THE BOOK OF REVELATION // Session 21: The Mysterious Identity of The 144,000 Revealed

[Music] hey friends welcome back to the maranatha global bible study on the book of revelation this is now session 21. i'm going to begin jumping into chapter 7 in this session uh chapter 7 essentially it's broken up into two primary parts okay the first part is where john has a vision of a hundred and forty four thousand twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of israel who are sealed before these four angels who are at the four corners of the earth holding back uh the essentially the judgments of god before they harm the trees and the grass and all these different things before they execute these judgments on the earth there's 144 000 who are sealed okay so john has that vision and then second he has a vision of a great crowd in heaven these are really two different visions but they go together now in this session i'm going to jump in and discuss the title of this session is the mysterious identity of the 144 000 revealed now is a little bit of a as sort of a kicker at the end just in case you're wondering what is the mysterious identity i'm just going to begin by saying i actually don't take a really hard fast approach a hard fast dogmatic stance on their identity we're actually getting into portions of the book of revelation that are admittedly a bit difficult um there are various positions various interpretations various ideas within the body of christ in terms of who the 144 000 are i will say regardless as to which position you take there are difficulties and even i'll go so far as to say some problems and so regardless as to which position i take there will be people that will be very angry and in the comments uh on youtube and so forth they'll just be like you're an idiot and here's why and then if i were to actually follow their approach there would be other people who would say you're an idiot and here's why and so unfortunately this is the nature of the book of revelation it often stirs up really strong opinions concerning issues that are admittedly or at least i think we should admit are fairly difficult okay so i'm going to ask a few questions and try to answer some of these questions so first of all who are the 144 000 again 144 000 um if you're fantastic at math like i am which i'm not at all um that's 12 000 times 12 okay so you've got 12 000 from each of the twelve tribes of israel which comes out to a hundred and forty four thousand the question is is the number literal so first of all who are they who are these twelve thousand from each of the tribes of israel that are described uh is the number literal what do they do i mean what's their purpose who are they so to speak um what is the seal it says they're sealed what exactly is this seal and when will they be sealed so let's go ahead and jump in and i'll read the text and then we'll begin talking about it and what i'm actually going to do in this session is do i'll do essentially what i usually do which is kind of address some peripheral but yet very important theological larger theological issues that are very relevant that are being discussed they're controversial within the body of christ within the body of messiah today but these different theological controversies help us to understand really what we're looking at here in revelation inevitably when we read revelation 7 we discuss the identity of the 144 000 these other issues that i'm going to talk about will come up in conversation and debate and so i thought let's just take them on let's address them and then in the next session dalton will sort of jump in and continue to unpack this there's a lot here we could spend a lot of time on chapter seven so revelation chapter seven verses one through three after this john says i saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree now let me just say this very briefly i probably shouldn't because again then i'll get a whole other class of people in the comments section that say you're an idiot here's why um i made sort of the passing comment uh joke in one of the previous sessions that the earth is not flat that when the scriptures say the stars of heaven will fall to the earth that's not literal the stars that we look up and see in the sky are actually the equivalent of our sun just different versions of it out there and they're not little led lights twinkle lights that are sort of planted in this uh solid dome above a flat earth and this type of thing so you got and i understand if you're watching going why are you even addressing flat earth it's actually it's very relevant especially in light of what we're looking at here um i get a lot of people that are like of course they really are lights that are planted in a solid dome and they will fall to the earth that's literal i take the bible literally everything in the bible is literal you're not taking the bible literally therefore you're inconsistent in this type of thing when you come to um statements like this four angels standing at the four corners of the earth as if the earth the earth literally is flat with four corners or however you envision it some people would just say well this is just a general statement like the four corners of the compass okay but i think in fairness we have to say the language is sort of um portraying four corners of the earth and you're going to get a whole host of people to say that is literal again i take the bible literally the bible is a literal flat earth scientific manual here's the thing with regard to hermeneutics okay in hermeneutics the interpretation of scripture scripture uses what we call it it uses language in the same way that everyday language is spoken okay i call it rational literalism which is to say most often when i'm speaking if there's no reason to interpret what i'm saying as a joke or as sarcasm if there's no reason to interpret it spiritually you shouldn't you should just take it literally when i'm just speaking straightforward it should be understood in a straightforward manner that said i do regularly make weird little jokes i use sarcasm i use cynicism sometimes i speak in riddles you know and this type of thing and the more that you get to know me my personality my culture you know the difference well the bible also uses idioms it uses expressions okay the bible is filled with these type of things especially within apocalyptic literature you get sort of figurative and symbolic language okay you're going to get a whole host of people who you know again they're going to say this must be interpreted literally and i always love to bring up the passage in isaiah 66 okay okay you take the bible literally stars are literally going to fall from this sky and they're going to land on the earth even though that's absolutely impossible right i read isaiah 66 and it's speaking of the messianic age and it says during that time it says you will drink the milk of the nations and you will suck at the breasts of kings like okay you take that literally you know and they're gonna go oh i mean you know like suddenly it's very awkward right like do kings have breasts that give milk that you will suck on because that's exactly what it says or is this an idiom is this an expression talking about the blessings of the messianic age yes it's an expression it's an idiom the bible is filled with idioms particularly within apocalyptic literature statements such as the four corners of the earth stars of the sky falling to the earth this type of thing they're not to be understood in a literal sense and people say well how do you know that well again because i know the earth is not flat um you know people flat earthers say that the sun is actually far smaller than what we are told by these deceptive illuminati scientists or whatever even though many of them are christians and they'll say the sun is actually a small light that sort of just floats around over a very large flat earth i go well that if that's the case then it would never set it would just get smaller and further away but at any point in the night you could use a telescope you could see it at any given time it would never disappear but it doesn't do that it stays the exact same size now granted you can't look at the sun with your eyeballs but if you put a filter on a camera when it's directly overhead and you measure it it is precisely the same size as when it goes down over the horizon or rises up the other side of the horizon okay simple things like this you cannot produce a map of a flat earth where the southern hemisphere is accurate it's always going to be dramatically distorted i've issued challenges to any of the leading flat earth proponents out there any of the leading flat earth teachers fly with me from sydney australia to santiago chile and if it takes 30 30 hours or so which is the case that's how long it would be if the earth were flat then i will pay for the ticket i'll pay for all of the tickets and i'll give that individual ten thousand dollars if on the other hand the flight from sydney to santiago takes around 14 hours which is what it should take if the earth is a sphere then that individual the flat earther will pay for all of the tickets and give me ten thousand dollars i issued that challenge i don't know four years ago no one has responded and the reason is because the earth is a sphere okay so like there are things that we can just observe with our eyeballs to understand with our god-given brains and yet what happens is people will say well but the bible says and therefore it's essentially like folks who used to say dinosaur bones are put there by satan they're fake you know because the bible doesn't talk about dinosaurs therefore this must be a lie this type of thing look the bible is not a scientific manual and it is it does not teach a flat earth regardless as to what michael heiser says the bible uses what's called equivocal language which is to say it can be understood by those who know for a fact that the earth is a sphere they can read these passages and understand that the bible's using figurative language symbolic language and this type of thing or if you believe the earth was flat you're not going to get hung up on these things it's equivocal language that is true in any given period in human history okay enough with the flat earth stuff i'm going to move on so you've got these four angels they're holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind should blow in the earth or the sea or on any tree and i saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun ascending from the east this is really cool because the sun rises in the east right so the angel is ascending from the rising of the sun and he has the seal of the living god he has a special seal of the living god this is interesting you know we find these various seals the seal of hezekiah or some particular king that they keep digging up and finding these these um clay seals that are used to make you know create the wax seals from the ages of different kings there in the city of david in jerusalem this is on the other hand the seal of the living god and it's not for wax seal it's for the servants of god and so this angel cries out with a loud voice to the other four angels whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea saying don't harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bond servants of our god on their foreheads so the seal of the living god is to go on the foreheads of the servants of god and i heard the number of those who were sealed 144 000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of israel from the tribe of judah twelve thousand were sealed from the tribe of reuben twelve thousand received on and on and on now there are tremendous issues and controversies that we can get into why do they include these particular 12 tribes here why do they have they have manasseh and i believe it has ephraim has joseph why do they have you know and so there are i don't know i forget there's several maybe even like a dozen different references to the 12 tribes of israel throughout scripture and there's quite a few variations among them you know because there's some histories and different things it doesn't mention for instance dan here in revelation which some of the early church used to say well maybe what's the reason for that and they speculated and said maybe the antichrist is going to come from the tribe of dan you know and this type of thing which was popular in against heresies by irenaeus in the early church he speculated that and that was actually a fairly widely held view but again it's just speculation we're not going to get into all the controversies in terms of the tribes and so forth it's very rare for judah to be mentioned first i would speculate and i think fairly confidently that the reason judah is listed first here is to give preeminence to the tribe from which the lion of the tribe of judah is from okay the messiah comes from the tribe of judah again there's other issues there but we're going to just kind of leave that it's just there's a lot of controversial side issues that we can get into and we don't want to spend too much time there so who are the 144 thousand again um just appealing to our rule of hermeneutics which i specified earlier if there's no reason not to take something symbolically then we just take it literally okay so when the scriptures say there are 144 thousand sealed from the 12 tribes of israel i would say that probably what they refer to are 12 144 000 from the 12 tribes of israel now again some of the other positions are well they are not actually literal israelites bloodline israelites rather this represents the church at large usually those that embrace that are those who come from a place of replacement theology or supersessionism same thing which is the idea that the church is the new and the true israel the problem with that of course is that nowhere in the new testament nowhere including the reference to the israel of god in galatians nowhere is the church ever referred to as israel that type of terminology doesn't really begin to be used until much later in the writings of the early church fathers in justin martyr and so on and so forth but the new testament uses israel to refer to israel okay but again replacement theology supersessionism is pretty much dominant or it has been dominant through much of the church there are much of history and so you're going to see that position a lot now others will see them as jews and then there's a few different categories well these are these are the remnant of israelites that will get saved after jesus returns some will say these are um believing messianic jews and that's actually the position that i'll take that it seems to be most likely that it's referring to actual living messianic jews who are the firstfruits okay they are the first down payment and deposit of the much larger number of israel that will get saved when he returns so just to sort of give away the answer at the beginning i think that seems to be the most likely position but now here's the question and this is really the larger theological question that comes up because you go well wait a minute you've got all 12 tribes here and you're saying this is in our future or in our day if we're living very close to the end times in which case you're saying that all 12 of the tribes of israel are in the land of israel today and i my answer is yes you'll say but wait a minute i thought the 10 tribes were lost we're told all the time that the 10 tribes are lost in fact one of the and this is the issue that i want to take some time to address one of the ideas that's very popular in the body of messiah today particularly in the segment of the body of messiah known as the hebrew roots movement okay now not everyone in the hebrew roots movement believes this and there are variations of this belief but it's called the two house doctrine or the idea of the two houses of israel essentially what the two house doctrine is or teaches and this really it largely began with a few different people so you had this couple the wootens they read they wrote a few different books and you had another guy named he goes by moisha konikowski his real name is marvin konikowski he had a sort of hebrew roots messianic group down in florida and for what it's worth he really went off the rails and got into all kinds of serious error i mean horrific horrific bad doctrine we won't go down the list but polygamy slavery like all kinds of concubines they'll call it torah marriage and this type of thing um and i'm not even sure if they're still you know functioning but unfortunately a lot of those ideas really spread in large segments and portions of the hebrew hebrew roots movement throughout the united states and perhaps throughout the world but these are the two folks that started articulating initially again the wootens and koinikowski and i believe that what they believe is a little bit different again there's some subtle differences but essentially they hold that after the assyrians invaded the northern uh kingdom of israel that those 10 tribes in the north were essentially lost that they essentially became gentiles okay they essentially became like pagan gentiles they lost their jewish identity okay and so in the south you have judah and benjamin and then they would say well and there's some levites that are sort of mixed in there but other than judah and benjamin and some of the levites really most of the ten northern tribes have been lost they just became gentiles okay and so then what is taught from there is to say that and again here's where the variations are is to say that the lord is presently restoring and reuniting the whole house of israel both the northern kingdom of israel and the southern kingdom of judah and he's doing that by calling born-again christians back to torah they'll say we are actually as born-again christians we are actually the lost tribes of israel so as you can see there's there's a kind of a spin here a twist on some of the stuff that was taught by her armstrong in the worldwide church of god which is often referred to as anglo or british israelism which is to say that the british okay the brits are actually the covenant people they are where the 10 lost tribes ended up and so you end up with a lot of these anglo-saxons caucasians around the world are claimed to be actually the lost tribes of israel again that's that's anglo-israeli-ism the two-house doctrine is sort of a spin on that or it's a modification of that and so essentially what you have again so let's just say you have a born-again christian in a baptist church or charismatic church and they start getting interested in the jewish roots of the scriptures they get interested in the biblical feasts and this type of thing they start studying parts of the old testament that they have never been familiar with they talk about these things a lot their pastor gets very upset this is usually the way it works and the pastor says you know and they're stirring up controversy within the church and then the pastor essentially forbids them from continuing with these things they get sort of marginalized eventually driven out of the church okay so now they have sort of anger at the church um at traditional churches and then they join you know these house groups and these different congregations that emphasize torah and this type of thing but usually within that it's taught well you actually you're drawn to these things okay because you are actually one of the lost children of israel so all of the promises to israel now belong to you even though you were raised gentile even though you had a gentile non-jewish identity the fact that you're drawn to these things is proof that you're spiritually actually one of the lost tribes this is usually kind of the way it plays out again some people just say all born again christians are actually israel and thus were obligated to keep the mosaic covenant to keep torah that's kind of the way it pans out others will say it's only those that are drawn toward toward torah and this type of thing or some will just say well some some born-again christians are among the lost ten tribes others aren't okay i think that's sort of the position that the wootens take is that you know you may be one of the lost tribes well again when you just look at that in sort of a pragmatic realistic way the idea is i mean you think about it i personally i'm lithuanian latvian german polish portuguese english irish and italian and i've you know when i do the ancestry.com like all of these things and more probably pop up um and i had one percent european jewish jew jewry in me okay so aj nazi no sephardic middle eastern jew i'm not sure that they can trace that with the ancestry.com that said does that make me jewish because i have one percent you know and this is the way the majority of people throughout the earth are today there is a tremendous mixture the idea if you have some little slice or sliver like probably you know you could go to china and people would have like a little sliver of of jew in them like if you could trace it down like that would not surprise me places where you would not expect it okay there's the yes the ten tribes have been interspers but they just essentially were watered down however the idea that they were lost is completely unbiblical okay the idea that the ten tribes of israel are lost that they disappeared that they're not part of modern day israel is completely unbiblical and i want to look at some of the different passages just survey a whole bunch of passages to establish this because this is important because otherwise we have a huge problem when we get to revelation and it says the lord seals 144 000 from the 12 tribes of israel because if you start with the assumption that say no they're all lost then something is wrong when you get to revelation 7. now on the other hand if you say well this is actually referring to gentile christians then you have more goofiness but again as i said it's just simply not biblical so the passage for what it's worth that um koinikowski and the wootens begin with it's really one of the foundational texts to argue for this two house theory and by two house it would be the house of israel in the house of judah and the idea is in the last days in messiah they're going to be restored united together via ezekiel 37 the prophecy of the two sticks that will be reunited into one kingdom which is actually they'll they'll say it's ephraim which are actually gentile christians who thought they were gentiles but they're actually israel and judah and they would say judah should never be referred to as israel again as we'll see that's just fundamentally unbiblical but the primary passage that they usually begin with is genesis 48 verse 19 but i'm going to read 17-19 it says when joseph saw his father laid his right hand on ephraim's head so this is joseph's two children ephraim and manasseh when he laid his hand on ephraim's head it displeased him and he grasped his father's hand to remove it from ephraim's head to manassas head joseph said to his father not so my father for this one is the firstborn manasseh is the firstborn again his father is jacob is israel he says place your hand on his head but his father refused and said i know my son i know he will be become a people and he will become great so manasseh will become a an am a.m in the hebrew am and he will become great however his younger brother ephraim he shall become greater than he and his seed his zera his descendants shall become a multitude of okay so a multitude of nations so what the proponents of the two house teaching will argue is to say that ephraim which sort of repre it's a term used to represent all of the ten tribes of israel they became a multitude of gentiles so israel becomes gentiles the problem is that argument is completely anachronistic in other words it doesn't work in terms of the time in which genesis 48 took place at this time you didn't have the term which is to specify israel or the gentiles like today you you know it's you're either israel or you're a you're a you're a gentile israel gentiles okay that categorization didn't exist back then back then just meant nations just like a unified group of sort of ethnic uh identity and so really you know when he says they're going to become a multitude of nations he just means they're going to become a vast throng of people there's multiple places throughout the old testament where israel is referred to as a a nation but that doesn't mean they're gentiles okay so it's a misunderstanding of the very word itself and so in the scriptures words evolve and develop and they change down through time just like words do today so back in genesis the way that was used is different than it's used much later different it's used in the new testament it's the word is ethnos in the greek okay but let's just look at a couple examples for example again if you want to try to say that goyi always refers to gentiles non-israelites then you have huge problems when you get to passages like jeremiah 31 verse 36. the lord says if this fixed order that's the rising of the sun etc if it departs from before me declares the lord then this seed of israel the offspring of israel also shall cease from being a before me forever israel is a nation a unified people it's not a gentile that's not what's being said here so here's an example where sometimes simply just means the way we use it in english just a nation it doesn't necessarily mean a non-israelite in which case here would be saying then the seed of israel shall cease from being israel like it just it doesn't make any sense uh likewise all the way back in exodus 19 verse 6 the lord said and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests he's talking to israel and a holy nation the word there is kadosh a holy nation he says you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy these are the words that you shall speak to the sons of israel now the lord was not saying you're going to be a bunch of gentiles he's saying you're going to be holy nation the english translation works much better here than if we were to read it in the hebrew and whenever you hear usually assume it means gentiles i'm going to throw up a bunch of other verses here if you really want to dig into this for what it's worth by the way if this is something that you have believed but you're wrestling through it there is an article that's been online for many many years dan juster i believe russ resnick there's a handful that sort of got together and wrote this article it's called the ephraimite error it's a really long pretty thorough article and it really works through all of the scriptural uh reasons why the two-house theory simply is unbiblical and it's much more thorough but i'm just touching on some of the primary texts now look at this to the exiles of judah jeremiah the prophet declares this now again jeremiah was prophesying to the southern kingdom of judah now again the two house camp would say that judah would never be referred to as israel judah is always judah the northern 10 tribes are israel the scriptures would never the lord would never refer to judah as israel and i get people in the comments section they go you said the jews came out of egypt that's wrong again in the most technical sense historically that was the israelites that came out but by the new testament times they used the term jew to refer to all of israel quite commonly paul the apostle does but again look at jeremiah speaking to the specifically the exiles of judah he says fear not o jacob that's israel my servant declares the lord and do not be dismayed o israel for behold i will save you from afar and your offspring from the land of their captivity and jacob shall return and shall be quiet and at ease and no one shall make him afraid jeremiah was prophesying to the southern kingdom of judah and he referred to them as israel so all the way back in jeremiah's day there was al already this understanding that the people that lived in the southern kingdom of judah were actually israel why because yes the ten tribes were dispersed among the assyrian territories but many of them not all of them many of them did trickle back to the southern kingdom of judah you've got evidence of that throughout the scriptures you've got clear references to the fact that there was a remnant that did return from the northern exile they didn't disappear they didn't they were not completely eliminated they were not just assimilated into the gentiles that theory is that idea is majorly majorly overblown in ezra 2 7 so now this is after the babylonian exile ezra chapter 2 verse 7 after naming the genoa genealogical list of the all those that came back from the babylonian captivity we are told that all israel lived in their cities it doesn't say judah all of judah lived in there no all israel these are the exiles that were from the kingdom of judah that went to babylon after they come back they referred to in the scriptures as all israel in addressing the returned exiles nehemiah declared this is nehemiah 8 13 and compare it with verse 15 o house of judah and house of israel house of judah and house of israel that's the whole house of israel these are the exiles after the babylonian captivity they're not gone they didn't disappear israel is still present in the land according to the scriptures in luke 2 verse 36 in jerusalem in again the first century there was a prophetess anna the daughter of fanuelle of the tribe of asher she was advanced in years and she lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage in any case she's from the tribe of asher okay so again you've got present you've got some of there might not have been the majority but you had a residue you had a remnant of those that were from the northern tribes living in israel in the first century they didn't disappear they were not all assimilated yes many did but there is a remnant that returned and so it was believed in jesus's day that all 12 tribes were actually part of the current nation of israel look at this acts 4 verse 8 through 10. peter filled with the holy spirit said rulers and elders of the people he's speaking to his people if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man as to how this man has been made well let it be known to all of you and to all the people of israel let it be known to all the people of israel so here's peter referring to judah again the two house camp would say no that was judah that was not israel peter referred to the first century jews in judah in jerusalem as all of israel i and i'm just hitting on a handful of verses there's there's literally dozens of others that all make this point james or jacob the brother of jesus he was the apostle specifically according to paul sent to the circumcision in other words to the jewish people to the pharisees and so forth paul refers to him as the apostle to the circumcision in galatians 2 verse 9 he addresses his epistle who does he address it to to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad so not only were many back in the land there were many that were dispersed abroad and they had their identity they still maintain their identity as these various tribes and now for what it's worth throughout history just like as i said i'm lithuanian latvian german polish you have you had a tremendous assimilation and mixture among the various tribes that began way way back i mean as early as the time of the judges the tribes began to intermarry in this type of thing but they still maintained an identity probably similar to we do today if people ask me what is your ethnicity i'll say well i'm mostly portuguese because that's primarily how i was raised most of my relatives were portuguese turns out i did ancestry.com and i'm actually italian we won't go down that road but technically i'm all of these things again lithuanian latvian german polish portuguese english irish and italian and possibly even some greek um el and some tunisian from uh north north africa but the point is you know in the same way in the first century a jew would say i'm naftali but he might have been a bit of you know gad reuben and you know et cetera et cetera right um in romans 11 7 through 4 14 paul states that the salvation okay and in paul's day salvation had come to the gentiles to make israel jealous now think about this if we are to understand that salvation that has come to the gentiles the two house would say well if salvation has come to gentiles that's proof that there is real salvation has come to the gentiles in order to make israel jealous that wouldn't make any sense at all salvation has come to israel in order to make israel jealous all right you know again that would no salvation has come to the gentiles to the to non-israel in order to spur israel on to jealousy to provoke israel throughout the new testament throughout really the bible gentiles are never ever referred to as ephraim there's not a single reference in the bible where gentiles are referred to as ephraim this is the language of the two house movement today they'll say oh there's ephraim and there's judah not a single reference in the entire bible gentile believers are never called to receive circumcision quite to the contrary paul says in galatians if you as a gentile believer go on to be circumcised because you think it's your obligation according to torah you have fallen from grace that's like a really serious serious statement does that mean you can't repent and return to grace i believe you can but paul basically lays it out he goes look you as a gentile remain as you are as a gentile don't try to become a jew does that mean that you can't celebrate the festivals and keep kosher and all those things if you want to no absolutely and i think it's wonderful that these things are being revived in the body of messiah but you're not as a gentile obligated to those things not in no way shape or form otherwise you would be obligated to be circumcised and that's the whole point that paul makes which is the entrance into keeping torah and living as a jew so to speak so again if they were israelites they would be expected to receive circumcision it's just that simple that is the sign of the covenant okay so this is a big issue again within you know within the messianic community you have this sort of separate movement of the hebrew roots folks and look i you know i travel and i speak and i'm friendly with some of the different hebrew roots groups and that type of thing i don't want to make it sound like i'm attacking the whole movement i'm just saying the two house doctrine which is very popular within a lot of these groups is fundamentally unbiblical and it because of that that actually is one of the roots of a lot of the problems um in the movement and i'll just i'll be real frank you know i was with some friends i spoke uh wonderful believers wonderful group um i won't even say where a couple years ago and a handful of these different congregations came together and i was just coming in to speak uh do a few sessions and i asked the leader i said let me just ask you this question because they would clearly identify as hebrew roots torah observant et cetera et cetera i said how many families are there how many you know represent he said a little over 400 altogether between the four congregations i said just over the past few years how many have left the faith and he goes oh man he said about 125 renounced yeshua completely and they actually many of them went into hasidic judaism um there is well anyway i won't go down the road but look there are things that the lord is doing with regard to an interest in a return to the jewish roots of our faith i talk about these things all the time but there are also tremendous dangers when we get off into some of these erroneous ideas and doctrines they open the door to all sorts of errors and the issue really that i referenced earlier because it's a story that i've seen play out a thousand times again you get this guy in the baptist church or the traditional church whatever he gets interested in these things he starts talking about it he asks questions that the pastor is not really sure how to answer next thing you know he's marginalized he has a church wound he's hurt by the church one of the biggest problems that i personally see in the movement at large is this adversarial hostile even sort of condescending attitude toward traditional christians evangelicals the churches there i left the churches this type of thing once that seed of division enters it opens the door for satan it's satan's playground and that's again sort of a side issue but i thought it'd be worth touching on it so i say all these things in love and hope that it's uh it's edifying and not seen as an attack okay not only is the the two house doctrine widely believed in sec segments of the body of messiah today the body of christ but another idea which is really outside of the body of christ that's growing is our ideas that are taught by the black hebrew israelites now if you're not familiar with who they are um i won't get into all the details but they're essentially a cult okay a cultic group um they're sort of like a biblical version of the nation of islam louis farrakhan and this type of thing it's sort of a black nationalist group that uses instead of the koran and all kinds of other weird stuff like the nation of islam believes in ufos and all these different things the black hebrew israelites use the scriptures and essentially what they teach is that if you're black or from you know they've got a real elaborate chart you know if you're from these islands or this or that then you're one of the lost tribes of israel if you're white then salvation is impossible for you you're edom and you're going to be judged by god and this type of thing and they actually teach that the united states for all intents and purposes is israel and the jews that live in the land now listen this is important the jews that live in the land of israel today they are fake jews they're i don't know what they call them they're edom or the khazarians or you know whatever these sort of anti-semitic ideas this is just a really strange spin on replacement theology it says if you're black you're one of the the lost tribes of israel or you're one of the true tribes of israel if you're actually israel you're a fake jew i mean it's like it's such an incredibly not only historically and biblically untenable indefensible position but it's incredibly racist so you've got a community that has dealt with tremendous historical injustice and pain and atrocities right that arguably today are continuing to wrestle with all sorts of different injustices and inequalities but despite that and this is why i say it hurts so much the african-american church has been so strong historically in suffering in perseverance but today you've got like it's amazing how many people are being swept i'm up into this being influenced by this and it's such a convoluted uh like when you start trying to discuss these things with people it's incredibly convoluted but i want to just look at one passage in case you encounter this type of thing because i'm actually starting to see these type of comments now what happens for what it's worth and you go why are you addressing some fringe group because they're growing in influence in the african-american church and if you go but i'm not part of the african-american church i go but are you part of the american church or you're part of the church are you part of the body of christ in which case it should matter because we're one body but when i came to faith in 1993 i was going to assembly of god south shore massachusetts brockton assembly of god great church there in brockton massachusetts inner city real inner city church and i remember being like out in the parking lot at night or i used to walk around and do evangelism and the black hebrew israelites were already spreading and growing back then in a lot of the urban core areas and they would be in the field behind the church there was sort of a sports field and you would hear them back there doing push-ups and calisthenics and you would hear them say like line up according to rank for prayer you know it's kind of like this real militant religious group and they were recruiting people from uh the local high school brockton high school massive high school and then recruiting people in uh the prisons and so forth at an alarming rate now today they're everywhere like you're seeing them in protest and so on and so forth and it's really appealing um even to those that i'll say you know we're raised in the church and that's that's devastating that's devastating because here you have a community that has been unarguably victimized by satan historically but rather than persevering in the midst of that uh that pain and and catastrophe you've got many that are essentially being doubly victimized now with false teaching and actually forfeiting their salvation um and they're taking the approach for what it's worth you know sort of like well we tried martin luther king jr like we tried the way of jesus now we're going to try the way of malcolm x you know like kind of like forget this turn the other cheek we're going to you know it's it appeals to sort of the carnal um side of things which says we're going to take these things into our own hands but if you encounter these type of folks i think one of the easiest passages to turn to again they're not logical i i actually for what it's worth funny story i got into an argument with one of them years ago again when i first got saved i used to go into boston and just share the gospel with anyone and you know real bold just street evangelism and i remember i had started having a dialogue there was a group out there preaching and um i started talking with one of them well the problem is the main guy has a megaphone and um so i learned never get in an argument with someone who has a megaphone and um and he was like man you don't know the scriptures scriptures are like a puzzle you know and he starts and i realize like this is a losing battle because i can't yell with the level of a of a a megaphone but any in any case they say that those who are in israel today are fake jews okay there's so many passages we could look at to debunk that but joel 3 is a real easy one joel 3 verses 1 through 3. it's talking about the last days and it's talking about the armies of the antichrist it says for behold in those days and at that time when i restore the fortunes of judah and jerusalem so what is the context it's jerusalem it's not the united states it's judah and jerusalem i will gather all the gentiles all the nations and bring them down to the valley of jehoshaphat that's jerusalem so he goes i'm going to gather the surrounding gentiles and bring them to jerusalem there i will enter into judgment with them on behalf of who so again there they are the nations are invading and attacking the people who live in the land so the people who live in the land today according to the black hebrew israelites are fake jews everyone else will say no they're jews biblically speaking that's all of israel the people that live in the land of israel today represent all of the tribes of israel that's how peter saw it that's how the whole that's how jeremiah saw it that's how ezra saw how nehemiah that's how all of the scriptural testimony we'll see the current people that live in the land of israel as representing all of israel that type of terminology we already saw it is used throughout the scriptures okay the black hebrew israelites would say they're fake jews what does joel say the lord says i will enter into judgment with the gentiles there where in jerusalem at the valley of jehoshaphat that's a very specific geographic location on behalf of who my people my inheritance israel the lord says the people who live in the land today are his people his inheritance and he calls them israel he doesn't say judah he doesn't say the jews he says israel and he says whom they have scattered among the gentiles and they've divided up my land the context is clearly the armies of the antichrist attacking modern-day israel whom the lord refers to as my people my inheritance israel now there's a really important point here and again we're coming back to the issue of the 144 thousand there's a mystery okay now today and again i don't like to just sort of assume that based on the comments that i often see on youtube that that necessarily determines where the majority of the body of christ is however it is helpful in terms of seeing trends and i will say that on social media again in comments on youtube and this type of thing over the past several years i have seen a tremendous rise in explosion of old recycled anti-semitic ideas doctrines and concepts and idea you know like you could say well over here you've got the black hebrew israelites that say the jews that live in the land of israel are fake jews but they're just some weird cults so why bother ideas today online they become memes you know like you know what a meme is right it's usually like a little picture we send someone a meme you know you're excited you send a picture of will ferrell going yes you know like memes these are things they they're just repeated memes are also ideas cliches that you see repeated over and over and over in comments on social media ideas that go viral they become like memes so it could start with some cultic group but next thing you know regular christians are parroting these memes are recycling these memes that's the way things work now with the internet and so forth and one of the ideas that i'll see a lot well there's a whole host of different ideas anti-semitic ideas you'll say well the jews they are antichrists look at first john 2 22 it says whoever denies that jesus is the christ that's the spirit of antichrist who better embodies that than the jews i go yeah unbelieving jews today of which the majority in israel are unbelieving in that sense they represent the spirit of antichrist just like i did before i came to faith at age 19 just like the majority of the people throughout the earth today who are not christians embody the spirit of antichrist just like muslims today deny the essence of the fact that jesus the messiah they call him the messiah but then they deny all of what that means but whether you're buddhist whether you're hindu whether you're an athen they all people who are not believers i carry the spirit of the antichrist why single out the jews why not just say all unbelievers are antichrists therefore how can you say that the unbelieving jew you know like that would make better sense that would make better sense um the way the lord looks at israel today and this is so important is because paul said the day is coming when they will look upon the one they have pierced over them in the clouds when he comes back to save them and all israel will be saved romans 11 as paul makes it so clear as the totality of the of the biblical testimony makes clear because of that the lord looks at them even in their current state and he calls them my people because he knows the remnant among them will be his people and he calls us to relate to them that way as well yes as paul says they for the sake of the gospel there are enemies but for the sake of god's promises and his covenants their beloved there is admittedly a bit of a paradox there and we need to embrace it and when you see people who only emphasize the negative it's i don't know how to what it's it's kind of like like i'm allowed to discipline my own kids i'm a i'm allowed to spank my own kids when someone else a stranger disciplines them or god forbid spanx them that's not okay and when you get these gentile like it's easy to open the scriptures and read these in-house rebukes where moses is rebuking his people where the lord's rebuke and his children in family correction it's the easiest thing to open the scriptures and have someone who hates the jews start quoting these in-family statements and go but it's in the bible and i go yes but the spirit in which you are citing it is fundamentally satanic and not in accord with the lord's heart which is seen here in joel 3 which is where he says yes there are unbelievers but they're about to become my people okay that's again the majority of israel in the land today are unbelievers however what about the 144 000 well i would suggest to you again i'm not overly dogmatic i'm not dogmatic about this but i would suggest that of the various options who are the 144 000 the solution the solution to the mystery of the identity of the 144 000 is simple the best interpretation would seem to be that they are exactly who the text states they are 144 000 from every tribe of the sons of israel does that mean that they're clean cut and there's not some intermixture no we don't need to be overly rigid and technical with it but the scriptures say they represent 144 000 from the tribes of israel now beyond that they seem to be a little more specifically they seem to be the full number of faithful jewish believers who are alive specifically when the sealing takes place when they are sealed which is god's protection now does that mean that they're not going to be subject to being killed like any other martyrs gentile modders know they are sealed and protected from the wrath of god they're sealed and protected from the judgments of god but that doesn't mean that satan's wrath and persecution so to speak is not going to fall on them but they are sealed they are marked with the seal of god now the angels reference specifically to them as what bond servants of our god okay so they're not just the total number of jews who will get saved when jesus returns they are the first fruits and that's exactly what it says later in revelation 14 where it references the 144 000 again and we're skipping ahead but we're going to come back to this later so revelation 14 1-5 john says then i looked and behold the lamb was standing on mount zion and with him 144 000 having his name in the name of his father written on their foreheads so the seal is his name and the name of his father and they sang a new song before the throne before the four living creatures and the elders and he goes on he says these are the ones who have not been defiled with women now i take that as an idiom i don't think it means they're all virgins i think it's just an expression saying they've kept themselves pure i don't think it means they're all men i don't take that in that really rigid uh overly rigid i would argue literal sense i think it's just an expression they have kept themselves chased these are not those that kept their mormon underwear on the whole time let's just put it that way you know there's nothing wrong with in marriage right i don't think these are purely men i think these are men and women these are the first fruits among the jewish messianic community 144 000 by the way that's wonderful news why because there's only roughly 20 000 or so messianic believers in the land today that means there's a great number that's about to come in before the return of jesus these are the ones who follow the lamb wherever he goes these have been purchased from among men as first fruits to god and to the lamb so when you ask who are the 144 thousand i would say they probably are who the scriptures say they are first fruits from among the tribes of israel in the land of israel representing all 12 of the tribes of israel so i'm going to end it right there we could talk more about the seal of god and the mark of the beast but i think we've got plenty of time to talk about that in the future so i'm going to leave it right there next week dalton's going to jump in and sort of unpack this a bit more and as well as address the issue of the great crowd because i think it does speak it's very it's very important in terms of speaking in terms of the larger plan that god is doing with jews and gentiles his larger story of redemption the one new man and so forth so amen that's it i hope this was edifying i hope it was i hope it was relevant so look forward to seeing you next time until then god bless guys and maranatha

Channel: FAI STUDIOS

Views: 85,101

Rating: 4.6130095 out of 5

Keywords: Dalton Thomas, FAI, FAI Studios, end-times, end times, eschatology, Turkish antichrist, antichrist, Middle East beast, Joel Richardson, islamic antichrist, pretribulation rapture, rapture, Amir Tsarfati, Behold Israel ministries, frontier alliance international, sheep among wolves, return of Jesus, beast empire, revelation 13, harlot babylon, great tribulation, bible study, maranatha global bible study, Donald trump, make America great again, covid19, christian, mark of the beast

Id: jysruxw71MM

Length: 54min 29sec (3269 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021