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Israel Contra Mundum

Is Israel that has been in the historic land since 1948 the Israel of the Bible?

Yes, and no.  If we had DNA from Jacob we would find out that, yes, the jews who are in modern Israel are in fact descendents from Israel.  

But in another sense, they are no longer a theocracy that incorporates belief and obedience to God as of any importance in their government.  They are a soveriegn state, a self ruled democracy.  I spoke to University students in Jerusalem in 1971 and they told me, If there is a God, we no longer need Him.  They operate as perfectly secular people.

Why are the jews special to God among all other nations?
 
Because He chose them from among all of the nations of the world to be His own.

6For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.

7The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. 10But those who hate Him He repays to their faces with destruction; He will not hesitate to repay to his face the one who hates Him.  Deut. 7:6-19

Why them?  That's above your pay grade to know.  Same reason as why me?  

What did God promise to the jews?  

To Abraham, God promised a great nation, real estate, that all nations would be blessed by Him through them.  Kingdom of God on earth.  Unparalleled prosperity and blessings.  All other nations would seek their God through that nation.  A David like ruler in Jerusalem that would rule the entire earth with a rod of iron.  All or most of these promises are unfulfilled.

He promised He would not abandon them.  Ever.  Scatter them;  yes  Abandon them;  no
Isa. 49:15  “Can a woman forget her nursing child, And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.  
Deuteronomy 32:10-11  He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye. / As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, He spread His wings to catch them and carried them on His pinions.
Zechariah 2:8  For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “After His Glory has sent Me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye—
Genesis 12:3,   “I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

obtw  the apple of your eye in hebrew is your eyeball itself.  If you disturb God's people, you poke Him in His eyeball.  More than irritating.

What is replacement theology?

Replacement theology says that God did in fact fully abandon Israel as a unique chosen national people and that He replaced them with the church.  All of Israels promises go by default to the church.  

This creates a God who cannot be trusted.  A fickle God who decides to abandon you and pick someone else He likes better.  It destroys the perspicacity of scripture and the faithfulness of God.  A God who doesn't complete His promises.  That's a disaster.

What is "Just War Theory?"

Just War Theory

 


Just Cause / Last Resort
if someone has stated their goal is total annihilation and they are building nuclear fission bombs to accomplish that   it's a no brainer.

Valid Authority;  A legitate nation state protecting itself against terrorism

Probable success;  Not a choice if the other sides stated goal is to nuke you into total annihilation.

Is what's happening in Israel and Iran important in Biblical prophecy?

Probably.  We can't be dogmatic.  Here are some thoughts from my musings;

The President thought he could make peace by bully strength.  But the fact is;  God will use this president and whatever he decides to do next to accomplish His ultimate goals which at some point will result in a conflagration in that region of the world the like of which has never before been seen on earth.

Donald Trump is powerful, but God is far more so.  Mr. Trump is doing exactly what God has planned from before the foundations of the world to bring about the ultimate Kingdom of God with Jesus enthroned in Jerusalem.

I'm a "watcher".  Mr. Trump is a lot more fun to watch than most of the others.  He's making things happen, but actually every atomic particle is under the sovereign plan and control of God.  So we watch.

We may see an invasion of Israel from Russia.  Ezekiel 39 speaks of this.  Gog and Magog.  The reason I think we may still be around to see that take place is because it says after their defeat by God, Israel will have 7 years of fire wood left behind by the invaders.  7 years is the time left on Israel's "clock" according to Daniel 9.  So the church may be here to "watch" those beginning things.

Daniel chapter 2 has an amazing statue that represents all of the earthly kingdoms that rule the entire world, leading up to the stone cut out without hands, the Lord Jesus Christ who crushes all of the other Kingdoms and rules forever.

31 “You, O king, were looking, and behold, there was a single great image; that image, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was rising up in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. 32 The head of that image was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.   Daniel 2:31-35

The fourth is Rome, and it's in two parts.  Iron legs that crush all other nations.   And finally feet of iron and clay.  Two substances that cannot be mixed together for effective strength.

We know the iron legs was the Roman empire.  But other portions of scripture lead us to believe that in the end times there will be a revived Roman empire of 10 nation states that inhabit the same boundaries, roughly, of ancient Rome at it's peak.  That wraps around the Mediteranean Sea and includes Islamic nations of Asia minor, Turkey, Egypt, even Persia, which is modern Iraq and Iran.

I've been thinking about the iron and the clay of the revived Roman empire in biblical prophecy.  These are just my musings of what may be possible.  I'm not being dogmatic and can't back anything up with scripture, so this is just Jim's current best guess.

First of all, when God gives prophecies like this that are not yet clear, you can be sure that for the people in place on earth when the end times events are unfolding, what was foggy to us will be crystal clear to them.  They whom God chooses to reveal His truths to in that time will look at that prophecy and say, of course!

Here's my guess.  Feet of iron and clay.  This hasn't happened yet.  The church age is a great parenthesis span between the iron legs and the feet of iron and clay.  They don't mix.  Clay weakens iron.  It's a nervous semi impossible mixture.  I think it will be a mix of Roman Catholicism with the pope as Antichrist, and Islam.

In Islamic eschatology of future things, The pope will be the Mahdi.  But don't forget that Islamic eschatology pictures Jesus returning from heaven.  It's an Islamic Jesus who has great miraculous powers.  He fools the whole world.  I think that islam is the clay and western romanism based in Roman Catholicism is the iron.  But it's this strange mix of a false Jesus in Islam and the west.  A nervous marriage indeed.  Together they fool the entire earth into following them.  

It's an unholy trinity in a way.  The Mahdi, who is antichrist, the false jesus who supposedly comes back from heaven and does miracles, our Bibles call him the "false prophet", and the third part of the unholy trinity is called the "image of the beast."  Hello AI.  A tracking device that follows your every move and monitors you completely?  

And OBTW, all of these muslim converts who are getting these strange dreams from Jesus?  I'm not buying it.  Which Jesus?  Is this just Satan setting the stage for Issi, the islamic Jesus to return from heaven and do miracles to fool the whole world into following antichrist?  

So, Israel, the USA and Iran.  We watch to see what unfolds.

In Romans 11 and in Zechariah 12 - 14 a massive revival in Israel happens where all Israel will be saved.  All who have survived at that point in Jacob's trouble.  It's at the end of the 7 year conflagration.  And yes, I believe it is the Israel, now in the land, who are secular unbelievers at this stage.



DISCUSS.  QUESTIONS.  COMMENTS.