My good friend Steve in California recommended this video to me. This talk by SDA pastor Steve Wohlberg is very very good. I didn’t know he was raised Jewish. Though I don’t agree with SDA-specific doctrines, the SDA Church is one of the few Churches today that continue to embrace the doctrines and eschatology of the Protestant Reformers. Christians who don’t hold Protestant eschatological doctrines are not Protestants. Christians who don’t identify the office of the papacy as the Antichrist, the biblical man of sin of II Thessalonians 2:3-4, are not true Protestants. Maybe most of them don’t even care to call themselves Protestants. I care. I identify with the Protestant Reformation. I believe the Protestants of the Reformation got it right. That means many churches today are apostate.

The most important points transcribed

• We know time is short. So irrespective of what’s going to happen, let’s keep our eyes on Jesus, because that is how we will get through everything that’s going to happen. And like you said, we have an exciting year ahead of us.
• We are discussing a very interesting topic today and a book that Steve Wohlberg authored and wrote, Israel and the End of the World. It’s a really compact and interesting book, 93 pages.
• There’s a lot of deception in this world. And this book speaks to a very, very important topic at hand and a great deception out there and misinterpretation of Scripture as well. It confuses the literal side with the spiritual side.
• If you look at the very profound prophecy in the Bible, the 70-week prophecy, it points to Jesus Christ’s first coming. And that is taken completely out of context. Jesus came to break down the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, and this deception is trying to rebuild that barrier, rebuild that wall.
• Steve Wohlberg’s testimony: I grew up in Southern California in a very secular Jewish home. We celebrated Passover, sometimes Hanukkah, and we all knew we were Jewish, but we didn’t read the Bible, we didn’t pray, and there was really no spiritual life. Unfortunately, that’s the case with many Jewish people. And when I was 20 years old, I started reading the Bible for the first time and I discovered Jesus as my Messiah and as my Savior. And that just completely, you know, that was the fork in the road of my life. And I became alive spiritually through the Holy Spirit and started studying the Bible, especially the book of Revelation. And I’ve been doing this for 45 years. And it didn’t take me too long to realize the more I studied the Bible, and especially as I went out and started giving seminars on Bible prophecy, that the topic of Israel is huge in the minds of the Christian world, especially the Christian prophecy-minded world. They focus on Israel, Jerusalem, a rebuilt temple, Middle East, Armageddon, really in their thinking, earthly Jerusalem and the earthly Jewish state is really ground zero of the end times.
• When it comes to the topic of Israel and the end and prophecy and the temple, there’s more than three opinions. There’s all kinds of opinions out there. And my conviction is, as you know, from reading my book, that we need to really base our conclusions on the Bible, not just the Old Testament, but the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. Jesus really needs to be the center of everything we do. So, that’s what I focus on. And I try to separate the facts from the fiction and help people to really understand what the Bible teaches about Jesus and the end times.
• Trump’s UN ambassador pick says, Israel has biblical right to West Bank. And the article then goes on and says that this pick has become the latest administration nominee to express the belief that Israel has biblical dominion over the occupied West Bank. It’s not just the people in the churches, it’s also now leaders of countries who also believe this.
• And I want to just read a text from the Book of Numbers. And what happened was God brought Israel out of Egypt. He brought them to Mount Sinai, gave them the Ten Commandments, and then his plan was to bring them into the Promised Land. He said, I am promising to give you this land. But that promise was conditional upon their faith and their obedience to God. So, when he brought them to the edge of the Promised Land, they sent the spies in 12 spies. And they came back and 10 of them said, the land’s beautiful, but there’s too many giants in there and we just can’t do it. And then two of them, that was Caleb and Joshua, they said, God is more than able to do it, to get us into the land, because he’s a big God. And he’s promised that he’ll be with us and he’ll give us this land. And so, unfortunately, the 10 outweighed the two. They tried to stone the two. And finally, as a result of that, God was very unhappy with his people.
• And in Numbers chapter 14, verse 34, notice this: The Lord said, after the number of the days in which you searched the land, so here’s the land, even 40 days, each day for a year shall you bear your iniquities, even 40 years, and you shall know my breach of promise. And what this means is that God had made a promise, but because they didn’t believe in the Lord and his ability to do what he said, then he said, I can’t fulfill my promise. I can’t give you the land. You don’t have a right to the land if you don’t believe. And if you don’t believe and have faith, you’re going to turn around and go back into the wilderness and you’re going to wander for 40 years.

  And so they did that. And eventually they came back to the land. And then in the time of Joshua, Joshua did believe in God, believed in his power, and they did go in and they conquered the land and they were there.

  They were there for many years, but after a while, because of their idolatry and their sins and their lack of faith in God and lack of obedience to him, then what happened was he brought the Assyrians and the Assyrians took the Northern tribes captive and they lost the land. And then Babylon came and took the Southern tribes captive, destroyed Jerusalem, took the Jews captive, including Daniel, and they lost the land. And so their being in the land was conditional upon their faith and their obedience.

  And then they came back to the land after seventy years of Babylonian captivity, they were there. And then Jesus came and he fulfilled the prophecies. He was the Messiah.

  He was the one that they were looking for. Some accepted Jesus, but the majority did not. Sanhedrin turned against Christ, pressured Pontius Pilate to put him to death.

  Jesus was crucified, rose from the dead, went to heaven. And in 70 AD, the armies of Rome came and they again destroyed Jerusalem. They took Jews captive, they crucified Jews.

  It was a terrible catastrophe. And then they lost the land because of their rejection of Jesus. So the idea that Israel has a biblical right to the land needs to be qualified.

  It needs to be clarified that they did have a right to the land when they obeyed him. But when they didn’t obey him and went in the wrong direction, then they lost that right. And ultimately, when you read the New Testament, everything depends upon a person’s response to Jesus.

  Jesus said in John 3, 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So whether we perish or whether we have everlasting life depends upon our faith in Jesus. And whether the Jewish state has the favor of God or not, or a right to the land, depends upon individuals who believe in Jesus or whether they don’t.

• One thing that really struck me, one time I was with a group of people and we were walking along. We were near the Sea of Galilee, the Sea of Tiberias. We were in the little town of Tiberias. And we were walking around and I saw an ice cream shop. And outside of the shop was the door or going into the shop. And there was a big picture of Mick Jagger pasted on the door. And the music that was coming out was just like American rock and roll. And when I looked at the scene, I thought, I just feel like I’m in America here. This is just like walking around in the streets of Los Angeles.
• It’s no secret that the majority of the state of Israel today is a secular state. Now, there are some, thankfully, that are really searching for the Lord. There are some Jewish believers in Jesus who have accepted Christ as the Messiah.
• There’s also the Orthodox and the Hasidic Jews who don’t believe in Jesus, but hopefully they’re searching for more light. But by and large, the majority of the people over there, they’re very, very secular, just like a lot of people are in America.

  And to put the biblical promises and apply it to them as if there’s no condition at all, it’s just not biblical. And when you don’t see Jesus as the center of all of this, people are missing something.

  Interesting for me, how can they not make this link? Why is there so much focus from our evangelical friends? How can they not see that it’s conditional and that they lack Christ and that Jesus came to divide? And all the symbolism in the Bible that proves that the literal has become spiritual. Why is it so difficult to see this? And why are they so focused on Israel as evangelicals and a lot of the Christians out there? It doesn’t make sense to me. What’s happening is history is being repeated.

  You’ve heard the expression, if we fail to learn the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat its mistakes. And let me share another verse with you, which is in Matthew chapter 16. If you go back, if you rewind, and that’ll help us to understand your question, why are they doing this? But if you go back to Matthew chapter 16:21, the Bible says, “From that time forth, Jesus began to show to his disciples how he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day.”

  Now, what’s happening here, Jesus is telling his disciples, this is what’s going to happen to me. We’re going to Jerusalem. I’m going to be rejected. I’m going to die. And I’m going to rise from the dead. And that’s what prophecy taught.

  But the chief priests and the elders and the scribes, these were the Jewish leaders, many Jewish rabbis, the Pharisees, they misunderstood those prophecies of the Old Testament. And they read prophecies in the Old Testament, but there were other things. Some things they left out, like they left out Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9, and different other prophecies. And so they concluded that when the Messiah comes, he is going to do certain things. And this is what they believed. This is what they taught. This is what most Jews believed in the time of Jesus. They believed that when the Messiah came, he was going to conquer the Romans. He was going to sit on the throne of David. He was going to rule from Jerusalem. And Israel was going to be exalted above the nations, and that the Messiah and Israel would be the center of the world. And that’s what they believed.

  And when Jesus came, he didn’t come to do that. He didn’t come to exalt Israel. He didn’t come to sit on David’s throne. He didn’t come to conquer the Romans. He didn’t come to do what they thought he was going to do. He was completely different.

  And when they looked at Jesus, and they thought about their sequence of what they believed the Messiah was going to do, the two didn’t fit. They didn’t fit. And so Jesus knew what was going to happen because he wasn’t the kind of Messiah they were looking for. Because in his mind, Israel was not the center of prophecy. He was the center of prophecy. Everything revolved not around the Jews, but around him. He was the fulfillment of all the scriptures.

  In fact, there’s another text I’ll show you. This is a very powerful verse in Luke chapter 24, in verse 44, after the resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, and even the disciples believed the common view. So when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey, they were fully expecting Him to sit on the throne. And this was the beginning of the kingdom on earth. And they didn’t, even the disciples didn’t understand. And so, you know, it didn’t happen that way. But after Jesus died, and they thought it’s over, you know, our Messiah, we thought He was the Messiah, now He’s dead.

  But then when Jesus rose from the dead, they were completely amazed and overwhelmed and full of joy. And then in verse 44, Jesus said to them, after the resurrection, he said, these are the words which I spoke to you, while I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms. Concerning who? He said, concerning me, concerning me.

  And then He opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. And then He said, thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. So after His resurrection, Jesus explained to them that the prophecies that are in Moses and among the prophets, and everything that was written in the Psalms, those prophecies focused on him.

  He said, they came true concerning me. And see, that’s the divide right there. The rabbis thought the prophecies centered around them. And Jesus said, the prophecies center around me. And the rabbis weren’t willing to accept that, so they crucified him. That’s why the elders, the chief priests, the scribes, the teachers of the law, pressured Pontius Pilate to put Jesus to death, because they had a fundamental misunderstanding of prophecy.

  Their basic operating system was the Messiah is coming to make us the center of the earth. He’s going to rule from Jerusalem. And they were wrong. That wasn’t correct. It was centered in Christ and those who are in Christ. And so that’s what happened back then.

  And I hate to say it, but that’s what’s happening today. When you look at the modern eschatology or the sequence of end time events, the Christian world by and large are doing exactly what the rabbis did. They’re making Jerusalem, the Jews, Armageddon, everything is to swirl around Israel. And they’re missing the fact that Jesus is the center of prophecy and those who are connected to Christ become the center of prophecy.

  And one more thing, there’s other forces that are at work. As we study Daniel and Revelation carefully, especially Revelation 13, we see the centrality of Rome and the United States in prophecy. And there are forces that work behind the scenes to get the Christian world focusing in the wrong direction. And this has a lot to do with what happened during the Reformation in the 1500s when the Protestants rose up and saw the heirs of the Roman church. They saw the woman of Revelation 17 riding the beast. They saw the little horn in Daniel 7 with the mouth speaking great things, making war on the saints. They saw the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2, which they applied to the Pope. They saw the beast of Revelation 13 that all the world would wonder.

  And they applied these prophecies to the papacy, to the papal power. And then the Roman church reacted in the Counter-Reformation, and they commissioned the Jesuits to develop theologies that would take the eyes of the Christian world off of the Pope and the papal power. And as time went on, this also became part of the Israel focus, that if they can get people focusing on the Middle East and on the Jews and on a temple and on a Middle East Armageddon, they’ll forget all about who is the woman of Revelation 17 that’s drunk with the blood of the saints. They won’t understand any of that. And that’s really what’s happening today. So the focus on Israel as ground zero is, number one, a repetition of the teachings of the rabbis in many ways.

  And number two, it’s a diversion over there so that people are not seeing the bigger issues and the inroads of Rome in America and the place that America has in Bible prophecy. So there’s a big picture going on, and people’s eyes need to be open, just like the disciples. Like Jesus says, He opened their eyes, and He helped them to understand the scriptures.

  And that’s what we need to try to do today, and that’s what we’re doing right now. It’s a gradual deception over time. Because if you look at the scribes and the Pharisees, it was pure arrogance. I mean, they knew that this was the Christ. But Caiaphas said, it’s better that one die than the nation, rather than the nation that dies. But I mean, if you also look at the Christian world out there, don’t they say Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior? So you understand my disconnect here.

  Yes, they do believe that, but they’re missing things. Because when you look at Jesus, here’s another text, Matthew chapter 21, verse 43, Jesus told this long parable about the householder who planted a vineyard, and then he went into the far country, and he gave the vineyard to the husbandman. And then He describes how the time of the fruit came, and he sent some of his servants, and the husbandman, representing the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, as a whole, not all Jewish people, but as a whole.

  It says that in verse 35, the husbandman took his servants, they beat one, killed another, and stoned another. And so in verse 36, he sent some other servants, and they did the same thing. And in verse 37, Jesus said, last of all, he sent to them his son, and he said, they will reverence my son.

  But when the husbandman saw the son, they said among themselves, this is the heir come, let us kill him, and let us seize on the inheritance. And they caught him, and they cast him out of the vineyard, and they slew him. And this is describing the Sanhedrin, Jesus is doing this in advance, describing to the Jewish leaders that he’s talking to, what they were going to do to him in a little while.

  They were going to pressure Pontius Pilate to put Him to death. And so He’s telling this parable to them. And then He said, Jesus said to them in verse 40, when the Lord, therefore, of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those husbandmen? And they said to him, he will miserably destroy those wicked men, and he will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, which shall render to him the fruits in their seasons.

  So they said what Jesus was wanting them to say. He led them right along, and they didn’t realize what they were actually saying. And so then in verse 42, Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures, the stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing, it is marvelous in our eyes.

  Now look at verse 43. He said, therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you. It’s being removed from you. And then he said, and it will be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And that nation bringing forth the fruits were the believers in Jesus. Jewish people who believed in Jesus and Gentiles who were to believe in Jesus. They became the new nation which was to bring forth the fruits.

  And then verse 45 says, when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived he spoke about them. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude because they took him for a prophet. The multitudes recognized Christ was a prophet.

  So you look at the end of Jesus’ life, and this was before the final scenes, when He eventually was arrested in Gethsemane, and He was sent to Pontius Pilate, to Herod, to Sanhedrin, and he was rejected, spit on, mocked, crucified. And then finally he rose from the dead. Jesus told the Jewish leaders, He said, this is the consequences of what you have just done. He said, the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from you. And it’s going to be given to another nation that’s bearing the fruits of it.

  And what’s happening today is the Christian world, even though they do believe in Jesus, they’re ignoring the scripture. They’re ignoring what Jesus said. And they’re basically saying that whether the state of Israel, whether the leadership in Israel, whether they believe in Jesus or not, they’re still under the umbrella of being the chosen people. And all of the prophecies revolve around them. And that’s just not true. It’s just, it’s not biblical. It’s not according to the New Testament.

  Now, there are certain verses that people will look at and say, what about this verse? What about that verse? But the rabbis did the same thing. The rabbis focused on some scriptures too, but Jesus looked at other scriptures that they weren’t looking at. And He brought all the dots together. He said that He was the center of prophecy. The writings of Moses, the prophets, the Psalms concerning me, Jesus said. And Christians, unfortunately, are doing what the rabbis did. They’re shifting the focus from Christ and His people over to a group of people, many of whom do not believe in Jesus at all. And it’s just, it’s a sad day. It’s a sad day.

  So, they’re so blinded by the desire for things to play out exactly like they wanted to play out that they missed the plain truth of the Bible. And then they cherry pick things they think should, or forms part of their ideal and which isn’t biblical. So, it brings back to self, okay? It’s all about self.

  The first two chapters (of Steve Wohlberg’s book), I think two or three, lays the foundation for the spiritual versus the literal. And Abraham seed, who that really is. And Christ overcame and became Israel. And everyone in Christ, that’s Jew or Gentile, will be spiritual Israel.

• Now, Paul, when he was born, his mom and dad didn’t give him the name Paul. They didn’t name him Paul. They named him Saul. And as Saul grew up, he eventually became the enemy of the Christians. He was very Jewish, was part of the Sanhedrin. And he believed that Jesus was a false messiah and that the Christians were off track. And he felt compelled to round up the Christians, bring them back to Jerusalem and have them put to death.

  And so, on the road to Damascus, when he was trying to carry out his plan, Jesus intervened, the real Jesus intervened.

  And He knocked him down and light just flooded him. And he became blind. And then the voice said from heaven, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You’re persecuting me through my people. And then he said, who are you? Who are you, Lord? And then the voice said, I’m Jesus. I’m the one you’re persecuting.

  And so, at that point, that was the fork in the road for Saul. And he became a believer in Christ, which launched him on his career of writing most of the New Testament. And his name was changed to Paul.

  So Paul wrote most of the New Testament, or at least most of the books. But so he was Saul. He was Jewish, but he didn’t see Jesus. And then he became Paul, centered in Christ. And his whole life changed. And that’s a little bit like me.

  I grew up in, like I said, in a Jewish home in the Hollywood Hills. But as I got into my teen years, I just went off the deep end, got involved in drugs, the wildlife, the parties, the rock and roll concerts, the nightclubs. But then when I was 20 years old, the Lord opened my eyes. And my name didn’t change from Steve 1 to Steve 2, or Jewish Steve to Christian Steve. I’m still Steve. But my whole life changed.

  And now I see Jesus as the center of my life. And so in Galatians 3, verse 16, Paul makes a statement that for many is a radical statement. But it’s a reflection of the fact that Saul is now Paul.

  And he sees Jesus as the center of prophecy. So in verse 16, Paul said now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And and that would that points us back to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God called Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He changed Jacob’s name to Israel and the descendants of Israel. These were the this was the seed of Abraham.

  And in the Old Testament, God made promises, many promises to Abraham and his seed. And many Christians today, they think about that. They look at the Old Testament and they say, well, look, you know, God made these promises to Israel. If you bless Israel, he’ll bless you. If you curse Israel, he’ll curse you. And you know, we need to we need to honor Israel because God made these promises to them. They’re the chosen people.

  But what Paul does is he does a little twist there. Maybe it’s not a little twist. It’s a big twist. He says to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He said not and to seeds, and the word seeds there is plural. So Paul is saying God didn’t promise Abraham and his seeds. He promised Abraham and his seed these different promises. And then Paul says, so he does not say seeds as of many, but but as of one and to your seed, the promises are to Abraham and his seed.

  And then Paul clarifies, who is that seed? Who is that seed? He says to seeds, not to seeds as of many, but as of one and to your seed, which is Christ. So Christ is the seed of Abraham. And then in verse 29, he says, and if you be Christ’s, actually, let’s look at verse 28. Verse 28 says there is neither Jew nor Greek. There’s neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. He said, if you who are a Gentile, if you be Christ, if you belong to Jesus as a Gentile believer in Jesus, then he said, you are Abraham’s seed. And you are an heir according to the promise. So the promises in the Old Testament to Abraham and his seed, Paul says those apply to Jesus and his people. Christ and those who are in Christ.

  And that’s what Paul said. And that’s New Testament. And that’s not denying the promises in the Old Testament, but it’s seeing them in the New Testament as centered in Jesus.

  And that’s what the rabbis fail to see. And that’s what many Christians today fail to see. And that’s what Saul, before he became Paul, failed to see. But when your eyes are opened to see the centrality of Jesus, that He is the seed, He is the center of prophecy. Then things just kind of kick into place. You know, we change gears and we realize our eyes are open that Jesus is really the center of everything.

• I want to maybe jump to Romans 11, 26, that says, and so all Israel shall be saved. Don’t people use this verse to say, at a certain point, the entire nation will convert and follow Christ? But hasn’t the Bible established the fact that when you say Israel, it’s spiritual Israel by this point? That’s my thinking. If you understand the foundation as in his book as well, and in the word, obviously, then this shouldn’t be a problem, this verse. That you’re not saved by lineage.

  Romans 11, 26 and 27, Romans 9, 10 and 11 are a sequence about Israel and the Jews. And the verse that you quoted in chapter 11, that’s like the capstone of Paul’s arguments. But you have to look at what Paul said in Romans 9 and in Romans 10 and in Romans 11.

  So if you go back to Romans 9, and we can’t look at everything, but in verse 6, Paul says, not as though the word of God has taken an effect, because God has made promises in the Old Testament. And those promises are still valid. So Paul says, it’s not that the word of God has taken an effect. And then he says, for they are not all Israel, meaning God’s Israel, which are of Israel, which are of just the Jewish nation. So here, Paul says, there’s two Israels. There’s two Israels in the New Testament. And Paul says, they’re not all Israel, meaning God’s Israel, who are of Israel. And then he says, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. But in Isaac shall your seed be called. Isaac was a miracle baby, born when Abraham was old and Sarah was old. He was born by the power of God.

  And then Paul clarifies in verse 8, that is, they which are the children of the flesh, who are just natural descendants of Abraham, he said, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed because they accept Jesus and they are then counted as part of the seed and part of Israel. So you have to see that. And he says a lot more in Romans 9. In Romans 10, he goes into more detail about how Christ is the center of prophecy.

  And then in chapter 11, many people quote verse 1 that says, I say then, has God cast away his people? God forbid. They say, no, God has not cast away the Jews. But if you keep reading, Paul said, for I also am an Israelite, I’m of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he made intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they’ve killed your prophets, dug down your altars, and I’m the only one left and they seek my life. But what did the answer of God say to him? Verse 4, I have reserved to myself, the Lord said, 7,000 men who have not bowed down the knee to the image of Baal.

  And then verse 5 says, even so, then at the present time, also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. So Paul says, has God cast away his people? No. And the proof of that is that he is a believer in Jesus.

  And that just like in the Old Testament, God had 7,000 who didn’t compromise. So in the New Testament times, He still has His 7,000, His remnant. But the remnant are those who have been chosen by grace. Those, the remnant are those among the Jews who believe in Jesus.

  And then he keeps on going in chapter 11 and talks about the cutting off of some of the branches. So he says in verse 15, if the casting away of them, this is the unbelieving Jews, is the reconciling of the world, what shall receiving them be but life from the dead? If they come back, it’ll be like a new life for them.

  And then verse 17, if some of the branches are broken off, those were the Jewish unbelievers, they were broken off. And you, a Gentile being a wild olive tree, you’re grafted in among them. And you partake of the root and the fatness of the olive trees. So the Gentiles then become grafted in. So the unbelieving Jews are cut off and the believing Gentiles come in. Now, then you still have believing Jews who haven’t bowed down the knee, who are the remnant chosen by grace.

  And then you have the Gentiles who are coming in, and they come in and they together become part of the Israel of God. So in verse 25, when he says, I would not brethren that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits. That blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in.

  So when the fullness of the Gentiles come in, they are also part of the Israel of God. And so then verse 26 says, and so, in other words, in this way shall all Israel be saved as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant to them when I take away their sins.

  Now, Jesus can’t take away people’s sins unless they believe in him. So when you look at the context and look at what Paul’s really saying, he’s saying the unbelieving ones have been cut off and the Gentiles are coming in to take their place. And when that fullness of the Gentiles comes in, that means that all Israel will be saved. And the all Israel is not every Jew. The all Israel are the Jews who believe in Jesus, the Gentiles who have come in and who believe in Jesus. And together they are the group that have their sins removed because they have faith in the Messiah.

  And if a person doesn’t have their sins removed by personal faith in the Messiah, they’re not part of the Israel of God. They’re part of the Israel of the flesh. And Paul says they’re broken off. You have to be a believer in Jesus in order to participate in the fullness of the promise.

  What’s happening is these verses are being misinterpreted to support a theology that makes the Jewish state, regardless of whether they believe or not, the chosen people. And yet Paul’s very clear that the remnant are those who are saved by grace. And they’re the group that hasn’t bowed down the knee to Baal. They’re the faithful among the Jewish people, like Paul, who became Paul when he stopped being Saul.

• Israel was supposed to be the light for the rest of the world. What’s the point of being the light for the rest of the world if you can’t save the rest of the world? Hey, wasn’t Rahab, was Rahab a Jew? And Ruth, you know, all of them, they were intertwined within the Israel system, correct? And they were saved. So that’s right. Gentiles who became believers. And, you know, here’s another quick text.

  In Romans chapter 2, Paul makes a very significant statement in verse 28, Romans 2, 28. Paul says, he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly. Neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh.

  So that’s the way Paul was before he was changed by Jesus Christ. He was Jewish, but he was just a Jew of the flesh. He belonged to Sanhedrin. He tried to keep the law, but he was at war with the Christians. And so Paul is now kind of looking back on his own experience and commenting generally. And he said, a person in the eyes of God is really not a Jew if he’s just an outward Jew or he’s just circumcised. But then he says, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, which is in the Holy Spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.

  So Paul’s very clear in Galatians. He says the issue is not Jew or Greek, male, female, Jew or Gentile. That’s not the issue. The issue is Christ.

  What do you do with Christ? And here again, he says, if you’re just circumcised in the eyes of God, it really doesn’t matter. You’re really not a Jew unless you are a Jew on the inside through the Holy Spirit, changing your heart because you believed in Jesus.

  So God loves Jewish people. He wants to reach them now, just like he wanted to reach them back then. And many Jewish people do respond to the Lord. I did. I know other Jewish people who believe in Jesus. And God loves Jewish people, whether they believe in Him or whether they don’t. But they’re not part of His final end time apocalyptic people that He’s going to be working mightily for if they don’t believe in Jesus.

  And it’s something we all have to do. Everybody has to believe in Christ or they don’t. And that’s really the fork in the road. That’s the bottom line. And that’s the offense of the cross. That’s why Paul was persecuted by other Jews, because he taught that the man crucified on the cross is our Messiah.

  We need to humble ourselves and believe in Him or we’re out. We’re out. And that was too much for many of the Jewish people to handle. Paul’s greatest enemies in the book of Acts were the unbelieving Jews who were constantly on his heels, trying to catch him and to kill him. We’re in the same battle.

  I was just going to say He’s calling His people out of her, you know, from all walks of life, not just out of the Jewish nations, but all walks of life. They all embedded into this Babylonian system. And he’s calling all of us out into the truth.

• And one of the big deceptions that’s also being spread around is by modern day prophets. And one of them is Jonathan Cahn.

  A coming war. Funny name, folks, but a name you need to know. The war of Gog and Magog. Yes. Laid out in the book of Ezekiel chapters 38, 39.

  Yeah. Well, Ezekiel is very clear. He says, and this is for the end times, this has never happened before, says when Israel comes back in the world from the nations, comes back, there’s going to be a massive invasion. It’s not Armageddon, but it’s many nations, not all, many. And he names the nations by their ancient names and we can identify them.

  The Dragon’s Prophecy is Jonathan Cahn’s newest book. He has a lot of influence in the Christian world. It’s a bestselling book. And ultimately, the book swirls around Israel, just like he just talked about. And so we analyze Jonathan’s theology in the light of the New Testament.

  Now, what we just saw in that clip, he’s quoting Ezekiel 38 and 39, that talks about all the nations gathering against Israel. And they’re called Gog and Magog. And he’s then applying that to what is going to happen, he thinks, in the future when these different nations come against the Jews.

  But Jonathan is making the same mistake that the rabbis made. Same mistake. And the mistake is he’s not seeing the Old Testament prophecies through the eyes of the Messiah as being centered in the Messiah. So now what he’s not seeing is that the New Testament actually refers to that prophecy.

  It’s in the book of Revelation. And in Revelation chapter 20, it describes the events at the end of the millennium, the end of the thousand years. It says in verse 7, Revelation 20, verse 7, When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and he shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

  And they went up on the breadth of the earth. They surrounded the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. Now, this beloved city is the New Jerusalem.

  It’s very clear. We see that in chapter 21, Revelation 21, verse 2, I, John, saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. So what’s happening in Revelation 20 is at the end of the thousand years, all the nations that have been resurrected, and it mentions the resurrection in verse 5, Revelation 20, verse 5, The rest of the dead do not live again until the thousand years are finished.

  So when all these nations are resurrected, Satan is loosed, and he goes into all these nations, which is all the lost who have ever lived from the days of Cain all the way down to the very end. All these nations are resurrected. Satan goes into them.

  He gathers them for a final battle. And these nations are called Gog and Magog, which is a quote from Ezekiel 38 and 39. And in Ezekiel 38 and 39, all these nations gather around Jerusalem.

  And in Revelation 20, all these nations gather around the New Jerusalem. And in Ezekiel 38 and 39, fire comes down, and they have a judgment of fire. And in Revelation 20, fire comes down and consumes them.

  So the elements are the same. Gog and Magog is in both. The nations in both. Gathering against Jerusalem in both. Fire coming in both. It’s in both.

  But what Jonathan is not seeing is that Revelation 20 reapplies the prophecy of Ezekiel 38 and 39. He applies it to the saints and the New Jerusalem, and all the nations at the end of the millennium that ultimately are gathering together to fight against God, and the city of God, and the saints of God. And that’s where they’re judged.

  That’s where the fire comes and destroys them. And Jonathan’s not seeing that. He’s just seeing the Old Testament, the nations gathering around little Jerusalem, and he’s saying that’s what’s going to happen in the end times.

  But he’s not seeing Revelation 20 reapplies that prophecy, just like Paul in Galatians took the promises to Abraham and his seed in the Old Testament, and said the seed is Christ. He applies it to Jesus. And the revelation of Jesus Christ does the same thing with Gog and Magog.

  And Jonathan’s not seeing that. And he’s doing just what the rabbis did. He’s taking the Old Testament prophecies, making them center in the Jews, and he’s not seeing the centrality of the Messiah. And those that are connected to the Messiah, they are the ones to whom those prophecies apply, just like Abraham and his seed’s promises apply to Jesus.

  I mean, all these interpretations are filtered through this whole Israel movement, and not understanding the Scripture. So, it’s filtered. I feel sorry for some of them. They don’t see the true picture and where this is actually leading. Even the 70-week prophecy, similar. It’s the same thing.

  They take that last week, which is the most profound part of that 70-week prophecy, and they just throw it away. And I know you had, I don’t have them all written down, but you had 10 points. And they were quite interesting as to why that cannot be. 10 points. And they were all made sense. That’s right.

  The evangelicals applied the prophecy of Daniel 9:27, when He (Jesus) would confirm a covenant, and in the midst of the week, He would cause the sacrifice to cease. They applied that to the seven years of tribulation, to a rebuilt temple, to the Antichrist, causing the sacrifices to cease.

  But when you look at the context of Daniel 9, it’s clearly not talking about Antichrist at all. It’s talking about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who confirmed the new covenant, and who in the midst of those last seven years, which was three and a half years in, three and a half years was the exact time of Jesus’ public ministry. In the middle of the final seventh week of Daniel, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, and he caused the sacrifice to cease. And old commentaries like Jemison Posset Brown, Matthew Henry, Adam Clark, these great famous old commentaries, they all see Jesus as the one who confirmed the new covenant, Jesus as the one who caused the sacrifices to cease because of his death on the cross.

  So they’re taking this prophecy, and they’re applying it to the Antichrist when it really applies to Jesus. So there’s so much confusion, there’s so much deception, there’s so much distortion, and we need to really realize that the same deceptions that deceive the rabbis are happening right now. And when you read the book of Revelation very carefully, and I love that book, Revelation does talk a lot about Jerusalem, but it’s new Jerusalem.

  Revelation does talk about the temple, but it’s the temple of God in heaven. Revelation does talk about Armageddon, but there’s no reference to the Jews in Revelation 16, which talks about Armageddon. When you read the context of Revelation 16:16, which talks about Armageddon, it’s clearly a global gathering of the kings of the earth against God and those who are followers of Jesus.

  And then the voice thunders from the heavenly temple, Babylon, which represents this global religious deception, collapses, the cities of the nations fall, every island flees away, the mountains are not found. When you read Revelation 16, it’s a global battle against God, between Babylon, and God, and Jesus, and the people that are following Christ.

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