Israel’s
Failures
Israel’s history
is one of apostasy, time and time
again. After the Babylonian
captivity, Israel’s apostasy
went from bad to worse. Instead of
becoming a people who loved God with
all their hearts, minds and
soul’s and their neighbors as
themselves, Israel’s religion
was hijacked by a sect of religious
zealots (the Pharisees) who created a
corrupted version of Judaism that was
worse than before. Instead of
worshiping and exalting the God of
Heaven, they ended up worshiping and
exalting false religion. Of course,
if you had asked a Pharisee if he
hated God, he would have indignantly
said, “Absolutely not!” If
you had asked him at the crucifixion
if he hated Jesus of Nazareth, (who
was God in the flesh) he would have
said “Yes, absolutely!” As
I have written before, the
devil’s ultimate deception
occurs when people believe right is
wrong and wrong is right.
Jesus deliberately
chose to begin His ministry at the
peak of Israel’s apostasy. In
spite of the signs and wonders Jesus
performed, Israel rejected Him
because He spoke the Word of God.
“He [the Word] was in the world,
and though the world was made through
him, the world did not recognize
him.” (John 1:10, insertion
mine) Because Israel wanted nothing
to do with the Word of God or the
gospel commission, Jesus abolished
His covenant with Israel. He divorced
Himself from the biological offspring
of Abraham with this decree: “O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill
the prophets and stone those sent to
you, how often I have longed to
gather your children together, as a
hen gathers her chicks under her
wings, but you were not willing.
Look, your house [of worship] is left
to you desolate [empty]. [As a nation
you have no further part or place in
my plans.] For I tell you, you will
not see me [striving to win your
hearts] again [I will not be found by
this people] until you [see me
sitting beside the Father and are
forced by my consuming glory to] say,
‘Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord.’ Jesus left
the temple and was walking away when
his disciples came up to him to call
his attention to its [magnificent]
buildings. ‘Do you see all these
things?” he asked. ‘I tell
you the truth, not one stone here
will be left on another; every one
will be thrown down [in A.D. 70 by
the Romans].’” (Matthew
23:37-24:2, see also Matthew 26:64.
Insertions mine)
The bottom line is
sad, but simple: The trusteeship of
the gospel was taken from Israel and
given to the Christians.
Israel’s lampstand was removed
and seven lampstands took its place!
Christianity: The
Seven Lampstands
When Jesus terminated
His covenant with Israel, He created
a new and better covenant (Hebrews
8:6), and all who choose to enter
into the covenant constitute a new
Israel who will inherit the New
Jerusalem. Jesus
established a new covenant because he
wants His gospel of salvation and
truth delivered to the whole world.
(Note: God loves the Gentiles just as
much as He loves those who are called
to labor for the Gentiles! (Romans
3:29) The transition from the old
covenant to the new covenant confuses
a lot of people. Here are two
important things that every Christian
should understand about this
transition:
First, the promises
and prophecies given to ancient
Israel under the old covenant were
abandoned when the old covenant was
terminated. This means that since the
cross, God recognizes Israel as a
Gentile nation. Israel lost their
favored status, their trusteeship,
through rebellion. Because God’s
covenant with Israel was a mutual
covenant (like a marriage), God was
set free from Israel because Israel
was unfaithful. (Ezekiel 23) Many
Christians do not understand the
bilateral nature of God’s
covenant with Abraham’s
offspring. To make matters worse,
they do not understand the
termination of the old covenant with
its promises and prophecies, and as a
result, they continue to lift
passages from the Old Testament and
apply them to the end time. This
errant practice has produced a series
of prophetic concepts that are
totally misleading. Millions of
people are now anticipating prophetic
events that will not occur.
The second issue that
confuses a lot of people today is the
identity of Israel. The new covenant redefines
the seed (the sperm) of Abraham.
“If you belong to Christ, then
you are Abraham’s seed, and
heirs according to the promise.”
(Galatians 3:28,29) God redefined
Israel because God’s covenant
with Abraham is not conditional. The
covenant God gave to Abraham was
unilateral – one sided. Jesus
made three promises to Abraham that
He will keep. First, He promised
Abraham would become the father of
many nations. (Genesis 17:4) Second,
God told Abraham that all nations
would be blesses through his
offspring. (Genesis 18:18) Last, God
promised to give the land where
Abraham lived to his descendants.
(Genesis 15:18) Notice how these
three promises will be fulfilled: At
the Second Coming, a numberless
multitude from every kindred, tribe,
and nation will be redeemed because
they put their faith in Christ just
like Abraham. (Revelation 7:9)
Thus, Abraham will be called the
father of the “faith-full”
from many nations. When the New
Jerusalem descends from Heaven at the
end of the 1.000 years, it will
physically encompass all of the
land promised to Abraham.
(Revelation 21:16) Thus,
Abraham’s seed will inherit the
land. Finally, because Jesus came
through Abraham’s lineage,
people from every nation will be
saved and this fulfills the promise
that all nations will be blessed
through Abraham’s offspring.
(Acts 4:12; Galatians 3:14; Ephesians
2) All three promises made to Abraham
will be fulfilled – but not with
Abraham’s biological offspring!
Paul leaves no wiggle
room on the redefinition of Israel.
“A man is not a Jew if he is
only one outwardly, nor is
circumcision merely outward and
physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is
on inwardly; and circumcision is
circumcision of the heart, by the
Spirit, not by the written code. Such
a man’s praise is not from men,
but from God.”
(Romans 2:28,29) If
you belong to Christ, then you are
Abraham’s seed [the Greek
word for seed is sperma],
and [as a descendant of Abraham
you are] heirs according to the
promise [which God gave to
Abraham].” (Galatians
3:29, insertions mine) So, many
Christians are grossly misled on this
topic. Modern Israel has no
prophetic role or spiritual
importance during the end time. On
the other hand, the new Israel
– the Israel redefined by the
new covenant – will take center
stage. The new Israel is both
the target of Lucifer and the bride
of Christ which Jesus is coming back
to receive. At the second Coming,
Jesus will “airlift”
Abraham and all of his faith-full
heirs (both from the dead and the
living) to live in the New Jerusalem!
Removing One and
Installing Seven
The abandonment of
Israel and the establishment of
Christianity has been briefly
discussed in this study so that you
can understand why seven lampstands
replaced the lampstand that once
stood before the Lord in
Heaven’s temple. The seven
lampstands represent a new
covenant – a new trusteeship for
the gospel of Christ. “It
is not as though God’s word has
failed. For not all who are descended
from Israel [Jacob] are Israel
[God’s children]….
In other words, it is not the natural
children [of Jacob] who are
God’s children, but it is the
children of promise [people who
live by faith as did Abraham] who
are regarded as Abraham’s
offspring.” (Romans 9:6,8) Unlike
the old covenant that is based on
bloodline, the new covenant is an
open covenant. It is based on the
blood of Jesus. Anyone can become a
believer in Christ, and through
Jesus, receive all that was promised
to Abraham!
You should now be able
to see why seven golden lampstands
replaced Israel’s lampstand.
John writes, “On the
Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit,
and I heard behind me a loud voice
like a trumpet, which said:
‘Write on a scroll what you see
and send it to the seven churches: to
Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira,
Sardis, Philadelphia and
Laodicea.’ I turned around to
see the voice that was speaking to
me. And when I turned I saw seven
golden lampstands, and
among the lampstands was someone
‘like a son of man,’
dressed in a robe reaching down to
his feet and with a golden sash
around his chest. His head and hair
were white as wool, as white as snow,
and his eyes were like blazing fire.
His feet were like bronze glowing in
a furnace, and his voice was like the
sound of rushing waters.” (Revelation
1:10-15, italics mine)
Even though there were
more than seven churches in Asia
Minor in A.D, 95 when God gave John
this vision, Jesus chose these
specific seven churches to represent the
whole of Christianity. Together,
the seven churches had all the
strengths and problems that every
Christian church faces. Jesus
foreknew that some Christians would
fall into the Ephesus experience,
that is, they would lose their first
love. Jesus also foreknew that some
Christians would have the Laodicean
experience, that is, they would
become lukewarm – distracted
from the rigor of living by faith
through the comforts of pleasure and
wealth. Other Christians would be
corrupted by sexual immorality like
Thyatira and
Pergamum.
In 95 A.D. Jesus
selected seven churches (seven is a
whole number in God’s system of
counting) – six churches have
serious problems and one church is
hanging on under very difficult
circumstances – so that He could
praise the good and identify the bad
in each case. Unfortunately, the
testimony of Jesus to the seven
churches did not keep the seven
churches from falling into apostasy.
Before we go a step
farther, notice that Jesus threatened
the church at Ephesus with
abandonment. “To the angel of
the church in Ephesus write: These
are the words of him who holds the
seven stars in his right hand and
walks among the seven golden
lampstands: I know your deeds, your
hard work and your perseverance. I
know that you cannot tolerate wicked
men, that you have tested those who
claim to be apostles but are not, and
have found them false. You have
persevered and have endured hardships
for my name, and have not grown
weary. Yet I hold this against you:
You have forsaken your first love.
Remember the height from which you
have fallen! Repent and do the things
you did at first. If you do
not repent, I will come to you and
remove your lampstand from its
place.” (Revelation
2:1-5)
Given that
Israel’s lampstand had been
removed at the end of the seventy
weeks, the words of Jesus must be
treated seriously. His threat, even
though directed at Ephesus, also
holds true for the other six churches
because Ephesus was a part of the
whole – one of the seven. I am
highlighting this threat because the
seven churches did not last long.
They turned their backs on the Lord
during the next seventy weeks (490
years). By A.D. 538, Christianity was
in total apostasy.
The history of
Christianity does not address or
lament the disappearance of the seven
churches. However, we know they
ceased to exist for several reasons:
First, Roman Caesars Decius (A.D.
249-251) and Diocletian (A.D.
284-305), issued decrees that all
Christians in the Roman Empire were
to be experimented. Second, if any of
the seven churches escaped these
purges, they either acquiesced to the
demands of Constantine (A.D. 306-337)
and the heresies taught by the Church
at Rome, or they simply disappeared
and went underground. Finally,
Islamic conquests in Asia Minor
during the seventh and eighth
centuries A.D. terminated the
existence of all Christian churches
in a region that is modern day
Turkey. Even though the seven
churches disappeared, God’s Word
was not totally extinguished. “The
woman [faithful believers] fled
to the desert to a place prepared for
her by God, where she might be taken
care of for 1,260 days.”
(Revelation 12:6)
By the sixth century
A.D., the Christian church in Rome
was powerful, full of heresy, and
willing to destroy anyone who
rebelled against its authority. The
church’s slide into apostasy
parallels Israel’s history.
History proves that human beings,
whether Jew or Christian, are the
same. We have already discussed the
fall of Israel and the disappearance
of the seven churches. Those loving
the Word of God went underground
because the devil chased the woman
into the wilderness for 1,260 years.
During this millennium of
persecution, history describes two
versions of Christianity. One church
is lavishly headquartered at Rome and
the other church is destitute, hiding
in the desert. The world is in the
dark and which is why this period of
time is called the Dark Ages.
(538-1798)
