Posted in Israel

Israel

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The children of Abraham and Jacob, he who was renamed Israel by God and which name is also applied to their descendants, are mentioned thousands of times in Scripture, not always in a complimentary way. As a group or nation, they have turned in some of the best and worst behavior in all of mankind. At various times they were disciplined for turning their backs to Him who rescued them from Egypt, even to the point of removal from the Promised Land and divorce.

However, consistent with His promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3), God has also designated them as His “am segullah” or treasured people (Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 7:6 (and others), Psalm 83:3) and made many promises to protect and ultimately save the nation (Isaiah 43:1 and others). Israel is God’s “line in the sand” for the Deceiver and anybody else who defies God’s plans for His kingdom. They represent man in general and showcase God’s love and compassion, especially when they don’t follow Him like they should. When they cling to God in the best way, they give all people hope for their own salvation.

Deuteronomy 9:5 ESV. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Israel is not under God’s protection and love because of anything they do or did, but because of God’s promises, character and care for all people. God’s promises will not fail, as we see in the modern example of Israel regaining the Land. No other nation or tribe or tongue in history or on earth has seen the same type of chastisement and been “born again” as has Israel. God is always there for Israel as He is for any other person or group that loves Him with all their heart, soul and strength.

Romans 5:6–11 ESV. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Believers have the same track record as Israel, but God still sent His only begotten Son to shed His blood for us who were lost. It spite of all our failings God loves us and is waiting for us to love Him back. If people condemn Israel, they condemn themselves.

God says Israel (or Jerusalem) will be a “cup of staggering,” a “blazing pot” and a “flaming torch” for all the surrounding peoples, and they shall devour them to the right and to the left (Zechariah 12). We are seeing the beginning of this in our time. Jerusalem is vexing the entire world and causing most of countries to stagger with alarm and hate at the “Jewish problem.” As all the nations led by Gog gather to crush Israel in the latter days, God’s wrath will be kindled and the armies will be wiped out.

Ezekiel is told (Ezekiel 37) that the two parts of Israel that separated themselves long ago will be joined together into one again. This also we have begun to see in modern times because most Israelis cannot tell which tribe they are in. They all are considered, and consider themselves, one people. However, in Ezekiel’s vision of the millennial temple (Ezekiel 48) the twelve tribes are listed again for the purpose of dividing their inheritance in the land, and in Revelation chapter 7 12,000 from each of the tribes (Dan isn’t listed and Levi is included which is unusual) are sealed. So God still knows who is in which tribe even though they have been united into one nation.

Believers don’t support Israel because of anything wonderful they’ve done. We don’t stop supporting because of dumb mistakes and a tendency to ignore God. We support Israel because God asks us to support them. He asks this because we should recognize the God is working through them as a sign of His love, care and concern for all of His people. We pray for their help and protection because it is our help and protection.

Psalm 122:6–9 ESV. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

Israel has done many stupid things, such as disarming their citizens, making the October 7th 2023 terrorist massacre much worse than in could have been, or signing so-called peace agreements with their avowed enemies. We pray that God will not hold their stupidity against them, in the same way that we pray He doesn’t hold our own stupidity against us.

Ezekiel 37:28 ESV. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”

Most Israelis think that they have reconstituted modern Israel by their own hand, and do not give God the honor and worship He deserves. So we can pray for their peace, bless them as we are able and willing, but recognize that they are still stubborn, stiff necked people who are due for a wakeup call from the Lord of Hosts. However, nations that are against Israel are against God, and God will require it from them.

Shalom

Posted in Atonement • Balance • Church • Daily Living • Identity • Idolatry • Israel • Jews • Judaism • New Covenant • Repentance • Righteousness

Generalizing

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I just read an article by a person who noted that “generalizing” with the words Judaism or Christianity might cause significant problems. The writer didn’t specify the problems, but I can imagine what they are. There is always someone who objects to the characterization that goes along with the general label.

For instance, “men are pigs” is a pretty severe generalization, and I would have to object to an extreme label like this without context. However, there are times when men act like pigs. I told my daughter as she was growing up that men are pigs and boys were piglets because they (generally) only wanted to get into a female’s pants. I was trying to teach her to be wary of the boy who claimed he loved her but (generally) didn’t really. In general, it’s true that many men (or boys) use tactics that generally are intended simply to get into a woman’s pants. If you doubt me, ask some women. I’m sure they’ll have lots of stories on guys who generally wanted nothing more than to hit and run.

I agree that generalizing can be viewed inaccurately. Just because something is generally true doesn’t mean it is true for everyone or everything. There are lots of Christians and lots of Jews who do not behave or think according to generalizations made about them. For instance, not all Christians reject God’s Laws. Some of them at least are just going by the teachings they have heard. All Jews do not drive hard bargains, nor do they all reject the Christ.

However, when a majority of time or a majority of instances something is true then a generalization can be accurate. Generally we need to include some context. For instance, most people who call themselves Christian reject God’s Laws in one form or another. Christians, again in general, have rejected the New Covenant while claiming to follow it. These things are  true, even if general. Most Jews are non-practicing or nearly so as far as Judaism goes.

What we really need to do is stay away from absolutes, such as in saying that all Christians are hypocrites or all Jews are Christ killers. Absolutely we are sinners, and we need a payment that absolutely cleanses us from all sin. So there are some absolutes, but we need caution when applying them.

Does God generalize? I think so. He does it both in judgment and in forgiveness. For instance, Israel many times chose idolatry over God. But God didn’t judge immediately. In His grace He gave them time to repent. Not all Israel was into idolatry, even at the worst of times. So there were times He waited for the general majority to repent. In the meantime there was always a remnant who  followed Him. Nevertheless, when judgment fell it fell on the whole nation. Sodom and Gomorrah could have been saved, if 10 righteous people were found.

Generally, God’s forgiveness is available to all. But some refuse the gift of the blood of the Christ as payment for sin. Generally, those who do will find themselves in a place that was generally created for fallen angels. We can take care of our sin, in general, by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus. I hope that people do.

 

Shalom

Bruce

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Audiobook for Whole Bible Christianity Available

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It took a while, but an Audiobook version of our book Whole Bible Christianity is now available. It’s about 15 and a half hours, narrated by Bruce. You can get it free if you sign up for a trial membership at Audible.com. You get a free audiobook when you first sign up for the service. After the first month it costs $15.00 per month but you get one free book per month too.

If you click this link to view the print version, then click on the Free with your Audible Trial button and stay with Audible for two months, not only do you get two free audiobooks (for $15.00 the second month) but we get a $50.00 bonus! You can exchange any audiobook you decide is not for you, and your credit for one free book rolls over to the next month if you don’t use it. Even if you cancel membership after a while you can keep all your audiobooks.

What a great deal! Whole Bible Christianity, Blessings Pressed Down and Overflowing audiobook for free, a bonus to us, and you get more free audiobooks.

There’s also the print version of the book, and Kindle version for a pretty low cost. The Kindle and audiobook versions do not have the Scripture Index with almost 1,500 entries from every book in the Bible, and the audiobook doesn’t have the footnotes, but still you can listen on the way to work and back or read on a Kindle at your leisure. Get all three and get it all.

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Book publishing • Church • Clean & Unclean • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Faith • Fear • Feast and Festivals • Feast of Tabernacles • Feast of Trumpets • God • Gospel • Grace • Holy Spirit • Humility • Hypocrisy • Identity • Israel • Law • Love • Marriage • Messianic Movement • New Covenant • New Testament • Old Testament • Paul Teachings • Whole Bible Christianity book

New Audiobook!

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We’ve now produced an audiobook for Whole Bible Christianity. It is available on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. I narrated it myself and it sounds very good. I did the narration because I don’t think anyone else could’ve really given the project the right tone except the guy who wrote it. It’s about 16 hours long but I don’t know what the pricing will be. Just check with Amazon under Whole Bible Christianity when you want a complete reference for Whole Bible Christianity to listen to in your car or while you are trying to go to sleep!

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Atonement • Authority • Balance • Church • Gentiles • Gospel • Grace • Israel • Jews • Judaism • Law • Love • New Covenant • Old Covenant • Paul Teachings • Righteousness • Sabbath • Tradition • Translational Bias • Worship

Freedom from Sabbath Keeping

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Hey All,

Just spent a few days writing a new article which is a point-by-point response to an article by Ray Comfort that he titled Freedom From Sabbath Keeping. It took a while, because the article is filled with a lot of, shall we say, less than biblical information.

Ray is a good guy as far as I know, and has a lot of good teaching. I have quoted from him, and use some of his material in my conversations with atheists. However, there are a number of areas where he falls short of biblical truth, and a bunch of them are in this article. So I went through it and inserted my comments directly into his text. I included Bible verses and commentary all with a whole Bible perspective. You’ll find a nicely organized selection of responses to what are also typical Christian arguments against observing the Sabbath. Why people would reject a day off from God is beyond me, but they do. So this article should help you with standard Christian objections to observing the whole of the Word, not just the Sabbath.

An excerpt from Point by Point through the Ray Comfort article Freedom from Sabbath Keeping. His words are in red, my comments are in square brackets and in blue (on the web page they are just in a different font).

Let’s briefly look at their arguments. First, nowhere does the Fourth Commandment say that we are to “worship” on the Sabbath Day. [True. Worship was every day. The act of resting on the Sabbath is worship. Worship has taken on an inadequate meaning in the intervening centuries, and it used to be that worship included sacrifices. But worship has always been obedience at its root.] It commands that we rest on that day: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11). [Notice that he does not answer the issue he raises: why does the church not “rest” on the Sabbath?] Sabbath-keepers worship on the Saturday. [No. Sabbath keepers might MEET on Saturday, but worship is obedience and for every day.] Do they know where the word “Saturday” comes from? It’s from the Latin word “Saturnus–Saturn + Old English dæg day.” Obviously Saturday is from the pagan day of worship of the planet Saturn (astrology). [In spite of the attempt at sarcasm, I can agree here. However, Saturday is also the seventh day, and therefore the Sabbath. The name of the day is not important. But the Sabbath is.

And another excerpt.

The Scriptures tell us that at one point, the Apostles especially gathered to discuss the attitude of the Christian to the Law of Moses. [This is biblically incorrect. The council in Acts 15 met mainly to discuss salvation by circumcision (verse 1). This was proved to be wrong. Salvation was coming to Gentiles without circumcision and by grace through faith just as Abraham and JUST AS THE JEWS (who had the Law). Verse 5 also asks a question about following the Law, which was answered in verse 21 (Moses is read in the synagogue every Sabbath.) This meant 1) Moses is read. 2) Moses is read in the synagogue where all believers met at the time. 3) They met every Sabbath.] Acts 15:10-11, 24-29 was God’s opportunity to make His will clear to His children. [Biblically incorrect. God had been making His will clear to His children for a long, long time.] All He had to do to save millions from damnation was say, “Remember to keep the Sabbath holy,” and millions of Christ-centered, God-loving, Bible-believing Christians would have gladly kept it. [Not so. He already said many times to remember the Sabbath, and just about as many times was ignored. He is still being ignored today as is evidenced by this article by Ray. Many Christians do not want to obey God’s commands. Mostly because we do not want an objective, absolute standard. We want to give ourselves permission to sin.

Enjoy the article.
Shalom,
Bruce

Posted in Authority • Balance • Daily Living • Hypocrisy • Israel • Jesus • Jews • Judaism • Judgment • Law

The Testing of Jesus

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At the stoning of the woman caught in adultery, did Jesus teach that the Law was gone, or did He criticize because the Law was not followed? Did Jesus eliminate the Law as popular church teaching suggests, or did He disapprove of the mishandling of God’s living oracles? I think in each question it is the latter. When Jesus was tested, He stayed with the Law while His opponents stuck with their own interpretations and traditions. His opponents were wrong in nearly every case.

Jesus never tells us that “we all sin” so none of us can judge. What He tells us is that to judge properly we need to stay within the whole of His Law. The people testing Jesus wanted permission to sin. They wanted certification for their self-appointed authority. But they didn’t want God’s Law. See the video for more details.

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Ezekiel • Holy Spirit • Israel • New Covenant

Ezekiel 36:22-32

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“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord GOD; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. (Ezekiel 36:22–32, ESV)

Posted in Bible Verse • Israel

Verse for Gathering the House of Israel

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“Thus says the Lord GOD: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God.” (Ezekiel 28:25–26, ESV)

Posted in Gentiles • Identity • Israel • Jews • Messianic Movement • Whole Bible Christianity book

Our True Identity

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‘Whole Bible Christianity,’ chapter 10, ‘Our True Identity’

In Matthew 15:21-28 Jesus resists a little bit giving help to a Gentile woman (a Syrophoenician is a Canaanite) asking for healing for her daughter. He tells her it’s not right to give the bread of children to dogs. She has an amazing response, saying that even dogs get crumbs from the table. Jesus is so impressed with her faith He heals her daughter. Her faith was shown by her humble submission and obedience.

At first it might seem off-putting that Jesus would regard her (or me) as a dog. But I think this was more of a statement of where He was focusing His work at that time (“to the Jew first and also to the Gentile”) rather than a judgment against either the lady or me. Although Canaanites were historically pretty ‘doggy’ too (Ephesians 2:12, Hebrews 11:6). Those who by nature do what God requires, even if non-Jewish, belong to Him because of their faith, and aren’t dogs at all. But even if it’s true that my identity (in the eyes of some) is that of a dog in the kingdom, I’m okay with it. He made me and can assign me any place He chooses. I’d much rather be a dog in heaven than a lion in hell.