Does God have a Church?
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The truth is that God promised to return the remnant of jews back into His land.
And true to His word God did so.
Douglas Summers
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And you skipped what His commandment was John 15:12 >This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Your the one who does not get it...you must be born again of the Spirit of Christ to love like Christ.
He did not. Please use scripture to prove your points.
End-time prophecies in scripture regarding Israel and the temple are not about the literal nation of Jews and the physical building of the temple.
Revelation, a book about prophecy, talks about Mount Zion, Israel, Jerusalem, the temple, the Euphrates, Babylon, and Armageddon. Revelation uses symbolic language and uses the terminology of the Middle East in its prophecies. Sadly sincere Christians are applying these prophecies to literal places in the Middle East and to the modern nation of Jews. The truth is that Revelation centres around Jesus Christ and God's Israel in the Spirit, not the Israel of the flesh! Don't forget that "they are not all Israel, which are of Israel." Romans 9:6. "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Philippians 3:3. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, ... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:28, 29. So if there is neither Jew nor Greek how can God promise a literal state just for literal Jews? Romans 11 says we are "grafted in" verses 19-24. Gentiles were grafted into Israel and so wouldn't the state of Israel be for all those who were grafted in too? The Bible does not contradict itself.
Jews are not treated as more special than Gentiles in the Bible. After they rejected God they lost their promised land. So even though today there is a state of Israel it really isn't only for them. They share that land with Gentiles. Non believing Gentiles. They don't have control of Temple Mount at all where the Temple is supposed to be. They really don't have much at all.
This is something I posted in another forum. I will repost it here.
JERUSALEM AND THE MOUNT
The Bible pattern has always been clear: God's people must obey in order to receive His blessing. Disobedience would bring scattering among the heathen. But, then they returned!
What had happened? Had the Scripture been broken? Here are several facts we need to consider:
(1) If the Jews were scattered because of disobedience, they could only return because they had changed their ways and were now obeying. But this has not happened. How then could they be said to have returned? Have they really returned? Exactly what was predicted?
(2) The Jews have indeed returned to management of Jerusalem, but they have not regained control of the Temple Mount. Because of that, they cannot rebuild the Temple, and restore the ancient rituals of the Jewish religion. Until that happens, they have not really "returned" to Jerusalem. They lack full governmental authority.
(3) More specifically than being carried away from their own land, the Bible prediction was that, If they disobeyed, the Jews would be scattered among the heathen. As long as they remain among the heathen, the fulfilment of the Bible prophecies remain in place; they have not been reversed, obsoleted, or broken. The Jews today live among the heathen In Jerusalem; both Christians and Muslims are all about them. (The Biblical word, "Gentile," means "the nations" or "non-Jews," so it would include Arabs as well as other non-Jewish peoples.)
Indeed, Gentile tourists from all over the world tread upon the sacred Mount every day. Old Testament law prohibited that. The entire top of the Temple site is now a Muslim shrine; few Jews go there. They dare not even put a small synagogue in the corner of that spacious 35-acre area. Yet every Jew knows it ought to be the most sacred place in their hearts and religion. But what are they to do? They cannot worship the true God in or near a Muslim mosque. And they dare not remove a board of the two Islamic shrines on that Mount.
Thus, in several ways, the prediction remains unbroken. God's Word is true, and has not been nullified.
The punishment of being mingled with the Gentiles, in lands not fully theirs, is referred to as "the times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24). Those times have not ceased: [1] The Jews remain among the Gentiles to this day. [2] The Gentiles continue to tread across the Jewish holy place. [3] The holy place of the Jews to be dedicated to a pagan deity, not to the God of Israel.
So, until these conditions are met, the Jews cannot be said to have genuinely "returned to Jerusalem." For centuries, they were scattered among the nations; today they are still scattered among the nations, and also scattered in their own land among the nations. Till the second coming of Christ, they will dwell among Gentiles, and Gentiles will worship in their holy place.
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Douglas Summers
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You can not obey by law, life comes by rebirth of the Spirit. It is a life giving Spirit.
Stop it please. Stop looking for excuses to reject God's Word. A verse here or there will NOT undo all the other things that God has said about obedience from the Old to the New Testament. The verse above does not say its okay not to obey God's commandments. Pray to God to help you not reject His clear word.
Reject God's Word all you want, but it will not change.
Romans 2:12, "For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law." The law is the Ten commandments. So who are you going to trust? God's Word or your doctrine?
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Douglas Summers
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Here Phipps, Study this > John Chapter 3 and Romans Chapter 8....You must be born again....That's more than a few words.
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Firstly mate, if you think Jesus was God I hope your nanny will step in and correct you..
Secondly (yawn) There you go again over-complicating things and putting ordinary people off Jesus by making them think they've got to "study" the whole Bible in order to understand him!
The fact is, if people can't understand Jesus by simply reading the gospels, all the intense reading of the Old T ain't gonna help them one iota, and people knew-
"Jesus gives us all we need for life........Through Jesus we are saved, and not through Moses" (2 Peter 1:3,Acts 13:39)
And as God himself said in the gospel-"This is my beloved son, listen to him" (Matt 17:5)
Tidal
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But mate lots of us have already FOUND Jesus, so "studying" the Bible now would serve no useful purpose for us because we're not searching for him any more..
If we claim to have the Holy spirit... we will obey the Law.
Love God and our neighbour.
That means no murdering cheating stealing adultering etc etc...
The temple was not on the temple mount as that was a roman fort.
God promised to return the remnant of jews after two days to His land for the sake of His name and reputation.
Hosea 6 1Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds. 2After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence.
Ezekiel 36 7Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I have sworn with an uplifted hand that surely the nations around you will endure reproach of their own. 8But you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and bear fruit for My people Israel, for they will soon come home.
22Therefore tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: It is not for your sake that I will act, O house of Israel, but for My holy name, which you profaned among the nations to which you went. 23I will show the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations—the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when I show My holiness in you before their eyes. 24For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you back into your own land.
I'm ending this conversation here. There are difficult subjects in the Bible that need a lot of study in order to be understood, this is not one of them. If we have faith, trust and believe in God we obey. Like Tokiel said, if we are led by the Holy Spirit we obey. As Jesus said, if we love Him we obey His commandments just as His Father loved Him for being obedient to the commandments and His will. To say different is to speak against God's Word.
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You need to learn about Temple Mount from the Bible and historically. Google it too. Read especially 2 Samuel 24:1-25 and 1 Chronicles 21:1-30. Temple Mount is where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac, its where David bought the land from a man named Araunah the Jebusite and its where Solomon's Temple was built. I just did a study on this subject recently. Yet the Muslims have control of it now because of the Al Aqsa Mosque.
The promises you quote are promises for Jews going back to their land after Babylon took them captive except the prophet Hosea's. Why were they taken captive? Because they had been disobedient. God always promised the Jews their land on condition of obedience. 100 years before, God had completely scattered the northern kingdom of the ten tribes because of their disobedience. “For the LORD will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River …” (1 Kings 14:15). Then after 100 years, Judah was taken captive by Babylon and their land occupied for 70 years because of their disobedience. “… ‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the LORD. ‘And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon’ ” (2 Kings 20:16-18).
Hosea was a prophet during the period of the northern kingdom of Israel (the ten tribes). He was there just before the fall of Israel to the Assyrians. At that time, God’s chosen people no longer worshipped Him alone but also served Baal, a Canaanite god. God sent him to warn them about their apostasy. Hosea is the prophet God made experience in his personal life what God faced with Israel. He makes Hosea marry a woman who cheats on Him to show Israel how they committed adultery like Hosea's wife. When Hosea’s wife, Gomer committed adultery against him, he suffered the pain of betrayal, humiliation, and shame. To the neighbours and friends who saw his pain, Hosea delivered a divine message through words and actions. Israel, God’s wife, was just like Gomer. The chosen people were committing spiritual adultery. But then he forgave his unfaithful wife and was willing to take her back just as God was willing to do the same for His people if they let Him. They never did and God destroyed all the ten tribes of Israel the northern kingdom. They completely disappeared.
Ezekiel lived during the reigns of the last five kings of Judah. He was prophet and priest during the time Judah was taken captive. In fact he was one of the captives. The destruction of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians was severe. God had tried every possible way to warn and correct the nation, but Judah, undeterred, continued her idolatrous ways, mocking God's messengers "till there was no remedy" (2 Chronicles 36:16).
He was the prophet to the Jewish captives. He suffered in captivity with his fellow Jewish people. He was a prophet to a people who were crushed spiritually because of their captivity and it was hard for him because they never believed him. During that time God promised the Jews they would get their land back (not of themselves) but it was always conditional to obedience. Some of them did return after the 70 years of captivity and got their land back as God promised in the verses you posted. They did gather out of all the countries and came back to their land. As you know or should know, that is not the end of their story. When we get to Jesus' day, they rejected the Messiah and that was the end for them being a chosen people collectively. They have never had their promised land all to themselves ever again and most of them don't live on it too. The definition of Israel also changed in the New covenant. People from all nations can be part of Israel but not the physical land. Spiritually. Whenever Israel is spoken of in the New Testament to do with salvation and prophetically, its spiritually. We can all be part of that Israel whether we are Jews or not.
In my church we did a lesson study on the whole book of Ezekiel. It took three months. Ezekiel is an autobiographical book that tells us what the prophet went through during that period of time and it was an eye opener for me.
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You and your study group need to shut up when the shepherde is speaking.
The temple was built on the Ophel right above the Gihon spring which is about 600 feet south of the temple mount just as Josephus said.
Ezekiel 36 7Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I have sworn with an uplifted hand that surely the nations around you will endure reproach of their own. 8But you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and bear fruit for My people Israel, for they will soon come home.
9For behold, I am on your side; I will turn toward you, and you will be tilled and sown. 10I will multiply the people upon you—the house of Israel in its entirety. The cities will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. 11I will fill you with people and animals, and they will multiply and be fruitful. I will make you as inhabited as you once were, and I will make you prosper more than before. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
12Yes, I will cause My people Israel to walk upon you; they will possess you, and you will be their inheritance, and you will no longer deprive them of their children.
13For this is what the Lord GOD says: Because people say to you, ‘You devour men and deprive your nation of its children,’ 14therefore you will no longer devour men or deprive your nation of its children, declares the Lord GOD. 15I will no longer allow the taunts of the nations to be heard against you, and you will no longer endure the reproach of the peoples or cause your nation to stumble, declares the Lord GOD.”
Douglas Summers
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Douglas Summers
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The Law of Christ is not a yoke... love God and love your neighbour as yourself.
What does it mean to love God ? It means no idols and to obey His commandments.
Mark 10 19You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, and honor your father and mother.’”
The Holy spirit helps us to obey the Law of Christ which can be summed up in... love God and your neighbour.
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Its not what you're saying and you know that. Please ask God to help you understand the subject of obedience. Its very important we all understand it because its about our eternal lives. Understand what we have to do as born again Christians from the Bible.
Revelation 22:14, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."
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You've started again. At least you didn't swear this time. You always behave like this when you know you're being told Bible truths. I will end my conversation with you but whether you accept the truth or not, its the truth. Did you at least google temple mount hmm? Everything I told you is biblical truth. And any promises that were not fulfilled in literal Israel are now for spiritual Israel.
Literal Israel does not exist as God intended it, therefore its null and void and has no role in end time prophecy at all. The modern day state of Israel is a fraud and has nothing to do with God. Jesus said that His Kingdom was not of this world. Thus, you cannot find the Kingdom of Jesus on a map. God's kingdom can't be Israel. I look forward to meeting my Saviour when He returns and going into the holy City/New Jerusalem and living there with Jesus.
You didn't even answer my questions but you probably can't. You are wrong on this subject. Honestly you are so immature. Grow up will you?!
Hosea 4:17, "Ephraim is joined to idols, Let him alone." I'll let you alone.
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