Watchman on the Wall

Voiceover: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. God is still on the throne, and prayer changes things. Today, you and I get a special treat as we listen in on a fascinating conversation between Josh Davis and author Lee Brainard about Israel in Bible prophecy.

Swrc.com, this special website has over 1,000 items designed to educate and encourage you in your walk with Jesus. Books and DVDs at swrc.com. Your favorite authors and teachers helping bring clarity to the chaos. Resources for Mac Dominick, J.B. Hixson, and Don Perkins are available at swrc.com. And our weekly emails, they're delivered to your inbox each week free of charge with encouragement, information, and the latest on new resources and conferences. Sign up today at swrc.com.

Since Israel's rebirth as a nation, people have pondered, what is God's plan for Israel? The theological debate is rapidly increasing in our day. We must answer important questions like how can people trust a God who changes His mind and breaks His irrevocable promises? Bible prophecy teacher Lee Brainard joins Josh Davis to answer these crucial questions on today's Watchman on the Wall program.

Josh Davis: Greetings friends, we're at a wonderful Bible prophecy conference where we get to hear people talk about the magnificent word of God. Someone who loves the God of the word and the word of God is joining me today. It's Lee Brainard. He's a Christian author and speaker, frequent Bible prophecy expert and speaker at Bible prophecy conferences. Today we're exploring a big can of worms, and that's Israel, because it's so much in the news, so much on social media. What's God's plan for Israel? Antisemitism is on the rise in the Western world, especially the United States of America. Canada seems to be really exploding among young people. People are wondering what should we think about Israel, what's its role in the Bible? So we're going to explore a lot of these dimensions. But let's start with Israel's role in God's prophetic plan. Lee, it's wonderful to have you.

Lee Brainard: Thank you again, Josh, to be with you guys, Southwest Radio Church. What's amazing to me about God's plan for Israel is we have a situation that's absolutely unique in world history. A nation that ceased to exist nearly 2,000 years ago and has come back to life. This is creating tremendous anguish for the atheists, for false perversions of Christianity that have replacement theology. They don't like the existence of Israel.

But God has held out promises in the Bible that we should pray for the peace of Jerusalem. He held out promises in the Bible about there's blessing for the nations that support Israel, and there's curses for those that go against Israel. This confuses a lot of people because they think, well, we can't endorse everything that Israel does. Well, that's not the issue. Why throw dust in the air? What believer is going to endorse everything Israel does? Israel is an unbelieving nation. God doesn't endorse everything Israel does or is.

But God has a plan for Israel. God is going to restore backslidden Israel and return to her her blessings, her covenant. He's going to bring her back to the old covenant so He can bring her into the new covenant. I love Romans chapter 11, verses 28 and 29. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sakes, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

Now, what's interesting here is we use this verse all the time in evangelicalism about, okay, you've got some booboos in your life, you messed up, but don't worry about it, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. This is a legitimate application. But when God takes this principle of restoration and the fulfillment of promises and the permanency of His gifts and calling, what does He apply it to? The most hated concept in the world, which is Israel.

God is saying, listen, I fully understand that Israel is backslidden. You're not telling me anything I don't know. I fully understand Israel's got a wicked immoral government. So does every other nation on earth. You're not telling me anything I don't know. But I am God. I have eternally chosen Jacob. I've eternally chosen Israel. And I am going to restore them. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. What a blessing this is.

Josh Davis: That is, and I've not heard very many people touch on that scripture, so I'm so glad that you have brought that out and brought that to light because that's a very powerful argument to think about. What are some of the other things that you have uncovered in your scripture studies and in understanding God's role for Israel, God's view of Israel, and how the church should view its relationship with Israel in these days that we live?

Lee Brainard: Well, this is a great question because typically people look at the relationship between Israel and the church and they say, well, Israel messed up, God set them on the shelf, He's put them away, they're done. They're retired. And now God's dealing with the church. If you go down this replacement theology path, how do you actually trust God? Because God has said, okay, Israel, you messed up so bad, I'm permanently done with you. I wash my hands of you. We're setting you aside.

How do we know He won't do that with the church? What if He says I'm going to wash my hands of the church and I'm going to go to something else? Do we really believe that we are better than Israel? We're still human beings. We're still flesh and blood. We're still struggling, we're lukewarm, we're worldly, we have our own problems. We're not worse or better than Israel. We're the exact same.

Really, the encouragement here with Israel is, this is a tremendous picture to the whole world. I've been dealing with Israel, backslidden Israel for 3,500 years. I'm not done with her. I'm going to do what I promised to do. I'm going to restore her. This should be an encouragement for the church and an encouragement for the believer. If God can put up with Israel for 3,500 years, well then maybe He can put up with me for my 20, 30, or 40 years.

Josh Davis: Absolutely, and that's something that we really need to nail down because there are many believers who are turning their back on Israel, saying, oh, that was Old Testament, we're in the New Testament age. In fact, some even popular well-known pastors are saying we can basically ignore the Old Testament and we don't need to study that. Let's live in the New Testament, we're New Testament Christians. They're ignoring all of this and it's really damaging the message, the mandate, the mission of the New Testament church. I'm afraid it's such a big distraction for our local churches and for Christians. It is a salvation issue at one point, but it also is a missions issue on another point. It's something that we sometimes get lost in the shuffle in understanding those kinds of things.

Lee Brainard: Absolutely. What people need to understand when it comes to dealing with Israel is that God is going to restore Israel and there's a tremendous purpose in this. When God set Israel aside, His program was to put her in the backside of the desert and then eventually bring her through a time of Tribulation and fix the problems. If we can understand that God is actually going to allow Israel and bring Israel into a time of trial to purify her, then we're going to understand that God is going to restore Israel. Replacement theology is really a tremendous problem in our day.

Josh Davis: It is, and let's touch a little on what is replacement theology. I would like to come back to the idea, too, of God's plan for Israel, how the Tribulation ties into that. But let's start by unpacking for our viewers and listeners a little bit more of what is replacement theology, how do we see that system working in our world today?

Lee Brainard: Replacement theology is the concept that Israel sinned so bad, God said, okay, I'm totally done with you, He retires Israel and He takes up the church. We're the new Israel. Now, there's problems with this because now we have to spiritualize the Old Testament promises or ignore them. All the Old Testament judgment we just have to totally ignore that. We don't want the judgment on us.

The problem with this comes right back to where we were earlier. Does God make a promise and then not keep it? Or does God make a promise and then change His mind? Either way, how do you trust this God? But as soon as we embrace the fact that God is going to actually restore Israel, He wants Israel to be the centerpiece of the world, so that Israel isn't given an exclusive relationship with God that nobody else gets. Israel's really intended to be a conduit so when He brings blessing to Israel, it's going to be a blessing for the Gentiles.

In fact, we have Israel's glorious restoration here. Romans 11:12 and Romans 11:15. For if their fall is riches for the world and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness? For if their casting away was the reconciling of the world, what shall their reception be but life from the dead? Basically, what the Lord is saying is you thought I did something amazing back at Pentecost? Wait until we do Pentecost 2.0 when I restore Israel. When I set Israel aside, it brought tremendous blessings to the Gentiles. When I restore Israel, it'll bring even greater blessings. Israel is designed to be a conduit of blessing for the world. If you are going to be opposed to Israel, God's plans for Israel, you are opposed to your own blessing, you're opposed to the blessing of the world.

Josh Davis: Amen. What a powerful point that you've made there, absolutely. We understand, too, that God does have a plan for Israel, and replacement theology is really damaging God's blessing on our life. I love the fact that you've brought that out. Now, let's think about God's plan for Israel, the Tribulation specifically, Israel's role in the Tribulation and what that time of testing will do for Israel, and how that God will work through that seven-year period that's yet future to ultimately bring about the promises that He has made to Israel.

Lee Brainard: For instance, in Jeremiah 30, verse 7 we read, Alas, for that day is great so there is none like it, it is even the time of Jacob's trouble. God's got a time in the future, it's designated for Jacob or designated for Israel. This same time is called in Matthew 24:21, a tribulation such as the world has never seen. God has promised to bring Israel through this Tribulation. It's going to be disciplinary and restorative.

When you have a problem with unbelief, we're familiar with the concept of people getting converted in difficult situations or a foxhole conversion. God is going to give Israel a foxhole conversion. He's going to put her in a deep battle, a deep time of trial and tribulation and's going to bring her to the end of herself. When we finally come to the end of ourselves, the end of all earthly hope, the end of all self-hope, the end of all worldly hope, that's when we can lay hold of eternal hope. That's when we can lay hold of the Messianic hope, the hope in Jesus. God is going to do that for Israel in the Tribulation.

Josh Davis: Then when we read the verses of the second coming of Christ, there's so much that's included for Israel in the second coming and then in the Millennial Kingdom. Can you touch on that as we're continuing this discussion to get a bigger glimpse of God's picture and plan for Israel?

Lee Brainard: When the Lord Jesus returns and He's going to gather the sheep and the goats, there's a third group there from Matthew 25 that many people miss. All they see is the sheep and the goats. The sheep are the saved Gentiles. The goats are the unsaved Gentiles. When the Lord is addressing them, He makes a single point, the evidence of whether they were believers or not. They're not being saved on the basis of works. They're being saved on the basis of faith, and the evidence of their faith was a relationship to Israel. Inasmuch as you did this to the least of my brethren, you did it to me. He is going to be so intimately associated with Israel in the Tribulation that their heartbeat is His heartbeat, His heartbeat is their heartbeat. That believing remnant is the judgment rule or the measuring stick for the Gentiles in the Tribulation.

Josh Davis: That's amazing. At the second coming of Christ, His feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives. There is so much in the scripture that speak about He's coming back to national Israel. He's not coming to North America, He's not coming to Washington DC or New York City or Paris, France or anywhere else. He's coming back to national Israel. We see His plan for Israel will continue on at the second coming into that thousand-year millennial reign.

Lee Brainard: Not only has He owned that physical contiguous chunk of land that's Israel, He's owned Mount Zion as the place of His name and He's owned Jerusalem and He's owned the Jewish people. He's going to gather every Jewish person from around the globe, even if they don't know they're Jewish. You're going to have people—now, I don't believe in the 10 lost tribes, but there are people that are lost from each of the 10 tribes and there's people that are lost from the other two. They're scattered around the globe. They don't know they're descendants of Jacob.

During the Tribulation, when the Lord pours out the Holy Spirit for the full absolute fulfillment of Joel's promise of the outpouring of the spirit, people are going to receive that gift and they're going to realize I'm a descendant of Jacob, I had no idea. All these Jewish believers are going to be gathered together back to the land of Israel. They're going to receive the throne promises, the kingdom promises, the Messiah promises, the blessing of the millennium promises. What a wonderful time this is, the time of the refreshing of all things, the time of the restoration of all things.

Josh Davis: During that millennial reign of Christ, we understand that Israel as a land will flourish again, things will be dramatically transformed through the Tribulation, the earthquakes and all those kinds of things. There's the verse in Ezekiel that talks about how people will be pulling fish out of the Dead Sea and the whole environment is going to be dramatically transformed. Christ will rule and reign from Jerusalem during that thousand-year reign and that central focus is Israel and the people who are there, the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lee Brainard: When we come into the millennium, the last shall be first and the first shall be last is going to be fulfilled. We typically apply this to individual believers within the church, we're downtrodden, and this is a legitimate application. But the real principle here is downcast, lowly Israel will be exalted above all the nations. All the treasures of the Gentiles are going to flow to Jerusalem according to Zechariah and some other prophecies of the Old Testament. Out of the throne underneath the Lord Jesus is going to flow a river of living water, some to the Mediterranean, some to the Dead Sea, bring the life to the Dead Sea like you were talking about. It's going to bring life to the Mediterranean. It's going to restore the whole world. Isn't this an amazing picture? Blessing is flowing from Jerusalem and from Israel. Whether you like it or not, that's what the Bible says. That's what's going to happen.

Josh Davis: The Old Testament tells us God didn't choose Israel because they were the best and the brightest and the most numerous or the wealthiest. It was because it was the exact opposite of that so that His glory could be shown through this people. Look what I have done through this people that were basically nobodies with no home, no land, nothing that they could claim of their own, but yet it's the glory of God showing through those people.

Lee Brainard: And it's the same glory that shows in the gospel in the church age. Not many wise, not many greater are called. Amen.

Josh Davis: I know that we're wrestling with a lot of antisemitism. It's rising within the church, and Christians don't understand the relationship between the church and Israel. There's talking heads on social media and many other outlets that are spewing antisemitism, but it's even bled into local churches and pastors who are saying replacement theology, the church has replaced Israel, we don't need to support Israel, we don't need to stand with Israel. The Christians who say we need to stand with Israel are totally wrong, they're misguided, they're part of all these bad groups and bad actors and everything else. How should the church view its relationship with Israel? What can we say about the rise of antisemitism in our day?

Lee Brainard: This is a wonderful question because really this is becoming a litmus paper test that is dividing evangelicalism into those that are going to be consistent with their historical-grammatical hermeneutic, taking the Bible literally all the way. That will force you to believe in dispensationalism like with the pre-trib rapture, literal millennium. It will also force you to embrace the fact that God is not done with Israel, He's going to restore her in the new covenant. He's not going back to the old covenant, He's going back to people still lost under the old covenant, not only to show them that the old covenant can't save, but to show them that the rabbinical traditions are nonsense and then to wean them off of the old covenant and off their rabbinical traditions and point them to Jesus the Messiah.

People need to see that this is really what God's doing. He's not giving Israel some special blessings that nobody else gets and you can't understand them. He's bringing Israel back to the new covenant that was originally promised to them. Also what's going on here is we should have an object lesson here because God is not blessing Israel because she's something amazing. He's blessing Israel because He's the God that blesses people even when they're failures, they're mistake-laden, they're broken, they're downtrodden, they're backslidden. Even apostate Israel can be restored. This is the grace of God. We should be rallying around this message of grace and this message of restoration.

People will say, well, I can't support Israel because they've got their unsaved nation and they've got bad political questions and they've bad relationship with their nations with Gaza and the West Bank. Folks, don't judge God's plan for Israel on the basis of Israel's sin or what you think is sin. Judge God's plan for Israel on the basis of the plain statements of scripture. We need to be looking at Israel with the same gracious eyes that we look at ourselves and look at the church.

Josh Davis: Is there any closing thoughts that you want to stress as we wrap up our time together?

Lee Brainard: I would just like to encourage those that are listening today or listening in the future. Folks, it's time to go back to the Bible and be a simple Bible-believing Christian. Wash your hands of theological theology that starts with presuppositions and just determine you're going to go take the whole Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, at face value. Daddy said it and I believe it, that's the end of the matter, and let the plain statements of scripture interpret the plain statements of scripture.

There's a point that a lot of people are confused on. They've got this gnostic idea that the Old Testament message is way over here, the New Testament message is over here, and they don't quite meet. Folks, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed, the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. These messages fit hand in glove. When the Lord Jesus came in the New Testament, He was fulfilling the Old Testament promises to Israel and to the Gentiles. The new covenant is just the fulfillment of the message of the old covenant. The New Testament is a fulfillment of the message of the Old Testament.

Josh Davis: Dr. Lee Brainard, thank you so much for joining me. It's always a privilege to get to talk with you, especially on this crucial topic for such a time as this.

Lee Brainard: And it's been my pleasure, brother.

Voiceover: The Rapture is one of the most heated debates in the church. Will the church go through the Tribulation, or will the church be raptured before the Tribulation? 10 Potent Proofs for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Lee Brainard is a book that provides 10 powerful arguments that prove the Rapture must happen before the Tribulation. Lee Brainard provides compelling evidence that the church will not see any of the visitations in the book of Revelation. We will not see the Antichrist, the false prophet, or the mark of the beast. If you're waffling as to which rapture position is right, have unanswered questions on the subject, or want to better understand the pre-trib position, this book will help you. 10 Potent Proofs for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Lee Brainard. Order your copy today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. You can also order on our website, swrc.com. Let us all open our eyes, get our brains engaged, and hearts on fire. 10 Potent Proofs for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Lee Brainard. 1-800-652-1144. Josh Davis returns now with an update on our outreach to prisoners across the country.

Josh Davis: Greetings friends, and thank you so much for your prayers and partnership with us in ministry, especially for our prison outreach. This time of year, the first of the year, is really the busiest time because we're getting tons of requests for our annual calendar from inmates all across America. Because of faithful friends like you who pray for this ministry, who partner with us financially, you enable us to reach behind bars in places where our feet would never trod as we are able to get there with the good news of Jesus Christ included in every single calendar that we send.

We've gotten all kinds of requests from inmates across America, even sending boxes of calendars to chaplains to distribute in their prison. We are grateful for this outreach. We are continuing to receive requests, it seems like every week there's a big stack of letters that are coming in from inmates who either are seeing the calendars that their friends have and they're writing to us saying, hey, how do I get on your mailing list? How do I receive one of those free wall calendars? We're getting those kinds of requests.

I want to share with you a few letters of thanks that we've received from some of the people in our Onesimus prison ministry outreach. One man writes in on behalf of he and a couple of his friends. Hello and greetings to you in the set apart name of Yahweh, our Abba, our father. I just want to say thank you so very much for the cool, artistic, and colorful calendars that you sent to me and to the two other inmates who are very appreciative also. We didn't want to be like the nine out of the 10 Samaritans who did not return any gratitude for their healing from God. So we say thank you so very much for these calendars. They really make a very nice decoration for us. The artwork is really awesome. Someone is a very good artist, I must say, just to let you know.

Of course, the artwork is done by our very own Micah Van Huss in this special edition of our calendar, coupling some of the marginal mysteries-type things with Micah's artistic abilities. It's a wonderful, wonderful calendar. When you partner with our ministry, dear friends, you are enabling us to be a channel of God's blessings through you to our ministry and through our ministry into the lives of other people, like these two inmates.

I have another letter I'd like to share with you quickly today. This inmate writes, I pray that when my letter reaches you, may it find you and your staff in the best of health, peace, and mercy, but most of all, in God's love. Thank you again for your Prophetic Observer and the Great Pastor's letters. I've mentioned it before, but my older brothers like for me to read all your material your staff sends me. I hope that you grasp what this inmate is writing to us because he's saying that he takes what he receives, and people who are older who have trouble seeing, who have trouble reading, he reads it out loud so that they can get the information included in the Prophetic Observer, included in the Pastor's letter every single month.

That blesses me on staff here at SWRC, but I hope it blesses you, our dear listener, because again, when you partner with our ministry, this is your account being blessed by Almighty God and what God is doing through you, dear friends, to reach others. He continues on just giving us more thanks and also requesting guess what? A calendar. That's right. We were happy to be able to send him one of those calendars. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for prayerfully partnering with us in this vital prison outreach, reaching inmates across America with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Voiceover: 10 Potent Proofs for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Lee Brainard is a book that provides 10 powerful arguments that prove the Rapture must happen before the Tribulation. Lee Brainard provides compelling evidence that the church will not see any of the visitations in the book of Revelation. This book will help you. 10 Potent Proofs for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Lee Brainard. Order your copy today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Or you can order online, swrc.com. Tomorrow, Josh Davis will have the latest headlines from the end times, so be sure to tune in. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful listeners like you. To learn more, visit swrc.com.