The Dangers of Replacement Theology - Live Stream

[00:03:02]expedite to get the New Testament or translated speed it up. We're trying to do awesome short time, but I can explain more later.

[00:03:10]>> Thanks, Lance. Appreciate it.

[00:03:18]>> [clears throat] >> Sorry. [clears throat] Good morning.

[00:03:40]Good morning.

[00:03:45]Good morning. [clears throat] Welcome to Sugarland Bible Church this morning.

[00:03:51]Am I on?

[00:03:55]Okay, here we go. Here we go. Good morning and welcome to Sugarland Bible Church. Uh while Pastor Andy has been on sbatical, uh we've had some wonderful guest speakers. And our speaker this morning, I'm sure will be no exception.

[00:04:08]Uh his name is Jeff Kenny Kinley. He's a former pastor and best-selling author of 40 books. He's a recognized expert and thought leader in the field of Bible prophecy, having authored 12 books on the subject. He's a graduate of the University of Arkansas and Dallas Theological Seminary. He has weekly podcast, the Vintage Truth Podcast and the Prophecy Pros podcast, and they are heard in 120 countries and rank in the top 1% of all podcasts in America. Uh Jeff has been a featured speaker on Fox and Trends, the Glenn Beck Show, and the Ben Shapiro show, and hundreds of other radio and TV programs. His articles and interviews have been featured in the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, and the Jerusalem Post. Um, his television shows, Jeff Kennley Live, which airs each week on his channel. And he's also host and teacher of the King is Coming television program. He and his wife Beverly have been married 41 years, and they have three grown sons. Uh, so welcome, Jeff.

[00:05:19]Thank you.

[00:05:22]>> Well, good morning.

[00:05:23]>> It's good to see you here this morning.

[00:05:25]We're going to have a great time in the in the word uh together today. Uh as brother mentioned, I am married for we've been married for I think let me think about this now. I'm going to get myself in trouble. Uh 40 uh 42 years, I think. No, 44 years. It's one of those.

[00:05:42]It's No, it's 44. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's 44. and uh three uh three grown sons and seven grandchildren and uh just loving it, loving being a granddad and stuff. But um it's very interesting. I had three boys because I actually asked God to give me three boys. You know, sometimes God actually answers your prayers, you know. And the reason I asked for three boys was because my dad came from a family of nine boys and one girl. And we say bless her heart in the south. And uh that that that basically means glad I'm not you. That's what bless your heart means. And so uh but uh but then my dad had three boys and then my oldest brother had three boys and then I had three boys. And then finally um my oldest son, they were about to have their first child and guess what they had? They had a girl. Yeah. And I'm going to be honest with you, we didn't know what to do with it.

[00:06:38]You know, first time she was held tomorrow, I was like, "Well, does she play football? What does she throw a base? I don't know what this girl does, but then he went on to have three boys after that. So, he's completed the the set there. So, we're keeping the the family line alive uh in perpetuity, God willing.

[00:06:55]Well, it's a blessing to be with you uh here today because uh Dr. Dr. Woods is a dear friend of mine and uh we go way back and and so anytime I get an opportunity to minister with Andy or or for him in his church, it's always a a great pleasure. We're going to talk about today the dangers of replacement theology. And I'm going to go ahead and tell you ahead of time. Of course, you're kind of used to this, uh but it's going to be a little bit like uh taking a sip of water from a fire hydrant.

[00:07:23]There's going to be a lots of information that we're going to go over today. Uh, I completed my doctorate at Liberty University last year on this very subject of replacement theology.

[00:07:34]And if you ever have trouble going to sleep some night, you can read my thesis online. Uh, that'll put you straight to sleep. But um, but yeah, just uh study this topic because I've I have found that this is becoming uh one of the issues that's rising to the surface in the body of Christ today. Uh there are there are two very controversial topics that we're seeing today. One is this idea of replacement theology and the other controversial topic, believe it or not, is the belief in a preerttrib rapture, which we're also going to talk about in the second hour together. And so what's happening today, I I believe there's a lot of deception. And I believe in these last days that one of the ways that Satan is propagating his lies is to get the bride of Christ's eyes off of what God says about the last days and onto what Christian pop culture really says. And so this idea of replacement theology has really gained a lot of traction today. Now among the questions that we're going to answer this morning is what is replacement theology? What does that mean? And is this a phrase that every Christian should know about? I believe it is. How did it become popular over the the course of history? Uh what are the real dangers of it? Does it really pose a real threat? Is this really a big deal? Or shouldn't we all just say, "Hey, let let's just all believe God's going to pan things out in the end. Everything's going to work out fine. Don't worry about it. Doctrine isn't that important." Well, guess what?

[00:09:06]There's a lot of doctrine in this book.

[00:09:09]And since God put it in the book, it's important. That's what makes it important. And so, we're going to answer that question. Uh why should we reject replacement theology? We're going to talk about that. Then, we're going to spend a few minutes looking at what did Paul say about Israel? We're going to look at Paul's doctrine of Israel. Uh we're going to look at some biblical distinctions between the church and Israel. Uh and then finally, we're going to close by talking about how does future Bible prophecy relate to this very subject right here. I mean, is there anything going on today that tells us that replacement theology is a lie based on Bible prophecy? So, we'll address that uh as well at the very end.

[00:09:47]So, let's begin uh by talking about uh what is replacement theology. And as you see there, the fish moves in that represents the church and Israel fades in into the background. So I define replacement theology this way that it's the belief that due to Israel's rejection of Messiah that the church has now officially superseded or replaced Israel as God's chosen people.

[00:10:14]Replacement theology is sometimes known as supersessionism.

[00:10:18]And there are many different forms of of supersessionism.

[00:10:22]uh one is a form that just says that that God is punishing Israel for rejecting Messiah. And you know that when Christ came, it says he came to his own in John 1, but his own received him not. And so Israel rejected their Messiah at at the end of Matthew 23.

[00:10:42]Jesus says that you're not going to see me again until you say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

[00:10:50]And so Israel rejected their Messiah.

[00:10:53]And uh and so this view says that look, you had your your chance and you blew it. And so Israel, God's done with you and he's punishing you for that rejection. That's punitive supersessionism. Uh there are other uh expressions of supersessionism, economic supersessionism and and others that basically say that Israel was a part of God's plan. But just like a rocket booster gets kind of the rocket into space, once it's into space, you don't need that original booster system anymore. So Israel was basically used by God uh to just get us down the road a little bit until the church came along because there's just one people of God uh they would say. And so God no longer has any uh use for Israel. Uh this view would also say that Israel is just simply a part of God's larger plan of redemption and that God's not going to return to Israel in the last days. He has no future dealings or future plans for Israel whatsoever. And so that's one of the reasons why they say that we are the new Israel. Now we're going to address that here uh in our time together today.

[00:12:01]Well, let's talk about this. How did replacement theology become popular? I mean, where did this whole idea begin?

[00:12:07]And so, I think it's important for us as we study what's called historical theology or church history, we get sort of the panorama of how we got here today. I mean, if you were to do a survey of where the church is today and all of its expressions, uh, with the seeker sensitive movement and and legalism and covenant theology and and Armenianism and Calvinism and all these different expressions of of Christianity, uh, you would see that there are paths that were taken that got them to this particular uh, point. And so, replacement theology basically grew beginning in the second century due to three reasons. The first one was that the church was originally a Jewish church. You know, we forget that sometimes that the church began when in Acts chapter 2 on the day of what?

[00:12:58]Pentecost. And when Pentecost occurred, it was during uh this feast that Jews had come from all over the world and they were gathering there and of course Peter stood up and preached the gospel and 3,000 were saved. It was a mega church begun on day one on the church's birthday. Holy Spirit came, empowered believers, they began to preach the gospel uh to people from many different uh places in the world. And it was as far as we know 100% Jewish. Now, isn't that interesting? The church today is not 100% Jewish, is it? But what happened was is that as Christianity began to spread to Asia Minor and into Western Europe and on into Africa and different places like that, there were less and less Jews there. uh less and less expressions of uh the Jewish faith.

[00:13:46]Less and less synagogues there as Paul would go to synagogues in each city and he would preach the gospel. Why? For the I'm ashame not ashamed of the gospel for is the power of God and salvation what first to the Jew and then also to the Greek. So Paul went to his own people because he was very passionate about reaching the Jewish people. But he began to discover like Jesus did uh that for the majority the Jews did not want any part of this new thing called the way this new uh sect as they called it. So just naturally and geographically as the church spread if you planted a church in Spain you wouldn't expect there to be a huge Jewish contention there. So that's one reason why they began to put less and less emphasis on Israel. The second reason was because Israel ceased to be a nation in AD70 and basically was scattered to the wind.

[00:14:41]And in AD 135, Hadrien essentially banished all Jews from the Holy Land.

[00:14:48]And so now, not only do you not have Jews concentrated in one place where you could at least conceivably reach them, now you have to go to the whole world to find them. and they're just scattered in pockets all over the world. And so the church began to grow, but it began to be from predominantly Jewish to less Jewish to now predominantly Gentile. And then thirdly, as a result of this, what happened was uh all scriptures pertaining to or prophesying about national Israel were then reinterpreted uh and applied spiritually to the church. since let's be honest there's no such thing as Israel. So let's think about this from a person's perspective living in the second century. You're reading your Bible, you're reading promises that are made to Israel, uh that are made to David that are made about the land and you go, "Well, there's no way that could ever come true because there is no such thing as Israel." In their minds, it would be like you saying, "Well, here's a promise made to Abraham Lincoln." Well, how's that going to be fulfilled? Because there was no Abraham Lincoln around, right? And so, just from a natural reading of of the Bible in light of the history and in light of their culture, in light of what they're seeing in current events in their day, they read the Bible through the current events instead of reading the Bible through uh the original intention of of the author.

[00:16:18]And instead of looking at culture and saying, "Well, wait a minute. culture says something that's counterintuitive to what the Bible says. So, am I going to believe what the culture is saying and where the culture is trending or history is trending or am I going to believe what the Bible says no matter what? As crazy as that might sound. And I want to tell you something. There are a lot of crazy things in the Bible culturally speaking. I mean, things that go against the common narrative today. I mean, today we live in a world where if you stand up and say something that the Bible says, it sounds like you just stepped off an alien spaceship and that's the way people look at you. You know, could you can you even believe that we're living in a day where you if you stand up and say a man can't have a baby and people will look at you like you're the crazy one and your university will look at you like that and your government may look at you like that and higher education will look at you like that and science and doctors and medical societies will look at you and tell you that you're insane. Well, the Bible also has some pretty radical prophecies about the end times that are quite frankly, from a human perspective, kind of hard to believe. So, you're telling me that demonic locusts are going to rise out of the ground, out of this bottomless pit, and they're going to torment mankind for five months and sting them. So, so that's really going to happen. So, so what movie are you watching when you see this? Right? So the things that we believe today sound crazy to people, but says it in the word of God. And so you're living in a day where you're going to be the odd man out or the odd woman out when you believe what the Bible says. Well, in that day, there weren't a whole lot of people speaking about what scripture really says. They were just saying, "Well, I guess there's no Israel, so I guess these promises must be for us now, cuz we believe in the Bible, right? and we believe these promises are true, but there's no Israel for these promises to acrew to. So, they must be coming to us. So, that's kind of I think the the the logic or the thought process they went through. And then you got to the early uh church fathers and most of the early church fathers adopted this view of replacement theology. Once again, they're reading much of the Bible as you and I would, but they're looking at what is in their world and they're saying to themselves, "Well, it must not be true." They look at history. They looked at reality. They looked at current events. Uh instead of uh focusing in on what does actual scripture really say. Now, when I look at church history, I give grace to some of these people. And here's why. Because these people didn't have the full picture yet. Uh they didn't know what God was going to do. And they got it right on a lot of things. So, I think it's really illegitimate to write off the church fathers or to write off Martin Luther because yeah, he had some bad views over there. But he got some things really right. So, we need to appreciate them and not retroactively judge all these people for their views.

[00:19:26]But fair enough, the Jews began to be known as Christ killers. And this led to the pograms. It it led to persecution of Jewish people all throughout the Middle Ages. Uh there were entire villages of Jews that were slaughtered. Uh the Jews were blamed for the bubonic plague. Uh they went in and said that the Jews were uh kidnapping gentile children and drinking their blood and over these rituals. And so that justified that rumor with that rumor to kill Jewish people. And uh and there were, you know, Roman um excuse me um Martin Luther wrote a uh a paper called against the Jews. And so there was all of these this hatred that began to spread against Jews. And this created in the Jewish people the idea of well don't ever listen to Christians because they think we're the Christ killers. So when you reach out to a a Jewish person today uh and try to witness to them, you have to go from a a very particular angle because if you don't, they're just going to write you off as well, you're the one that hated us for all these years. And so, uh, this, uh, justified the persecution of of Jewish people. And so, as we move on to the the dangers of replacement theology, I'm going to give you 14 dangers that I see in replacement theology. And this is, I think, based upon just our our study of the totality of scripture. And it's these are principles that we see rising up out of replacement theology as we overlap it with our study of scripture from a a historical grammatical perspective. The first is is that replacement theology is based upon an inconsistent interpretive method. An inconsistent interpretive method. In other words, their hermeneutics are skewed. You say, "Wait a minute, Jeeoff, what do you mean by that?" Well, what I mean by that is is that many of of the replacement theologians and those who were orthodox in every other area of theology, someone like an Augustine, for example, he got so many things right, but when he got to Israel, he looked around and went, "Well, there's no such thing as Israel, so I guess I'll reinterpret these things." And he got everything wrong on esquetology.

[00:21:41]And so, they're the way they approach the Bible is they're consistent to a point. And you will hear covenant theologians and replacement theologians say this to you. They'll say, "Well, that's apocalyptic literature, that Revelation thing, that Daniel thing, it's apocalyptic, so we have to interpret it completely different than we do all other scripture." But we would then say, "No, we believe that a consistent method of interpretation will lead you to a proper biblical conclusion if you just apply the same interpretive method all the way across the board. Uh we believe that God meant what he said.

[00:22:19]That he said what he meant. And yes, there are symbols in the Bible. There are metaphors in the Bible. Jesus says, "I am the door." Right? None of us who believe in a literal interpretation think that Jesus was comparing himself to a literal door. We know what he meant by that. Yeah, there are many symbols in apocalyptic literature, but most of the time those symbols are explained to us.

[00:22:40]And so we would say no, it's it's a literal, grammatical, historical, contextual approach to uh the Bible. Uh and as Dr. Tim Lehei used to always say, and I'm sure you've heard this before, but when the plain sense of the Bible makes sense, seek no other sense, lest you end up with nonsense.

[00:22:58]And that's what you end up with. Uh if you take another approach to scripture other than the literal, grammatical, historical, contextual approach, you will end up with nonsense because there's no template that there's no pattern, there's no rubric to interpret what all of these symbols mean unless you simply take them in their plain literal uh approach. And so this replacement theology, what it does, it reinterprets scripture in light of contemporary history. And once again today, they take who Israel is today and they say that can't be uh God's fulfillment of Bible prophecy. So an inconsistent interpretive method. We're not saying they're wrong in everything.

[00:23:40]We're just saying that they're inconsistent. They don't finish uh well like they started well. Secondly, it indirectly promotes anti-semitism.

[00:23:49]If you believe as a Christian that God has absolutely no purpose for the nation of Israel in the last days and you've written them off along with the Jewish people, it's going to to affect your view of of Jews and of Israel and of what's happening in Israel even uh today. And so it impacts our thinking about Jews and it tilts towards anti-semitism. In fact, anti-semitism is rising within the church. And in the months following October 7th in America as a whole, anti-semitism rose some 600%.

[00:24:31]And so there there is a global narrative that I believe is being driven by Satan in the last days because when we read Revelation, what do we find? Satan goes after the Jews. And so we know that all of history is going to end up where? In Israel. in Jerusalem and there's going to be a massive slaughter of Jewish people during that time. And so Satan's narrative is pushing this and many times the world will accept that narrative ignoring what the Bible says, right? But they'll accept what others say because it just fits and it sounds good. And so it indirectly promotes uh anti-semitism.

[00:25:09]Some would say it directly promotes anti-semitism. A third reason is uh replacement theology forfeits potential blessings of God. You know Genesis 12:3 says God said to Abraham what I will bless those who bless you. I will bless those who bless you. Now either that's true or that's not true. There's only two options for that, right? And if it's true today, who are these people? Who is this nation that we're supposed to bless? Well, I believe it's Israel. And so if we fail to bless Israel, then we potentially forfeit blessings from God.

[00:25:46]The rest of that verse says, "And whoever curses you, I will curse."

[00:25:52]And so if we curse the Jewish people, then we in essence are inviting God's cursing upon us. And listen, we have to we have to distinguish between what we're saying here is that God gave this promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12.

[00:26:10]And he didn't say, "But if the Jews are just not nice or if Israel is not believing, then this promise doesn't uh take effect. It's not applicable." No, he didn't say that. He said, "Whoever blesses, I will bless. Whoever curses, I will curse." and so potentially invites cursings from God. Number five, a replacement theology misses God's end times narrative. See, this is why you don't see Bible prophecy preached in a lot of churches that believe in covenant theology because they believe that it's all just spiritualized uh in the end. I remember hearing a pastor one time out of Nashville, really an excellent pastor, had a great view of God, high view of God, a good communicator. He wrote a book on Revelation. And uh I went to uh to read it and the entire book of Revelation once you got past about chapter 3 was just all about, you know, there's good and there's evil and God's going to win in the end. Isn't it great? Isn't God good? That's basically the the whole rest of the book of Revelation. Well, do you realize how many how many hermeneutical exoggetical gymnastics you have to do uh to get to that point? And it basically just says, you know what, God God kind of didn't know how to finish his book. Basically is what it say. I love what John MacArthur says on this.

[00:27:33]fact he says, you know, God is so specific throughout the entire Bible about every single prophecy, but in the end, he sort of loses his way. Isn't that interesting? an interesting perspective that people have about God that he was so specific, so clear to his church, but then God has one last chance to finish his book and he just stumbles around on stage and doesn't know where he's going. It's like God is a presidential candidate going, "Hey, let's finish this book over here.

[00:28:09]Who's over there?" Yeah. Oh, we'll have some demons coming. Antichrist 666. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. What's for lunch?

[00:28:19]That's kind of their view of God. He was so clear and then he ended his Bible with a book of enigmatic mysteries that nobody can understand. Why would God do that to his bride? No, I think God ended his book with a definitive revelation of exactly what's going to happen. But when you look at Revelation and you don't see it in its context, then what happens?

[00:28:45]you miss the end times narrative. And this is why people who who subscribe to this view have no idea. They have a general idea. You know what the general idea is? Jesus is coming back one day.

[00:28:58]He's coming back one day. And that's about it. And we're going to heaven one day. But all the specifics that lead up to that and that follow that, it's just kind of hazy. It's just kind of foggy, you know. And in fairness, some of these are dear brothers and sisters of mine.

[00:29:14]So I I don't want this to be a divisive element. It shouldn't break fellowship with us. But you know what? There's only one view that can be true. I had a man come up to me after a conference one time. We're teaching on some of this and he said, "Uh, I just want you to know that I disagree with most everything you said up there today." You know, you love people like that to come up to you. You know, they're always anytime someone comes up to the book, I got a question for you. Here we go. you know, yeah, that they're going to either bless you or curse you. You know, as Dr. Adrien Rogers used to always say, a preacher has to be able to be ready to to kiss or duck at any moment in his life. All right? And so, uh, it's true. Uh, but he just said, I disagree with everything.

[00:29:57]And then he followed that up by saying, and I've studied this, and I, in my mind, I I wanted to say, well, not me. I haven't studied it, but apparently you have, you know. and he goes um he says, "Yeah, I went to seminary years ago." And I'm wondering what seminary did you go to? Uh but anyway, he he said all these things and and I said, "Well, let me respond this way to you." I said, "Number number one, thank you for for coming up and telling me that. Number two, it's okay to disagree. You know, it doesn't mean that that you're a heretic or I'm a heretic.

[00:30:30]Just means we disagree. That's okay." I said, ' But number three, here's what you need to understand about esquetology.

[00:30:37]Only one view can be the right view. Do you know that? I mean, either it's true about Israel or it's not true. But they both can't be true. They're mutually exclusive. There either is a rapture or there's not a rapture. Right? So I said, one of us is wrong. Do you recognize that? Now, let's in fairness, it might be me, but it might be you. But this is why it's not an unimportant thing because there's only one right interpretation.

[00:31:10]And so I said, and then the last thing is you're my brother in Christ and we'll be together in heaven. And I gave him a big old hug, you know, and the rest of the conference, well, he was just grinning back to me, you know, like he'd made a friend, right? I don't know that I ever changed his mind. Uh but at least he understands that we're not not trying to beat him over the head with it, right? But there was only one view. But they they miss it and they miss God's end times narrative. And for those people, I would just simply say this.

[00:31:39]How sad is it that you cannot know with any certainty what's going to happen in the future?

[00:31:46]Do you realize that you if you are a bibleelbelieving, biblestudying, discerning Christian that you are the only people group on planet earth who knows what's coming?

[00:32:01]The Muslims don't know.

[00:32:04]The Buddhists don't know. The Jehovah Witnesses don't know. The Mormons don't know. Secular scientists don't know.

[00:32:10]though they come together every year with their doomsday clock and try to make a prediction about how close we are to an existential midnight moment in the world but they don't know only you know and the only reason you and I know is because of what God says in his word but if you believe in replacement theology you cannot know with any degree of certainty the next point is is that replacement theology fails to recognize God's unconditional promises uh to Israel and we'll we'll talk a little bit more about that here in just a few minutes. But God made these unconditional promises uh to Israel. And these promises stand. They don't go away. It's like I the other month I I I have this grill, which every real man does, right? And uh so but I had this grill. It's called the Big Green Egg.

[00:33:02]Okay? Maybe some of you guys are are into the Big Green Egg. And I had the large version of the Big Green Egg. But I was in this store and I saw the extra large version and my wife was with me and I love my wife probably for this reason. She said, "You ought to get yourself the big one.

[00:33:22]Get yourself the extra large. You'll be able to cook chicken and ribs and more things on this thing, you know." And I and I just said, "Well, I don't know.

[00:33:30]May maybe I should. Oh, get it for yourself." Okay.

[00:33:35]So, it didn't take a lot of proddding.

[00:33:37]Right. So now what do I do with the the large big green egg? So then I said to myself, you know what? My son's birthday's coming up. I'll just gift it to him, my oldest son. I got three sons.

[00:33:47]And so I called him up. I said, "Hey buddy, I'm I'm going to give you this grill for your birthday. Only thing is you got to come get it. It's on it's in this big stand. It's really heavy and you got to come get it." Oh, no problem, Dad. Well, guess what? Didn't show up.

[00:34:01]One week, two week, three weeks, a month passed and I'd say, "Hey, you ever going to come get this grill?"

[00:34:06]And after a while, I'm going to be honest with you, it started to kind of irritate me. I'd made a promise to you.

[00:34:12]All you have to do is accept it, but you're not showing up for it. And the thought occurred to me. I said to myself, you know what? I've got another son.

[00:34:23]I think I might just give that girl to him for his birthday. I'll show my oldest son who's in charge here.

[00:34:30]And then God said, "You can't do that."

[00:34:33]I was like, "Why not?" because you made an unconditional promise to him.

[00:34:38]And you'll wait until he comes to get that grill.

[00:34:43]You see, God made an unconditional promise. And by the way, he came to get it eventually. He's having fun with it, you know. But God made an unconditional promise to Israel. And that means it's on him, not on Israel to fulfill those promises.

[00:34:58]The replacement theologian doesn't recognize those unconditional promises.

[00:35:02]They think they're conditional promises.

[00:35:04]Number seven, uh, replacement theology fails to understand the key distinctions between Israel and the church.

[00:35:12]And Paul lists some of those in Romans 9 through11.

[00:35:16]And I I won't give them to you today.

[00:35:18]Uh, but in my my thesis, I list 38 distinctions between Israel and the church. Turns out there are a lot of distinctions. We'll we'll highlight a couple of them here in just a moment.

[00:35:28]But if you don't see the distinction between national Israel, whom God made a special covenant with, and with God's chosen bride, if you don't see how those are different, you're never going to understand Israel today. Uh number eight, number eight is replacement theologians applies scriptures meant for Israel uh to the church. So they'll take scriptures and they'll say, "Well, you know, that can't go to Israel because, you know, for since 70 AD there wasn't an Israel. Then 1948, Israel became a nation again, but they're not the Israel that God wanted them to be." By the way, people make that argument all the time.

[00:36:09]They'll say, "How can you possibly believe that modern-day Israel is the fulfillment of those scriptures that God said Israel would come together? They're godless. They're pagan. They're atheistic. They're agnostic. Their government does not even believe. And my response is, "Have you ever read the Old Testament?"

[00:36:27]Do you ever see what Israel was back then? I mean, I dare you to find 10 good kings back there. Most of them were demon worshippers. They They had altars to to Baal and to false gods. They're sacrificing their children to Molech.

[00:36:42]They're godless, pagan, incredible, reprobate leaders. And yet the promises of God stood true even to them because it wasn't uh it wasn't dependent upon them. But replacement theology applies those scriptures about the future, about the land. Uh Matthew 24, the ET discourse. I've got a book out there on the ET discourse. when you uh when you see the Olivet discourse, the replacement theologian and most Christians will just read Matthew 24 and think, well, that's written directly to me. So, I apply all those things that are talking about Matthew 24 to the church when Jesus is actually not talking to us in that specific passage.

[00:37:29]Number nine, replacement the theology uh combines the rapture with the second coming of Christ. Uh this is one of the most common mistakes that people make uh with replacement theology. They just yeah they'll say there is a a rapture but it happens at the same time as the as the second coming which is essentially the post-tribulational rapture. Uh number 10 replacement theology denies a literal millennial kingdom of Christ. It denies a literal millennial kingdom of Christ because they don't believe in a Davidic promise uh or a future throne or an earthly kingdom. They believe we're in the kingdom right now. We're in that kingdom that has been promised right now. So, if we're in that kingdom, then Satan is bound. Well, listen. If he's bound right now, I'd hate to see what happens when he gets loose. because I don't know about you, but Satan is alive and well on planet Earth today. So, they believe we're in this spiritual kingdom of God where Christ is is ruling uh in the way that he said he would. And they fail to recognize in in Matthew and in Luke, Matthew 6 and Luke 9 where Jesus asks us to pray this prayer.

[00:38:48]Our father who art in heaven, what's the next words? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done where? On earth as it presently is in heaven. And and they take that they take the Lord's prayer as more of a wishful sentiment that just things would be good and God would rule well as opposed to a an anticipated prophetic hope that the Jewish people had whom Christ was speaking to in that passage. They believed in a coming kingdom. This is why in in Matthew 24, they asked Jesus about what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. What are they talking about?

[00:39:28]They're talking about the messianic kingdom. They're talking about the Davidic throne.

[00:39:33]And Christ says, "Well, here's what's going to happen before that happens."

[00:39:38]And so, they were always asking about the kingdom. And in their minds, it was always a literal physical earthly kingdom on this earth where Messiah would reign. And even in Acts chapter 1 when Christ is ascend about to ascend up to the father, what did they ask him?

[00:39:54]Lord, is it at this time you're going to restore the kingdom of to Israel?

[00:39:59]They're still thinking kingdom, right?

[00:40:01]Well, if you believe in replacement theology, you're living in that kingdom right now because of uh your hermeneutic. Number 11, replacement uh theology misinterprets and misapplies Daniel, the book of Daniel and Revelation. Who who in the world could understand the book of Daniel unless you take a literal hermeneutic about the end times? Uh Daniel is just some ethereal symbolic hazy prophecy about something.

[00:40:32]And for the most part, some of these replacement theologians will take Daniel as having been fulfilled either with Antiochus Epiphies or some other historical figure or they take Revelation and they embrace predtoism and will say that it all already took place in 70 AD that the prophecies that are in Revelation took place in 70 AD.

[00:40:55]And again, in order to take that view, uh you have to believe in two things. is number one that all of revelation is primarily symbolic that no one really knows what it means. So you have to find what happened in 70 AD and find something in Revelation that you can reimagine and and spiritualize or allegorize to force fit into 70 AD.

[00:41:17]That's what you have to do instead of just saying it's going to happen like God says it's going to happen. And the second thing you have to do is you have to hold to an early date for the writing of the book of Revelation.

[00:41:27]But we know that both the internal and the external evidence for revelation tells us it was written in 95 AD, way after uh 70 AD. But all that to say is they misinterpret and misapplied Daniel in Revelation. Number 12, replacement theology fails to recognize God's promise to save all Israel.

[00:41:46]He's going to save all Israel. H how much more clearly can God be? And Paul defines who Israel is, as we'll see in a moment in that passage.

[00:41:59]So, it's like it's like I would say to my three sons, "Okay, Davis, you and I are going to go throw the football." And my other son, Stuart, would say, "So, we're going to go throw the football?" No, I'm speaking to him. I'm speaking to my other son here. And what replacement theology does is they just have to redefine what Israel is. Oh, well, it's us. And so that's how they get around uh the idea of saving all Israel. They have to redefine what Israel is. Number three or number 13 is replacement theology misses the purposes of the tribulation completely. Number one, they don't really believe in a tribulation. But those who do hold some partial uh beliefs in the tribulation, they fail to understand this. We'll look at those purposes here in just a moment. Number 14, a replacement theology misinterprets Israel's hardening as God's rejection of them. Paul makes it very clear in Romans 11:25 that there is a partial hardening on Israel at this time. Now, that doesn't mean that every Jew is hardened because we do have Jewish people who come to faith in Messiah. But a partial hardening means that Israel is I look at it this way. The partial hardening of the nation of Israel means this. God was dealing with Israel primarily and and only. And they rejected their Messiah.

[00:43:20]So here's what God did. Instead of God rejecting Israel, he took Israel and put Israel on the back burner. He didn't take them off the stove. He just put them on the back burner. I'll keep you on a low simmer back there. Okay? But now I'm going to deal with this thing called the church. It's going to be involve both Jew and Gentile. And at some point, this [clears throat] time of the church is going to come to an end. I believe it's going to come to an end at the rapture. It even says in that same verse, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in, till the last Gentile comes into the body of Christ, then it's going to be raptured. I'm going to take you off the back burner and during the tribulation bring you to the front burner and deal primarily with Israel once again. But replacement theology says, "No, that rejection means God's done with them." We would say, "No, the rejection just means God is hardening them." Because guess what? There are consequences to hardening your heart, right?

[00:44:14]We can't just harden our heart and expect there to be no consequences. God says yes, there are severe consequences.

[00:44:19]In fact, so severe that God is going to cause the nation of Israel to go through the a time that has never happened before on planet Earth that both the book of Jeremiah, book of Daniel, and Jesus all describe as a time like none other. Jesus calls it the great tribulation.

[00:44:40]And that great tribulation, one of the purposes is is to bring Israel back to uh God again. So those are 14 dangers uh that I see from a Christian perspective about what replacement theology does.

[00:44:53]Now, let's talk about biblically, and we're going to speed it up here very rapidly. And I encourage you if you guys want to take any screenshots of this with your phone, you're more than welcome uh to do this. Why should we uh reject replacement theology biblically?

[00:45:07]Well, number one, because God's choice of Israel was sovereign and unconditional.

[00:45:14]There was nothing about Israel that God saw that said, "I like those people. I like the way they dress. I like their style. I like their music. I like those tambourines. I I just love the way they just kind of, you know, come together and they stay as one." No, there was nothing about them. God sovereignly chose them out of his own heart and we know that from scripture. Uh secondly, God's covenants with Israel as we mentioned were also unconditional. Now there was some conditionals uh covenants that God made, the Mosaic covenant was a conditional covenant. But these covenants here, the Abrahamic, Davidic, the land covenant and the new covenant are unconditional. God's made these promises to the Jews. It's going to happen.

[00:45:58]The next thing, Paul's theology of Israel is explained in Romans 9 through11. I'm not going to go through all these. I'm just going to basically list them and make a quick comment about them uh so that we can move on here. But just I told you I was going to drink water from the fire hydrant here, but I'm just going to list some of these out here for you and then just make a quick uh comment about them. Uh Paul says because he's anticipating these Romans saying, "Well, what about Israel? What are we supposed to do with Israel? What's the deal with Israel?

[00:46:29]That's the question Christians are asking today. And so I point them, I say, go read what Paul said in Romans 9 through11. What does he say? The covenants still belong to Israel. They weren't transferred over to the church.

[00:46:43]Not every individual Jew uh is a child of God. By the way, there are some little segments of the Christian world who kind of believe the Jews get a pass, right? They don't really need Christ because they they're God's chosen people, right? Well, as a nation, chosen as a covenant relationship, but not every individual Jew uh is chosen. You have to call upon the Lord Jesus Christ as a human being in order to be saved.

[00:47:09]Uh we never say every individual uh Jew is a automatic child of God. Number three, God defends his sovereign choice of Israel in in chapter 9:es 9-22. It doesn't say he's rejected them. Uh God chose Israel so that Gentiles would know his mercy. We owe the Jews for this reason. Israel pursued righteousness through the law, not faith. But her disobedience did not cause God to reject her. Paul says this, in fact, Paul uses the greatest denial, the greatest, it's almost an exploive, if you will, in the Greek language. Meganoto, it means God forbid. May it never be.

[00:47:50]Are you kidding me? A thousand times?

[00:47:53]No. That's what he's saying. Has God rejected his people? Israel's rejection of Jesus led to to our salvation.

[00:48:01]Humanly speaking, the Gentiles or the church were grafted into the promises made to Israel, but did not replace Israel. Think about it logically.

[00:48:11]Gra being grafted into something presupposes that the branches still exist so that we can be grafted into it, right? didn't say we became the branches. Said we were grafted into the branches, into God's plan of salvation.

[00:48:26]National Israel is under a partial hardening until the rapture. All Israel will eventually be saved. That's that tribulation remnant.

[00:48:35]And then once again, he repeats this in 11 29 that God's promises to Israel are irrevocable. For the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.

[00:48:47]People use that sometimes to justify spiritual gifts or gifts that God's given. No, he's talking about the covenants he made with Israel. They're irrevocable.

[00:48:56]They're unchangeable. God doesn't go back on his word. And so Paul covers this in great detail. I encourage you to study uh Romans 9 through11.

[00:49:07]And then the Bible makes a distinction between Israel and the church obviously is 806 86% of the Bible is all about Israel.

[00:49:16]So you're basically saying if you're a replacement theologian that 86% of your Bible is just kind of a history lesson.

[00:49:24]Yeah, we can learn things from them and there's theology there and that kind of thing, but that's just kind of in the past, right? Has no real relevance for us today. And then only 14% is about the church. I I say that's a pretty big significant portion of the scripture uh that God has not I believe negated or uh rescended. uh Romans 11:25-26 can only apply to Israel, not the church. In the context of Paul's words speaking about Jews in that context, it can only mean national Israel. So, it can't mean the church. Uh next, the term Israel in the Bible always refers to the Jews. Always. There's not a single passage. There's some some scriptures there that people try to do a little gymnastics with, but when you look at them in its context, it's still talking about Israel. And then nowhere in scripture is the church called Israel or the new Israel. Nowhere in scripture. So where does that lead us? Well, finally, it leads us to the future. It leads us to future prophecies regarding Israel.

[00:50:30]And notice as we close out here, notice what God says about the future in Israel. The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation require Israel's existence if you take them literally. Now, if you spiritualize them, you don't need Israel. But if you take them at face value, you have to have an Israel in order for there to be an end times. You have to have them. According to Dr. Arnold Fryenbomb, there's some 550 references to the Old Testament in the book of Revelation.

[00:51:02]Illusions or references. Some people say there's 250. Some people say there's 450. He says there's 550. Watch this. If that's true, why in the world would God do that when he's just talking to a bunch of Gentiles in the church? Why would you call us keep talking about all this Jewish stuff? Well, there's a reason for that. Talk about it in a moment. The church is portrayed as absent during the tribulation. Israel is not portrayed as absent. In fact, Israel is in the centerpiece of the revelation narrative. Uh, and Israel serves a huge purpose in the book of the tribulation or in the book of Revelation.

[00:51:41]So, the church is absent, but the Israel is right in the center of it. How about the prophets and evangelists of Revelation are portrayed as being Jewish? Why Jewish? If God's done with the Jews, why not just have some good Billy Grahams out there? you know, he's got these 144,000 witnesses uh that are out there, the uh the Jewish evangelists, rather. And I always say it's it's a it's a a mix of Billy Graham meets Ben Shapiro. Okay? And and that's going to be these 144,000 guys. They're on fire for evangelism. Uh but they they can talk fast. Okay, here we go.

[00:52:16]Satan specifically targets the Jews during the tribulation. Why? If God's done with it, if Israel is no threat to you, Satan, because God's done with it, why are you still trying to kill him?

[00:52:26]That's an interesting point. We should ask Satan what he believes, right? Satan doesn't believe in replacement theology, though he's propagating it in the church. He knows exactly the distinction between Israel and the church, and he's going after the Jews in the last days.

[00:52:40]Antichrist will enter and desecrate a rebuilt Gentile temple. Oh, I'm sorry, a Jewish temple. A Jewish temple. I was uh this in Jerusalem a couple months ago.

[00:52:49]When we went to the temple institute, they are intentional about building their their temple. Uh we were up on the temple mount and we saw Orthodox Jews coming to the temple mount and praying openly and loudly on the temple mount.

[00:53:03]Something that a few years ago could have started an international war. By the way, they had two Israeli IDF guards with them with these I don't know what they carry, M4s, AK-47s, whatever they carry. But they had they were under armed guard, but they're like, "Hey, we're coming to our Temple Mount. We're going to rebuild our temple. But a Jewish temple, the Bible says, why if if God's done with Israel, all the nations will surround Cleveland in the last days, right? No, it's going to be Jerusalem. Why? I thought New York was Babylon. You know what? Why? Why Jerusalem of all places? Because God's bringing all of history. He's funneling all of history back to one spot, and that's Israel. uh and Jerusalem.

[00:53:50]Uh scripture said God says that God promises salvation to national Israel at Jesus Christ's second coming. Why are we still talking about Israel if God's still uh done with them? And then uh Jesus returns to Jerusalem, specifically the Mount of Olives, and then to Jerusalem uh at his second coming. Once again, it's very Israeli uh centric there. Where's Christ reigning from? not Washington but Jerusalem in the millennial kingdom. So apparently Jerusalem is still going to be around during that time. Uh the Bible tells us that uh Israel is going to occupy the promised land during the millennial kingdom. You see Israel has never occupied all the promised land.

[00:54:33]I mean it came close during the reign of Solomon, but when you read in Genesis 15 all those boundaries that God gave to Abraham, Israel has never once occupied all of that land. but they're going to get it in the millennial uh kingdom there.

[00:54:50]And then God's uh grand redemption narrative cannot be fully understood apart from his plan and purposes for Israel. When you look at all of the plan of salvation and all of God's prophetic narrative, if you remove Israel out of that equation, you're left with a lot of haze, a lot of fog, a lot of pixelated images, and a lot of just ignorance.

[00:55:16]Quite frankly, you know, there's a narrative today in the world and in the church that simply says this, you cannot know.

[00:55:28]Now, have your faith all you want. Say you believe something all you want, but you can't know.

[00:55:36]But when I read the scriptures over and over and over again, I hear I write these things that you may what? No, Christianity is a faith of confidence.

[00:55:50]And the reason it's a faith of confidence is because of the clarity of God's word. And that clarity gives us that confidence which allows us to have a confident hope in the things that God says is yet to be. We know what's already happened, but God says there's more uh coming.

[00:56:10]And so God's grand uh redemption and that misspelled redemption there so don't mispronounce that. Okay. Uh the nation of Israel now exists and we are seeing revelation signs begin to appear.

[00:56:22]This is a a great reason why scriptures future prophecies require Israel. Now to to be charitable for a moment. I can see how a person would struggle with the passages involving Israel for some 19800 and something years. I can understand that because there's no Israel, right? And then along comes people like CI Scoffield who wrote in the Scoffield Bible that no, Israel is going to be reathered back to the land. And people ridiculed him for believing that because there was no Israel. But I I can understand it. Okay. But when Israel becomes a nation again after being scattered to 70 countries for almost 2,000 years and they've lost their their language, they they've lost their practices and they're not a cohesive unit whatsoever. And all of a sudden, here come all these Jews back to the point now where there are roughly half of all Jews in the world now live in Israel. Now they're unbelieving. They're gathered in unbelief first, right? You got to get them physically there. It it's the prophecy of the dry bones, right? You got to have bones first. Then the muscle and the senue and the muscle comes on.

[00:57:45]And then after that comes what? The breath of life. The breath of life is coming, but it's not there yet. But when Israel becomes a nation again, to me that's like it's a gamecher.

[00:57:57]This changes everything now because now there's an Israel that all of those prophecies can now be fulfilled in.

[00:58:07]Before there wasn't, but there is now.

[00:58:10]And so to me, that tells me that God still has these promises for Israel. And then we look around and we go, okay, and everything else God says is going to happen is dovetailing and ramping up to Revelation exactly as prophesied.

[00:58:27]Everything regarding the temple and the land and the persecution and hatred of Israel, everything regarding globalization and apostasy in the last days, all these things are are happening right now. And so this tells us that yes, Israel did have to become a nation again, but guess what? Israel is a nation again. And because Israel is a nation, all of the other prophecies in Revelation Daniel now can occur. They couldn't before because he has to be in Israel. You got to have a temple, right?

[00:59:00]In order for Antichrist to commit the abomination of desolation. So we're seeing Israel as a nation again. And that tells us that uh these things can actually happen. Where does this leave us? What does this really tell us about our God? Well, let me tell you. First of all, it tells us that the Bible can be trusted.

[00:59:18]When the Bible says things that are counterintuitive, that are countercultural, that go against our emotions, our thoughts, our personalities, that go against the culture of church today, uh that go against the Christian narrative in the world, that go against what some Christian music uh teaches, that go against what some podcasters and Bible teachers and pastors and best-selling authors write.

[00:59:44]I read a book uh recently by [clears throat] a best-selling author on esquetology on the end times and I just opened it up to Matthew chapter 24 to see what he would say and he said this.

[00:59:59]I'm paraphrasing but this is what he said. I don't really know what this means.

[01:00:04]I'm open to someone telling me but you know I don't really know what it means.

[01:00:08]And I'm just going to sell a million copies of this book. You're gonna tell a million Christians that they can't know what it means. How sad is that? But my friend, this tells us that the Bible can be trusted because every other prophecy that's ever been made in the Bible came true. You know how it came true?

[01:00:26]Literally, precisely, and exactly as prophesied. And that track record tells us that God can be trusted.

[01:00:36]I went to a Houston Astros game yesterday. my my buddy took me to a Astros game and I hadn't been to a pro game in a long time. We had great seats right behind the dugout and got to see these incredible players. Sad game, lost in extra innings, but anyway, if you're a Astros fan, sorry to break it to you.

[01:00:54]But I see these guys out there and you know there's some allstars out there. Do you know that if you're a baseball player and you get three at bats and the first at bat you get a little dribble hit down the third baseline, you beat the throw and you get on base and then the second hit you strike out. Then the third at bat you strike out. And every atbat for the rest of your career for every three times you get up, you strike out twice.

[01:01:25]Do you know where you're going to end up at the end of your career? Hall of Fame because you batted three three.

[01:01:33]You know what God's book is? Batting a thousand.

[01:01:38]Never missed a ball. Never hit a foul ball. Never hit a line drive that didn't get him extra bases. Every single prophecy is a grand slam home run that exits the stadium.

[01:01:51]And this tells us this one final thing about our God is that he is a promisekeeping God.

[01:01:59]>> He's a promisekeeping God. And if God would break a promise to Israel, you and I have no guarantee he won't also break a promise to us as well. But he won't because it's in his character to be true to you. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the veracity of your word. uh for the fact that it has stood the test of time that as we go to scripture, we can build our life on it. As Jesus said in Matthew 7, build your house on these words of mine. And Lord, these words of yours represent the character of our God. They represent who you are.

[01:02:39]And Lord, we know as your word tells us that you cannot lie. And so for that reason, Lord, we put great faith in the promises and the prophecies that we find in your word. And Lord, as we wade through a culture of lies, not the least of which is the lie that we are the new Israel. God, may we point people to the fact that you have a plan for the ages, and that plan includes Israel, and we're a part of that plan as well. But God, you're not done with Israel. And there are many prophecies yet to be fulfilled.