Everyone wants to argue timing, and no one talks about why certain prophecy must be fulfilled.
It should be obvious that until the last half a century, there was no ability to fulfill a major portion of scripture.With the re-establishment of Israel as a nation, it's like the clock started again. 1948.and they have Jerusalem, We are 50 years from that date. Until that date, the Church in its changing manifestations, could be forgiven for thinking,, Jews had lost their promises, due to killing their Messiah ( though gentiles killed Him too and both groups have been offered salvation), that we just had to work hard to spread the Gospel and the kingdom of Heaven was already here, ( in which case I really want my money back, this is an cursed place, literally) This ignores Daniels' prophecies, which scholars have attempted to debunk yet Alexander the Great was shown the passages about Greece overtaking the Medes and Persians, and Cyrus was shown the Isaiah prophecy, naming him as the liberator of the Jewish people. And written over a hundred years before he was born, The person who revealed this to him? Daniel. Who lived through so many kings and kingdoms,. Isaiah 44 and 45 28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd,and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’” 45 Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus,whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: So if we can depend on Daniel as having been a real person, and a true prophet, and through him , the earlier prophet Isaiah, if Ezekiel was shown a vision of dry bones, and of Israel coming back to life, also fulfilling prophecy, maybe we need to take a look again at unfulfilled prophecy, and bank on God's prophets as having told the truth, as they did in the past. What were God;s promises, his legal covenants with Abraham? Genesis 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give3 this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” First he promised the lineage of Abraham a physical land, a home, This was unconditional, as Abraham was put in a deep sleep while God burned his sacrifices and made His promises to Abraham, Israel is forever after a possession for the rightful heirs of Abraham (a legally binding agreement) It started even earlier, when God told him to travel from his homeland, and follow God 12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. There is another covenant reaffirming what God has said and calling for circumcision as a physical mark of obedience to God. to refuse was to lose your standing as an Israelite. When Abraham was 99, and Sarah long past child bearing, He revealed the child of the promise would come. It is my belief the birth had to be obviously of God's doing, as legal proof of who the inheritance fell to...because Abraham had other sons, before and after Isaac. Ishmael was sent away, and the later sons were paid to leave. Genesis 17 15 Abraham, your wife’s name will now be Sarah instead of Sarai. 16 I will bless her, and you will have a son by her. She will become the mother of nations, and some of her descendants will even be kings. 17 Abraham bowed with his face to the ground and thought, “I am almost a hundred years old. How can I become a father? And Sarah is ninety. How can she have a child?” So he started laughing. 18 Then he asked God, “Why not let Ishmael inherit what you have promised me?” 19 But God answered: No! You and Sarah will have a son. His name will be Isaac, and I will make an everlasting promise to him and his descendants. 20 I have heard what you asked me to do for Ishmael, and so I will also bless him with many descendants. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I will make his family a great nation. 21 But your son Isaac will be born about this time next year, and the promise I am making to you and your family will be for him and his descendants forever. To be a Jew, you must be a descendant of Abraham, through the lineage of Isaac. Those who claim Ishmael as the inheritor are mistaken, and those who think Christians are the new Jew are mistaken, This is a legally binding contract. The covenant with Israel brought by God through Moses, established the Law. That they would agree to live by God's law,and if they broke the law, there would be punishment, curses, This also informs us as to biblical prophecy, that Jews, while the people of God, would receive punishments if they disobeyed. Jesus of course knew the prophecies, He knew what he faced in Jerusalem at that last Passover, predicted by Daniel hundreds of years before, He was the Prince who was cut off for His people, he fulfilled every prophecy of the Redeemer, from Genesis to Job to Isaiah and Daniel. What he did not fulfill was coming to rule the earth and sit on David's throne. He said the Law would be fulfilled, every jot and tittle. So if you trust Jesus' words, that includes all the end time prophecies, all the wrath of God, all of it, will be fulfilled. Many promises about the gentiles.. that Abraham would be a light unto the gentiles, etc, are beautifully explained by Paul. Romans 9 22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? 25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. 26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. 27 Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: 28 For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. 29 And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabbath had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrah. 30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. So, what can we say about "the time of Jacob's trouble" the "great tribulation" and the final revelation of Jesus Christ as Lord, King and Savior ( John was writing about the final acts leading to our Lord;s return, it was not scare tactics, it was a record of what had to happen for Jesus to finally be revealed. I believe Jewish believers needed to know prophecy was still in force; things were very hard for Jews once the Temple was destroyed,and the gentiles needed to keep and preserve the record of these events down through the years, ) It fulfills all legal requirements for God to be reconciled to Israel. Jesus already settled the debt, of sin, for the whole human race. He does not need to be reconciled with gentile believers, They are given salvation through grace ( as are all Jewish believers but if you actually read these prophecies, they will be awaiting the messiah but won;t believe it is Jesus until they see the marks on his hands, the preparations the 2 witnesses make, protecting Israel, and the 144,000, who will preach to all, is the message of the coming Kingdom, not grace.) We have spent 2000 years of church history making Jews hate us, and Jesus; though prophecy fulfilled, it makes me unhappy and aware of our evil Romans 25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. Please note, there are Jews who, throughout this period of the gentile church, DID find Jesus, are saved and part of the Body of Christ. Blinded, until their moment, when God saves the entire nation of Israel, It won;t be huge numbers, if 2/3 of them die in the coming times of tribulation.But an entire nation? The scraps of gentiles left will be judged,as to being believers or not, some will enter the Kingdom, the Millennial reign, and reestablish nations,and some to hell. to await the final judgement, All other gentiles are those who oppose God and are dealt with fairly and appropriately by the instruments of God's wrath.most tribulation time believers are killed, in the name of their false god the world will rejoice in each death,in each Jewish death as well.... and you don;t think God's wrath is appropriate? It's all legal. Satan would have you believe God is not fair, that God has no mercy, yet He has stayed His hand all this time. We may have half the human beings alive who have every lived, and Christ, resurrected, has been widely preached,and God has shown mercy to Israel and ended her long estrangement from the land. What does this mean for Christian?" I have hope in the imminence of Jesus Christ, that He will remove us before the time of God's wrath, meeting us in the air and taking us with Him to Heaven ( marches us right past Satan's kingdom,, as he is the prince of the Air, and into the third heaven,) 1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ And so I wait for the last trump. but should we suffer persecution now, and enter into the times of trouble ahead, all I can say is, like Job, "though He slay me yet will I trust in Him." Step out in boldness, my fellow believers. No matter how dark the current storm clouds, there is a Redeemer, and He lives! Quit avoiding prophecy, one of your best tools to show people God is real and keeps his promises,and a place to start to understanding the rising waves of horrors and unbelieving mankind around you. maranatha! |
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