Apostle Paul Didn’t Reject Israel So Why Are So Many Christians Doing so Today?

 For sure, all the world’s eyes are on Israel.  How is it possible that 7 million people on a tiny sliver of land could command so much attention?  For Bible readers of a certain stripe the answer is obvious;  because God is doing something with His people and His land and the Prince of this World (Satan) doesn’t like it and wants them all dead.

But for some other Bible readers and regular church attendees, they’ve arrived at a far different conclusion.  They think that Israel is over, God is done with them and they have nothing left to fulfill.

We were at The Gaithers Concert last night and they sang a song WHY CANT ALL GOD’S PEOPLE GET ALONG?  There was a chorus that said “we’re all different singers singing the same song”…but are we?  Are we singing the same song as all the false teachers and wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus said would come?  

Some topics matter for salvation and some don’t.  But God seems serious about getting the topic of Israel correct.  He’s going to judge the nations based on how they treated Israel.

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It’s safe to say that, among the nations of the world, Israel perhaps evokes stronger thoughts and emotions in people than any other. Israel and polarization seem to fit hand in glove, as people either strongly like or love Israel or dislike or even hate the Jewish nation. It seems most people tend to feel very strongly about Israel, one way or another.

In the church today, the nation of Israel is also a point of contention, not geopolitically, per se, but biblically. In short, as it pertains to God’s relationship with Israel in the future, there are only two basic viewpoints: God is either finished with Israel or God has a future for Israel.

God’s Future for Israel—Rom. 11:25–36

We see in Romans 11:25–36 God’s glorious plan for the future salvation of Israel. Verses 25–27 say, “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.”

Notice in verse 25 that Paul doesn’t want the brethren to be ignorant of this mystery. The word “mystery” in the New Testament refers to truth not previously revealed. Specifically, the mystery is that Israel’s hardening is partial, and it will only last for a divinely specified time until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. This is the completion of what we know as the Church Age. God knows the beginning from the end. 

When that time comes, verse 26 states that all Israel will be saved. Paul quotes Isaiah 59 about the Deliverer coming from Zion to remove ungodliness from Jacob, a reference to Israel, and to take away their sins. Maybe you’re wondering what it means that all of Israel will be saved. Some Bible commentators believe Israel in this verse refers to the whole nation. Others believe it refers to all Jewish people everywhere in the world, including the nation of Israel, who are alive when Jesus returns.

Hear the words from Zechariah 12:10, a prophecy about the Second Coming of Christ, when the Jewish people repent and turn to Him. God says through the prophet, “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”

Paul’s Response to God’s Plan

Paul’s response to this revelation God gives him about Israel’s future is this: Praise! Consider Romans 11:33–36: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”

God’s plan is beautiful and will be beautiful in its time. History is His story, and part of His story of redemption is that all Israel will be saved in such a way that God’s mercy will be evident to all. Knowing God’s plan for Israel is like being part of a wedding party. You know the wedding is going to be beautiful, and your anticipation is great. You know the plan. Yet, you still have to work the plan. No matter what your place is in the wedding ceremony, you’ve got to take your rightful place and fulfill your responsibilities.

You and I, who know the Lord, are part of the bride of Christ. We are His church and our response to God’s future restoration of Israel should mirror Paul’s—the praising of God. No doubt it’s miraculous that Israel, a nation conquered and dispersed two thousand years ago would become a nation again in 1948 out of the ashes of the Holocaust. 

Is God finished with Israel? NO! God is working out His plan and we as His bride are called to praise Him, communicate His plan, and proclaim His Gospel to Jewish people and to all people. May our confidence in God and His promises renew and reinvigorate us today.

https://harbingersdaily.com/the-apostle-paul-didnt-reject-gods-future-plans-for-israel-why-does-a-large-segment-the-church/

Three Reasons Why Christians Can’t Defend the Bible

Have you ever heard a sermon on the Nephilim of Genesis 6?  Why do you suppose that is?

How do you answer when someone says, “so Adam and Eve’s kids, brothers and sisters, were getting married and having sex?  Gross! Incest??  No way!”

No doubt, evolution is just a bad theory but it’s taught as a fact in all our public schools.  Because of this many Christians have tried to fold evolution into Genesis and it simply doesn’t work.  And if Genesis is just a myth then maybe the rest of the Bible is just a myth?  And why surrender your life to a mythical God who has zero power over anything?

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In over 50 years of traveling and speaking on Genesis, biblical worldview, and apologetics, one comment I continue to hear over and over again is, “I grew up in the church my whole life, and I’ve never heard any of this!” Why is it that so few Christians can answer the skeptical questions of our day that attack God’s Word—particularly, Genesis?

Well, I’ll give you three reasons:

They’ve compromised with the atheistic ideas of our day.

So many Christians have adopted evolutionary ideas and added them into Scripture. This makes it impossible to answer basic questions about Genesis because, well, you don’t really believe Genesis at all! Man’s interpretations are your authority, not God and His Word.

Many Christians don’t know what the Bible teaches.

We’re living in a time of rampant biblical illiteracy. Many Christians can’t answer questions because they don’t know what the Word of God teaches.

There’s been a lack of apologetics (faith-defense) teaching in our churches and homes.

Many Christians attend churches that preach “feel good,” or what I call “fluff and stuff,” shallow messages, rather than actually teaching the biblical worldview and wrestling with the questions of our day.

Many pastors purposefully avoid Genesis because they don’t want to be controversial! But Genesis is foundational to our biblical worldview, so avoiding Genesis means that pastors will also avoid talking about hot-button issues that are answered in Genesis, like gender, sexuality, race, sanctity of life, and more. The result is generations of Christians who don’t know what they believe or how to defend the truth of Scripture.

So what do we do about it? Well, we need to raise up generations who know what God’s Word teaches (that means we need to be reading our Bibles!) and are equipped to think biblically, allowing God’s Word to be the authority in all areas, and thus to have answers for skeptical questions.

 https://harbingersdaily.com/three-reasons-why-christians-so-ill-equipped-to-defend-gods-word/

Minions of Minneapolis

 Sadly, we live too close to Minneapolis.  We never have to go there but the liberal, godless folks who live in Minneapolis and St. Paul outnumber all of us who live in the country West of the cities that stretches from Rockford to the South Dakota border.  In Wright County where we live, all 53 precincts went for Trump in 2024.  But we are ruled by the voters in Minneapolis, St Paul and the surrounding suburbs who vote Democrat.

This blog was started back in 2008.  In 2009 we blogged on a strange tornado that showed up on a cloudless day in Minneapolis.  I will post the link here;  https://thetrumpetblows.blogspot.com/search?q=central+lutheran

Today in Rapture Ready, their Nearing Midnight segment features an article by Terry James called THE MINIONS OF MINNEAPOLIS and in it he recalls the same tornado that we blogged on 17 years ago.

Minions of Minneapolis

My great friend Jan Markell, head of one of the most Christ-centered ministries of recent decades in America, has spoken and written on the geographical area where her Olive Tree Ministries and Understanding the Times radio program have been located. She has expressed that she senses the demonic influences that have manifested in the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

She and I have discussed how this region seems to be the center of Satan’s concentrated attack in very recent times. And the evidence of this demonic assault continues to mount.

My son Nathan and I were in Minneapolis just days before a direct statement by Heaven, I believe, took place in the city.

We were there on July 25, 2009, to be interviewed for the History Channel’s series The Nostradamus Effect. I remember vividly sensing a fearful ambience while there, even while being driven from our hotel to the building where the filming would take place.

Our driver, a young woman who was probably about nineteen or twenty, told us she was very nervous about having to pick up the next person to be interviewed.

She was Hispanic by ethnicity, and the man she was supposed drive to the studio next was a person she called “a white supremacist.” I could hear the fear in her voice, even though, being blind, I couldn’t see her while she was speaking.

Being the grandfatherly sort, I tried to assure her that all would be well. Any such person would be on their best behavior.

I remember the date very well because while I was in the chair to be interviewed, having the TV make-up applied, one of the film crew came in excitedly and said Michael Jackson had just died. Also, we later learned that Farrah Fawcett of Charlie’s Angels fame also had died that day.

So, it was a memorable trip to that city, now so central to what Jan and I agree have been evil doings going on.

Less than a month after Nathan and I visited Minneapolis, as stated above, Heaven made a direct statement about wickedness taking place in the city and area even then, before all the evil we’ve witnessed there in recent weeks.

On August 19, 2009, the first buildings on the downtown side of I94 in Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Convention Center and a church, were struck by a tornado. The twister severely damaged the convention center roof, shredded some tents on the grounds, then broke off the steeple of the church, splitting in two the cross atop the steeple before it lifted. It was 2:01 p.m. that the tornado touched down at Central Lutheran Church, the largest ELCA cathedral in North and South America, where the assembly had gathered for worship.

At the very moment of the storm, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was meeting in a convention in Minneapolis to vote on whether to begin ordaining practicing homosexual pastors. For years, liberals had tried to get this policy change through, but it had always been thwarted.

Pastors and other theologians at the time called the out-of-the-blue tornado a “warning” from God to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which had been meeting to debate a liberalized policy on homosexuality. This is also definitely my thought on this dramatic weather event that produced what was, I believe, a spiritual tornado. At least, I think it was meant to give God’s opinion about that organization’s ungodly decision.

Now, it seems any lesson from above that might have been learned has been forgotten by those in charge of things going on in Minneapolis. The darkening, demonic activity that continues to spread, considering the governmental leadership that champions anti-God comportment and the theft of billions of dollars from American taxpayers, exhibits just how prevalent the days of Lot configuration is there and elsewhere in America and the world.

And the proof that the lesson hasn’t been learned in Minneapolis is seen clearly in this news excerpt:

On Thursday, the Minneapolis City Council voted to begin the legislative process that could potentially lead to the legalization of “adult bathhouses and sex venues.”

Since 1988, adult bathhouses have been outlawed in Minneapolis. Those bathhouses, which housed saunas and pools, were almost exclusively frequented by gay men who met up for anonymous sex. As a result, the bathhouses were a hive of sexually transmitted diseases.

In Minneapolis, the bathhouses were banned largely due to the spread of AIDS throughout the gay population…

Now, the Minneapolis City Council has advanced a measure that could result in bathhouses returning to the city. In a 12-0 vote, the 13-member city council directed staff to explore changes to existing law regarding bathhouses. (“Minneapolis advances measure that could lead to legalization of ‘adult bathhouses and sex venues’” by Luke Sprinkel, Alpha News MN)

In reflecting on my brief conversation with Jan and thinking about that once-great American city, the realization struck. This city, which is obviously under satanic attack, is a target for the Ephesians 6:12 powers and principalities for reasons that make spiritual sense.

This is the area of the world where the gospel of Jesus Christ exploded onto the world in modern times. With the coming of mass communications came perhaps God’s foremost evangelist. It is a name everyone in America recognizes, and this goes for the people of most of the world as well.

September of 1950 was when Billy Graham’s organization was founded in Minneapolis.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was the very heart of powerful expansion of the saving message of Jesus Christ. Jan’s own ministry carries on that all important push to get the message that Jesus saves from this geographical area. Is it any wonder Satan and his minions wage war on this twin-city area that serves as the center for evangelization of America and the world?

Those minions of Minneapolis might seem to have the upper hand in the spiritual battle at the moment. But Jesus has spoken truth, and the victory that will belong to all who believe in Him is already accomplished.

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). 

Here;  Rapture Ready - Nearing Midnight Weekly Commentary

Many of you know that I was raised and confirmed in the ELCA Lutheran church in Golden Valley, MN.  I had never heard the true Gospel in all the years I attended there.  My understanding of Jesus was that he wanted us to be nice, go to church every Sunday, sing in the choir and wear nice clothes while doing it all.

I believe it's very possible that the churches in Minnesota started to die alongside the saying, "Minnesota nice!"  We have a reputation for being really nice people and I think that lots of nice people went to church growing up but they didn't think it was very nice of Jesus to say, "I am the way, the truth and the life.  NO MAN comes to the Father but through me."  That was very intolerant thing to say!  And like Oprah, who famously said, "There can't be only one way!", I believe lots of Minnesotans that I was raised with fell away from the real Jesus of the Bible and instead accepted the false gospel of "be nice and everything will be fine...because heaven will be filled with nice people."

Persecuting Christians is a Booming Business

 It shouldn’t surprise us that the world hates Christians because Jesus told us they would.  But what is surprising is the silence in America and the West.  Where are the TV crews?  Where are the feminists screaming for Justice for their sisters?  Where are the leftists who claim to champion support for the oppressed?  Where is the LGBTQ brigade screaming for gay marriage and trans rights in Muslim nations?

Oh that’s right…they’re all busy ordering their Palestinian scarves.

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• "They want everyone to learn Islam, and... there are those who refuse, and they get killed." — A survivor, persecution.org, January 22, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• "How can we understand that fighters have been operating freely for over two weeks in the same area, attacking village after village, without any effective response from the security forces?... The population feels abandoned to its fate, exposed to massacres while official speeches multiply without any visible action on the ground." — barnabasaid.org, January 27, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• "The night I was abducted, they killed my mother and kidnapped my older sister and me. The slightest mistakes are severely punished. For women, they kill their children and throw them into a hole. They would send me to kill people on my own, and when I refused, I was whipped all over my body." — persecution.org, January 22, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• "I was raped by four men successively. I couldn't handle the pain of four men abusing me successively. I was wounded terribly, my body was deformed." — Esther, age 11, persecution.org, January 22, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• ADF uses abduction, forced conversion to Islam, gang rape, and child soldier recruitment as a deliberate strategy to terrorize and reduce the Christian population in eastern Congo. — persecution.org, January 22, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• "Those victims did not pursue legal action, which appears to have emboldened him. He showed no hesitation before attempting to burn Morris alive." — Rakha, morningstarnews.org, January 29, 2026, Pakistan.

• "The girl was forced to record a statement claiming she had willingly converted to Islam and married Ahmad. She also falsely stated that she was an adult, despite official documentary evidence proving that she is a minor [13] and below the legal age of marriage under provincial child marriage laws, which prohibit the marriage of girls under 16." — Rana Abdul Hameed, lawyer for the family of Maria Shahbaz, morningstarnews.org, January 15, 2016, Pakistan.

• On Jan. 1, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) "released an image of one of the Christian villages in Adamawa State burning, alongside a statement saying that all Christians in Nigeria are legitimate targets, and they have an opportunity to 'spare their blood' by converting to Islam or paying the jizyah tax to ISWAP." — dailypost.ng, January 1, 2026, Nigeria.

• "Iran has an open secret. Persecuting Christians is a booming business in the Muslim-majority nation, and the country is earning large sums of money from arresting Christ followers." — persecution.org, January 22, 2026.

• There were many other attacks on churches throughout Italy in the month of January—including fecal smearing and statue beheadings.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22475/persecution-of-christians-january