“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Isaiah 55: 6-7

_____________

#####

Reuniting Israel and Judah

While we lived in Virginia, WRVL was the radio station that woke me up each morning. I set my radio alarm to go off at 5:30 AM, and John MacArthur’s voice was the first thing I heard each day. He’s the pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. I would lie in bed for 30 minutes and listen to “Grace to You”, MacArthur’s radio show. It was a great way to start the day.

In the mid-1980s, we bought a house on Smith Mountain Lake. It’s between Roanoke, Virginia and Lynchburg, Virginia. Lynchburg is the home of Liberty University, and WRVL is the Radio Voice of Liberty. On weekends, I would troll the lake for stiped bass using gizzard shad as bait. At 5:30 AM while my boat was gliding silently through the water, I turned on the radio and listened to “Grace to You”.

I enjoyed listening to MacArthur. I still do. He is an intelligent man with a comforting voice, and his theology is sound. I knew that I could trust MacArthur’s interpretations of the Scriptures. He and J. Vernon McGee are two of my favorite preachers. McGee died in 1988, but his radio show, “Thru the Bible”, is still being broadcast.

Since we moved to South Carolina, I’ve been listening to “Grace to You” on FaithTalk 970 in Atlanta. Yesterday, MacArthur was preaching on Revelation 7 where the apostle John talked about the 144,000 sealed witnesses who will preach during the Great Tribulation. MacArthur said that all of them will be Jews. That is not correct. Only 12,000 of them will be Jews.

Revelation 7: 4-8

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand 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, from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed. (Revelation 7: 4-8)

As you can see, the apostle John was talking about the Children of Israel, not the Children of Judah alone. There will be 12,000 sealed witnesses from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. Together, they are the 144,000. Only 12,000 of them will be from the tribe of Judah.

Confusion Abounds

We must stop referring to the Children of Israel as Jews, because Judah is only one of Jacob’s/Israel’s sons, not all 12 of them. Only the Children of Judah are Jews.

For instance, Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, not just the Jews. Moses brought the Children of Israel to the Promised Land, not just the Jews. Yahweh promised the land of Israel to all 12 of Jacob’s/Israel’s sons, not just the Jews.

It saddened me to hear MacArthur refer to the 144,000 sealed witnesses as Jews. As I said, he is an intelligent man. He should know better. The fact that he doesn’t get it is a good reason to suspect that many other preachers are missing the point, too. Preachers need to get it right.

This is an important and timely issue, because it’s central to a correct understanding of Yahweh’s promises, particularly His promise to reunite Israel and Judah. It’s discussed in Ezekiel 37:

The word of Yahweh came again to me saying, “And you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, ‘For Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions.’ Then join them for yourself one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. When the sons of your people speak to you saying, ‘Will you not declare to us what you mean by these?’ say to them, ‘Thus says Adonai Yahweh, “Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand.”’ The sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes. Say to them, ‘Thus says the Adonai Yahweh, “Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. And they will be My people, and I will be their Elohim.” (Ezekiel 37: 15-23)

Yahweh has already started fulfilling the promise He made in Ezekiel 37. When Jewish people from all over the world flocked to Israel following World War II, they settled in the Promised Land and called it “the State of Israel”. That’s correct, but there is a movement in Israel right now whose goal is to change Israel’s name to “the Jewish State of Israel”. The movement is gaining momentum.

As much as Yahweh loves the Jewish people, Israel can’t be a Jewish state, because He promised the land to all of Jacob’s/Israel’s descendants, not just Judah’s descendants.

Over the years, I have talked with many Israeli Jews about this issue, and I can tell by the looks on most of their faces that they don’t draw a distinction between the Children of Israel and the Children of Judah. They see Israel and Judah as the same, but in reality, the Children of Judah are a subset of the Children of Israel.

This lack of understanding is a serious problem and an impediment to progress, because Yahweh does draw a distinction between the two groups. As you can see in Ezekiel 37, that distinction is central to His promise about reuniting Israel and Judah.

As things stand now, religious Jews in Israel, particularly ultra-Orthodox Jews, are doing their utmost to prevent the descendants of Jacob’s other sons from returning to the Promised Land. In the end, they can’t prevent them from returning, because Yahweh said that He will bring them back. That means most religious Jews in Israel are on the wrong side of an issue that is crucial to Yahweh. Yahweh will prevail, but there will be a lot of pain and suffering if religious Jews in Israel don’t get onboard with Yahweh’s plan.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel are some of the most stubborn people I have ever met. Convincing them to abandon their plans and to get onboard with Yahweh’s plan won’t be easy, but it must happen. I fear that they won’t repent (i.e., turn and go in the right direction) until they have no other choice. The Messiah suggested as much when He said,

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of Yahweh.’” (Matthew 23: 37-39)

As I said, it won’t be easy for ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel to repent. Their disdain for Yahweh is deeply embedded in Halacha, a.k.a., the Oral Law and the traditions of the Jews. Halacha guides their thinking and their behavior, not the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, a.k.a., the Old Testament and the Tanach.

Thankfully, this is Yahweh’s problem to solve, not yours and mine. None of us should turn our backs on the Jews in Israel. We need to support them every way we can, and we need to pray for them to get onboard with Yahweh’s plan. Whether the Jews in Israel realize it or not, there is no other alternative, because “Yahweh is watching over His word to perform it”. (Jeremiah 1: 12) Nothing and no one can prevent Yahweh from fulfilling His promises, and standing in His way while He fulfills those promises is dangerous.