Prophecy concerning Israel

And that temple, if they build it, will not be honoring unto God.

 

Yet they will build it anyway. It may be Israel as we know it now or another Israel, but I do believe the Temple will be rebuilt.

 

What kind of statement is that? Do you believe yourself able to speak for God?

You just don't want to believe it. Too bad.

 

No, but I have read the bible. That temple was a picture of Christ. When Christ came and died on Calvary, the temple had no more use. The sacrifices made therein were no longer pleasing to God.

 

We have all read the Bible, and many disagree with your interpretation. Fact is, the Jews have been preparing to rebuild the temple for years. Whether that is pleasing to God or not I will leave up to Him.

 

What in the Jews rebuilding the temple would be pleasing unto God?

 

Rebuilding that temple would do nothing but show that the Jews continue to reject Jesus as Christ. Anyone who thinks God will be pleased by that is kidding themselves.

 

That may be so, but the scriptures teach that only a remnant will be saved.

Rev 7:4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

Israel will be restored (it has been restored). The majority will continue to believe the Jewish religion, these are the ones who will rebuild the temple and give sacrifices, but 144,000 will trust Christ and be saved, 12,000 from each tribe.

 

Ezekiel 36:24 says nothing about Jews neither does it say anything about Babylon.

Why does God say he is going to do what is said in verse 24? See 20-22.
So what will God do? Verse 23. And how will he do it? Verse 24

Will his name and he himself be sanctified When he takes a people for his name from among the (Hebrew) Gowy (Greek) ἔθνεσιν Strong's 1484?

Now compare this to what God is doing today. See Acts 15:14 Gentiles
Strong's 1484

Is Ezekiel 36 covered in Acts 15:15? What about Acts 3:21.

I eluded to this in the thread titled Kingdom Gospel versus Grace Gospel and it ended that thread with a very interesting question which know one bothered to answer. The question still stands.

 

Rebuilding the Temple would be an abomination to Christ

Sure some misguided people could rebuild the temple, but that would be nothing less than an abomination to Christ. Christ himself said himself that he is the only way to the father. Temple sacrifices would have no other purpose than to be a propitiation for sin and the bible (God's inspired word) tells us animal sacrifices don't provide forgiveness for sin. The other purpose of the temple was as a dwelling place for God's spirit in the holy of holies. That was old covenant. The new covenant has taken the place of the old covenant and there is no going back to it. In the new covenant God (through the Holy Spirit) dwells within men. No need for a holy of holies any longer.

Animal sacrifices would be a direct challenge to Christ's saying he is the only way to the Father. That would be a direct challenge to Christ. Christ is one only way to get forgiveness of sin.

The temple served its purpose in the Old Covenant. The Old covenant was always designed to pass away and give way to the New Covenant.

If some misguided people go outside of God's will and rebuild the temple that would have nothing to do with bible prophecy, end times or the like. The bible never said or predicted a third temple. How could it unless we were going back to the Old Covenant. A temple has no place or reason to exist in the New Covenant.

 

Actually, Ezekiel 36 shows Israel being restored to the land in unbelief and later being restored spiritually, which is exactly what is happening today.

Ezekiel 36 and 37 both picture a return of the Jews to the Land in unbelief and later being restored spiritually.

There is no hermeneutic basis for claiming it prefigures Christ. There is no biblical text that points to this prophecy as a prefigure of Christ. We are not at liberty to arbitrarily decide what is or is not a prefigure of Christ.

The text is unambiguous in its description of God's restoration of Israel and there is no precondition in Scripture that states that the Jews must accept Christ first in order for God to show them favor and restore them to the Land.

 

How are we to know which tribe they are from? Their geneological records are gone, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD as part of the judgement of God upon that nation. How can one know he is of the tribe of Benjamin, or Judah, or Dan, etc?

Look, you may not want to believe this, but the fact is God judged that nation and destroyed them, dispersing them abroad throughout the earth. He has yet to regather them.

 

God judged them and he scattered them. That was prophesied. Their return was prophesied as well. The same passages that mention God's judgment often mention the restoration of Israel as well. We are willing to take God's word literally when it comes to his judgment of Israel but then folks try to ascribe a different method of interpretation to explain the restoration, even when both are mentioned in the same verse. That is not a hermeneutically sound approach to Scripture.

 

It is not happening today. That people today are still totally blinded to their scriptures. They cannot understand the simplest prophecies and pictures of Christ that even a Christian child is able to grasp. God has blinded them unto this day, and that nation over there (which I say is a man-made nation) is a thoroughly secular nation. They are most certainly not in line with God's religion. God preserved a remnant in the days of the apostles and blinded the rest and they are still under that judgement. I see no evidence that anything has changed. The fact that they pray to God at a wall to restore the temple shows their continued blindness to the scriptures. In Daniel 9 it was prophesied that God would seal up (close so as not to be understood) the vision and prophecy, and that's exactly what He did. The vision of all is become unto them as the words of a book that is sealed (Isaiah 29:11). They have not made one move toward believing Jesus is the Messiah.

 

What? You don't believe God knows?

I agree with that God destroyed Jerusalem and dispersed the Jews. But there are many prophesies that he would bring them back after that. And I believe that is what we are seeing today.

Mic 4:1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.
2 And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
3 And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Here the prophet Micah speaks of the "last days". He is not speaking of Israel and Jerusalem being destroyed, he is speaking of them being established again, and exalted in the top of the mountains (nations).

All other nations will come to Israel, to hear the word of God. There will be no more war.

Did this happen in 70 A.D.? Of course not, and there is no way to make this fit your view whatsoever. Jerusalem and Israel were destroyed in 70 A.D., not established. The nations did not resort to Israel, and there have been continuous wars since then.

So, it is obvious this is a future prophesy that has not been fulfilled yet.

 

That is entirely irrelevant. And yes it is happening today and with remarkable accuracy, right down to the exact parcels of land Jeremiah prophesied that the returning Jews would purchase.

So why does not mean that God is not restoring them to the Land???

It is far more religious than you think. While only a very small minority are Orthodox, there are very large number of religious Jews in Israel. In Israel, "secular" simply means "not Orthodox." In Israel, "secular" does not mean, "nonreligious.

Your entire objection can be summed up in the fact that they have no received Christ, therefore, God cannot or will not have anything to do with them.

That is really not Scriptural at all. The overwhelming body of OT Scripture point to a restoration of biblical Israel in the last days and that Israel will find their Messiah in the Land.

The Jewish People Will Always be God’s People; Jer. 31:35-37

This is perhaps one of my favorite passages with respect to God’s views on Israel. I love this passage because it shows the faithfulness of God to Israel. This passage blesses me so much because I see that if God can speak of His faithfulness to Israel even after all of their failures, how much more could I trust Him to be faithful to me in the midst of my shortcomings, and failures?

It is important to point out that Jer. 31:35-37 occurs within a context that speaks of Israel’s physical restoration to the Land. It demonstrates a physical restoration occurring in advance of a final and full spiritual restoration of the Chosen people. In this way it is consistent with several other prophetic chapters in the Old Testament, such as Ezekiel 36 and 37 and Zechariah 12 to name just a few.

Here we find that God has declared that the only time that God’s faithfulness to Israel would ever cease is if His “ordinances” or appointments” with the sun, moon and stars ever cease then He would cast off Israel for all that they had done. The world could not exist without the sun, moon and stars. Their cessation would end life on planet earth as we know it. Thus the only way for God’s promises to Israel to fail is if the world is destroyed.
The obvious structure of the language of the passage indicates that such a thing is not going to happen, ever. God says that Israel will, forever, be His nation, His people. The context of Jeremiah 31 cannot be spiritualized to refer to the Church. Even a cursory reading of vv. 1-30 of this chapter simply do not allow for such a reading. In Jeremiah 31, God is guaranteeing the perpetual existence of Israel.

What else can we see from this passage? It is clear from Jeremiah that Israel’s continued existence can ultimately and only be attributed to the Lord, Himself. Note the language from the 31st chapter of Jeremiah:

“…therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee…” (Jer. 31:3)
“Again, I will rebuild thee, and thou shalt be built…” (Jer. 31:4)
“Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth…” (Jer. 31:8)
“with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way…” (Jer. 31:9)
“…He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.” (Jer. 31:9)
“For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.” (Jer. 31:11)
And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD. (Jer. 31:14)

The military academy of West Point in the United States, which studies all the wars of antiquity and modern times will not study Israel’s most significant wars (1948, 1967 and 1973) because the outcomes were militarily impossible. When one studies the forces arrayed against Israel, for example, in 1948, the odds against a victory for Israel were so slim, that it appeared a sure bet that Israel would die quicker than it had been born, but here we are almost 60 years later, and Israel has not only defeated her enemies and survived (which is a miracle all on its own), but has gone on to outstrip her adversaries in every intellectual discipline, and has prospered in spite of every attempt to wipe her off the map. I am convinced that it is the faithfulness of God to Israel that accounts for Israel’s miraculous existence.

God Promises the Jewish People’s Return to the Land (Jer. 30:3 Isa. 43:5-7; Ezekiel 36: 24; Ezek. 37:11-14, Amos 9:14-15).

Of special interest to me, is the last passage listed, Amos 9:14-15. Amos not only prophesies of the return and restoration of Israel to the Land, but the Holy Spirit uses Amos to make the point that they will never be uprooted from their land ever again. Often people try to link the many Old Testament passages of Israel’s return to the Land as really referring to the return from Babylonian captivity, but this is not so since we know that the nation of Israel was dissolved as a political entity at the end of the 1st Century, beginning of the 2nd Century.

I am not going to try to do a verse by verse exegesis of every passage I present because the language of the passages are simply unmistakable when approached honestly. They speak of the Jewish people returning to their Land. We are, even today witnessing many Jewish people who are making Aliyah (pilgrimage) to the Land of Israel to become permanent citizens. The exodus of Jewish people to the Land of Israel in our day dwarfs by comparison, the Exodus from Egypt and the return from Babylon. Jewish people are returning just as God promised from the farthest corners of the globe.

God’s Promise To Reunite all twelve tribes of Jacob/Israel (Jer. 3:18; Ezek. 37:15-23; Hosea. 1:10-11)


The Lord Promises Both a Physical and Spiritual Restoration Between Israel. (Jer 31:31-34 Isa 40:1-2; Ezek. 36:24-28 Zechariah 12:10)

God promises to restore Israel both physically and spiritually. Here we see that the spiritual restoration of Israel is what the prophets have in view. My favorite of the above passages is Zechariah 12:10. The 12th chapter of Zechariah describes an Israel that has never existed, post Zechariah, until today. It is a picture of Israel strong, victorious and defeating all of her enemies. This is in line with the prophecy of Amos 9:14-15, which states that Israel will never be uprooted again. Zechariah shows why this is true. It is a clear picture of modern Israel firmly planted in her land, strong and unmovable and also finally recognizing her Messiah in the Land.

Following are passages you can study on your own, which speak of God’s prophetic restoration of Israel in the last days:

Genesis 28:10-15; Deuteronomy 30:3-5; Isaiah 27:12-13; Isaiah 43:5-6; Jeremiah 23:3-6; Jeremiah 32:36-37; Jeremiah 32:37-41; Ezekiel 20:34; Ezekiel 34:13; Amos 9:14-15; Zechariah 8:7-8

Following are passages you can study on your own, which point to the existence of modern Israel as promised in Scripture:

Isaiah 66:7-8 Jeremiah 16:14-15 Jeremiah 32:44; Ezekiel 4:3-6; Ezekiel 11:17; Ezekiel 36:24; Ezekiel 37:10-14; Ezekiel 37:15-19; Ezekiel 37:21-22; Amos 9:14-15; Micah 7:8-11

 

It seams your argument is that the Jews have not accepted Christ. I think everyone agrees. You win.

Now, please explain to me what prevents God from restoring Isreal as a nation in preparation of future events?

 

It's very difficult to discuss end times with "replacement theologists", since the method of biblical interpretation is so different.

I'm a firm believer in a literal interpretation, unless otherwise noted IN the scripture itself; and that sure does make the end-time scenario flow much more smoothly.

A lack of understanding on my part DOES NOT DEMAND that I allegorize so's I can accept it - I just accept that I don't understand it!!!

It may be a bit simplistic, but if I cannot believe that God meant what He said in one section of prophecy, then what's to say that He doesn't mean just what He also said concerning salvation???????

 

There is a failure to understand God's ultimate purpose with the nation of Israel. The ultimate purpose was the seed to whom the promise had been made, that is Christ. Many of the so called restoration texts regard the seed, Jesus Christ. This theology of God re-establishing the nation of Israel directly fly in the face of NT teaching on Israel, Abraham, faith, and God's promise to Abraham.

Take Amos 9:14-15, which you pointed to as a prophecy of God restoring the natural Jews to their land. The previous verses (11 and 12) say, "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of Edom and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the Lord that doeth this." That is quoted by James in Acts 15 and applied to the church and the bringing in of the Gentiles into it in his day. He says, "After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things." So James, under divine inspiration, tells me how to read those texts. He tells me they are about things in his day, namely the NT church (referred to by the tabernacle of David) and the bringing in of the Gentiles. The next verse in Amos says, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt." Then we get to the verses you quoted. We are still talking about the same thing, the NT times and the church. Only now he is using language of the restoration from captivity to describe redemption and the blessings of the gospel and church. God does this all over the OT prophecies. Isaiah is filled with this. That isn't allegorizing, that is using the NT to understand the Old, and the NT authors treat OT scripture in that manner. I'm one for literal understanding, but you have to realize that God uses a lot of figurative language when describing future events. Do you believe that the hills will literally melt? Of course not. It's figurative prophetic language.

Isaiah 66 is this way. The Jerusalem there spoken of is not the Jerusalem that now is that is in bondage with her children, but the Jerusalem above, which is free, which is the mother of us all.