites “Israel after the flesh” as the true, believing Israel among the unbelieving—just as in Romans 9:6 the Apostle Paul makes a distinction between two Israel’s—one who believes, and the other who doesn’t. And yet, both are ethnic Israelites, but only one has the measure of faith necessary to enable them to faithfully uphold their end of their covenant with God. For without faith, it’s impossible to please God.

Galatians 6:16 is often used to prove that the church is Israel. This view maintains that the “Israel of God” is comprised of Gentile believers. The “Israel of God,” however, clearly is comprised of those Jewish believers who, in sharp contrast with the Judaizers, followed the rule of salvation by faith alone. Here Paul is speaking only of a division within ethnic Israel.

Some of them are believers and thus truly Israel, whereas others, though ethnically Israelites, are not truly Israel, since they are not believers. No Gentiles, therefore, are found in this statement at all.

This Replacement Theology view is often held within groups such as Reconstructionists, Dominionists, and Kingdom Now adherents who hold to a view that we will build God’s kingdom on earth before Christ returns. This non-biblical view presupposes that the Gentile will be able to establish what the Jew could not, but this will never happen.

God, however, has entered into a binding covenant with and is committed to the people of Israel. He has made an everlasting covenant with Israel and cannot break His Word. There are those in the “church” who take the position that His first covenant promises to the Jews are now null and void. Paul makes it clear to the church in Rome saying, “Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin” (Romans 11:1). On this basis alone, we are provided with scriptural proof that Replacement Theology teaching is wrong. In Ezekiel 36, God makes it very clear that He will never abandon Israel—not for their sakes alone, but because His name and His reputation are on the line. Jeremiah writes immediately after the promise of a New Covenant:

Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. (Jeremiah 31:35–36)

God is so adamant about His covenant with Israel here that He would sooner revoke the existence of the stars and planets that He would withdraw His covenant with Israel.

In other words, God cut an everlasting blood covenant with Abraham:

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:1-3)

This has not been revoked. To this nation, God will give a land—the land of Canaan (Genesis12:1, 7; 13:14–15, 17; 15:17–21; 17:8). God will bless those who bless this nation and curse those who curse it (12:3). God laid down a divine principle that has been seen and proven time and time again throughout history.

When you go against Israel (cursing the people like Balak tried to get Balaam to do), you are going against the Messiah who created Israel to be a blessing to all nations.

Another Scripture to consider is found in the Book of Joel:

I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:2—emphasis added.)

Also, in Genesis we read:

And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.” (Genesis 12:7)

He promised a land—specifically, the land of Canaan. The emphasis of Genesis 17:9–14 is that circumcision is a token of God’s covenant with Israel—being performed on the eighth day of a boy’s life. Circumcision was to be a sign of one’s Jewishness, or the seal of the covenant.
God chose to confirm His covenant with Jacob, as evidenced in Genesis 28:13–15. Then it was confirmed through all of Jacob’s twelve sons, who fathered the twelve tribes that came to comprise the nation of Israel (Genesis 49).

Israel was given laws and instructed in all the ways by which to be distinguished, set apart and separate from the Gentiles. Yet, now we have teachers saying the Gentile church is Israel. Such Gentile Christians who claim they are the true Jews and are of the notion they have replaced Israel, should take heed of and fear the words of Jesus when He states that those who “say they are Jews” but are not, are liars and are of “the synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9; 3:9).

The promises made to both Abraham and his seed are unsearchably rich in blessings which have not yet come to complete fulfillment but await the Messianic Kingdom. The Abrahamic Covenant contains both physical and spiritual promises. The physical blessings were limited to the Jews (such as the land), whereas the spiritual blessings were to extend to the Gentiles through the Messiah only (upon their being grafted into the Olive Tree). In the Old Covenant, the Gentiles had to convert to the religion of Judaism (but this still did not make them Jewish).

God revealed that it was to be through Sarah’s son Isaac that the Abrahamic Covenant would be confirmed (Genesis 26:2–5, and 24). Case in point examples of this include: Exodus 2:23–25; 4:24–26; 6:2–8; 32:11–14; Leviticus 26:46; Deuteronomy 34:4; II Kings 13:22-23; I Chronicles 16:15–19; II Chronicles 20:7–8; Nehemiah 9:7-8; Psalm 105:7–12; Luke 1:54–55, 68–73; and Hebrews 6:13–20. These verses explain how the Abrahamic Covenant is the basis for Israel’s Exodus from Egypt, for giving them the land, for Jewish survival throughout the centuries despite their disobedience, for the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, and for Israel’s final redemption and restoration.

Israel has become the focus for a watching world, always making front page news, and yet ironically and unfortunately, much of the church, to their own shame, no longer believes in the nation’s relevance today. It is Satan, of course, who has instigated hatred and anti-Semitism towards the Jewish people throughout the centuries. The closer we come to the end of all things and in the final analysis especially, he will be seething, and his rage will be unchecked, for he knows his time is short, and he will do everything in his power to annihilate them in a more horrific manner than even what Hitler was able to inflict upon the Jewish people.

In the meantime, we would all do well to remember that any teaching, doctrine, or interpretation must be based upon all of what Scripture has to say on a given subject (both Old and New Testament passages), and not just upon a single verse. We must take the whole counsel of God’s Word. When we study Israel, there is a wealth of information in the Bible awaiting our discovery concerning the people, the nation, and its future. Replacement Theology and its antagonistic view of Israel is perpetuating an anti-Semitic stance within the church.

What one believes about Israel is of utmost importance and pivotal to understanding the Bible and the end times. This should be all too apparent, if not self-evident when we study the Word. Old Testament promises made to national Israel will literally be fulfilled in the future just as they were literally fulfilled in the past. The details to support this can be found in abundance in the Old Testament, and we find that both John (in the book of Revelation) and Paul in his epistles often draw on a number of passages to prove their points.

As I’ve stated more than once already, but cannot stress enough, if Israel is truly no longer God’s “chosen people,” we find numerous problems inherent with this position that cannot be reconciled with God’s character, His promises, or Scripture.

Romans 11 contains scriptural precepts which are critical to understand. To get the complete picture, read chapters 1–10 of Romans through thoroughly. Also, chapters 1–2 of Romans points out how all men are without excuse because of the evidence of the truth of God, which has been with us from the beginning, revealed in creation, and found in nature.

Romans 2 discusses the Jew and the law. It points out the futility of trying to obtain salvation through the law—that Jews, God’s chosen ones do not have any advantage over the Gentiles for salvation. For we all have sinned, we all have missed the mark and fallen short of God’s glory. There is none truly righteous—no, not one. The law shows us just how short we fall of God’s holiness. In fact, the Jews who have more knowledge of God, will have even more to answer for. The chapter closes with the statement that it is not enough to be circumcised externally to be a Jew, but rather God’s concern is for the heart to be circumcised or transformed—not an outward change in the flesh but in the inner man.

In Romans 3–8, we are told that the Jews had an advantage over the Gentiles in that they were given the truth of God’s Word (the oracles of God) and were entrusted to keep it. However, both the Jew and the Gentile have sinned, and the law did not, does not, and will not justify any of us. None of us are justified apart from a genuine faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul raises the question in Romans 9–11 regarding the rightful place of Israel. On this matter then, Paul has this to say:

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. (Romans 9:3)

If the church was in any kind of position to replace Israel, Paul could not have made such a strong statement. However, we need to pay close attention to how Paul defines Israel throughout the book of Romans and his other epistles.

It’s obvious that God’s everlasting Covenant is still in effect with Israel because of what Paul states earlier in his very same letter to the Romans. He goes on to identify his people—distinguishing them from the Gentiles and the church:

. . . who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. (Romans 9:4–5)

Certainly, these are not Gentiles or “the church” of which he is speaking.

In summary, what can be said for Israel? God says that we are to bless them and not curse or turn against them. Of the Jew, Paul stated “unto them were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2). Jesus Himself said that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). And though they have been dispersed throughout the world, God has blessed and prospered them wherever they went. We, therefore, owe a great debt to the Jewish people; and Israel is still Israel and will continue to have a special place in God’s heart and significance in the future of our planet. Remember, God has said of the Jew:

 For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. (Zechariah 2:8).

To order copies of Israel: Replacing What God Has Not?, click here

Photo: WND

By Chelsea Schilling
WorldNetDaily

A Jew-hating Muslim preschool teacher in South Arlington, Texas, was fired Wednesday after she urged her social media followers to “kill some Jews” and tweeted: “How many Jews died in the Holocaust? Not enough…HAHAHAHA.”

Nancy Salem taught preschoolers at the Children’s Courtyard in South Arlington. She is also an activist with Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Texas, Arlington, according to campus watchdog group Canary Mission. Salem also supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, an anti-Israel movement that advocates severing global economic relations with the Jewish state. To continue reading, click here.

Related Information:

Holocaust Remembrance – When Hitler Was in Power – by a Holocaust Survivor

Anti-Jew, Anti-Israel, Replacement Theology Movie