What Should Christians Think About Israel?

Israel is a very hot topic right now, and many Christians aren’t sure what to think. In this episode, Brody and JB step back from politics and let the Bible lead. We build a simple, Gospel-centered framework for understanding Israel, the church, and God’s promises.

They walk through Genesis 12, Galatians 3, and Romans 9–11 to see how Scripture defines Israel, how Jesus fulfills its story, and how Jews and Gentiles are brought together as one people of God.

We also address modern anti-semitism and why it has no place in the life of a Christian. The goal is a steady, humble posture: fear the Lord, reject pride, pray for peace, and share the Gospel with all people.

• Genesis 12
• Hebrews 4
• Galatians 3
• Romans 9-11

What Does the Bible Actually Say About End Times | Tailgate Theology

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Transcript

Welcome And Biblical Lens

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to NSR. Um, the past couple episodes, Bertie and I have taken time to talk about eschatology. And in both of those episodes, kind of the elephant in the room at times it feels comes up Israel and like the church's relationship with Israel. And I know, especially right now, there's just a lot politically going on with Israel, and everyone wants to take a stand and this, that, and the other. So Brody and I are just gonna take today, slow things down. We always want to look at things through a biblical perspective. Um, we never want to like take sides or add fuel to the fire. Like, we really want you guys to get a good biblical and gospel-driven perspective of these things to hopefully inform you and like just guide your thoughts, like we said, in a biblical way. Um, so that's what we're gonna take time to do. Um, I hope that this is helpful and encouraging to you guys. I know this is a topic that even I myself have seen on social media a ton. But then when it really comes down to like what do I think, what should I think, what's my responsibility, X, Y, Z, I don't know what to think, you know? And so hopefully this is helpful and informative for you guys. But welcome to No Sanity Required.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I want to start this episode by saying a couple things after those last two episodes. Well, first off, we did the second episode because I felt like I was all over the place on that first one. And the part where I've got frustrated with myself, maybe more than anything, was at the end, we knew we were gonna do this episode on Israel, and then I kind of tailed off, but I was not prepared. I hadn't prepared to talk about Israel and the relationship of Israel and the church. And so um I took, I got a couple of haymakers thrown at me over that, which is okay. I'm good with that. And uh a couple people are like, what are you talking about? I don't agree with that. Um I want to I want to be really clear. Some of this I don't know what I agree with. I'm not we're not coming at this as experts or I don't think there are any experts. We're not even coming at it with an authoritative, opinionated voice. I think, I think uh we're more asking questions. JB as a representative of this generation right now that's really active in the social media circle. And then me from someone who grew up in that real dispensational world where, you know, there was this strong emphasis placed on we got to support Israel, we got to stand with Israel. Um, to to how do you I think it's a human tendency to overcorrect. And so as people have gone, well, no, no, no, we don't need to just wholeheartedly stand with Israel and everything. To that doesn't mean we need to overcorrect swings to anti-Semitism or we hate Israel or down with the Jews or whatever, you know, or the Holocaust isn't real. Um so we want to get into some conversation where we're asking questions. At times we're gonna be asking questions, not answering questions. Um I had one guy comment the other day about um the first, the first eschatology episode. And he's like, I agree with you on most of that stuff, but not, but I'd like to have a discussion because I don't agree with you on some. And I'm like, and I literally texted him and said, Well, I'll just tell you, you'll change my mind. If you got a good, strong stance and you believe it, you'll string my you'll change my mind because I saying you don't agree with me on some of that, the only thing I'm firm on is that Jesus is coming back. The other thing I will say I'm firm on is I don't believe that the Bible in any way supports a secret rapture of the church prior to a seven-year period of time.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Tribulation, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Tribulation. And maybe that's where we could start this conversation because I do think the strong, strong dispensational view of the church in Israel are completely and distinctly separate, goes hand in hand with that view. If you think, if if you study or you think that there's going to be a secret rapture of all Christians, what you believe is that the church of Jesus Christ in this age is going to be carried away from the earth and for the next seven years during that tribulation, that Israel's destiny is going to be fulfilled. A distinct national revival and movement is going to happen among Jews. And it's going to happen in that seven-year period. And then the second, second coming, the second, second coming of Jesus will happen. And then those Jew, Jewish converts, Israelite converts will um will go with us into the millennial kingdom. That's what that viewpoint holds. So if you hold a dispensational view, you hold a very distinct separation between Israel and the church. All of the other views hold a much less distinction between the two, but they do, it seems to me they all do hold. Some hold a stronger view that there is a future path for Israel, like as an ethnic people. And some would say, no, all of that has been absorbed into the path of the church forward. And so maybe that's what we'll discuss today.

SPEAKER_04 5:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

We don't want to get into pol political things. This is not a political conversation. This is more what does the Bible say about the church and Israel? What is the relationship between the two? And then how should Christians view modern-day Jews and how should Christians view the modern-day state of Israel, the nation of Israel? I did give a wrong date in that first episode. I said April 10th, I think. That's my sister's birthday. Um, but it was the year was right, 1948. I think it was May of 1948 when Israel became modern Israel, as we know it became a nation. So um, can I read one funny text uh that I shared with you that a youth pastor sent me? Yes. Actually, senior pastor was a youth pastor that brought students to Snowboard for years. Now he's a pastor of a church. Just a friend of mine named Dave. I won't say his last name, and we will protect the innocent here through anonymity. Uh this is very funny. Um we were commenting back and forth on the eschatology episodes we've just done, and I appreciated Dave. He he had grown up like us, dispensational, uh, and got to Bible college and started some of his views started to change, and he realized, oh, because a lot of the idea behind the pre, the secret rapture, pre-tribulational, secret rapture and the seven years, that's all any of us were taught. And so we didn't know there was another way. We thought that was as we thought that was as set in stone as the virgin birth or the atonement of Christ. And it's not, it's not the same thing. It's a different tier issue. Um, this is what Dave said talking about the secret rapture. He said, Hey, I don't know if I ever told you this story, but back when I was in Bible college, we had a guy in our dorm who was totally caught up in dispensationalism. He was always so annoying in our late-night theological discussions and debates because he was so wrapped up in that. So we decided we were going to pull a prank on him. One night in the middle of the night, one of our guys blew a trumpet. We had everyone in the dorm hide. This is a reference, by the way, to 1 Thessalonians 4, where the trumpet of Christ is sounded, which I do want to talk about that real briefly after this, and that's kind of how we'll intro in. Um, the trumpet sounds, uh, everyone in the dorm had hidden. We even had our RAs involved in this, and they they were hiding with us. We laid pajamas in people's beds. We turned a couple of showers on. We went so far as to go into the bathrooms and place boxer shorts in front of toilet seats, in front of toilets like people had gone to use the bathroom and then were raptured. Everyone in the whole dorm was gone except for this guy. Most of the guys were outside hiding, but a few were inside hiding to watch his reaction. The dude went nuts. He started running around screaming, I've been left, I've been left. He literally ran outside down the steps in front of the dorm screaming. Finally, a couple of us were able to get a hold of him, calm him down, and tell him it was a prank. It sure seemed funnier when we were planning it in our heads. The dude was so upset. It's pretty funny.

SPEAKER_06 8:34

It's a mean prank, but it's funny. It's a good prank. Yeah.

Rapture And Dispensational Framework

SPEAKER_01 8:38

It's funny. So um, before we get into the relationship of the church and Israel, uh, I want to say one thing about the rapture because it we have to address the idea of the rapture. The idea of the rapture is biblical. That just that word just means caught up, like brought up. Yeah. And there's all the viewpoints hold this idea that there's that that Christ is going to come down and call his church up, and there's this meeting. And but the the idea of the the secret pre-tribulational rapture only comes from from what I can tell, and I've studied this a bunch in the last week. First Thessalonians chapter four, it says in verse 15, For this we declare to you by word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will always be with the Lord. Something that's interesting to me is when that rapture is taught, like the idea of the clothes are left laying in a pile, and where did everybody go? A lot of this was brought mainstream by a book written in 1970 by a guy named Hal Lindsay. It was called The Late Great Planet Earth. And in that he tells a story of like the quarterback's running the ball. He's about to score to win the game, and then he's just gone, and his pads are laying there and his helmets rolling, airplane crashes, bus crashes. And that book really shaped eschatology because it was a dispensational view, and how Lindsay had studied a man named Schofield, see how Schofield, um, who had had pushed all of this in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But the idea that there would be a secret rapture when to me, the sound of the trumpet, the the shout, the like everyone's gonna see and hear and know that Christ is returning. I believe the Bible teaches here specifically, which is what they use for this idea of a secret rapture. I mean, the three, the three accompanying things that describe Christ's return and the calling up of the believers is that the Lord Himself will descend with a cry of command. So there's a command from Jesus that goes out, the voice of an archangel, and the sound of the trumpet of God. I think what it's describing is such a loud ushering in event. Everybody's gonna know.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

And there are also passages of scripture that say everyone's gonna look on this and wail. So people aren't gonna go, why is that pile of clothes there? And why'd that car? They're gonna go, oh, I know what's happening. They're gonna know Christ is coming to judge. I think that's important because as we go into this conversation, the distinction between, and and Carter um made a comment off camera that it was so scary as a kid, and you talked about that in that episode. We're scared to death. Am I gonna get left behind?

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Nobody's gonna get left behind. Like you're gonna know what's everybody's gonna know what's happening, I think, is what the scripture teaches. We will all know when Christ returns, we'll all know. And so the distinction that helps us start this conversation about Israel and the church is the dispensational view really separates the church and Israel because there's this plan for Israel during the seven years that where all these prophecies of the book of Revelation are going to be fulfilled during those seven years. Where for us, uh, if we can, if we can really understand as best we can wrap our brain around it and ask the right questions, what does the church say? I mean, what does the Bible say about the church in Israel? And that's so we want to try to tackle that today. Yeah. And then just give some some general thoughts and views on what should our response be to the current nation of Israel.

SPEAKER_06 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Um I'm gonna let JB kind of guide this conversation.

Genesis 12 And Defining Israel

SPEAKER_06 12:47

I definitely think to start off, like I hope you guys aren't listening to this already up in arms about like, well, I already have my opinion formed on Israel because this, that, and the other, or because this policy or this government or whatever. I want you guys to just strip away because we're like I said, we are really gonna be focusing on what scripture says. And so scripture, as we know, is authoritative. It's the same as it was when it was first written as now. So, like government policies, whatever does not affect this. You know what I mean? So I hope you guys are listening to this in a view and in a heart posture of like, okay, I want to see what scripture says instead of like, and let that inform your views instead of like, well, this government policy has informed my view, and scripture might either add on to what I'm saying, like align with what I believe already, or disagree. You know what I mean? Like scripture should be first and foremost where we start, regardless of what's going on politically and whatever. That's kind of where I'm coming at it from. Because I think the first time I'd ever like really heard of these things was politically and was through social media. And so you really have to work to rewire your brain and think, pause, what does scripture say? And then like that political stuff should just be like, yeah, that sucks that that's half that this is happening or this is going on, but I know like what scripture says, and that's what I hold fast to. So hopefully you guys can listen to that with a softened heart and not be up in arms about Israel or whatever. Um, let's start off with Genesis 12. That is where that's a very common verse that you'll hear people use to support their argument or whatever. But I'll just read it and then we'll discuss it. It says, Genesis 12. Now the Lord said to him, Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and you will, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So you'll hear a lot of people say, like, I will bless those who bless Israel, I will curse those who curse Israel. But I do want to take a pause, and some of you might already know this, but I think some of our listeners, and even like for me, it can be confusing because you read this and you're like, wait, Israel is not even mentioned. Like, what does this have to do with Israel? So I'm gonna ask Brody to take time and kind of break this down and break down like, okay, who's Abram? How did Israel come from Abram? Everything like that, if you don't mind.

Israel’s Story And Christ’s Fulfillment

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Okay, yes. Um, so just again, uh just speaking of Bible chronology, history uh in the Old Testament, um, so just to lay a foundation, Israel was the name given to Jacob, who was Abraham's grandson. So Abraham actually became the father of many nations. So from him there were many nations. You you've got, for instance, the nation of Edom that grew from uh Esau's line, uh the Edomites. You've got uh Ishmael, who became really the father of all of the Arab nations, and and you you could argue. Um and then Esau's twin brother was a guy named Jacob. These boys were grandsons to Abraham, Abram who became Abraham. And and Jacob was the son, the grandson who became the father of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. And so when we talk about Israel, the reason you don't see it show up in the promise in Genesis 12 partly is because it didn't God hadn't established that name for his people until later with this with his the grandson of Abraham. And then out of Jacob, there was a nation that rose up that became known as the ancient nation of Israel, which consisted of a combination of people who were descendants from Jacob, but also people who are descendants from others, who could be, and we talked about this some on the immigration episode. You could become an Israelite by um by confession. So you come in, like a person could convert to you could you could come and live in Israel, but you had to convert. It was a national, they were a theocracy. So modern day, by the way, modern day Israel is not a theocracy, they're a democracy. This ancient Israel was a theocracy. There's no question that ancient Israel and the modern Israel are are not the same, I think, even just ethnically in terms of their makeup, because you have the Jews that were spread and scattered uh seven centuries before Christ. There are descendants of those Jews in places like Spain, Russia, Ukraine, you know. And so modern day Israel isn't is is is different. We'll get into that. But the ancient nation of Israel, these were this was a nation of the descendants of Jacob's twelve sons. One son was Joseph, who had two sons, um, that each became the heads of tribes. And so you had the sons of Jacob that made up about a dozen tribes that became a nation. That nation existed in that capacity throughout the time of the judges and the kings. Um about twenty generations of kings and several generations of judges. That that nation um it was through that nation that God gave uh He raised up prophets, He established a priesthood, and He raised up kings. Okay? So the nation of Israel is where God established his offices of prophet, priest, and king. The prophets uh were called by God to explain and declare and preach the word of God to the people. So the prophets would give the people the message that God had for them. The priests, so the prophets would sort of represent God to the people. The priests would go to into the presence of God on behalf of the people. So the priests would represent the people before God. They were they were mediators.

SPEAKER_06 19:16

That's where you get when the priest would like tie the rope around his waist and go in that.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yes, that was now that was a that was a special occasion. So the priests had daily and weekly duties, but then there was an annual duty on the Day of Atonement. There were there were certain things that they would only do once a year, or there were some things they would do on the Sabbath. So the the story about the guy tying the rope, that was when he would go into the innermost holy place of the tabernacle. Um, that was a unique that that was that was not an everyday or weekly occurrence. So when he would go in to make atonement for the people's sins, if he wasn't pure before the Lord, the the concern was that he could be struck dead by Yahweh and they would need to drag him out because you can't go in there and get him or you'll get struck dead. Pretty crazy, pretty intense.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Which then the significance of these three roles, we'll start with the priest, the priestly role. Um, we know that Christ became the high priest. Right. Because you had a you had a you had a group of priests, and then the high priest that sort of was the the guy that sort of led that team. Um, Jesus became the high priest, and that's why the veil of the temple was ripped. To say, hey, this is we're not nobody's crawling in here with a rope around our waist anymore.

SPEAKER_06 20:33

No one needs to represent you to Christ like you can. That you know, he is your high priest.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

And you see that in Hebrews chapter four. It says, Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our profession. For we do not have a high priest, and this is important, we do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but we have a high priest who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet he was without sin.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Therefore, let us hold fast to the faith we profess. And then he in in that same passage in Hebrews 4, he says, because of that, we can boldly approach the throne of grace so that we might find grace and mercy in our time of need. Jesus has made a way as our high priest to bring us into the presence of the Father. We don't need an earthly high priest anymore. So Jesus fulfilled the role of the priest. And you can read about that in Hebrews throughout the book of Hebrews. Jesus also fulfilled the role of prophet. Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 say Jesus is the final prophet through whom the Lord is spoken. So the role of the prophet in the Old Testament was to declare the, to declare the word of the Lord. Jesus came and declared the final word from God. So now what we have is the scripture. The idea that Jesus is the prophet, the final prophet, is the role of a prophet. Prophet in the Old Testament, we don't have that nowadays because Jesus fulfilled that. Yeah. That was to bring the message of hope, the message of condemnation, the message of message of judgment. Jesus fulfilled that. Judgment is set in what Christ has done. Hope is set in what Christ has done. The word of God has been given to us. We have the scripture. We are now priests in the sense that we can communicate directly to God through Jesus. So then also the role of king was fulfilled in Christ. He's the king of kings. David was the greatest king in history. He was the greatest king in Israel's history. Jesus is the greater David. Jesus is the fulfillment of a covenant that God made with David in 2 Samuel 7, where he said, I'm going to send one of your descendants to sit on a throne that'll rule forever and ever. So Jesus is the final king. He's the greater David. He's the final prophet. He's the greater Moses. He's the final priest. He's the greater Aaron. And so Jesus has fulfilled all of that. So when we think about who is Israel, ancient Israel is very distinct in their identity. Modern Israel is something different. And that's where the debate lies.

SPEAKER_04 23:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Does ancient Israel, do the promises to ancient Israel and the plans that God had to, because there are all these prophecies that were made to the ancient Israelites through Zechariah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, some of those prophecies seem yet to be fulfilled. Some of them were fulfilled in Christ, some of them seem yet to be fulfilled. So are some of those prophecies for modern day Israel, and what is the relationship of modern-day Israel to ancient Israel? And what is the relationship of the church to Israel? That's kind of where the question starts. No, I think I think this is good. I think it that's it's a simple, it's not a real long explanation. But one of the things that's that's pretty prolific in the Old Testament is a a biblical literary feature that we call typology, where you'll see something in the Old Testament that you realize is has maybe an immediate purpose and fulfillment or an immediate purpose and function that later comes to a greater fulfillment uh after Christ has come into the world. So some examples would be, and you've also got a lot of, we're gonna do an episode on motifs. You got a lot of motifs and thematic material. So, like, for instance, one of the motifs we're gonna talk about is the motif of a whale. In the Old Testament, you've got Moses at a well, Jacob at a well, uh, Isaac at a, you know, Rebecca at a well. Um in the New Testament, you've got Jesus using a well on multiple occasions to make a biblical point.

SPEAKER_04 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Um that would be a motif. Um, typology is where you have a type of something in the Old Testament that has a form and function there that comes to a greater fulfillment in the New Testament. So, for instance, David in conquering Goliath is a type of Christ, and because the scripture later teaches that Christ conquers our enemy and delivers us from our enemy. David is a king who sits on a throne, who becomes a type of Christ, who the Bible says in the New Testament that Jesus is the greater David. So it points back to David because David had shortcomings and failures and he sinned. And so Jesus is the greater David. David was a typology, he was a type of Christ when he's delivering the people from Goliath, when he's sitting on the throne, and um Moses is a type of Christ as the deliverer. There's a lot of New Testament teaching on uh on uh paralleling the spiritual journey we're on to the exodus out of Egypt.

SPEAKER_05 25:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

So there's typology. So, in one sense, one argument that can be made, and that I've heard some really reputable theologians make, is that Israel to some degree is a typology, that there's a fulfillment in the church under the new covenant of Christ, that uh there are promises made to Israel. Some of those promises are fulfilled in the church. Um and even going back to that Genesis 12, as we'll see in Galatians three.

Galatians 3 And Gospel Blessing

SPEAKER_06 26:21

Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to go ahead and read Galatians three? Yeah, let's go to that.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, let's go there because let's start with Galatians three. So, so on coming out of Genesis 12, um, will you I'm sorry, will you read Genesis 12 one more time and we'll go straight into the Galatians passages?

SPEAKER_06 26:41

Okay. Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Okay, so we see some of that fulfilled in Abram's lifetime, some of that fulfilled in his sons and grandsons and great grandsons' lifetime. There was a blessing. Israel grew like an I mean, they grew and became a powerful nation. They grew in uh in the broad scope of their influence, their land possession. God blessed them. He increased their number. Um, and and he he fulfilled aspects of that directly to Abraham and his immediate descendants. But then we go to Galatians chapter three, uh, first off, verses seven through nine. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abram, or Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. So those verses tell us that what you just read in Genesis 12 is fulfilled through the gospel. So it's a spiritual blessing that would come through the greater descendant of Abraham, which is Jesus. Because Jesus did, he was a biological physical descendant of Abraham. And it said that Genesis 12 promise is fulfilled, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. Gentiles are non-Jews, right? Preach the gospel to Abraham, saying, In you all the nations will be blessed. So the blessing to the nations doesn't come from being nice to Israel. The blessing to the nations is that Jesus would come and be a Messiah, not just to the Jews, but the Savior for all of mankind.

SPEAKER_04 28:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

So the prompt what Paul's telling us in Galatians 7, 3, 7 through 9 is when you read Genesis 12, and it says, In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. That blessing comes through the work of Jesus to bring salvations to Brazilians, Peruvians, Ugandans, Russians, Ukrainians, Canadians, Americans, all the nations, regardless of your dis your ancestry, you receive salvation through the work that Christ has done. So Jesus would not just be a Messiah to the Jews, he'd be a messiah to all people.

SPEAKER_06 29:17

Everyone, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Okay, then he continues in Genesis 3. He elaborates on that. You can read, I mean Galatians 3, I'm sorry. You can read all of Galatians and and do a little deeper dive. But at the end of that same chapter, he says, now we're jumping down to verse 26. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. This is where some people will argue there's no longer a distinction for Israel.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

There's no longer a distinction for Jews because he says here, there's neither Jew nor Greek.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

There's neither slave nor free, there's no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So he's saying you're all one. There's now one true Israel. And this is where a lot of people will make that argument. And it's a good argument. Um, if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. So that last verse he's saying, if you're in Christ, you are an heir according to the promise God made to Abram and Abram before he was Abraham in Genesis 12. And so neither Jew nor Greek, we're all heirs according to the promise. Now, I I want to go to uh Romans 11 because I do think Paul gives some distinct characteristics to modern and future Israel that you can't get around. Yeah. And I want to wrestle with that. Yeah. So I appreciate and understand how people. What's your take on that? Okay, so my take, my take is a little bit, I hate to use a trending, a very trendy woke word, but my take is nuanced. Uh, and I think a lot of people would say that. I think there is a distinct future for Israel, but it's my view would not be dispensational, that that God's gonna, you know, that that the church and in and Israel are completely distinct, and we'll get into that in Romans 11. But I think that my take on on Galatians three, what I believe that that the exegesis of Galatians three tells us is that God's promise to Abraham is fulfilled through the gospel, not through the establishment of a nation in 1948.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

Yeah.

Romans 11 Remnant And Responsibility

SPEAKER_01 31:31

To put it in simple contemporary terms. So let's go to Romans 11 and I'll elaborate on what my take is. Yeah. Um, I think we got to go there to really get uh to the root of what I think the Bible teaches about Israel. Now, I would say Romans 9, 10, and 11 address this, but we'll just we'll just look at some verses in Romans 11, beginning in verse 1. Uh I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means. That phrase by no means is you'll see in the English translations it has an exclamation point. In the Greek language, it's like the most emphatic statement you can make. It's like like it's a very emphatic statement. By no means. For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. So here's where I think we can start to see there's no call for us as modern-day Christians to turn against Israel based on their ethnicity. 100% or based on their history, or based on who they are as a people. Because God hasn't reject them, just like he doesn't save somebody based on their ethnicity, he doesn't reject somebody based on their ethnicity.

SPEAKER_04 32:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

And that's that's where I think it's a slippery slope. It's like saying God rejects Israel because they're Jewish.

SPEAKER_04 32:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

That's a that's like saying, well, God would save you because you're not.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

And he's gonna get into that. Paul's gonna go at him a little bit. He's gonna say, Don't brag because you're a Gentile Christian.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

God has not rejected people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah? How he appeals to God against Israel. Lord, they've killed your prophets, they've demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life. But what is God's reply to him? I've kept for myself several thousand men who have not bowed down the knee to Baal. So he goes back to a time in history where it seemed like during one of the periods of Israel's apostasy, because Israel's not only a modern apostate state, apostate meaning they reject Jesus, they've turned from the scripture and the and what the Bible teaches. Ancient Israel was constantly apostate. Yeah. I mean, that's why God sent judges, and then that's why he sent enemies, and that's why their exile and the Babylon came. That's why the Assyrians attacked them. It's why, I mean, if you go read books like Habakkuk and you learn, or Jeremiah, and you learn, God was bringing judgment through other nations because Israel had rejected him. And so he goes back to a time in their history where there was a king who had a wife, the queen, her name was Jezebel. Most people are familiar with her. When I was growing up, calling somebody a Jezebel was like an insult. It was like she's a Jezebel. And uh this woman was super wicked and she was very pagan, and she had turned the nation. She, you know, under their leadership, the nation had become pagan and they were worshiping a uh a deity called Baal, or uh, some people say Baal. And uh there was this prophet who was the one, he it was, it seemed like he was the only guy standing for Yahweh. And God showed him that there were a bunch of other faithful people. And so what Paul's doing here is he's saying, hey, even when it seems like all of Jews have rejected, I'm always gonna, I'm always preserving a remnant of believers among the Jewish people. So to me, Romans 11, he makes a distinction that there are some Christians who are Jews, and that's intentional on God's part. I'm gonna make sure that according to my election and my sovereignty, that I preserve a remnant of Jewish Christians. That's what that's what he seems to be saying here. Verse 7, I mean verse 5. So to at the present time there's a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. So God always saves by grace. So even if you were an ancient um Jew at the time of David as king, your salvation was a gift of God's grace, not based on your works. So there were Jews in David's kingdom who died and went to hell.

SPEAKER_04 35:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

There were Jews in David's kingdom who died and went to heaven.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Based on grace, based on salvation. Okay. So it looked a little different then because they didn't have Christ fulfilling the gospel, but that's what that's what we know. We know that there were unregenerate Jews. So just because you were a Jew in eighth century BC, that didn't mean you're going to heaven. Yeah. That didn't mean you had peace with God. Um in the Davidic kingdom or the time of the judges, I mean, you have these great revivals where the people would turn to God, but some didn't. Sometimes you had the majority of people turning away. Some didn't. They stayed faithful.

SPEAKER_04 36:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Um the elect, so he said in verse 7, what then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. What was it seeking? It was seeking salvation through ethnicity and works. Then he says, The elect obtained it. In other words, the only people that got salvation in Israel were the people that God saved by his sovereign grace. Okay. As it is written, God gave them. So then he uh keeps going. We're gonna skip a little bit and go down to verse 11. I really want to get to this. Verse 11, so I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means. Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous. So he says, Because so many Jews rejected the gospel, salvation has now come to the Gentiles. Um, then this is where you remember when when uh Paul writes to the Romans in chapter one and he says, to the Jew first, then to the Greek. Um, so salvation comes to the Gentiles because of the Jewish rejection. Um see, I've written something in my notes here. Uh Gentile salvation should, should lead and will lead ultimately to the salvation of Jews. So this is a distinction I think that's important in verse 11. He says, Let me read that again. Did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means. There's that emphatic statement again. Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous. Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean? In other words, God saves Gentiles so that one of our jobs would be to then see the salvation of Jewish people.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

Jews, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

So what is their what first and foremost, what's the responsibility that you and I have as non-Jewish Christians? It's to see the Jews come to faith in Jesus. That's our goal.

SPEAKER_04 38:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

What a beautiful thing when a Jew, when you, if you ever talk to a messianic Jew, they have such a different understanding of the gospel. I have a friend um named Randy. He's uh he lives in Atlanta, um, hadn't seen him in years, and he recently came up and he wanted to get five or six copies of the book. He's like, I heard you wrote a book.

SPEAKER_05 38:40

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

And he was here in the early snowbird days, was on work teams. That uh second dorm on the circle, Atlanta Street, is named after his home church.

SPEAKER_04 38:49

Oh no way.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Yeah, so he came and he had worked. And anyway, Randy is a messianic Jew. He just has a different perspective on this stuff. And it's really cool when a Jew comes to faith in Jesus or an Israeli comes to faith in Jesus. And so what Paul's telling us is salvation is not uh the salvation is for both Jews and Gentiles, but there's an there's a way that it kind of works. God's plan of redemption works between the two. Now I'm speaking to you, Gentiles, inasmuch then as I'm an apostle to the Gentiles, I might magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous and save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead, from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. So I wrote, Gentile salvation should lead and will lead to the salvation of the Jews. So that's what Paul's teaching. He's like, God's plan is to preserve a remnant of Jews and to bring salvation to Jews. But he's gonna but predominantly do that through the Gentiles, through Jen, the Gentile church. And a lot of that was fulfilled um in the New Testament book of Acts.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Yeah.

Grafted Olive Tree Warning Against Pride

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Like when you see the gospel go to these places and really reach, you know, like in Thessalonians, most of those Christians there were Jews who converted through the preaching of the gospel. Um, and and he used some Gentile pastors like Titus, um, who had who had to be circumcised so that he could go to Jewish synagogues and preach because he had a Gentile background. And so, and you'll see sort of this move of the gospel among Gentiles um in the book of Acts. But then the that move would also then go back to the Jewish communities. So there's this, there's this relationship between the gospel movement and and the Jews. Okay, let's get to the main point we want to cover today. So in this this is Romans chapter 11, verse 17. Now we're going to get into the relationship that the modern church has to Israel. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot were grafted in among the others, and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who supports the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, Branches were broken off, so that I might be grafted in. That's true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So don't become proud, but fear. And so this is where I think he explains this idea of grafting.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

But he also gives a warning to Gentiles: don't become arrogant and judgmental towards Jewish people. Yes. Fear the Lord and recognize what's happened to these Jews that have rejected the gospel, they've been cut off, or they've been, you know, many of them are now spent an eternity separated from God. Be fearful. Don't become condescending and judgmental. Your job is not to become anti-Semitic or to don't make it your mission to protest or boycott Israel. Make it your mission to reach the Jewish people with the gospel. Because we owe a lot of the promises that we've received through salvation, the benefits of our salvation. We owe it to them. And he he gives this illustration. It's like there's this olive tree. And I've got an olive tree. I'm going to grab it. I'll bring it over here.

SPEAKER_06 42:21

We have a fake olive tree on set with us.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Oh man, I'm so disappointed that it's fake. I didn't know that it was fake. Did you really know? Okay, so the analogy is Israel is like this, the trunk of this tree with a root system, and you've got these branches that grow off and bear fruit, right? And bear these olives. He said, What's happened is God has cut the tree. He's cut the branches. Then he's taken, and you can do this from what I understand with an actual olive tree, he's taken good fruit-bearing uh branches, and he's he's grafted them into the branch of the tree, and that that represents the Gentile believers. So now you've got this tree that's made up of Jews and Gentiles and the fruit that the gospel is bringing about through this new Israel, yeah, which is um in many ways the fulfillment of the greater promises of the gospel.

SPEAKER_06 43:19

Yeah. Yeah, I I really like that picture because it's like it's not the Gentiles aren't replacing the Jews or nothing like that. Like even in this passage in Romans, it says, you know, like the root is the same. So it's like that's right. If you look at this tree, it's like the root is the same. And then you're just like you said, combining, grafting together those Jew and Gentiles to continue growth and continue like the success of this tree growing. And so I think that's humbling and like a really, really cool picture to see. Like, okay, we're not replacing, we're not picking up and making a new tree with new roots or whatever. It's the same tree, it's the same root, but you're taking, like you said, like. That fresh new tree grafting it on. And eventually, like, but you can s look this up and it basically almost looks like tape or like um wire, like really tight binding on this like new branch onto the old root or the old like tree branch. And then eventually you can take that binding and that tape off, and it looks like, oh, it's just always been a part of this tree. And it just starts to like grow together.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Yeah, and I appreciate what you I like the way you said that the like the success of basically the gospel cannot fail.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

And so, Paul, like if you go back into um if you really unpack Romans 9, 10, and 11, um, you know, that first verse we read, has God rejected his people? He's like, No, by no means. And it if you go to beginning of verse uh of chapter nine, he says, Um, I have great sorrow and unceasing ceasing anguish in my heart um because of the Israelites' uh rejection. He says, I'd be accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. She's like, I would be willing to forego my salvation for ethnic Israel to accept and embrace Jesus. They are Israelites. To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. Yeah, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. But there it is. You cannot, like if you can't say, I believe the Bible, yeah, but I don't believe that one verse, right? I don't like Romans 9, 10, and 11. Dispensationalists hate these three chapters. I don't care. I had a I had a friend and brother, somebody I love dearly, who's going to be the Lord. I I sat down, I was wrestling through some of this as a as a young Christian in my late 20s, and I said, and I read, I read Romans 9 to him. And most people, when they think of Romans 9, what they get fixated on is the portion about Jacob and Esau, because he says later in that chapter, Jacob I've loved, Esau I've hated. They didn't have anything to do with this. I chose according to my sovereignty. Um, and people get spun out over that. But what in this in this conversation, what really people, I think, wrestle with or have a hard time just accepting is not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. So he says, it's not as though the word of God has failed. So he what's he saying that about? He said, well, why is the Jewish people, why have the Jewish people rejected the gospel? If God gave them covenants, prophets, promises, made these promises to Abraham, reiterated those promises, by the way, to Abraham's son Isaac and to Abraham's son uh grandson Jacob, God made these promises. He reiterated these promises, he reiterated them again to Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel. So if all of the Jews are rejecting the gospel, then God failed. What happened? And he goes, No, no, no, it's not as though the word of God has failed. You're seeing this wrong. We're not talking about ethnic Israel.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Not everyone who descended from Israel belongs to Israel. Not all the children of Abraham are children of Abraham because they're his offspring, in other words, his biological descendants. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Through Isaac, so through your son Isaac would come Jesus. Your offspring are those who are named in Christ. And the Bible teaches us that when we become regenerate born again, we're given a new identity and we are named with Christ, right? That's what identifies us. And so I think that's important in understanding that God's word hasn't failed. And so we take the olive tree, you come back to chapter uh 11, verse 17, and he and he and it's this grafting terminology. You and I have been grafted into the tree, which is the covenants God made with Israel, um, the plan of God to bring the seed of uh Abraham through Isaac into the world. That's Jesus, and we're rooted in that. And then he says, Don't be arrogant toward the branches. He's like, Don't, don't be arrogant. Yeah. And that's what you're seeing with this rise of like, it's not just anti-Semitism in the sense of um we hate Jews and we want them to die, the way you think of Hitler.

SPEAKER_04 48:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

It's anti-Semitism, I think, with y'all's generation, you see it more and in a in sort of a condescending and cultural way. And it gets complicated, and I'm not gonna get, we're not gonna get into this today, but um you talked, I'm gonna let you talk a little bit about the the the theories and conspiracy theories surrounding like what the Jews in modern in modern America are responsible for in the West. But the point is anti-mas anti-Semitism now doesn't look maybe like it did under the Third Reich in Germany.

SPEAKER_04 49:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

But it's still, I think it's evil. Yeah, it's hateful.

SPEAKER_04 49:06

Yeah.

Modern Anti-Semitism And Conspiracy Culture

SPEAKER_01 49:07

And I do think we'll we'll the way we'll end this is I do think there are some future promises for Israel, ethnic Israel. Um, but could you talk a little bit about what you're seeing within your generation? Because you're a lot more adept and in tune. I I I did, I will brag that offline I did use the word sus appropriately earlier. I got a little affirmation from Carter and JB's, and so I'm grateful for that, Josiah.

SPEAKER_04 49:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

I I was spot on one.

SPEAKER_04 49:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

I was on point with that.

SPEAKER_06 49:36

Sus.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Yeah. I'm sus of anybody that is anti-Semitic.

SPEAKER_06 49:40

Right. Um, so when we talk about more like recent and cultural anti-Semitism and just kind of like the rise in that, this is what I've seen. I haven't, and this is from my perspective, so I know that this isn't end all be all, but it's less of like like you look back at the Holocaust and Hitler, it was like every Jew. If you even resembled a Jew or like whatever, you're done, like you're whatever. But for me, or like my perspective, it's more in politics, it's less of like the common people. I don't think, at least some in my perspective, it's not like people just see a Jewish person and they're like, Oh, you suck, boo. But it's more like get them out of our nation, like in a more political realm. Um, I think I s I've seen a lot of this really start to boil over and like really start to take a more prevalent presence in social media after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, because so many podcasters then kind of took his assassination and turned it into like, well, these uh Jewish or Israeli politicians were had his hand in this, that, and the other. And it's just kind of like now become me and Carter were talking sometimes, like a meme on Instagram, or like memes, like jokes about like Jews are involved in everything, like they have their hand in so many things in America.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

And so, like, some of the things you said there's some things that they really do.

SPEAKER_06 51:14

Yeah, some of the stuff like like I think some people can look at America and be like, Jews have brought all this nasty, corrupt stuff, for example, two of like the most well-known or like big things that Jews have, I don't even want to say brought in, but have now capitalized on is Pornhub and Ashley Madison. So obviously Pornhub is a pornographic site, and if you look at like the CEOs or whatever, they're probab predominantly Jewish. And then same thing, Ashley Madison is like a dating website, but for like infidelity. I think that's is that still going?

SPEAKER_01 51:48

I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 51:49

I don't know either. I think it I don't know why I looked at you to know.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, it was funny because I called it Dolly Madison when we were offline. I'm pretty sure they make Twinkies and snack cakes, but I like Dolly Madison if that's true.

SPEAKER_06 52:04

Um But anyways, Ashley Madison is like an infidelity.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Yeah, I Ashley Madison, the the only time I've ever heard it talked about was I heard a I said under a breakout session one time. Uh it was a guy that taught a breakout session at a conference, and he I don't remember even what he was talking about, but he talked about this this site where people who are married, it's a dating network website for married people to hook up and have open marriages or or I don't know if it would be open marriages where you both agree to it or if it's sneaky. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 52:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

But where, yeah, it's it's a dating app. You got to be married and you're hooking up with other married people.

SPEAKER_06 52:44

Yeah. And so, like I said, I'm not saying, oh, Jewish people brought that to America. That's not what I'm saying at all, because I know, you know, sin is sin. That stuff has been around, like infidelity has been around since the beginning of time. Like, why would it be a Ten Commandment? Like, you know what I mean? It's not like this all of a sudden happened, whatever. But I think some people will see that and just like take that out of context and be like, the Jews are responsible, or like the people, people of Israel have like corrupted America. And so I think two things I want to kind of talk on is are you reacting out of emotion or are you reacting out of compassion? So Brody said it really, really well earlier. Like, we need to be praying, like these are our brothers and sisters. I think you can get really emotion-driven when you listen to some of these more um conservative or like conspiracy theory podcasts, and they're just kind of gunning for the Jews or like gunning for Israel, and they're just like, I don't understand why America has such close ties. And so you can get really riled up and really like spun out and think, man, they're right. Like the Jews are taking over America and they have their hand in politics and government and um entertainment, and like you can really get spun out, but also it's like at the end of the day, we need to be praying for our brothers and sisters. Like, you can't read scripture and say, nope, Israel has nothing to do with anything, like it's just hypothetical. No, it's it's pretty point blank. Like you just read in all three of those passages, it's like Israel definitely has a huge role to play, whether that's modern Israel or historic Israel or whatever. And so instead of just getting spun out and acting out of emotion, I do encourage you guys to act out of compassion. Nowhere in scripture does it say um, even if like Israel, let's say it was talking about historic Israel and modern day Israel has nothing to do with it. Where in scripture does it say, okay, now be mean to the Jews, now be an anti anti-Semitic person or like any people group or race or whatever? And so I think that's what we need. Like, I don't know why I've seen some Christians or some just like people from my um generation almost find this like loophole. Like, don't be racist, don't be kind to everyone, but there's like this tiny little loophole where it's like we can kind of like diss on Jews or dis on the country of Israel or whatever. And so it's a bit weird. Like, I don't know, and it's kind of taken over social media, like it is weird. There's memes or jokes, or and you know, unfortunately, there's always been jokes of the Holocaust, and now, but they're less like Holocaust jokes and more like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

It's also interesting, uh, and I want to get to a question Carter asked before we started. Um it's interesting to me. Have you noticed how there's like a defense of anything Islamic? Like, okay, we live in we live in the great state of North Carolina. It's a I love this state. I love so I mean, obviously because it's my home state, but it's a really cool state. So there's some unique characteristics to this state. For one, it's the most geograp you might not know this, geographically diverse.

SPEAKER_04 56:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Because from from like up here where we live out to the coast, there's bake basically every kind of every biome, like yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:09

Yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Yeah, it really is really cool to study. And then there's a really cool, some of the richest American history is in this state. And it's also interesting because it's become a destination for people to move into. And what that's done is that's reshaped the political landscape here. So if you look at a map of North Carolina, it's it's red. It's very red, except for these progressive centers. Yep. So, yep, Charlotte, Raleigh Durham, what's called the Research Triangle, Greensboro, Asheville, and then up around Boone, where Appalachian State is, which has become a super liberal uh institution. So um you've got the whole rest of the state is red. What that means politically is we've had back-to-back governors now, three straight gubernatorial terms. We've had a progressive liberal governor, but we have a what's called a supermajority of conservatives in the House, the state house and state senate. All that means is we've got liberal progressive governors who can't get a lot done because they can't get the state senate on board. So what that turns into is when you've got a governor or from one party or a president from one party, and then the House and Senate is controlled by the opposing party, it's hard for that president to get anything done. So what he'll do is he'll issue what's called executive orders. And his executive order is like a decree that a governor issues, but it's not statutory. In other words, it's not a law. He can't pass a law without the approval of the House and Senate. Our governor just passed an executive order declaring and celebrating Ramadan and touting and celebrating Islamic people and Muslims everywhere. Um it's interesting because there's this rise, as there's this rise in anti-Semitism, there's this weird support for Muslim people.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

Yes.

Modern Israel’s Secular Reality

SPEAKER_01 58:14

And I think that goes back to the way it's always been, which there's something substantive to that, that if if you study history, both Old Testament and New Testament, people hate the Jews. They hate the Jews, and it's always been that way. And that goes back to the like ancient Israel. And so um, I don't know, that's more just a point of observation. Here we live in this conservative rural state where we've got a liberal, progressive governor that's just said, hey, we're gonna celebrate Ramadan. Ain't nobody celebrating Ramadan up in here. Like we pray, like at our church, we pray. We take Ramadan, we we put an emphasis on, hey, it's Ramadan. While the Muslim world is praying and fasting, let's pray and fast on behalf of our missionaries and and people that are like let's pray that God will send visions because one of the things Muslims do during Ramadan is they pray and ask God to give them visions, but they're praying to a false God. But there are a lot of testimonies of God speaking to people during this time through dreams and visions. I just find it interesting that there's this which, by the way, Josh Stein is the governor's name. That's a Jewish last name. I don't know. I don't I ain't studied the guy. I don't know. I don't know. But most modern Jews are liberal, progressive apostate people. If you go to Israel today, you will find a very progressive nation that celebrates pride, LGBTQ, that funds abortions. Everything that the Old Testament nation of Israel was taught to protect and preserve is under attack in modern Israel. Everything that we think as Christians should be sacred is under attack in modern day Israel. I do think that's worth noting.

SPEAKER_04 59:54

Yes, I understand.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

And Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, recently compared Jesus to Genghis Khan.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Um, and so it like like they're they are not, they are not our religious friends if you look at it that way in that perspective.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:11

Yeah, and I want to emphasize like, we're not asking you guys to submit and agree and bow down or like whatever to the Israeli government or their policies or what they believe. That's not what we're asking. When we're saying like, because you hear people say like support Israel or don't support Israel, it's like we're looking at it truly from a biblical lens, not their policies, what they believe, like this, that, and the other. But it's like, like I said earlier, these are our brothers and sisters. And what scripture says is like there will be a revival. That's what you believe, right? I believe so.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

I do, I believe that.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:46

And so, regardless of their policies, of their beliefs, of whatever, how they're living, that should never be an excuse for us to be hateful or write them off, or even have hate in our hearts towards them. Even if you never talk about it or post about it, if you have like hate or disdain in your heart, it's like that is sinful, you know. And so yeah, I don't think we need to like agree and 100% support all of these policies because it is a very progressive and dark and sinful place, but you can make the same argument about America, you know? Like so many people are like America, God's country, which I I love America. I agree, I think the Lord has blessed America, but it's like this you can make the same argument, like there's abortion, there's LGBT, like you know what I mean. And so I think just taking it out of the political context and like I said, really focus in on biblical and scripture and yeah.

Will God Save Israel Again

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Yeah, I appreciate your perspective because it is you're coming from you're a generational voice, and and I hope that people will appreciate I hope my generation that listens to this will appreciate your perspectives um and and have hope that, oh, there are young men and women in my children's generation who are standing in the gap and and trying to speak truth to these issues and not just not just getting swept up in a cultural current, yeah. Um, but saying, okay, let's let scripture inform these things. You asked me a while ago, do you said you believe that, right? Let's let's look at why I think that's true. Yeah. Because we can continue in Romans 11, and this is why I believe that's true. He says, uh, we're down to verse uh 19. Then you will say, Branches were broken off, so that I might be grafted in. This is where he's warning us against arrogance towards the Jew, Jewish people. That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith, so do not become proud but fear. So that's where we left off. So we need to, as as Christians who have received um Christ as our Savior, we need to still live with a with a fear of the Lord. And that fear, one of the things I've learned, people who truly fear the Lord are compassionate towards others. Like if you fear the Lord, that it it really takes away. The opposite of fear is pride. And I that's I think that's been helpful for me because you think if you said, What's the opposite of pride? A person would probably answer humility. But you see, like that athlete, that guy's really he man, he's really prideful. Man, I like him. He's really humble. The opposite of pride in the biblical sense is fear. Yeah, because the fear of the Lord humbles me before the Lord.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:33

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

I just want Christians to be humbled. It's you know, the the question Carter asked was about the Holocaust was I think people are trying to find a middle ground compromise where they go, Well, I'm not gonna say the Holocaust didn't happen. That's crazy. We can't, we're only one generation removed. My granddad was there. I'm a first-person witness to a first-person witness who set who lived in my home, and we sat in front of the fire all winter, one winter, when my granddad was living with me, and he I said, Tell me about it. What was it like when you landed in Omaha Beach? What was it like when you liberated Paris? What was it like when you were in the Herkin Forest, which, if you go study the Battle of the Herken Forest, it's one of the most horrible, horrific um uh campaigns like in combat history in America. My granddad was there. The Battle of the Herkin Forest and the Battle of the Bulge, these battles that took place to root the German stronghold out. Like, I'm I'm an eyewitness to the eyewitness. Like he told me firsthand, first-person experiences, and I journaled it and documented it and have it written down. I only wish we were doing this when he was alive. He died in 2011. And so it's it's too, it's way too soon. You cannot say it didn't happen. So I appreciated Carter's take on this. He said, What people are saying now is it happened, but not nearly on the scale.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:01

They forged the numbers or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:02

Yeah, that it wasn't six million or twenty million, or and what I would say to that is I don't care what the number was.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:08

Yeah, if it's 10 or 10 million, like that's horrible. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

And so was it not six million? Was it only six hundred thousand? Would we dare say, oh, only six hundred thousand people were put in these concentration camps? The bottom line is it happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

And it happened to Jews. Yes. And there's no question about that. Have you ever heard of um Corey Timboom? So Corey Timboom wrote a book called The Hiding Place. Um, it's a phenomenal story. Her dad and her so um her dad was a watchmaker at a little shop in Germany and they hid Jewish people. They they they built these secret hiding places in their the book is called The Hiding Place, and they made a place where they could harbor Jews. Um but her testimony is just so powerful. Um And later in her life, she lived because at World War II, at that point, she was like in her 30s. And uh she had never married and she still lived with her father. Her and her sister lived with her father. Um, she later would go on to speak, travel and speak a lot. And she's uh you can watch old clips of her on YouTube sharing, lecturing and talking about prayer. And but the testimony of someone like Corey Timboom is um you realize just how horrible it was what happened to Jewish people in in the Warsaw Nations, in in uh in Poland, in Germany, in France, um, in Spain. And so there's no question about it. And I think what people what Carter was bringing the point Carter was bringing up earlier is people will get on this this wave of, yeah, but the numbers have been exaggerated. And I would just challenge you, I don't think that really matters. I mean, I guess in one sense it matters.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:00

But the point that these people are making is not the point that that makes.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:05

Yeah. The the Holocaust happened. How many people died, I don't know, but I know it was a bunch.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

And a lot more lives were destroyed. And it was, it's similar to when you hear stories of American slavery or European slavery of African slaves, how a child would be separated from their parent and sent in two different directions from the, you know, slave hold, you know, one slave is moved to one state and another to another state, and the parent is separated from the child. That happened in the Holocaust, too, you know, and there are stories and testimonies of that. So I think that's important to point out. And then uh so the point that I want to make there before we kind of wrap this up is um there's there's an arrogance that comes in your generation and the and the voice of people like Tucker Carlson, who's my generation. They're so arrogant in the way they communicate. I hate that. Both sides, regardless of your perspective, I hate loud, arrogant, obnoxious. One of the things I appreciated, and we talked about this when we did that Charlie Kirk episode. I admittingly never followed or listened to Charlie Kirk. I was just familiar with him. I've listened to a whole lot more of what he had to say since he died. One of the things I appreciate is he does not strike me as an arrogant person. And that was one of the things people accused him of. But there is such an arrogant, condescending tone. You go back and you watch that Ted Cruz Tucker Carlson argument.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:40

It's like they're both just trying to make each other feel stupid.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

Yeah, one of the things as Christians we have is brotherly love that like we can come together in what the scripture calls charity. 1 Corinthians 13 says, if I speak in the tongues of angels, it don't have charity or love. I'm like a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. And so I want to have these conversations in a wholesome and caring and loving way. And I think that's important. And and and so pride, the opposite of pride is fear. And so he says, Hey, as a Gentile believer, you need to fear the Lord, and that'll probably control your tone and the temperature that you're speaking in. Don't become pride, uh prideful. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he won't spare you. He's like, You're you're saying, hey, look, God's judged Israel, they've lost salvation. Well, you think you won't be like plucked out and thrown in the fire, you know, be careful, because if you're truly a child of God, that'll be evidenced by the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, gentleness, meekness. Um, note then the kindness and severity of God, both kind and severe. Severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. I would just pause at Romans 11, 22 and say to the anti-Semite who professes to be a Christian, who's judgmental of modern-day Israel or ethnic Jews or whatever, you are in danger of being cut off. From what? From the gospel, from eternal life. And and I let me just say, I believe in eternal security.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:17

So what that would tell me is if you have the Holy Spirit living in you, there's no room then for that fruit to be produced in you, that fruit of hatred and vehemence and and resentment towards uh people based on ethnicity. Even if they do not continue in their unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. He's like, okay, so now we're starting to get this terminology. He's saying, he's warning us against anti-Semitism and he's saying, God has the power to save Jews. In 2026, God can save Jewish people who are apostate, agnostic, atheistic, because most Jews, modern day uh progressive Jews, are either atheistic or agnostic. If you go to Israel today, you know, Gavin Ortland in that video I sent you, 15-minute interview, uh 15-minute video of Gavin Ortland talking about this, he said, in modern-day Israel, you have Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, um, and other people of other faiths as well. Um, so God has the power to graft them back in. God can save Jews still.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:23

He's not done with them. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted in, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted in to their own olive tree? It's like if God could take, go back to the grafting illustration, if God could graft you into this tree, can he not take something that came from that tree and graft it in? That's even easier, is the is the idea. So he's saying Israel's salvation is possible. So now we've got to ask the question: is there a future plan for Israel? Lest you be wise in your own side. I don't want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come on Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. So he's like, this hardening has happened while the Gentile world is experiencing a growth in advance of the gospel. There's a fullness of salvation coming to Gentile people. And in this way, all Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob, and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. So he says, All in this way, all Israel will be saved. And this is where we have to wrestle with does that phrase all Israel mean the church? Because he's saying there's a fullness of salvation coming to the Gentiles. They're being grafted into the saving faith, they're being grafted into the Jewish salvation that has occurred through Christ, the one who's the seed of Isaac and Abraham. But then there's going to be Jews that God's not finished with that he's going to graft back in. There's going to be salvage. Can God do that? He can save both Jew and Gentile. And so he's doing this work of salvation. And now what we have here is true Israel. This is true Israel. Those who are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That's true Israel, according to what the scripture teaches here. I do believe that. I do believe that. As regards the gospel, they're enemies for your sake, but as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. This is important. God doesn't repent. So God made promises to ethnic Israel because he also made promises to Isaac and Jacob, Moses and David. He doesn't revoke those promises. So they too have now been disobedient. Uh I'm sorry. For just as you at one time were disobedient to God, now they receive uh but now have received mercy because of their disobedience. So he's like, You Jews, I mean, you Gentiles, at one point you were not in Christ. Gentiles were were were not in Christ, but because of the Jewish disobedience, the gospel has now come to you. Just as that happened, so they too are now being disobedient, in order that by the mercy shown to you, they may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience that he might have mercy on all. So he's saying there seems to be this mercy that's been shown to you that is going to be shown to Jews. And so it seems to me that there are certain promises that go back to the Old Testament that God is going to fulfill with some Jewish people. Do I believe that there's going to be seven years where we're not here and the Jewish Jewish people figure it out and a bunch of them get saved? I don't believe that. Do I think that there's going to be a resurgence of Christianity and an acceptance of Jesus as Messiah among the ethnic Jewish people? I think, I think that's going to happen according to scripture. Um do I think that means a massive revival in modern day the nation of Israel? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:55

I would just say I don't know. And then people, where the debate goes from here, and this is what I can't really speak to because I don't, I haven't formed an opinion. People say, Does the land of modern day Israel hold certain promises? You'll hear hear people talk about the land and the promise. And I think we covered that some in that last episode where we talked about Jerusalem not being a literal city in the nation of Israel, but the new Jerusalem being sort of this in this picture of all-encompassing new creation. Um, do I think that Jesus will return literally to a physical place in modern Israel and there are promises attached to that land? I don't know. I'm still studying that. There people debate that.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:33

Yeah.

Respond With Compassion Not Outrage

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Um, but where I'm at right now is I think true Israel is the church that's comprised of Jews and Gentiles who have accept and embraced Jesus. I think there are some promises to ancient Israel that are still to be fulfilled and that there will be some salvation that occurs. All that to say what should our so how should we treat the modern, the, the, the, today's conversation about Israel? There's no room for anti-Semitism. We should pray for the salvation of Jews. We should pray for peace in Israel because they are surrounded by hostility. And uh, and and I think we should pray for them both that they would be preserved as a nation. Um we, you know, politically are they our ally? Yeah. Do you feel like Netanyahu isn't is manipulating leaders in Washington? I that's not what this is about for me today. I've I'm not a political commentator. Um do I, you know, what are my views on the current war in Iran? Man, I sure hope we don't send boys over there to get killed. And I hope we can I pray for peace in the world and I pray for the gospel to bring the ultimate peace in the hearts of men. And I pray for Christians in Iran because they're under persecution and I want them to flourish, and I think they are flourishing. I think Christians in Israel, in some ways, are under a greater persecution because it's a cultural persecution, where they're being spat on, they're being ostracized, being persecuted by modern day Israelis, Jewish people. It's complicated. It's very complicated. But I'm thankful that that Jesus knows the beginning from the end, and that I've been I think I'm part of true Israel, according to Romans 11. And if I meet a Jew, I'm gonna share the gospel with them and tell them about Jesus. I will no longer do what I did in 1999 when I was reading the Left Behind series.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:25

What did you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:27

And I thought this is the greatest prophetic exegetical work of explaining the book of Revelation that's ever existed. Um are you familiar with the Left Behind series?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:40

I've like, is there a movie?

unknown 1:17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:42

I think I've I think it made two.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:44

I think I've seen the movie, but I haven't books or nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

It was a it was a series of about a dozen books that came out. Okay, okay. Yeah, so it's basically pre dispensational, pre-tribulational view. It's the rapture occurs, and it follows this one guy who's I think he's an airline pilot.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:01

And uh, yeah, and it's it's it's kind of following him. He realizes my wife was right. You know, and he's living in infidelity and just kind of he's he's real carnal, and yeah. And then he becomes like this champion for the gospel during the seven years of tribulation, leads sort of this revolution of people that um so anyway, I'd read the books and they're so well written, you know, from very, very spectacular. And and I met this Jewish gal. She was from Israel, um, and she was, I don't know why she was at my mom's house. My mom's always got somebody at her house. My mom's like the ultimate friend maker. And this gal was at her house, and I think she was a an exchange student, but I think she was a college kid, maybe going to Western Carolina or something like that. My mom had met her and was hosting her, having her over for meals and stuff. And I get to talking to this girl, and I'm like, I'm I'm I'm armpit deep in the left behind series. And I was like, let me tell you what's gonna happen. Okay, we're all gonna leave. Because I shared first, let me, I didn't lead with this. Yeah. Shared the gospel. We had conversations, she's an atheist. It was the first time I realized modern Israel is very secular. So when we see pictures of it and we see the Hasidic Jews, Orthodox folks, the flat brim hats, the curly that's not the norm over there.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:21

Aaron Ross Powell What's the Yarmaka? Are they Orthodox?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:25

So yeah, so there's there well, there's different factions and segments. So it's kind of like if you think of Protestantism, there's different denominations. It's a little more complicated than that, but for in layman's Western terms, there are different sort of factions. So the I think it's the Hasidic Jews that wear the flat brim hats, they don't trim the edge of their temples. Their beard is not trimmed on the edge, and so they hold to some a little bit more uh Old Testament teaching and but you can't do the whole Old Testament thing because there's no temple.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:00

And so it's it gets real complicated real fast. Um the Yarmica has to do with the head covering of the Jew, Jews. And so um, I didn't realize this girl's like it's like talking to somebody who's a lesbian from LA who went to UC Berkeley and studied philosophy. And I'm like, wait a minute, what do you know you don't believe you're not a Jew? You're a Jew. I'm a Jew. You're a Jew, I'm a Jew. So like, so you still just worship what Moses said? It's like, nah, man, that's like folklore. And I'm like, wait a minute, okay. I was uh it it it spun me out. Yeah, because I thought there's Christians and some Jews are Christians, and then there's Jews, and if they're not Christians, they're Jewish, and which means they still believe the Old Testament. This girl's like, no, she's just a secular modern Jew, you know. So I I share the gospel with her. She's kind of laughing and scoffing, and but I'm man, I'm pouring my heart out. We talked for a couple hours at my mom's house, and then and I'm like, I know what I'll do. I'll she's not hearing me. When I get raptured, she's gonna then realize that dude I met at Hillbelly in North Carolina. I thought that. And so I explained to this 21-year-old girl, and I was probably in my late 20s, and I'm like, okay, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna all be gone. I want you to remember this. There's gonna be a point where we're in one of the books, he he in in the Left Behind series, he's in Israel, and the two, the two men, the prophets are killed in the street, and you know, and I'm telling her all this stuff, and and um now, I don't believe any of that's gonna happen the way that I explained it to her, but pretty funny. And so I would just say everybody's on a on a journey. Your sanctification of becoming more like Christ should involve you're reading, you're studying, you're digging into the scripture, and you're not gonna agree with people on all this stuff, and these are areas that we can disagree. Um if somebody's somebody that's a dispensationalist who believes in a secret rapture and a tri and a seven-year period where Christians are gonna be gone and Jews are gonna get saved, and then during that time we're gonna be with Christ. Like, I got a lot of strong brothers in Christ that believe that, who we're on the same team.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

So it's not something to divide over in that way. Um, I think that's important. But we do need to navigate the conversation of how do we treat how do we treat this this issue today. And I feel a darkness and an intensity and an oppression in the world that comes from people's hatred towards other people groups. And as a Christian, man, I want to love people well and share the gospel with them and live humbly with the fear of the Lord, like Paul says in Romans 11. Um it's important that we do that. The hope that I would share if I could go back and if I sat down with that gal at my mom's house now, I would just share the gospel with her. Wouldn't address the fact that she's Jewish or that there's gonna be a rapture of the church or the end of I would just share Jesus with the same way I would share with a Muslim or same way I would share with an agnostic or a secular humanist person in North America, you know, an apostate deconstructed, you know, like share Christ. It's who Jesus is. Yeah. This is what Jesus said, this is what Jesus did, and this is what Jesus extends and promises to us, you know. Um and the word of God has has been given to us in all scriptures breathed out by God. You said that in the intro so I think so appropriately and effectively.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:39

Any other thoughts or questions or I don't think you guys have anything.

Build Theology From Scripture

SPEAKER_06 1:23:44

Yeah. I hope that this brought you guys some clarity and hopefully it maybe makes you think about something. It definitely makes you think. And we at Snowbird, we will always preach this and share this at like read scripture, read scripture in context and like do your own due diligence, you know. Like same thing with like I think the same thing can be said for social media, like don't just look at a meme or an Instagram reel or like a news headline and let that inform your thoughts. Same thing with don't just pluck this one verse out of Genesis 12 and let that form your thoughts. Like, read scripture in context and let that form your heart and come to scripture with a humble heart, like you said, like with the fear of the Lord. Um and that will definitely form your heart and form your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:40

Yeah, don't that's right. Don't don't get your could you speak to one thing before we're done that I think was helpful the other day? You talked about I would I want to warn people about um the importance of of your own study of scripture and not just drinking from other wells. Yeah so like guys in my age um might might have their favorite authors or reformers that they like to read or their favorite pastors they like to listen to. Folks in your generation might have their influences that they prefer to listen to rather than just opening God's word and trusting that the Lord will speak to you. I'm not saying that there's not a place for those resources.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:21

I mean, you could say that about this podcast. Yeah, yeah. Like I hope people aren't just listening to this and being like daily devotion, checked off, you know. Um we we were this conversation came up because we've been really putting in time for summer teaching topics and breakouts and really praying and mulling over all of that. And uh I suggested with technology, especially I've seen this in the youth of America, the youths, but um there's been some really cool people who have come to faith and are pretty prevalent on TikTok and Instagram, and it's great. Like those people to in my knowledge, what I've seen of them haven't been spewing like heretic things or anything like that. It's pretty solid, it is a little bit more um charismatic, but like for the most part, it's I mean, it's good stuff, and so a lot of kids will look to those creators to fill their cup essentially. Um, and one girl she has a really cool testimony. I would actually like to do like a full episode on this topic, but long story short, she used to be on like a porn website and uh completely left that behind and it has to turn to the Lord. And she's really, like I said, seems to be really sound and is just kind of like working through her faith, but it's kind of weird because she's doing it in a public eye. And so sometimes she'll offer up a devotion or talk about what the Lord is teaching her. Um, and sometimes she'll just post regular like content like stay in the life of me, like you know, just come put my makeup on with me, stuff like that. And people will be in her comments, like, we needed more devotions. Like, why didn't you mention God in this? Like, and kind of hate on her for not like constantly sharing a devotion or telling her testimony and stuff like that. And so I think where that comes from is these kids are looking to these content creators for their religion, essentially. Like they that's who is filling their cup instead of opening scripture or going to their youth pastor or finding genuine community, because it's also like not to diss on these guys, but it's like they have millions of subscribers, they don't know who's watching them, they don't care per on a personal level of little Jimmy, you know. But anyways, long story short, that can be said for younger people, older people. Like, I really encourage you guys to your main source of life and i is scripture. Um, and then use podcasts and content creators and whatever. To come alongside you and aid you and encourage you to talk about a topic like this or talk about something that interests you, but don't let that form of content be the thing that's sustaining you, because it won't. Like we've definitely said stuff that's like you guys probably don't agree with, or maybe it's false, or maybe it's just our opinion. And so I don't want you guys to completely be formed by us or I don't know, Joe Rogan, or like I don't know, like some random podcaster or YouTuber or whatever. Um but yeah, I would love to do a full episode on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:33

I would too, and I would I would follow that up by saying to my generation, especially of men, um you're I don't think you're on a healthy path if you listen every week to the Sean Ryan podcast, the Joe Rogan podcast, the I don't, I don't know, uh Tucker Carlson, these main, these these top-tier podcasts that are listened to by so many dudes, and and you don't spend long, meaningful time in the Word of God. You're being informed by something that is fallible, that is opinionated. The word of God is is undefiled and it um is unfading. And so I'm I I would never say don't go listen to the Sean Ryan podcast. Um although I think he's a not a good interviewer. I don't enjoy listening to that guy interview somebody. But sometimes he has interesting guests on there that I like to listen to. So like he had Wes Huff on there, listen to that. Um I I just I think that guys in my age bracket that listen to this are probably getting this right. You know, if you're listening to NSR, you're probably a person that spends time in the Word, because we that that's something we constantly challenge and encourage and push at snubbard. Um but if not, you need to be, and I would encourage you to, and yeah, we would never want this to take the place of that. But I would also warn don't uh don't don't listen to your favorite podcasts every week and ignore the scripture and not spend time in the word. It's you're being informed by something.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:09

You need to be informed by scripture.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:12

Um thanks for doing this, and thanks for your input in this, JB. Like you, you got me thinking about a lot of things. We've had a lot of warm-up conversations to this over the last few days, and it's really pushed me. Had one guy, the comments we made on Israel on the first podcast on eschatology, had one pastor friend, I love him, he's a good friend, but he he said, We gotta have a discussion because we definitely do not agree on the Israel thing. And I'm like, did what did I give an opinion about it? I don't know. It's made me really think. Yeah, I want to I want to mean what I say, and when I don't know, I don't want to keep my mouth shut, you know, and not try to sound smart.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:50

Um I will say this, and this would be the last thing. I heard uh Tom Shriner give um Tom Shriner is uh he moderated the 2024 debate, the second evening of eschatology. You know, you and me had listened to the one. Of course, I sent that one to you. That was in 09. The guy that represented the pre-mail view, Jim Hamilton. He at his church they did in 2024, they did a follow-up. Um, so 15 years later, he represented that and had two more guys. I think we mentioned this. Tom Shriner is the guy that moderates that one. Tom Shriner wrote one book on Revelation when he was uh when he's Amel or pre-mil, and then one when he was omil. Oh wow. But now he says he he I haven't studied this yet, but I'm going to. He said he is what he they call a new creation millennialist.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:46

And he said it would to to in layman's terms, it would bridge the cap between omil and pre-mil.

unknown 1:31:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:53

So I'm interested to study that because I felt like all along there's gotta be some categories in between. I know there's a category between omil and post-meal. It's like optimistic post-meal, optimistic o' mil. But the one I've always felt like surely there's something in between. So anyway, that'll be fun to study. I don't know that we'll do an episode on it, but I'm definitely gonna go study that. New creation pre-meal is what you call it.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:14

So interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:15

Go check that out if you're if you're interested. All right, awesome. Thanks.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:20

Yep.

Wrap Up Subscribe And Resources

SPEAKER_00 1:32:21

Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.