—The Truth about Physical and Spiritual Israel—JewsJanuary 1971DO No.86

1. I'M UP AGAINST ONE OF THE HARDEST DECISIONS OF MY LIFE!

2. WHAT'S THE HARDEST THING FOR A PERSON TO DO? The hardest words in the English language—I think they're harder for a leader than anybody else—ARE "I WAS WRONG."

3. AT THE HOUR OF OUR GREATEST TRIUMPH, I have to admit a great defeat!

4. THE LORD HAS REALLY CRACKED ME UP! You don't know how hard it is for me! But yes, I'd rather have the truth even if it hurts!

5. THE MOST CLINCHING ARGUMENT I had was that the promise was to be fulfilled to literal Israel, and it was a literal land when He spoke to both Abraham and then Jacob: "And all that thou seest will I give unto thee and thy seed!"

6. I never cared much for Paul and his Epistles. I thought he was entirely too technical- and legal-minded, and what was the good of those big words and detailed explanations? Who cared?

7. ALL OF A SUDDEN IT HAS DAWNED ON ME WHAT HE WAS HARPING ON! For the first time in my life, I have a craving to really, really thoroughly study the teachings of Paul—NOT BY NATURAL INHERITANCE—ONLY GRACE—ONLY JESUS!

8. I loved the Old Testament, the Prophets, the Gospels!—But I just couldn't fathom Paul! He was too deep for me!

9. WHY DID THE LORD LET ME WAIT ALL THAT TIME TO FREE ME from this delusion? Because the Lord deliberately tricked me, actually tricked me, so I'd be so far from home that I couldn't go back no matter how major the problem is! The Lord tricked me into coming here and then trapped me here. It was just like he brought me over here to rub my nose in it, SO I'D BE PERMANENTLY CURED!

10. I KNOW THE DEVIL TOO WELL, BECAUSE THE MINUTE YOU GO OVER THE TOP, THE DEVIL STARTS SHOOTING. It's like in the old days of W.W.I trench warfare; things were usually comparatively quiet in No Man's Land—the unconquered territory between the enemies—until one or the other of them decided to make an attack!—Then the other side really opened up and let them have it all barrels!

11. AND LET ME TELL YOU, THE LORD LET'S THE DEVIL DO IT TO KEEP US HUMBLE and close to Him. Because you can be almost as sure as shootin'‚ that the Enemy doesn't start shooting until you start charging into his territory and attacking him! Then he really starts sockin' you back.

12. EVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, I WAS STILL UNDER THE DELUSION OF THAT DAMNABLE DOCTRINE OF CONCISION—part Works and part Grace—in the case of Israel!—Partly flesh‚ and partly spiritual, and part to the spiritual children the promises were going to be fulfilled. That damn doctrine had been so drilled into me by so many false prophets—among them the Scofield Bible—and my own fleshly desire to see a fleshly fulfillment—to satisfy the flesh! Being part–Jewish, my flesh still wanted to see the Jews partly saved by partly interpreted promises‚ partly because of their being Jews in the flesh! I wanted to see them saved spiritually, of course, and I knew they couldn't really be saved spiritually without accepting Jesus. But I still had that damnable doctrine of devils drilled into me by that damnable churchy Works religion—the Concision of the Scribes and Pharisees of Christianity—that the Jews were going to be saved in the flesh because they were flesh–and-blood Jews, because of the promises I thought God had made to flesh-and-blood Israel. Of course, I knew they could only be saved in the Spirit by the Spirit‚ but I still thought God was going to fulfill all those wonderful promises that he made to Israel—to a flesh–and-blood Israel—to the natural children of Abraham—the so-called Jews!—AND THAT'S NOT WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT! THAT WAS THE WORST SHOCK I'VE HAD ALMOST IN MY WHOLE LIFE!

13. YOU'RE NEVER SO NEAR THE ABYSS AS WHEN YOU'RE ON THE BRINK! You're never so near the pit as when you're on the pinnacle!—You're never so near the bottom as when you're on the top! "Pride cometh before a fall!" Success often precedes failure, and sometimes exultation comes before humiliation! "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall!" "To him that hath shall be given, but from him which hath not shall be taken away even that which he thinketh he hath." If you haven't got the truth, if you haven't got the right interpretation, but you sincerely desire to know the truth—you honestly want to know what is right—God sometimes has to take away from you what you think is right before He can show you the truth! He has to smash your idols!—And He's just smashing one of the biggest idols I ever had—The Jews! I almost worshipped them! I had idolized Israel—the LAND of Israel the carnal country! They were my own flesh and blood, and I was proud of them, and I bragged about them! And the Devil built me up for the biggest letdown I ever had! I had gotten so high on that misinterpretation, that false doctrine, that when the Lord just now yanked the rug out from underneath me, I was just left hanging in mid-air!—And I've just come crashing down—and I'm all broken up!—I'm absolutely shattered! The Lord had to let me land right here in Israel in pieces! I was whole when I landed here‚ but when I hit, God broke me! Thank God He did! For whosoever shall fall upon that rock shall be broken, but upon whom that rock shall fall, he shall be ground to powder. Thank God He didn't have to do that to me! He just let me land here and break, and He kept me here until I got a good dose of it! Otherwise, when I first discovered the horrible mistake we'd made, I would have turned tail and run, and gotten out of here as fast as I could, I was so sick of the situation—so sick of my own self and my own misunderstanding—my own mistake!—So sick of the so-called Jews—so sick of this carnal Israel!

14. THEY'RE MORE RELIGIOUSLY SYSTEM THAN THE STATES! I just wanted to get the Heaven out of here! I felt like I got landed in Hell, instead of the Heaven I was expecting! But the Lord just let the money dribble in—just barely enough to get by on, and never enough to leave the country. Then when we had enough money to leave, we didn't have the shots required by law in order to buy our ticket to leave, and when we got the shots, I still wanted to take a week or two to at least tour the country and see the sights!—And I got so sick I couldn't even get out of bed! Then yesterday, when the Lord healed me, and I felt so good and climbed the steps on Mount Carmel last night for a little exercise, and thought, "Wow! I'm feeling good enough now to get out and see Israel!"—And I promptly landed back in bed sick again! I don't even think the Lord wants me to go out and see the country. Maybe He knows the sight would make me even sicker! Sightseeing would make me even madder! It would be better to remember it as I've seen it in the Bible, or better to remember it even from the pictures I've seen of it when the Arabs had it, and the English had it, and when my grandfather visited here. It was more like the land of Jesus then, than it is now. It's more like the U.S. now—all these fancy new buildings and crowded highways and noisy vehicles and stinking, smoky‚ polluted air, and names changed, and the people changed, and the whole atmosphere and whole spirit changed! Feels horrible to me! I can hardly stand it! I just feel like I gotta get out of here—worse than I used to feel that I had to come! God gave me the desires of my heart, but sent leanness to my soul. He gave me what I wanted because I insisted. Now I can't stand the sight: It makes me sick to see what's happened to His land—not the rebuilding and the development and the blossoming as the rose—that's all beautiful, marvelous, wonderful!

15. BUT THERE'S NO WORSE DELUSION THAN TO DISCOVER YOU'VE BEEN FOOLED—you've been had—you've been taken—that the great ten dollar bill you thought you had, turned out to be a phony, a fake, and a counterfeit!—That beautiful gold ring you bought in Mexico at such a bargain‚ or that gorgeous diamond, turned your finger green the next day! You thought you were getting a real bargain, and it fell apart by the time you got it home!

16. I HAD TO COME HERE—TO BE HERE—I had to stick my nose in it to sense the spirit of it all—that it was phony, counterfeit—a gorgeous imitation of the real thing—that it was purely carnal‚ purely fleshly, purely self-righteous, pure works‚ with all glory to the arm of flesh! It has nothing to do with God or His Son Jesus‚ whom they don't even know! A fulfillment of prophecy? Yes! But a fulfillment of the promises to His Children? No! There's a tremendous difference that I never discerned before!

17. PROPHECIES ARE FULFILLED ABOUT ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE THAT GOD PROPHESIES ABOUT—even the wicked—mere predictions of the future about what is going to happen, including what is happening here, and I'm now not too sure about some of those that we thought were being fulfilled here! I've got to study the Bible all over again to figure it out, now that the Lord has given us the key, which was there all the time—that Paul harped on all the time—but I really didn't want to hear it when it came to this particular situation: THE JEWS IN ISRAEL!

18. BUT THE PROMISES OF GOD ARE SOMETHING ELSE!—Promises of blessing and good and Salvation—these are made only to his real children—the spiritual children by Grace! Not of works, lest any man should boast, but by My Spirit‚ saith the Lord!

19. I THOUGHT PAUL WAS PRETTY RABID ON THE DOCTRINE and kinda wore out the subject—that the Promises were not made to Abraham's children after the flesh—but the Children by Faith—after the Spirit—saved by Grace through Faith in Jesus Christ‚ God's Only Son…!

20. SOMETIMES I THINK EVEN PAUL WEAKENED A LITTLE BIT ON THE SUBJECT, because he himself was a flesh-and-blood Israelite of the Israelites, and because of his love for his Jewish brethren and his desire to see them saved—that somehow God was yet going to save them in spite of their sins!

21. HE'S NOT GOING TO SAVE THEM ANY MORE THAN ANYBODY ELSE! IT'S A LIE! He doesn't love them any more than He does anybody else! FOR GOD IS NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS—FLESH-AND-BLOOD PERSONS—FLESH-AND-BLOOD ISRAEL—THE JEWS! That verse used to bother me in my doctrine that God was going to give some slight preference to Jews—that they had some slight edge over the Gentiles just because they were children of Abraham after the flesh. Somehow He was going to partially fulfill those promises to them in the flesh—naturally in the land of Israel—just because they were Jews, so-called!

22. BUT I THINK I'M GOING TO BE EVEN MORE RADICAL NOW THAN PAUL! He got pretty fed-up with them himself while here, and they got pretty fed-up with him‚ believe me! But I've been so hoodwinked by them for so many years and by some of these so-called Jewish Christians, that I'm just plain disgusted with myself, and I'm so downright mad at them! THEY DECEIVED ME, THEY MISLED ME, THEY TRICKED ME, and God had to trick me and bring me here to wake me up out of my delusion!

23. THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A JEWISH CHRISTIAN, any more than there's such a thing as a Gentile Christian, or a black Christian, or a white Christian, or a male, or a female Christian. Neither is there any such thing as a bond Christian or a free Christian, for all are one in Christ Jesus! You are only a Christian—and that's all you are—and if you're a Christian, you're neither male nor female, bond nor free, Jew nor Gentile! YOU'RE ONLY A CHRISTIAN IN THE REALM OF THE SPIRIT! That's all you are in God's eyes—just a Christian! He doesn't see your color‚ your nationality, or your sex or any other damned fleshly characteristic! That's downright damnable devilish discrimination! God sees nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ and the blood-washed soul! I'm determined to see no man among you save Jesus only! It's only Jesus! That's the only difference God sees! You either belong to Jesus or you don't! To hell with all the rest of the differences‚ discriminations‚ and the prejudices! You're either saved or you're lost, either God's or the Devil's; you're either a Christian, or you're a Jew or any other damned unsaved person! You can't be both!

24. IF YOU'RE A CHRISTIAN‚ THAT'S ALL GOD SEES! He only sees Jesus! He only sees Jesus in you—that's all. It doesn't matter what color you are‚ or what sex you are or what social status you are, or what damned father you had!—He's your Father and you're His Son‚ and that's all that matters, because of Jesus! All glory be to Jesus!

25. And if you give the slightest bit, one infinitesimal, slight fraction of an iota of credit to the fact that you are Jew or anything else and that makes you little more Christian than somebody else‚ or a little more in line for God's blessing—you're deceived and a liar, because there is no such thing!

26. YOU'RE EITHER A CHILD OF GOD OR A CHILD OF THE DEVIL! There's no kind of in-between class called Jews, that are just part-saved, and God's going to partly bless them and partly curse them just because they're Jews, so-called‚ the natural children of Abraham—Israel, so-called!

27. I'M SORRY, BUT I CAN'T GET OFF THE SUBJECT; IT BUGS ME!—That all these years I didn't see it so clearly. God had to bring me all the way over here and rub my nose in it so I'd smell a rat—a lot of rats!

28. EVEN PAUL, in spite of all his marvelous intellect and elaborate legal defense of Grace, and bitter attacks on works of the flesh, COULDN'T QUITE BRING HIMSELF TO TOTALLY ABANDON THE JEWS. In spite of ninety-nine percent of his doctrine against the subject, he seemed to throw in about one percent hint that, in spite of all God's total emphasis upon Grace alone, somehow the Jews are going to get some special little corner in the Kingdom! Provided, of course, that they accept Jesus, but just because they're Jews and children of Abraham by the flesh.

29. JUST LIKE SOME OF THESE JEWISH CHRISTIANS I'VE MET—just like I myself have felt for years, that somehow just because I'm a little bit Jewish after the flesh, somehow a little bit more Christian than other Christians—"I'm a very special kind of Christian. I'm a partly-Jewish Christian, so I'm bound to get the blessing of God one way or the other, a little bit more than you poor totally Gentiles!"

30. WHAT A LIE OF THE DEVIL! WHAT IS IT THE SCRIPTURE SAYS ANYHOW? "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free‚ there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Even the 29th verse—"And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Oh, Wow!—Begin with the whole Bible! This subject is almost without beginning or end, it's so big! But look at the 26th verse of the same chapter—Galatians 3: "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." Verse 27—"For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ." That doesn't mean water baptism, either. It means baptism by the Spirit—in His Spirit. But even there you could have stopped and thought "Yes‚ that's true! We are all, whether Jew or Gentile, children of Faith by Christ Jesus. I know that I believe in Grace‚ not in Works. But nevertheless I, as a Jew‚ am just a little bit more favoured child of God than the Gentiles. As a Jew, I have the jump on them. I'm Just a little bit ahead of them in the race. I'm without the handicap of having been a Gentile. Therefore, I'm just a little bit more blessed by God! God's a little partial to me because I'm one of His flesh-and–blood children—not only spiritual child‚ but flesh-and–blood child!

31. GOD HAS NO FLESH-AND-BLOOD CHILDREN! There's no such thing! We Jews are not more special to God than any other child of God! He's not more partial to us—He's going to no more favour us than any other dear believer in Jesus! We haven't got the edge on anybody! That's Jewish propaganda—a hangover from Judaism—a self-righteous hangover—a doctrine of the Concision, saying, "We're all Children of God, Jew and Gentile, but we Jews—we're just a little bit more so than others!"

32. SO GOD BLESS PAUL! HE REALLY COMES AROUND BY THE SPIRIT IN THIS 28TH VERSE, and he knocks that whole thing into a cocked hat! "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female…"—And he keeps repeating this word "neither" so you won't misunderstand it or lose track of the thought. There just ain't no such thing as far as God's concerned, "…for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." There's no difference! There's just no such thing as Jew or Gentile in Jesus! I just never saw it so clearly before! Do you see it? I've read that all my life and I never saw it so clearly before. There's no such thing as a Jewish Christian or a Gentile Christian! You're either a Jew or a Christian, a Gentile or a Christian. You can't be both, any more than you can be a Gentile and a Jew at the same time!

33. IN FACT, IT WOULD BE EASIER TO BE A JEW AND A GENTILE AT THE SAME TIME THAN A JEW AND A CHRISTIAN. It's an absolute impossibility! Why even the Jews know that! They've been telling me that for years—the dear Jews I've been witnessing to for years. They couldn't understand how you could be both a Jew and a Christian! And they were right! Now I've got to go back and apologise to them!

34. "Oh yes, you can even be a better Jew if you're a Christian!" That was a downright lie that I've been trying to deceive them with all these years. I didn't know any better. I was honestly deceived.

35. WE ALL HAVE OUR WEAK MOMENTS—and the dear Apostle Paul was no exception. There are a few times when he had to confess: "This say I, not the Lord." My God, what a travesty on the truth! He himself says right here that once you become a Christian, you're no longer a Jew nor a Greek, nor bond nor free, nor male, nor female. Now you're just Jesus—one in Christ—one body—not a Jewish right arm and a Gentile left arm—one just a little stronger and better than the other. The flesh doesn't enter into it in any way‚ shape, or form whatsoever, no matter whose blood flows through your veins! I don't care who the Hell you are! You could be Abraham or Moses or Elijah, and still not make it, if you didn't have faith in Jesus! And now that you're a Christian, you belong to Jesus! You are Jesus'!—A part of His Body! You're no longer Abraham's, Moses', or Elijah's—you're just Jesus', you're just His! You're just part of Him—nothing else! IT'S ALL JESUS!—NO JEW AT ALL—JUST JESUS! That's all you got, Buddy! FORGET THE REST! IT'S AN OLD HANG-UP, AND THE QUICKER YOU GET OUT OF IT, THE BETTER. Neither Jew nor Greek—just Jesus! And if you still want to use that word "Jew," then be sure you apply it to all the saved in His Son—just those who love Jesus! They're the only Jews left! … Jesus is the only door and once you've gone through the door, boy, you're nothing but Jesus'. You might as well leave all the rest behind‚ because it doesn't mean a thing to God any more! TO HELL WITH BEING JEWISH [OR GENTILE‚ OR BLACK OR WHITE, OR RICH OR POOR, ETC.]!—UP WITH JESUS!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family