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Health update and more

My recovery since the first of June has been slow but steady. I still use a walker, mostly for balance, but I no longer have to walk stiff-legged with my knees locked. The muscles in my legs have strengthened to the point where I can walk more normally. However, I am no longer used to walking normally, so I have to concentrate on doing so. It does not yet come naturally. It is like learning to walk again. Even so, this is a big improvement as a result of muscles rebuilding.

One notable problem of this condition is that I find it difficult to remain in a sitting position for more than a couple of hours at a time. I have to lie down and stretch my legs periodically, and this reduces my work at the computer. In addition, I continue to do exercises daily, all of which take time.

I am following a nutritional regimen as well. At the present rate of recovery, I hope to be able to discard the walker in another month or so. As always, I appreciate your prayers.

New Books Coming Soon

We will soon be publishing some new books. There is the commentary on Micah yet to be edited. I just finished a study in Philippians that I wrote in the recent FFI’s. And I just finished the weblog series on the milk of the word, taken from Hebrews 6:1, 2. This book is designed to give new believers a foundation of understanding in the word of God. I may add more chapters to this book before publishing it.

Next, I plan to do a study on the meat of the word to take new believers to the next level.

Right now, the main hindrance I face is that my computer time has been reduced. It is hard to find time to write current blogs and then to have leftover time to put those studies into book format and to proof them. Everything takes time. This past week I have been writing the September FFI as well.

The Israeli War

The current Israeli war against the Palestinians and their hostility toward Iran cannot truly be understood without knowing the biblical foundations going back thousands of years. The Israeli government is headed by Zionists who believe that the entire land “from the river to the sea” belongs to them. They believe they must expel or kill the Palestinians in order to fulfill their perceived destiny.

Their view is based on an Old Covenant view of the law and of prophecy. Unfortunately, Christian Zionists hold a very similar view. The main difference is that Christian Zionists attempt to place Jesus as the Messiah-King of an Old Covenant system. Supposedly, Jesus will reside in a rebuilt temple and be served by Levitical priests who will offer animal sacrifices twice daily.

The current war is being run by leaders who do not really believe in God but who want to implement the Old Covenant command to kill the Canaanites—who are now presumed incorrectly to be the Palestinians. They ignore the fact that after Jerusalem was destroyed, the Romans and Greeks established many cities in the land and soon the overall population of Palestine was no longer Jewish. After a few centuries, the population became Christian, and this lasted for another 400 years before the land was conquered by the Muslims. At that point, the population of Greek and Roman Christians converted to Islam, and these are now the modern Palestinians. They are not Canaanites. Their only “crime” is that they are not Jews.

Zionism is based on the false premise that the Jews are the Israelites in Scripture. At best, the Jews may claim to be from the southern kingdom of Judah. (Jew is short for Judah.) After the kingdom was divided, the northern tribes remained as Israelites, while the people of Judah had to pick another name to call themselves.

The prophets from then on differentiated between Israel and Judah, giving prophecies to each. The main promises were given to Israel, not Judah. The main prophecy given to Judah was that the Messiah would come from Judah—specifically, Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). When Jesus was born, Judah fulfilled its prophetic role.

The prophecies of “return” and triumphant glory were given to Israel, not Judah. The Israelites were then exiled to Assyria and eventually lost to historians. But the age of archeology began in 1830, and it was not long before they discovered where the Israelites went and why they were lost. They were pushed into Europe by the Second Persian Empire in the third century B.C.

This, of course, gives us a historical view of the lost tribes of Israel. Such a study traces the history of nations and ethnic groups. The main value of this study is to show decisively that the Jews are not the biblical Israelites to whom the promises of God were given. This is seen clearly in Jeremiah 18 and 19. Jeremiah 18:1-10 is a prophecy about Israel. The rest of the chapter and all of Jeremiah 19 is a prophecy about Judah and Jerusalem. Read for yourself about the two jars, the first representing Israel, the second representing Judah.

But yet I take this question to a new level. Just because someone can trace their ancestry back to the Israelites does not mean that he is an inheritor in the Kingdom of God. One must be justified by New Covenant faith in Jesus Christ just to become a citizen. A Jew, by definition, rejects Jesus as the Christ, or Messiah. Therefore, from a Christian viewpoint, no Jew in his present condition is an inheritor of the Kingdom of God.

In God’s view, a Jew is a New Covenant believer (Romans 2:28, 29) and an Israelite is an overcomer. On this level, one’s physical genealogy does not matter. We are children of Abraham by faith, not by genealogy. We are children of God because we do the works of our heavenly Father.

Yet Christian Zionists base their view of prophecy on the idea that the Jews are Israelites and that Jesus is the high priest of the Aaronic Order. They support the Israeli war of ethnic cleansing and genocide. They believe every lie that Netanyahu speaks, including the lie that only 8 or 10 Palestinians have been killed in this war. The truth is that more than 40,000 bodies have been identified, and there are many more buried under the rubble. The Lancet, a well-respected UK medical journal, estimates that there are 186,000 casualties among the Palestinians.

If we understand the Scriptures properly and know how to distinguish between the two covenants, we should be able to avoid the divine judgment that is sure to come when God holds America and the church accountable for supporting mass murder. The Israeli state will suffer the greatest consequences for their actions, as the Scriptures say, but shall the church be immune when it has induced the US congress to be the main financial sponsor of genocide?

God judges impartially by the same law. I do not think that the church will repent until Jerusalem is destroyed and it is forced to rethink its view of prophecy. By that time, it will be too late to avoid divine judgment.

Israel’s war on the Palestinians will be its demise, and this will fulfill some important prophecies. So that is why we ought to get the news about what is happening there. The tension that is building there will lead to the end of an age and the start of something new.