We Need To Talk About The Greater Israel Project-Pt. I

The Greater Israel project’s long-standing intention to conquer all the land from “the Mediterranean to the Euphrates,” is already starting to look ridiculous and is doomed to failure. Jewish Zionism is not legitimate because it’s based upon the Pharisees’ claim to the land and not the Messiah’s. Yet young American Christian youth will ultimately end up occupying Jerusalem for 42 months according to Rev 11:2 to defend it, resulting in the destruction of both countries.

Back in the mid-1990s, a document was making its rounds through the Evangelical world that stirred up a lot less controversy than it should have. At the time, as someone called to be a Teacher of Doctrine in the Body of Christ (Eph 4:11), I was just beside myself by the absurdity of it all.

It was called, Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission In The Third Millennium, and it seemed like every leading light in the growing “pop religion” world of Christian TV, print and radio was on board.

Its promoters argued that a greater partnership was necessary in light of the growing danger of “secularism” and all of its threats to “world order” (e.g., anti-abortion culture). In other words, it was a political movement, and yet Catholics were using it to promote a religious aim as well. Their “Ecumenical Movement,” looming in the background, was an effort to bring the “separated brethren” back home to “Mother Church.”

Protestants like myself of course, reject the entire idea of a centralized “Mother Church.” And we sure remember the bloody history that took place over sole fida (“faith alone”) and two different models of salvation. Likewise, the intellectual ideas that followed out of the Reformation led to the Enlightenment, the Founding Fathers, and the modern democratic world, all positive and necessary developments.

The Absolute Adsurdity of MAGA World

But these are the problems you get when you mix religion and politics, Church and state, and we can all see where it led to. The Christian Right was largely the creation of a Catholic so radical, one Paul Weyrich, that his heart and head were literally in medieval times. He hated democracy and presumably the modern world, but he felt no shame in seeking to recruit all Protestants into his equally-regressive right-wing politics.

Weyrich also went on to co-found the so-called “Heritage Foundation,” yet the “heritage” he was apparently referring to was the ridiculous idea that the United States owed its legacy to medieval Christianity and economic feudalism, not their repudiation! The Foundation’s latest work of dystopian future, Project 2026, further weakens voter and women’s rights, reverses the gains of the Civil Rights struggle era, and moves the US towards a confusing, wealth-based Handmaid’s Tale autocracy modeled on Victor Orban’s recently-repudiated Hungarian cleptocracy.

Out of this radicalization of Evangelicals emerged an even more radical movement known as the NAR (Apostles and Prophets), to which was added the miguided theonomist movement begun by Rousas J. Rushdoony,¹ and eventually a branch of Catholics disaffected by Vatican II similar to Weyrich’s views.² Together these four and perhaps other more obscure circles make up the incoherent Christian Nationalism juggernaut constituting so much of Donald Trump’s disgraceful power base.

But there’s nothing “conservative” about this religious Tower of Babel, at least not in the sense of any kind of legitimate American political tradition. A true American conservatism would seek to conserve the Enlightenment ideals the Founding Fathers built their Constitutional system upon. Secondly, it would seek to conserve those gains we have made economically and especially socially and spiritually the last 250 years, the centerpiece of which was the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 70s.

This latter development sought to finally “cash the promissory check” of the Divine judgment over that “appeal to Heaven” made in the Civil War.” It is both of these conservative goals that Donald Trump has deliberately set out to dismantle step by step ever since he came into power, as this insightful article so well explains.

One of the greatest ironies coming out of this obsession with regressive politics has to be the sight of all these Protestant Christian Nationalists throwing their hopes for power behind this utterly reprobate “tough guy” leader, to where the Pope and the direct descendant of King George III had to back-to-back rebuke America! Pope Leo recently acted as the moral conscience of Christianity by reminding MAGA world of what Jesus Christ actually taught.

It was quickly followed by Charles III having to remind our Congress about the importance of democracy, of all things! Both put the lie to the conceit of today’s Evangelical spirituality, and all the “values” it actually stands for.

I wrote an article years ago that explained why the Reformation was a necessary breakaway, and not just a big misunderstanding. You can read it here if you like. But the point for now is, the Church world is undergoing an even more absurd transformation that I have dubbed, “Christians and Pharisees Together For Eternal Damnation In The New Millennium.”

And just as the previous move was driven by the Catholic Church trying to bring its “separated brethren back into the fold” (i.e., their fold), so likewise Christians are once again acting like the dog being wagged by the tail. We who are supposed to be “the pillar and ground of the truth” (I Tim 3:15), explaining reality to unbelieving Jews, are instead being trained every day in Zionist Pharisee philosophy.

It is such an exercise in ignorance, compromise and confusion that it is literally producing nothing less than an apostate Christianity, based on a different Jesus, a different gospel, and a different spirit, “which ye have not received” as Paul put it (II Cor 11;4; Gal 1:6). It is why God calls the country out of which it is spewing, a Great Whore and Tower of Confusion (Babylon) to the world in the last days (Rev 16-18).

Israel, A Nation Obsessed With “Legitimacy”

In the aftermath of the horrors of World War II and the Nuremberg Trials, the United States erected the famous post-war “rules-based international order.” It included the founding of the UN, a series of Geneva Conventions defining war crimes, and other human rights-based codifications that led to so much of the peace and prosperity of the last 80 years.

And no group on the earth was more desirous of this than the world Jewish community of course, and that for obvious reasons. But the idea of carving out a state for themselves in Palestine was not a popular one within the Jewish world at first. Most thought the restoration of Israel was built upon an exaggerated threat of anti-Semitism and could create the exact opposite effect anyhow.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Zionists through their wealth and connections already had had the British carrying their water in the land since the 1920s, abusing or ignoring the rights of the native Arabs in the process. When the Zionists got approval from a brand-new United Nations for their own country, the agreement was that they would leave the Arabs alone and agree to the approved borders.³

But from the moment they started, they turned on their Arab neighbors, slaughtering entire villages and taking their homes. Known as the Nakba (“disaster”), Palestinian fortunes have only gone downhill ever since. No matter what atrocity they suffer, all they are told by the Israelis is, “It’s our land. God gave us this land.”

That’s it! That’s their argument! And it’s been there from the beginning, in spite of the fact that Israel was founded by proud atheists who had no compunction about resorting to a religious promise in Scriptures they no longer believed in.⁴

No Permanent Borders

Well, did He? According to the promise of a second restoration, it will take place during the Millennial Reign of the Messiah (Isa 11:11). Yes, the prophecies describe the trials and tribulation of the Jews who muscle their way back in before the time, but that doesn’t mean they’ve ever had God’s approval as they, and “Christian Zionists” claim.

For now, unbelieving Jews are the broken-off branches (Jn 15:6; Rom 11:28, etc) that have been dispossessed until they either receive Jesus Christ individually, or collectively say, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mt 23:39). And that latter moment only comes when they’re at the end of their rope (Zech 12:10).

As far as Evangelical support goes, the UN always sounded like “world government,”⁵ out of which they assumed an Antichrist dictator will emerge, if ever. In the meantime, Israel should get a blank check for whatever they do because “they’re fulfilling prophecy,” leading to the Second Coming. That’s what Christians lean on no matter how gruesome the process becomes.

So, from the beginning, Israel has shown utter contempt for the international law regimen they so passionately wanted post-War, and with an ever-growing disregard with time. Meanwhile, their cultivation of the American Evangelical community for political support has progressively corrupted our own witness, values and even epistemology. The inability of the United States if not the world to even come up with a cursory Christian philosophy, has been undermined by Pharisee cynicism, especially since the Bolshevik Revolution.⁶

And what they’ve largely suppressed in the process is any discussion of their Greater Israel ambitions, which they’ve had from the beginning.⁷ Plans to fulfill God’s complete promise from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates have been there since even before 1948, and have progressively grown in popularity ever since. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous they sound now, given how much the nation is already falling apart, nor how they will ever fill all that land with nothing but ethnic Jews. Somehow faith in deception and manipulation will carry them through, because “that’s their faith talking” too.

So Who Were The Pharisees?

What people need to understand is that Israel has a mindset you would never guess if you remain ignorant of the logic of fundamentalist Judaism. And its roots go all the way back to the controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees.

If there was any group approaching a nemesis that Jesus Christ might have had in His day, it must have been the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the zealous lay followers of the rabbi movement of Jesus’ day (Rom 10:2). Rabbinic culture had emerged from the legacy of Ezra and his reforms after the return from Babylon around 536 BC (Neh 8), but over a period of five centuries, its customs and traditions degenerated into a rival to the actual Law of Moses.

The Pharisees were the ones who often stood in the back of the room murmuring (Luke 5:21) as Jesus taught the masses. They were the ones always trying to “catch Him in His words,” the ones with the most religious ostentation (Mt 6:5), what we might call today “performative religion.” They were always “wearing it on their sleeve,” rather than letting their deeds speak for themselves (Mt 5:16; James 2:18, etc). They were legalistic, self-righteous, hypocritical, subversive,⁸ and actual transgressors of the law they claimed to love so much (Mt 23:14, etc).

If they came to embrace Jesus as Messiah, they often became the ones who caused trouble as the “Judaizers” later on (Gal 1:7-9; 2:12, etc), demanding that Gentile Christians get circumcised and keep the law. And they were the believers most inclined to keep sacrificing animals at the Temple (Heb 10:18ff), thereby failing to bear witness to Jesus Christ’s role as the ultimate Passover Lamb Who ended the sacrificial system (Heb 10:1-12).

They were the ones who were most outraged at this arrogant young rabbi who dared to imply He was going to share their covenant with God with the Gentiles (Luke 4:24-28; Acts 22:1-23), and Who criticized them for setting aside the Law of Moses to justify their customs and traditions (Mt 15:6). They were the ones most zealous to kill Him (Jn 7:1), and even those associated with Him (Jn 12:10; Acts 23:12).

Paul’s Rants Were Largely Against Rabbinic Law

It was Hebrew Christians who, under the residual influence of Pharisee/rabbi attitudes, tended to assume a greater authority or status in the early Church due to their ethnicity. Paul however, characterized it as “confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3:4-12), and counted it to be dung (3:8), because status in God’s new “called out” community would be according to humility and spirituality (Gal 3:28), not blood lines.

I find the same tendency today in the “Hebrew Roots” movement. Although studying Hebrew culture may provide some marginal benefits,⁹ the overall effect is putting “confidence in the flesh” (i.e., one’s ethnicity—Phil 3:4). The teachings are plain in the New Testament. In Jesus Christ there is now neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, “but ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

They obsess over making sure everyone only uses Hebrew words rather than translations, as if God actually cares. Messianic Jewish leaders call themselves “rabbis,” even though the New Testament calls such a role a pastor (Eph 4:11).

“Rabbi,” even though Jesus Himself was sometimes referred to that way, was a term that became too closely-associated with the Pharisee movement who followed these “beloved teachers.” To call a Christian pastor “Rabbi” can be confusing. But confusion and vagueness is what Zionism and the idolatry of Israel thrive upon.

And truth be told, I hardly know of one Messianic Jewish congregation that isn’t rabidly pro-Zionist. Not that all the Gentile churches aren’t either, in these utterly ignorant, untaught times. But the line coming from an increasingly-failing and flailing Zionist project is to get the Evangelicals to so identify with them as to be willing to risk their lives to ensure their survival.

Jumping The Gun

In a recent article, I argued that rabbinic philosophy came to dominate Jewish culture after the expulsion from the land in 70 AD. All that the Jewish people have been involved with post-Diaspora do not always reflect those roots, but the majority of it does, especially as seen amongst the “religious” in Israel today, those extreme Orthodox groups that dominate the settler movement.

Yet I do not know of any other religion in the world that declares that any Gentile who studies their sacred writings with the intent of “vexing” the Jew is worthy of death, then turns right around and constantly whines that Gentiles perpetually misunderstand them.¹⁰ None of this gets into the question of, how do you know you will be “vexing” (criticizing) someone before you even understand what they believe?

But it’s all part of the “lose-lose” premise you are handed when you take on the issue of Zionist philosophy (Luke 7:31-35). It’s just one more tactic to intimidate you from criticizing them or even examining them, if we are to be good Bereans (Acts 17:11).

Paul, a former “Pharisee of the Pharisees,” alluded to this effect when he said, “but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (II Cor 10:12). I attribute a lot of it to the “male competition effect” produced when men get together and try to come up with clever arguments to impress one another. It produces a very in-grown attitude.

The problem is, Jewish Zionism is built upon delusional assumptions about God’s blessing upon what they’re doing. They are “jumping the gun,” tying to muscle their way back into the land before the time (Lu 13:35; 21:6). But that time doesn’t legitimately come¹¹ until Messiah’s Millennial reign (Isa 11:11), because Jesus alone has the right to inherit the land, the full promises (Gen 15:18), the whole earth, and indeed, the entire universe (Eph 1:10).

That is, if you believe the New Testament. This is what the Church is supposed to understand, and what it’s message to Israel and the world ought to be. But instead, young American Christians in particular are being indoctrinated into the cult of Israel as we speak, to lay their very lives on the line to protect this fool’s errand of a project.

Getting Ready To Be Cannon Fodder

To wit, the Gentile feet sent to trod (safeguard) Jerusalem for 3 ½ years will be theirs (Rev 11:2). This is where this emerging US/Israeli beast empire of the last days is heading (Dan 7:7,19). They are the ones who will be caught in the maelstrom of this little nation that simply will not give up their Greater Israel ambitions. Alarming and offending the entire Middle East and the world, they will be surrounded at Armageddon, which is essentially their Waterloo (Eze 38:4,9).

They are the ones (along with millions of other Evangelicals) being groomed to give their consent to the building of a Third Temple, in violation of God’s chilling warning about giving your approval to a dead system of animal sacrifice that denies the Messiahship of Christ (Heb 10:19-31). I can’t imagine the global controversy over animal rights alone that will stir up as well.

The fact that most of these armies perish on the mountains of Israel (39:2) doesn’t matter. Millions¹² will still get through for the Battle of Jerusalem, for house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. Proud Jewish Israelis, used to “dishing it out” to everyone around them, will be getting “a taste of their own medicine” at that point. They will be looted and raped (Zech 14:2). Truly it will be a bloodbath (Rev 14:20; Isa 63:1-6).¹³

Despair will set in at the realization they may be in for something of a “Custer’s Last Stand” massacre. But that’s when Christ shows up to rally them and turn the tide (Zech 12:8-10). At that point, when they see His pierced hands and feet, they “shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (12:10). That’s what He meant when He said, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mt 23:39).

Truth be told, the Israelis, more drunk on their own brutality and sadism than ever lately, are getting a foretaste of it right now. Both Netanyahu and Donald Trump, lying up a storm as usual, are doing everything to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” hiding the fact that Israel is taking a pounding. During their earliest missile waves, the Iranians deployed their older technology as decoys to use up Israel’s anti-missile arsenal. Towards the end of the recent hostilities, they were sending their most lethal ones, tormenting the Israelis with each new “upping of the ante.”

They were proving they could destroy the whole country even without a nuke, but relented to avoid World War III. Don’t expect them to get any credit for it though, from the US/Israeli demonization machine.

[To Be Continued]

Notes:

1. Pete Hegseth, current “Secretary of War,” has been taught in his misogynist, “anti-woke” ways by his pastor Doug Wilson, appropriately from Moscow, Idaho. Wilson is from this “Theo Bro” Rushdoony legacy, as Matthew Taylor has dubbed these people. ↩︎
2. Christian scholar Matthew Taylor has written extensively about these different “streams.” ↩︎
3. To this day, Israel refuses to acknowledge any permanent borders. ↩︎
4. Dr. Israel Shahak recalled a story about David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, who stood up and declared in the Knesset during the 1956 Suez War that this conquest was the first step in fulfilling the ancient Biblical promise of all the land up to the Euphrates (Gen 15:18). At that, the entire Knesset spontaneously leapt to their feet and sang the national anthem. This in spite of the fact that Ben Gurion was, like all the early Zionists, a “proud atheist.” https://dn790009.ca.archive.org/0/items/JewishHistoryJewishReligion_665/JewishHistoryJewishReligion-TheWeightOfThreeThousandYears.pdf ,p. 38. ↩︎
5. Truth be told, the planners of the UN had some kind of a world government in mind, but there can be a huge gap between aspirations and actual ability to pull something off. It is ironically the stance of the United States, ever protective of one little nation, that has kept the UN from its original vision, for better or worse. ↩︎
6. Until the 1917 Communist regime in Moscow, the world was still mostly operating on a Christian epistemology of “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The Bolsheviks replaced journalism and scholarship with propaganda, with the government lying to and manipulating their own public. It ushered in the cynical 20^th Century where the most influential governments especially, have sought to constantly game and play one another. The Russian Communists, as a mostly disaffected, atheist off-shoot of Talmudic philosophy, began what the world has been living with ever since. ↩︎
7. As I’ve tried to point out elsewhere, Pharisee philosophy relies heavily on deceit as a state philosophy. They may swear up and down that expanding their borders to the Euphrates has never been their goal, but the idea was always there, if even only at the hands of a small group of religious Zionist thinking. ↩︎
8. I argue that the rabbi movement represented a slow, centuries-long undermining of the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures in favor of early rabbinic interpretations of those Scriptures and the subjects they most obsessed over the most (circumcision, sabbath-keeping; women’s menstruation, etc). In other words, Talmudic culture is not focused on what Christians would call a striving toward systematic, objective exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures as one finds in Protestant theology. Actual study of the Bible is not found in the yeshiva world apart from obscure scholastic research.
    
   One of the great outcomes of this ever-evolving (devolving) movement was the emergence of the Karaites around the 7th Century AD, a group who returned to the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures. Some claim their heritage can be traced back to the “Sons of Zadok” after the return from the Babylonian Captivity. Today they only number about 30,000 in Israel, with even fewer worldwide. They are considered a great heresy within Orthodox Judaism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaite_Judaism#:~:text=According,20%5D ↩︎
9. Understanding the fulfillment of the Old Testament feasts in the New Testament age for instance, would be an example. https://donclasenseriousguy.com/the-need-for-a-tabernacles-church-2/ ↩︎
10. This death threat is plainly stated in the preface to the Talmud. An English translation of the Talmud was not even available until 1935. Fozr centuries, the outside world was dependent upon the odd defection of a rabbi to Christianity (such as the one who “spilled the beans” to Martin Luther, and so turned him “against the Jews” thereafter), a change Christians have been brow-beaten about endlessly ever since. )I.e., “Martin Luther was a shameless anti-Semite.”) ↩︎
11. Hence, the Israeli obsession with “legitimacy.” Because of their culture of study, they apparently are more aware of their differences with Christians than we are with them (Eph 4:14; I Cor 14:20). ↩︎
12. If there’s a literal 200 million men that arrive from the East alone (Rev 9:16), one-sixth of them left (Eze 39:2) is still 33 million men! ↩︎
13. “Blood to the horse’s bridle” is not referring to a literal river of blood that deep, but is an ancient idiom for “a whole lot of blood.” ↩︎