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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

To the Jew First: Thoughts on Israel

This past week, I thought a lot about the unrest that was going on in Jerusalem and Palestine or Israel there, but with the Palestinians and those Israelis.

And probably 1 of the reasons I was thinking about this is because I've been over there recently and have some friends actually on both sides of what we're hearing in the news.

And when you go on a tour bus there, many times you'll have a Palestinian driver or a Muslim driver, and you'll have an Israeli or a Jewish guide.

And for some reason, I really got close to both of these people on the last trip.

And so I've been actually in touch with both of them over this past week.

And then a few years back in Kansas, when I lived in Kansas, I used to have what was called restaurant ministries.

This is where you go to various ethnic restaurants and instead of having to go overseas, you reach the people from those countries in their own restaurants.

How many think this sounds like a good idea?

So, but during that time, I met with many folks in Lebanese restaurants and restaurants from various countries in the Middle East and then many other different restaurants.

And I kept thinking about all these different people and then texting some of the folks from years past, or some of them texting me.

And so I started to just develop this burden to talk a little bit about Israel today and Palestine.

And then also, I lead a group sometimes downtown, well actually every week downtown, and I meet people I've never met before, and about 4 of them ask me about this.

So I thought, man, this is something that people are thinking about.

So we're gonna talk about this today, and then when you're leaving, Bill Crick, thank you Bill, he texted me just a little bit earlier this morning and said, we have a little flyer, Israel and Bible prophecy, and if you'd like some of these to maybe read and hand to your friends.

I think a lot of people are thinking about this right now, and this is a little glow track by Steve Wahlberg, who is a former teacher here from Weimar Academy, and also is an ethnic Jew and converted from secularism actually into Seventh-day Adventism a number of years ago.

Let's pray together and then we'll begin.

Father in heaven, Lord, thank you today for this opportunity to speak for a few moments about a subject that is really intersecting personally with many people who have suffered loss this past week, many who are afraid, many are fearful for their relatives, perhaps, that live in these countries or around the world as unrest and strong feelings have arisen in both sides of this conflict and are finding representation in various ways around the world and even in our own state.

To the Jew first, There are many Old Testament prophecies that speak of Israel and speak of the fact that though Israel has been unfaithful through the years, there would be a return to Jerusalem and Israel to worship the Lord.

I listed some of them there, but we won't.

But the whole idea is that there is a glorious future for the nation according to these texts.

And since the predictions, many of them, have not yet been fulfilled, there is a question, will they ever literally be fulfilled?

And people that think about this have very strong feelings.

1 group says, yes, they will be fulfilled.

In fact, they are being fulfilled in a very literal way.

Has not the State of Israel been reestablished in 1948?

Was that not miraculous when all the different countries in 1949 tried to do them in and they maintained that.

Was there not a war in 1967 and another 1 in the 70s and has not Israel fought off all its enemies and is this not a fulfillment of prophecy?

And will there not soon be a temple rebuilt and fully operative with priesthood and sacrifices?

When I was there in Jerusalem earlier this year, we went up to the Temple Mount.

We had a lady in our tour group who had a very hard time not saying everything she was thinking.

And so before we went up, our tour guide said, You cannot say anything, which was a very high bar for this lady, because if you say everything you think and then you have to go to nothing, probably not going to happen.

And we got there by the Dome of the Rock And I'm not even going to say what she said, but she began to blurt out and Artur got so scared that he actually said, I cannot stay with the group right now.

Meet me over there when you're through, " and he ran away.

And I talked to him later and he said, you do not understand that things can change on this mountain in an instant.

You cannot say these kind of things in this place.

So there was a lot of tension the last time I was there.

But there still is this idea that the temple will be rebuilt, nothing more inflammatory to a Palestinian to hear someone even say that.

Then the nations will flow to Jerusalem to learn of the Lord who will reign upon Mount Zion for a thousand years.

Now, there's a little context to what you're seeing in the news and it has to do with what I'm talking about because there are people always agitating that the temple be rebuilt.

The Israelis set for a new temple on the Al-Aqsa site.

Temple vessels are ready for rebuilding of Jerusalem's third temple.

And they actually have the vessels, and then some Texans sent over a bunch of red heifers because you have to have a pure red heifer for the temple services to begin.

And architects are drawing up plans and they publish this.

And then great news, the first red heifer in 2, 000 years fulfills Bible prophecy and signals the end of the days.

And all of these things have been percolating in the news in Israel, and this created a lot of unrest within the Palestinians.

The Palestinians did not like this and thought maybe there was something more to it.

And this was partially what led to these attacks from Gaza City that some of us have heard about this last week.

The Hamas leader threatened Israel over plans for the Temple Mount, and these are threats that were heard, of course, this last week.

They're also very upset that the Prime Minister has people on his cabinet and on his government, which is a coalition government that are all pro-rebuilding of the temple.

And all these things came together in what we saw.

Back in 2001, nothing new in a certain sense except for maybe the magnitude.

Of course, back in 2001, Osama bin Laden was behind an attack on America where 3, 000 folks were lost in an attack, 2 or 3, 000.

And it was the same actual complaint that there needed to be a liberation of the Al-Asqa Mosque and that the support that America gives, which is about $3.5 billion a year in normal years, was what was propping up Israel.

And so there was a terrorist attack in this country as well.

Now the Hamas Covenant, 1988, was when Hamas came about.

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it just as it obliterated others before it.

So this organization is pretty focused on 1 purpose and that is destroying Israel and any anybody that supports Israel.

And so this past week there was an attack and then a response of that attack is going on.

And the attack was of a quasi-religious celebration, at least the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, an open-air psychedelic trance festival.

I don't know if Orthodox Jews would think this was an appropriate celebration of this festival, but this nonetheless was what was happening, and then there was an attack from Gaza, which you've heard about.

Now interestingly enough, as I was looking at this word Hamas, and as I was studying the covenants this week in preparation for today, The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

The word for violence there in Hebrew is hamas.

And so in the Jewish culture, when you hear Hamas, that means violence.

In Arabic, it means zeal and courageousness.

But that's an inflammatory play on words in that culture, which the languages are not the same, but they are related, and it's sending a message, a double-edged message, you might say, Hamas.

And that text in Genesis chapter 6 was from the time of Noah, and it says that in the days of Noah, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days of the Son of Man.

So Just as there was violence back in the days of Noah, there's gonna be violence at the end of time.

Now, so just to review, some believe there'll be a literal fulfillment, we talked about that, and that's what's been inflaming everything.

But there's another inflammatory suggestion, and that is the prophecies will be fulfilled in a spiritual or metaphorical way.

They will be fulfilled to spiritual but not literal Israel.

And how many would say that's pretty much what you believe?

In the minds of some, This will and even should, this fulfillment should even exclude ethnic Jews completely.

This more radical view of the metaphorical or spiritual application is called Christian super-secessionism, that something supersedes something else.

It's over and above it, and it's taking the place of it.

And I might say that this notion is equally inflammatory to notion number, to interpretation number 1.

The Jews killed God is the way this reasoning goes.

And the Jews are followers of Satan and they have texts, you're of your father the devil, that they'll quote.

And Christians now have superseded the Jews and the nation of Israel.

Christians are now God's only covenanted people and all Jews must convert to Christianity or they are doomed.

So how do you think that would sound to your Jewish friends?

You know, let's get together next week and let's stick some needles in our eyes together instead of that.

And let me just now explain why I think we should think about this a bit.

You see, with this hyper view of Christian cessationism, came also the idea that Christians should distance themselves from the Jews.

Catholic Church, for instance, said, let's distance ourselves in terms of financially.

Church, Catholic Church in the medieval age has taught for many years that you couldn't have interest based on a text in Leviticus.

So let's have the Jews deal with interest.

We'll give them the money, and then they'll loan the money.

And so Jews were pushed into financial services and they were put in the middle.

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To the Jew First: Thoughts on Israel

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