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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

The Israel of God: What and Where is it?

Father in heaven, thank you today for the opportunity we have to open your Word and bless us as we consider a theme today.

So a couple months ago now, or I don't know, there was an interview between a senator whose name is Ted Cruz, and a commentator that has his own, I guess, blog now, and his own podcast, And they got into a discussion about Israel.

As a Christian growing up in Sunday school said, Senator Cruz, I was taught from the Bible that those who bless Israel be blessed, and those who curse Israel be cursed.

And I want to be on the blessing side of things, he stated, with apparent reference to Genesis 12.

And they continued their discussion, those who bless the government of Israel.

Carlson counted or questioned, what's it mean, those who bless the government of Israel?

It doesn't say the government of, it says the nation of Israel.

When Cruz struggled to pinpoint the chapter and verse, Carlson questioned his theological grounding.

They're quoting a Bible phrase they don't know the context for and you don't know where it is in the Bible.

I want to know what you're talking about.

Cruz explained his support for Israel is based on the Bible.

Biblically, we are commanded to support Israel.

We're commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel?

When pressed whether he believes what God was talking about in Genesis as a political entity that existed for thousands of years, though it was recreated just 70 years ago.

But most people understand that the line in Genesis referred to the Jewish people, God's chosen people.

So you're saying, Carlson then reiterated, if I believe in Jesus, I have to support the modern state of Israel.

No, Sud Cruz, I'm explaining my personal motivation.

Not everyone I represent is a Christian, so I don't use my faith as a reason to support Israel, although he just had done that.

So the whole interview is quite entertaining, but it's also an opportunity for people to actually discuss things that maybe should be discussed.

And we have many such opportunities that are afforded in the news these days, which maybe I should do a series coming up called Current Events, because there are so many of them that people are talking about in the news that you really can talk about, that I decided today to talk about this 1, that being Israel.

I mean, his wife is a Seventh-day Adventist.

No, Senator Cruz was not representing what Seventh-day Adventists believe about Israel.

I don't know what his wife believes, but let's look just for a minute at this.

There are many Old Testament prophecies that indicate that Israel, though many times unfaithful, would eventually return to Jerusalem to worship the Lord.

And there is still, according to many passages in Scripture, a future for the nation.

And since the predictions of the future remain largely unfulfilled, will they ever literally be fulfilled?

Ted Cruz was saying yes, and he was saying America should help that happen by support of Israel in a sense.

Yes, they'll be fulfilled in a very liberal way, some believe.

Has not the state of Israel been established in 1948?

So soon a temple will be rebuilt and soon become fully operative with priesthood and also sacrifices.

I don't know if you visit Israel, they have priests that are training and people putting together the temple that will be rebuilt.

Nations, it is believed by these groups, will flow to Jerusalem to learn from the Lord, who will reign upon Mount Zion for a thousand years.

Now if you drill down, It doesn't turn out good for the Jews in their scenario, but let's not drill down too much in the details, as most people don't really understand the details or the ramifications.

What I find interesting is, if you look to the past, in American, we might say Christian nationalism today, or those that imbibe it, they get the past wrong.

They think that when you look to the past, America was great from 1600 to basically the time of the founders.

And they try and tap into church and state unifying, and they think that's great.

And They also get the future wrong, thinking that Israel is gonna be the center of the attention of Christians.

So they get the past wrong, and they get the future wrong, which is the reason for the Adventist church, to help get the past right and the future right.

So anyway, in this particular scenario, the Israels have set a new Jewish temple, are set to put 1 on the Temple Mount, which is very inflammatory, of course, to those of the Muslim faith.

And they believe that there's now a red heifer they've identified that has to be in place to start these new temple worship there.

And of course The Hamas leader, the word Hamas means violence.

It's specifically out of the Bible actually and also in Arabic, but a leader threatens Israel over plans for the Temple Mount.

Well actually, in the Bible, these descendants of Jacob and Esau were going to be fighting with each other all the way through history.

And so if you really understand what the Bible is saying, this should not surprise you.

And this has been going on for some time.

In compliance with God's law or issue, way back in 2001, Osama bin Laden said, we have a ruling to kill Americans and their allies, civilians and military.

It's an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it in order to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the holy mosque, from their grip, in an order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.

If you were to take a survey of people and how much they appreciated Israel and America today, there are not many countries that appreciate Israel today or America.

The Reason they don't appreciate America is because they're supporting Israel.

And the numbers are fairly skewed against this.

So I'm not gonna get into too much of the politics of it just as they intersect with the scriptures today.

So that's 1 group, a literal fulfillment, and they're dead set on promoting this.

Money is given to support politicians that will say the things that Ted Cruz said, because that brings more support.

And so there's those that are calling for the literal fulfillment.

Then there are those, secondly, where the prophecies are fulfilled in a spiritual or metaphorical way.

They are to be fulfilled in spiritual, but not literal, Israel.

And in the minds of some, they will and even should, this fulfillment, should, will, and even should exclude ethnic Jews.

And this is called Christian secessionism, super secessionism.

This is to say, OK, the Jews are there, but the Christians were supposed to supersede them.

When you really drill down on the literal fulfillment, they're actually saying that as well, but I won't get too much into it.

So Christian secessionism says the Jews killed God, And the Jews are followers of Satan, and Christians have superseded the Jews and the nation of Israel, and Christians are now God's only covenant people.

All the Jews must convert to Christianity, or they're doomed.

And so, there's this idea of needing to distance yourself from the Jews.

Catholic Church did this in the Middle Ages through saying, look, we don't believe you can charge interest, they changed that by the way in 1929, but up until then they said you can't charge interest as a Catholic, so they would run all their money through the Jews, and actually in Venice, most of them were in Venice, which is a very wealthy place where wealthy people go for wealthy weddings even today.

But let's have the Jews deal with the interest, which is sometimes 25 to 40%.

And if they lost money, then hold them responsible and kill the Jews.

So this is why today even many people of Jewish descent are in financial services.

They were actually pressed into financial services back in the Middle Ages.

Well, how else do they distance themselves?

Well, they worship on Sunday, the day of the sun, rather than on Sabbath, because we want to distance ourselves from the Jews.

Are you still comfortable distancing yourself from the Jews?

Let's change the worship from Sabbath to Sunday to differentiate ourselves from that cult that's hated in Roman times.

And when we go to Europe next year, we'll start out in pagan Rome, and we'll look at these sites.

And you'll see, actually, the monuments that were built of the Christians were attempting to distance themselves from the Jews.

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The Israel of God: What and Where is it?

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