CHALLENGES
FACING THE CHURCH TODAY
Niall
and Gerry Griffin
In
January’s edition of the Reader’s Digest we read about the Portsmouth
inventor, Mike Gill who has invented a life-sized inflatable Church.
It has an altar, steeple, organ and room for 100 guests and “it is
available for weddings anywhere in the country” . There was a picture of a bride and groom standing in
front of a clergyman inside this “church” and you could see a stain-glassed
window, the altar and two drunken candles in leaning candle holders - all
inflated. It made us
both laugh and groan. Is
this symbolic of how the Church is in the West?
Will we have inflatable clergy next, and inflatable Christians on
inflatable pews?
We
have also read that in this age of stacks of information on every subject the
church remains uninformed, misled and wrongly taught about Israel, Islam and
what is going on in the Middle East today.
In a recent edition of “Prophecy Today” Tony Pearce wrote
about something that another writer has called today’s disease i.e. political
correctness. Pearce
says that biblical Christianity is considered to be wrong by the politically
correct world. As
Christians we are accused of being “homophobic” if we say that homosexuality
is wrong and the assumption is made that Christians hate homosexuals.
As Christians we are accused of being “Islamophobic” if we say that
Islam is wrong and the assumption is made that Bible believing Christians hate
Muslims. It is becoming
increasingly difficult for people to get it into their mind that Christians love
the sinner but not the sin. We
are not “allowed” to say that people are wrong in their thinking and we are
rapidly losing our liberty to do so.
In
our ministry, under our charity name Colann Ministries (Colann pronounced Cullin
is an Irish word meaning Body - living body, and we use it to mean the living
body of Christ) and its adjacent ministry S.O.M.A Ireland (Sharing of Ministries
Abroad and the Greek word for body)
we have been blessed since late 1988 to travel as a couple or with teams
to many countries around the world.
The majority of churches in which we’ve worshipped and worked have been
Anglican/ Episcopalian and in only a few of them have we ever heard informed,
biblical based prayers about Israel and the Middle East.
We have on the other hand been very humbled to find that people all over
the world have persevered in praying for Ireland and N Ireland, but we have been
concerned for some time now that as the Body of Christ, the Church in all its
branches, rarely obeys God’s commands in Scripture to bless Israel, not curse
her (Genesis 12:2-3) and to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Ps.122:6).
(Shalom meaning many things like wholeness and the completion of God’s
plans and promises); to recognise that God has not finished with Israel, the
Church has not replaced Israel (Romans l I:2; Isaiah 44:21; Ezekiel 36:24-27);
to realise that as Christians we depend upon the past, present and future of
Israel (Romans 11: 17) that we have all benefited from her fall (Romans 11:11);
to face the fact that since God loves Israel we ought to also and we need to
repent for our past and present attitudes, ignorance, apathy and hostility
towards her (Romans 11: 28; Jeremiah 31: 1-3); to hear God’s call to us to
show mercy to Israel (Romans 11:31) by praying, supporting financially and by
visiting to show support (Romans 10 :1; 1 Samuel 12 :22; Psalm 122 :6, Isaiah
62:1-7; Romans 9:1-5) and to look to the future when, according to God’s word
greater blessing will come to the world through Israel (Romans 11:15).
In
his book “Hastening the coming of the Messiah” Johannes Facius uses 2
Peter 3:10-12a “But the
day of the Lord will come like a thief. The
heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and
the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought
you to be? You ought to
live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its
coming,” to challenge the
reader to consider four main conditions which have to be met before the Lord can
return.
These are :
1 that the great commission as in Matthew 24 v 14 has to be completed.
2 “the
Bride will have made herself ready”
(see Revelation19:6-8;)
3 the Jews will have returned to Israel - aliyah [‘aliyah’ -
means to go up, to ascend, to go from a lower place to a higher place.
It is associated with the journey three times a year to Jerusalem by
Jewish people to celebrate the three major festivals. Psalms were written for the journey - the Psalms of
Ascent – (Psalms 120 to 134).
As time passed this returning to Jerusalem came to mean the restoration
of man’s spirit to God - so it came to mean a return, like revival to us.]
(Isaiah 43:5-6, Isaiah 49:22-23)
4
God’s prophetic word in the Old and New Testaments will be
understood, recognised by the Church and fulfilled by Him as in Ezekiel 36, 37
and 47.
More
than 700 scriptures deal directly or indirectly with the Lord’s plans for the
restoration of Israel and Jerusalem and the return of the Jewish people from all
nations to the promised land. (Isaiah 60: 4 and 8-9; Jeremiah 31: 8-9;
Deuteronomy 4:39-40). Miracles
have happened and are happening in our lifetimes.
We note the miraculous recognition by the U.N. of Israel’s right to
renew statehood in 1947, after a worldwide dispersion of 1900 years,
and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
The nation was regathered (e.g. I million Jews from the former
Soviet Union have made ahiyah since 1991) in spite of unspeakable
persecution in the nations to which they were scattered (this persecution is on
the rise again especially in Europe) and in spite of several wars against her
including the present intifada since 1948.
All of which aimed and still aim to destroy her and wipe her off the map
altogether. In the Old
Testament God says, more than 70 times, through the prophets, “I will bring
them home.” He promises
to do this physically first and then spiritually.
Ezekiel 36 makes this clear.
In 47 passages God has given His oath concerning the land of Canaan,
renamed Israel. In every case
God’s commitment is to give His land to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their
descendants. In
three places God’s oath is joined with
His covenant (1 Chronicles 16: 15-18; Psalm 105: 8-11 and Joshua 21:43).
In three places it is clearly stated that Israel’s possession of the
land is to be for ever, or everlasting. (Exodus 32:13, 1 Chronicles 16:15-18 and
Psalm 105: 8-11).
There
are 77 instances where ‘Israel’ or ‘Israelite’ occur and
the apostles never used Israel as a synonym for the Church.
Some of the early Church fathers developed a doctrine that the Church had
replaced Israel in the purposes of God.
They taught that the Church was to be known as the ‘new Israel’.
Justin Martyr did this from AD 150. Later
Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine adapted this teaching so the doctrine of the
Church became corrupted and changed from the simple revelation of the apostles
(all Jews) as in the New Testament.
From about A.D.400 Israel has regularly been used by Bible teachers,
commentators and even translators as a synonym for the Church e.g. K.J.V. Bible
in the headings above later chapters in Isaiah.
The Church needs to repent of this doctrine of replacement theology.
Israel is Israel and the Church is the Church.
The word “remnant” is applied to Israel 40 times in Scripture
and in the majority of them the word refers to the time just before the end of
the present age. (Romans 9:27 quoting Isaiah 10:22; Romans 11:1-4 & 5-6 and
26)
The
“all Israel” who will be saved will be “the remnant” whom
God has chosen and kept for Himself by His grace (Zephaniah 3:12-13).
Jesus, Himself, says in Matthew 23:39 that he will not return until there
is a worshipping community able to say “Blessed is he who comes in the name
of the Lord.”
It
seems to us according to what we’ve read and learned over the past years that
the Holy Spirit is directing us to His prophetic word, and the present day
battle for believers which is the battle for truth - the truth of God’s word.
In this battle Israel’s identity, Israel’s destiny and the Church’s
part in all of this are being highlighted.
Johannes Facius says that the main part of Satan’s strategy against
Israel is to hide the truth of the Bible.
The answer to the question: “Why
is Israel the focus of world attention?” is, the Bible.
Johannes
says that God’s prophetic word shows us that this age will end with the
restoration and redemption of Israel.
As we come closer to the end of the age the pressure on Israel, her
existence, her identity and destiny will increase and that pressure on the
Church will increase too. This
is already happening and there is more to come as David Pawson warns us in his
excellent teaching entitled “The Challenge of Islam to Christians.”
David
Stern who translated the Complete Jewish Bible, wrote into that Bible: “I
am Jewish, was raised in the Jewish religion by Jewish parents and did not come
to faith in the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, until I was 37 years old.
As a Messianic Jew, I saw that the greatest schism in the world is
the separation between the Church and the Jewish people; and I experienced it as
God’s will for my life that I do what I could to resolve this.”
lf
we believe that God is speaking to us in the Bible, we will want to take the
promises the threats, the suggestions and commands contained in God’s Word
very seriously.
When Jesus came to the earth the first time he fulfilled every prophecy
which God intended to be fulfilled.
When He returns in glory the rest of the prophecies in the Bible will be
fulfilled.
In
Paul’s second letter to Timothy in Chapter 3:16 he says, “All Scripture
is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good
work.”
Why
don’t we let God’s Word inform us about His purposes for Israel, both land
and people. instead of allowing only the biased, anti-Semitic world and
Christian media inform us - otherwise we will be merely an inflatable Church
without steadiness in this troubled world?