Should Christians Support the Modern State of Israel?

QUESTION: Hi Rick, just found your site. Is all this joining with Israel and sending the Jews home to their land jumping the gun and meant for the second coming, and should we be careful supporting it?

ANSWER:  So, in one sense this question is past due date. Meaning, the Jews have already been sent back to their homeland. I know you already know that, but it means your question of support for Israel can have two different meanings, one past and one present.

The first question of support deals with what has transpired to bring the Jews to their ancestral homeland.  The question is, should we think that this historic event fills a huge prophetic prediction of Scripture which Christians should be very excited about?  If we had been around when Zionism was at a fever pitch (around the turn of the last century), should we have supported the formation of modern Israel on these grounds?  As you note, this question is connected to prophesy about the Second Coming: would it have been right to support the formation of the modern state of Israel because we would have been "helping" an End Times timetable along?

The second question regarding support is much less biblical/prophetic and more geopolitical in nature and more currently relevant. Given that the UN charter created the modern state of Israel way back in 1948, and given that this did give safe haven to a deeply, historically persecuted and displaced population after the Holocaust, and given that they are today a functioning liberal democracy sharing a lot of what Christians value in terms of freedom, representative gov't, and all that, should we support Israel today?

I think the first question is an open question of biblical interpretation without a clear answer. Obviously, many Christians think that Israel being home in their land is a necessary precondition to the return of Jesus. Mostly they think this because of Scripture that infers there will be a Temple in the land before the coming of Jesus (Matt 24:15). On that specific question, I think that Christians do not have to commit themselves to an End Times model that requires Jewish presence in Palestine. And I say this because I don't think that the Temple has to be rebuilt before Jesus returns.

The verses where Jesus talks about the Temple destruction presaging his Return were very clearly fulfilled in 70 AD at the Roman destruction of Herod's second temple.  This is so clear and so compelling a vindication of Jesus words that it's mind blowing to me why anyone would even want to dilute the power and wonder of that fulfilled prediction by assuming it has some future fulfillment! Let the reader know, Jesus taught that the Temple would be destroyed before his coming and that prediction has already been fulfilled to the letter!  We do not need any future state of Israel or a future Temple so this prophesy can happen again before Jesus can come back.

But as I write that the Jews do not need to be in their land and the Temple does not need to be rebuilt, two contrasting thoughts hit me at once:

One, there they are, in the Land!  If nothing else, it is historically speaking, astounding!  And further, the Jews returning to rule over Jerusalem after the Temple destruction does seem to have prophetic significance as I'll make clear in a second.

Secondly, if it is a needed sign, our support of it or lack of support can make no difference at all - not in God's economy! For if we believe that Jesus holds history then he will conclude it on the Father's chosen timetable (Mark 13:32), not ours, and so modern Christians ranting for or against Zionism could never change what God has decreed!

I'm always amazed at End Times teachers who read the Bible like an advanced News Paper on one hand, then wring their (other) hands at global developments that scare them because "this means the End is near". A well-known Christian political thinker and fiction writer was on the news years back bemoaning America's lack of concern over Iran getting "the Bomb". Why? Because if Iran gets the bomb, he said, it will surely use it to attack Israel and that will signal the Tribulation. 

Hold on. 

I thought every Christian wants Jesus to come back. We "long" for the "Great Appearing," don't we? So for any event which we knew presaged this great Conclusion, shouldn't we be cheering for that to happen, and quickly?  It was as if in this teacher's mind, we could both know God's exact, unalterable schedule of events, and yet also totally affect the outplaying of those events by our geopolitical actions and voting preferences!!

Scripture gives us no indication that we can either know or effect the timing of that day or hour.

All that to say, on a prophetic level, we must let God be the Sovereign of history, and stop pretending or worrying that we can alter the unalterable timing He has set by pushing for or against this or that geopolitical agenda. The level of arrogance required to think we could even know what events are "needed" to push the schedule forward, let alone when to push them, is shocking to me.  Christians are not alone in this thinking - both Muslim and Jewish radicals think they can "speed" the End of Days by this or that catalytic action - usually an engineered catastrophe.

Having said all that, as I mentioned above, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't think it was biblically/prophetically very interesting that Israel is once again a State, back in the Land.  One thing that leads me to believe it's not unimportant is Jesus statement in Luke 21:24 "...and Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

Since 70 AD, Jerusalem has been ruled in part or in whole, by Gentiles. But Jesus seems to indicate that this will come to an end at some point. After the UN partition, slowly the City is coming under more and more Jewish control - the Temple Mount being one glaring exception. Again, I believe the important thing about Jerusalem for End Times has already been fulfilled (Temple destruction), but it interests me that the time of Gentile control of the Holy City may end in our lifetime.

But, if I'm right that modern Israel's presence in Palestine may not be an important sign relative to the End, then if modern Israel suddenly went away, this would not shake my faith or make me less confident that Jesus was coming back. I'm not committed to the State of Israel one way or the other, prophetically speaking.


So with the prophetic questions sort of up in the air, all that leaves is the modern Christian Church's stance about the geopolitical situation surrounding the modern state of Israel. On that score, I think we do well to avoid two extremes:

One is the extreme that Israel, because it is populated by descendants of Abraham, can do no wrong and we should never call out immoral or ineffective policies of that State. Biblical calls to bless Israel and warnings against cursing Israel are sometimes misused to imply that God demands the Gentile believer's unconditional support for what is (let's face it) a deeply secular and irreligious State today. 

I've been there, in 2009, and by the testimony of Arab Christians who live there, the Jewish State can be heavy handed with non-Jews living there, and have a bit of an itchy trigger finger when it comes to retaliation for perceived wrongs and self-protection. They do own the gun everywhere you go (except Gaza), including the West Bank where they regularly have funded developing Jewish communities which the Arab Muslim population hates with a passion. They see it has an effort to push them out.

The other extreme is the one taken by the secularists in America who call Israel's influence in Gaza and the West Bank the "occupation" and regularly paint the Jewish State and the Palestinian leadership as co-equals in terms of their morality, values and behavior. This is utter nonsense. I suspect it is a stance driven less by the facts or political principle and more by a knee jerk reaction against traditional conservative, Christian support for Israel. If Christians like it, it must be bad!

Meanwhile, they ignore that Gaza has basically been left on its own by Israel and has descended into something that resembles a post-apocalyptic nightmare. When Israel did a full pullout in 2005, they left behind a thriving greenhouse infrastructure which the Palestinians, in pure spite, promptly destroyed or looted days after disengagement. 

Hamas regularly sends missiles into Israel without provocation because their charter explicitly states the destruction of Israel as one of its goals.  Whereas Israel, despite it's excesses, is publicly committed to a two state solution. Add to that the fact that Gaza (and its neighbors Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan) values almost nothing we think important to a moral government, such as democracy, liberty, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom for women, sexual minorities, etc., and it's not hard to make a case that Christians ought to support Israel's right to exist, against the credible, persistent, existential threats of its neighbors.

So in sum, we should let the End Times timetable play out by God's timing without thinking it needs our assist by involving ourselves in world events with our money or votes.  And we should simply use our Holy Spirit inspired, biblical discernment to judge what we support or don't support about what the modern secular state of Israel does.

Is 'Real' Judaism On Hold Without a Temple?

 QUESTION: I heard you say there are no 100% traditional Jews anymore because there’s no Temple.  I was trying to explain this to my (partially) Jewish co-worker (raised Baptist) who was thinking that maybe the temple could be spiritual or metaphorical?  Also, she made a comment about it could be inaccurate because the bible was written by men!  Can you re-explain it to me and direct me to the exact passages in the bible that talks about Temple being integral to Judaism?

RESPONSE: What the Bible is clear about is that not only were the Jews given an elaborate sacrificial system put in place to atone for sin, the location to implement this system was clearly spelled out.  Moses says that sacrifices could only be brought to the “entrance of the tent of meeting” per Lev 17:2:

“Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the people of Israel and say to them, This is the thing that the LORD has commanded. 3 If any one of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or kills it outside the camp, 4 and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to the LORD in front of the tabernacle of the LORD, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man. (Lev 17:2-4)

The Jews could not just make their own sacrifices wherever they wanted after the Lord had provided the Tabernacle.  But the tabernacle was mobile – it was just a tent after all – so Moses anticipates a time when they are no longer nomadic and on the move after they’ve entered the Promised Land.  So he tells also them to be ready for God to establish a permanent, non-mobile place of worship for the sacrificial system to be located. 

Deut 12:5-6: But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. (ESV)

Now, it was literally hundreds of years between when Moses wrote that, and when Solomon built the first temple, which God sanctioned through his father David as the place he chose to “make a habitation for his Name” (2 Sam 7:12-13).  But once there, that was the place – and the only place – to fulfill the Mosaic system.

All this means that “real” Judaism is Temple Judaism.  There is nothing in the Law or Prophets that sanctions the sacrificial system to be relocated or “spiritualized”.  So what happened when the Jews were exiled and Solomon’s first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians?  Did they just do the sacrifices some place else, or do them "metaphorically"?  No, they just stopped performing the sacrifices.  The sacrificial system was in some sense, “on hold”. 

They still did everything else that Moses commanded, obey the moral law, the ceremonial law, the food laws – but the center of the covenant, every Jew knows, is the burnt offering system to atone for sin.  And that system was suspended when the Temple was destroyed.  Then, when it was rebuilt, the Jews were ecstatic because, in some sense, their religion was restored to them (Zech 8:7-9). 

That is also why the Jewish authorities in Jesus time (when Herod’s second Temple reconstruction was completed and operational) are so anxious about Jesus stirring up the crowds.  The people wanted revolution to save their freedom, but the Jewish leaders wanted the Temple to save their religion - the latter being far more important than the former.  And they knew that too much trouble and their precious, all-important Temple would get destroyed. 

Eventually, that’s exactly what happened: the Temple was utterly leveled by Rome in 70 A.D., and for the last 2000 years all that remains are some foundation stones which can still be seen today (that’s the famous “Western Wall”).

Now, that obviously doesn’t mean that Judaism is dead totally.  After the Temple was demolished and the Jews were exiled (again), Rabbinic Judaism developed which leaned on the Rabbi’s interpretations of Moses (the Talmud) in order to encourage the practice of Judaism in the absence of Temple sacrifices and other practices which were no longer possible.  But make no mistake, even this radically reordered form of Judaism awaits the Third Temple, and now most faithful Jews believe it will take the coming of the Messiah to rebuild it.

Therefore, there is no such thing as a “spiritual/metaphorical Temple” in serious Judaism.  The idea of transferring the Temple rites to other places or other ways, was exactly what the people tried to do in early Israelite history.  They decentralized the Temple idea by taking religious rites and sacrifices to local “high places” like the pagans, and God strictly forbade it.  (1 Kings 12:31).  Good kings are judged as good or bad almost solely by whether they tolerated or eliminated such “high places”.  In the Bible, taking the central place of worship away from Jerusalem = bad.

So the Temple is not a metaphor for Jews.  When she says that, she’s just channeling her Christian roots.  That’s not a Jewish way of thinking, that’s a Christian way of thinking.  For Christians understand that all the good things God did in the Temple by making a place for his name, showing that he wanted to be “with” us by placing his literal “habitation” on earth – is all FULFILLED spiritually through Jesus who is “Emmanuel” (God with us) and who comes to dwell inside his Children by his Spirit as spiritual temples. (1 Cor 6:19)  

And most Christians take it as a great sign of God's approval on the new epoch of making "spiritual Temples" through God's perfect "Lamb" (John 1:29), that Jesus perfectly predicted the destruction of the Temple, resulting in the end of sacrifices, which remains a fact to this very day.  Thus, there is no true or original Judaism today, only 'Judaism Interrupted'.

I’m not sure what part of this she thinks could possibly be inaccurate.  

• The idea that a real temple ever existed?  
• The idea that it was the mandated center of Jewish worship for centuries?  
• The idea that Herod’s 2nd Temple was destroyed in 70 AD and devastated the Jewish people?  
• The idea that the dispersed Jews had to radically reorder their whole religion in the 2nd century to account for an absence of a Temple? 

These are all well-established historical facts.  Or does she mean that the importance of the Temple as Moses and the Prophets spell is out is inaccurate?  Well, in that case, she doesn’t have to think that Moses and the Prophets speak accurately for God, what's in question is whether Jews believe that Moses and the Prophets speak accurately for God.

And regarding the transmitters of this message being "mere men", both Jews and Christians believe a writer can convey a message accurately for God, even of that person is "just a man" IE, fallible and sinful.  Or does she think that the only thing that she would ever consider “accurate” is if God bypassed people totally and took up a pen himself and wrote something?  But now were onto the very different subject of inspiration.  And even if God wrote about the Temple himself, it would be people who would be responsible to copy that and pass the instruction along.  So basically by her logic nothing could be considered trustworthy as revelation.  In fact, by this logic you couldn’t trust any history, not just revelation, because we get all our knowledge of history from…. men!

Maybe you can help her reason backwards from the certain to the less certain.  That there was a Temple is certain (accurate).  That this Temple matters to true Judaism is also certain.  Whether true Judaism is “accurate” in that it expresses God’s actual will for mankind is what she has to decide.  But waving her hand and saying “Temple Judaism is inaccurate because fallible people probably made it up” is just sloppy thinking. 

Meanwhile, based on Jesus, we Christians believe Temple Judaism is not inaccurate, it’s just Part I missing its Sequel.

Was Nostradamus a Prophet?

QUESTION: What’s your take on Nostradamus?  Was he a prophet?

RESPONSE:  First, we should ask what a prophet is.  Every culture and worldview system has its predictors of the future, because there’s always a market for prognostication.  Why?  Well, if you could truly get accurate knowledge of the future, it would have a lot of handy applications:  Comfort, direction, betting advice.

But being a Jewish prophet was different than your run of the mill shaman, witch-doctor, soothsayer, tea-leaf or palm reader.  They all claimed to know the future through trances, or reading the flights of birds or the entrails of animals or the position of stars.

Thus the pagan had no objective basis for confidence, it was all mystery and fatalism.  The Jew on the hand shunned necromancy, and spiritism of all kinds because only if their omniscient, eternal God was real, was real prophecy a confident possibility.

Thus Isaiah will say:

Isa 8:19-20: When they say to you, “Consult the spirits of the dead and the spiritists who chirp and mutter,” shouldn’t a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?

Of course, the Jewish approach to prophecy means God is in the driver’s seat.  He reveals what he wants, not what WE want.  And God’s purpose in revealing the future was always for courting or building relationship with us.  Meanwhile, the pagans thought clairvoyance was about reading the predetermined script of Fate, for no larger purpose than personal gain or banal curiosity.

Despite all these differences in the source of prophecy, the real proof, as they say, is in the pudding.  Which mode of prophecy has proven trustworthy?  Here too we see a difference in biblical prophecy, because the Jewish Scriptures are not at all fuzzy about the accuracy standard:  100%.

"If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him" (Deuteronomy 18:22).

A lot of “prophets” (I’m looking at you National Enquirer) would have lost all credibility (and income) if we applied this standard.  This standard made the ancient Jews a thinking, non-superstitious people.  Fear of the occult was pervasive back then, but God specifically wants to allay these fears with a simple standard:  prophecies, in order to be verified, must be specific and detailed enough to be shown undeniably true.

Now, with this standard in mind, how does the Bible fare against Nostradamus?  I’ll list just a few predictive prophesies made by Bible prophets that were fulfilled.  Then we’ll see how Nostradamus compares.

• Ezekiel 26 predicted, 250 years in advance, how Alexander would conquer Tyre.
• Psalm 22:16 would predict that the Messiah would be pieced in hands and feet – clearly alluding to a mode of execution (crucifixion) that hadn’t been invented when the prophecy was made.
• Predicting Messiah would not decay in the tomb (Ps 16).
• Predicting Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14).
• Predicting Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).
• Predicting Messiah would be a Nazarene (Isaiah 11:1), and many others.

Of course Jesus shows up fulfilling all these predictions, but then he ALSO makes prophetic predictions himself – the most startling of which was predicting the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple within a generation of his life.  In 70 AD the Roman general Titus leveled the city fulfilling Jesus word to the letter. (Luke 21:5-6)

Now, let’s turn to Nostradamus.  Is there anything like this kind of detail with specific fulfillment?  What follows is a few examples that show either Nostradamus is so vague and unclear that his accuracy could never be assessed confidently OR when he is very specific and clear, he is proven false.

For example, this passage is believed by some to foretell the 9/11 attacks:

"In the year of the new century and nine months, From the sky will come a great King of Terror. The sky will burn at forty-five degrees. Fire approaches the great new city."

The problems with this “prophecy” are numerous.

• First, this isn’t taken from a single section, but rather it’s a collection of statements culled from different sections to make a more cohesive sounding prediction that is made to match an historical event.
• Second, terror coming from the sky matches 9/11, but not this reference to a King.  The “king” (Bin Laden?) stayed home that day. 
• Third, it’s not buildings that burn for Nostradamus, but rather the sky that burns at “forty-five degrees”.  What does that mean?  No one knows. 
• Finally, New York City has the word “new” in its title, but in 2001 it was the oldest city in the country.  In what sense is it new?

We can admit that collected artificially in this way, there’s some similarity - albeit very figurative - to 9/11.  But taking these bits of Nostradamus out of context (as if everything he wrote was somehow magically predictive, but in a way unconnected his own flow of thought or logic) strains credibility to the breaking point.

Another example:

The young lion will overcome the old one,
On the field of war in single combat:
He will burst his eyes in a cage of gold,
Two fleets one, then to die, a cruel death.

Allegedly, this has reference to the death of France’s king, Henry II.  He was wounded in a jousting contest in 1557; he died ten days later. Well, here’s what actually happened:

Only six years separated the ages of Henry and his opponent in the tournament; it was hardly a contest between the young and the old (Henry was only forty). The accident occurred during a friendly sporting event, not on a battlefield.  There is no evidence that Henry was wearing a gilded visor (cage) of gold. Also, the king’s eyes were not damaged; a splinter from the lance pierced his skull and entered the brain. The reference to “two fleets” is utterly unconnected.

These are just two examples of how extremely vague Nostradamus' writings are. This provides an opportunity for wild speculation and "retroactive clairvoyance."  Many have made him a genius by squeezing modern events into the very large openings provided by his imprecision and ambiguity.

However, there is one instance when Nostradamus was less vague and refreshingly clear. In his preface to “The Centuries” – a letter to his son – Nostradamus finally writes in unambiguous terms:

From the time I am writing this [1 March 1555], before 177 years, 3 months and 11 days, by pestilence, long famine, and wars, and more still by inundations, the world between this day and that, before and after, shall be diminished, and its population so reduced that there will hardly be hands enough to attend to agriculture, and the lands will be left as long without culture as they have been under tillage.

The deadline for this prediction is easily tallied:

             Day      Month     Year

Start     1            3              1555
Add      11          3                177

Total     12          6              1732

June 12, 1732.

The truly apocalyptic destruction and depopulation predicted here is very specific and the effects very long-lasting.  So we can say with confidence that none of this has occurred and yet the deadline passed by long before the United States became a nation.

So, when I compare Nostradamus to the incredible line of specific and fulfilled prophecy of Scripture, I find him untrustworthy.  And it leads to this question – why would we want to trust him?  Especially knowing that we have the markers of authentic prophecy in Scripture affirmed and crowned by the long-predicted Christ.