The End of Until

Guest

The End of Until

In Defense of the Faith
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Wendy Wippel

According to ''Bible Statistics'', 6 billion Bibles were printed in 2013. All kinds. You've seen them…glittered Bibles for preteen girls. Archaeology Bibles. Witnessing Bibles.

Chronological Bibles. Bibles for moms, hunters, policeman, grandparents, toddlers.

Bibles annotated by famous pastors. Maybe the golden age of Bibles. Well, it would be if anybody was reading them.

Exhibit A: 100,000 million American church members believe that the church has replaced Israel in God's program and that the church has inherited all of Israel's promises.

The best we can say for this bunch is that they come by it honestly. It's what is being taught from their pulpits. And the ones in their pulpits came by it honestly.

The arrogance of "the church" with regard to the Jews, in direct contradiction of the promises God made Israel throughout Scripture, started early in church history, and it started with its leaders:

Justin Martyr (about 100 to 165): "For the true spiritual Israel ... are we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ. The Scriptures are not yours, but ours."

Hippolytus of Rome (about 235): "[The Jews] have been darkened in (In God's eyes) with a darkness utter and everlasting."

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon (AD 177): "Jews are disinherited from the grace of God."

Tertullian (AD 200), “God has rejected the Jews in favor of the Christians."

Eusebius (early 4th century): the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures were for Christians and the curses were for the Jews, and "the church superseded Jerusalem".

This version of "new wine" (a passage often used to "prove" this viewpoint) is a vintage, which the whole counsel of God, as revealed in Scripture does not support and one, which did not, unfortunately, improved with age.

Martin Luther, for example who was viciously anti-Semitic and said that the "ruthless wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they [the Jewish people] assuredly have erred and gone astray…. For one dare not regard God as so cruel that he would punish his own people so long, so terrible, so unmercifully … this work of wrath is proof that the Jews, surely rejected by God, are no longer his people, and neither is he any longer their God”.

Unfortunately, most of Christendom-- despite Israel's return to the land, despite countless prophecies regarding Israel's future that were fulfilled right in front of our eyes-- still, incredibly, believes it. And that seemingly trivial doctrinal position plays out in antipathy to Israel in general.

The Roman Catholic church, for example, who only a few months ago sponsored a conference in which the Pope was designated the Prime Minister of the New Israel.

The United Methodist Church (8 million members), who supports divestment (essentially a boycott of all Israeli products), and produced a guide to missions which refers to Israel's creation as "original sin," comparing it's rebirth to the Holocaust and its government to Nazi Germany. The Lutheran church (spiritual offspring of the virulently anti-Semitic Luther) with 3 million members. The Presbyterian church (2.5 million members), The United Church of Christ (1.3 million members), and the Episcopal Church (2.3 million members), which also boycott Israel investments and generally support a Palestinian State.

Numerous smaller denominations, as well as the World Council of Churches, agree. 100,000 million, all told.

If consensus ruled, it would be true. God has replaced Israel in his affections and His intentions. But what does the Bible say?

First of all, it says hundreds of times, that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and/or Jacob.

I don't read anywhere that He is the God of the Pope, or Joel Osteen, or Rick Warren, or… You get my point.

And as it happens, the fact that God intends to keep His promises can be proven by a single word. "Until". This is what the Bible says:

Quote :: I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly." Hosea 5:15 WEB

Quote :: they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Luke 21:24

Quote :: For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israeluntil the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Romans 11:15-26

Is God going to keep His promises to Israel because they've kept their hands clean? Because they've finally earned His affection?
'
Nope. Nein Nyet. Absolutely not.

It's because of the covenant He made with them:

Quote :: "I have found My servant David; With My holy oil I have anointed him, With whom My hand shall be established; … My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, And in My name his horn shall be exalted….My mercy I will keep for him forever,
And My covenant shall stand firm with him. His seed also I will make to endure forever, And his throne as the days of heaven. “If his sons forsake My law And do not walk in My judgments, If they break My statutes And do not keep My commandments, Then I will punish their transgression with the rod, And their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him, Nor allow My faithfulness to fail. My covenant I will not break, Nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David: His seed shall endure forever, And his throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established forever like the moon, Even like the faithful witness in the sky.” Psalm 89: 20-37

And because He has sworn by His own righteousness, we can be sure all of His promises to Israel will, someday, be fulfilled. Like this one:

Quote :: Instead of being forsaken, and hated, dry and barren, now one passing through. I will make of you an everlasting majesty, a joy to many generations. (Complete Jewish Bible).

http://www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=7802