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Daniel’s 70th Week - A Basic Understanding, 7 pages.
A Brief Understanding of the End of this Age, 15 pages.
A Holistic Understanding of the End of this Age, 62 pages.
The Seven Seals of Revelation and the Judgments of God.
Who are the 144,000, 9 pages.
At Last, the King, 6 pages.
Standing in the Gap at the End of this Age, 8 pages.
Preparing for the End of this Age, 6 pages.
Zechariah 8:19 explicitly promises that the fast of the fourth month (17 Tammuz is in the fourth month) “will become joy and gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah.” Zechariah doesn’t say the date will be forgotten or replaced. He says the very day of mourning will be transformed. Restoration on that specific date would be the fulfillment of Zechariah’s language.
On Shavuot at Sinai, as described in the book of Exodus, a covenant with God was mediated by Moses. This established Israel as a nation and enabled sacrifices, yet within 40 days this led to illegitimate sacrifices.
In a future scenario, a political covenant with men, as described in the book of Daniel, may define Israel's standing among the nations, creating the conditions for legitimate Levitical sacrifices to resume.
If this future covenant were to be confirmed at or around Shavuot, and daily sacrifices resumed around 40 days later, this could put the date of resumption at 17 Tammuz—the very date the first Temple sacrifices ceased.
Traditionally, 17 Tammuz is not just “a date a lot of bad things happened”. It’s a fixed archetype of covenantal and ritual breakdown. Flipping this date to a day of restoration would truly “turn mourning into joy”.
Whether such timing will occur remains unknown, but the pattern highlights how covenantal identity and sacrificial worship are deeply intertwined in both past and potential future events.
#Covenant #Israel
I’m pretty confident that Zechariah applies to the third Temple as well as the second.
Concerning the building of the Temple:
“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of “It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful!” ’
We might not understand how it’s going to happen, but it will be built.
I have a speculation that the final rebellion against God will mirror the first rebellion in Eden.
In the Garden, there were two trees: the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. The serpent first led Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, gaining awareness of good and evil through disobedience. After that, God barred access to the Tree of Life so that fallen humanity would not live forever in corruption.
During the Messianic reign, Scripture says that the knowledge of God will cover the earth. Humanity will fully know the difference between good and evil, not through rebellion, but through the reign of Messiah and the teaching of Torah.
At the same time, mortal humans will live alongside those who have been transformed into immortal life. My speculation is that the final deception of Satan may echo Eden: he may convince the nations that they too can seize eternal life for themselves by eating from the Tree of Life apart from God’s appointed way.
The first deception was, “You can be like God if you eat from the tree.” The final deception may again be, “You can be like God if you eat from the tree.” The end mirrors the beginning.
Ordination as a pastor by an existing “church” organization is not the Biblical example. If a believer were to go into a region that didn’t have a church, preach the gospel, and establish a community of believers- then this is a legitimate ecclesia (gathering, church).
If I start a home church with like-minded believers, we form a legitimate ecclesia (gathering, church). “The ecclesia that meets in John’s home”
@RobotSynergy@EmmausWire My understanding is that:
* The king of the north begins an attack on the king of the south
* Ships of Kittum intervene to stop the attack.
* The king of the north returns home in humiliation
* A devious plan in made to defile the temple in Jerusalem
@FNguywthebeard@JoelWBerry Yes, Josephus wrote that he had seen the pillar of salt himself.
Later writers Irenaeus and Clement of Rome also refer to the pillar as something that still stood at their time.
Isaiah 63:1-6
Yeshua is seen coming from Edom, from Botzrah, magnificently dressed and stately in his great strength. His clothing stained crimson, as someone who has trodden the winepress.
He has trodden down the nations in his anger, trampled them in his fury so that their lifeblood covers his my clothing and stains his garments. The year of redemption has come.
His own arm will salvation, as in his anger he makes them drunk with his fury and pours out their lifeblood on the earth.
———-
This is not glorying slaughter or the spilling of blood. It is simply the prophetic end for the enemies of God.
The book of Job, among its many lessons, offers a warning that should unsettle anyone quick to condemn others in the name of God. This book can easily serve as an allegory for Jewish-Christian relations.
From the beginning, the focus of the book is God’s servant Job. That focus never shifts. The entire drama unfolds around him. His friends insert themselves into his story and immediately step into accusation and condemnation, assuming they understand what God is doing. In the end, God says plainly:
“You have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)
The friends are certain in their theology and ethical dogmas. They see suffering and conclude guilt. They speak with confidence and authority.
Job, the central figure of the story, suffers because of heavenly courtroom decrees that far surpass human understanding. They cannot be fully explained, expounded, assumed, or reasoned away. The only whisper the reader hears of that courtroom is in the few glimpses the text provides.
Yet in their ignorance and limited knowledge, Job’s friends presume to pronounce judgment on their friend, listing his supposed failings and insisting that the reasons for his suffering lie in his own fault.
That pattern is stark and readily apparent within the Christian world.
Like Job’s friends, disciples of Jesus - ranging from misguided zeal to outright hatred - have often sought to sit on a judgment throne that does not belong to them and declare the Jewish people hellbound.
In the smallness of Christian knowledge, stripped of Jewish context, culture, and covenantal understanding, many read the words of Jesus from two thousand years removed and assume absolute and eternal Jewish guilt and damnation. Sometimes that judgment is extended even toward Jews who believe in Yeshua, accept Him as Messiah, and yet remain faithful to the covenantal practices of their people as observant Jews.
The story of Job pushes back hard against that instinct to condemn everyone who does not align perfectly with your belief system and understanding.
God never hands Job over to his friends, and He never gives them authority to define Job’s standing. It is Job - wounded, misunderstood, and falsely accused - who God ultimately vindicates.
In the same way, the God of Israel tells us that vindication and exoneration remain in the future for the Jewish people:
“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication” (Joel 2:23)
Job’s friends accuse him, and he calls them out:
“How long will you torment my soul and crush me with words? Ten times now you have reproached me; you attack me shamelessly…” (Job 19:2–6)
In the same way that Job’s friends exalted themselves over him and accused him of every evil deed, the apostles saw that the nations would do the same against the Jewish people. Paul specifically warns: “Do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.” (Romans 11:18)
And again, the prophets speak:
“Never again will My people be shamed. You will know that I am within Israel.” (Joel 2:26–27)
In our folly, we trumpet eternal damnation, seating ourselves on the judgment seat and pretending we can decree—out of our shallow understanding of an ancient covenantal faith—who will be forever cut off, all while ignoring the hundreds of promises God made to His people.
Jesus warned, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:2)
According to that framework, Job’s friends were not just wrong, they were in danger. Their own judgment was hanging over their heads. It was through Job that they were spared: “I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly” (Job 42:8).
The ones who rushed to judgment must now rely on the very person they condemned. It is only through the prayers of Job that the three friends survive the encounter.
In the same way, Christians have, for centuries, declared through replacement theology and persecution that the Jewish people are destined for hell. Too often, they demand a conviction and sentence rather than seeking to build up.
Instead, Paul says:
“If their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:15)
Do not miss that reversal.
We do not stand above others as judges of their place before the God of Israel. We do not see the full story, and we have not been entrusted with final verdicts. Pronouncing someone damned is not a mark of righteousness; it risks exposing your own standing according to the words of Jesus.
Some readers will inevitably cast themselves as the righteous Elihu rather than the three friends of folly. Here again, they are mistaken if they imagine themselves into Elihu’s role while condemning the Jewish people.
The Jewish people have covenant obligations to their God. Elihu in this story is better paralleled by Elijah, the one said to return before the coming of the Messiah, to set things in order so that the Messiah does not come with a curse (Malachi 3:23–24). When God steps into the story, Elihu has done his part, and Job receives correction, not damnation.
If it is by our love that disciples are known, then less consigning people to hell would serve us well, and far more of the baseless love that reflects our Master.
Job teaches humility to everyone involved. God’s purposes are larger than our dogmas and malformed theologies.
His relationship with a people or a person is not ours to define or redefine on His behalf. Those we are most tempted to judge may stand closer to Him than we realize through the fog of our own self-assurance.
Excellent post.
A lot of people don’t understand that by saying God has rejected the Jewish people, or that God is done with the Jews, they are doing two things:
1. They profane God’s name among the nations by saying God was unable or unwilling to keep His promises.
2. They bring false witness against God Himself.
@SHolmes66305 This is amazing. I’ve never heard anything like this before, but it makes perfect sense. I also love the comparison that man tried to build a tower going up into heaven—God will give us a city coming down from heaven.
@Destined2B_King@mdwilson07 Yes. The 144,000 are much more likely to be warriors that evangelists. I’ve never understood why people think they are evangelists to the Jewish people.
I wrote this a few months ago:
Exodus 29:4 tells us that Moses had to personally wash Aaron and his sons in order to consecrate them as the first priests.
Ordinarily, washing another person was something that was only done only by a servant. But Moses humbled himself and, as mediator of the covenant, washed his brother and nephews in order to cleanse them for the priesthood.
In John 13, Yeshua, as mediator of a new covenant, washed the feet of His disciples as a physical sign that that He was cleansing them. When Peter objected, Yeshua said, “What I do, you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.”
It’s because Israel has not fully returned to God that he has not yet fully returned them to their land from exile. And because he has not yet returned them, you believe that he has not begun and that never will.
So you participate in the word of God that says because of Israel (not following God’s commandments and being restored), God’s name and reputation is profaned among the nations.
Yes, they were exiled out again by the Romans. But that does not negate God‘s covenant to bring them back to their land.
God has promised the Israel will never stop being a nation before him, even in dispersion. From Moses and onward, God has always promised to return Israel to their land.
Even without foreign support, God would have established Israel back in their land. If Israel were not returned to their own land and continues to remain a nation before God, and the very reputation of God is defiled by inability to keep His promises.