Christianity Clarified Volume 46

[0:00] What is Christianity really all about? Here, in an ongoing effort to try and dispel some of the confusion, is Marv Wiseman, with another session of Christianity Clarified.

[0:15] Having established the divine necessity of the Jew to the outworking of the plan and program of God, legitimate questions emerge from that declaration. Recounting them from our previous Volume 45 of Christianity Clarified, number one was, why is the Jew deemed necessary?

[0:35] The Jew is necessary to God's fulfilling His plan because, by promise, God locked Himself in to making the Jewish people essential. This God did simply because He chose to do so, not out of any necessity in Himself, but because it was His good pleasure to do so.

[0:51] The promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their seed are linked to the integrity of God Himself because He chose to link it.

[1:03] God's faithfulness, in accord to what He promised Israel, is not dependent upon Israel's faithfulness, but upon God's who gave the promise. References to this are found throughout Scripture, and they begin with Genesis chapters 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 22, 26, 28, 32.

[1:25] Add to these references, in the remainder of the Old Testament, particularly among the major and minor prophets, and then, entering the New Testament, Mary the mother of Jesus in Luke chapter 1, refers to God remembering the promises He made to Abraham and His seed forever.

[1:42] Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, echoes the same in following verses, that God is remembering His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham 2,000 years earlier.

[1:57] More details are provided, as regards God making Himself obligated to Israel, are found in Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11 that are undeniable.

[2:07] Question. If the blessings and benefits promised to Israel were valid, why then were they not cooperative with God in those promises?

[2:18] And the answer is, Israel unknowingly sabotaged the promises God made them, working against their own best interests. In rejecting God's Messiah in fulfillment of His promise, namely Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish nation remains temporarily set aside under divine discipline.

[2:40] Romans 11 tells us that blindness, that a moral and spiritual blindness, has happened to Israel in part until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

[2:52] And the times of the Gentiles are now being fulfilled day by day, and they began with the destruction of Jerusalem and Jewish temple worship in 70 A.D. by the Roman army.

[3:03] It is Gentiles who remain dominant on this world scene to the present, and will be dominant until Christ, Israel's Messiah, disposes of the Antichrist in Revelation chapter 19.

[3:17] Then all Israel will embrace Jesus as their Messiah and will be saved. Yet, at that future time, all Israel will consist only of a small remnant with the greater population of Jews having been destroyed by the Antichrist during the great tribulation of Daniel's 70th week.

[3:35] The remnant of Israel will then enter the kingdom as believers in fulfillment of God's promises. Origins of Faulty Assumptions Part 1 It has been noted and illustrated how that a misinterpretation of a scripture passage may result in an erroneous doctrinal conclusion being made.

[3:57] And that conclusion can easily become doctrine that becomes a part of a denomination's statement of faith, causing that group to separate itself from others that do not share it.

[4:08] And this is precisely how so many different denominations came to be. And bear in mind, these differences were only 500 years ago or less in the making.

[4:19] Prior to about 1500, denominations as such did not even exist. But it is not only misinterpretation of scripture that caused faulty assumptions to be made.

[4:31] Another dynamic has been at work as well, especially in the case of the Jewish people. And that dynamic reaches back to the early centuries after Christ and continues to this very day.

[4:43] It is the reality of the persecution of the Jewish people. The Jew has two different and powerful reasons for arriving at their faulty assumptions. Reason number one is that the Jewish people have misinterpreted their own scriptures consisting of the law, the prophets, and the writings, or what we call the Old Testament.

[5:04] And their failure to see their Messiah clearly predicted there, and their failure to see how Jesus of Nazareth so undeniably fulfilled what their own scriptures revealed, surely led to their making the faulty assumption that Jesus was not the one spoken of and promised by Moses and the prophets.

[5:25] But He was. The second reason for arriving at their faulty assumption that Jesus was not the Messiah is connected to the brutal and irrational persecution inflicted upon them from the 3rd or 4th century forward to the present time.

[5:40] Anti-Semitism is rooted in ignorance, arrogance, hatred, and irrationality. And for anyone who grasps the grand overall revelation of the Bible found in both Testaments, anti-Semitism simply cannot be justified.

[5:57] Yet, it and the persecution that comes with it, predictably, causes the Jew to make and defend his faulty assumption about Jesus not being the Messiah.

[6:08] They understandably believe that Christians who accept Jesus as Messiah and Lord, it is they, the Christians, who are making the faulty assumptions, not the Jew.

[6:20] And why would Jews on the receiving end of persecution think that? Well, they logically concluded that if these people calling themselves Christians were truly servants of God, there would be no way that they could inflict the pain and suffering that they pour out on the Jews in the name of God.

[6:39] That brutal treatment of others cannot have a loving God behind it. And they are right. Christians persecuting Jews in the name of God understandably cause Jews to make that faulty assumption that Jesus is not the Messiah sent from God.

[6:59] And while we do not agree with their assumption, we can surely see how they made it. More ahead. Origins of Faulty Assumptions Part 2 In all, there are four different factors that surface which have caused the Jewish people to reach the faulty assumption that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah of Israel sent by God himself.

[7:25] And three of these four factors are as true of Gentiles as they are the Jew. It is only the factor of persecution that belongs wholly to the Jews, which they have suffered for the past 17 or 18 centuries.

[7:40] And since three of these four are as applicable to Gentiles as to Jews, let's get them on the table for examination. Factor number one. All of humanity is mentally impaired.

[7:51] This is a sad reality and consequence of the original fall realized by our first parents. In Adam and Eve's disobedience of God, they entered a new sphere of being that God did not create in them.

[8:06] It is the state of moral and spiritual fallenness. Not only did they take unto themselves the consequences of spiritual and physical death, but their fallenness was a thorough fallenness extending to their mental capacity as well.

[8:20] The original intellect with which God created Adam and Eve also fell right along with the rest of their physical bodies. This means all their progeny, from Adam onward, sadly including us all as well, reason, think, conjure, devise, cogitate, meditate, extrapolate, all with a fallen and skewed intellect.

[8:42] Mankind in toto thinks with a warped mind. Our perception and perspective are often wrong. We do not possess the reasoning powers that allow us to correctly assess data and reach right conclusions.

[8:57] Hence, we all, all too often, reach wrong conclusions that invariably are acted out then in wrong actions. In a nutshell, this is what is wrong with the human race.

[9:10] It is our most major flaw. It has been powerfully and consistently applied since Genesis 3. Thankfully, this is a flaw, a snag, an impediment in our mental processes, and is not across the board mentally.

[9:26] We could have no accurate assessments, conclusions, or actions at all. For then, the entirety of humanity would be one uncaged mass of mental incompetence.

[9:37] So, God be thanked that most of us have most of our wits about us, most of the time, that is. Seriously, it is the fact of the warping of the human intellect that allowed the likes of Adolf Hitler to embrace the Nietzschean nightmare of the Aryan or Nordic super-race that made all other humans inferior to them, particularly the Jew, who thus deserve nothing more than extinction for having contaminated the human race.

[10:07] It is this skewed thinking that gives rise to much of the crime that abounds, the snuffing out of the lives of pre-born babies under the guise of women's health care, the suicides that are becoming more common year by year, the inane concept of same-sex marrying, gender redefining, enabling one to abandon the gender with which they were born.

[10:28] All these and many more contribute mightily to a morally and socially dysfunctional culture. Pretty it isn't, but real it is. More insight just ahead.

[10:40] Jewish Faulty Assumptions Part 1 Already revealed, but here reinforced, are the faulty assumptions made by Jews through the past 3,000 years that positioned them to reject Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah.

[10:57] As also already revealed, Gentiles are as susceptible to making faulty assumptions as are the Jews. Chiefest of the latter has been their erroneous interpretation of their own Old Testament scriptures.

[11:11] Numerous of their prophets revealed detailed information as to what God's Messiah would look like when God sent him. And he looked just like Jesus of Nazareth.

[11:23] This son of David, birthed by the teenage Jewish maiden called Mary, stirred more controversy among the Jews than any other person ever did.

[11:34] Only one question begged an answer. Was he or was he not the promised one that should come? The commoners in Israel's population heard him gladly, were mesmerized by his teaching and his healings.

[11:48] Even Nicodemus, a well-respected, positioned Pharisee, interviewed Jesus in John chapter 3. His conclusion was that no man could do the miracles that Jesus did unless God was with him.

[12:02] But no abundance of miracles Jesus would do could suffice for the skepticism and negativity of the ruling class, including the high priest and his underlings. In the fifth chapter of John, Jesus told the Jews to search the scriptures, for these are they which testify of me.

[12:22] But, said Jesus, you are not willing to come to me that you might have life. The impediment for the Jews that did not believe was surely not due to a lack of evidence, but a lack of will.

[12:36] When he told them to search the scriptures, he was no doubt referring only to the Old Testament or Tanakh, which the Jews possessed, comprising the law, the prophets, and the writings.

[12:47] Jesus did this himself, when in Luke 24, after his resurrection, he interacted with the two disciples on the Emmaus Road. Here we are told that, beginning with Moses and the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

[13:04] He chided them, saying, O foolish ones and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. To be sure, an inadequate review of the scriptures will surely result in inadequate results.

[13:19] The leadership, the Jewish establishment, clearly saw Jesus as a threat. A threat to their personal peace and position, enjoyed from their collusion with the Romans, who occupied their land.

[13:32] It was assuredly their warped and skewed thinking that allowed them to conclude Jesus was not the Messiah and was not sent from God.

[13:44] And it is this same flawed mentality that allows Gentiles as well as Jews to reach the same erroneous conclusion. Never forget, faulty assumptions produce wrong conclusions, which then produce wrong decisions and wrong actions.

[14:04] Jewish faulty assumptions, part 2. Of the four factors that cause us to come to wrong conclusions about an issue, the Jews who confronted Jesus as to his identity had fallen prey to all four of them.

[14:19] Actually, they are interrelated. First, there is the reality of the fallen intellect that does not always serve us well. It is systemic to the Gentile as well as to the Jew.

[14:30] And then there is the second. It stems from a misinterpretation of scripture based on faulty assumptions. No doubt arrogance on the part of the hierarchy had to have been involved as well.

[14:43] The arrogance of the Jewish establishment led them to believe that if Jesus of Nazareth really were the Messiah, they most assuredly would have recognized and welcomed him.

[14:53] But they did not. Was not that in and of itself proof positive that he could not have been the Messiah? And that they were right all along for opposing him?

[15:05] But the sad and bitter truth was, he was, and is, and will be who he claimed to be. The third factor allowing later Jews, and even those today, to arrive at a wrong conclusion was and is the reality of persecution.

[15:22] Jews have every reason to believe that people who truly represent God would not engage in coercion, threats, and persecution of those who did not share in their belief.

[15:34] And the fact that this was being done by those who claimed to represent God and his son Jesus was a major obstacle for Jews. They had every reason to reject the message that came from those who persecuted them.

[15:47] Still, they made a faulty assumption by doing so. They assumed the identity of those persecuting them were Christians. Well, weren't they?

[15:58] No doubt, some of them were. And for those, they too were acting based on faulty assumptions. You do see, do you not, how pervasive this faulty assumption thing is?

[16:11] The Jews assumed that those called Christian who were persecuting them were accurate representatives of the Jesus they said they represented.

[16:22] Well, weren't they? Absolutely not. One cannot judge the values of a king by the behavior of his subjects. Christ has had and still has many who espouse his name while behaving in a manner completely contrary to him.

[16:39] Such was and is the sad truth of some who wear the name Christian. So, Jews made a faulty assumption by assuming badly behaving Christians represented the position of their master.

[16:53] But they did not. And then those doing the miserable representing also made faulty assumptions as well in assuming they were doing the bidding of their master with his approval by persecuting the Jews.

[17:08] And they were not. Can we not see how entangled and intertwined this thing called faulty assumptions really is?

[17:18] Well, we should. Because it's why the world is the way it is. And we need to understand it. More ahead. Jewish Faulty Assumptions Part 3 Our last session dealt with the first of four reasons why Jewish people do not see and receive Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and their Messiah.

[17:41] Firstly, it is due to their fallen and warped intellect that prevents people from seeing and understanding things as they really are. The entire human race is saddled with this skewed intellect, not merely Jews, but all Gentiles as well.

[17:58] It is systemic to humanity. The second reason for their rejection of Jesus is due to misinterpreting their own scriptures, wherein their Messiah is clearly depicted. As recorded in Luke 24, which we understand the Jews do not accept because it is in the New Testament, nonetheless, Jesus revealed to the disciples on the Emmaus Road that he was referred to in numerous passages from their Hebrew Bible, which at the time was all the scripture that existed.

[18:28] Jesus referred them to Isaiah chapter 53, in which Isaiah prophesied, He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.

[18:40] The fulfillment of this prophecy, given by Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, was fulfilled in Matthew 8.16. And when evening had come, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed, and he cast out the spirits with the word and healed all that were ill.

[19:00] In Malachi 3.1, the Jewish prophet predicted, Behold, I will send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.

[19:11] This was none other than God the Father speaking through Isaiah regarding John the Baptist, who was to prepare the way for the arrival of God's own Son, Jesus.

[19:21] And that, of course, was precisely what John the Baptist did when he introduced Jesus to Israel at his baptism. The Jewish prophet Zechariah predicted in chapter 9, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, even upon a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

[19:44] Such is precisely how Jesus presented himself to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in Matthew 21, just days before his crucifixion.

[19:55] The Jewish psalmist in Psalm 118 prophesied of the Messiah that when he came, he would be the stone which the builders rejected. This became the chief cornerstone.

[20:08] This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Again, Matthew records the fulfillment of that prophecy in chapter 21. For anyone with a modicum of objectivity, these passages need to be reckoned with.

[20:24] Are they all an elaborate hoax? Or perhaps an incalculable coincidence? What are the mathematical odds of Jesus of Nazareth fulfilling these ancient prophecies in precise detail?

[20:36] Well, they have been calculated, and the number required to satisfy the probability of coincidence is staggering. Hold on! An attempt will be made to pronounce that number, and it's up next.

[20:50] Jewish Faulty Assumptions Part 4 The previous session of Christianity Clarified mentioned the likelihood of Jesus of Nazareth fulfilling the prophecies given of the Messiah by several of Israel's prophets, and doing so merely coincidentally.

[21:09] It was asked, What would be the odds, the mathematical probability of that being the case? That number, reflecting the possibility of Jesus having done so merely by coincidence, had been calculated by Peter Stoner, and is quoted in the book Evidence That Demands a Verdict, authored by Josh McDowell.

[21:31] Crunching the numbers, here is Dr. Stoner's calculation. The mathematical probability that just eight of the sixty prophecies given in the Old Testament about the coming Messiah being fulfilled by mere coincidence would be one chance in ten to the seventeenth power.

[21:51] That is one in ten with seventeen zeros after it. All sixty being fulfilled by coincidence equals an equally unpronounceable number.

[22:04] What can possibly be said to refute or deny those numbers? One can understand the rejection of Jesus as Messiah on honest intellectual grounds if the evidence were not so overwhelming.

[22:18] But it is, and has yet to be refuted by any reputable scholar. That leaves only willfulness as the reason for rejection.

[22:29] Many, not only Jews, but Gentiles as well, refuse to believe because they choose not to believe, regardless of the evidence. In fact, some have actually been heard to say, regarding Jesus of Nazareth and his claims, that's not true, and I don't believe it, because it is completely contrary to what I have always believed.

[22:51] Well, isn't that amazing? So much for intellectual honesty and objectivity. We do all tend to be creatures who become quite set in our ways, don't we?

[23:04] Remember the question posed on an earlier edition of Christianity Clarified? The question was, if what you now believe is not true, would you want to know it? How could anyone with any intellectual honesty possibly say no?

[23:18] No, no, I wish to go on believing as I do, even if it isn't true. Wow! Could anyone honestly be that opposed to their own self-interest? Alas, some have so spoken.

[23:31] One recalls a statement found in Scripture, He who would be ignorant, let him be ignorant still. And repeatedly, Jesus was heard to say, He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.

[23:45] That's another way of saying, anyone who has an ear and a mind for what is true, listen up. So, for your ongoing consideration, there is another Old Testament prophet, David the King, who prophesied a thousand years before Jesus was born, and it is so mysterious and downright puzzling, especially to Jewish scholars who have wrestled with it for centuries.

[24:08] It's found in Psalm 110. Look it up, and we'll take it next. Psalm 110, upcoming. Jewish Faulty Assumptions, Part 5 That mystifying passage mentioned on the previous segment of Christianity Clarified is referenced by Jesus in Matthew chapter 22 when He was confronted by the Pharisees.

[24:32] While we do not expect our Jewish audience to give credence to Matthew's gospel in the New Testament, because they do not believe it to be a part of God's word, nonetheless, they surely cannot dismiss the passage from which Jesus was quoting, which Jews do believe is part of Scripture.

[24:50] Psalm 110, generally thought by Jewish and Christian scholars alike to have been written by David the King of Israel, who also authored many other psalms.

[25:01] And here is how it reads, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Well, what in the world is that all about?

[25:13] Sounds like double talk, does it not? The Lord said to my Lord? Is He talking to Himself? Hardly. While appearing nonsensical on the surface, and so it must have seemed to the Jews whom Jesus confronted concerning it, it made perfect sense when Jesus is accorded His rightful position as Messiah and the Son of the living God who was sent by God.

[25:37] It is God the Father speaking prophetically to Jesus His Son, also recognized as Deity, a member of the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[25:49] Jesus asked the Pharisees the question, What do you think about the Messiah? When the Messiah comes, whose son will He be? They answered, The Son of David.

[26:02] Meaning they understood that when the Messiah came, He would be a direct descendant of David the king, who at the time of Jesus had already been gone from the scene for a thousand years.

[26:13] When they correctly answered the Messiah would be a descendant of David, then Jesus asked, Then how does David say, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool?

[26:28] If David calls this one, this Messiah who was to come, Lord, then how is He His Son? The Matthew text tells us, No one was able to answer Him a word.

[26:43] The Jews still have no coherent answer to that. The simple answer is, and it is simple, once Jesus of Nazareth is recognized for who He claimed to be, is that even though David had lived and died a thousand years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, yet Jesus, the Son of God, predated David the king and reached back into eternity.

[27:05] As Messiah, Jesus was and is David's Lord in His deity. In His humanity, He became flesh when conceived in the womb of Mary. Jesus, the Messiah, was both King David's son, reflected in the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, and David's Lord as well.

[27:25] Thus, the puzzle is solved, but only by recognizing Jesus to be who He said He was. Jewish Faulty Assumptions, Part 6 All of us are very susceptible to making the faulty assumption.

[27:45] And when making a faulty assumption regarding the interpretation of a given passage of Scripture, a doctrine becomes part of one's statement of faith that often follows.

[27:56] This is the greatest reason so many denominations, splits and splinters, exist, including those Protestant groups that came out of Roman Catholicism, and the numerous Protestant groupings that came out of the Protestant Reformation, and later the Anglican or Church of England.

[28:15] Actually, it was the Jewish people who led the way in making faulty assumptions that were based upon a misinterpretation of their own Old Testament Scriptures.

[28:26] Already noted was the fact that the Jewish people, just like us Gentiles, all reasoned with a skewed logic and an impaired intellectuality.

[28:37] No one in the human race has escaped this reality. This is what allows men to arrive at the kind of bizarre conclusions that we do. And this greatly aids us all in reaching faulty assumptions and then building upon them.

[28:54] So, our fallen minds, plus our faulty interpretation of Scripture, are related. It is our fallen minds that aid us in reaching faulty assumptions and then consider, at least for the Jew, the persecution factor.

[29:12] This greatly enabled Jewry to reach wrong or faulty assumptions about Christians and the faith of Christians. Little wonder the Jews wanted nothing to do with the Christian faith.

[29:24] After all, those were the very people who persecuted, vilified, and frequently murdered thousands of innocent, often helpless Jews. And this persecution was maximized in the Holocaust of the 1940s.

[29:39] The record of Jewish persecution is sorted and well documented, deserving full exposure and condemnation. This persecution is the third dynamic that makes it very hard for the Jewish people to embrace Christianity.

[29:57] And whether those who persecuted so many Jews for so many years, actually centuries, whether they were truly Christians or not, the persecution was nonetheless usually carried out in the name of Christianity, whether from a Roman Catholic or Protestant source.

[30:14] For certain, such brutal persecution was a major turnoff of Jews and still is to this day. Add to that, even now, some would object that entirely too much time and attention is being given to the Jew.

[30:29] I mean, after all, he makes up such a tiny percentage of humanity. Is it really necessary and wise to be focusing so much on the Jew? After all, they were responsible for the death of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, weren't they?

[30:43] So, here on Christianity Clarified, some would tell us, let's move on here and leave the Jew behind, okay? No. No. It's not okay. And you'll hear Why Not?

[30:55] upcoming. Jewish Faulty Assumptions Part 7 Without apology, and for three good reasons, we are devoting an inordinate amount of time and space to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, also called the Jewish people.

[31:14] In response and in defense of our focusing upon the Jew, there are, as stated, three reasons for doing so. That is, for focusing upon the Jew.

[31:26] Reason number one, God does. Reason number two, the Bible does. Reason number three, Satan does. That triad is sufficient.

[31:36] So, we begin with number one and say, God does. That is, God devotes an inordinate amount of time, care, and interest upon the Jewish people. Their history began with Shem, one of the three sons of Noah, who became the father of the Semites.

[31:53] As early then as Genesis 12, as noted several sessions earlier, God has made a special people out of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through whom he promised all the world would be blessed.

[32:06] So, if you belong to this world, you are one of those blessed because of the Jew, whether you know it or not, or whether you believe it or not. For the believer in Christ, it is always wise to focus on whatever God focuses on.

[32:23] God focuses on the Jewish people. I know, I know. If God cares for the Jewish people so much, where was he when six million of them perished in Hitler's death camps?

[32:35] That's a very good question with equally good answers, and they will come later. And for the Bible, are you aware that every single page of this blessed book had a Jew for the human penman?

[32:47] Many naive Christians think the Jews wrote the Old Testament, but the New was written by Christians. Utter stuff and nonsense. Those human penmen inspired of God to write the New Testament were all Jews, every one of them.

[33:04] It's a misnomer to call them Christians, but much more correct to call them believing Jews, or as some Jews refer to themselves when believing in Jesus as completed Jews.

[33:15] But Jews they are, were, and always shall be. More importantly, Jesus was, is, and always shall be a Jew. And it was he himself in speaking to the woman at the well in John chapter 4 when he said, Salvation is of the Jews.

[33:33] Now, Jesus wasn't bragging. It was just fact. So, be very careful not to disparage, demean, deny, or dismiss the Jew. And, by the way, please be advised, no, I am not Jewish.

[33:49] The name Wiseman was that of my adoptive father. My biological father, I never knew, was a Stevens. So, I'm a garden variety descendant of English, Scotch, Irish parentage, who, being biblically educated, love the Jews more than a lot of Jews love the Jews.

[34:13] But most of all, because God loves the Jews. Over and out, more upcoming. Jews and the Holocaust, Part 1 Despite the fact that there are those who even deny the Holocaust took place during the 1940s, the matter is far too well documented to deny.

[34:39] Only those with an active hatred of the Jewish people could insist that it did not occur. But that it did, in fact, is not worth arguing.

[34:49] The question, then, that looms large is this. If the Jewish people are indeed the historic chosen of God, how, then, can the Holocaust be explained?

[35:01] Explain, if you will. How could a supposedly all-powerful, all-loving God stand by while six million of His chosen people are brutally eliminated simply because they were Jews?

[35:16] Given this set of facts, can you not see how a disproportionate number of Jews today have embraced a full-blown atheism? And why not? Why not indeed?

[35:28] Here we have the historic seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, at the time numbering some 18 million worldwide, and then, upon being made Hitler's scapegoat, one-third of their number brutally murdered in some of the most ghastly ways imaginable.

[35:47] The Jews surviving are then supposed to continue their love and loyalty for the historic God of Israel? Is this the same deity that millennia earlier led them and their forefathers from Egypt to the land of Canaan under Moses and Joshua?

[36:03] Is this the same God who provided the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, gave them manna from heaven and water from the rock to sustain them, the same who provided the cloud by day for their shade and the pillar of fire by night to warm them?

[36:17] Well, what happened to the wonderfully benevolent and miraculous provisions? Many Jews today worldwide have concluded that that earlier God was pure fantasy, and the things recorded in the Bible never really happened.

[36:32] To them, it's just the stuff of mythology, pure and simple. And if perchance that God truly does exist, how can His absence possibly be accounted for in view of the Holocaust?

[36:45] And some Jews have been heard to add to that by saying, And if perchance that God does exist, I want nothing whatever to do with Him.

[36:57] I can only view Him as uncaring, incompetent, and unworthy of worship by anyone, especially the Jews. Can you not see under this set of circumstances how Jewish people easily justify their atheism?

[37:13] And actually, it's the same kind of reasoning that has allowed numbers of non-Jews to reach the same conclusion. The Bible makes it quite clear that it's an erroneous conclusion, but it does rank high on the list of faulty assumptions, and we can easily see how many have erred in doing so, making those faulty assumptions.

[37:33] Well, the explanation is enlightening and manifold, and it will follow. At least, the beginning of it will. Jews and the Holocaust, Part 2 Our previous session concluded with the need to reconcile the existence of a loving, all-powerful, and benevolent God to be reconciled with the Jewish Holocaust of World War II, wherein six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime.

[38:02] A full explanation is beyond our ability to provide, but there are five salient features that surface by way of at least a partial understanding. In now naming the five, we shall then proceed to deal with each separately in upcoming sessions.

[38:19] And of the five, there are four which apply not only to the Jewish people, but to humanity in general. Here are the five in the order we shall consider them.

[38:30] Number one, the existence of volition, angelic and human. Number two, the existence of warped or skewed human reasoning as a result of the fall.

[38:43] Number three, inadequate human perspective, which of course relates as well to number two. Number four, the principle of divine discipline. And number five is satanic activities.

[38:58] Let's consider number one, the angelic and human volition. When God originally created angels and humans, he opted to make them volitional creatures, imputing to them the ability to make moral decisions of right and wrong.

[39:11] God gave them the volitional power to obey or disobey. It was either this or make them as robots programmed to only comply with the creator and not have the capacity to disobey.

[39:26] But God chose the former. He went with volition and bestowed this capacity upon both angels and humans. And both angels and humans exercised their volitions in disobedience to their maker.

[39:40] In doing so, their innocence was forfeited and they became alienated from the God who made them. The angelic first was Lucifer who would become Satan. The name means adversary.

[39:54] Sometime later, this adversary deceived and seduced Adam and Eve to do likewise. Consequently, that which God earlier pronounced very good in Genesis 1.31 could no longer be called that.

[40:05] Now it had become corrupted through man to whom God had given dominion. Whereas prior to their disobedience it was God their creator that had been the center and object of their focus.

[40:16] But that all seemed to change so that now they themselves as individuals became their own center. And this is the origin of human self-centeredness. It has always been and remains rampant throughout humanity.

[40:31] It is, of course, the bedrock of all human conflict and allows mankind to do very brutal and unthinkable things to his fellow humans. Hence, the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust and other like atrocities.

[40:43] Such is the price tag for man having a free will. He uses it, often in a way that injures others while satisfying himself. Pretty, it certainly isn't.

[40:54] But real, it certainly is. This, in large part, explains the Holocaust. But where is God in that? Upcoming. Jews' Volition and Persecution Part 1 It's a multifaceted issue we are now considering.

[41:13] At the outset, the subject related to faulty assumptions of the Jews. And critical to that is the question about reconciling the existence of a loving and powerful God and his seeming lack of involvement by permitting the Jewish Holocaust to take place.

[41:29] Also revealed was the far-reaching consequence of God having endowed angels and humans with the power of volition. That is, granting to them a will, allowing the making of moral choices.

[41:43] History is replete with men and angels having made some very evil, brutal choices, evidence not only in the Holocaust, but in unspeakable other ways humans have brutalized humans.

[41:55] And were God to intervene and prevent those atrocities, it sends the endowment of human volition right out the window. Were God to intervene each time humans are poised to commit some horrible crime upon his own kind, the free will God gave that allows men to do that is negated.

[42:15] Of course, we in our limited perspective often feel that God should intervene and prevent things like the Holocaust from happening. And it seems that through history there have been times when God did appear to intervene in the affairs of men.

[42:30] And with that, most of us would say, not often enough. Still, we have no way of knowing about the times God may have intervened and we were unaware of it or attributed something to coincidence.

[42:44] But honestly now, don't we all think, at least at times, that our perspective and wisdom trumps that of God's? We would prefer to tell the Almighty when and where He should intervene.

[42:56] And that's part of the arrogance that pervades humanity. And when humanity is referenced, it must include the Jewish element of humanity as well.

[43:08] And rather than pronouncing God as non-existent or indifferent if He does exist so as to permit the Holocaust, we must reckon with the unpredictable and free-wielding thing called the human will with which we humans are endowed.

[43:22] That is the culprit behind not only the Holocaust, but every other evil atrocity that men inflict upon their own kind. As was said earlier, pretty it isn't, but real it is.

[43:36] This is the stuff that lurks, at least potentially, if not in actuality, in the fallen human heart that every one of us possesses. And add to that, as if that were not enough, the even more evil fallen nature of the adversary, Satan himself.

[43:52] His evil intentions, coupled with fallen man's evil capabilities, produces incredible mayhem and destruction throughout humanity, from the murder of Abel by his brother Cain to the future atrocities that will accompany the great tribulation period foretold by Christ in Matthew chapter 24.

[44:11] It is remarkable how quick we are to charge God with what he permits rather than charge man with what he commits. Let God be true, and every man a liar, as stated by the inspired Apostle Paul in Romans 3.4.

[44:29] Jews, Volition, and Persecution, Part 2 Thus far, on Christianity Clarified, we have dealt only briefly with the first of four issues that have driven many Jewish people to atheism.

[44:43] One can easily see how Jews can doubt or even deny the existence of a God who supposedly loves them, chosen them, yet allows for their brutal destruction of six billion of their kind.

[44:58] Who wants a God like that? It was explained that this unspeakably ugly atrocity was possible because humans do possess a will or volition.

[45:09] And while this allows us to do many kind and loving things for one another, it also allows us to be brutal and inhumane, such as that of the Holocaust. Secondly, all of humanity is hindered by an intellect that is as fallen as the rest of our bodies.

[45:27] We are all reasoning with the skewed logic that allows us to reach some very irrational, sometimes nonsensical, conclusions. And yes, this intellectual warping includes even the likes of our Einsteins, Da Vinces, Michelangelos, and so on.

[45:46] In using a fallen intellect, Jews and Gentiles alike may arrive at the faulty assumptions that there surely cannot be a God who would permit the atrocity of the Holocaust.

[45:59] But there is, and his doing so is connected to the previous segment that dealt with human volition. The intellectual skewing of our reasoning powers is added to that of the volition issue.

[46:13] Then, a third is the biblical reality very prominent in the Jewish Bible that consists only of what Christians call the Old Testament. And in it, repeated references are found whereby God made good on his threats of discipline for the nation of Israel because they willfully disobeyed him time and again.

[46:34] using that volition of theirs. In fact, one may say such was the repeated theme of all the Jewish prophets, major and minor. Predicting them, Moses sternly warned the Israelites in the last chapters of Deuteronomy that God would drive Israel out of their land and scatter them throughout the world if they continued in their disobedience.

[46:58] Well, they did, and God did. And all the prophets emphasized the same, and all were met with ridicule and rejection. Their tone changed, however, when fulfillment of what Jeremiah predicted came to pass.

[47:14] The heathen monarch, Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian, besieged Jerusalem and leveled it, along with the walls of the city. Then, the surviving Jews were taken captive to Babylon, where they remained until that disobedient faction died off in a captivity of 70 years.

[47:33] Repeatedly, Israel suffered divine judgment as God brought pagan neighbors who subdued them and placed them in servitude. Not that they weren't warned, they were, and repeatedly, and each time their answer was the same.

[47:47] Each time, they turned a deaf ear to the warnings of the prophets God had sent to them. And the last one was Jesus of Nazareth. God's Good Pleasure, Part 1 Admittedly, the past recent segments of Christianity Clarified have dealt with monumental issues.

[48:10] They are, in fact, so monumental and consequential that information should be inserted right here that addresses this overall picture. And the use of the word overall is as encompassing as one can imagine.

[48:25] It is so overall that it gives rise to the philosophical and theological issue of the ages, namely, why is there something rather than nothing?

[48:37] We can't get more overall than that. And before pursuing the answer to that, let's be clear here and now that in the dealing with this issue, the Jew is smack dab right in the very middle of it.

[48:53] As we have said before, the Jew is strategically critical to this larger issue because God has made the Jew critical, and He did so without asking the advice or permission of anyone.

[49:08] Perhaps the clearest and most succinct of all the answers as to why there is something rather than nothing is found in an easy-to-overlook verse in Revelation chapter 4, verse 11. It says, Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they existed and were created.

[49:33] The Old King James Version says, For thy pleasure they are and were created. The motive behind there being something rather than nothing is clear. It is because God was pleased to create.

[49:47] it suited Him to do so. It was in accord with His good pleasure. And no other motive is recorded and no other motive is needed apart from the sovereign God deciding to do so.

[50:01] But that does not satisfy our curiosity. Namely, we want to know why it was God's good pleasure to do so. What made Him decide to create anything or anyone?

[50:14] And to the great disappointment of many mortals, God has not been pleased to satisfy our curiosities, but is intent in revealing only what He wants us to know.

[50:24] And He is exceedingly gracious in doing even that, though some still find fault even with that. Probably topping the list of human questions about creation that most mortals would have is stated something like this.

[50:39] If God is all-wise, knowing, and powerful, surely He knew the misery and human suffering that would result from His having created as He did, why did He do that? Of necessity, He had to know of the carnage and conflict that would result from having made the world that is.

[50:57] In God's defense, one might insist that God did not make the world that is, but the world as it is now. It was man's sin that made it as it is.

[51:08] True. But didn't God know that as well? That is what it would become? Then why did He do it? Next, we shall begin with why many think He did, but He didn't, and it's upcoming.

[51:24] God was never lonely. Many are not satisfied with the reason given earlier by the Bible itself when it states that all things were created by God simply because it pleased Him to do so.

[51:39] What it was that caused Him to be pleased, we are not told. And this has led many mere mortals to humanize God by saying, well, God was lonely and needed the fellowship with created beings.

[51:56] Some even insisted He longed for such and was prompted to create in order to satisfy that longing. There's no question about it. That certainly would humanize the deity.

[52:08] But it is theologically and doctrinally absurd. The triune Godhead, commonly referred to as the Trinity, is comprised of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[52:21] Nothing we humans call fellowship could ever equal that already enjoyed perfectly among these three beings constituting the one God.

[52:32] Further, God is fully self-contained. This means He need not go outside Himself to serve any perceived need He might have. We mortals do this constantly by drawing from outside ourselves the air we breathe, the water we drink, and so on.

[52:51] But not so with the deity. Whatever God may have that we, for lack of a better word, call needs, He fully satisfies within His own person and nature.

[53:02] The Trinity is quite content and in need of nothing and no one. This is akin to what we say about God being a God with no limitations.

[53:16] Such is evidenced in the three major descriptions of the deity commonly called omnipotence or all-powerful, omniscience or all-knowing, and omnipresence, as in everywhere present at one and the same time.

[53:30] These features, commonly called the attributes of God, separate the Creator from the creature. That God decided to create beings, whether angelic or human, simply because He was pleased to do so, remains the only reason given as referenced in Revelation 4.11.

[53:49] Yet, a major question remains on the part of many of us humans. Since God is omniscient, that is, all-knowing, He surely knew the conflict and heartache that would result, knowing full well in advance of the rebellion of Lucifer and the consequent disobedience of Adam and Eve, whom Lucifer or Satan induced to disobey, why then did God go ahead and create either angels or humans?

[54:14] It's a question most of us cannot help but ask. And along with the earlier response that God created because He was pleased to do so, there is one other response that follows hard on the heels of the first about God merely being pleased to create that we saw in Revelation 4.11.

[54:33] This additional response also emanates from heaven and from the same group that gave the earlier answer about God's original motive. And it's coming up in our next segment of Christianity Clarified.

[54:48] Join us, please. Creation and Redemption Meet The question is quite legitimate. Because we are endowed with rational minds and logical thinking ability, even if skewed by the fall, we cannot help but ask the question posed on the preceding segment of Christianity Clarified.

[55:12] How could a good and loving God justify creating angels and humans while knowing the negative and painful consequences that would follow? Conflict with nations at war taking millions of lives, disease, death, and human misery, incalculable, are all a part of what followed creation.

[55:33] Yet, God, obviously aware of all that would be coming, how could He justify setting all those potential negatives in motion when He decided to create?

[55:43] The only answer that provides satisfaction, at least for many, is also found in the last book of the Bible, located in Revelation chapter 5, just after that in chapter 4, that ascribes God's having created all things because He was pleased to do so.

[56:01] Chapter 5 and verse 9 records a song sung by the same 24 elders as in chapter 4 about creation, where we are told they said as regards creation.

[56:14] Yet, in chapter 5, it is recorded that these same 24 elders sang a new song. And the words to their song were to Christ the Lamb of God, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth.

[56:45] It might be noted that in regard to creation in chapter 4, the 24 elders said what they said. But in regard to redemption in chapter 5, they sang a new song about redemption.

[57:00] The difference being between their singing and their saying should not be lost. It appears, at least on the surface, that whereas creation was credited and acknowledged as from God, redemption is credited with an emotion that required singing and mere speaking would not do.

[57:19] For these disclosures, both creation and redemption, to be revealed at the end of the Bible and at the end of the age as we know it, seems to put the two together as a package.

[57:32] God, being omniscient as He is, was not only pleased to create, but knowing full well how that creation would go astray, also provided redemption for the purpose of bringing it back.

[57:44] The prodigal world will be redeemed and returned to its state prior to its ruination. It all gives an enforced meaning to the expression also found in Revelation 13, verse 8, that describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world.

[58:02] Yes, God knew the path the world would take through its fallenness and He already had the plan of redemption well in mind when He created it. Still, some would object that all the ruination is not adequately justified even by redemption.

[58:18] And that will be addressed in our next segment. The Appropriate End of All Creatures The issue at hand concerns whether God was justified in creating angels and humans with a volitional capacity to rebel against Him.

[58:36] The rebellion of both angels and humans resulted in catastrophe. Violence, disease, death for countless numbers has occurred over thousands of years and continue to this present day.

[58:51] Does the fact that God also provided for creation to be restored via His redemptive plan through Christ the Redeemer, does that justify His having created beings who are subject to that?

[59:04] And who is capable of answering that? Surely not fallen man or angels. So who else remains for giving the answer to that but the Creator-Redeemer Himself?

[59:15] The answer is loud and clear in the ninth of Romans, saying, Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

[59:27] Here we are told the potter has complete discretion over the clay. That the clay should have any say-so is unthinkable. Thus, by virtue of creation, the Creator alone has the prerogative to determine what His creation will be and its final disposition.

[59:47] All hinges on the good pleasure of the Creator, not the creatures. The final disposition of all, whether angels or humans, might be described as fitting or appropriate.

[60:02] But again, appropriate according to whose assessment? It cannot be fallen men or angels. And the conclusion then, like it or not, what is deemed appropriate is what the Creator deems appropriate.

[60:18] Such should actually afford us great comfort. The final disposition of all creatures will be precisely what it ought to be. Appropriate, fitting, and appropriate according to the only one who is qualified to determine what appropriate is.

[60:36] Such can only be decided by the omniscient, omnipotent, just, and merciful Creator. And it will all be as it ought to be for every being involved.

[60:47] There will be no complaints and no appeals, nor need there be. Not only will the Almighty have rendered His verdict upon each creature, but each will have received His just desserts that will leave Him with no argument, convinced of the fitness and appropriateness of His disposition.

[61:08] Appropriate for some will be blessedness and joy beyond description in the forgiveness they receive from their Redeemer, who suffered the penalty for their sin in His own body.

[61:19] When they admitted their sin and inability to deal with it, they believed on Jesus Christ as their substitute, receiving His forgiveness and eternal life as a free gift. Those refusing that forgiveness will have an appropriateness of their own, fitting to them.

[61:37] And it will be the opposite of the blessedness and joy of the redeemed. But for them, it will be just as appropriate. So, which will it be for you?

[61:49] Reviewing the Big Five As explained on earlier segments of this CD Volume 46, five dynamics are largely responsible for virtually everything that has transpired on planet Earth since Genesis Chapter 3.

[62:07] Those five dynamics are, number one, human volition, and the second is the skewed or warped intellect of all humanity, that's Jews and Gentiles, that prevents us from correctly assessing information and then drawing right conclusions.

[62:24] We call these faulty assumptions and we are all partakers of them to one degree or another. Number three of the Big Five relates to the inadequate human perspective.

[62:37] One can see it's closely related to the second that was identified as the warped intellect possessed by all of humanity, and then a fallen intellect and an inadequate human perspective are not synonymous, but they are surely closely related.

[62:56] It's that fallen intellect that virtually guarantees an inadequate human perspective. The latter simply means our limited knowledge assures us we do not have a full perspective or knowledge of anything, thus enabling us to often draw wrong conclusions, as is the case also with our fallen intellect.

[63:21] And then the fourth of the Big Five relates to the only one of the five that exclusively pertains to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Jewish people.

[63:34] This fourth specifies the divine discipline under which Jewish people continue to live. It is a result of their ongoing disobedience to God throughout the centuries, going back as far as 586 B.C., and the punishment that God brought upon His chosen people via the Babylonian captivity.

[63:55] Romans chapter 11 recounts how the spiritual and moral blindness has fallen upon the Jewish people until the fullness of the Gentiles comes to an end. But despite their disobedience and blindness, God remains faithful to them, notwithstanding their unfaithfulness to Him.

[64:15] God will fulfill all He has promised to the seed of Abraham, leading the Apostle Paul to say in Romans 11 that all Israel will be saved, referring, of course, to the surviving Jewish remnant that the Antichrist has not succeeded in eliminating during the Great Tribulation period.

[64:36] That's also called the time of Jacob's trouble, and it's the 70th week of Daniel revealed in chapter 9. This brings us then to the fifth and last of the Big Five.

[64:49] Number five involves the activity of the adversary, Satan himself. He will be the engine driving the Antichrist and will succeed in eliminating two-thirds of the Jewish population worldwide during Daniel's 70th week.

[65:06] Although the world at large will suffer at the hands of the Antichrist, the Jew will bear the greatest adversity of all during this time of the Mark of the Beast.

[65:18] The fifth of the Big Five Five realities have been listed as the dynamics at work that greatly contribute to the world being as it is from the earliest of times dating back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3.

[65:34] These all come into play and constitute vital components to men and angels being as they are, thus making the world as it is. They are human volition, the warped human intellect, an inadequate human perspective, divine discipline of the Jewish people, and fifthly, Satan and his influence.

[65:56] The name Satan means the adversary. As such, he is adverse or opposed to God in every way possible. Throughout the Bible, Satan is identified in various ways and places, but the following names and activities are all in reference to this one individual person.

[66:16] In Genesis 3, he is described as the serpent who deceived Eve. In Isaiah 14, Lucifer, the son of the morning, who uttered the seven I wills as his desire and intent to displace God.

[66:30] He is likened to the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28, and Christ referred to him as Beelzebub in Matthew 12. In John 8, Jesus calls him the murderer from the beginning, the father of lies.

[66:44] In chapters 12, 14, and 16, Jesus calls Satan the prince of this world. In 2 Corinthians 4, he is called the god of this world. In 2 Corinthians 6, as Belial.

[66:56] In 1 Timothy 3, he is called the devil. And lastly, in Revelation 12, and 20, the old serpent, the devil, and Satan. During the tribulation time coming upon the world, a principal player will be the Antichrist, also called the man of sin.

[67:14] He will be energized by Satan himself and will wreak untold death and suffering upon the entire world in general, and the Jewish people in particular.

[67:27] In Matthew 24, Jesus quoted the prophet Daniel from chapter 12, referring to this end time as that which the world had never seen before and would never see again.

[67:38] It's also called the time of Jacob's trouble in Jeremiah chapter 30. The Antichrist will succeed in making the Jewish people the scapegoat for the entire world, blaming them for all human ills, much like Adolf Hitler did in Europe.

[67:55] Hitler succeeded in annihilating one-third of the Jewish people worldwide, but the Antichrist will eliminate two-thirds of the Jews throughout the world. Considerably greater and even more brutal than the Holocaust, if one can imagine that.

[68:09] And why? Principally, to prevent God from fulfilling His promises to the seed of Abraham. This is the principal way Satan will attempt to thwart the plan and program of God.

[68:22] Thankfully, he will not and cannot succeed, but he will be so arrogant as to think he can. Satanic activity and his devices is the five of the big five, explaining the world as it is and will be.

[68:39] And it will be further considered on the next volume, 47, of Christianity Clarified. You've just heard another session of Christianity Clarified with Marv Wiseman.

[68:50] A preview of upcoming volume 47.

[69:07] What has been labeled as the five dynamics contributing to making the world as it is has been briefly explained on the just concluded volume 46 of Christianity Clarified.

[69:22] The last and fifth of those presented dealt with the archenemy of God, Satan himself. And on the upcoming volume 47, it will be shown how Satan has been active in opposing God from the time of his original rebellion.

[69:40] While he has been unable to dethrone or defeat God directly, Satan nonetheless attacks those of God's creation, namely the human race in general and the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in particular.

[69:57] This is because Satan fully understands the commitment God has made to the Jewish people, the seed of Abraham, and he has and will bend every evil effort to prevent its fulfillment.

[70:13] Satan's game plan, activities, and goal are hidden from the world in general, but they are unmistakably revealed in the scriptures that we will cite on the upcoming volume.

[70:26] As is often said, since Satan's principal device is deception, he has succeeded in making many think he doesn't even exist.

[70:37] Even among many Jewish people, those whom Satan designates as his prime target, even among them, Satan is generally regarded as mythological.

[70:50] Many Jews today not only do not believe in a personal devil, but do not even believe in a personal God. They are tragically wrong on both counts and will be revealed to be so.

[71:04] There is a personal God and there is a personal devil. While God calls the Jewish people the apple of his eye, Satan has painted that proverbial bullseye on the back of the Jews, largely unbeknownst to them.

[71:24] And so unknown is what Satan has in mind for the Jews, most will even scoff at the warning that will be given them here on Christianity Clarified.

[71:36] No doubt there were those who scoffed upon hearing of Adolf Hitler's plans in the 1930s and 40s as well. But make no mistake about it, there will be a showdown culminating a great cosmic conflict and the Jewish people will be targeted in the very midst of it all.

[71:58] The ending is assured to be a victorious one, but not until massive persecution and destruction have taken place. In the Holocaust of the 1940s, one-third of the Jewish population worldwide succumbed to the evils of Hitler and Eichmann.

[72:20] During the tribulation spoken of by Daniel in chapter 9, two-thirds of Jewry worldwide will be destroyed by the Antichrist along with two-thirds of the Gentile population as well.

[72:35] Failure to receive the mark of the beast during this time will lead to deprivation, starvation, and martyrdom for many. Billions, that's with a B, billions of Gentiles throughout the world will be destroyed as well.

[72:52] The carnage will be indescribable, but it is on track for fulfillment. And those surviving at the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19 will enter the kingdom or the millennial reign of Christ.

[73:08] This will include the remnant of Jews of whom the Apostle Paul speaks in Romans 11 stating, and so all Israel will be saved.

[73:19] Israel then as a nation will be the head and not the tail according to Deuteronomy 28 verse 13. Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, the Messiah, will rule and reign and the apostles Jesus chose in Matthew chapter 10 will sit in judgment on the twelve tribes of Israel as promised in Matthew 19.

[73:45] 13. This will be the long-awaited kingdom of heaven having come to earth and Jesus the Messiah who is a direct descendant of David the king will reign and rule in righteousness.

[73:59] The earth and humanity will be restored and enjoy the blessings of the Creator. What about Satan, the adversary? He will be consigned to the bottomless pit incarcerated for the 1,000 years mentioned in Revelation chapter 20.

[74:18] His final disposition consists of his being cast into the lake of fire. But really now, what reason have we to believe all these prophecies are actually going to be fulfilled?

[74:32] Good question and there is a good answer as well. The best guarantee that prophecies yet future will be fulfilled are those numerous prophecies that have already been fulfilled and quite literally so.

[74:48] There has not failed one good word of all that God has promised. He is the ever-faithful God. God will fulfill all he has promised to Israel the apple of his eye.

[75:02] Gentiles also will be blessed via Israel hearkening back to the original call by God to Abraham in Genesis 12. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

[75:23] So, Jews, Gentiles, you can take it to the bank. God says so. More as to how this will transpire, especially at the hand of the adversary, will be forthcoming in Christianity Clarified, Volume 47.

[75:42] So, this is Pastor Marv Wiseman. Thanks so much for being a part of our studies. May the Lord richly bless you.