“The Grand Deception” (Part 3)
Modern Day Israel
God is a covenant making, covenant keeping God. He has made covenants with His people which He never breaks. Any covenant He makes with them is an everlasting defence for their benefit, not His! He always remembers His covenants (Psalm 105:8).
For over 70 years now Israel has been a nation. Even though they were sent into exile because of their sins and rejection of Messiah Jesus, God has brought them home, having arranged an encounter with Messiah Jesus which they will have in the midst of a crisis that will threaten the very existence of the nation (Zechariah 12:10-13:1) (Zechariah 13:8-9) (Jeremiah 30:1-10).
Today there is no doubt that the people of Israel, the decedents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are being used by God to bless the nations because of that blood covenant God cut with Abraham. Even though by and large the people of Israel are still aliens and strangers to their own covenants of promise, God still has His hand on His Ancient people.
After He has fully restored them spiritually and nationally they will be the head and not the tail of all the nations in the whole world that have survived the Second Coming of Messiah Jesus (Isaiah 2:1-5) (Micah 4:1-8).
The Noble Peace Prize
In 1895 the Noble Peace Prize, an annual international award, was awarded by a Committee established in Scandinavia in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. At present in the world there are about 8 billion people (Gentiles) and around 14 million Jews. The Gentile nations are 99.8% of the world’s population. When you look at the statistics of those who were awarded this Nobel Peace prize Israel came through with flying colours on the international scene.
Since 1895 to the present time for Israel in the field of Chemistry, there were 31 winners being 20% of the world’s total. In the field of Economics there were 28 winners being 42% of the world’s total. In the field of literature there were 13 winners being 13% of the world’s total. In the field of establishing peace there were 9 winners being 10% of the world’s total. In the field of Physics there were 47 winners being 26% of the world’s total. In the fields of Psychology and Medicine there were 53 winners being 28% of the world’s total.
The Nations are Gathering
Today Israel is prospering as a nation to the point where the Gentile nations are starting to gather together against Israel. Right now you have China, Iran, Russia and North Korea making an alliance and with China having an increasing ambition to become involved in the Middle-East.
We know for the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel and Zechariah that in the very last of the last days the nations will surround Jerusalem hell-bent on completely subjugating the Jews and destroying their identity as a people, just like the Romans tried to do after the Jewish rebellion against their Roman overlords in the Bar Kokhba Rebellion in 135BC. This resulted in the final exile of Jews from Israel since the previous one in 70AD. In 1948 Israel as a nation was reborn in a day; an event prophesied by Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 66:7-9).
Another partial exile is coming but it will not destroy the status of Israel as a nation, neither will Jerusalem be removed from the place and prominence God has given the City where He has put His name forever! In fact all who seek to remove the status of Jerusalem being the eternal capital of Israel will be torn or ripped apart at the seams (Zechariah 12:1-6; 14:1-5).
A Nation with a Divine Eternal Destiny
There is no doubt, that despite the terrible suffering that the Jewish people have experienced down through the centuries and yet remained as a people through the attempts by Satan to eradicate then from the face of the earth, they are still the Apple of God’s Eye. Because of God’s covenants with them, especially the Abrahamic covenant and the New Covenant made with the House of Israel and with the House of Israel, they remain to this day His people and destined as a nation to co-reign with Messiah Jesus in His Messianic Millennial Kingdom in the age to come. To this the scriptures testify! God is using them to bless the nations today because they are still the physical decedents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
Are we for or Against Israel?
In light of how God feels about the Jewish people, in light of His unbreakable covenants He has made with them, and in light of how Messiah Jesus yearns to be reunited with His wayward brothers and sisters in the flesh, how can any New Covenant believer remain ambivalent towards Israel? Some will say, “I am not against Israel but I am not necessarily for them either?”
In other words those who make statements like this either do not know what God has promised Israel and to do for them in the last days by the revelation of the Holy Spirit from scripture, or they wilfully choose not to look at what the Bible actually says about God’s prophetic purposes for Israel in the last days. Some just conveniently do away with Israel altogether, having embraced replacement theology, the Grand Deception from hell, and one made up by Satan to rebuild the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile that Messiah Jesus demolished at the cross.
A Faithful Remnant
Having said this there has always been a faithful believing remnant from Abel to the time of Abraham the father of the Jewish nation down to the present day. All who have believed since the time of Abel are one family. Messiah Jesus has only one bride, not two!!! From the time of Abraham the physical and spiritual roots of all who have the same kind of faith in God that Abraham had are spiritually connected to the Olive Tree figuratively representing Israel (Romans 11:13-18).
The Mystery Revealed!
Abraham Isaac and Jacob were the patriarchs and Father of the Jewish nation and God’s intention was always to spiritually graft Gentile New Covenant believers into the Olive Tree, being the Commonwealth of Israel, a mystery revealed to the prophets and to the apostles and especially to Paul the apostle to the Gentiles (Amos 9:11-12) (Acts 15:12-18) (Ephesians 2:11-22) (Ephesians 3:1-6). Abraham then is the father of all who believe, whether Jew of gentile. Gentile New Covenant believers share in the promises and the blessings of the New Covenant made with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah (Romans 4:11-12, 16-25).
No thanks to Constantine
A Grand Deception has come to Christendom related to God’s end-time prophetic purposes for the Jewish nation. It started in the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine who not only paganised Christianity but also engineered the ‘Church’ to renounce its Jewish roots spiritually and to re-interpret scripture through the lenses of Hellenistic, Greek and Latin thinking and methods of interpretation completely removing the ‘Church’ from its Jewish Biblical roots, a mind-set perpetrated and perpetuated by the Reformers with their reformed theology concerning Israel as a people!
From the time of Constantine any Jew who was converted to Christianity, as defined by the Hellenistic thinking of the Greek and Latin Church fathers, was to renounce their Jewish heritage and their ethnicity and tie to Israel, an Unbiblical view that is still with us today in many churches both in the catholic, orthodox traditional thinking and even within some Protestant churches.
In these last days the Grand Deception is going to come to its zenith for the pagan world, for the religious world (religions other than Judaism and Christianity) and for Christendom itself (The structured denominational Church system).
A True Jew!
We know from God’s Word that “A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God” (Romans 2: 28-29). In its context Paul was not saying that one who has been born again was no longer considered to be part of the Commonwealth of Israel or recognised as being Jewish.
On the contrary, Paul was saying that when any person becomes a New Covenant believer they are spiritually grafted into the Olive Tree, being the Commonwealth of Israel, and for the Jew who believes in Messiah Jesus they discover what it really means to be circumcised in heart by the blessed Holy Spirit Himself and recognise what it means to be fully Jewish.
Any Jewish man, woman, boy of girl who comes to faith in Messiah Jesus does not cease to be Jewish, but rather enter into their full spiritual inheritance as a descendent of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob our spiritual forefathers in the faith and the patriarchs of all of us who believe in Messiah Jesus whether we are ethnically Jewish or gentile. We are all one new man in Messiah Jesus and inheritors of the covenants of promise and the sure mercies of David and the sure blessings of Abraham! This is the absolute truth of scripture and was always God’s intention (Amos 9:11-12) (Acts 15:16-18).
Is there an Inherent Risk?
Is there any inherent risk in not supporting Israel, a risk that applies to both the unsaved and the saved? Well Messiah Jesus clearly told us that there was. In Matthew Chapter 25, which gives us an account of what Messiah Jesus will do after He has returned to earth; you have the parables of the wise and foolish virgins, the wise and foolish servants and the parable of the Sheep and Goat nations. Let’s briefly look at the Sheep and the Goats.
The Sheep and the Goats
In Matthew Chapter 25:31-46 in the parable of the sheep and the goat nations you have three classes or people. You have the sheep. You have Jesus Himself and you have the goats. Messiah Jesus will be sitting on His throne in heavenly glory and splendour for all to see and before Him will be standing all of the nations that have survived His Second Coming. This will be happening on earth at the beginning of the Messianic kingdom. He will separate the sheep from the goats putting the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
To those on His right, the sheep being genuinely born again New Covenant believers, He will welcome into His Messianic kingdom to receive their rich inheritance provided for them since the creation of the world because they supported and stood side by side with His brethren the Jewish people in providing physical and spiritual sustenance and support for them. Added to this, He said that when they did these things to His Jewish brothers and sisters they were in fact doing it to Him.
To those on His left, the goats, those who did not support Israel He will reject giving them no inheritance because they did not stand side by side with His brethren the Jewish people in providing physical and spiritual sustenance and support for them. Added to this, He said that when they did not do these things to His Jewish brothers and sisters they were in fact not doing it to Him. As a result the goats were consigned to an eternal punishment implying an eternal and conscious torment, while the sheep went into their eternal reward in His kingdom.
Faithfulness in the Furnace
In the Holocaust multitudes of faithful New Covenant believers also died in the Nazi death camps as they stood side by side with the Jewish people in the furnace of their fiery affliction. Many New Covenant Gentile believers at the risk of their own lies hid Jews in their homes. They put their faith into action. At the end of this age then after Messiah Jesus has come back and reigns from Jerusalem, those who are still alive on earth will stand before Him, not to be judged, but for sentencing because they will have already been judged on the evidence that has been provided.
You can love Jesus and love your Bible but if you do not love the Jews, the message you hear from Messiah Jesus will not be favourable should you still be alive on earth after He has come back. While we are saved by faith in Messiah Jesus if we have genuine love for Him and for His Word and genuine faith in Him backed by works, then we will also have a love for his brethren in the flesh the Jewish people.
The dark stormy clouds of anti-Semitism are once again forming as they did over Europe in the early 30’s and the time of Jacob’s Trouble is approaching. When the storm of adversity and persecution breaks the only friends the Jews will have in these days of great tribulation will be born again, blood redeemed, Spirit-sealed, Spirit filled New Covenant believers, who love Messiah Jesus, who love Israel, who understand God’s end-time prophetic plan for Israel, and who will stand with them in their darkest hour yet to come!
The Grand Deception, an infestation!
The Grand Deception of Satan that propagates the idea God has finished with the Jews as a people and nation is once again spreading like gangrene through the Gentile nations and also an infestation within Christendom. All those New Covenant believers in Messiah Jesus, who are His sheep, and who see their divine and eternal destiny in Him and their spiritual connection to Israel, and support the Jews, will go to an eternal reward. They will not have been hoodwinked by the devil with this grand deception of his. Those who have not supported Israel, having been hood winked by Satan, will believe his grand deception and go to their eternal punishment.
Saved by Grace through Faith
Yes we are saved by grace through faith in Messiah Jesus and as a result find ourselves doing those good works God has prepared for us in Messiah Jesus and those good works include our attitude to His brethren in the flesh the Jewish people (Ephesians 2:8-10).
In the Book of Ephesians we see the unity between Jew and Gentile being one new man in Messiah and that together they have been spiritually grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel, not two separate people groups, but one Body in Messiah Jesus and who is His corporate bride!
God’s Book of Systematic Theology
The Book of Romans primarily deals with the relationship between Jewish and Gentile New Covenant believers in Messiah Jesus, especially in Chapters 9-11. The Book of Romans also gives us the Jewish roots of the Church. The Book of Romans itself is the spiritual and Biblical quintessential Spirit-breathed systematic theology related to the relationship between Israel and the Church. The Book of Romans puts to bed once and for all time that replacement theology engineered by Satan that is in itself the Grand Deception!
