Prophecy Matters Blog

A ministry friend of mine was speaking to a group of pastors recently. This particular denomination is not biblically conservative, overall, although there are pockets of that thought.

One of the pastors approached my friend and said, “I hope you’re not going to waste our time talking about Israel today.”

“Why not?”

“Because Israel isn’t important anymore; God’s promises now rest on the church.”

My friends, we live in brutal times. There is a brutality to our fallen world right now that is difficult to process. Humanity abuses humanity, natural disasters domino across the landscape, relationships implode.

And the Jews are on the chopping block again.

Really, have they ever been free from persecution?

I stand with Chuck Missler, who has said that Replacement Theology is the biggest problem in the Church today. I agree wholeheartedly, with a heavy heart.

The idea that God has “replaced” the Jews with the Church, because of Israel’s past abandonment of their monotheistic roots…is not supported by Scripture. Unfortunately, the virus of Jew-hatred that infected some of the early Church fathers has found its way to our time.

I’ve said this before, in this space last fall: Replacement Theology and eroding evangelical support for Israel are realities. I wish they weren’t, but they are. I stand by that. I am seeing a steady erosion of support for Israel, from Christian leaders. The folks in the pews are still staunch, but they are aging and the younger crowd doesn’t understand the significance.

Even though there are probably millions of pro Israel Christians in the U.S., many more are either hostile to Jews, or they are being influenced by the haters. It is no longer correct to focus only on mainline and Catholic churches in this area, either.

A recent book by acclaimed Holocaust scholar, Alex Grobman, is a tremendous resource in understanding the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict, obsessed-over so much by the Replacement Theologians. The oddly titled Palestinian Right to Israel  (thesis: there isn’t one) is in fact perhaps the best defense of Israel’s position that I’ve ever read. In it, the author lays out the basis for the claims of the Jews and the Arabs; I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

Would that scores of American Christians would read this historical treasure trove, since the basis of much of Replacement Theology is simply bad information.

Look, one can read the Hebrew Scriptures virtually like a newspaper. There are straightforward historical accounts (interestingly, there are those who embrace Genesis 1-11 as historical, but Genesis 12-50 is minimized or allegorized, so as to minimize Jewish roots) and the prophetic portions are largely clear: Israel will be dispersed for a lengthy period of time, but in the latter stages of human history, God will bring them back into their ancestral land.

This began in 1880 and continues to this day. How anyone with a skiff of historical knowledge could not see the miraculous nature of the modern Jewish state is literally mind-boggling.

The land was largely empty for more than 1,000 years. Now it is teeming with more than six million Jews. They are building modern cities on the ruins of ancient ones. Foreign laborers work the fields. The Israel Defense Forces is a formidable army.

Et cetera.

Prophecy pulsates there with every beating heart.

Yet the Replacement Theology proponents bash the Jews. I will say this: if a pastor who believes Israel isn’t important approaches me on a sidewalk, he’d better cross the street. His theology is not only dumb, it is lethal in a society in which biblical illiteracy is already at epidemic proportions.

What would happen in young lives, trying to navigate this brutal world, if they understood that an all-powerful, loving God, who has preserved the Jews all this time? They might just see hope for themselves, because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a personal God!

Don’t think for a minute that Barack Obama, George Mitchell, and Hillary Clinton aren’t met with gleeful handclaps from “Replacements” when they choose to squeeze the honorable war-hero, Benjamin Netanyahu.

And I’ll make a chilling prediction: more and more, we will see once-solid evangelicals cross over to the other theological side and embrace anti-Israel agendas. Why? Because the heat is getting ready to be turned up in the kitchen. Anyone who wants to stand with Israel will become increasingly isolated. Sadly, well-known names are going to throw Israel under the bus.

I maintain that the final push for this will come from some (some, I stress) once-solid friends of Israel, in the evangelical community. Already, leaders like Lynne Hybels have allowed themselves to be used as Palestinian propaganda (one guess as to whether Bill agrees with her on this).

And, cleverly, others like Brian McLaren, various Emergent dudes, and Tony Campolo are inferring that they are evangelicals (they also oppose Israel and support the Palestinians), in an effort to draw evangelicals away from conservative biblical stances, which also includes support for the Jewish state. In reality, these men are very liberal Christians, along the lines of Harry Emerson Fosdick, but calling themselves evangelicals is a handy disguise for duping the gullible.

If you’ve ever sat on the beach in Tel Aviv — as I have — and watched throngs of Jews move about, knowing that their ancestors also disembarked from ships there in the Mediterranean as they prepared to build the modern state of Israel, you know you are watching a miracle so huge there is no place in the universe for it to hide.

Except in the minds of pastors who believe Israel is no longer important to God.

Only too late will you realize in fact just how important she really is.

jim@propheymatters.com

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This past week’s announcement by Chinese and Turkish explorers that Noah’s ark has been found on Mount Ararat is fascinating, obviously for several reasons.

The difference between this announcement and many others over the years is that the explorers have provided video evidence; at the very least, it is a sophisticated hoax, but the very charge of hoax violates our judicial values, in which people are considered innocent until proven guilty. And make no mistake, the explorers will be found either guilty or innocent of the charge.

Photos of rooms made from wood planks and beams were released by the team. Members of the team, an evangelical group from Hong Kong, are also shown climbing into ice-locked rooms.

In any event, eventually we will learn whether this is a hoax perpetrated by someone with the team or with local guides…or whether it is the greatest archaeological discovery of all time.

The real point of interest is the reaction from the media. In particular, let’s look at a Yahoo News story from Saturday, May 1, entitled  “Chinese Explorers Stand by Claim of Noah’s Ark Find in Turkey.” The comment from Dr. Christopher Toumey (University of South Carolina) is highly revealing; from the article:

“The story of an ancient flood is more ancient than Genesis, says Professor Toumey. A passage from the Sumerian epic Gilgamesh, among the world's oldest known literature, tells of a man named Ziusudra surviving a great flood. The Babylonian version of that story says Utnapishtum survives the flood. The plot was reworked and the name again changed, this time to Noah, in the version in the book of Genesis.

“As such, Toumey says the discovery of Noah's Ark may not necessarily prove useful to evangelical Christians. ‘Obviously they want it to affirm the story of Noah. It could just as easily affirm the story of Ziusudra or Utnapishtum,’ Toumey told the Monitor.”

Toumey’s liberal bias is showing. The idea that Sumerian myth stories are older than Genesis is a matter of bias, and the difference between this view and the view that Genesis is real history is critical to one’s worldview.

More to the point: the idea that Sumerian myth stories are older than Genesis is, first, impossible to prove. One of the reasons liberal scholars insist Genesis is “younger” is that the charge gives seeming validity to their views. Do you see? If, as they allege, Genesis was compiled by countless anonymous “editors,” much later than the Genesis events themselves took place…then they are clearly much younger than for example, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Sumerian flood myth.

Secondly, once one accepts that Genesis was compiled, not as first-hand accounts but as written histories of oral stories, then one can easily see that errors crept in. In other words, Genesis 1-11 is not fully history. This view actually lays the foundation for a rejection of the Gospel itself, for if there was no literal, spiritual fall of man in a real place known as the Garden of Eden, then there is no reason for a Redeemer.

Only recently, it has become more and more frequent for young people to question whether Jesus Christ is an historical figure. This epic tragedy of thought is the direct result of 200 years of liberal criticism of the Bible.

“The story of an ancient flood is more ancient than Genesis” is one of the most lethal phrases in our cultural battle for the Bible today. Paradoxically, it is at once wholly without evidence and fairly widely accepted! Why? Because university professors, intimidating students who don’t recognize bias, say it is.

By the way, and this is certainly not a lesser priority than the integrity of Genesis, but the integrity of the history of the Jews is also at stake. For Christians, the very concept of a Jewish Jesus who lived in Israel in the first century is “threatened” by the views of biblical critics like Toumey. But the very concept of Jews, period, is threatened by this view.

If Genesis 1-11 is not true, or not entirely true, why is Genesis 12 true?

Christian supporters of Israel need to think about that.

jim@prophecymatters.com

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 "Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away."

A friend recently related a conversation he had with a mutual acquaintance at a book convention. The fellow, during conversation, quoted Isaiah 50:1. He used the verse to display his anti-Jewish stance, insisting the "bill of divorcement" statement refers to God "divorcing" the Jews.

This is classic Replacement Theology. The idea that God is "finished" with the Jews, with Israel, is running rampant through the American Church today. It is gaining currency among a wide-range of communities, from Pentecostals to those liberals, like Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo, who cleverly identify themselves as "evangelicals," even when they are not.

There is no denying that Jews have been afforded more freedoms in America than in perhaps any other country in world history. In many ways, the United States has been a haven for this people that dwell alone.

Yet that old sickness, anti-Semitism, is never far away.  

The acquaintenance mentioned above is nothing more than an uneducated preacher, who has been told that Isaiah 50:1 means that the Lord of History has been done with Israel, because of their spiritual rebellion.

Anyone who can read knows that the Israelites suffered greatly for their breaking of the first commandment. Further, we know, if we read, that the greater theme of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures) is that of the restoration of Israel—physically and spiritually. These restorations are finding fulfillment in our own day, a most amazing reality that is being almost totally missed by huge chunks of the Christian community.

Israel's rebirth is being missed principally for two reasons: A) ignorance of Scripture and B) a dislike of Jews. When both of these are combined into one person, the worst sort of "Christian" emerges.

I will say this as clearly as I can: Replacement Theology is a doctrine of demons.

Imagine if someone came along and told you that the message of Jesus was that He had come not to serve as the atonement for our sins, but rather as a universalist revolutionary who preached the goodness of man. (In fact, this horrid and thoroughly wrong teaching is being peddled in our seminaries, and has been for some time.)

A similar astonishing lie is being told about the history and fate of the Jews. In other words, if you simply read the Old Testament, a very clear line of thought would emerge about the fate of the Jews. In short, they have a glorious future.

Christian anti-Semites insist Israel has a devastating future. 

The biblical account of the Jews is quite similar to that of the biblical account of the origin of all things. A very straightforward, almost journalistic style is used in Gen. 1-11, which describes the Creation. A couple centuries of God-hating theologians and scientists have combined to distort a simple understanding of Gen. 1-11, and so we have the cultural divide between the Bible believers and the FOD (Friends of Darwin).

Interestingly—and I know most of the well-known creationist spokesmen today—Creationism has become an idea so well-advanced by the creationists that I dare say they have Darwin on his heels. Their efforts have frustrated atheists like Richard Dawkins, and the sophisticated messages of creationists have succeeded in the kind of Kingdom-building only dreamt of in some circles. In short, they have leveled the playing field dramatically.

So why are Christian leaders not as  excited about Gen. 1-12? Chapter 12 of course details the origins of the Jews. And therein lies the rub.

The key to answering this question lies in an understanding of "enmity." This reality, the beginnings of hatred that evil developed for good, has its origins in Gen. 3:15. It is there, I contend, that the Enemy's ultimate hatred for things Jewish emerged.

Satan has always hated the knowledge that eventually, God would send a Redeemer to mankind; read the account in Job 4 of the demonic spirit that expressed his frustration/hatred of humanity. Jesus was born into a Jewish family, and the Bible was written by Jews. The Lord has decided that history will culminate in the Jewish state of Israel, as the nations attack her. He has been quite clear about the judgment that will befall all those who have opposed the Jews.

Today, there is a growing propaganda campaign being waged against Israel. The breadth of this campaign is so far-reaching, it requires all the energy of Israel's friends to merely tread water, waiting on that day when God will set things right.

Perhaps—no, not perhaps—the greatest frustration is not the opposition from classic anti-Semites like the Arab League, but the opposition that comes from the community that should be among Israel's best friends. I'm speaking of those centrist Christians who either adopt anti-Semitic (masquerading as "anti-Zionism") stances, or simple indifference to the plight of Israel in our world today. There is also the Christian Right that identifies with conservative causes but is also infected with a dislike of Jews.

Replacement Theology is growing in the American Church today, and to pretend otherwise is to not have the courage to face it. I aggressively reject Replacement Theology, which is the narcissistic face of the Church. Imagine: Christians who believe God values them more than He values Jews. This despicable view is wholly arrogant and is the chief reason, I contend, that the Church has entered a period of decline and ruin. In other words, this is the opposite view of those Kingdom Now adherents who think they are going to deliver a triumphant Church to the coming (Jewish) Christ.

The growing impatience/hatred for Christian Zionism is going to get worse. The same leaders who champion other aspects of apologetics are hopelessly ensnared in a dislike of Jews. It is causing them to drink from the cup of Palestinian propaganda, which alleges that Israel is mistreating the helpless Arabs, especially Palestinian Christians.

(By the way, Balfour Books—www.balfourstore.com—has just released a terrific defense of Israel's position, from Dr. Alex Grobman. The Palestinian Right to Israel is an historical analysis of the claims of the Jews, and the Arabs for the Holy Land; don't miss it.) 

It is the Muslims who are mistreating/murdering Palestinian Christians in places like Bethlehem. If it weren't for Israel, wholesale genocide of Palestinian Christians at the hands of Muslims would be the reality; IDF troops also protect people other than Jews, and the Palestinians know it. Yet smarmy Christian leaders in America buy and peddle the propaganda about Israel.

Let them. The Christian Messiah is a Jew, and He's coming. 

jim@prophecymatters.com 

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Photos of a grinning George Mitchell meeting a grinning Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat in Israel recently tell us all we need to know about U.S. policy in the Middle East.

 At the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu is treated like a panhandler by the White House, which means Barack Obama. As I've written many times, whatever Christian influence resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. — and I'm including not only Obama but any and all staffers — it has precious little to do with a biblical worldview.

 What we are dealing with in our upside-down world today is a rising hatred of Israel, and it is perhaps most chilling when we consider the Christian community. Several avenues are pointing toward a culmination point in which various groups have a common goal: the destruction of Israel. 

 A growing number of Christians who (cleverly) call themselves evangelicals. Their position on Israel is not so different from that of Hezbollah terror chief Nasrallah, who last week claimed that not only is Israel allegedly planning to destroy the Al-Aksa Mosque, but the dirty Jews are also going to do same to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Get it? If the Muslims don't team up with centrist Christians to stop Israel, all hell will break loose.

 Mitchell, Obama, and the rest of the U.S. foreign policy team were raised on liberal Christian theology, in which Israel does not exist. 

We are entering a very interesting and dangerous period of world history.

 Fasten your seatbelts. 

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One of my favorite people in the whole world is Sarah Stern, director of EMET, a think-tank in Washington D.C. Sarah is a Jewish woman and a real dynamo not only for Israel, but also for the U.S. For many years she has been a force on Capitol Hill, educating congressional leaders about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 Her recent article, detailing untruths from high-profile diplomats, speaking at AIPAC, should be read by every Christian — www.emetonlineblog.com/?p=672

This is critically important for understanding how our government is undermining Israel, and appeasing the Arabs.

 If you are a Christian supporter of Israel, please remember to check out Sarah's activities at www.emetonline.org. She is tremendous and a fabulous resource for material!

jim@prophecymatters.com

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It has become quite fashionable to bash Israeli prime ministers, especially is the basher is a European or American diplomat or head-of-state. Normally, the heads-of-state send out their diplomatic goons to publicly upbraid an Israeli, but sometimes it is the chief himself (or herself, save, God bless her, Margaret Thatcher).

Now it is the Americans who are spelling their doom. And I write this as an American. Like most, my family has fought in all our wars since the Revolution. But when I write "the Americans," I am referring to those who are known by the Israelis as being problematic when it comes to support for the Jewish state.

Barack Obama no longer conceals his contempt for Israel, even as he says America is a staunch friend of Israel. He dispatches his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and special envoys like George Mitchell to chew-out Benjamin Netanyahu or his cabinet ministers.

As I've written before, a fellow like Netanyahu is far above his detractors in terms of character. When he led a team of Israeli commandos against a group of terrorist hijackers in 1972, he showed what he's made of. When he got on another plane a year later and left his studies at MIT in order to fight for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, he showed what he's made of. Netanyahu has faced death in combat many times.

 Barack Obama has faced tough election campaigns.

There is no comparison in their respective trials of life. When Obama, Clinton, Mitchell and other lesser individuals criticize the Israelis for defending themselves, they are simply signaling that they are byproducts of horrendous Church teachings, which minimize at every opportunity the specialness of the Jews.

In our multi-cultural, relativistic world, it is no longer enough to quote Scripture, in the sense that listeners are not really listening. They have been told for years that, for example, the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures are myth, symbolism, metaphor. This erases the Jewish specialness from the Bible and causes a veil to fall over the eyes of too many millions of Christians.

Just today I received an email from a friend who is a staunch friend of Israel. She is also a member of the Presbyterian Church USA, which is rabidly anti-Israel. The fact that she exists, though, and speaks out to her own people, is profoundly encouraging.

In the end — whenever it comes — we will see the sheep separated from the goats. Those who opposed Israel, such as Barack Obama, will realize too late the folly of their opposition. So today, let's read Joel 3:2 and meditate on the import of it.

Praying for the peace of Jerusalem. May Shalom fall on you as blessings from heaven.

jim@prophecymatters.com

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Isi Leibler is one of the most astute observers of the Middle East around. He lives in Jerusalem, so his perspectives are particularly personal.

Of real interest to us is his recent column in the Jerusalem Post. His remarks, detailing the “strained” relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, were very, very insightful. They are especially interesting for Bible-believing Christians who understand where we are. Notice these chilling comments:

“These hostile outbursts must be viewed in the context of the fact that despite strong ongoing support for Israel by the American people, the US-Israel relationship has been on a downward spiral since the election of the new administration. Former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy attributes this to Obama’s determination to rehabilitate Islam’s global tarnished image.”

Isi understands who Barack Obama is, and that this change agent in the Oval Office does not like Israel at all.

“THERE ARE now ominous signals that to obviate their failures, White House strategists are cynically distancing themselves from us in order to curry popularity by capitalizing on the anti-Israeli hatred, which has engulfed the world.”

The official U.S. stance toward Israel is bringing Zechariah the Prophet sharply into focus. There must be a trigger for the world to turn against the Jewish state. What bigger trigger than abandonment by the world’s last superpower?

Leibler, again:

“In stark contrast, the US has not publicly reprimanded the PA on a single issue over the past twelve months. It is unconscionable that neither the White House nor the State Department conveyed a word of protest concerning the ongoing incitement and spate of ceremonies sanctifying the memory of the most degenerate suicide killers and mass murderers. Not even when our peace partners President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad personally partook in these ghoulish ceremonies. In fact, during Biden’s visit, the PA announced that they would postpone a ceremony to name a public square in Ramallah to honor Dalal Mughrabi, the female monster responsible for the abominable 1978 massacre in which 37 Israelis including 13 children were butchered. Nevertheless the ceremony took place and the PA TV interviewed Mughrabi’s sister who stated: “This is a day of glory and pride for the Palestinian people. We must unite, and our rifles must unite, against the enemy who steals our land.” The US failed to register a protest.”

America’s official abandonment of Israel is not far off. Neither is Zechariah.

Stay tuned.

jim@prophecymatters.com

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I was thinking the other day about how many attacks there are against Israel, Bible prophecy, and Bible study.

 On the one hand, we have Emergent theology, which is making huge inroads into the evangelical world.

Then there are the old standbys: Replacement Theology; British Israelism; Liberation Theology; Higher Criticism; Word-Faith; Dominionism.

I mention Word-Faith in that group because there are aspects of that community very similar to liberal communities, and we wouldn't always see that connection.

I'm speaking of the tendency to spiritualize OT passages that speak about Israel and the Jews.

The remedy to all this is to simply read your Bible. Read it. If we take the newspaper at face value, why wouldn't we do the same with the Bible? Quite ironically, our news is often filtered through bias before it reaches us. Conversely, the Bible comes to us as it is, and we apply our biases to it.

The point I'm trying to make is that if there are numerous passages that speak of an end-time movement of the Jews back to their ancestral homeland (for example), and they have done that...why do most people miss it?

They miss it because wicked teachers want to bring chaos to Bible study, by conjuring abhorrent theologies and doctrines.

But read it for yourself. You'll find the truth.

jim@prophecymatters.com 

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In Genesis 4, we are told that a man named Jubal, whose father was Lamech, was "the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." Of course, in our crazy world today, it is controversial to believe that the biblical chronology is correct, and the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Actually, Jubal would have lived about 5,000 years ago.

But a story broke yesterday that archaeologists have discovered a 35,000 year-old flute in a cave in Germany.

This story has broad ramificiations, because someone is wrong.

Later in Genesis, we read that Noah's three sons left the ark and "fanned-out" around the region; Japeth's descendants settled in what is today Europe.

So, if I believe the Bible is true, some descendant of Noah's son settled in the northern regions, taught his offspring the art of music, and at some point, someone crafted a flute. This flute was then discovered in the 21st century A.D.

But according to evolutionary theory — and it is quite amazing that Darwin's theory spread from biology to every other field of science, including archaeology. We now interpret even archaeological sites within a framework of naturalism.

We have just learned in Ken Ham's new book, Already Gone, that people age 20-30, who attended Sunday school as youngsters, A) no longer attend church at all and B) no longer believe the Bible is true!

As Ham has pointed out, we teach our children Bible stories. Then they go to school and learn about Earth history from Darwinian philosophers who masquerade as teachers.

This disconnect is killing our culture and although my view is thought of as simplistic, fundamentalist, and stupid, I stand by my contention that Jubal's descendants were responsible for the flute in Germany, not a grunting, knuckle-dragging hominid.

There is a vast difference in interpretation here, and here is what's at stake:

By teaching our children that a hominid crafted the flute 35,000 years ago, we present a false view of history that also eliminates the Ten Commandments, the origin of the Jews, predictive prophecy, and, whether we like to admit it or not, the "New Testament."

This alternate history is destroying our children. It's past time that we took a firm stand for the historicity of Genesis, and by extension, all of world history.

jim@prophecymatters.com 

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We here at Prophecy Matters are pleased to announce new venues where you can read our blogs.

 A new weekly blog for PM has been set up at OneNewsNow, the news arm of the American Family Association. Click on "Blogs" at the top of the home page and it will take you to us; there will be a new PM blog each Monday.

Additionally, Jim is now writing a weekly column for WorldNetDaily — "Writer's Bloc" — which will be a look at the publishing industry and the cultural shifts that are affecting that industry. We'll also do some book reviews. You can find "Writer's Bloc" on WND's "Diversions" page.

We are also ramping-up the pieces we write for the Jerusalem Post's Christian edition (magazine), and will continue to provide blogging for the JPost's "Christian World" section online.

Remember to give us your feedback and send along the writings to your friends.

Thanks! 

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