BIBLICAL TEACHING ON THE GOSPEL AND PROPHECY
CHAPTER III
THE EARLY JUDEAN MINISTRY
RESUME
John alone gives us the record of this period of our Lord’s ministry. After His brief stay in Capernaum Jesus went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. When He entered the Temple He found stalls set up for selling sheep and oxen and doves and money changers doing business. Making a whip out of rope, He drove them all out of the temple, the animals as well as the dealers, and overturned the tables of the money changers along with their coins, and cried out to them: “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise.” Whereupon the Jews asked Jesus for a sign which would give Him authority to do such things. The sign He gave was: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews reasoned that it had taken 46 years to build the temple: how then could He raise it up in three days. After the death and resurrection of Jesus the disciples remembered this saying of Jesus and understood that He was talking about the raising up of His body from the dead: not the temple of Herod.
Beholding the signs which Jesus did, many in Jerusalem believed on His name, but He did not trust Himself unto them, for He knew all men and what was in man. There was a particular man by the name of Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews who came to Jesus by night, confessing that Jesus was a teacher coming from God, since no man could do the signs that Jesus did except God be with Him. Jesus immediately got down to basics and told him he had to be born again of the Spirit of God in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus seemed incapable of understanding spiritual truths. He replied: “How can these things be?” The discourse ended with a reference to the brazen serpent which Moses set up, and the familiar John 3:16, “God so loved the world,” and the conflict between light and darkness.
After this Jesus left Jerusalem and went to the northern area of Judea with His disciples, where John was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim. A discussion arose about baptism, during which a man came with a report that Jesus was baptizing more disciples than John, which gave John the opportunity to give another witness about Jesus.
When Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that He was making more disciples than John He left Judea and headed north for Galilee. To get to Galilee He had to go through Samaria and there He encountered the woman at the well. Through her conversion the whole city of Sychar turned out and many believed on His name, not because of the woman’s words, but because they heard Him personally and were persuaded that this is indeed the Savior of the world.
EXPOSITION
1. The First Passover and Cleansing of the Temple
(Reference: John 2:13-23)
The First Passover of His Ministry. As far as the Biblical record goes, this is the first Passover Jesus attended since He was 12 years old. We are certain that He must have attended others, since Joseph and Mary are said to have gone to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. All Jews everywhere tried to get back to Jerusalem for this important feast. Jesus, however, did not assert His authority until He became of age and began His public ministry. The Passover is mentioned 9 times in John (2:13,23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28,39; 19:14). Thus, Jesus observed three Passovers during His ministry: this one, one in the middle; and one at the very end of His ministry. It is significant that He began and ended with the Passover, for He was to fulfill the Passover type, and thus become our Passover (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7).
A. Cleansing the Temple. In spite of the fact that the Jews had made the Temple a den of thieves, Jesus still recognized it as His Father’s house. The original temple built by Solomon had been utterly destroyed by the Babylonians. It was rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah, but with much less grandeur (Hag. 2:3). Finally, Herod became King in Jerusalem in 37 B.C. He decided to rebuild the temple, and first collected all of the materials before dismantling the old one. The new building was started 20 – 19 B.C. The disciples later on must have been impressed by the grandeur of the temple, for they undertook to show off the buildings of the temple to Jesus (Matt. 24:1,2), but He foretold how this beautiful structure would also be destroyed and left desolate because Jerusalem did not know the time of her visitation.
This action of Jesus of driving out the merchants and money changers and overturning their tables seems out of character for those who think only of Jesus as “meek and mild.” What will they think when they see Him coming in flaming fire to take vengeance upon those that know not God and obey not the Gospel? God’s attributes of love and mercy are balanced against His attributes of holiness and justice.
B. The Sign of His Resurrection. When the Jews asked for a sign of His authority He replied, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” There were many things which Jesus said which the disciples did not at the time understand, but later, after they had received the Holy Spirit they remembered the sayings and understood. Here they understood He was speaking of His human body. The Jews remembered this saying too and perverted it and tried to use it against Him at His trial (Matt. 26:61). The disciples remembered it and were profited by it: they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
C. Incomplete Faith. The people believed in His name when they saw the miracles He did. This kind of belief is inadequate and does not result in salvation. The word “believe” has in it the idea of commitment. The statement in vs. 24, “Jesus did not commit himself unto these believers,” contains the same Greek word used in vs. 23 and translated “believed” but here translated “commit.” Scriptural belief involves the element of committal, entrusting one’s self to God. To see a miracle worker and believe he has divine powers involved no sense of acknowledging one’s own sin and no element of committal. This fact is born out in the next section which deals with one of these men who had seen Jesus’ miracles and believed because of the miracles. Belief even caused him to seek out Jesus by night, apparently to avoid detection by other Jews, but Nicodemus was not saved by this kind of believing.
2. Discourse With Nicodemus
(Reference: John 2:23-3:21)
A. What Was in Man. Jesus knew what was in man. We can tell that from the way He dealt with Nicodemus. We don’t know why Nicodemus came to Jesus that night. As a ruler of the Jews he was surely interested in any religious developments. Perhaps he just wanted to check up on Jesus. Perhaps he had some questions. Perhaps he wanted to know how Jesus performed His miracles. Or perhaps it was just plain curiosity. It does not seem he was driven to Jesus by a sense of lostness, or by a desire to improve his relationship with God. As a Pharisee he would boast of being better than other men, of keeping the law in a blameless fashion. He was probably much like Saul of Tarsus, as Paul describes his situation before he met Christ (cf. Phil. 3:4-6). But Jesus knew what was in Nicodemus. Later on in some of His teaching He tells us what is in man. He knew that within every man is a nature of sin. “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things that defile a man; but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man” (Matt. 15:19,20). Nicodemus got something that night he was not looking for.
B. What Christ Came to Put In Man. Jesus knew that Nicodemus needed not more religion but a new birth, which would give him a new nature. He needed to be born again. This was something that he couldn’t understand, for this was foreign to his way of thinking. What ridiculous ideas this Jesus had. How could a man enter into his mother’s womb and be born again? Jesus has to explain the most elementary truths to this one who was a notable teacher in Israel.
The flesh and the Spirit are two separate realms. That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of Spirit is Spirit. The flesh cannot evolve into spirit any more than a rock can evolve into an animal. A man must have spiritual life to enter God’s kingdom; therefore, Nicodemus, you must be born of the Spirit. But Nicodemus wants to know how can these things be? Jesus used an illustration from the wind. The word wind and the word spirit are identical. When the wind blows, you can hear the sound it makes but you can’t tell where it came from and where it is going because it is invisible. So also is the Spirit. You can’t see how the Spirit operates any more than you can see how the wind blows. But you can see the effects of both the wind and the Spirit. The Spirit imparts new life and brings forth fruit of God. The song writer probably had this passage in mind when he wrote: “I know not how the Spirit moves, convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith in Him; but I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.”
Three times Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born again, but the second time He added something. He said, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit.. .” What does He mean by being born of water? Is this something different from just being born of the Spirit? Sacramentarians argue from this verse baptismal regeneration. Inserting such an argument in this context seems strange indeed, for if Jesus is saying anything at all He is saying that the physical, material world cannot in any way produce this new birth. How then could material water which can be seen, felt, and analyzed produce spiritual life?
Others take the water to be the water in which the fetus lives in its mother’s womb and therefore being born of water refers to our natural birth. The Living New Testament gives this as an alternate reading: “Physical birth is not enough. You must also be born spiritually.” We seriously doubt that Scripture ever uses water with this meaning. But the Scripture, and especially the Gospel of John, does often use water in a figurative sense. What did Christ mean when He told the woman at the well He would give her living water (John 4:10-14)? Or what did He mean by the rivers of living water which would flow out of man (ch. 7:38)?
In the very next verse John plainly states what He meant by water: “But this he spake of the Spirit.” Water and Spirit are both without the definite article and are connected by the conjunction “kai” (and). If this figure is used here the sense would be: Except a man be born of water, even spiritual water.
Water is also used to represent the operation of the Word of God, as in Eph. 5:26: “cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.” And Peter speaks of being born again, not of corruptible seed, but by the Word of God (1 Pet. 1:23). Therefore, we prefer to believe this is the correct meaning of this passage. It is true that water baptism was being preached and practiced both by John and Jesus, and that baptism was required, just as animal sacrifices were, but water is never presented as a procuring cause of regeneration in Scripture. If the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin and make one a member of God’s family, surely water could not do so.
Nicodemus started out by telling Jesus what he knew, and Jesus ended up telling Nicodemus he was ignorant: “Are you a master teacher in Israel and knowest not these things?” If Nicodemus didn’t believe the earthly things Jesus told him, how could he believe the heavenly things? Jesus knew whereof He spoke, for He had come down from heaven. (Some ancient Greek texts omit the last clause of vs. 13, “which is in heaven .”) Jesus at that time as the Son of man was not in heaven but on earth. As God, of course, He is omnipresent.
Not only was it necessary for Nicodemus to be born again, it was necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up on the Cross to make it possible for man to be born again. The Lord had sent fiery serpents into the camp of Israel because of their murmurings and many died from being bitten (Num. 21:6-9). Moses was commanded to make a serpent of brass and place it upon a pole. Every one that looked upon it was healed of his bite. In like manner Jesus had to be lifted up on the Cross, to be made the condemned serpent in our stead, that condemned sinners might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
From the illustration of the brazen serpent it is certain that the expression in the next verse, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” refers to giving Him in the sense of the Cross, and not merely in incarnation as a Teacher. Because the verb here is in the past tense, indicating a finished past action, it appears that the discourse with Nicodemus ends with vs. 15, if not sooner. Not only are “loved” and “gave” in the past tense, but there are a couple of phrases in vs. 16 that are never used by Christ Himself, “only begotten Son,” and “believe on the name of.” John has a way of injecting explanatory words of his own, so that it is sometimes difficult to know where a break should be made. For example, see ch. 1:16-18 and 12:37-41.
The words “condemn” and “condemned” in vs. 17 and 18, and “condemnation” in vs. 19, should be rendered “judge, judged, and judgment.” The unbeliever has been judged already: judged by virtue of his unbelief. Their judgment resides in the fact that light has come into the world, and men as a class loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were (imperfect tense) habitually evil.
We are beginning to see several of the most important and most often used words’ in John: “believe” – 99 times, “world” – 79 times, “Father” – 156 times, “know” – 107 times, “abide” – 41 times.
(Main Source: Understanding The Gospels – A Different Approach – Charles F. Baker)
CHAPTER II (CONTINUE)
THE INAUGURAL PERIOD (CONTINUE)
4. The First Disciples
(Reference: John 1:35-51)
A. John Loses Two Disciples. The next day after the baptism of Jesus, John was standing with two of his disciples and saw Jesus walk by, and John said to them, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Immediately the two disciples left John and followed after Jesus. John had a very large following at first, but gradually his followers began to follow Jesus. A little later some of the people came to John with apparent concern that John was losing his followers: “And they came unto John and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him” (John 3:26). John’s reply was: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This is a lesson for every servant of Christ. Preachers usually attract certain people. They like the preacher’s appearance, his manner of speech, his intelligence, his ability to expound the Scripture. They become his followers. There is always the danger that the preacher will forget John’s example here, that it is his business to decrease and cause Christ to increase. We are not to make disciples unto ourselves but unto Christ.
B. First Recorded Words of Jesus’ Public Ministry. When Jesus saw these two disciples of John, He turned and asked them, “What seek ye?” His next recorded words were, “Come and see.” We are doubtless familiar with His last words, spoken from the Cross, and the last words He spoke before His ascension, but what is perhaps just as important for us, is His word spoken to us from heaven through the Apostle Paul. We should be familiar with all the words He spoke, but especially with those He directed to us as members of His body.
C. The Names of the First Disciples. One of the first two to follow Jesus was Andrew, brother of Simon Peter. The name of the other disciple is not given, but it was apparently John, the writer of this Gospel. They came with Jesus to the place he was staying and it was about four in the afternoon (the tenth hour). (The first hour was sunrise, or six A.M. Ten hours later would be four P.M.) The very first thing Andrew did was to find his brother and tell him, “We have found the Messiah”(Hebrew word for “the Anointed One,” same as the Greek word “Christ”). And he brought him to Jesus. The lesson for us is obvious. Jesus not. only knew Simon’s name, He knew his nature and renamed him Cephas, or Peter, meaning “a stone.” (Cephas is Aramaic and Peter is Greek for “rock.”)
The next day Jesus started on His way and found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Here we learn that Philip, Andrew, Peter, and Nathaniel were all from Bethsaida, a town located at the northeastern end of the Sea of Galilee, just a short distance east of Capernaum, and between 80 and 90 miles north of Jerusalem. Philip finds Nathaniel and excitedly tells him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” We have spoken earlier about the reputation of Nazareth, so it is no wonder that Nathaniel replies: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip didn’t argue with him, he just replied, “Come and see for yourself.”
The more we can get people into personal touch with the Lord Jesus, the more likely we are to win them; surely more likely than arguing with them. As Nathaniel approached Jesus, Jesus said: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” This amazed Nathaniel and he asked, “How did you know me?” Then Jesus told him, “Before Philip called you, I saw you standing under the fig tree.” Apparently the fig tree was too far away for Jesus to have seen him with His physical sight, for this so impressed Nathaniel as Divine power that he cried out: “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, the King of Israel.” There are many such ascriptions to the Deity of Jesus Christ in the Gospels and in none of them does Jesus deny the fact. Either Jesus was or He was not the Son of God. There is no middle ground. If He was not then He was indeed a blasphemer, a mere man making Himself equal with God.
D. Greater Things to Come. Jesus asked Nathaniel, “Did you believe on me because I said I saw you under the fig tree? You are going to see something greater than that. Verily, verily, I tell you all, hereafter you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” These words remind us of Jacob’s dream, back in Gen. 28:12: “And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” In Jacob’s dream the angels were ascending and descending upon a ladder. In Christ’s words the angels are going to ascend and descend upon Himself. Christ is, therefore, the Ladder between earth and heaven. He is the way and the only way that man can reach heaven. The reference to the angels probably points to the future Kingdom when there will be visible communication between heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1-3).
This brief section has told us how disciples are made and how Christ is able to reveal Himself to others when we simply bring them to Him and let them taste for themselves.
5. The First Sign – Water Turned to Wine
(Reference: John 2:1-12)
A. Signs in John’s Gospel. The Bible uses a number of words to describe what we usually mean by the miraculous. There is the word “dunamis,” translated wonderful works, mighty works, miracles, the meaning of which is a display of great power .Then there is the word “teras,’ translated wonders, something strange which causes the beholder to marvel. Another word is “thambos,” translated wonder and amazement, describing the effect of a miracle upon the beholder. Finally, there is the word “semeion,” meaning a sign, mark or token. It is used 17 times in John to describe the mighty works of Jesus, being translated miracle 13 times and sign 4 times. A sign signifies or points out something, even as a sign on a place of business indicates what kind of establishment it is.
There are eight great signs in John’s Gospel. They point out, first of all, the power and glory and Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, as we shall see, they also point out certain truths concerning the nation of Israel. And further, there seems to be a correspondence between the first and the eighth, between the second and the seventh, between the third and the sixth, and between the fourth and the fifth.
It might be well at this point to remember that the Jews require a sign (1Cor.1:22). From the very beginning of the national life of Israel God has dealt with that nation through signs. Nineteen times in the Pentateuch alone God speaks of the signs He wrought when He delivered Israel out of Egypt. Signs are mentioned 75 times in the O.T. Isaiah and Ezekiel are full of signs. The Kingdom Gospel which Jesus gave to the Twelve Apostles to preach had signs which accompanied it (Mk.16:17,18).
B. This is Jesus’ First Miracle. This fact is stated in vs. 11: “this beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee.” We mention this fact merely to silence all of the myths which sprang up about miracles which Jesus did even as a baby.
C. The Narrative. There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. This indicates that she was probably one of the relatives, for she is not said to have been invited, as Jesus and His disciples were. It should be observed that Jesus often entered into social times with the people. The Pharisees murmured at Him because He received sinners and ate with them (Lk. 15:2). In Lk. 7:33,34 the Lord said: “For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.”
D. The Miracle. Mary discovered they had used up all the wine and so she came to Jesus and told Him, “They have no wine.” Catholics use this passage to bolster the doctrine that Mary is the Intercessor so that whatever we ask of Mary, she will intercede with Jesus to do, However, notice Jesus’ reply: “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.” This was a reprimand. He did not even call her Mother, but Woman. Up until now He had recognized His relation to His mother and family in the flesh, but now that He has begun His public ministry He is no longer merely Mary’s Son, but Mary’s Lord. He is now taking orders, not from His mother but from His Father in heaven. Mary apparently recognized her mistake and bowed out of the picture, saying to the servants: “Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.”
There were six stone water pots there, containing twenty or thirty gallons, which were used in purification ceremonies. Jesus told the servants to fill them with water and then draw some out and take to the master of ceremonies. This they did and when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and not being aware from where it came, although the servants knew, he said to the bridegroom, “Every one puts out the good wine at the beginning of the feast and later on that which is worse, but you have kept the good wine until the last.”
After the wedding feast Jesus, accompanied by His mother, brethren and His first five disciples went down to Capernaum, about 16 miles to the northeast, and remained there a few days.
E. The Sign. It is obvious that this miracle was a sign of the Deity of Christ, for He created wine out of plain water. Christ as the Word was introduced by John in chapter one as the One by whom all things were made that were made, and that without Him not anything was made that was made. Paul in Col. 1:16 says, “For by him were all things created that are in heaven and earth.” And John tells us in connection with this first sign, “Jesus manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him.”
We believe that this miracle could also be pointing to the day when Christ’s glory will be manifested, not in a little village in Galilee, but in the whole universe, when He comes again as King of kings and Lord of lords. Isa: 62:4, 5 predicts a great wedding in the future when Israel is married unto Jehovah, and Rev. 19:7-9 speaks about the future Marriage of the Lamb. Both of these prophecies point to Millennial times, when Israel is restored, and the glory of Christ is manifested throughout the whole earth.
F. The Counterpart Sign. We believe it will be helpful to include at this point the eighth sign which corresponds to the first. The sign is recorded in John 21:1-14. This incident took place after the resurrection of Christ at the Sea of Tiberias, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee. Seven of the disciples were together, probably not knowing what to do with themselves after the events of the past few days, when Peter said, “I’m going fishing,” which was his old trade. The others said, “We will go with you.” They fished all night but caught nothing. When morning came Jesus stood on the shore but they didn’t recognize Him. Then Jesus asked them, “Do you have any fish?” They answered, “No.” Then He shouted, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship and you will find.” Upon casting their net, it was filled with fish, so many they could not draw it in.
The disciple whom Jesus loved, that is John, said, “It is the Lord.” When Peter heard that he put on the fisher’s coat and jumped into the water and swam ashore. The others came in a dinghy dragging the net behind them. On shore they found a fire of coals with fish cooking and bread. Jesus told them to bring the fish they had caught, and they counted 153 great fish but the net was still intact. Then Jesus said, “Come and dine,” and He gave them to eat. This was the third time Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after His resurrection.
Notice now the correspondence between the marriage at Galilee and the miraculous catch of fish. At one they had no wine, at the other they had no fish. The first happened on the third day; the other was the third time Jesus has manifested Himself to His disciples. In both cases it is stated that Jesus manifested Himself (2:11 cf. 21:14). In both cases there are numbered objects: 6 water pots and 153 fish. In both cases Jesus commanded something to be done: “fill the water pots with water,” “cast the net on the right side of the boat.” In both cases the same verb is used: “enegko,” translated “bare” in 2:8 and “bring” in 21:10.
Both of these signs depict the ability of Christ to supply sustenance far in excess of their needs: about 150 gallons of wine and 153 great fish. These signs show the riches of God’s grace. One is reminded of Paul’s statement: “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:20,21). The blessing in these signs, will come upon Israel in the Kingdom age. The spiritual blessings of Paul’s epistles are for us today.
(Main Source: Understanding The Gospels – A Different Approach – Charles F. Baker)
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THE PREPARATORY PERIOD
Luke alone gives an account of the birth of John the Baptist. His father, Zacharias, belonged to the priestly tribe of Levi, as did his mother, Elizabeth. (This is not the same Zachariah as the prophet in the Old Testament.) They were advanced in years and Elizabeth had never been able to have children. Back in the days of King David the priesthood had been divided into twenty-four courses, each course serving in the temple for one week, twice a year (1 Chron. 24:10). While in the holy place an angel appeared unto him and announced that Elizabeth would bear a son who would have the spirit and power of Elijah and was to be named John. Zacharias just could not believe such a thing could happen, and for that reason he was stricken dumb until the prophecy should be fulfilled.
Zacharias went home to his wife after his service in the temple, and she conceived and in due time the child was born. On the eighth day the relatives and neighbors gathered for the circumcision ceremony and they all called his name Zacharias after his father, but Elizabeth said, “Not so, but he shall be called John.” They remonstrated with her that none of her kinfolk bore that name, and then asked Zacharias what name he wanted the child to have. He called for a writing pad and wrote, “His name is John,” and immediately his speech was restored. The people marvelled and fear came upon them and all wondered what manner of child this would be, as the story spread throughout the hill country of Judea.
Then Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and he began to prophesy. His prophecy concerned the Messiah who was not yet born and his own son John. Even though Jesus would not be born for another six months, Zacharias praised God for rising up a Horn of salvation for Israel in the house of His servant David. It is most important to note that Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, brings the same message as did the O.T. prophets concerning God’s promise to the nation of Israel for a physical, earthly kingdom. Theologians of the Post-millennial and Amillennial schools claim that the Jews were greatly mistaken in supposing that God intended to establish them in a literal, material kingdom. They claim that all of these promises which the Jews took literally must be spiritualized. Thus, they teach that Jesus came only to establish a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men. But what did the Spirit-filled Zacharias in the N.T. say?
“As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life” (Lk. 1:70-75).
Although the actual word “kingdom” does not occur in this passage, it is plainly intimated by the reference to this Deliverer who is raised up in the house of David, and by the twice repeated reference to salvation, not only from sin, but from Israel’s enemies. But it is argued that these could not be physical enemies, such as the Romans, because the Jews were never delivered from them. What proponents of this objection fail to understand is that this deliverance was conditioned upon Israel’s repentance and acceptance of the Messiah. These conditions become evident later on in the preaching of Jesus and of the apostles, (cf. Lk. 19:41-44; Acts 3:18-26). The fact that the generation of Israel rejected the Messiah does not mean that these national promises of the kingdom will never be fulfilled. God swore with an oath to Abraham and He promised David that even though Israel failed He would finally restore His kingdom, (2 Sam, 7:5-17). Therefore, this Davidic covenant must yet be fulfilled.
Zacharias also prophesied that John would be called the prophet of the Highest, to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord, and to give the knowledge of salvation unto Israel by the remission of their sins. All what we are told of his childhood is that he grew and became strong in spirit and lived in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel.
Luke also tells of the annunciation to Mary by the angel Gabriel. It took place six months after Elizabeth had conceived John. This is the first “hail Mary.” Roman Catholics have repeated it millions of times since then.
Truly, Mary was highly honored to be chosen to be the mother of the humanity of God’s Son, but the high honor bestowed upon her, exalting her as immaculately conceived and higher than Christ himself, substituting her as the intercessor between God and man, when Scripture states there is only one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5), is an invention of the Roman Church.
When the angels said, “Thou hast found favor with God,” he used the word which is almost always translated “grace.” This is the first time grace is mentioned in the N.T. and one of the eight times it is used in Luke, which may indicate the influence of the Apostle of Grace upon Luke. Mary needed the grace of God just like any other human. If Mary had been sinlessly conceived as Romanists aver, she would not have needed a Savior; but in the Magnificat she exclaims: “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior” (vs. 47).
Matthew says nothing about the annunciation to Mary but he does tell us that Mary was espoused to Joseph and that she was found to be with child before they had come together. According to the law Joseph could have called for her death (Deut. 22:20-24), but because he was a just man he decided to follow Deut. 24:1 and put her away quietly. But an angel appeared unto him in a dream and told him not to fear to take Mary to himself, because the conception had been by the power of the Holy Spirit and the child should be named Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins. Upon awaking, Joseph took Mary as his wife, but had no sex relations with her until she had brought forth her firstborn. Catholic doctrine refuses to accept this plain statement of Matt. 1:25. Mary had other children after Jesus was born. Ch. 13:55,56 names four brothers of Jesus as well as sisters.
Matt. 1:22 is the first of the many “that it might be fulfilled” statements in Matthew. Here the fulfillment is the Virgin Birth as predicted in Isa. 7:14.
Returning to Luke’s account in ch. 1:32,33 God makes it abundantly clear that the N.T. and the O.T. are in perfect agreement on the subject of Israel’s promised kingdom. God is going to give to Jesus the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of His kingdom there shall be no end. Some theologians claim we today are spiritual Israelites but we have never heard any claim to be spiritual Jacobites. Jacob was his natural name: Israel his divinely given name. Christ is going to reign over the house of Jacob. Notice too that the Kingdom will have no end. The Millennial form of the Kingdom will have an end, but the Kingdom will continue after that in the new earth without end. After the last enemy is subjugated under the feet of Jesus, there will be no further need of Jesus to reign with a rod of iron, as in the Millennial Kingdom (Rev. 2:27; 12:5; 19:15, cf. 1 Cor. 15:26-28).
Luke gives a very detailed account of the actual birth of Jesus, which might be expected from a medical doctor. His mention of the taxation which was made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria helps to tie in the birth of Christ with secular history and it provides another example of the Providence of God: how He works through seemingly unrelated events to bring about His ends. It was because of the taxation that Joseph and Mary had to take the journey down to Bethlehem to enroll and while there Mary’s time to be delivered came. Thus, Jesus was born in Bethlehem instead of Nazareth and a prophecy uttered 700 years earlier was fulfilled (Mic. 5:2). One would have thought that God would see to it that His Son was born in the most pleasant and commodious surroundings, perhaps in the palace of the king, but this was the first step in His humiliation. There was no room in the inn, so He was born in a stable (cf. Phil. 2:5-8).
Luke also is the one who has given us the beautiful store of the shepherds. It was a joyous announcement: “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” But before the ministry of Christ had ended He was being rejected by Israel, so that He had to change all of that joyous message and instead ask: “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division” (Lk. 12:51). It has been said that there can be no lasting peace on earth until Israel is established in her land, until Christ is in His rightful place on the throne of David, and until Satan is in his appointed place, the lake of fire.
There has been much controversy over the date of Christ’s birth. There are several logical arguments against the traditional date of Dec. 25 for the birth of Christ. It is argued that the shepherds would not be abiding in the open fields with their flocks in the dead of winter, not only because of the cold nights (it does snow in Jerusalem), but because there would be no pasturage at that season. It is also argued that the Roman government would not choose a time for the enrollment when it would be most difficult for the people to travel back to their own cities. And then the improbability of Mary in her condition taking this trip on donkey-back of some seventy miles in the winter is pointed out. From May through October there is no rain in Israel, but in December the almost continuous winter rains set in which continue through February. The hill country through which they travelled had an average elevation of 3000 feet. Such a journey through cold rains and even snow would surely have been a most difficult trip for a woman ready to give birth to a child.
It may at first seem strange that Mary who belonged to the tribe of Judah had a cousin, Elizabeth, who belonged to the priestly tribe of Levi. Edersheim, an authority on Jewish matters, states:
There can be no question, that both Joseph and Mary were of the royal lineage of David. Most probably the two were nearly related, while Mary could also claim kinship with the Priesthood, being, no doubt, on her mother’s side, a blood relative of Elizabeth, the Priest-wife of Zacharias. Even this seems to imply that Mary’s family must shortly before have held higher rank, for only with such did custom sanction any alliance on the part of Priests.
(Main Source: Understanding The Gospels – A Different Approach – Charles F. Baker)
THE FINAL BATTLE AND THE WHITE THRONE JUDGEMENT
At the end of the Millennium, Satan will be released for a brief period of time to lead a final rebellion against Christ. Then he will be defeated and cast into the lake of fire for eternity.
After the Millennium and Satan’s final rebellion, Christ will sit upon a great white throne, and all unbelievers from every age will be resurrected and assembled before Him to be judged. This will be the final resurrection. Those who refused to trust in the Lord will be judged according to their deeds. Since their names will not be found written in the Book of Life, which contains the names of the redeemed, they will be consigned to the lake of fire forever.
SATAN RELEASED
At the end of the one thousand years, Satan is released for a brief period of time for his last stand (Revelation 20:3). God allows Satan one last shot at world dominion. But why would God release Satan from the abyss?
God’s Word clearly teaches that man is sinful both by nature and by practice. Man has been tested in every way and will always fail apart from God and His grace. The millennial kingdom and the second “coming” of Satan will conclusively prove this. During the messianic kingdom, people who haven’t yet been glorified will still have sinful natures, but the perfect world around them will offer no enticement to sin, nor will Satan and his demons be around to tempt them either. Satan will be bound for one thousand years, and the Lord Jesus Himself will be personally present, ruling and reigning on the restored earth.
In spite of these perfect conditions, a host of people born and raised during the Millennium will still reject the Lord. Only believers will survive the Tribulation to enter the kingdom, and they will all know the Lord and trust in Him, but they will have children during the Millennium, and many of those children will not repent and believe in Christ as their Savior. They may outwardly conform to avoid judgment, but inwardly they will harbour a rebellious heart against the King of kings.
When Satan is released at the end of the Millennium, Satan will gather so many people after his release that “the number of them is like the sand of the seashore” (Revelation 20:8, NASB).
SATAN DEFEATED
The gathering of rebels and the war that defeats them are called “Gog and Magog” in Revelation 20:8. This title has confused many people and led them to equate this battle of Gog and Magog with the one in Ezekiel 38–39. There are two key differences between these two battles that indicate they are not the same.
Ezekiel 38–39 occurs shortly before, or early in the Tribulation, and specific nations will be involved. Gog and Magog in Revelation 20:8 occurs after the Millennium in Revelation 20:1-6 and involves all the nations
As this massive mob of rebels gathers on the broad plain of the earth and surrounds Jerusalem, God sends fire down from heaven to destroy them. Immediately, Satan is cast into the lake of fire forever, to join the other two members of the false trinity, the Antichrist and the false prophet (Revelation 20:10).
JUDGEMENT DAY – REVELATION 20:11-15
This final day of judgment is called the Great White Throne Judgment. The court date for the Great White Throne Judgement is set on God’s docket to occur after the millennial kingdom has ended and Satan has been cast into the lake of fire.
It is called white because it is absolutely pure, holy, and righteous. Jesus Christ is the final judge before whom the unbelieving world will stand. As John 5:22 reminds us, “Not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (NASB, see also Acts 17:31). In 2 Timothy 4:1 Jesus Christ is called the one who will “judge the living and the dead.”
When the Day of Judgment comes, there will be no place to hide. “The books” will be opened (Revelation 20:12). God is keeping a precise account of every person’s life in His books (Daniel 7:10). “And all were judged according to their deeds” (Revelation 20:13).
The Book of Life contains the names of everyone who has ever been saved by God’s grace. “Anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). “The purpose of the Great White Throne Judgment is not to determine if a person is saved but to judge the unsaved.
The condemned will die a second time; that is, they will be separated eternally from God in the lake of fire (2 Thessalonians 1:9; Revelation 20:14). Hell Is a place of conscious physical, mental, and spiritual torment. (Matthew 13:41-42, Mark 9:47-49, Luke 16:28).
In 2018, Robert Spencer published a remarkable book, called “The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.” In one of the chapters (chapter 10), he discussed the matter of how the Western world caved into Islam’s demands. In this series, we look at some highlights from this chapter.
THE WEST LOSES THE
WILL TO LIVE
The Islamic State
The Islamic State (commonly but erroneously known as ISIS, an acronym for its former and rejected name, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [the Levant]) is best known for its audacious attempt from 2014 to 2017 to restore the caliphate. It declared its caliphate in the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria on June 29, 2014, the same day it issued an explanatory document entitled “This is the Promise of Allah.”
The declaration asserted that the caliphate frees human beings from oppression and subjugation: it is meant “for the purpose of compelling the people to do what the Sharia (Allah’s law) requires of them concerning their interests in the hereafter and worldly life, which can only be achieved by carrying out the command of Allah, establishing His religion, and referring to His law for judgment.”
Before Islam, according to “This is the Promise of Allah,” the Arabs were weak and disunited; once they accepted Islam, Allah granted them unity and power… The God of this ummah (—the best of peoples—) yesterday is the same God of the ummah today, and the One who gave it victory yesterday is the One who will give it victory today.” Accordingly, “The time has come for those generations that were drowning in oceans of disgrace, being nursed on the milk of humiliation, and being ruled by the vilest of all people, after their long slumber in the darkness of neglect—the time has come for them to rise.” The “vilest of all people” is a Qur’anic epithet for the “unbelievers among the People of the Book”—that is, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians who do not become Muslims (98:6).
The Islamic State exhorted all Muslims to join in the caliphate and give it allegiance, as the Mahdi in Sudan and so many other Muslim revivalists had throughout Islamic history:
“So rush O Muslims and gather around your khalifah, so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war.… By Allah, if you disbelieve in democracy, secularism, nationalism, as well as all the other garbage and ideas from the west, and rush to your religion and creed, then by Allah, you will own the earth, and the east and west will submit to you. This is the promise of Allah to you. This is the promise of Allah to you.”
Less than a week after declaring itself the caliphate, the Islamic State gave the world a look at the new caliphate, releasing a video on July 5, 2014, of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi speaking in the twelfth-century Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul.
He said that after the fall of the last caliphate, “the disbelievers were able to weaken and humiliate the Muslims, dominate them in every region, plunder their wealth and resources, and rob them of their rights.” They did this by “attacking and occupying their lands, placing their treacherous agents in power to rule the Muslims with an iron fist, and spreading dazzling and deceptive slogans such as: civilization, peace, co-existence, freedom, democracy, secularism, nationalism, and patriotism, among other false slogans. Those rulers continue striving to enslave the Muslims, pulling them away from their religion with those slogans.”
The warriors of jihad should not worry about the formidable military might of the infidels, because success would come through obedience to Allah, not by means of weapons:
“O soldiers of the Islamic State, do not be awestruck by the great numbers of your enemy, for Allah is with you. I do not fear for you the numbers of your opponents, nor do I fear your neediness and poverty, for Allah (the Exalted) has promised your Prophet (peace be upon him) that you will not be wiped out by famine, and your enemy will not himself conquer you and violate your land. Allah placed your provision under the shades of your spears.”
He called upon them also to “persevere in reciting the Quran with comprehension of its meanings and practice of its teachings. This is my advice to you. If you hold to it, you will conquer Rome and own the world, if Allah wills.”
The Islamic State is Not Islamic
U.S. and Western European leaders immediately denied that the Islamic State had anything to do with Islam. “ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion,” said Deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf in August 2014. “The president has been very clear about that, and the more we can underscore that, the better.” CIA director John Brennan said in March 2015: “They are terrorists, they’re criminals. Most—many—of them are psychopathic thugs, murderers who use a religious concept and masquerade and mask themselves in that religious construct. Let’s make it very clear that the people who carry out acts of terrorism—whether it be al-Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—are doing it because they believe it is consistent with what their view of Islam is. It is totally inconsistent with what the overwhelming majority of Muslims throughout the world [believe].” In September 2014, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius announced: “This is a terrorist group and not a state. I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists.”
The Islamic State professed contempt and amusement over all this confusion and denial. In his September 21, 2014, address calling for jihad strikes in the U.S. and Europe, Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad Adnani ridiculed John Kerry (“that uncircumcised old geezer”) and Barack Obama for declaring that the Islamic State was not Islamic, as if they were Islamic authorities.
And indeed, everything the Islamic State did was clearly based on Islamic texts and teachings. Its public beheadings applied the Qur’an’s directive: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks.” (47:4)
Similar calculations hold true regarding the Islamic State’s practice of kidnapping Yazidi and Christian women and pressing them into sex slavery. The Qur’an says straightforwardly that in addition to wives (“two or three or four”), Muslim men may enjoy the “captives of the right hand” (4:3, 4:24). These are specified as being women who have been seized as the spoils of war (33:50) and are to be used specifically for sexual purposes, as men are to “guard their private parts except from their wives or those their right hands possess.” (23:5–6).
If these women are already married, no problem. Islamic law directs that “when a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.”
On December 15, 2014, the Islamic State released a document entitled “Clarification [regarding] the Hudud”—that is, punishments Allah specifies in the Qur’an. Blasphemy against Islam was punishable by death. Adulterers were to be stoned to death; fornicators would be given one hundred lashes and exile. Sodomy (homosexuality) was also to be punished by death, as per Muhammad’s reported words: “If you find anyone doing as Lot’s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.”
The Islamic State’s rapid success was partly attributable to its fidelity to Islam and partly also to its financial backing, which came, predictably enough, in great part from Saudi Arabia. In August 2014, Hillary Clinton wrote to John Podesta, an adviser to President Barack Obama: “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [Isis] and other radical Sunni groups in the region. This effort will be enhanced by the stepped-up commitment in the [Kurdish Regional Government]. The Qataris and Saudis will be put in a position of balancing policy between their ongoing competition to dominate the Sunni world and the consequences of serious US pressure.”
But nothing was done.
At its height, the Islamic State controlled a territory larger than Great Britain and attracted thirty thousand foreign fighters from a hundred countries to travel to Iraq and Syria to join the caliphate. It gained the allegiance of other jihad groups in Libya, Nigeria, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Muslims took its apparent success as a sign of Allah’s favor: the caliphate had indeed returned.
It didn’t last long, however. When Donald Trump replaced Barack Obama as president of the United States, Iraqi forces and others began rolling up Islamic State strongholds, such that within a year of the beginning of the Trump presidency, the Islamic State had lost ninety-eight percent of its territory. The jihad threat posed by the Islamic State did not lessen, however, as those foreign fighters who survived returned to their home countries, often welcomed back by Western leaders who were convinced that kind treatment would compel them to turn away from jihad.
The Jihad Continues
In any case, the Islamic State was gone from Iraq and Syria, but the dream of the caliphate and the obligation to jihad remained, and other Muslims were quite willing, even eager, to take up arms in service of both.
The early twenty-first century saw a sharp rise in jihad massacres perpetrated all over the West by individuals or small groups of Muslims: in London, Manchester, Paris, Toulouse, Nice, Amsterdam, Madrid, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Copenhagen, Malmö, Stockholm, Turku (in Finland), Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Beslan, among other places. Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was massacred on an Amsterdam street in 2004 for offending Islam; as mentioned previously, the cartoonists of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were murdered in Paris in January 2015 for the same offense. In July 2016, Islamic jihadists murdered a French priest, Father Jacques Hamel, at the altar of his church for the crime of being Christian.
After each one of these atrocities, the local and national authorities called for prayer vigils and vowed their resolve against the “terrorists” of unspecified ideology, but they did nothing to address the immigration and appeasement policies that had led to these attacks in the first place.
As crime rates skyrocketed and jihad terror attacks became an increasingly common feature of the landscape in Europe, authorities all over the West seemed more concerned with making sure their people did not think negatively about Islam than defending them against the jihad onslaught.
The End
The failure of today’s leadership and the international media to inform the public about what was really going on was an abdication of responsibility unparalleled in history, and one that rebuked the leaders throughout history who died to defend their people from the advancing jihad.
In 2018, Robert Spencer published a remarkable book, called “The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.” In one of the chapters (chapter 10), he discussed the matter of how the Western world caved into Islam’s demands. In this series, we look at some highlights from this chapter.
THE WEST LOSES THE
WILL TO LIVE
Obama in Cairo
It is no surprise that when President Barack Obama made his outreach speech to the Muslim world from Cairo on June 4, 2009, he included fulsome praise of Islam that played fast and loose with the historical record:
“As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam…, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.
I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story… American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, they have served in our government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they’ve excelled in our sports arenas, they’ve won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers—Thomas Jefferson—kept in his personal library…
So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
Where this executive duty to defend Islam appeared in the Constitution, he did not explain.
In September 2012 at the United Nations, in the wake of the jihad massacre of four Americans by al-Qaeda operatives in Benghazi in Libya, which key members of his administration falsely and repeatedly attributed to a spontaneous demonstration arising over a video criticizing Muhammad on YouTube, Obama went even farther, saying: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” The specter of the leader of the free world vowing to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws was not just rhetoric. The idea that Islam in America was beset by negative stereotypes that same year helped to defeat an attempt to investigate Muslim Brotherhood influence within the United States government.
Efforts to Investigate Infiltration
In 2012, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) tried to call attention to this influence, asking for an investigation into Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the U.S. government. She accused the first Muslim member of Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) of having a “long record of being associated” with CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In response, Ellison accused Bachmann of religious bigotry. Yet he really did have a “long record of being associated” with Hamas-linked CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood. As long ago as 2006, Ellison’s closeness to CAIR’s cofounder and National Executive Director Nihad Awad was a matter of public record. Awad, who notoriously said in 1994 that he was “in support of the Hamas movement,” spoke at fundraisers for Ellison, raising considerable sums for his first congressional race. Ellison has appeared frequently at CAIR events since then.
Multiple statements made by federal prosecutors identify Awad as one of the attendees at a 1993 meeting of US Muslim Brotherhood Palestine Committee leaders in Philadelphia that was wiretapped by the FBI under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant. The topic of discussion during that 1993 meeting was how to help Hamas by working in the U.S. to help sabotage the Oslo Peace Accords. But none of that fazed Ellison. Nor has he ever expressed any concern over the fact that CAIR is also linked to the Muslim Brotherhood through its parent group, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP).
Ellison’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood were also more direct. In 2008, Ellison accepted 13,350 dollars from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. As we have seen, the Muslim American Society is the principal arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.
Egypt’s Rose El-Youssef magazine asserted in a December 2012 article that six highly placed Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators within the Obama Administration had transformed the United States “from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The article said that “the six named people include: Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development; Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC]; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.”75
And so the Egyptian article stood as vindication of Bachmann’s concerns, and showed that her request for an investigation to be opened of the Muslim Brotherhood’s infiltration was entirely reasonable and not a manifestation of “bigotry,” “racism,” or “McCarthyism”—contrary to the hysterical (and formulaic) claims of her leftist detractors. Bachmann’s concerns were justified, as the Muslim Brotherhood had indeed penetrated the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Gehad El-Haddad, a top Muslim Brotherhood official in Egypt, was for five years employed with the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation, of course, is not a government agency, but his involvement with it afforded El-Haddad access to a former president of the United States and his associates, including present and former government officials. In September 2013, Egypt’s military government arrested El-Haddad for his Muslim Brotherhood activities.
For all of the furor over Bachmann’s call for an investigation of Muslim Brotherhood influence in Washington, nothing caused as much controversy as her naming Huma Abedin, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest personal assistant and adviser. Abedin is an observant Muslim who lived in Saudi Arabia as a child; her brother Hassan works “as a fellow and partner with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members.” Her mother, Saleha Mahmoud Abedin, is a professor in Saudi Arabia and a member of the Brotherhood’s woman’s division, the Muslim Sisterhood.80 Her father, Syed Z. Abedin, was a professor in Saudi Arabia who founded the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs, an organization supported by the Muslim World League, a Brotherhood organization.81
Despite this evidence, there was no investigation. Yet, former U.S. prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy listed a great many strange collaborations between the State Department of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Muslim Brotherhood organizations, of which some including:
During the Bush and Obama administrations, it became socially and politically unacceptable even to raise questions about Muslim Brotherhood influence, or to express any skepticism about the politically correct dogmas regarding Islam and jihad. For in Abedin’s case, it certainly was not that the evidence was lacking. It was that the political elites had forbidden any examination or discussion of it.
Stigmatizing Resistance to Jihad
The crowning victory in the effort to stigmatize resistance to jihad terror and Islamic supremacism came in February 2012, when the Obama administration purged more than a thousand documents and presentations from counterterror training materials for the FBI and other agencies. This material was discarded at the demand of Muslim groups, which had deemed it inaccurate (by their own account) or offensive to Muslims.
This triumph was several years in the making. The movement towards it began in earnest in August 2010, when a presentation on Islam and jihad was given to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. The far-left journalist Spencer Ackerman took the FBI to task for training material that spoke forthrightly and truthfully about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat. Ackerman reported that “the FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that ‘main stream’ [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a ‘cult leader’; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a ‘funding mechanism for combat.’
Unfortunately for Ackerman, there was considerable evidence that what this FBI training material asserted was true. Nonetheless, in the face of Ackerman’s reports, the FBI went into full retreat: in September 2011, it announced that it was dropping one of the programs that Ackerman had zeroed in on.
The Islamic supremacists didn’t rest on their laurels. On October 19, 2011, Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) took this campaign to the mainstream media, writing in the Los Angeles Times that “a disturbing string of training material used by the FBI and a U.S. attorney’s office came to light beginning in late July that reveals a deep anti-Muslim sentiment within the U.S. government.” Al-Marayati warned that “if this matter is not immediately addressed, it will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community.”
The same day that al-Marayati’s op-ed was published, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, who had complained for years about supposed Muslim profiling and entrapment, wrote a letter to John Brennan, who was then the assistant to the president on national security for homeland security and counterterrorism. The letter was signed not just by Khera but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: fifty-seven Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, including many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including CAIR, ISNA, MAS, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
The letter denounced what it characterized as U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam,” and emphasized that they regarded this as an issue of the utmost importance: “The seriousness of this issue cannot be overstated, and we request that the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem, with a fair and transparent mechanism for input from the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, including civil rights lawyers, religious leaders, and law enforcement experts.”
This was needed because “while recent news reports have highlighted the FBI’s use of biased experts and training materials, we have learned that this problem extends far beyond the FBI and has infected other government agencies, including the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Councils, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Army. Furthermore, by the FBI’s own admission, the use of bigoted and distorted materials in its trainings has not been an isolated occurrence. Since last year, reports have surfaced that the FBI, and other federal agencies, are using or supporting the use of biased trainers and materials in presentations to law enforcement officials.”
In a November 3, 2011, response to Khera, that was written on White House stationery, John O. Brennan, assistant to the president for Homeland Security accepted Khera’s criticisms without a murmur of protest and assured her of his readiness to comply.
Brennan assured Khera that all her demands would be met: “Your letter requests that ‘the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem,’ and we agree that this is necessary.” He then detailed the specific actions being undertaken to ensure this, including “collecting all training materials that contain cultural or religious content, including information related to Islam or Muslims.”93 This material wouldn’t just be “collected”; it would be purged of anything that Farhana Khera and others like her found offensive—that is, any honest discussion of how Islamic jihadists used Islamic teachings to justify violence.
Not only were numerous books and presentations that presented a perfectly accurate view of Islam and jihad purged, but Brennan was complying with demands from quarters that could hardly be considered authentically moderate. America was going to war against jihadists while forbidding itself to understand jihad.
Brennan also attempted to distance Islam and the concept of jihad from contemporary Islamic terrorism long before he told Farhana Khera that he would give her everything she wanted. On May 26, 2010, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies he said: “Nor do we describe our enemies as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.” In a press release the next day, CAIR “expressed appreciation” for Brennan’s remarks.
Brennan was instrumental in the Obama administration’s recasting of the defense against terror as a localized struggle against al-Qaeda.
END OF THE GREAT TRIBULATION
Two great events will bring the Tribulation to a close—the War of Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. As the Antichrist leads the armies of the world against Israel with genocidal intent, Jesus Christ will return to earth, accompanied by the armies of heaven.
Jesus will seize the Antichrist and the false prophet and cast them alive into the lake of fire. At the Second Coming, the Old Testament saints and believers who died during the Tribulation will be resurrected.
After the Tribulation, in Matthew 24:29, the second coming of Christ is presented. He describes the signs in the heavens that will indicate that the Son of Man is coming, and finally the gathering of His chosen ones from around the world.
THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON
The word Armageddon is found only one time in the Bible (Revelation 16:16), yet this one word is probably the most familiar biblical term from end times prophecy.
The word Armageddon is made up of two words in Hebrew: Har (mountain) and Megiddo (a city in the northern part of ancient Israel). The ancient city of Megiddo was built on a hill, and it is therefore called the mountain of Megiddo—Armageddon. The city of Megiddo overlooks a beautiful, large valley known as the Plain of Esdraelon. The armies of the earth will gather here in the last days and face total defeat by the returning King from heaven (Revelation 16:12-16; 19:19-21).
Armageddon is also often equated with the last battle or war on earth, but this is not the case. The last war in history will be the final revolt of Satan in Revelation 20:7-11 called Gog and Magog (not to be confused with the Gog and Magog invasion at the beginning of the tribulation). This war occurs one thousand years after Armageddon.
Armageddon is the climactic war of the Great Tribulation when all the armies of the earth gather to attack Israel and attempt to finally eradicate the Jewish people. They will capture Jerusalem, but then Jesus Christ will return to destroy the invading armies and deliver the faithful Jewish remnant.
The War of Armageddon is the subject of many biblical passages. Here are ten key Scriptures:
The most vivid description of the severity and brutality of Armageddon is found in Revelation 14:17-20. The Lord is saying that at Armageddon He is going to throw all the nations into His great winepress and that His intense, blood-splattering judgment will extend throughout Israel from Megiddo to Bozrah.
Some believe they will gather from all over the world to challenge the Antichrist. After all, by the end of the Tribulation, with all God’s judgments pouring forth, the world will be in terrible shape. The nations may view the Antichrist as the source of the trouble and want to destroy him. Others believe that the armies are gathered to finally eradicate the Jewish people. The latter makes more sense because Revelation 16:13-16 indicates that the unclean spirits (demons) that gather the armies together will emanate from Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet. It doesn’t make sense that the Antichrist would gather the armies together to destroy himself.
Phase 1 – The Euphrates River dries up, preparing the way for the kings of the east (Revelation 16:12).
Phase 2 – The Antichrist’s allies assemble (Revelation 16:12-16). The armies assemble to annihilate the Jews once and for all.
Phase 3 – The armies attack Jerusalem, and it falls (Zechariah 14:1-3).
Phase 4 – Jesus Christ returns personally to the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4).
Phase 5 – Christ and the armies of the Lord destroy the armies gathered against Jerusalem in the Valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel 3:9-17; Zechariah 12:1-9; Zechariah 14:3).
Phase 6 – Christ descends upon Bozrah/Edom—in modern Jordan—to destroy its inhabitants and to deliver the Jewish remnant (Isaiah 34:1-7; 63:1-5; Joel 3:19). Earlier, when the Antichrist breaks his covenant with Israel and sets up the abomination of desolation, one-third of the Jewish people will flee into the hills and the wilderness, where they will be supernaturally protected by God for 3½ years from the ravages of the Antichrist and Satan (Revelation 12:6, 14). The Scriptures seem to indicate that they will hide in the rock city of Petra in the southern part of modern Jordan (Micah 2:12-13; Daniel 11:41).
Phase 7 – The armies at Armageddon are destroyed (Revelation 16:16; 19:19-21). At Armageddon, the Antichrist will rally the remaining troops to fight against the Lord Jesus and His army (Revelation 19:19). Jesus won’t have to lift a finger. The sword of His word will smite the nations (Revelation 19:15).
First is the great bird supper (Matthew 24:28; Luke 17:37; Revelation 19:17-21): carcasses will fill the entire region; the birds of the air will gather to feed on the carnage. Second, the Antichrist and the false prophet will be cast alive into the lake of fire forever (Revelation 19:20). These two pawns of Satan will be the first two occupants of the lake of fire. Thus ends the campaign of Armageddon. There will be no more war on earth for one thousand years.
THE SECOND COMING – REVELATION 19:11-13 MATTHEW 24:27-30
Jesus will return to the earth from the same place He left—the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4). He will be accompanied by a great crowd. This crowd will follow in His entourage as He splits the clouds riding on a white stallion. This crowd will be made up of both angels and redeemed human beings. All believers in Christ have a roundtrip ticket. All who have been raptured will return to the earth with Jesus at His second coming, the climax of the Tribulation. (Zechariah 14:5, 1 Thessalonians 3:13, Jude 1:14, Revelation 19:11, 14)
The coming of Christ to earth will fulfill the numerous promises that He will come again (Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 25:31; Acts 1:9-11). Christ Is Coming to defeat the Antichrist and his armies (Revelation 19:19-21). Christ is also coming to regather and restore faithful Israel and to judge the living.
When Christ returns, all the Gentiles who survived the Tribulation will appear before Him. He will determine if they can enter His Kingdom (Matthew 25:31-46). This judgment is called the judgment of the “sheep and the goats.”
After the Second Coming (Revelation 19:11-21), one of the next events is the resurrection of Old Testament and Tribulation believers to reign with Christ (Revelation 20:4-6; Daniel 12:1-4).
Lastly, Christ is coming to bind the devil (Revelation 20:1-3) and to establish Himself as King (Revelation 19:16). He will return as King of kings and Lord of lords! He will sit on His glorious throne and reign over the earth (Isaiah 9:6-7; Daniel 2:44; Matthew 19:28; Luke 1:32-33).
Acts 1:11 says, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (NASB).
His coming will not be hidden but will be visible to all the world. Matthew 24:23-27 describes His coming.
Suddenly As the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes. (Matthew 24:27, Revelation 3:3)
Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. (Matthew 24:29)
Gloriously (Matthew 24:30) Jesus will return as King of kings and Lord of lords. Every creature will bow before Him and be subject to His authority (Philippians 2:11).
SEVENTY-FIVE DAYS TO GLORY
There seems to be an interval of time between the second coming of Christ and the official inauguration of the millennial kingdom. Daniel 12:1-3 describes the time of coming Tribulation for Israel and then the resurrection of Old Testament saints. The Tribulation for Israel will last 1,260 days, which is 3½ years (Daniel 12:7). This is the latter half of the seven-year Tribulation. Then, after these great events we read the enigmatic words in Daniel 12:11-12: “From the time the daily sacrifice is stopped and the sacrilegious object that causes desecration is set up to be worshiped, there will be 1,290 days. And blessed are those who wait and remain until the end of the 1,335 days!”
The 1,260 days is not too difficult since this time period is frequently set forth in Daniel and Revelation as the final 3½ years of the Tribulation. The 1,290 days is thirty days beyond the end of the Tribulation, and the 1,335 days is another forty-five days beyond that. These time periods describe an interval of time between the end of the Tribulation and Christ’s second coming and the beginning of the Millennium.
While we cannot be certain about everything that will transpire during this time, it is safe to say that during this time period Christ will remove the abomination of desolation, cast the Antichrist and the false prophet into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20), throw Satan into the abyss (Revelation 20:1-3), judge those living on the earth (Matthew 25:31-46), resurrect and reward Old Testament and Tribulation saints (Daniel 12:1-3), and assign responsibilities for the administration of His Kingdom. During this interval, the celebration of the marriage supper will begin on the earth (Revelation 19:7-10), and possibly the construction of the millennial Temple will commence as well (Ezekiel 40–48).
The fact that those who make it to the 1,335 days are blessed means that they have made it to the beginning of the millennial kingdom (Daniel 12:12). They have come through the judgments and are allowed to enter the kingdom.
IMPRISONMENT OF SATAN
Both amillennialists and postmillennialists contend that the binding of Satan occurred at the first coming of Christ and that Satan is bound right now during this present age. They often view the casting of Satan from heaven in Revelation 12:7-9 as parallel with Luke 10:18-19. They point to Mark 3:27 and Matthew 12:25-29 as the fulfillment of the binding of Satan during the earthly ministry of Christ. For them, Satan’s activity and power are restricted during this present age. However, this contradicts the way Satan is pictured in the New Testament. Satan is called “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30), “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), “the commander of the powers in the unseen world” (Ephesians 2:2), and he is “like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The devil schemes against believers (2 Corinthians 2:11; Ephesians 6:11), hinders us (1 Thessalonians 2:18), accuses us (Revelation 12:10), and blinds the minds of the lost (2 Corinthians 4:4). Satan is anything but bound today. He is aggressively opposing the work of God. As someone once said, “If Satan is bound today he must have an awfully long chain.” Satan is characterized as the arch-deceiver in the New Testament. Yet, Revelation 20:3 says that when he is bound Satan will “not deceive the nations anymore.” This does not fit the current situation. It demands a later time after the Lord’s coming.
Revelation 20:1-3 is very precise and specific in its description of Satan’s binding. It describes four distinct actions by the angel who binds him. Satan is “laid hold of,” “bound,” “[thrown] into the abyss,” and the abyss is “shut and sealed over him” (NASB). The language is very compelling and clear. Nothing even similar to this happened at the first coming of Christ. But it will happen when Christ returns, after which Christ will reign for a thousand years (Revelation 20:4-6).
Amillennialists and postmillennialists have a serious problem explaining Satan’s release at the end of the one thousand years, which they take to be the present age. Revelation 20:1-7 specifically mentions “a thousand years” six times. Whenever John mentions a time period that is general or nonspecific, he identifies it as such by phrases like “a little longer” (Revelation 6:11) or “little time” (12:12). Revelation 20:3 says that at the end of the one thousand years Satan will be released for “a little while.”
RESURRECTION IN REVELATION 20:1-6
Premillennialists maintain that the resurrection in Revelation 20:5 refers to physical, bodily resurrection at the end of history. The Millennium must occur after the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead.
A new year always brings a sense of hope, doesn’t it? The previous year with all its tragedies, problems, disappointments, failures, and sadness is now behind us, and a clean slate lies ahead.
The old has passed away; the new has come. With whistles and horns and parties, and probably more to eat and drink than they should, most people usher in the new year. Yet, beneath the gaiety and laughter, there’s a gnawing feeling with many – it’s all still the same; nothing’s really changed. If anything, passing from the season of lights and glitter and carols to the season of hard realities, only makes the emptiness worse, the depression deeper.
For sure there has been plenty in the news to make anyone depressed. As one commentator wrote in a local newspaper: “Reality seems to crush [hope] at every turn: the Ebola epidemic, the ruthless terror of the Islamic State, crushing economic disparities, the pernicious scourge of racism, homelessness in our own ‘backyard’ and also the plague of illicit drugs, rampant gun violence, etc., etc.
Also, many of us are feeling personal pains or anxieties this new year. Some of us are wrestling with important decisions regarding a primary relationship or a task to be done; some know first-hand the powerful effects of disabling disease or worry about health issues in the upcoming months; some have had to deal recently with a major loss; some wonder if we can make it in the coming year without the presence of one who meant so much; some of us are feeling very lonely, in spite of people all around us; some of us fear growing older, or fear what the future may hold; some wonder if dreams will ever be realized, or whether the new year will be even more frustrating and filled with feelings of futility than the last. Many of us are feeling pain or anxiety this new year. What is this pain or anxiety like for you?
When we feel this way, the temptation is to stay with the familiar and the comfortable, to crawl back into bed and pull up the covers, or to sneak into the manger with Jesus, where it’s warm, safe, and secure. The temptation is to stay where we are – in the dark crevices of depression or defeat, of fear or foreboding, in the deep ruts of sameness, boredom, or lethargy.
But there is always a light in the hearts of the true believers, shining in the darkness, reminding us that life continues on, that revelation and growth and new beginnings loom on the horizon, that new roads appear up ahead, new roads that will take us, if we choose to let them, into new adventures, new challenges, new opportunities to be the persons God wants us to be. The light in our hearts remind us that life continues on, even as one year ends and another begins, one season following another.
As we embark on this new year, embodied so well in the reality of life moving on, a fair question for us to ask is, “how can we move on?” The answer may be found in the refrain from an old church camp song many of you remember: “Rise and Shine.” Isaiah tells the people of Israel to “Arise, shine; for your light has come…” They no longer have to live in darkness – nor do we. Rise and shine, get up, begin again – there is more to come! There are new roads to travel upon in this new year. But there are also powerful forces working against this directive. Apathy, lack of confidence, our physical or mental state, extreme caution or timidity – all these tend to hold us back. Worse than any of these is fear –disabling, crippling, immobilizing fear.
Fear, by whatever name we call it, can prevent us from doing so much. Cautiously, timidly, tremblingly, we venture forth upon God’s promises, as though the lightness of our step might make the promises more secure, yet at the same time, we doubt that they are true. God has promised to be with us – believe this promise!
God has promised to uphold us no matter what – believe this promise! God has promised to grant us victory over all our spiritual enemies – believe this promise! God has promised to grant us full and free forgiveness of our sins through and because of Jesus Christ, our Savior – believe this promise! Don’t creep upon these promises as though they were too fragile to hold you up. Stand upon them, confident that God is as good as God’s word, and that our living, loving Lord will deliver them as promised. Maybe you’ve heard the expression: “even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there!” It’s true! So, in this new year, let’s get up and get going. Let us rise and shine, knowing that it is God’s light that empowers the light within us.
This sounds like a great New Year’s resolution, doesn’t it? But it won’t be complete until we finish the old camp song’s refrain, and “give God the glory.” We do this by living thankful lives, thanking God for the blessings we’ve received, and by sharing the Good News with others. We do this individually and together as the church. The mission of the church, as Paul implies to the Ephesians, is to reflect the light of Christ, to point to Christ’s work in the world, to declare Christ’s redemption, to reveal the mystery, to make known God’s wisdom, but perhaps most important, to mirror and imitate Christ’s love and deeds of mercy. And this is our individual mission as well.
Rose Crawford was blind the first fifty years of her life, until one day she found out that there was an operation that could restore her sight. And so she had the operation. You can imagine her awe and joy at seeing light and colours, images of people, and the beauties of nature, none of which she had ever seen before. Sadly, Rose could have had the surgery twenty years earlier. She was unnecessarily blind for twenty years, because she didn’t know about the operation and assumed she was doomed to live in darkness. Nobody told her about the sight-restoring surgery. Nobody told her she no longer had to continue living in darkness. Millions of people today live in spiritual darkness because nobody has told them they no longer have to live there anymore. Part of giving God the glory is sharing the light of Christ’s glory with others.
Each of us has a new road ahead of us in the new year. It’s another road, a different road than any we’ve traveled on before. As we step off down that road, not knowing what we may find, not knowing exactly where we’re going, we can be comforted in knowing that for sure, the light goes with us, leading us, guiding us, showing us the way. God will be with us on our journeys down that new road ahead. Even now God is calling to each of us, whoever we are, whatever our circumstance, calling us to get up, to stop creeping, and rise and shine, and continue on the journey, giving God our praise, and sharing the Good News with others along the way.
A New Year’s Eve poem concludes with these words: “With courage we face the future, with warm memory we sing the old year out. With hope in our hearts and voices we face the sunrise of God’s new dawn.” So, let’s sing the new year in by singing together the refrain of that old song: “Rise, and shine, and give God the glory, glory, Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory, Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory, Children of the Lord.” May hope dwell in our hearts and voices, and may that sunrise, the light of Christ, shine brightly on each of us as we journey on the new road we’ll be traveling upon in this new year. Amen.
(Based on a sermon by: http://www.firstchurchofharwich.org/sermon-new-road-new-year/ )
HEAVENLY REMNANT MINISTRIES 