myth arises from not knowing the meaning of the New Testament term 'kingdom' βασιλεία/basileia as was used by the people at that time. It was a direct reference to the authority or rule of God and not to any state or condition of believers. Christ's teaching was focussed on this as a correction of the Pharisaic tradition which simply projected it as a state of obedience to God's laws climaxed by the Messiah.

It is a direct reference to God's authority, the unique nature of which the public preaching of Jesus revealed.

fact that church leaders today, such as Bishop Tutu, have aligned its meaning with a state of mind, which, it is claimed, could be cultivated by Buddhistic practices, is a serious perversion of its meaning.

associated state or condition of peace of mind is simply a product of a positive personal relationship to the person of God,

and not in any sense a product of a particular system of behaviour,

...whether sitting cross-legged or upright.

of apocalyptic alarmism over a 'new world order' or one-world government (as the tool of Antichrist), nationalism has sometimes been presented, or implied in contrast, as the true God-given political order. But the Nationalism of today is only an 18th century development and it has no moral standing, even if called patriotism!

• For 15 centuries Christianity believed in the secular ideal of a universal world-state. It is only from the end of the 18th century that civilization was considered to be based on nationality or the nation-state. Previously nationalism, while helping to unite people for good or evil, had also helped disintegrate empires (Ottoman, Hapsburg, etc.), develop democratic freedoms, and even ruinously destabilize primitive patriarchal societies.
• But it bears NO divine mandate! Worse: when nationalism is combined with religion, such as religious Zionism, it easily becomes an instrument of cruel oppression, that has the potential to outdo Hitler in its marshalling of resources against competitor groups.
• The 'Pax Romana' of one-world government (from Caesar Augustus to Caesar Aurelius), under which New Testament Christianity spread with such amazing speed, was a God-given environment comprehended under the Bible's expression – "fullness of time" (Galatians 4:4). Today, with modern technology facilitating travel and communication, and international organizations striving for greater freedom in trade and travel, and the protection of human rights, our world is moving to an even larger fulfilment of this same 'fullness of time' – certainly for the completion of what Christ began in the 1st century. (Upon this hangs other end-time issues, and not vice versa).
• A clue as to how God thinks on nationalism is how He structured Israel: preventing the tribes from coalescing so that there was a built-in regional brake on the development of one central authority, which unchecked always leads to the exaggeration and abuse of national identity. Patriotism is in essence simply a loyalty to own's own group identity and has no moral quality of caring for all regardess of nationality.

• Nationalism unchecked has proved to be a very poisonous root in human history, responsible for Hutu massacres in Rwanda, Serbian massacres in Bosnia, etc, for in contrast to the principle that a country belongs to those who live in it, nationalism tends to develop a racist base. For the Bible believing Christian, in Christ there is no Jew, Greek, or Scythian, or any other division of humanity! Adolf Hitler could be seen as an example of the ultimate dedication to nationalism.

is an evangelical call that seems so right! But, subtly implicit in this for many Christians is an assumption that people groups can adopt a Christian identity. To think of people in terms of their national or cultural group is natural, but this has no place whatsoever in any form of true Christian identity, no matter how traditional this thinking may have become.
• When the Word of God says –

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28),

it is saying no to any form of group-distinction. Neither socio-cultural, economic, nor gender distinction has any place in the Christian identity, which God only gives individually and in newness to all those who believe. This truth applies as much to racial, geographic and political groups as to any.
• In other words, our group or national identity simply cannot be Christianised as distinct from other groups! Our group or national identity may even be dominantly Christian but, unlike the religions of this world, it never 'owns' a Christian identity. It is for this reason that baptism can never be coerced, in spite of this kind of atrocious behaviour in European history. Nor can nationalism be augmented by Christianity, as various rulers have tried to do, and which Satan has then used to motivate other national-religions (Islam/Hinduism/Buddhism) to use political/military force to oppose Christianity.
• Human group-identity in various forms can be a powerful motivating factor, whether thought of as nationalism, patriotism, or racism, and it often damagingly blunts sensitivity to those of another group, but even more seriously, it allows the divisions or distinctions of this world to affect the relationships among God's precious multi-national people, and as such it is a corrupting influence.
• There can be no distinction of any kind among God's people under the name Christian, anywhere, ever! The Christian Church is by its nature multi-national.

Jesus did say that, as recorded in Luke 20:25 (regarding tax), but this quote has too often been used to persuade Christians to accept the political status quo of oppressive minority regimes and to oppose reformation. This is not what Jesus meant!

England, when King Charles I was fighting to retain his dictatorial control against the parliamentary 'rebels' seeking to reform the government of his day, the king's standard/flag carried these words concerning Caesar as it fluttered in the wind above his troops preparing to kill the 'rebels'.

Satan himself had quoted Holy Scripture deceptively to Jesus (Matthew 4:6), so it was not a new tactic.

the days of South Africa's racially based minority government, Christians were frequently fed with the same tactic to accept the political status quo and not support reformers, especially as some reformers had become allied with Soviet 'atheistic' ideology.

the New Testament was being written, the Caesar that the apostle Peter referred to was evil emperor Nero, when he wrote –

who was known to have raped and murdered his mother and whose name in Hebrew (before numerals/numbers were invented) spelled 666. In no sense did Peter mean us to simply support the status quo. But it does mean that when Christian congregational membership must be legally race-based as previously in South Africa (in direct violation of the essential nature of the Christian Church) Christians may not conform in any sense or capacity whatsoever, even though they seek the peace of their community!

command here to "honour the emperor" simply means to treat with respect as ought to be applied to every human being unconditionally, including even the corpse of a condemned criminal not being left for predators, as God had commanded Israel (Deuteronomy 21:22-23), which was why the body of Jesus was taken off the cross before nightfall.
• But, the restoration of the British monarchy, supported by the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church, thought otherwise, such as executing the Christian lawyer John Cooke and others, who had well managed the treason trial of the English king referred to above, by having Cooke 'hung, drawn, and quartered' at Charing Cross (16 October 1660) and cutting off his testicles and penis to feed to stray dogs at Aldersgate. This requirement to treat every human being with respect is based on God's original design-purpose of all humans to represent Him, therefore dishonouring of any violates God's founding design.

Christianity is by its very essence nonconformist as it represents God's founding purpose for the human race
and is not simply a salvation 'rescue-mission' as it is so often falsely portrayed.

such political situations often divide communities, and Christians are then pressured to take sides, when they are actually required to represent the heart of God (the welfare of the people) in the local situation, which is not tied to any particular political 'side' or system.

arises from a half-truth, and a half-truth can be a more subtle deception than an outright lie. The Bible's Scripture usually quoted in this regard is from Daniel Four 25 and 32 –

Respect ('honour') toward a national or imperial ruler is an essential, regardless, whether it be Caesar Nero, Adolf Hitler, or Joseph Stalin, but that does not mean that a particular ruler was ever – in any sense – a God approved choice.

when the Bible instructs all believers to –

the worst of the Caesars, whose name, spelled in Hebrew, contained the number 666 as a prototype of Antichrist.

a general rule, for nothing is to be disrespected which God has allowed to exist (even Satan himself, as Jude reminds us in verse 9) but, in contrast, trust is always to be earned, for it is meant to be our proportionate response to the proven character of the one trusted.

of political rule, human government can only exist within the protective/limiting parameters which God's management of history provides, so any ruler is limited to the options available, but, because humanity was designed in the beginning to truly represent God to that which exists and was therefore given "dominion", the moral state of any nation is the basis for the development of its leadership.

Accordingly, the character of its leadership generally reflects the moral status of a people.

It was in this sense that, even though God (through the prophet Samuel, who disapproved of Israel having any king) chose Israel's Saul to be their king, the Lord said to Samuel concerning that situation –

for a central government is not a socio-political essential and Israel's central identity was meant to lie in the centrality of its tabernacle ministry of public worship and not in a person.

So governments today are to be tolerated for the value they provide in comparison to their cost.

though Saul was God's provision to that nation at that time, God saw it as a moral issue of Israel arrogantly wanting to go its own way which 'seemed' so right rather than listen to His wisdom. This is a characteristic instinct of self-centred human nature, and Israel at that time was under serious military threat from the encroaching Philistines and so the people wanted a proven leader that they could see.

So, as demonstrated throughout history, a leader takes power who reflects the perceptions and value of the people of that time.
BUT –

this does not indicate God's approval of the character or policies of such a leader,
nor does it justify passivity from those in the nation who carry a fuller moral sense!

Hitler, for instance, did not create Nazi ideology. He simply 'saddled the Aryan horse'.

is a confused reaction to the Bible prophecies of Antichrist's world-wide tyranny. It ignores the important New Testament truth that Christ's first coming was when circumstances were ripe (Galatians 4:4). That unique situation in world history of the Pax Romana (the peace of the empire founded by Augustus) underlies the amazingly rapid spread of Christianity. The common language (Hellenistic Greek) and Roman law and order with its range of beneficial effects in travel and commerce, created a climate in which Christianity flourished in spite of opposition from Jewish communities and later from Roman authorities.
• It is likely therefore, that the wisdom of God will use similar means to brings to conclusion the Gospel task that began in such a marvellous manner. That Antichrist usurps this world wide authority, does not detract from the political fact that the prophet Daniel so emphasized – the Lord raises up and the Lord puts down politically, whomsoever HE will!

many sincere Bible-believing Christians assume great events in human history would surely be anticipated or prophesied in Holy Scripture, so the misapplication of Jeremiah's prophecy of God's judgement on the kingdom of Judah, which was completely fulfilled in the subsequent Babylonian invasion, has been used to try and prove that

Hitler's Nazi Holocaust was anticipated in the Bible.

In other words, God said, using the metaphors of fishing and hunting,
there would be not place to hide from the Babylonian invasion, which
resulted in the total deportation of the population of Judah for seventy years!

This myth, as I have heard preached, was that this was God's way of uprooting European Jewry to bring about the creation of the Zionist state of Israel in Palestine, which of course was then misleadingly used as a 'sign of the times' as being the prophetic fulfilment of Isaiah's a "nation born in a day", which actually has reference to the second coming of Jesus and Israel's national repentance.

commendably sincere as the motive might be, the Bible is not a book which prophesies the future for the sake of being one step ahead on world events. Every statement of Holy Scripture is a practical address out of the infinite love of God to a specific issue at the time it is made. Prophecy of the future may be a warning to give guidance, or a word of encouragement to give hope in difficult times, or serve as a confirmation of the unexpected after an event (such as the hometown of the Messiah, etc..),

but Bible prophecy is not a compendium of God's knowledge of the future in any sense whatsoever!

toward anything new is common. Telephones were initially condemned as a possible threat to public order if bored housewives used them to spread gossip. Table forks for eating were initially condemned as a worldly invention for God had given us fingers, and are still avoided in Islam today. Similarly, a superstitious fear of a federal world-government will tend to see developments in world commerce as leading to an Antichrist system of control.

• In some circles, this attitude has caused a distrust toward metrication (from 10-fingers, 10-toes) as though imperial measurements were somehow more Biblical because 12 (pence in the pound; inches in a foot; x2 hours in a day) is associated with the twelve tribes of Israel, but being completely ignorant that our number of hours in a day comes from ancient Egypt (before Israel existed) for in that ancient world 'twelve' was seen as representing government by the Most High God (hence Rome's Constitution of Twelve Tables, etc.) because God had divided their agricultural year into twelve moons/months. But neither fear of nor faith in conspiracy is in any way a Christian attitude. It simply smells of unbelief! God reigns!

idea in the Bible is a metaphor first used by God in Exodus (13:9). It graphically expresses the controlling influence on all that is thought (upon the forehead) and all that is done (upon the right hand). This same figure of speech is then used concerning the followers of the Lord (Revelation 7:3) and also the followers of Satan (Revelation 13:16).

was meant literally in the book of Revelation, then it would necessarily apply to both groups referred to.

I have yet to hear anyone teach that believers will have 777 or any other mark imprinted on their foreheads!

error came subtly as part of John Darby's rediscovery of the prophetic future of Israel in God's plan, in which his calculation and his understandable lack of understanding of the dual significance of the statement in Daniel Nine verse 27 resulted in widespread misrepresentation of the coming End-time, in correcting the earlier Replacement Theology concerning Israel (the mistaken belief that the Church had replaced Israel in God's plan). This special dual significance was very important, for it kept Satan in the dark concerning the ministry of Jesus, which ended in the midst of that Final Week (seven-years) of the prophecy of the full restoration of the nation Israel.

New Testament, in the book of Revelation, directly illumines this end-time Tribulation as being specifically 3½-years long (beginning with Accuser Satan's expulsion from Heaven's Court, Revelation 12), in which God's people directly confront the character of the rule of Antichrist (as the 'Two-Witness' of the Prosecution, Revelation 11:3) and therein also share the suffering of their Lord.

unique entrance into Jerusalem on the unbroken/untamed donkey was the central day of that final Week, and it is the reason that Christ's ministry to Israel had lasted only 3½-years.

Luther and many others thought so, but Antichrist is principally a political leader who, in confederation with ten rulers, destroys the seven-hilled city of "Babylon" – Rome in history, fake-church (prostitute) in Bible metaphor (Revelation 17:16).
• Some have argued against this fact because the word means 'mountains' not hills. But this misses the point of the double significance – that the seven are also a succession of seven rulers (therefore 'mountains').

(Matthew 24:15) that Daniel prophesied of Antichrist as a "little horn" speaking "great things" (Daniel 8:9), which was previewed in Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes as Antichrist prototype; as inspired John of the Revelation in a Roman prison also saw in Nero Caesar of Rome (hence the 666-code name) as prototype of this final world ruler, in disguising his name by its numeric value (666 from in Hebrew, and 616 in Greek, which is why some early manuscript copies of Revelation have '616' and the error was not picked up because it was then known to mean the same thing).
• So, as far as the true Messiah is concerned – Yes, He was Abraham's seed (Galatians 3:16). But, concerning Jewish adulterous allegiance toward the last world ruler of human history – no, decidedly not of Abraham!
• This myth, that Antichrist will be a Jew (of the tribe of Dan), can be traced back to the early 3rd century AD (Hippolytus of Rome), and was another sly lie of Satan to hinder the gospel of Jesus among Jews.
• In the English-speaking world this false idea of the final world ruler, the Antichrist, being a Jew, has also been reinforced by grammatical confusion, thinking that anti-Christ means in the 'place of' (but that would be ante-Christ).

Antichrist simply means one who is against Christ.

widespread misunderstanding arose from a lack of knowledge of the context or background within which the events described and the statements quoted in Holy Scripture actually occurred. In its original, the Bible is an absolutely accurate reflection of the events and situations it describes, and an appropriate respect for the Bible therefore deserves that it be understood within its own historical and literary context.

old English word "tithe" simply means ten percent, and it was the standard tax rate in the culture from which Abraham came. In the formation of his descendants into a nation under the Sinai covenant with God for their future life in Canaan, many regulations were given concerning the ordering of their commercial, social, and national life, but the only form of central government was the leadership provided by the priesthood at their tabernacle. To this central body then a ten percent, or tithe, was to be paid on all produce in their agricultural economy.

God divided the land among the descendants of Jacob after Israel's exodus from Egypt, He had excluded two sons, Simeon and Levi, for the cruelty in their attack on Shechem and so put the two sons of Joseph in their place (Ephraim and Manasseh) to keep the number twelve, which in the ancient Egyptian culture, of which they were a part at that time, represented the government of the Most High (for He had divided their agricultural year into twelve moons/months).

Accordingly, the tribe of Levi had no agricultural land and so its income came from the tithe/tax to the tabernacle.

When the Lord had warned Egypt through Pharaoh's dreams (which opened the door for the promotion of Joseph after his two years in their prison on a false charge) that He was sending a famine and that they must therefore prepare, Joseph in his new oversight capacity increased their tax rate to 20% of their produce (Genesis 41:34) to be stored for the bad time ahead.

does not mean that it is wrong to use the same percentage today to support the ministry of the local church (it is a good guide), but it should not be limited to a 'tithe'. All that we have is from God, and the Bible instructs in effect that those who teach the Word of God should live at no less than the same standard as those who are being taught in the Bible ministry –

This encouragement is to be taken as a guide in the maintenance of local church ministry, but this is not a limit of what may be given through the local church as an offering to the Lord.

It was not a percentage set by God for us today.

is presented in the New Testament, in his walk of faith toward God beyond understanding, as anticipatory of the new relationship to God given to all believers under the Eternal Covenant sealed in Christ. Therefore it is natural, although the New Testament teaches that the Jewish Law given at Sinai ended forever in the atonement of the Christ of God (Hebrews 8:13, 10:9), that preachers should then think of Abraham's tithe to Melchizedek as an example for all Christians to follow, as a minimum expression of faithfulness to the work of God in this world today. But this is not so!

absolutely essential to read Holy Scripture within its own historical context or serious misrepresentation will naturally follow.

Where did Abraham get the idea of paying a tithe or ten percent? From his Chaldean background.

It was a tax that expressed political allegiance.

his military expedition, Abraham gave 10% of the goods recovered by his armed men (assisted by troops of his Amorite allies, Aner and Eschol) from the invading forces which had looted these goods from the cities conquered in the invasion of the Jordan valley, which included the plain of Siddim of the cities of Sodom (where Lot lived) and Gomorrah. So Abraham gave a tithe of looted goods which were not really his, but were the lost property of the victims of the invasion. In that time, Abraham had been entitled to keep them, but his act of giving a 10% tax of them to priest-king Melchizedek is presented in the New Testament, in terms of the messianic prophecy in Psalm 110:4 as significant recognition for it typified the greater priesthood of Messiah ('earned' in contrast to 'inherited'), higher/greater than the Israel's priesthood of Aaron, as represented in Melchizedek whose godly conduct had earned his recognition before God on behalf of his people.

Abraham's act of tithing at that time was a political statement about the godly Amorite king Melchizedek. It was Abraham's recognition of the godly character of his rule, which earned his city the name Salem – 'Peace', as the character of his rule had earned him the title Melchi-Zedek – 'king of righteousness'.

The New Covenant in Christ, more accurately called the Eternal Covenant, has no rules for it consists of a new nature by the indwelling (direct relationship) of the Holy Spirit Himself. Thus tithing is not a rule of Christian practice, as so often misrepresented. There is no percentage limit in giving to the cause of God any more than there is a 'minimum' obligation.

myth came from the effort of Christianity in its first centuries to counteract the dualism between spirit and matter in Greek philosophical thought. As all spiritual misdirection does, it feeds on half-truths to gain credibility among believers.
• The curse of Gen.3:17-19 was not lifted at Christ's birth. Instead, God tells us that –

"the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." (Romans 8:20-22).

• This bondage state of the physical world is anticipatory of its deliverance at Christ's return, and only then. Our own bodies are in the same state, but the gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost has given us a foretaste of the future by making our physical bodies to be a temple of the Spirit, a physical place where our world can meet God, who dwells in the believer (1Corinthians 6:13-20; Hebrews 6:4-5).
• However, national churches which have historically aligned themselves with the culture of their mother-country have sometimes fallen into this error in foreign missions (in a sincere attempt to bridge the cultural bias inherent in their own church identity) by presenting Christ's incarnation as a bridge between God and the physical world to make the land sacred, in view of the sacralizing of nature in most pagan belief systems.
• It is nevertheless a form of syncretism which violates Holy Scripture and misleads the believer!

seems so right! What could be wrong with seeing the Christian calling as including social reconciliation within a nation divided by colour, class, culture, and/or past injustices?

• For an essential reason! The Church's message is demonstrated in its identity. The Church does not have a dual role of building national/social reconciliation as well as the redemption of individual souls. It has one message expressed practically in its identity or it is simply not Christian. This is not a narrow-minded approach, for to compromise on this central issue is to undermine the essential character of Christianity. This essential character is described as –

"For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ[as new identity]. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:27-28)

• The temptation to respond to socially perceived needs and become an agent for social change is great for it seems to offer a platform for greater recognition and an increased opportunity for influence, an opportunity for social influence that seems to agree with the character of God's grace and His reconciliation in Jesus Christ. But it betrays the character of the Christian Church!

• The Bible makes the strongest statement possible in this regard. Even Christ's Jewishness is to be disregarded in the newness of God's reconciliation. There is no place for group identity of any kind within the Church of Jesus Christ!

"...we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh[as Jewish],
we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away;
behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
and entrusting to us the message of [this] reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:16-19).

• The usurping of the Christian message by well-intentioned but ignorant agents of social and national reconciliation, is not an adjunct to the work of the Church. It undermines it, and helps obfuscate its character! Failure in this area has led to Christianity becoming nothing more than a religious aspect of society in many parts of our world and thereby tending to invalidate its existence before God.

error is very understandable if the Bible as a whole is not taken into account in our understanding, for the Apostle Paul was in a Roman prison at the time that he used the metaphor in his letter to the Ephesians.

Isaiah's prophetic description of the Messiah of God, Jesus, was –

inspired words are a detailed instruction to follow Christ's own example in our spiritual warfare in this world.

One needs to be vigilantly on guard against sincerely presumptuous interpretations that 'seem' right, but without having the Bible's perspective, for the Bible is its own best interpretor.

Allah is the standard Arabic word for God – from pre-Islamic times, and is used by all Christian-Arabs today as well as Muslims. Allah derives from Ilãh, the North Arabian longer form of El, the same root as the Old Testament Hebrew term for God. This use is illustrated in a stone lintel recovered by archaeologists and dated to about 100 years before Mohammed which reads in Arabic "Blessed be Allah the father of our Lord Jesus Christ" – a quote from Ephesians 1:3. (reported by John Gilchrist).The Bible says that on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given the believers spoke, among other, in Arabic and there is no other word for God in that language –

• The stories circulated by some so-called Christian teachers that Allah was a pagan moon god which Mohammed promoted as only sovereign is a complete lie contradicted by the solid evidence of pre-Islamic Arabia. Some of Allah's attributes may be as misrepresented in Islam, just as they are frequently misrepresented in both Judaism and Christianity, but He is most certainly the One and the Only – the Most High God. Blessed be His holy name!
• Most Middle-Eastern Christians and Arabic-speaking Jewish Communities (including the Yemenite Jews, and some Sephardim) use Allah as the proper noun for 'God'. Allah is also found in all Arabic translations of the Bible and even in Indonesian translations. Therefore any Christian 'leader' today that asserts this myth, as some have ignorantly done, owes an apology to all Arabic-language Christians, to say the least. In addition, from Christian beginnings in Malta, God is called 'Alla' in the Maltese language.
• It would be wise for 'Pastor' Rod Parsley (Proverbs 18:2) of World Harvest Church, Columbus, Ohio, USA, to awake from his nationalist-religious myth which he so proudly totes in this regard, twisting the truth and energising Islam against the Christians in their midst. This would of course also included the stupidity of 'Pastor' Terry Jones and his public Qur'an burning. Satan does not need helpers!
•  It might help the naïve to note that our New Testament teaches by example concerning Paul's inspired address to the leaders of ancient Athens in which he quotes a well known pagan poem in honour of their supreme god Zeus as a reference to the one and only Most High God (Acts 17:28). But wisdom requires humility!
•  It might have helped Wheaton College's evangelical stupidity to know the above and not suspend Professor Larycia Hawkins (associate professor of political science) by placing her on administrative leave on Tuesday December 15, 2015, for simply suggesting that believers in the two faiths (Islam and Christianity) do indeed follow the same God, as Pope Francis had also previously stated (for 'if not', then all Christian Arabic translations of the Bible will have to invent a new word for 'God').

halal means "something that is lawful and permitted". For most Muslims, the concept of halal, and its opposite haram, is about food ingredients and their sources. A halal item can even become haram (not permitted) if it has been acquired through illicit means. Apples are halal, but if a thief steals an apple, it will be haram for him and all those who know that it has been stolen.
• Concerning 'food offered', Muslim halal foods have not much more to do with religious offerings than every Christian mealtime prayer. But even if the accusation were true, it would have absolutely NO meaning for a Bible believing Christian. In the founding years of Christianity, its Jerusalem conference (Acts 15) sent a letter from James to all non-Jewish Christians instructing, among other, abstinence from offerings to idols and non-kosher slaughter (15:20). This, as the conference itself also, was for the sake of protecting spiritual unity between Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians. We know this for certain because the same Paul who propagated this Jerusalem letter to the non-Jewish churches (Ac.16:4) taught this himself in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13.
• So Arab Christians are not required to stop their halal diet, especially in an Islamic community. This, at the very least, would be a serious hindrance to the spread of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Islamic world, and Satan does not need help.

myth, fed by such respected Christian writers such as Hal Lindsay, confuses God's promise to Hagar concerning her son by Abraham (about the spread of Arab culture) with the modern religion of Islam. If one's view is determined by our Western media, this error is forgiveable, but not if one's claim to understanding is presented as based on the Bible.

"And the angel of the LORD said to her, 'Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael ['God hears'], because the LORD has listened to your affliction [Sarah's bullying]. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen'." (Gen.16:11-12).

This awesome prophecy describes the wild nomadic nature of the Arab tribes descended from Ishmael whose historic homeland would be in the deserts of the Middle East. What is conveniently left out of the picture by Hal Lindsay and others, which impedes this confusion of Arab with Islam, is God's precious later assurance to Abraham –

"As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly.
He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation." (Genesis17:20).

Abraham understood God's meaning in these words of promise which is usually lost on our modern ears. The number twelve carried a special symbolic significance in Abraham's world and does not refer to Israel's future tribes.
• It represents God's ordering or governing, just as the year was divided into twelve moons, or months as we call it today. The number twelve concerning Ishmael meant the same as the number twelve concerning Israel – God would supervise and govern the history of Ishmael's descendants, the Arabs under God's care – for Abraham's sake.
• The largest Islamic nation today is Indonesia, who are not Arabs! One of the most vociferous Islamic nations today concerning the conflict between Israel and Palestine is Iran, who are not Arabs!
The deliberate blurring of this issue among modern Christian writers, in an attempt to explain Islam's general hostility toward the State of Israel, is a public shame upon the Christian Church in its mission to Muslim communities around the world and needs to be repented of!
• For most of Christian history, Islam has been good news to Jews, as a refuge from 'Christian' persecutions. The hostility in modern Islam toward the State of Israel is a direct product of the treatment of Palestinian Arabs in the rise of Zionist nationalism. Zionism had been a belief in the restoration of Israel within its historic homeland under their Messiah – until it was contaminated by the racist nationalisms of Europe in the late nineteenth century to become a political movement. Historically, Jews received better treatment under Islamic regimes than under any 'Christian' rulers, from Byzantine Palestine to the Ottoman Empire.
• Organised terrorism against civilians in the Middle East, so associated today with extremist Islam, really began in August 1937 with Jewish Irgun attacks on Palestinian-Arab civilian buses in response to rioting and mob attacks against Jewish immigration (before the Holocaust), for the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, so hyped by the Zionist cause, had included – "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".
• But God is still true to His word to Abraham and, although not part of God's *conditional promise to him concerning the land of Palestine, the people of Ishmael are respected by God for Abraham's sake (and so by all Bible-believing Christians).
Any modern Islamic extremism, or even any aspect of the religion of Islam which arose in Arabia about 2,679 years after the birth of Ishmael, has absolutely nothing to do with God's prophecy to Hagar which He faithfully fulfilled! Praise God!

myth misled many during the second half of the twentieth century. It used the words of Jesus –

It then coupled these words, as though the fig-tree-budding was Ben Gurion 1948 declaration of independence as Britain withdrew from Palestine, with the words in Luke's parallel account –

as though "all the trees" budding was the rising nationalisms (particularly in Africa) as colonialism cam to an end in this period. So, of course, this helped 'prove' that Jesus was coming back in the year 1988 (later modified to 2,000) for a "generation" was forty-years (1948+40=1988) until 'generation' was revised to be 52-years (1948+52=2,000), seriously leading God's people astray and making a fool of Christianity before the watching world in many communities. The term "generation" as Jesus used it did not mean a time-period. It meant "this people", the Jewish people and only the Jewish people. Jesus never ever used it for a time-period of any length (Matthew 11:16; 12:41; 23:36). It is simply a reference to their future survival through the coming worst time in earth's history in God's faithfulness to faithful Abraham.

Today, in some Jewish communities this false interpretation is used to completely discredit the New Testament.

is not enough in handling God's Word. It demands respect for its own context both literary and historical!

Jesus was speaking to His disciples at that time and their perspective was certainly not of political independence and the demise of colonialism. Twisting God's Word to fit our perspective will certainly bring His judgement!

The second coming of Jesus is not tied to any historical event or date.

as He said, to the completion of the world-gospel-mission which He had begun (Matthew 24:14) and to the associated spiritual maturity of all His people, His Church (Ephesians 4:13), which brings to an end Satan's right to accuse them before the Throne of God (Revelation 12:10,14), which then introduces the last 1,260-days (half-week), of Gabriel's message from God in Daniel Nine, in which Christ's Church shares His suffering before its resurrection to reign with Him forever.

never been on anyone's side! Those who walk with Him are on His side. To walk with Him means to be in tune with His character of holy love toward all. Let state churches and national religions also hear this!
• Christian Zionism is not a biblical position, except by ungodly twisting the Word of God out of its context in exploitation of Christian ignorance. Sincerity is not a substitute for truth. The 'Israel' of Palestine today has no continuity with the Israel of the Bible.

the poor because they are poor may earn God's reward. Charity or political manoeuvring to earn God's goodness is as oil and water – they do not mix. Scripture quoted out of context, among Christian Zionists in particular, is an insult to the purposes of Jesus Christ, and will bring an appropriate consequence.
• The perverse and unbiblical perspectives of Christian organisations such as 'Christians United for Israel' blinds believers to God's purposes in the Middle East, hinders the Holy Spirit, and shall be dealt with by Him appropriately.

Do not put yourself at risk by any association with it!

myth ignores the fact that God always communicates in the language of the hearer, for God, as eternal infinite spirit, does not need any language, and therefore an explanation is not a repeat of the past but an explanation within the semantic framework of the hearer.

its proof, this myth has used the fact that names given with specific meaning had that particular meaning only in the Hebrew language, such as Adam calling his wife Eve as the 'mother of all living' as the name in the Hebrew חַוָּה means 'life-giver'.

This idea underestimates the quality of God's communication and the inspiration of Holy Scripture.

Hebrew itself has changed over time, and the Hebrew of today is not the Hebrew of the Bible. Even within the text of Holy Scripture there is evidence of change and development in the language, as is common to all spoken languages. The oldest form of Hebrew appears to be that of the book of Job.

this myth is often part of an attempt to exalt Judaism as part of the perverse Judaizing of Christianity, even pretending that the Gospels were first in Hebrew, whereas the Jewish people had actually adopted Aramaic as their home language from the time of their Babylonian exile (Nehemiah 8:8).
• This is why Christ's words of shocked anguish on the cross are recorded by Mark (15:34) in their original Aramaic ("Eloi Eloi..."), and are later given in Matthew (27:46) in the Hebrew ("Eli Eli...") to show their correspondence with David's prophecy of that horrific event (Psalm 22:1) which was central to Christ's Atonement, and which ended all temple sacrifice before God (Hebrews 8:13).

leaders have been as guilty of twisting Holy Scripture concerning Israel as John Hagee (shamefully the senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, San Antonio, Texas). The mythical proportions to which this perverse understanding has been built in support of the modern State of Israel have made this fallacy a world-wide error that seriously twists Christian understanding and is significantly used by Satan to hinder evangelism in some Muslim communities. God made the point to Israel in Deuteronomy before they entered Canaan that it was not for their importance that He cared for them but because of His loving character and His faithfulness to their believing ancestors (Deuteronomy 7:7-8; 10:15).

in their pride, Israel's Exodus event became proof of them being uniquely God's chosen people, the Lord needed to correct this view and so spoke correctively to them through the prophet Amos –

New Testament puts this into fuller perspective.

This reference to Holy Scripture, the written Word of God, is because this then required the formation of a community for the preservation and the copying of these holy manuscripts. But it did not mean that there was no salvation available to believers in God outside of Israel, or that that Gentiles needed to be circumcised to be saved. That was the fallacy which the Pharisees introduced and which Holy Scripture strongly corrects in Galatians.

relationship to Israel as a people had preconditions attached to their behaviour, even concerning their inheriting the land of Canaan as God had promised to the descendants of Jacob. God had made this clear when they left Egypt and before entering Canaan. No matter how long they lived in Canaan they still did not own the land they lived on. They could sell agricultural use of the land but not ownership for they were tenants on the land as far as God was concerned (Leviticus 25:1,23). So, disobedience meant disinheritance! And sadly, disobey they did, and God expelled them.

reason why today the Orthodox Jews of Naturei Karta do not recognise the State of Israel, and publicly burn its flag each year at Purim, is because they are aware, as every Christian should be, that God's prophets had foretold that the restoration of the Jews as a nation before God is directly coupled to their reception of the Messiah and not without Him.

Until then, they have no standing before God!

Chosen People myth has so grown in some circles in Palestine to resemble a racist Nazi attitude, with its accompanying vicious cruelties.

essentially racist approach has also sought to present Europeans as being part of God's chosen people, by pretending they are descended from the so-called Ten Lost Tribes, meaning that the Jews are only of Judah, and so America is Manasseh, Britain is Ephraim, France is Reuben, Denmark is Dan, etc. of the ten northern tribes of the kingdom of Israel. The ten so-called 'lost tribes' actually merged with their counterparts from the southern kingdom of Judah during the Babylonian captivity, as is shown by God's word to Ezra concerning the Jewish returnees –

So it is evident that God regards the Jews as representative of all the tribes of Israel, as is confirmed by the Lord Jesus Himself in appointing twelve of His disciples as apostles to the twelve tribes to go ahead of Him in His ministry to the Jews of Palestine.

myth has seriously skewed Christian understanding of Bible prophecy. When Isaiah gave that prophetic promise to the faithful in Israel of his time, it was directly coupled to the Lord establishing His kingdom –

David Ben Gurion's unilateral declaration of statehood at 4PM on Friday, 14 May 1948, on behalf of Palestine's 400,000 Jews, in total disregard of the majority of the country's population (resident in Palestine for more than 1,200-years) – eight hours before the British Mandate in Palestine expired –

simply does not fit (but rather violates) the context of Holy Scripture quoted above!

opportunistic preachers who have, either ignorantly or arrogantly, or both, fallen into this trap, have dishonoured God!
It is bad to use someone's words to say what they do not mean, but to do that with God's Word is blasphemous.

Jewish Professor Ilan Pappé (אילן פפה‎), who was born in Israel –

This is certainly NOT the scenario promised by God to the faithful descendants of Abraham.

fake State of Israel, which is the reason why in Boston and London every year Orthodox Jews

hold a public burning of the Israeli flag on the Jewish feast of Purim.

here, Holy Scripture is abused and twisted to create this impression, namely in Christ's analogy of the fig tree sprouting –

The story that was then told is that the fig tree is 'Israel' and that its budding is its 'political awakening as a State'. At one stage 'this generation' (which simply means 'this people') was interpreted to mean a time period of 40-years after the declaration of Israel's statehood (so Jesus would return in 1988. being 1948+40=1988), then the period was lengthened to 70-years when that did not happen (1948+70=2018) which is also just as completely false, and just made a fool of Christianity in the eyes of a watching world.

inasmuch as putting out its leaves meant 'political awakening', the fuller version of Christ's teaching in Luke was then used/abused/twisted to mean the 'rising nationalisms' during this time in the decolonisation of Africa –

its own context, Christ's use of the leaf-budding metaphor is actually a reference to the terrible times of destruction ahead which He had mentioned earlier, namely –

– which signs, rather than causing discouragement among believers, are to be responded to with courage and expectant faith. The calamities described are themselves the signs, and so, just as budding-leaves indicate summer is coming, believers are to respond positively in the face of such international calamities, that naturally lead to "people fainting with fear and with foreboding"!

political agendas, at any level, do not set any time-frame for God's action, ever – either in the decolonisation process in Africa after the Second World War, or by Ben Gurion's declaration of political independence of Zionist Israel in Palestine –

in any sense whatsoever..!

expressly says in Zechariah 12:10 that Israel comes to spiritual repentance and faith at the moment of Christ's coming, when they see Him. This is not a previously converted Israel.
• This is a representative remnant of the nation that survives the future final holocaust, referred to in Zechariah 13:8-9;14:1-2, Revelation 12:15, and by Jesus Himself in Matthew 24:22.

12-tribes in the Revelation (7 & 14) which make up this number are not the same grouping or order that settled Palestine under Joshua. Dan is missing and Simeon and Levi whom God disinherited from a tribal portion are listed. The reason is that Israel here represents what Paul called the "Israel of God"(Galatians 6:16). The 12x12 number represents the completed number of God's people from all times and from all places, for the number 12 in the ancient world (from 12-moons in an agricultural year) represented God's government of His creation (it's why we have 24-hours a day today: 12 for night and 12 for day from ancient Egyptian practice).
• There is simply no substitute for the obedience of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to carry out His evangelistic commission to all the world as the precondition of His second coming (Matthew 24:14).
• Those who teach this Myth usually teach that it will occur after the Holy Spirit has been taken out of this world in an Escaptist Rapture of the Church. It is ludicrous, and an insult to the Spirit of God, to believe that 144,000 believing Jews will do more, in worse circumstances, without the Holy Spirit, than the whole Christian Church has done with the Holy Spirit! Yet some sincerely do.

sincerely misguided Christians (in the United States in particular) have tried to incorporate the formation of the European Union (EU) into their End Times view of history (being ignorant that the End does not begin until Christ's Church has completed its given mission, as He Himself said in Matthew 24:14), and so Germany's past in its two World Wars and its current economic leadership in the EU, lead them to misread and think that Daniel's prophecy of Israel's conflict in Chapter Eleven with the "king of the North" is to be so interpreted as Germany.

• It is imperative that Holy Scripture be understood within its own context and Daniel's prophecy has been awesomely fulfilled before Christ came, in the split of Alexander the Great's Hellenistic empire into its four parts after his death and then the subsequent Seleucid conflict of Antiochus IV* (of Hellenistic Syria) with Israel (about 168 BC/BCE) and the subsequent rise of Israel's Maccabee kings during the Inter-testamental period (between the end of our Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament times). Likewise, the "king of the South" referred to in the same chapter is of Hellenistic Egypt.

physical directions are given in Holy Scripture they are always given in terms of the people being addressed, and so "North" in Daniel Eleven, as relevant to Israel/Palestine, refers to Syria – and not to Germany or to any other European nation. Of late however, arising from the Syrian civil war, some have now speculated that the "king of the north" is Russia, trying to weave world events into Holy Scritpure. This is eqally not true!

those trying to read end-times scenarios by watching the ways of the world (rather than the works of God), without a sufficiently respectful understanding of Holy Scripture, and with the assumption that the modern Zionist State of 'Israel' is the Israel of the Bible, have sincerely but ignorantly twisted the Word of God in this regard. In its own context the "king of the South" was the Pharaoh of Egypt in its war with Seleucid Syria with the vulnerable returnee Israel caught in the middle.

has absolutely nothing to do with modern Persia (Iran) which follows the Shia version of Islam and is therefore resented by most of Sunni Islam which includes al-Qa'eda. Please note also that modern Iran contains about 20,000 Jews who are not persecuted, and in recent years some Christian communities in Iran have experienced a beautiful spiritual revival, so beware of Zionist propaganda (Christian or otherwise)!

of these two heroes of the faith ever 'ran away' — ever!

• Moses put himself into voluntary exile, after he knew (from his disloyal Hebrew brethren) that Pharaoh would have been told of his killing of the violent Egyptian foreman in defending a Hebrew, because although effectively as a member of the Egyptian royal family he had nothing to fear IF he disavowed any loyalty to these Hebrew foreigners, which he would not do. So his loyalty to the covenant people of Abraham (because he believed) cost him his prosperous lifestyle (Hebrews 11:24-27). It's best to believe the Bible's view!

• Exhausted, Elijah after restoring the rain to Israel, went south from Carmel (called Baal Rosh / Head of Baal, at that time) to meet with God at the very place where God had initiated His Sinai Covenant with Israel which it had been violating, because the subsequent action of its pagan queen indicated that the Baal-worship he had destroyed would be restored. He completes the journey, after being fed by God's angel, and on arrival at Sinai is promoted to an international ministry, to appoint the next king of Syria.

His life, in the 3½-years (James 5:17) of his unique confrontational ministry and his rapture from outside the Covenant Land, sets him before us as an analogy of the (3½-year/42-month/1260-day) final phase of the witness of the Christian Church which culminates in the Rapture of all believers.

in the Bible record casts any negative aspersion on either of these two examples of faith presented in God's Word. It is sad that some preachers read it and then interpret it within their own field of experience rather than within the perspective given to us in Holy Scripture.

idea comes from missing the point of the Two Witnesses in Rev.12. The name of neither is given but both their ministries remind us of supernatural events in the lives of Elijah and Moses. In addition, Jesus implied that Malachi's prophecy of the coming of Elijah was more than its fulfilment in John the Baptist and Elijah's appearance on the Mount of Transfiguration. Knowing this, those who concluded that Elijah is to physically reappear to preach in the time of Antichrist, had to find an explanation for the death of the Witnesses. So it was theorized that everyone must die and that therefore Elijah and Enoch  would reappear, witness and be killed as martyrs, because both had been removed from this world without natural death. 
• This muddled thinking ignores the fact that all Christians alive at Christ's return will be caught up out of this world without experiencing death. The Witnesses of Revelation 11 beautifully represent the climax of the testimony of Christ's Church – in all its authority and suffering; and they are 'two' for this is the minimum witness for a court of judgment, as the witness of the Church is toward Antichrist's realm in these 1260 days.

comes from  Ron Wyatt's exploitive fraud of the sincere. He claims to have found Israel's Covenant Ark, on January 6th 1982, under rubble in a cave under Gordon's 'Calvary'. His lie, if it were true would have meant that while Jesus and His disciples honoured the Temple as the place representing God's presence, its most sacred symbol of that same presence gathered dust outside Jerusalem in a lost cave a few metres away from Jesus. Wyatt claimed it lay there waiting for the earthquake at Christ's death to allow the blood of Jesus from His cross on the hill above to drip onto it's atonement cover.

• Not only is this in contradiction of Jeremiah 3:16 (which confirms its destruction as stated in 2 Kings 24:13), it is a crude mockery of what the ark stood for. The haemoglobin of Christ's veins certainly did not save us. It was nothing less than Christ Himself who bore our sins in His separation from the Father – an absolute spiritual suffering that is only represented by His blood.
• In addition, Wyatt's bus-station crucifixion site is contradicted by all the facts that deserve to be called archaeological.
Wyatt even 'saw' the golden pot of manna with the Ark, whereas the Bible says that when Solomon brought the Ark into the Temple it contained only the two tablets of stone (1 Kings 8:9). I'd rather believe the Bible than Ron Wyatt!
• Yet, perhaps even more shocking is the lie (published by a Seventh-day Adventist UK website) that –

Though more disturbing is the fact that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has irresponsibly tolerated this deceptive nonsense in contradiction of the Bible as long as it seemed to support their misleading doctrines.

said it would never be built again (Isaiah 13:19-22), and He does not make mistakes! This strange idea of its rebuilding comes from misunderstanding the symbolic meaning of "Babylon the Great" in John's Revelation in the New Testament – the 'Prostitute City' in contrast to the city New Jerusalem described as the holy Bride of the Lamb.
• This Prostitute City represents fake Christianity in contrast to a Biblical Christianity in which the spirit of every believer is directly connected to the Spirit of God.

error is totally unknown in early Christianity. Walter Brute first suggested the year-day theory in the end of the fourteenth century, and it grew into a damaging fallacy in the early 19th century to interpret the 2300 'days' prophecy in Daniel 8:14, because at that time, political events in the Middle East had persuaded many that the end was near and so some tried to find in Daniel 8 a way to calculate their time as an end-date. Justification for this was sought in Ezekiel 4, who was performing a symbolic act and which has no bearing at all on the language of Daniel.
• This fallacy developed from ignorance of two factors:

• This culpable ignorance was further exacerbated at the time by the sad ignorance in the Christian Church of the Hidden Time, referred to in our New Testament (Ephesians 3:6, 9-10; Colossians 1:26-27), which splits Daniel's seventieth 'week' prophecy (leaving 1260 days of witness under Antichrist still to be fulfilled), and which split had been hidden from all prophets and angels until revealed after the gift of the Spirit to God's people at Pentecost.
• This fallacy became a Satanic deception which gave rise to both the Seventh-day Adventist and the Jehovah Witnesses movements, and has continued to damage the Christian witness in this world by public misrepresentation of end-time Bible prophecy. (See: Chronology of Confusion).

idea comes from a misunderstanding of 2 Peter 3:8. Peter actually says that the eternal God does not work according to our sense of time. Sadly, abusers of Scripture (sincere and otherwise) have turned it into a formula to hold God accountable for the dates they then calculate – violating the very purpose of this truth! (This fallacy has been fed by the deception in the pseudo-epistle of Barnabas).
• Moses comforted himself with this truth in Psalm 90:4 –

"For a thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch [three hours] in the night."

own context, the literary context gives the number Seven the symbolic meaning of completion/completeness, from the seven days of Creation in Genesis, but in its historical context of Roman Law at the time of writing the seven seals are the legally required number of witnesses to attest a last will and testament (before signatures were used) which together with those of the Testator and the Executor of deceased's estate, made up the seven and so made the Will legally valid. In this sense in the Book of Revelation, it means Christ's right as fulfilling God's original intention in humanity to therefore inherit the Kingdom (rule/reign) of God on earth. To understand Holy Scripture and avoid making a fool of Bible interpretation

it is essential to know its historical context as its first readers, to whom it was written, would have known.

Jesus said, concerning the End, that His Judean disciples must pray to influence at which season of the year and which day of the week the End begins (read Matthew 24:20).
• Thus, because the time is affected by human behaviour, it is not and cannot be fixed. Of course it is known to God (obviously) just as which ant will climb which blade of grass next, but it is certainly NOT fixed!
• Neither does God have a 'time-table' as Jack van Impe has claimed (a secret, or mysteriously interwoven in Holy Scripture for only 'professionals' like himself to disclose) for our time. See 33 above!

He made His return contingent on the completion of the great task (Matthew 24:14), and how some squirm to get around that! Before then it cannot happen, but when this task is completed then, and only then, will His disciples see the Sign that the time of His return has come (24:15), for verse 14's "the whole world" cannot be made to mean all 'geographic regions' on a map. It means people!
• For this reason the apostle Peter, who had asked Jesus about the time of His return as they sat on Olivet, later wrote that our obedience "hastens" that Day (2 Peter 3:12) of completed obedience and fulfilled testimony. (So the spiritual maturity of Christ's Church, represented in its spiritual unity, is the prelude to His glorious visible return).
• This completion of obedience by Christ's Church is why Satan is then, as its malicious Prosecutor, cast out of Heaven's judicial court and he is angry because he knows his time is "short" (3½-years/42-months/1260-days, Revelation 12:12).
• This initiates the time of trouble in which the spiritual authority of Christ's Church is demonstrated to the full to exactly complete the prophecy of David in Psalm 110:1 concerning Christ's Ascension to represent us in that court (Romans 8:34; 1 John 2:1) –

To say as some do, that this is to be fulfilled at Christ's second coming, by quoting other Scripture references which described the effect of His return, is to degrade this Scripture and take away the central meaning of this holy statement. The inspired word "until" remains!

fallacy grew from John Darby's division of Christ's return into a return for His people and a return to Israel as two separate events, in contradiction of the Biblical perspective. Until this nineteenth century teaching of Darby developed, the idea was unknown in Christian history.

essence, this fallacy is a distraction from the real factor upon which the timing of the end of this age is based, namely the completion of the mission which Jesus gave to His disciples (Matthew 24:14) and consequently this error has stimulated an attitude which instead looks to this world's behaviour for signs of the End, with foolish statements that then make Christianity appear unreliable to the watching world.

the Bible says (Revelation 12:9) that Antichrist cannot come before Satan loses his place in Heaven's Court as Accuser of God's people (because they have completed their mandate), and God therefore sends strong delusion then to open the way for Satan's Antichrist to come (2 Thessalonians 2:11, 1260-days/3½-years before Armageddon is interrupted by Christ's return) as the sign given by Christ to His disciples (Matthew 24:15) of the beginning of those final persecution days before the resurrection of all God's people from all ages in His return to rule.

Spirit through Isaiah the prophet thought otherwise –

This celebration is the climax of God's work of grace and the inauguration of His kingdom on earth. It contrasts with the judgment banquet on the armies that had gathered against Israel at the end time (See Revelation 19), and is a figure of speech for great celebration.

(Ellen White's SDA teaching of a political 'marriage' of Christ with His capital 'New Jerusalem' does not deserve comment here).

mistaken idea has widely spread in associating the full restoration of Israel, at Christ's return, by also seeing it as a return to the high point of Israel past nationhood under king Solomon with its temple service, but the Bible clearly says otherwise!

The centre-piece of Israel tabernacle and later its temple was the ark of the covenant housed in its holy of holies. The Bible gives us clear guidance on this, for God said through Jeremiah the prophet –

full restoration of Israel to God both nationally and spiritually at Christ's return does NOT turn the clock back on its past!

There will be no temple offerings, nor priestly service, centred on an 'ark of the covenant'!

This divine reassurance of Israel regarding their covenant ark from Sinai was important for it was known, after the Babylonian invaders had demolished Jerusalem, and taken Israel into its 70-year Exile, that

they had also destroyed the ark of the covenant in plundering it for its gold.

was deliberately cultivated by US novelist Washington Irving in 1828 as background to his novel on Christopher Columbus. He invented the myth that the Medieval Church taught the earth was flat, and so created this persistent myth when his book became a best-seller.

spherical shape of the earth was generally known from ancient times! The fact that the earth is a sphere was so well known, widely accepted, and unremarkable that when theologian Thomas Aquinas wanted to choose an objective fact that is not able to be disputed early in his Summa Theologica he chose the fact that the earth is round as his example. And lastly, the primary text on cosmology used in medieval universities, John Sacrobosco's De sphaera mundi, has a title which means "the sphere of the world" and set out the primary proofs of the earth's sphericity.

Too often, a sincere reaction to error, unless directly cautioned by Holy Scripture itself and not simply used as ammunition, will often itself produce further errors.

It is absolutely essential to treat God's Word as it is given to us (His congregation) within its own context and not selectively.
The whole picture presented on a particular issue is necessary or even the sincere may become guilty of twisting the holy word of God Most High.

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