Brothers in Arms: Fauci, Francis, and Chelsey Clinton
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green;
The trees of nature fruitless be,
Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.
His beauty doth all things excel,
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see,
In Jesus Christ the Appletree.
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought;
I missed of all but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the Appletree.
I'm weary with my former toil -
Here I will sit and rest awhile,
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.
With great delight I’ll make my stay,
There’s none shall fright my soul away;
Among the sons of men I see
There’s none like Christ the Appletree.
I’ll sit and eat this fruit divine,
It cheers my heart like spirit’al wine;
And now this fruit is sweet to me,
That grows on Christ the Appletree.
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the Appletree.
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Gender Crisis and the Sexual Revolution
Dennis Edwards: Here's an excerpt from a longer podcast on Sex, Gender, and Body Theology. The longer podcast is 3+ hours, but quite interesting. These men are both Catholics and are speaking from a Catholic perspective.
Monday, May 3, 2021
Standing for What is Right... Even if it Means Standing Alone!
https://www.str.org/w/freedom-fading By Greg Koukl
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn—Russian dissident, 10-year forced-labor Soviet Gulag inmate, Nobel Laureate, Christian—lamented the “fallacious belief” that “here such things are impossible,” that totalitarianism could not happen in one’s own country. “Alas,” he wrote, “all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth.”[1]
Read those words carefully. It is the point I have been building towards in the last two issues of Solid Ground.[2]
In the first article, I chronicled my own experiences behind the Iron Curtain in 1976 working with Christians living under brutal authoritarian rule in communist bloc countries like Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the former Soviet Union—places where believers suffered significant loss of personal liberty and, in some cases, severe persecution simply for following Christ.
In the next article, I pointed out that citizens in any culture will ultimately be ruled by one of two fundamental forces: either truth or power. Any nation whose people lack the liberty to pursue, discover, and live by truth will be destined to live as victims of lies and frequently crushed under the heels of powerful oppressors.
I then briefly traced the development of the first great lie—what I called “the primal heresy”—from its inception in the Garden to its current divinization of self that some have labeled “expressive individualism.” At the Fall, mankind replaced the external truth of God’s world and God’s morality with the internal “truth” of bald personal preference and naked individual desire. The act of rebellion that traded truth “out there” for truth “in here”—the outside/inside distinction—marked the birth of what has come to be known as relativism.
Remember, relativism is the ultimate negation of truth, and when truth dies, power is all that remains. The immediate payoff for relativism—the unrestrained narcissism of expressive individualism—may be satisfying for a season, but it’s a fleeting gratification. Bald force eventually fills the truth vacuum, and relativists’ values begin cannibalizing relativists’ liberties. Whoever has the power to nullify liberty ultimately gets to enforce his own preferences. Postmodern people are leaning on a bent reed.
These musings have not been idle reflections, however. Rather, the downward arc of the shifting ethos of the West has revealed a disquieting trend. Liberal democracy—in the best sense of those words—is becoming a thing of the past. America is moving rapidly toward the brink of a peculiar species of totalitarianism that promises to erode freedom, hinder our ability to proclaim the gospel, and compromise our liberty to live peacefully with our Christian convictions.
I have not been alone in my concern. Émigrés from former Soviet bloc countries who fled the totalitarianism of communism for the freedom of America are mortified at the trend. When author Rod Dreher asked if they thought America was drifting toward some type of totalitarianism, “They all said yes—often emphatically”[3] (emphasis in original).
Totalitarianism
I wrote “peculiar species of totalitarianism” above because what we are experiencing now is actually an amalgam of two forms of totalitarianism—soft and hard. First, a general description, though.
Totalitarianism is not the same as dictatorship, where an individual tyrant’s jackboot stands on the neck of liberty. That is simple authoritarianism. Totalitarianism goes further. Drawing on insight from expert Hannah Arendt, Dreher clarifies:
A totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is.[4] [Emphasis added.]
Notice the militant relativism that makes totalitarianism possible. When truth comes not from the outside but from the inside, power prevails. Truth becomes “whatever the rulers decide it is.”
The indoctrination to an alternate reality at the heart of totalitarianism has a curious effect. When reality is persuasively redefined by the incessant drone of political propaganda and abetted by not-so-subtle social pressures, the populace is gradually persuaded by it and willingly embraces it in large numbers as the high moral ground. Those who do not are vilified as enemies of the good (“haters,” in the current vernacular)—the “good,” that is, as defined by the authorities. Orwell’s “Big Brother” comes immediately to mind.
At the moment, I am halfway through William Shirer’s remarkable work The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I realize it’s risky conjuring the image of fascist dictators to make a point. Some have done this so frequently and so frivolously that people are inclined not to take such allusions seriously. In this case, though, they ought to. Santayana famously warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Shirer noted the precise pattern I described above displayed by Germans in the 1930s, a dynamic (Shirer confessed) even he was vulnerable to: “A steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it.” He then referenced “the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons” who were obviously “parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers.” Opposing the nonsense was useless, he wrote, since “on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty.”[5]
And so today. The propaganda of the Left regarding sexuality, gender, the “bigotry” and “hate” of Christians, etc., is so pervasive and rhetorically clever, it has become irresistibly persuasive to many who are mystified that some—especially religious conservatives—are not falling into step with the times. Worse, they’re angry at unpersuaded dissenters who now loom as dangerous enemies of the common good.
That siren song of the new order now presses in on us from two directions, creating the peculiar amalgam of totalitarian tyranny I spoke of.
“Soft Totalitarianism”
In soft totalitarianism, compliance is not enforced by government. Rather, private cultural institutions controlled by elites accomplish that task—the academy, the press, “enlightened” corporations, Hollywood, and especially those controlling social media.
Many of us, particularly the young, live out our social lives online—through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter—and manage our lives at the behest of its aggressive stepsisters, Amazon, Apple, and Google. We post, we purchase, we tweet, we opine, we share vital information and also gather vital information using their platforms.
These enterprises provide the bulk of our access to the outside world. It has become obvious to careful observers, though, that these digital giants are not neutral players in this game. We are being watched, and we are being tracked. Corporate Goliaths are assiduously collecting every piece of information they can on our purchasing habits, our preferences, our private lives—even our travel patterns. [6]
Rod Dreher reports that this “surveillance capitalism hoovers up detailed personal data about individuals and analyzes it with sophisticated algorithms to predict people’s behavior.”[7]
The initial goal of this online data harvesting is, of course, monetization of information—profit, for short. But there is a darker side. Sophisticated algorithms have another consequence. “The rapidly growing power of information technology and its ubiquitous presence in daily life,” Dreher warns, “immensely magnifies the ability of those who control institutions to shape society according to their ideals”[8] (emphasis added).
Have you noticed how frequently social media moguls have been silencing dissenters by using “community standards” guidelines that appear to guarantee civility in their domains but often serve to weed out political dissidents? Worse, many are able to economically retaliate against nonconformists by demonetizing their platforms or banning them from business access. Even offline, corporate giants are increasingly and openly indoctrinating employees with progressive politics as a de facto condition of continued employment.
This is soft totalitarianism. Left-leaning corporations and other elites are its willing agents, and we consumers are its willing subjects. They have their “bully pulpit,” but they also have their “big stick,” the not-so-subtle social pressures I mentioned earlier.
One of the strongest evidences of totalitarianism is punishment of dissent. Dissidents can be destroyed. Here are a few examples. There are many, many more.
Shaming, Silencing, Canceling
For years, I have noticed a common practice among Christians, even in the relatively safe spaces of churches or Christian retreats: They lower their voice when they mention the word “homosexual.” Why? Because they are afraid. They’ve unconsciously adopted this habit out of fear of being shamed, or attacked, or belittled, or bullied simply for broaching the topic. This fear, of course, is an indirect pressure. Other pressures are not so subtle.
Journalist Bari Weiss reports that in California and New York, secret meetings are being held—not on Zoom or Facebook (too public, too traceable, and too permanent), but in backyards.
Wealthy parents of children enrolled in prestigious $45,000-per-year private prep schools like Harvard-Westlake in L.A. or Fieldstone in New York are mortified that their kids are being indoctrinated in the resentment and fear connected with Critical Race Theory (CRT), “collective racial guilt,” and so-called “white fragility.”
They are horrified and they are scared, with most too frightened to speak up. “The school can ask you to leave for any reason,” one parent said. “Then...you’ll be known as a racist, which is worse than being called a murderer.” Students begged their parents not to be interviewed by Weiss for fear of social shaming. “If you publish my name, it would ruin my life,” one kid said.
“They have a pattern of shaming anyone who…dissents from the group narrative,” one mother explained. “Once someone shames one person, many chime in agreement. The times I speak up to defend those they shame, they attempt to shame me.”
“The ideology,” Weiss writes, “has changed children’s self-conception.” The propaganda is so intense and the sophistry so sophisticated, the kids have begun to believe and internalize the lies. Recall the pattern Shirer noted in Germany.
Though Weiss’s focus was on high-end private schools, the same pattern is in play everywhere—even in some “Christian” schools. Public schools are most vulnerable, though, because the Left controls that educational system in many states. “To resist this ideology is to go against the entire institutional world,” Weiss concludes.[9]
Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla, served as its CEO until 2014. Then news surfaced of a 2008 donation of $1,000 to California’s Prop 8 limiting legal marriage to male-female unions. Though Eich never showed animosity towards the LGBT community in his personal or professional life, activists used social media to publicly pillory him, generating 50,000 signatures from those demanding Eich’s resignation. Because of his classical view of marriage, Brendan Eich was canceled from the company he founded.[10]
West Town’s Nini’s Deli was Yelp’s highest-rated restaurant in Chicago and listed as one of their top 100 places to eat in the U.S. three years in a row. A Cuban-Mexican immigrant couple founded Nini’s, and their sons, Juan and José Riesco, ran it. All were Christians and members of the multiracial, ethnically diverse Metro Praise International church. Nini’s sported a celebrated cuisine of Cuban-inspired dishes and had commercial ties with Adidas, Intelligentsia Coffee, Bang Bang Pie, Molly’s Cupcakes, and Nike.
The Riesco’s success story came to a screeching halt in a matter of days, though, in June 2020. Because they did not publicly signal solidarity with Black Lives Matter, and because of their Christian stance on homosexuality, they were labeled racist and homophobic. Droves of former satisfied customers turned on them, and protesters descended on Nini’s Deli like a tidal wave.
Militants threatened to burn the deli down and kill the Riescos. They found out where family members worked and pressed the employers to terminate them, which they did. Under pressure from activists, all of Nini’s corporate partners denounced them and canceled them. Thousands mobbed the previously popular corner deli and shut it down.
“If you don’t put Black Lives Matter on your restaurant, it’s just guaranteed to get destroyed,” Juan said. The video footage of the hatred displayed in the name of anti-hatred is chilling.[11] The family fled its beloved Chicago in the middle of the night. The Riescos now live in Dallas.
Three years ago, Ryan Anderson published When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. You can no longer buy it on Amazon, though. The book violates the company’s current standards. “We have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness,” Amazon’s Brian Huseman wrote.
“Everyone agrees that gender dysphoria is a serious condition that causes great suffering,” Anderson replied. “There is a debate, however, which Amazon is seeking to shut down, about how best to treat patients who experience gender dysphoria. Amazon is using its massive power to distort the marketplace of ideas and is deceiving its own customers in the process.” [12]
Amazon is responsible for 53% of book sales in the U.S. and 80% of all e-books. What other books will they blacklist, and how will this affect what publishers choose to publish?
“In July 2020, Niel Golightly, a 62-year-old Boeing communications chief was forced to resign for an article he wrote 33 years earlier. As a 29-year-old navy pilot, he’d argued against women serving in combat. He has since disavowed those views. No matter. Though Boeing admitted that the executive made “substantial” contributions in the short time he’d been there, the company has “zero tolerance for bigotry of any kind”—and, apparently, from any time, even the “bigotry” of a recanted view voiced half a lifetime ago.
Chief executive David Calhoun emphasized Boeing’s “unrelenting commitment to diversity and inclusion in all its dimensions, and to ensuring that all of our employees have an equal opportunity to contribute and excel” (emphasis added). The irony of his own statement escaped him, of course.[13]
Soft totalitarianism is frequently enforced with an almost spiritual passion. Former Attorney General William Barr observed:
The secular project has itself become a religion, pursued with religious fervor…including inquisitions and excommunication. Those who defy the creed risk a figurative burning at the stake—social, educational, and professional ostracism and exclusion waged through lawsuits and savage social media campaigns.[14]
“Hard Totalitarianism”
Indeed, the soft totalitarianism imposed by cultural elites can be harsh. When the government steps in, though, the totalitarian amalgam thus created between soft and hard can be Orwellian. For the sake of space, let me briefly offer two instances, though examples like these are increasing at an alarming rate.
In 2013, former Atlanta Fire Chief Kevin Cochran self-published a book for his men's Bible study that condemned homosexuality as contrary to God’s plan. For his efforts, he was suspended without pay for 30 days and told not to comment publicly on the affair.
When, in violation of then-mayor Kasim Reed’s directive, Cochran organized a public relations campaign on his behalf, he was terminated, even though the city’s legal team admitted he had not engaged in illegal discrimination. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, Cochran sued and settled out of court for $1.2 million.[15]
As I write, a nefarious bill is moving through the United State Congress that, among other things, effectively erases any physical distinctions between the sexes. It’s called the “Equality Act” and has already passed in the House.
Though federal law already prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, this bill treats sex as a psychological state of mind unrelated to biology. Consequently, males who self-identify as females cannot be denied access to female-only areas that guaranteed privacy in the past. Note the bill’s wording:
An individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual’s gender identity.[16]
Further, the Equality Act would actually end equality in women’s sports by preventing women from competing on an equal basis with other women. Biological males—normally excluded from competing against females (that’s the point of women’s sports, after all)—could not be excluded, by law, if they self-identify as females. Women will not only lose races, they’ll lose scholarships, too, as also-rans to biological males who will easily defeat them.[17]
Worse, this act explicitly exempts itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, removing any safe harbor for Christians resisting the provisions of this bill on religious grounds.
Since “discrimination against a married same-sex couple could be based on the sex stereotype that marriage should only be between heterosexual couples, the sexual orientation of the two individuals in the couple, or both,”[18] churches would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution simply for adhering faithfully to biblical teaching. That is how far down the slope we have slipped.
The act also prohibits “discrimination on the basis of pregnancy…or a related medical condition,” using wording that has already been interpreted by courts to include abortion. Thus, those who refuse to perform abortions could be vulnerable to punishment.[19]
RX
At times, the tsunami of change we’re facing seems overwhelming for its force, dizzying for its speed, and chilling for its darkness. It’s easy to begin feeling helpless, but that is not our path. There is another way.
In September 1974, Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union and sent into exile. His final salvo was an essay suggesting a remedy for the common citizen, the ordinary person dwarfed by the totalitarian state. He titled it “Live Not by Lies.”
Most of us are not in a position to effect any immediate change in the culture at large. That does not mean we’re powerless, though, he argued. The lies that drive the system can be resisted by ordinary people being faithful to truth while living lives of simple integrity. This approach entails two things.
First, we refuse to be cowed by pressure to affirm falsehood. Like the noble Christians at Nini’s Deli, we stand our ground. We live consistently with our convictions, firmly holding to truth even when we can’t defend it well or make sense of it to outsiders.
Solzhenitsyn counseled not to say, write, affirm, or distribute anything that distorts truth. Rather, walk out of meetings where discussion is forced and truth is not allowed to be spoken.[20] Refuse to affirm what you do not believe. Just say no, but do so respectfully, even when the price for fidelity is public shaming, silencing, or canceling.
Second, we act. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil,” the saying goes, “is for good men to do nothing.” Resisting takes inner courage, of course, and courage starts with small steps. It also takes a group, a family, the Body of Christ. We stand together. It takes outward virtue, too. We are careful to live with integrity in all areas of our lives.
Be direct but courteous in the face of opposition. If asked what your preferred pronoun is, graciously say, “I don’t have a preferred pronoun. I have a sex. I’m male [for example].” When pressured at the office to participate in “sensitivity” seminars that go against your convictions, respectfully decline. If pressed, say, “It appears you’re using your influence as my employer to get me to accept your politics. Do you think that’s a proper use of your power and authority?”
Be prudent, however. Carefully weigh the risks of resistance, counting the cost. Not all hills are worth dying on—but some are.
If we’re clever, we can leverage the culture’s own values against it. For example, when considering adopting a radical sexual education curriculum, our local school district asked (disingenuously, I think) for input from the community during their public meeting. Here is what I wrote for my wife to deliver that evening:
We are a diverse community, and the school board values diversity. That means there are diverse understandings about controversial issues like human sexuality.
Traditionally, parents have been the ones to carefully inform their children about these issues at a time and in a way appropriate for their age, and within the protected environment of the family. The government—represented here by the school board—has not traditionally been allowed to interfere with educating issues so critical to family and so appropriate to private parental nurturing of their children. To do so would be to have individual family beliefs and values overridden by whatever group happened to be in power at the time.
No one set of personal values should be allowed to dictate the beliefs of our children in a public education system that includes such diverse groups as Muslims, and Christians, and Orthodox Jews, and Buddhists, and humanists, and atheists, and so many others.
Public values shared by all, on the other hand—values like honesty, kindness, truth seeking, integrity, respect, etc.—should be encouraged by all, including the schools, since they are agreed upon by all and are not controversial.
However, contentious and divisive personal views should not be forced upon our children. This is indoctrination and replaces the parent’s rightful role.
When government takes over the responsibility of informing our children’s private and personal moral values instead of the parents and individual families doing so, it is a step towards oppression and a significant and serious violation of the diversity and multicultural respect the school board stands for.
If any group in power gets to force their personal values on our kids, then when a different group gets power, they will be able to force their personal values on that group’s kids. Neither is consistent with diversity, tolerance, or appropriate American liberty.
Please, I respectfully implore you: Leave that job to the parents of the children that belong to them…and not to the state.
Until now, it’s cost us virtually nothing to be Christian in America. I am convinced those days are rapidly coming to a close. “A time of painful testing, even persecution, is coming,” Dreher warns. “Lukewarm or shallow Christians will not come through with their faith intact.”[21]
Choosing not to live by lies can change culture over time, but that is not its immediate purpose, in my view. Its purpose is not principally pragmatic, but ethical. We live not by lies because it’s wrong before God to do so, even if it costs us.
[1] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956.
[2] Find “Iron Curtain Diary” and “The Primal Heresy” at str.org.
[3] Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (New York City: Sentinel, 2020), xi.
[4] Ibid, 7–8.
[5] William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 247–8.
[6] Note the sobering documentary “The Social Dilemma,” available on Netflix.
[7] Dreher, 76–77.
[8] Ibid, 71.
[9] Bari Weiss, “The Miseducation of America’s Elites,” City Journal, March 9, 2021.
[10] Alistair Barr, “Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich Steps Down,” The Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2014.
[12] Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, The Wall Street Journal, “Amazon Won’t Sell Books Framing LGBTQ+ Identities as Mental Illnesses.”
[13] The New York Times, “Boeing Communications Chief Resigns Over 33-Year-Old Article.”
[14] William Barr, Justice News, “Remarks to the University of Notre Dame Law School,” October 11, 2019.
[15] NBC News, “Fired after Writing Anti-Gay Book, Ex-Fire Chief Set to Receive $1.2M Settlement,” October 17, 2018.
[17] See, for example, Duke Law, “Comparing Athletic Performances: The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men.”
[18] Ibid.
[19] Melanie Israel, “Equality Act Is a Trojan Horse for Abortion Lobby and More.”
[20] Dreher, 18.
[21] Ibid, 160.
Sunday, May 2, 2021
The Mystery of All Israel Being Saved
The Mystery of All Israel Being Saved by Dennis Edwards
Another “mystery” spoken of by Apostle Paul is found in Romans 11:25-33.
Romans 11: 25-29 For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
Romans 11: 30-33 For as you in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Different scholars have different views on what these verses actually mean. The general consensus, however, is that at some point at the end, when “the fulness of the Gentiles be come in,” the ethnic nation of Israel, or a remnant of the ethnic nation, shall be saved. Some believe it happens at the time of Christ’s coming, at the time of the rapture. The following verses could be used to affirm that view.
Revelation 1:7 Behold, he comes with cloud; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him (the Jewish nation that demanded His death): and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
It was the Jewish nation that demanded Jesus’ death, when the Roman leader Pilot was determined to let him go. The verse above, therefore, seems to be emphasizing that the Jewish people especially shall see him when he comes in the clouds to gather together his elect at the time of the rapture.
Zechariah 12:9-10 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall morn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
When will they look upon him whom they have pierced? It seems to be at the time of his coming in the clouds to gather together his elect at the rapture event.
Matthew 24:29-31 Immediately after the tribulation of those days, (the 3 and 1/2 years of Great tribulation as spoken of in the Scriptures), shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn (including the remnant of Israel that shall be saved), and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect (the true believers or followers of Jesus) from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days at the Rapture event, but preceding the Wrath of God is when the unbelieving Jewish remnant find faith. It is then when they shall mourn and repent of their unbelief, as we will see in our study.
"The fulness of the Gentiles" may be referring to the various empires or “beasts” that have ruled over the world and especially over the nation of Israel, the Antichrist being the final beast. In Revelation 11:2 we have the term “Gentiles,” referring to the Antichrist forces, taking over the “holy city” Jerusalem, for 42 months, or 3 and ½ years, the time of the Great Tribulation. Let’s read the verse.
Revelation 11: 2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
Remember, the Antichrist will break the covenant, stop the daily sacrifice, and place the abomination that makes desolate at the “midst of the week,” the middle of the seven year period. He invades Jerusalem to do so and takes over, implementing mandatory “mark of the beast” technology, which will be necessary in order to participate in his New World Order system. (See Daniel 9:27, 8:11, 11:31, Revelation 13:16-18)
But some will rebel and not cooperate. The orthodox Jews may be in that category, especially if the "mark" is some sort of tattoo or micro-chip implant. God’s word forbids them from making any markings on their flesh.
Leviticus 19: 28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.
(However, during the Covid - 19 lockdowns and vaccinations, Israel managed to vaccinate close to 90% of its population. It remains to be seen how many will resist the mark of the beast technology when it appears.)
We can conclude, therefore, that at least some of the unsaved Jewish people living in Israel and or around the world will be anti-Antichrists. They will be against the Antichrist, though they may at first have been deceived by him and his “Holy Covenant.” Remember, the covenant seems to be what gives the Jewish people permission to start the daily sacrifice on the temple mount, the holy place, in the first place. Therefore, at first, the Jewish people would see the Antichrist as someone they could work with. He is someone who will help them begin their longed for sacrificial ceremonial worship on the Temple Mount.
However, when the Antichrist invades Israel, stops the daily sacrifice, and places the abomination of desolation in the holy place, the Orthodox Jews and other Jewish people, at least a remnant, if not many or most, will finally realize that the New World Order leader is evil. They will begin to understand that the Christians prophets were right. They will begin to have their blindness removed and some will come to faith.
Since Apostle Paul says that the blindness in part to Israel will last, “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in,” we need to try to understand when “will the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” If it is at the point when the Antichrist steps up or is revealed, as Apostle Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, then we can expect the Jewish people to begin to come to Christ during the Great Tribulation period. Those that do, would be raptured with the other Christian believers at the Lord’s coming.
Let’s look again at 2 Thessalonians 2 where Apostle Paul is talking about the coming of the Lord and our gathering together unto Him.
2 Thessalonians 2: 3-4 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there comes a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
If what Apostle Paul is talking about is the moment the Antichrist stops the daily sacrifice and places the abomination, then that would be the same sign that Jesus gave us that the Great Tribulation would begin. That would be distinctly at the “midst of the week,” or in the middle of the 7-year agreement or covenant. (See Daniel 9:27, 11:31 & Matthew 24:15 & 21)
But, maybe, “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in,” is not until Christ appears at the time of the Rapture, or even later when He comes with His saints at the Battle of Armageddon which takes place some 30 days after the rapture. We take that idea from the information that Daniel 12:11 has given us concerning the length of time the abomination stands, which is 1,290 days, or thirty days longer than the Great Tribulation period.
It is at Armageddon, that the time of the Gentiles ruling over Jerusalem would actually come to an end with Jesus’ return to defeat the Antichrist and his forces. If the Jewish people remained anti-Antichrist during the Great Tribulation period, refused to worship the beast and his image, and refused his mark; if, also, they lived throughout the Great Tribulation period and the Wrath of God, then they could be in that “blessed” group of people the prophet Daniel talks of at the end of in Daniel 12.
Daniel 12: 12 Blessed is he that waits, and comes to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.
As we have shown elsewhere, the addition of the 1,260 days of Great Tribulation, plus the 75 days of the Wrath of God, gives us the 1,335 days that Daniel speaks of in the above verse. The unsaved who live through the horrific period of the 1,260 days of Great Tribulation and the even worse period of the 75 days of the Wrath of God found in Revelation 16 and Isaiah 13:6-13, those that live through that terrible period will be blessed. They will live on into the new period of dispensation called the Millennium. Christ will rule the earth with His saints for a thousand years.
How “all Israel shall be saved” is still a mystery. We are speculating, though our speculations are based on God's word. Earlier in Romans, Apostle Paul had also written,
Romans 9: 6-7 Not as though the word of God has taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Romans 9:27 Esaias also cries concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.
Will “all Israel” be only a remnant, or actually be “all Israel?” At the moment, because of the verse in Zechariah saying one-third shall be brought through the fire of testing and two-thirds shall die, I lean more to the idea that a one-third remnant of ethnic Israel, the Jewish people, will be saved. Some are already being saved and they make great witnesses.
Some 20,000+ Israelites are Messianic Jews, or Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Many of these are witnessing in some way to their unbelieving brethren throughout the nation of Israel. At what point the rest of Israel, or a remnant of unbelieving Israel, will be saved, remains to be seen, though it seems it will be at the rapture event. The fact that some shall be “regrafted into the olive tree,” once again shows God’s unfathomable love and mercy towards any who repent and come to a believing faith in Him.
Romans 11:24 For if you [a gentile Christian] were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature [with false gentile beliefs and traditions about God], and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree [the seed of Abraham by faith that follows of the true God]: how much more shall these [the ethnic Jewish people], which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
Obviously, Apostle Paul is saying that some shall be saved. Throughout Israel's history it was usually a small group who were faithful to the Lord. At times, under a good leader or king, much of the nation became righteous, because they believed and obeyed God's word as ministered by the king, the prophets and the priests. Pray for them. Not all are Anti-Christ, and even now many are Anti-antichrists.
Recapitulating: from Zechariah 13:8-9, it looks like the remnant saved may be as many as one-third of the Jewish population of Israel. While in unbelief, God lets the Jewish people be persecuted and chastised by the Antichrist for their sins. Two-thirds of the Jewish population die during that horrific period of Great Tribulation. The remaining one-third finally repent and come to faith.
It may happen, when they see the two prophets in Jerusalem killed and then come back to life three days later at the Rapture event. From that point on, because they have truly found faith and come to God with all their heart, Jesus begins to protect them and save them from further persecution and death at the hands of the Antichrist forces. We find that idea in Zechariah and elsewhere.
Zechariah 13:8-9 And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, says the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die, but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them; I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord (JESUS) is my God.
We see the same thing in Isaiah.
Isaiah 10:20-21 "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay (depend) upon him that smote them (the Antichrist); but shall stay (depend) upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel (JESUS), in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
In the New Testament, we see the unclean spirit in a man in Capernaum calling Jesus, "the Holy One of God," Luke 4:34.
Who is the mighty God that the remnant returns to? Let's look at the prophecy from Isaiah chapter nine.
Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
"The mighty God" to whom the remnant return to is none other than Jesus Himself. A remnant of unbelieving Jewish people, after passing through the Great Tribulation period, shall come to faith in Jesus. It may be, that as many as 144,000 Jewish Christians, those who had already come to faith in Jesus, are slain under the Antichrist during the period of Great Tribulation, before the Rapture event. That would explain the martyrs mentioned in Revelation 7:13-17 & 14:1-4, who seemed to come from Jewish descent, Revelation 7:4-8.
However, on seeing the Rapture event, one-third of the unbelieving Jewish people will finally come to faith. They will ultimately be saved from their enemies, when Jesus returns at the Battle of Armageddon some 30 days after the rapture. These newly saved Jewish converts will miraculously live through the 75 days of Wrath of God on into the Millennium period.
The following verses from Jeremiah are often used to express that the remnant will be somehow saved during that horrible period of human history.
Jeremiah 30:5-7 For thus says the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask now, and see whether a man does travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he will be saved out of it.
Why will Jacob be saved? Because he has turned to the Lord Jesus. The name their leaders hated and cursed, Jesus, is the name they shall come to believe in. We read further in Zechariah verses which we have mentioned earlier:
Zechariah 12:10 -11a And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem (at the time of the rapture), the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem,
One third of the Jewish people will come to find the true God Jesus Christ during that horrific period of Antichrist persecution and war. They will mourn because they will realise, they have been in rebellion against Jesus for so long. God has brought them through the fires of persecution and affliction under the Antichrist forces. In their affliction they have cried out to the Lord for forgiveness and have found it. In all honesty, they fall upon the God of their Father Abraham in truth, and as a result, God fulfils His promise to Solomon.
I Chronicles 7:14 If My people who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
The blinders are removed as they see Jesus coming in the clouds to rescue His bride in the gathering together of the rapture, and the unbelieving Jewish remnant, one-third of Jewish the population of Israel, find faith. They are not raptured, but they are saved and now believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah.
Revelation 1:7 Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindred of the earth shall wail because of Him. even so, Amen.
Jesus had come unto His own some 2000 plus years ago, but His own had received Him not. Now, after much affliction, suffering, and war; they see Jesus coming in the clouds to rescue His bride, the true Christian believers. As the two slain Jerusalem prophets rise to their feet, and then supernaturally ascend up into heaven, the unbelieving remnant finally believe. Too late for the Rapture, but not too late for God to intervene and save them from the hands of the Antichrist, who is determined to exterminate them as a nation.
Psalm 83:4 Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
Instead of the Antichrist and his forces eliminating Israel, Jesus Himself will intervene and destroy the Antichrist and his forces.
Zechariah 12:2-3 Behold. I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
Zechariah 14:3 Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight those (Antichrist) nations (gathered against Jerusalem), as when He fought in the day of battle.
Revelation 19:20-21 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the nark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant (of the Antichrist forces) were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse (JESUS), which sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
Zechariah 14:9 And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one.
It seems as if these days are almost upon us. Don't delay. Receive Jesus today. It may be later than you think!
To go to a related post The Day of Jacob's Trouble
