Questions and Answers, Part 5

Selected Scriptures

     In what way are we dealing with the Kingdom today?  Now, we talk a lot about this, and Jesus came, as well as John the Baptist, preaching the Kingdom, so came Jesus preaching the Kingdom.  The question says what way are we dealing with the Kingdom today?  The millennium, obviously, hasn't come.  Listen, friends, if this is the millennium, we're in real trouble.  This is...this is, you're right, it isn't the millennium.  Yet, it says, clearly that we have been, according to Colossians 1, we have been transformed into the Kingdom of God's dear Son.  We're in the Kingdom, right?  We're citizens of the Kingdom, and, yet, this can't be the millennium.  No.

     Now watch, and this is not easy to explain, so kinda keep your brain alert on this.  We are experiencing at this time all of the features of the Kingdom that are spiritual.  For example, maybe I can get you involved in this.  Think of the millennium, and think of some of the things that will occur in the millennium.  What are they?  You got any ideas?  Peace, that's...that's one we always think about.  Okay.  Absence of Satan.  Okay, for part of it.  Okay, justice.  Okay, how about this one?  The rule of Christ.  Well, you know, you can go on with some things like this and just talk about the various features of the Kingdom.  There...there is going to be, we have to include this, salvation, righteousness.  You know, we can...we don't need to go any further than that.  Let's leave it like that.

     There are some basic things.  Now, think about this.  The beautiful thing about this, this is all going to happen in a physical world.  This is all gonna take place in the physical; and the whole world will be dominated by these things.  But lemme ask you this.  You're a Christian, and you're living today.  Do you have peace?  Sure, do you have it in your life?  If you don't, you're in trouble...Has Satan been dismissed from your life and replaced by the Spirit of God?  Yes.  Is there justice in your life?  Is Christ ruling in your life?  Yes.  Salvation?  Has He given you His righteousness?  Do you see, in a spiritual sense, you have already begun to experience all that will be fully revealed in a physical sense in the Kingdom.  In that sense, we are in a form of the Kingdom now.

     We are...some say this is the mystery form of the Kingdom.  The King is absent; and, yet, He has...He has sent His Holy Spirit to begin to plant within us all of the features of the Kingdom that are spiritual.  Someday in the millennium, they'll all become both spiritual and physical; and Christ will literally bring peace on the whole earth.  Literally, Satan will be bound.  Literal justice, and He'll rule with a rod of iron.  That Christ will actually sit on the seat of the throne of David.  Salvation will be all around the world.  Israel will be restored and redeemed, and God's righteousness will rule the world.  Now, all of that will be in a total sense fulfilled the worldwide, physically, really, literally; but now is being fulfilled within us who are part of the Kingdom, spiritually.  Do you see?  So, in a sense, we are experiencing all the spiritual benefits of the Kingdom while we yet wait for the physical fulfillment of all that the Kingdom is. 

     Another question that comes in...in relationship to something that's happening in our current church scene today is explain why we have Messianic Jewish temples.  What is the need for them?  Are you familiar with this?  Recently, there has been a...a...a surge of Messianic Jewish temples.  Now, what this means is this.  We all know that we are currently in the midst of what you might call an ethnic minority movement in our country; and I would be the first one to agree that many of the minorities in our country have suffered deeply from injustice.  I do not deny that.  Sometimes they have suffered because of the consequences of their own perpetuated society.  Other times they have suffered consequences as a result of oppression.

     But it's true.  When the...when the Black Power movement and all of those movements began, and there was great liberation, much of it deserved among the blacks in the south; and when that all occurred, there...there was a natural tail to come along; and there became sort of a new identity if you were an ethnic.  You...you, you know, before, everybody was an American, and everybody was waving the American flag, historically.  You ever seen any newsreels of World War II, it's incredible.  The victory after World War II.  Everybody's Americans.  You know, the melting pot; and now, all of a sudden, because of the drive of the ethnic movement, and because of the tremendous population growth and the mass, faceless humanity, everybody wants to be something.  So now we've got movements among the brown people.  We've got this over here, kind of a movement among these types of people.  We've got...it's...you gotta be something.  You can't just be you, who's an American.  You've gotta be a...an Irish-American, a Polish-American, a...a gay American, a something...

     You can't just be one of the faceless crowd.  You have to be a minority, because that's the new identity; and I think, in this, all of sudden, there is this Jewishness concept.  Listen, if there ever is a minority that has existed as a pure minority throughout history, it's the Jewish people; and they have waved the banner for years, because God has wanted them to maintain their dignity and their...their unity and their purity as a race.  But what's happened is, I think that many well-meaning Christian people, evangelical people, are catering more to a sociological minority movement than they are to the Word of God.  Because the Bible would never tolerate a Jewish church and a Gentile church.  That is the one thing that the Apostle Paul spent the last months of his ministry trying to resolve, trying to get those two together; and when he wrote Ephesians, he said, "The middle wall is...what?...broken down and they two have become one new man."  And my own belief is that it is ludicrous to have a Messianic Jewish temple, as much as it would be to have announced out here that this is the Grace Community Gentile church.  Now, how do you think that would sit with Jewish people?  They would say one thing.  They're anti-Semitic.  See?  There's no reason for that.

     Dr. Feinberg said to me one day, he says, "I don't know why everybody thinks because we're Jewish Christians, we're something special.  We're not."  Something special to God.  Something marvelous to be Jewish, but not something for which you deserve an entire church all to yourselves.  And now they have Christian bar mitzvahs.  What is a Christian bar mitzvah?...You know, there were some people who filled out applications to go to Talbot Seminary, and they applied because they wanted to become Christian rabbis.  Dr. Feinberg said to me, "What is a Christian rabbi?"  They're out of their mind.  They think a church wants a Christian rabbi?  They think a synagogue wants a Christian rabbi?  No, neither want either.

     So you know what they do?  They start their own Messianic temple.  Some of these dear people really mean well; and I...I pray God that they'll win people to Christ; but that isn't what it's all about.  That's, in a sense, Judaizing.  I don't see any need for that at all.  I praise God for the Jewish people in our...in our church.  All you have to do is read Acts chapter 13, and you read about the five pastors there.  Some of 'em were Jews.  Some of 'em were Gentiles.  Some of 'em were white.  Some of 'em were black.  Read it, Acts 13.  They all pastor the same church.  We don't have the Grace Community Irish-American Church.  Don't see the point. 

     Another question.  What is the abomination of desolation in the holy place, and how will it affect us or will it?  What is the abomination of desolation?  For that answer, we have to turn to Daniel chapter 9.  Daniel chapter 9.  This question is often asked when I have conferences.  People ask about prophecy.  Now, those are really the questions that usually dominate a question and answer time.  I was pleased to see that they weren't dominating in your questions, not that they're...they shouldn't be asked, but that you should be preoccupied with other things than the future, namely, the present. 

     But in Daniel 9:24, it talks about the seventy weeks of Daniel.  That's the period of history determined upon Israel, and you remember there's gonna be a period of Israel's history.  Messiah's going to come...talks about the destruction of Jerusalem.  Then in verse 27, it talks about the Tribulation...The antichrist is going to come.  The prince that shall come, "And confirm the covenant with many for one week."  One of the things that antichrist will do in the end time is make a pact with Israel for one seven-year period.  One week means seven years.  There will be a period of seven years that we call the Tribulation.  At the beginning of that period, the antichrist will make a treaty with Israel to protect Israel.  "However, in the midst of the week...in the middle of that time, three-and-a-half years...he will cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease."  In other words, he...he will allow them the freedom to worship in their temple. 

     This is one of the reasons we believe Israel's gonna rebuild the temple, because they'll be worshipping during the Tribulation.  They will be worshipping in the temple in the middle of the week.  Antichrist swoops down, stops the sacrifices.  Stops the oblation, "For the overspreading of abominations he makes it desolate."  He comes in and just abominates or blasphemes, in their mind, the sacredness of that place.  He wipes out their worship...in the middle of the week.  That is the abomination of desolations.

     Now, this had a very apt figure in history.  In a sense, it was almost fulfilled in a preliminary manner with Antiochus Epiphanes, who, during the period of the Maccabees, between the ending of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament, the period of 400 years, when the Jews were under the yoke of Greece.  The Greeks had set up a man in there by the name of Antiochus to rule them, to rule the Jews.  Well, he was bad.  I mean he was terrible.  He was a madman.  That's what the people called him, Epimanes, the madman; and, in order to show his hatred for Israel, he went in there and slew a pig on the altar in the temple; and then he took the pork and crammed it down the mouths of the priests.  Well, of course, the result of that was a unbelievable revolution; and the Maccabean revolt occurred as a result of that desecration.  In a sense, that is what the prince that shall come is going to do in the middle of the week.  Somehow, he will abominate and desecrate the worship of Israel in the midst of the Tribulation.  Now, when that happens, that will be the trigger that'll blow the whole rest of the three-and-a-half year Tribulation.  That's when it stops being Tribulation and turns into Great Tribulation. 

     For that understanding, turn to Matthew 24.  They'll be getting along great.  They'll have this pact.  In fact, you know how the first...the first of the seven seals in Revelation 6 says, "There will be peace in the world"?  A false peace.  There it is.  Three-and-a-half years of the Tribulation, false peace, then this antichrist swoops down, abominates their worship.  And when that happens, that's the beginning of the really bad time.  Verse 15 of Matthew 24.  This is written to the Jews.  "And when you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, when you see it stand in the holy place, when you see it happening right there in the holy place, then let them who are in Judea flee into the mountains...Get outta there...Let him that is on the housetop don't even come down to take anything out of his house; neither let the one who is in the field return back to take his clothes.  Woe unto those who are with child...pregnant ladies...and those who are nursing their children.  Pray that your flight won't be in the winter, neither on the Sabbath.  For then shall be...what?...great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.  And except those days would be shortened...the three-and-a-half years, as it is...there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake, they will be shortened." 

     So when that happens, that is the trigger that fires off the Great Tribulation.  How will it affect us?  It will not affect us at all.  Why?  We, who are belonging to Jesus Christ, I believe, will be Raptured before the Tribulation begins.  We won't even be around.  That is part of God's dealing with Israel.  God dealt with them in the first 69 weeks.  God will be dealing with them in the 70th week of Daniel, the Tribulation.  Many nations are mentioned in the prophecies of the end times.  Is there any indication of what will happen to America?  No, there is no indication in prophecy whatever that I can see regarding America.  That's simply answered. 

     All right, another question out of the Old Testament.  What is the significance of the unleavened bread at Passover?  Well, I can answer that quickly.  In Exodus 12:15, when God said, "Get out of Egypt, 'cause I'm gonna take you out.  You can leave now."  He said, "I want you to have a feast, and I want the bread to be unleavened."  Now, I'm not a baker, but I know a little bit about unleavened bread.  That's about all.  Wouldn't wanna try to make any, but I can describe it a little bit. 

     Bread is made out of dough; and, of course, when you make a batch of dough, if you were to take out a piece of the dough, you don't bake the dough, you just keep one little piece.  It sours.  The next time you make bread, you put that sourdough in it.  That acts as a leaven on the bread.  It causes it to rise; and we eat leavened bread.  Leavened bread is bread, and unleavened bread is crackers.  That's about as close a parallel as you're gonna get...It's flat. 

     Now, in those days, Israel normally, at least according to Hosea, I think it's chapter 7 verse 4, they normally ate leavened bread.  They ate bread that was rising.  There was nothing wrong with that; but unleavened bread was enjoined upon them because they were in a hurry.  God was saying, "Make the bread of haste, because you've gotta get out of here.  Don't take the time to let your bread rise.  Bake it, cook it, eat it, you're gonna leave."  And that was what was done at Passover, and so, in the memorial to the Passover in Egypt, when they made their bread in haste and got outta there, in memorial to that, God said, "Whenever you celebrate the Passover, celebrate it with unleavened bread as a memory that you left Egypt in a hurry, and you didn't have time for your bread to rise."...

     You say, "Well, is that why had the feast of unleavened bread?"  Yes, from the month Abeeb, from the 14th of Abeeb to the 21st, seven days of unleavened bread, celebrating that.  Somebody always says, "Well, doesn't leaven mean sin?  Isn't it a type of sin?"  Not really.  If you wanna know really what leaven is, it is a symbol of power.  It is a symbol of permeating power.  Leaven can be used good, as it is Matthew chapter 13 and Luke 13, to speak of the influence of the Kingdom of God leavening the world.  There it is used good.  Leaven can be bad, as it is in Matthew 16, 1 Corinthians 5, Galatians 5, where it speaks of evil permeating.  It's simply a permeating power; but unleavened bread, used in the Passover, was used in order for them to remember they had to leave in haste.

     All right, another question.  Is there a blessing if we adhere to Old Testament dietary and medical laws, or were they only for Israel?  Now that's a much-asked question.  First of all, that which was given to Israel in the Old Testament was for Israel, so they definitely were for Israel.  Some of the things given to Israel were definitely medically beneficial.  There were certain things that they were to do in terms of preparation of food, living in the age in which they lived, in the society in which they lived.  Those things became medically very, very beneficial.  There's an excellent paperback book called None of These Diseases, a little paperback by Dr. S.I. McMillen.  Some of you may have read it.  It's very helpful in telling you why God gave Israel many of their laws regarding communicable diseases and dietary laws and what they could eat and so forth and so on.

     Now, some of those laws had that kind of medical significance.  Other...others of them were purely to isolate Israel from other nations.  God wanted them to dress funny, maintain a funny diet, and a strange calendar in order that it would be very difficult for them to mingle with other nations, because God wanted a separated people, didn't He?  God wanted Israel as a light to the rest of the world, and He wanted to be sure they couldn't mingle, so He gave them very, very difficult things.  Setting them apart.  The process of cooking, the process of...of eating, the...the kinds of feasts and the kinds of things they had to eat seasonally, and that's, of course, where we get what today is called kosher food; and the Orthodox Jew still will only eat that which is kosher, that which is accommodating the Old Testament. 

     But, when you come to the New Testament age, those things that were dietary laws designed to separate Israel from other peoples are abolished because, in the church, the Lord wants to make of the Gentile and the Jew what?  One; and so those dietary laws are abolished.  They are no longer binding.  Some of them might be medically practical today.  Others of them aren't, because we have a purer type food in our country.  I imagine if you were living in a pagan country, if you travel at all, you're very careful what you eat.  And when we were in Egypt, we avoided those camel burgers and all that, and only Lenny ate goat steak; and paid for it all the way to Rome, I understand. 

     There are certain things that you avoid in a cultural setting that would be medically beneficial to your health, healthy for you.  But in terms of any proscribed thing, you have to understand that, as of the making of the church, Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4 and said this, "In the last days, some will come forbidding marriage and abstaining from foods...but Paul said...I'm telling you all things are to be received with thanksgiving.  No longer are we under the dietary laws of Israel."  Now this was in Acts 10.  If you'll turn to it for a minute, I'll show you what happened. 

     Now, Peter had a vision up there on the roof, Joppa, he was sleeping there getting a suntan, and he started out praying, but fell asleep.  Not uncommon, and he fell into a trance.  The Lord spoke to him, and he saw this sheet come down from Heaven, and on this sheet in verse 11 it says, "There was s great sheet, and on it...verse 12 says...four-footed beasts of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air."  Well, here were a whole lotta things that Jews weren't allowed to eat.  Here he sees all these things coming down outta Heaven that he's not allowed to eat, and a voice says to him, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat."  Oh-ho, that's tough.  In his vision, Peter hears this.  "And Peter says, 'Not so, Lord, no way, I have never eaten anything common or unclean.  I can't eat those things.  Jewish law forbids.'  The voice spoke unto him a second time, 'What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common.'"  Three times, He had to do it to get the message across. 

     What Peter was really doing was being prepared to witness to Cornelius, who was a Gentile.  The Lord was saying to him, "No longer are you separate from the Gentiles.  Everything's clean.  The Gentiles are accepted into our economy.  No longer any dietary laws.  You can move right over there, and you can witness to Cornelius."  Now, man, this was not easy for a Jew.  Oh, this was really tough.  Do you realize that a strict Jew would have absolutely nothing to do with a Gentile?  He would never go into his house.  He would never be a guest in his house.  In fact, the...the Rabbinic law said, "The dwelling place of a Gentile is unclean."  Ceremonial unclean, you contact the defilement when you enter it. 

     I jotted down some interesting things about that.  The very dust of a Gentile country was unclean, and it defiled when you got it on your feet.  Have you ever heard of shaking the dust off your feet?  When an Israelite came back into Israel, he always shook the dust off of his feet, because he didn't wanna bring Gentile dirt back into Israel.  And it was like the grave.  It was like the essence of death.  If any Jew came back and mingled Gentile dirt with Jewish dirt, he would defile everything that that dirt touched.  I'll tell you an interesting thing that I learned in Jerusalem.  Do you know that every single building that is built is Jerusalem must be built with all materials from Israel?  Nothing is allowed to be imported for construction in Israel. 

     This is what our Lord was saying.  They went so far that milk that was drawn from a cow by Gentile hands couldn't be consumed by a Jew.  Bread and oil made by a Gentile couldn't be eaten by a Jew.  No Jew would have dinner or any meal with a Gentile.  If a Gentile happened to be invited to a Jewish house, he could never be left alone in the room, or every single thing in that room would be defiled.  There had to be a Jew in there all the time with him.  If they bought cooking utensils at the market, and a Gentile happened to sell them, they had to be purified by fire.  If a weaving shuttle was made of wood grown in a Gentile country or a grove devoted to Gentile idols, every piece of cloth made on it was to be burned...

     Now, folks, that's pretty strict stuff.  Now, the Lord says to Peter, "Go on over to that Gentile Cornelius and straighten him out and eat anything you want."  Peter goes, "Ohhhhh, see, I can't handle that, Lord."  But what the Lord was saying was, "No longer am I separating you from Gentiles.  I'm gonna make of both of you one new man," Ephesians tells us, one church.  No, I don't believe that the dietary laws of Israel are any longer binding on the church.  Not at all.  In fact, I think God has made of us one, and in that oneness...those things have been erased; and I praise God, you know, for the beautiful unity of the church.  That there are not any...separating things, but that everything is unified in Christ. 

     What is our relation to the food laws of the Old Testament?  What is Christian liberty with regard to food?  Now this has become, apparently, in recent days, a very interesting topic of conversation.  There has been a tape circulating around, and I've listened to it, and some of you may have listened to it, where this gentleman bouncing off of a book that has recently been published about Old Testament dietary laws being the key to one aspect of the Christian life; and so folks are asking, "What is our relation to the food laws of the Old Testament?" 

     The answer to that comes in the New Testament, because that's what we relate to.  The Old Testament has very sophisticated rules for Israel.  But let's look, first of all, at 1 Timothy chapter 4...1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 1.  "Now the Spirit speaks expressly or pointedly, directly, that in the last times...and I believe this is the end of the church age.  Paul is writing to Timothy in reference to the church...some shall depart from the faith, apostasy, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils."  There will be a decay in theology.  There will be a waning of...of orthodoxy, and we're seeing that today.  "Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having conscience seared with a hot iron."  In other words, there will be lying teachers, and there will be people whose conscience has been so often scarred that it's become scar tissue, and they don't sense the truth any longer. 

     And some of the things that they're going to teach, these false teachers, these doctrines of demons are these.  "Forbidding to marry."  And that has a lot of ramifications.  That marriage is wrong or that marriage is, in our day, unnecessary.  You can just live together, whatever.  "And commanding to abstain from foods, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by them who believe and know the truth."  Now, some people are going to come in the last times saying that you shouldn't eat certain things...But verse 4 I think answers the question.  "For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if i