Category: Theology

The New York Abortion Law and Religious Values

A new abortion law in New York gives unrestricted abortion rights to women even up to the point of birth even if she is in labor. Surveys show that the majority of Americans want to preserve the right to abortion but also support restrictions so that abortion only takes place in the early months of pregnancy.  Defenders of the new law say that such abortions only occur if the child is very deformed and unlikely to live or if the birth will be a real health detriment for the mother (though other doctors say that there is no health detriment to the mother in giving birth at that point, and that third trimester abortions are almost never needed.)  Amazingly the legislature broke out in cheers after passage. Imagine cheering for having a right to kill a fully formed baby. God must be weeping and indeed ready to judge. 

The reaction of conservatives and committed Christians was pronounced.  Many Catholics said that Andrew Coumo should be ex-communicated.  What is his defense?  It is the same as his father.  Though he is a Catholic, he cannot make religion a basis for what he supports in law for the larger society.  This is a wrong view indeed.   In a pluralistic society law reflects the moral consensus of the society.  Different populations in the society form their moral views on the basis of their world views, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, secular, or Eastern religious.  A society thus has morals, and all the streams of that society contribute toward that moral consensus.  Than that consensus is reflected in the law.  Since in the United States there is no one religious foundation for our laws, the law reflects the popular consensus, unlike in the past when Biblical morals were the foundation and unlike ancient Israel where God’s revelation was the law.  However, the Biblical world view is a legitimate ground for our contribution to that consensus, and we seek to influence society so that the consensus would move toward the Biblical world view.  

The law of a society is based in the morals of that society.  This is the issue. For Hitler, the morals of Nazism allowed that you could kill those then called retarded or today challenged children.  Because they society rejected that all human beings were created in the image of God, some human beings were not worthy of life.  Professor Singer at Princeton supports killing fully born babies if they do not measure up and says they have less worth as developed dogs.  If Governor Cuomo was a good Catholic, he would seek to see Catholic morals influence the moral consensus and thus the law.  I note that killing the baby at the point of birth is not the moral consensus in the United States.  It is tragic.  

The religious basis of much of the law in the West goes back to the idea of the equal worth of every human being which is a Biblical idea.  In classic Indian society, the poor and most needy are that way because they deserve it in their re-incarnation.  In the Bible we are called to lift the poor and needy because they have equal dignity and worth.  In Communism large populations were killed as a necessary step toward the classless society.   The idea that our laws are decoupled from religious values is an incoherent idea.  And when that decoupling more and more takes place, we will see society slip to greater barbarism, especially to those who are vulnerable.  

Kate Hudson and Raising Children as Genderless

This week, Kate Hudson took objection to a misunderstanding of what she meant in not raising her youngest child, a daughter, as genderless.  She claimed that she is not doing this.  She only was saying that she wanted the child to develop naturally without fostering stereotyped roles. In fact, her child acts with feminine traits and is quite different than the boys.  What do we think of the culture in the west going toward gender fluidity in defining sexual relationships. 

One of the sad facts of western culture is not only the rejection of the historic standards derived from the influence of the Bible, but also from the wisdom of almost all developed cultures and even the wisdom of primitive cultures.  That wisdom not only perceived the given distinction of male and female but sought to accentuate this distinction and to make the distinction more pronounced.  Somehow it was perceived that the prosperity of the people, the tribe, or the nation required fostering the distinction.  Why is that?  It is that the bonding of male and female together in marriage requires significant distinction.  It is that this very distinction attracts the sexes to one another and blurring the distinction undercuts this.  The bonding of distinct males and females is a priority of all cultures.  It is somehow perceived that not enhancing and fostering the distinction is destructive to society.  We see this not only in biblical societies, but also India, China, Africa, Middle Eastern culture, Muslim cultures, Native American cultures and more.  The intensity of attraction and last in relationship between the sexes in committed bonds require a strong distinction.  

Sometimes the pattern of distinctions fostered by a culture are oppressive.  The Chinese bound the feet of women in very painful processes so that they would take what they consider attractive little steps.  Many times the Muslim world placed women in an enslaved position.  It was not just to preclude women from careers of their interest in medicine, the sciences, and business.  However, that boys learn to be men, handsome and strong, and women to be feminine, move with grace and to show that quality we know as feminine loveliness, is not oppressive.  Yes, young girls will sometimes be tom boys, but they eventually and mostly grow out of this. 

One of the great rebellions of our culture, and it is unprecedented in world history, is the attempt to break down the distinction of male and female.  This will have a significant negative effect on marriages.  The question on why the behavior of others should effect our commitments and why we should then oppose the LGBT agenda, is so short sighted.  It Is not that it has to effect me and my marriage, but that it fosters a culture that does not value a lasting marriage between male and female.  The effect of this on the culture as a whole is destructive and will lead to poverty and bankruptcy for many, and when children are not raised in intact traditional families the percentages of their success decline. 

Toxic Masculinity

It becomes more and more clear that unless we evaluate human life from a biblical point of view, we cannot get things right.  Our analysis will lead to supposed solutions that cause more damage.  Only a Biblical world view gives us the perspective to evaluate, and then provide solutions that really make a positive difference.  

The term toxic masculinity is a term used by feminists without realizing that the term is itself dehumanizing.  God created masculinity so it must be good just as femininity is good.  The word toxic is a biological term that denotes poison to an organism.  To talk in such terms about men is really dehumanizing.  What is attacked?  Not only male sexual abuse, but maleness itself; that desire to excel, to pioneer, to do sports and be strong and heroic. Then they seek to make men into namby pambys and to feminize men!  Yet most men and most women to not really desire this.   The biblical term for what is wrong is “sinful men” and also “sinful women.”  Sin is a personal word.  It refers to men and women acting out of selfishness, violating God’s law, and taking advantage of others.  It is a word that speaks about human choice and the Law of God.  Sin includes men and women using the other for their own selfish pleasure.  It is contrary to the commitment of lifetime marriage. 

I was privileged to be discipled as a teen.  I learned leadership, sportsmanship (or should I say sportspersonship) and respect for women.  The Scripture that “it is good for a man to not touch a woman” was widely quoted.  In these “Me too” movement days we have to ask what went wrong.  Once biblical standards of sexuality were replaced with “make love not war” in the 60s, the whole meaning of sex was abused.  Men especially, but not exclusively, were subject to the pursuit of selfish sexual pleasure.  The society came to constantly inspire men to abhorrent sexuality in the most pervasive advertising for so many products.  In the movie One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest, the hero, Jack Nicholson, brags that he seeks to collect beavers, that is the sexual conquest of as many women as possible, beavers being female genitals.  The movie extols him as a free spirit hindered by the strictures of society.  Remove sexuality from respect, marriage, fidelity and self-control, and I would add the fear of God, and you get a society that is wild in sexual promiscuity.   We should note that other societies according to their world views also keep the sexual genie in the bottle until marriage.  So the issue is not toxic masculinity, but godless masculinity.  The issue is the fear of God and teaching men to be gentlemen toward women.  I knew many such man who were such good examples as I was growing up.  

There is also godless femininity.  It can be manipulative, uses sex as a way to climb the ladder of success and to keep men interested, tantalized and controlled.  

The confusion of society is amazing.  Tim Tebow recently got engaged.  He professes the ideal of virginity.  So he is mocked for this.  The headlines do not extoll him for being a great athlete and a great gentleman.  No, they mock him for being a virgin.  Men who seek to be virgins until marriage, as most of us did in the age when I was growing up, do not sexually abuse women. Yet somehow our social elite cannot connect the dots.  Today’s women join the “Me too” movement because they at least want the respect of being able to say no without harassment.  It is a cry to be more deeply valued.  And yet, it will not succeed without the change of heart that comes from a return to God. 

ELIZABETH WARREN AND THE TWO INCOME TRAP

I was quite amazed to find that Elizabeth Warren wrote a whole book some 15 years ago which agreed with something I have been arguing for years.  Her book was entitled The Two Income Trap. This is an amazing book especially since Senator Warren is known as a leftist feminist who promotes a sameness equality for women.  She is the first announced candidate for President from the Democratic Party. I want to give a little background on what I wrote on this before Facebook.  My readers know that I try to base everything on a more comprehensive Biblical worldview.  

I began in my reflections on the 1950s a few decades ago.  This was a wonderful time to grow up for white middle class youngster, and I would say for my Jewish friends as well.  Part of it was the security of the family and the presence of the mother at home to be with the pre-school children, and for us, to be at home for lunch.  Our school was across the street.  One of the things I noted as a youngster was that my father was the provider and a good one at that.  He did not go to college as two of his 4 brothers.  He trained as a stock and bonds salesman and was then licensed on Wall Street.  Today he would be known as an accounts manager.  His high school education from the well known public high school, George Washington in Manhattan, was certainly better than the average of today’s college education.  My mother graduated from Girls Commercial High School and met my father at the firm.  We owned a house in the close in New Jersey suburbs to Manhattan, went on very nice vacations, owned a nice car, and had no debt. 

Most of my friends came from modest middle-class homes.  They mostly owned their own homes, and most of their mothers did not work or worked only part time.  They also owned cars, televisions and took vacations.  I began to reflect on government figures that showed the incomes for families of four going up since the 1950s.  But I began to wonder about this.  Really the incomes per family were up, but on the basis of two salaries.  If one accounts for this, the gain over the 40 years was minimal.  I surmised that the problem was the influx of women in the work force, which depressed wages.  I had no problem with women that wanted to be in the working world, doctors, lawyers, or business leaders.  But my problem was that the culture elite began to define a worthwhile life for women as being achievers in this working world and not in marriage, nurturing, motherhood and more artistic endeavors with community service.  Demeaning the traditional roles for fulfillment was to me a big mistake and would greatly harm the family.  So now it takes two incomes to do what one income mostly accomplished 50 years ago.I was super surprised to find Elizabeth Warren making this argument with strong statistics and what seems to be well done research.  Where does she stand on this now?  I do not think her book of 15 years ago is politically correct today.  But is this book the truth?  I think it is.  Her argument was for strong families.  I still believe that strong families is the key to a strong society but the leftist oppose this. 

Sabbath Reading

Sometimes my Friday pre Sabbath reading of the Jerusalem Post inspires me to comment on Facebook..  This week there were two articles that I wanted to comment on. 

The first was from Melanie Philips from London who regularly writes and amazing column.  If you don’t know about Melanie Phillips, do look her up and read some of her writings.  In her article this week, she responds to the terrible wrong reporting in the New York Times on Israel.  While giving several examples, she notes especially the case of Al-Najjar, a Palsestiian doctor who was killed at the Gaza protests, which include attempts to breach the fence and enter into Israel to kill Israeli civilians, not only soldiers.  The Times story by David Halbfinger was so sympathetic top her and did not explain the context of the Hamas protests and the terrible use of civilian human shields for their terrorist attacks.  Previously the Times accused Israel of a war crime for this death.  It was claimed that she was shot in the back by an Israeli sniper.  It is interesting that one of my subscribers to my Facebook page railed against Israel for this murder and claimed it was a war crime.  Even this imbalanced article notes that it was not an intentional shooting, but that the death came from a bullet that struck the ground away from her.  Yet somehow the Times framed it is it could still be a crime.   The exhaustive investigation proved this to be an accident.   We have to really be so careful to not credit reporting in the press.  We have to have multiple stories on all sides and even then until an investigation, we often do not know.

The second article was by Eric Mandel calling into question the foreign policy decisions of the foreign policy elite.  There have been so many wrong-headed decisions by Israel and the United States in the Middle East in the last two decades.  How many policy decisions did you doubt at the time?   I know I had great doubts about them.

1.      The withdrawal from Gaza under Ariel Sharon.  I thought this might be a good idea since then the Palestinian authority would have to rule.  With Hamas now ruling, this is now a big question.  At any rate. Sharon’s unilateralism now is not an option for more for the West Bank.  I missed this one.

2.     America not standing with the Kurds in Iraq.  I thought this was a great mistake and we should have stood with the Kurds against those that attacked them from the Iraq government.

3.     The Kurds in Syria.  This one is in the balance, but it looks like they could be abandoned to the Turks for a big slaughter.  Will the U. S. betray its ally?  Maybe.  Pray a lot.

4.     Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq led to the rise of ISIS.  Didn’t we know that this was a bad decision. 

5.     The Oslo accords and inviting Yasir Arafat back to rule the West Bank.  Didn’t we not think that he would not become a Nelson Mandela, and that this would not work?

6.     Supporting the Arab Spring.   How could we not know that this would lead to a takeover by radicals as the most dominant group.  It is all about who has the power of the gun. 

7.     Withdrawing from Lebanon and abandoning the South Lebanese Christians and their army and leaving it to a take over by Hezbollah.  Israel was weary and wanted out.   At the time I absolutely knew that this was a terrible decision. 

8.     Cutting the Lebanon war short before destroying Hezbollah and the accepting a U. N. force to keep them from rearming.  Didn’t we all know that the robust force that Condalezza Rice promised would not enforce anything and that this was certain to lead to a worse war later.  We also knew that simple bombing and brining in the ground forces until late was a terrible strategy. Now it is admitted.

9.     Many also knew at the time, I include myself, that bringing a western style democracy to Iraq in the light of its sectrain divisions and hatreds would not work.

As we look at this list what amazes us is how many such decisions we knew would be a disaster.  I say we as representing the many lay people who are readers on current events and policy and are in no way experts.  How could so many know these decisions were wrong and yet see the elite leaders try to defend them at the time?  It causes you to wonder about intelligence and wisdom. …

The Left Does Not Want to Face Truth

Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump, I am constantly puzzled why people tend to think that their solutions would be found in a greater and greater power of the State enforcing socialistic big government solutions.  As an Israeli, I am quite amazed that the nation has moved from socialism to greater decentralization to a free enterprise orientation.  The nation is better off for it.  So for example, there is now more incentive and profit for risk and business start-ups.  Israel is called the start up nation.  We have lowered taxes (still too high), added semi private options to national health care with some competition, and sought to decentralize some aspects of government.  There is now low unemployment! Before this Israel experienced terrible inefficiency, inflation, stagnation, and high unemployment.  We still have problems; housing prices are too high, food prices too high (why?-to keep Israeli agriculture and jobs stable, but this hurts the rest of the society).  

Yet, but for the bump in the road of Donald Trump, the U. S. is tending to greater socialism.  There is a call for Medicare for all and for the Federal Government to fully take over health care.  This would produce inefficiency beyond imagination.  Right now we are a semi-government control medical system, with lawyers, drug companies and more getting their piece of the pie and making the U. S. system the most expensive in the world.  Yet, one can imagine a competing private system where all are covered and required to be in it, and breaking the distortions of special interests.  This is working in some countries.  Many years ago Lawrence Peter wrote his book outlining the Peter principle.  All large organizations go toward inefficiency and then promote people to their level of incompetence.  The market place destroys inefficient organization, but in government, only radical periodic reforms give some help.  But amazingly our young adults know nothing of this and think big government can forever provide jobs, guaranteed income, retirement, hospitalization, and equalization of income.  Such systems are massively oppressive and destroy the creative advance of societies. 

So my question for my friends on the left, how is it that they do not understand this.  Israel has come to understand it. This is why all major parties in Israel believe in free enterprise and even the labor party has become moderate. 

A Quality Counter Culture

We can bemoan the ethical and moral direction of our nations, Israel and the United States. It is right to grieve and pray for national revival. Some think that a secular state is a good thing but the Bible is very clear that the nations are called to acknowledge God and that its laws should reflect his basic standards. God judges the nations on this basis. We could quote many texts in the Psalms and the Prophets. However, when we live in a nation that does not support biblical norms, what are we to do? We are to be give ourselves to create a convincing counter culture. This was our commitment in the days of our leadership in Chicago and Washington. In Washington we built an alternative school system. A counter culture provides a way of living that is sufficiently apart from the society that the counter culture is much more the dominant influence on our children, teens and young adults than the surrounding culture. This means that our culture educates from a Biblical Worldview perspective. It means that we are able to disciple adults and children well. This includes that all have a real encounter with God and an ongoing personal relationship that is real in a consistent devotional life. It means devotional life. It is apologetics for all ages. Today that apologetic evidence form design, the supernatural reality of miracles (beyond any other age), and historical evidence is better than ever. But the members of the Body of Believers is so integrated into the dominant culture, in schools, entertainment, and so much more that it has to lead to great loss.

There are two kinds of counter cultures. We can see from the Amish and the ultra Orthodox Jews that they are growing communities that mostly keep their descendants in the faith. It is quite amazing. However their counter culture does not engage the dominant culture. I want to opt for a counter culture that engages the dominant culture. An example of this would be the Evangelicals of the first part of the 19th century who engaged and even confronted the dominant culture, especially on the issues of slavery and child labor. They succeeded. Today the dominant culture has as its primary features, relativism in truth questions, abortion, sexual variety of all kinds of arrangements over against traditional marriage and sexuality, gender fluidity and so much more that is abhorrent to God and destructive to people. But Satan loves to destroy whereas Yeshua seeks to give abundant life (John 10:10b). We agree with the dominant culture that caring for the poor and marginal is a top value and is so much in the Bible, but we would disagree on what really works and how to do this.

We allow our young to be educated mostly by the dominant culture and not a strong counter culture. So we will lose most of the young unless this changes. For those who can hear, this is a major challenge. At least some must build this counter culture. There are pockets of the Evangelical world in the West that do not lose their children to the dominant culture. May these pockets become the norm. And may we as Messianic Jews in Israel and the Diaspora build a strong counter culture.

Biblical Authority and Messianic Jewish Scholars

Daniel Juster, Th. D.  Restoration from Zion

After almost four years of painful skepticism, I returned to committed faith in April, 1970.  I had graduated from Wheaton College and was at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, near Deerfield, Illinois.   As I look back on those years, I am amazed at the mercy of God and his providential care.  I was privileged at Wheaton and Trinity to have the most amazing professors to help me work though many issues, and most importantly, my spiritual father, the Chaplain of Wheaton College, Dr. Evan Welsh. 

My quest was intellectual and I needed the best help possible.  In philosophy there were the brilliant thinkers, Dr. David Wolfe, Dr. Stuart Hackett (Philosophy of Religion) and the famous, Dr. Arthur Holmes.  For a critical introduction to the Old Testament, there was Dr. Samuel Schultz who received his Ph. D. at Harvard and taught at Wheaton.  He had such high regard for the Hebrew Bible and its applicability for all believers.  His teaching was a bulwark against critical theories that undercut the authority of the Bible.  Furthermore, he prepared me for a Messianic Jewish understanding since he argued with great force that the Mosaic Covenant was a covenant of grace that fully taught salvation by grace and also the applicability of the Law of God in the New Covenant.  His books were breakthroughs in the Evangelical world.  He became one of the early Christian supporters of our Messianic Jewish movement.  In this essay, I want to give honor to the late Dr. Kenneth Kantzer.  I consider him to be the greatest teacher on biblical authority in second half of the 20th century.   By the time I finished my program at Trinity (in Philosophy of Religion) I was established in great confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible, and that every text of the bible teaches the always according to what the author is asserting as truth.

I was the product of an evangelical education that in those days was very solid on the issue of Biblical authority.  But one question loomed.  Would my approach to Biblical authority hold up in a liberal educational institution?  I enrolled at McCormick Theological Seminary whose faculty included many liberals whose views were quite radical.  None believed in the historic view of the trustworthiness of the Bible.  And some did not really believe the Gospel itself.  Critical approaches to the Bible reigned.  Yet after 5 quarters and a degree, I was not at all shaken.  The professors were renowned scholars, but their presentations were weak compared to what I had previously learned.  I was unshaken. 

But now we have a significant issue in our movement.  Several leaders in our Messianic Jewish movement are seeking the credibility of degrees from well known schools under well known scholars. They are receiving masters and doctorate degrees.  However, they have entered these schools without a strong evangelical background of teaching on Biblical authority.   Some think that such an education is not important and that such an education is not adequately Jewish.  They see no claim from such evangelical views upon them.  Yet, I do believe that the very best understanding of Biblical authority has been developed by historic Reformation Evangelicalism.   Messianic Jews need to be humble before truth whenever and wherever it has been put forth, especially when from our Evangelical brothers.

Historic Orthodox Judaism also professes the highest regard for the Hebrew Bible as fully trustworthy.  However, in Judaism, the apparent contradictions in the Bible and difficult passages are often explained away by a midrashic type of Rabbinic interpretation which does not always have to credit the straightforward meaning of the text.  Midrash is a type of spiritual interpretation that can find multiple meanings in texts.  Rashi, the famous medieval exegete did affirm the importance of the peshat, the straightforward meaning of the text, but this was not consistently the emphasis of Judaism.  It was left to Evangelicals to affirm the highest view of Biblical authority and often by hard work to find solutions to difficult texts (as in the recent work of Dr. Walter Kaiser). 

Messianic Jews who do not have a strong evangelical background of scholarship on Biblical authority can find themselves shaken from the view of the full trustworthiness of the contextual meaning of the text as always true.  They can then embrace various levels of liberal critical scholarship or can seek to maintain faith by a more mystical Rabbinic approach to the text. 

Yet as Dr. Kantzer taught, when we lose a high view of Biblical authority, we enter into subjectivism, namely that what we affirm and do not affirm in the Bible is subject to what we think rationally makes sense or what we intuitively confirm.  So are the Biblical standards of marriage and sexual purity to be maintained?  Did Moses really give us the Torah of God that contains the universal moral and ethical laws for all people?  And of course, liberal Christians do not want to credit the texts that speak of Israel’s everlasting connection to the Land as their inheritance.   If the Messianic Jewish movement finds itself influenced by scholars who do not have this high view of Scriptures, then we will be in deep trouble.

This is one reason why we are supporting higher education that is oriented to the full high view of Biblical authority, Holy Spirit power and gifts, and the importance of Messianic Jewish life.  I have a fuller essay on this in the book edited by Rabbi Cohn Sherbuck, Voices of Messianic Judaism.  The essay is on Biblical authority.

Is The Rapture Of The Yeshua/Believers At The Seventh Shofar In The Book Of Revelation

Those who believe that the rapture of the saints and the resurrection of the righteous in Yeshua comes at the end of the tribulation (Post Tribulation vs. the Pre-Tribulation view) present two views of where to place the rapture. One view, which I think is the more dominant view, is that it comes at the seventh Shofar in Rev. 11. The other view is that it comes at the end of the season of the bowls of wrath (a brief season at the end of the tribulation), and is identified with the blowing of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur. This identification is connected to the I Cor. 15 text that says we will be transformed at the last shofar (I Cor. 15:51, 52).

In my book Passover, Key to the Book of Revelation, I argue for the seventh shofar as the shofar of the Rapture, our being caught up with the Lord that leads to our return with him. I see a process of events in his return and do not see it as an all at once event. I do understand that in such matters we see through a glass darkly and that all such views are somewhat speculative.

Here are my reasons for holding to the seventh shofar view.

1. The Last Shofar in I Cor. 15 could refer just to the last of the shofars that bring judgment and this seventh is the last one in the series and announces the final judgment, rapture and resurrection. It is not the last to ever be blown. There will be many more blown throughout the Millennial Age.

2. The Feast of Yom Teruah, or the Feast of the Blasting of the Trumpet has no great fitting fulfillment as the other Feasts. The others have obvious fulfillments in Yeshua. But if Yom Teruah announces the coming of the Messiah, and effects the rapture, the resurrection and then his descent to earth, we would have that fitting fulfillment. Other attempts do not identify a great fulfillment sufficient for the weightiness of a major feast. The association of II Thes. 4:16, and 17 with Yom Teruah or Rosh Hoshana is a dominant view and commonly taught for good reason.

3. The Book of Revelation provides a chronology that is progressive in the 7 Seals, the 7 Shoforot, and the Seven Bowls of Wrath. The Seventh Seal opens up and includes the Seven Trumpets, and the Seventh Trumpet opens up and includes the Seven Bowls of God’s wrath. The book also includes parentheses narratives in the midst of this progression that are not necessarily in the progression. But it is significant that John puts his parentheses narratives where he does. Before the Seventh Shofar, John writes that the mystery of God has been completed when he is about to sound the seventh shofar (Rev. 10:7). If this is the shofar of the rapture and resurrection, it would be a perfect fit. The mystery is the completion of the numbers counted in the Bride of the Messiah (as Paul teaches in Ephesians 3 and is the fullness of the gentiles Romans 11). If the rapture and resurrection are after the seventh shofar, then the mystery would not complete before it is blown as Rev. 10:7 states. There would still then people being saved who can be part of the rapture after the blowing of the seventh shofar. This does not fit the text in Rev. 10:7.

4. Revelation 11states that at the end of 1,260 days (the time of the Great Tribulation, v. 3) the two prophetic witnesses who are martyred are raised from the dead and ascend to heaven. This is certainly a picture of the rapture and resurrection that I believe shortly follows. Then there is a great earthquake and 7,000 die in the city called Sodom, which is identified as Jerusalem by noting that it is the city where our Lord was crucified. It then indicates that Jerusalem turns to the Lord. “The rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.” (Rev. 11:14) In every other case when judgments fall in the Book of Revelation, the people do not turn to God but rebel and curse all the more since they are under the deception of the Anti-Christ and the False Prophet. This fits as the time when Israel/Jerusalem calls on Yeshua to save them (Matthew 23:39 ff.) This perfectly fits Zech. 14 where the nations have surrounded Jerusalem, there is the earthquake and then the Lord goes forth to fight against the armies of those nations. The turning of Jerusalem to Yeshua fits if it occurs between verse 2 and 3 and then his feet touch down on the Mt. of Olives. The saints return with Yeshua and the war is still ongoing, not the end of the war yet. It is not yet the born again experience for Israel, but seems it is a corporate turning of Jerusalem to Yeshua. Only after this turning in Rev. 11:14 do we read that the angel sounds the Seventh shofar. (Don’t we believe when Israel or Jerusalem call upon Yeshua that leads to the rapture. Then we also read the Kingdoms of this World have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Annointed One. (11:15).

5. Then in Rev. 14 we read what many scholars historically have said is the rapture and the resurrection of the saints. There are two angels, one harvests the earth positively, the harvest of the earth was reaped (14:16) Then another angel gathers the grapes into the winepress of the wrath of God. This fits the idea that the wrath of God is a very brief period at the end of the tribulation, and we are not here for that. It fits the time between Rosh Hoshana and Yom Kippur. Some who say they believe in a pre-wrath rapture find support for this. Some of them claim to be mid-tribulation pre-wrath in their view of the timing of the rapture, but this mistakes the tribulation as a seven year period and coordinate with the seven trumpets, whereas the Bible tells us it is 3 ½ years or half a seven. So the bowls of the wrath of God comes at the very end and occurs as we are returning with him from heaven to deliver Israel. It also includes the picture of the Lord slaying the armies of the nations that have come up to destroy Israel (Rev. 19, Joel 3, and Zech. 12, 14).

6. The seventh shofar view again fits what happens after the armies of the nations are destroyed. Rosh Hoshana in Jewish tradition leads to the Days of Awe, the days of judgment between Rosh Hoshana and Yom Kippur, but on Yom Kippur we have the final day of repentance. So is there will be a great Yom Kippur in Jerusalem, Israel and the nations. It would seem that the return of Yeshua to the earth after the rapture and resurrection leads to the repentance of those who were not so raptured. This so well fits the picture of Zechariah 12:10-14 when all of the tribes of Israel mourn. They look on Him who they have pierced and mourn for him. This does not seem to be a heavenly vision where they see him, but that He will be literally here and will be seen on earth. Some do see this as a pre-rapture turning of Israel, but I think the idea of the last war and Israel’s deliverance comes first, for in a time of war, one would not be able to fit this picture of everyone morning. No, they would be fighting. Indeed, this is a picture after the war where Israel, in their natural bodies, will be mourning and realizing that He was the one, their Messiah and Savior, all along. So in these pictures, Yom Kippur fits if it follows the rapture and resurrection.

7. At the end of Yom Kippur there a shofar is blown. It could be the last of this Age, and the inauguration of the Age to Come. In Lev. 25:10-12 the shofar blown on Yom Kippur announces the Jubilee year. Indeed, Israel and the nations have repented and all can now celebrate Sukkot together or Tabernacles (Zech. 14:16). The First Tabernacles of the Millennial Age would fit as the celebration of the Bride of the Messiah being joined to the Messiah, or the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. So the shofar blast of Yom Kippur on this scheme would not be the rapture and resurrection but the Jubilee shofar that ends the old age and begins the Millennial Age and the reign of the Messiah and his Bride, of Jew and Gentile who reign with Israel the nation in their own land. The rapture shofar is not the shofar announcing the age of peace as at the end of Yom Kippur after repentance, but the seventh also announces the final judgment of Rev. 19 and Zech. 14 and the very last battle that takes place.

Seven Mountains and Second Coming

As a biblical thinker that believes that we are to influence all areas of society with biblically based solutions (the Seven Mountains teaching and classical Reformed thought on societal influence), I yet am disturbed by those who implicitly or explicitly embrace the post millennial understanding in their teaching on The Last Days or Eschatology.  The post millennial view teaches that the great tribulation was past.  The book of Revelation is about the fall of Jerusalem or maybe the fall of Rome *Babylon.”  We can now go forward to conquer the whole world for Jesus without his actual return.  Unlike some of my friends, I do not teach that this view is heresy.  It was embraced by some Puritans, Charles Finney, the great revivalist and Jonathan Blanchard, the founder of Wheaton.   Wheaton’s motto, “For Christ and His Kingdom,” was originally, but not today, understood in post millennial terms.  Many today have the view that we will come to rule the nations without the return of Jesus literally.  Some do not use the term post millennial to describe their views.  They just speak of a victorious Church.

Whatever one does place the great tribulation, whether in the past or in the future like both classic Protestant and Catholic views, the real issue with this thinking is the loss of passion for the return of Yeshua.  One well known prophet brother from a well known charismatic church that has had great influence, put out a list of his rejection of any eschatology that did not give his children and grand children a hope for their future success on this earth, for an intergenerational purpose to be progressing on this earth.  He actually listed 7 or 8 things that amounted to the same thing.   Yet, no Scripture was quoted for these views! The central problem with this view is that the New Covenant Scriptures orient us to long for the return of Yeshua and to believe that it might be soon.   Text after text encourages us to look for the blessed hope, the glorious and soon return of the Lord.  Peter notes in Acts 3 that the Jewish people need to repent, “that He might send Yeshua the Messiah appointed for you.”   In Philippians 3:20, 21 we are told  that, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we eagerlay wait for the Savior, the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.”   In Colossians in 3:4 we are to hope that “When Messiah, who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”  In I Thessalonians  5:2 we read, “The Day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night …”  We are to be watchful and ready so that day need not come as a thief to us.  In II Thessalonians we read that the Lord will slay the lawless one (the antichrist) at his coming.   We look to the “Appearing of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah,”  (I Tim. 6:4).  In I Corinthians 16:22 we read the word Maranatha, “Our Lord Come,” or “Come Lord.”  This was a greeting among believers in the first century.   And in II Peter 3:12, we read that we are to live in such a way that we are,” Looking for and hastening the coming Day of God.” In the book of Revelation we are told that Yeshua is coming soon and that we are to live with the sense of his soon coming. 

Now of course, we know the delay.  Yet there is nothing in the Bible saying, now go forth and influence every sector of society and bring it into obedience to Biblical principles.  I do believe in such influence as part of understanding the Good News of the Kingdom.  I see that slavery would not have been eliminated in England and America if it were not for believers who so acted.  But the passion of the New Covenant Scriptures is the return of the Lord, not taking the seven mountains.  The passion for his return should supersede every other desire.  We live in the light of his return.  When I was a child, I thought as a child.  I did not want the Lord to return until after I experienced the intimacy of marriage and than after this, until I had children.  Then I wanted to see my children grow up.  But now I know whenever He comes, it will be the best for us all.  Let’s influence the seven mountains, but lets embrace the passion of the New Testament, the sense of the soon return of Yeshua.  We can do both.