Persia, Israel, and the End of Days: Is This The War Before The Messiah? Rabbi Tovia Singer

Here's the key about what an apostolic church is and why it's so deeply [music] germane to the end of days. Listen like you have never listened in your [music] life. What's happening today is not supposed to occur. Therefore, what's happening in our time should never happen according to the church fathers. And then well, surely if this is some weird catastrophe of history where the Jews return, surely it'll be temporary. [music] But when Israel defeats all of its enemies, specifically Persia who will to the end fight against the people of Israel, but will be utterly defeated and everyone, [music] yes, everyone, even those in the apostolic church will realize the church fathers were [music] wrong, Augustine was wrong, Chrysostom was wrong, Cyril was wrong, Irenaeus was wrong, Athanasius was wrong, and the God of Israel was true. >> [music] >> We're indeed living in a remarkable time. The children of Israel had returned back to the land of Israel after thousands of years of exile, precisely as prophesied by the prophets of Israel, Jeremiah 30:3. Hosea prophesied that the children of Israel abide for many days without a king without a sacrifice. It's talking about the time we're in right now. And then finally, chapter 3:4-5. After a very long time without a king or a sacrificial system, without the high priest, the children of Israel return to the Lord their God and David his servant as king. That's the Messiah that's in view. We're told that there's an order of events that must occur coming up to the Messiah. It's not an accident that the Passover Seder that we celebrate and recall the redemption of the Exodus is called well, just that a a Seder in order. Why order? What kind of a name is that? It means that there is an order of events or a sequence of events on the night of the 15th day of the first month. And 15 events take place at our Passover Seder table that brings us to the final redemption. That's how it happens. You have Jacob's trouble. Jeremiah appearing to the future he saw the destruction of the first temple. And he said there's a day coming that'll be an ace or Heliaco time great tribulation for Jacob. And there's nothing like it. We know what happened more than eight decades ago. European Jewry destroyed. When he men of Yevasheh, the prophet Jeremiah says that from it from that catastrophe you'll be saved. Very important prophecy. The Jews must return back to the land of Israel. Jerusalem must be in our hands. See Zechariah chapter 12. The Jewish people >> [snorts] >> return back here to the land of Israel. Jerusalem is our hands. That won't stop the tribulation. Nations will go to war with Israel over Jerusalem. Jerusalem this city will be a burdensome stone to all those nations who come against it. Zechariah chapter 12 verse 3. God's going to take a broken people and make them strong. Strong like even the angels of the Lord of hosts. Strong like David. Zechariah chapter 12 verse 7 and 8. God will destroy all the nations that come up against Jerusalem. Very critical event. We're told, however, in the Bible that immediately before the Messiah comes, there'll be a war. It's not between any two insular caterers. It's not necessarily a war between Jews and Arabs. Now, one might think biblically that that's where the tension should lie, and it would seem that way. Over the last 75-80 years, we would seem that maybe it's the Bene Ishmael. Oh, no. It'll be Persia. A non-Arab country, a country 1,000 miles east of where I am right now would go to war directly with Jerusalem. We're told about this end-time war in a number of places in the Bible, but as it turns out, the prophet Ezekiel provides more saturated, copious information about the Messianic Age than any other prophet. There are many prophets that spoke about what would occur in the end of days, but Ezekiel provides saturated information, copious details about the building of the third temple described in Ezekiel chapter 40 through 48, essentially the last nine chapters of that holy oracle. Ezequiel tells us about the war between Persia and Israel. That's famously known as the War of Gog and Magog, the War of Gog. And it's Persia, and this is so unlikely. Meaning the Persian Empire going back 2 1/2 thousand years ago, >> [snorts] >> Persian Empire was a relatively benign empire that no doubt Israel was a vassal state under the Persian Empire, but it was a relatively benign relationship. In fact, it was Cyrus, the king of Persia, and I mean Cyrus the Great, who told the Jews, "Come back here. Come back to Jerusalem. Build it. Build your temple." And throughout history, the Jewish people had a good relationship with the Persian Empire, the Sasanian Empire. That was Persian. It was under the Sasanian Empire that the Babylonian Talmud was authored, was written in southern Mesopotamia, what what is today southern Iraq. In Ardallan, Pumbedisa, and so on. Persia doesn't even share a border with Israel. Persia until the late '70s was an ally of Israel, but prophets had a way of teaching Jewish history, and specifically that history that had not yet occurred. Why was it necessary for the children of Israel, at the end of days, to go to war with Persia of all countries? Why? Why did there need to be a war altogether? As it turns out, we're not always given a reason for everything, but this we're told explicitly. In Ezekiel 38 and 39, these two chapters belong together, we're told at the very end of these chapters that the reason why there's this war at the end of days, why the Jews must return back to the land of Israel with full sovereignty over this, over Jerusalem, we're told explicitly is so that the nations will know that I am Lord. Persia and its proxies will be utterly destroyed. You can read the last 10 passages of Ezekiel 38, the last 10 passages of Ezekiel 39. Just read these two chapters. We can understand them better today than our ancestors could, because after all, we're living in that time. Listen very carefully. We are told unambiguously, transparently, that the reason why there's this war at the end of days in which the enemies of Israel are destroyed is so that the world will know that I am Lord. Israel will know that I am Lord. The children of Israel are not whitewashed in these two chapters. Oh, we're thinking, "Well, these two chapters have nothing negative to say about the Jews." Oh, no. There's no whitewashing going on here. Quite the contrary. In these chapters, we're told about the long exile of the Jewish people that would precede their returning back to Jerusalem. All the people who believe in replacement theology, they're just not connected to the prophets. This is going to loom very large. Because the prophets, the same prophets that said that the Jewish would go into exile because of their sins, would one day return back this land, and their sins will no longer be remembered. Isaiah chapter 65 is an excoriating chapter. This is not a chapter where the Jews look great. Most of the prophets were very critical of our behavior. Why? Just like our doctor's critical of the way we eat or the way we behave and our parents when we were kids and did stupid things. The prophets wanted us to be better. But, as we see in Isaiah 65 verse 8, we see that cluster of grapes. Yeah, there are a lot of things there that are waste, but there is juice in them. There's wine in them. There's that specific the She'erit Yisrael. There is the remnant of Israel. And as Zephaniah, Zephaniah lived 2,500 years ago, right here. The Zephaniah lived in this city. He walked right where I'm standing. Zephaniah tells us what that remnant will look like. What can we expect from them? From the heirs of Israel. See Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 12 and 13. The remnant of Israel, like Isaiah 53, they will not sin. There'll be no deceit in their mouths. That's what's unique about the remnant of Israel. It's not all of the Jews, of course not. It's that remnant. It's not the cluster of grapes. It's that precious juice in the cluster. Isaiah 65 verse 8, 9, 12. In fact, that chapter is devoted to explain that ultimately within the cluster of grapes where there's a many things that are not useful. After the peels of a grape are used, after the skin of a grape is used to make the wine red, it has very little value. Neither do the seeds, and certainly the grapevines have very little use. But there is that juice, that heirs of Israel, that righteous remnant. But think about this, my brothers and sisters from around the world. Why war? Why war? Why is that necessary? Why will only that convince the nations of the world that the Lord is God? And that the God of Israel is the only true God. Why is that very important in the end of days? Well, there's a problem. I'll explain to you. I've mentioned so many passages in the Hebrew Bible that describe an eternal covenant that God has with the children of Israel. That cannot be broken, that cannot be undone. God makes that covenant with Abraham. He renews it with Isaac and ratifies it with Jacob. It's an eternal nation that cannot be broken, cannot be destroyed. So says the Lord who created the sun to illuminate the day, the the moon and the stars to illuminate the night. If these laws can pass before me, if the very foundations of the earth could be measured, so too will I cast off the seed of Jacob from being a nation before me. You know, Christians they're familiar with Jeremiah 31, but just one part of 31, not this part. And that's the tragedy. But there's a further tragedy within Christendom. I mean, let's think this through for a moment. How will in fact the nations know that the Lord is God? How will they know? And this is particularly true for what's called apostolic churches. The largest Christian denominations in the world, the largest the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church is so large that if you you took every other Christian denomination in the world, added it up, it wouldn't be as large as the Roman Catholic Church. The second largest Christian denomination is also an apostolic church. I'll explain what that means in a moment. The Anglican Church, also an apostolic church, is a Protestant church. And it doesn't matter if the Orthodox and Catholics don't consider the Anglicans legitimate. They they they're all fighting among each other about if there should be a pope or not or the nature of We we don't want to get into that. That would be going way off the track. Here's the key about what an apostolic church is and why it's so deeply germane to the end of days. Listen like you have never listened in your life. In short, apostolic churches claim that their tradition comes directly from the apostles and through their disciples and there and there and and essentially the church fathers. So therefore the church fathers completely reinterpret the entire Hebrew Bible as to understand it through their eyes. So in the Roman Catholic Church Augustine is revered. Augustine is revered all over the place. The East and even more so the West. Even Protestants revered him. Calvin thought the world of him and based much of his reform theology on the teachings of Augustine. Augustine was as all the church fathers were a virulent anti-Semite. He he did not like the Jews and in his magnum opus The City of God he said because the Jews committed fraud against Jesus and giving them over to be crucified and are under the wrath of God, they will never return back to the city. This is very very important. John Chrysostom he's highly revered in the Orthodox Church. John Chrysostom was the Archbishop of Constantinople. He was a virulent anti-Semite. I I can't ex- I don't suggest you do this. You can, but if you just went on where you go for source of information and what did Chrysostom say about the Jews? You'd be shocked. If Augustine or Chrysostom lived in Austria, Germany, and Canada where there hate speech laws, they'd all be thrown in prison. Why is this all germane? What does this have to come do with the coming of the Messiah? The problem that the church has and even exponentially more so among apostolic churches is that they will tell you, "We read the Hebrew Bible through the church fathers." Watch this. >> We don't follow the Old Testament at all. The Old Testament is our [music] root. The Old Testament is a preparation for the New Testament, but Christians read the Old Testament through the New [music] Testament because everything in the Old Testament was about Jesus Christ. So, for a Christian, we understand the [music] Old Testament to be a uh for a an earlier what St. Paul would call a childish age, an [music] age in which the human being had not yet been redeemed. God had not yet become man. Sin had not yet been atoned for, and the Holy Spirit had not been given >> [music] >> to believers until the day of Pentecost. Once that happens, a much higher way of life, the Christian way of life, >> [music] >> is established as normative. So, it would make no sense at all for us [music] to follow the Old Testament. >> Do you understand what that Orthodox priest is saying? What he's saying is that we read the so-called Old Testament through the filter of the church fathers and the New Testament. Do you understand what the problem is? I don't know if you have to wrap your mind around this. This is what makes the situation so difficult, but this is what helps us understand the book of Ezekiel. Listen very carefully. If Christians are reading the Hebrew Bible through the filter of the New Testament, in the case of the vast majority of Christians through the church fathers, then essentially they have no guardrails. It's like playing tennis without a net. They're always reading the Hebrew Bible through a Christological filter, through the grid of the New Testament and through the church fathers. That means theoretically they can't get it. They can't get it because again there's no guardrails. As an example, in 132, about six decades after the second temple was destroyed, there was a revolt here in Jerusalem when Bar Kokhba led a revolt for about three years until 135. When Bar Kokhba rebelled against the Roman Empire, it was a brutal war. The Roman Empire had to bring in legions and even their premier general from Britain in order to defeat it. But the point is that while Bar Kokhba was fighting here in Jerusalem, there were many people, rabbis, who thought maybe he is the Messiah. But the moment he was killed by the Romans, that's our guardrail. We knew he couldn't possibly be the Messiah. Instead of Bar Kokhba, he's now called Bar Koziva. He's rejected. Why? Because we have a net. Cuz we have a guardrail. And therefore, the moment Shabbetai Zevi commits apostasy, converts to Islam rather than martyrdom, we know immediately he can't possibly be the Messiah. The church has no such guardrails. The problem for billions of people in apostolic churches in particular is how could they know? How will they know that the Lord is God? After all, that's the most important feature of the Messianic age, that the knowledge of God will cover the world as the water cover the sea. Isaiah chapter 11 verse 9. Zechariah chapter 14. God will be king of the whole world. He will be one. His name will be one. Everyone will know about the God of Israel. And 10 gentiles of languages and nations who grab the shirt of a Jew and say "We shall follow you but how could this happen?" After all, they have no guardrails. They're playing tennis without a net. They're simply reading the Hebrew Bibles through the filters of the church fathers of Augustine and Chrysostom and Cyril Cyril of Alexandria. None of them had any use for the Jews. The answer? The war. The restoration of the Jewish people to this land. And the utter defeat of the nation that surrounded them. You see, the church fathers all said that would never happen. In fact, the church fathers went further. They said that the the destruction of the second temple and the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem demonstrated the truthfulness of Christianity and Judaism was completely false, was now a false religion. Therefore, what's happening today is not supposed to occur. Therefore, what's happening in our time should never happen, according to the church fathers. And they will surely, if this is some weird catastrophe of history where the Jews return, surely it'll be temporary. But when Israel defeats all of its enemies, specifically Persia, who will to the end fight against the people of Israel but will be utterly defeated, and everyone, yes, everyone, even those in the apostolic church will realize the church fathers were wrong, Augustine was wrong, Chrysostom was wrong, Cyril was wrong, Irenaeus was wrong, Athanasius was wrong, and the God of Israel was true. And that's where we are right now. Right now at the very, very end. Right now facing a time a time when Zephaniah promised that all the nations will speak in a pure speech, chapter 3, verse 9. And that's why this war is necessary. That's why the complete shleitus, sovereignty of the Jewish people over Jerusalem is necessary. Not as some nationalistic No. It's so that the nations could be saved. So that the nations will know that I am Lord. And that's how Ezekiel 38 ends. That's how Ezekiel 39 ends. The restoration of the Jewish people to their land will show the world that the Lord is God. May we [music] see the coming of the true Messiah quickly in our time. Shalom. If you enjoyed this program, please like and subscribe. >> Adon Olam >> [music] [singing] [music] [singing]