will Christians soon disappear raptured before seven years of
tribulation when the Antichrist makes war against the Jews Jesus Christ gave
this special warning about the last days take heed that no one deceives you join
us now a seminar speaker Steve Wohlberg presents Israel delusions the book of
Revelation says the time is at hand thank you for coming for part 4 of this
side rather controversial little mini series called endtime delusions if you
have your Bibles I hope you do let's open up to first Corinthians chapter 2
1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 will be our opening text in just a little bit
the title of this final segment this is a big one and this is one of the biggest
well I don't know last one was pretty big but this is big too and this is
called Israel we're going to talk about Israel delusions in the last days and
this is very personal for me because I'm Jewish I don't know if you know that or
not that wal Berg is a very Jewish name and so we're going to talk about the
Jews about Israel and about Bible prophecy and especially about Jesus
Christ so let's bow our heads let's pray we need to ask God to be with us as
always dear father in heaven in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach Jesus the Messiah
the savior of the world we pray in his name that you're your presence will be
here the Holy Spirit please bless the people that are here bless me use me and
be with all those that will listen and watch this program in the days ahead in
Jesus name we pray amen okay let me give you a little bit of background before we
actually read from the Bible to get into this topic up on the screen here I've
got a picture of an issue of Newsweek that captured my attention it was a
number of years ago the tud the date there's November one 1999 this issue
actually came out right before the big y2k scare sure you remember all about
that and this particular issue dealt with end of the world issues and what
Christians are thinking what's going on in the religious world and whether this
might be the beginning of the door or what and what different people
were thinking and I bought that issue i was extremely interested in any time
prophecy is in the news and there you can see the title their prophecy what
the bible says about the end of the world and this was a quote that just
jumped out at me as i read this particular issue this was page 73 quote
the predominant emphasis in christian prophecy is on the return of the Jews to
the holy land and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple this is the main
emphasis when it comes to Christian prophecy and this is very easy to
abstention she ate it's just no it's a no-brainer that Christians around the
world are looking to Israel they're looking to the Jews they're looking to
the Middle East they're looking to the possibility of a rebuilt temple and
they're tying this all in with prophecy let me just give you just a few examples
of just a small sample of some of the books that are out there right now that
are focused upon Israel this is one in Hal Lindsey's books he's a best-selling
author he's written many books and one of his books is called planet Earth
2000ad and chapter 8 is called Israel center of world destiny here's another
book called the 50 remarkable events pointing to the end by Ed Dobson chapter
3 this is another Christian scholar is called Israel God's focus for the future
here's another book by Randall Ross and it's called the next seven great great
events of the future and what they mean to you and chapter 2 of this book is
called recognition of Israel as the Forgotten key to end time prophecy and
here's one more this is by peter and patty lalonde they used to have a
national television program and this book is called the edge of time the
final countdown has begun you can see the clock approaching midnight and
chapter 3 of this book is called the third temple and this is just a small
sample like a set of many books in fact I I would say the majority of Bible
prophecy minded scholars who are thinking about the future thinking about
the end and that includes people like John Hagee and Jack Van Impe and chuck
smith and tim lahaye and just the list goes on and
on Grant Jeffries there's just so many of them that are focusing the eyes of
Christians over upon the Jews this I showed you this during some of our other
programs this particular issue is a recent issue of Newsweek or fairly
recent this was May 24 2004 a little bit closer than the one in 1999 and here you
see a picture of Tim LaHaye and jerry jenkins there phenomenally best-selling
successful series left behind and on the bottom here is a quote from the glorious
appearing book 12 of left behind and this is what it says it's this is a
converted Jew talking to a Gentile and he says here quote Jesus will judge you
Gentiles on how you have treated his chosen people those who honored the Jews
are the sheep and those who did not are the goats so that's part of the theology
that is expressed in left behind that if you and since I'm Jewish better treat me
nice see that's that's the idea that's expressed here and I thought it was
pretty significant that right next to that it's talking about Tim LaHaye and
here's a quote from tim lahaye he said those millions that I'm trying to reach
take the Bible literally it's the theologians that get all fouled up so he
said we've got to take the Bible literally and I believe that and he said
that's what we need to do and that's what I'm trying to do take the Bible
literally and it's the theologians that get all fouled up well when I read this
quote from the glorious appearing that says Jesus will judge you Gentiles on
how you have treated his chosen people and those who honored the Jews are the
sheep and those who did not are the goats I can't help but wonder you know
where is that in the Bible the whole idea of the sheep and the goats is
really from Matthew 25 where Jesus talked about when he comes at the end
that the world will be divided between the sheep and the goats and he doesn't
say that the goats are those that have treated the Jews badly although I still
would be happy to have you treat me right but Jesus says it has to do with
the way we've treated the poor and the lame and the blind and those that are
sick and those that are naked etc he doesn't say any anywhere in the New
Testament that the final day of judgment is based upon how people have
treated the Jews when Jesus taught love your neighbor as yourself he's applying
that to everybody jew and gentile so we should treat Jews right and we should
treat Gentiles right we should treat everybody right in the sight of God in
the name of Jesus Christ I mentioned this quote before that's really a
stirred me and the line is that what is popular is not always right and what is
right is not always popular and especially did we see that when Jesus
came the first time he was mr. right and what happened to him he was crucified
because truth is never popular in this world I heard somebody else say some
time ago truth is not determined by by majority vote truth is determined by
what the Bible says so let's launch in and let's find out whether this popular
view of Israel as the center of end time events is this really what what this
book what this book says all right let's go to first Corinthians chapter 2 and
let's take a look at verse 14 Paul wrote but the natural man does not receive the
things of the Spirit of God for what are they he said they are foolishness to him
neither can he know them because they are what spiritually discerned ray so
here in this verse Paul is talking about two different kinds of people there's
the natural man and there's the spiritual man now the natural man does
not have the Holy Spirit and the natural man just sees through natural eyes he
just sees things on the surface but the spiritual man has the holy spirit and
because of that he's able to discern as spiritual things see that we need to be
able to discern spiritual things and and I believe this is really like I said a
foundation issue I reminds me a little bit of when I used to live in Texas we
used to have a house in Texas and I don't know if you've ever lived in Texas
but one of the problems with the Texas soil is that it's clay and when it's hot
in the summer that the soil contracts and then when you get into the winter
and all the rain comes down and it floods into the soil the soil expands
and then when you get into the summer the soil contracts and then in the
winter the soil expands and so you have houses with foundations on top of soil
that's going like this and what does that do to foundations it cracks them
right and so people that anybody that buys a house in Texas they always walk
around the foundation and they look real carefully to see how many cracks are in
the foundation and I believe based upon my study of the Bible that this issue of
spiritual discernment is a foundation issue and if we don't have it then we're
going to have a big crack in our ability to understand Bible prophecy and I'll
make that plain as we as we go along all right so let's go on let's that keeps