Reality and Pure Fancy

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Biological and chemical weapons that can wipe out whole populations, along with nuclear weapons, which have the ability to destroy life on earth, are an ever-present threat to all the peoples of the earth. And not all of those weapons or the material to make them are under the strict supervision of peace-loving, prosperous nations that would never consider selling their wares to the highest bidder.

To offset that unnerving reality, I ask you to indulge in a momentary flight of pure fancy. Let us imagine that, tomorrow, all Christians and Muslims suddenly believed the Hebrew Prophets and bowed down to the Jews, in wholehearted recognition of the honored role we’ve been told they will play in the Messianic Age. If that happened, the stunned “fathers” of monotheism would stop in their tracks, praise God with all their heart, soul, and strength — and turn their hearts to the “children” of the faith. Or if, tomorrow, all Jews were to suddenly believe Muhammad, look up to Heaven and say, “Our Messiah, Jesus, we await you,” stunned Christians and Muslims would stop in their tracks, praise God with all their heart, soul, and strength — and turn their hearts to the fathers. And if, tomorrow, believers made real peace with each other, then God’s other children — the heathens and skeptics who prefer their own beliefs to believing in a God Whose devotees hate each other — would finally have a tangible reason to rethink their own beliefs.

Most Christians and Muslims, however, do not believe the Jews will become “a name and a praise” in the Messianic Age, as the Prophet Zephaniah foretold (Zeph. 3:20). And the Jews have never believed that Jesus and Muhammad were true Messengers from God. Hence, in the absence of immediate Divine intervention, the three families that call themselves “believers” are not going to make peace tomorrow; their unbelief prevents it. So, tomorrow, they’ll do as they’ve always done: Instead of embracing beliefs that would turn their hearts to each other, they’ll call each other liars! And “gross darkness” with “utter destruction” shall envelop the earth, as the Prophets Isaiah and Malachi precisely described (Isa. 60:2; Mal. 3:24/4:6).

The above is an edited excerpt from my book, “Of Promises and Previews”

“Utter Destruction”: a “Do-it-Yourself” Project

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Through the Hebrew Scriptures, the “Lord of hosts” (Isa. 9:6) tells us that someday: “…I shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; Lest I come and smite the land with utter destruction” (Mal. 3:24/4:6). The “fathers” of monotheism are the Hebrews; the “children” are the Christians and Muslims — along with all of “God’s children,” regardless of their beliefs.

The “fathers,” through the Hebrew Scriptures, were the first to speak of the promised Messiah, who will serve as the “…ruler in Israel…” and he shall be “…great unto the ends of the earth” (Mic. 5:3). Under the Messiah’s rule, the Israelites, who had become “a curse” among the nations, will then become “a name and a praise,” and there will be “...peace without end...The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall accomplish this” (Isa. 9:6/7).

In other words, Judaism identifies the Messiah by his deeds, which he will successfully execute through “the zeal of the Lord of hosts.” Obviously, when Jesus lived in Israel, he did not perform the prescribed deeds, since there is no “peace without end,” and the Jews are still cursed the world over. Therefore, regardless of the “children’s” beliefs, the “fathers” have stood firm in their denial of “the Messiah, Jesus,” as Muhammad identified Jesus (Women 4:171). In daily life, it has been that denial that has kept the Jews “a curse and a reproach” (Jer. 44:12)

For 2,000 years, “the children” have cursed and killed “the fathers” whenever they’ve felt “inspired” to cleanse their neighborhood, city, or nation of Jews. These days, however, all nations have become so accessible and modern weaponry so powerful, some Muslims have become convinced they can finally make “God’s religion reign supreme” (The Cow 2:193). To supplant Judaism and Christianity with the “ultimate truth” expressed through Islam, those Muslims believe they could righteously use the weapons of mass destruction that would annihilate “God’s enemies” (including “the great Satan,” as they speak of the United States).

It’s tempting for outsiders to think of those Muslims as only “a fringe group of fanatics,” over which the world will surely gain control before they do any “real damage.” But, in the populous Muslim community, the persons who believe it their sacred duty to “drive Israel into the sea” constitute a sizable “fringe group.” To be sure, all Muslim nations do not openly clamor for Israel’s demise. Still, the rest of the world has no reason to expect Muslims to war against Muslims, merely to prevent a biological or chemical attack against “the Zionists,” their most immediate and mutual enemy. That attack, alone, would launch a nuclear war.

If we truly seek to avoid that war, Jews, Christians, Muslims — and all of God’s children — urgently need to enlarge our understanding of the God revealed by all the Prophets, from Abraham through Muhammad. Only through our improved understanding can we begin to turn our hearts to each other — and distance ourselves from the “utter destruction” we now know how to create as a “do-it-yourself” project!

(Some of the above is excerpted from my book: “Of Promises and Previews.”)

How We’ll Get to Setting the World on Fire

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Today, in response to emails from visitors to my website and this blog, I’m providing some background for the on-going, never-ending religious arguments that are now threatening to set the world on fire.

Excerpt from Chapter 18 (“Of Promises and Previews”):

The Old Testament often speaks of the restoration of the Davidic kingdom in Israel, during the Messianic Age. At that time, God has promised to “...save My flock, and they shall no more be a prey...and I will set up one shepherd over them....” Then, “The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel...” (Ezek. 34:22–23, 37:28).

The Hebrew Prophets often spoke of that promised glorious kingdom, but they had little to say about the “one shepherd” of the kingdom. Evidently, they knew almost nothing about him, beyond the fact that out of Bethlehem “...shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days....” “And he shall stand, and shall feed his flock...in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God...for then shall he be great unto the ends of the earth...” (Micah 5:1,3).

Thus, from early times, Judaism focused on the kingdom that will flourish in the Messianic Age, while Christianity and Islam focused on the “one shepherd” of that kingdom — of whom the Jews knew practically nothing. The trouble that came from those two related but separate subjects quickly surfaced.

The Jews, convinced that Christians and Muslims followed false prophets, paid no attention to their teachings about the coming “one shepherd”: “the Messiah, Jesus,” as Muhammad identified him. And the younger monotheistic families, each convinced it had supplanted the fathers of their faith, paid little or no attention to the promised sanctification of Israel in the Messianic Age. In fact, aside from acknowledging “the Messiah, Jesus,” the Koran doesn’t speak of that Age; its future concern is with “the Last Day,” the Judgment Day of mankind (The Family of Imran 3:114).

As it was in those early years, so it is today. Believers revere their own family’s messages, as their clerics interpret them, and they dismiss, as false or obsolete, all teachings that do not conform to their own. As long as each family’s shepherds aggrandize their own understanding of their own teachings and besmirch the others, they cannot “...turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers...,” as Malachi warned must happen, if the world is to be spared “utter destruction” (Mal. 3:24/4:6). Nor can bitterly divided and self-aggrandizing believers inspire unbelievers to turn to the God Who has promised to bless “all the families of the earth” through Abraham (Gen. 12:2–3).

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I'm taking a moment to digress from my "theme," to suggest that visitors to this site take a peek at the sites I've listed as Links. The Links represent a very diverse group of "bloggers," presenting all manner of opinions very opposite mine! I believe if you'll thoughtfully read them, you could find that I am approaching our very real and urgent world crisis with ideas that are extremely unique--which is what we must have in this unique time in human history!

Never before have humans been threatened by a worldwide "nuclear war," and all the chaos it will produce. We need to "get smarter" about the God Who explicitly warned us of this time, through the Hebrew Prophets, who also told us how to avoid the destruction. You have nothing to lose by contemplating the subject except a little of your time--which, after all, isn't yours to keep anyway! And which, after all, may not last much longer if we won't learn enough to persuade the "Muslim fanatics" to rethink their own beliefs.

Monotheism in a Small Nutshell

To counter the extremist beliefs of today’s “religious terrorists,” we need the wisdom and courage to improve our own religious understanding. To accomplish that, we first need to recall some elementary historical facts.

The Hebrew Prophets delivered messages to their tribesmen, which they tell us came from the One and Only unseen but omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent “Lord God,” introduced by a man named Abraham. But the Hebrews were never instructed to seek converts to their faith among their heathen neighbors, who avidly worshipped more than 2,000 “visible” gods. So, Abraham’s unseen God was scarcely noticed by anyone outside the tiny Hebrew nation of Israel.

Around 1400 years after Moses delivered the laws that still govern the Hebrews, the Christians emerged from among Israel’s small population. Unlike the Hebrews, the Christians were distinctly told to “spread the word,” and, ever since, they have never ceased to reveal God to an attentive worldwide audience. The early Christians not only succeeded in converting uncountable heathens to a belief in One God, they also introduced mankind’s Messiah, a “visible Being,” to whom the heathens, accustomed to worshiping visible gods, could readily relate.

About six hundred years later, Muhammad did for his tribesmen in Arabia, what the Christian missionaries could not accomplish there. He persuaded numberless heathens, who had completely rejected Christianity’s messages, to believe in Abraham’s “Lord God.” But, while delivering the messages that became the Koran, Muhammad chastised both the Jews and the Christians for their erroneous interpretations of their own Sacred Writings. In short, he unequivocally refuted the divisive teachings that still incite Jews and Christians to scorn and hate each other.

Specifically, Muhammad’s messages established the absolute validity of the “Messiah Jesus.” And he clearly rebuked Judaism’s clergy for rejecting Jesus as the fulfillment of the Hebrew’s traditional belief in a coming Messiah. But, Muhammad also rebuked Christianity’s clergy, which, by Muhammad’s time, had long since officially identified Jesus as the Second Member of a Holy Trinity,“God, the Son.” That “title” still disgusts Jews and Muslims, who remain solely dedicated to the One and Only, invisible “Lord God” of Abraham. In reality, throughout Christianity’s history onto today, some people who identify themselves as “Christians” reject the concept of Jesus as “God Incarnate” and acknowledge him solely as the world’s promised Messiah, recognized by the first Christians, before their clergy “enlarged” his identity, centuries later.

In those few paragraphs, we have the most essential messages of the three religions. So, everyone who believes in Abraham’s Lord God, and believes that Jesus is mankind’s Messiah, and believes that “the Messiah does not disdain to be a servant of God” (Women 4:172), as Muhammad described Jesus, is essentially a Jew, Christian and Muslim, though they might not acknowledge it! But, their religions “practices” can differentiate them from their fellow believers, if that’s important to them! We’ll discuss some of those religious practices next time.


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