Transcription
Today, a lot of Christians think that God brought the nation of Israel back, and that God did this wonderful work. But really, was it the will of God to bring these people back into Israel, or was it the will of the United Nations? Those people over there are not Israel; we, as Christians, are the chosen people of God. We are the true Israel, and we are marching to Zion.
We know that the Jews of Jesus' day looked on the Gentiles with condescension, believing that they were forsaken by God. But in the book of Acts, we read of God extending His grace to the Gentile nations of the world. Now imagine those same Gentiles, having been saved and welcomed into Christ's church, looking back at the Jews with condescension. Paul, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit and who knew human nature, warned of that very thing: "Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee."
We independent Baptists have among us the very teaching I just described—a wicked teaching that contradicts Scripture and the very nature of God. Replacement theology is the heretical idea that God has abandoned the Jews and replaced them with the church. Just as the Jews underestimated the wideness of God's mercy, so do these Christians misunderstand God and His intentions. A God who is not able to deliver His own people is a very small God, and in fact, He is not the God of the Bible.
Stephen Anderson, the false teacher of Phoenix, has put together a video recently entitled "Marching to Zion," in which he completely turns the Bible on its head in an attempt to prove that the church has replaced Israel. I first became aware of Anderson, as I'm sure a lot of people did, when he got into a scuffle with border guards in 2009. He struck me then as being someone who was looking for attention, but I never would have believed he would have attracted a following. Not only has he attracted a following, but his teachings are infiltrating independent Baptist churches all over the world and are creating much havoc. I know of numerous cases where Andersonites have torn families and churches apart with their false teachings. Not only that, but Anderson sports a strange attitude for someone who claims to be saved by grace; he prays for people to go to hell. Here, he's praying for Barack Obama to go to hell: "When I go to bed tonight, Stephen L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell."
I would like to break down "Marching to Zion" into its main points and compare it with Bible doctrine in hopes of showing that he is unfit to lead others. Here's the essence of "Marching to Zion": Israel is not Israel, the Jews are not the Jews, and God is no longer interested in the land promised to Abraham. That means a lot of the language in the Bible must be spiritualized, and when you do that, it's very easy to lose your footing. He has enlisted several other independent Baptist pastors who agree with his point of view to make it appear that this is a widespread belief.
To set the record straight, Jesus Christ came as a light to two specific groups: a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. Those who are saved by faith in Christ form a third group: the church. "Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God." The church did not replace Israel; these are two separate groups, and God has plans and dealings with both of them. Very simply, God chose Israel as His representative nation on this earth, but they failed Him. In Deuteronomy 28 and many other places, God warned them of the consequences of unbelief. The warnings included severe judgments, ultimately being thrown out of the land He had given them: "And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring you to naught; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it."
The prophecies of Deuteronomy 28 have been fulfilled to the letter, but that is not the end of the story. Throughout the Old Testament, God sent prophets to remind Israel that no matter what their hardships or failures, God would one day permanently redeem them for His own name's sake. "But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." And then in Isaiah 45:17, "But Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end."
To make this video as brief as possible, I'm going to lump some of his major points under a few headings to simplify a somewhat confusing presentation and then give an answer to those points. First, Anderson attempts to prove that the Jews are forsaken by God because of their apostasy. He interviews a number of Jewish rabbis and leaders to get authoritative answers regarding blasphemous statements in the Talmud, their beliefs about the writings of Moses, the failure to practice basic Jewish rituals like circumcision, and their use of the Star of David—many such things that are supposed to prove that the Jews are beyond the reach of God. Mr. Anderson is wasting his time gathering contemporary evidence against the Jews; the Bible has already told us everything we need to know about Jewish unbelief. They crucified their own Messiah and are guilty of numerous crimes against God. This we know.
In putting together all of this evidence, Anderson hopes to convince us that God has completely washed His hands of the Jews and has replaced them with the Christian church, which begs the question: Is he suggesting that Christianity has met God's perfect standard in a way that Israel did not? If so, where is this great success? Roman Catholicism? The mainline churches? The emerging church? Pentecostalism? Or even independent Baptists? It seems pretty clear from Scripture that the Bible teaches that Christianity will be almost completely apostate when the Lord returns, and we see that on every hand. Just as Israel fell away from God, the Bible predicts the same thing for Christianity. Churches are not going to replace Israel; churches are mirroring Israel. In both groups, we can expect a small remnant who follow the Lord in the truth that He has revealed because they remain in unbelief.
Anderson believes that God has permanently rejected the Jews, but I would remind him that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Moses, and Paul also condemned Israel for their apostasy, but they never hinted that Israel would be ultimately forsaken by God, and in fact, they said just the opposite. Jesus Christ lived in a day when Jews were consumed by factions, unbelief, and hardness of heart, yet His last words on the cross proved that He was no follower of Stephen Anderson: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
Anderson believes it's right to hate those who oppose the truth. Let's think about others who have hated the Jews: the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, Roman Catholics, Hitler, Palestinians, liberals, antichrists of every type. I don't want to be numbered with that crowd. Furthermore, God doesn't hate the Jews; Moses didn't hate the Jews; Jesus and Paul didn't hate the Jews. But Satan and this wicked world system absolutely hate the Jews and anything else having to do with God.
Point number two: Anderson attempts to make the false claim that evangelical Christians accept the Jews in their current state. To prove this, he uses John Hagee to represent evangelical Christianity. False teachers often use men of straw to make their point, and that's what we have here. Hagee is a far-out Pentecostal televangelist with a number of strange ideas. He's a good example for Anderson because Hagee does not believe that the Jews need evangelizing, but he in no way represents conservative Bible-believing Christians. Bible-believing churches have always sought to bring Jews to a saving knowledge of Christ, and they certainly understand that God is not done in His dealings with the Jews. Using John Hagee is typical of the type of fraud that Anderson perpetrates in this video.
Point number three: Anderson attempts to prove that Christians have never accepted the Jews as God's chosen people, that this is some sort of recent doctrine. What Christians does he quote to make the case? Roman Catholic Church fathers and Protestants like Martin Luther. I certainly don't take my doctrinal positions from the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church and from Protestants. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't even know what the gospel is; why should I listen to them about anything? And while there may be a lot about Martin Luther that I appreciate, particularly his bold stand against the Pope of Rome, Luther hated Baptists and he hated Jews. He was wrong on both of those counts. This is the problem with replacement theology. Replacement theology has its origins in the Roman Catholic Church and those groups that came out of her. How strange that a pastor of a fundamental Baptist church would hold this doctrine, but it is clear that Anderson will use almost anyone, including Roman Catholic Church fathers, to help reinforce his ridiculous arguments.
Point number four: Anderson and the preachers who speak in this video tell us that God had nothing to do with the Jews' return to the land of Israel in 1948. Anderson and his cohorts must face the fact that their teaching is a direct attack on the movements of God on behalf of His people. They are ignoring God's providential watch care for the seed of Abraham and His orchestration of the movement of nations to bring about His will in regard to Israel. The truth is, God has brought Israel from the four corners of the earth for His final dealings with them in the very land that He promised them. There has never been a miracle any greater than this: that God punished His people by forcing them to wander this earth, where they were persecuted but not destroyed, only to bring them back as He promised. I often point to this astonishing turn of events to help others see the hand of God working in this world today. I firmly believe that it is proof that the end of things is at hand, and yet this wonderful, marvelous fulfillment of prophecy dealing with the Jews is attributed by Anderson and his cultic followers to the antichrist and his one-world government, not to the hand of God.
And so, if it's not the Lord who brought them back, then who did bring them back? It was the spirit of antichrist that brought them back to the promised land. It was the United Nations who brought them back to the promised land. In Jesus' day, the Pharisees attributed the work of God to Beelzebub. Is this any different? To believe in replacement theology, ultimately, you must somehow deal with the fact that there are people who are called Jews, who have always been called Jews, who have been recognized as Jews in every nation in which they have resided, and who have somehow come back to Israel after two thousand years of wandering. It almost sounds providential, doesn't it? In fact, it perfectly parallels numerous prophecies that predict that very thing.
The fifth and final point we would make from "Marching to Zion" is that Anderson and his followers tell us that God is not even interested in a physical land. You know, the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11 that Abraham wasn't looking for a physical land; he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. We, as Christians, are looking for a new Jerusalem; we're looking for a heavenly city. If Anderson is right about this, there is not one thing we can know for certain from Scripture. Virtually every page of the Old Testament is taken up with a specific land and a specific people. The Abrahamic covenant gives specific details about the land that is at stake, and that covenant has never been rescinded. Not only does replacement theology confuse important Bible doctrines for today, it destroys the prophetic element of future events. The Old Testament contains hundreds of specific statements about the millennial reign of Christ in the land of Israel. The incredible power of Bible prophecy rests in its unmistakable clarity; you can read it and make predictions based on what you read.
Alexander Keith, a preacher of yesteryear, did just that. Writing in the 1850s, he saw Israel scattered as sheep having no shepherd, but he read in the prophets of a day yet future when Israel would be brought back to the land. He admitted that it seemed almost impossible to believe, knowing the geopolitical circumstances of his day, yet he confidently asserted that Israel would come home. It is enough for Christians to know that 2,000 years cannot prevent the heaven-chartered right of the seed of Abraham to the final and everlasting possession of the land of Canaan. If Alexander Keith had been a follower of Stephen Anderson, he would have concluded that there would be no future prophetic fulfillment regarding the land of Israel, but he would have been wrong.
Today, we live in a day when blind Israel is back in the land, waiting for the culmination of all things. As far as future events, Anderson believes that Israel and the unbelieving denominations of the world will receive the antichrist. We believe the same thing, but for Anderson, it ends there, with Israel destroyed by God at the height of their apostasy. In Anderson's twisted handling of Scripture, God's judgment will gloriously fall on Israel, and those who believe in Christ will triumph over her. Israel will be thrown down, and the church will be lifted up, according to Anderson. But the Bible does not end that way. In the end, God will bring obstinate Israel to a knowledge of the truth, and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins."
Israel's very apostasy is a fulfillment of prophecy, according as it is written: "God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, unto this day." Their unbelief is a miracle in and of itself. Each time they celebrate the Passover, they are acknowledging that a lamb paid the penalty for their sins. Each time they look upon the Passover matzah, they are handling a piece of bread which is striped and pierced. Each time they pray, "Next year in Jerusalem," they are being reminded that God will ultimately call their nation home. Jesus promised them blindness, and blindness they have. But one day, the scales will fall from their eyes, just as the scales fell from Paul's eyes. "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen."
"And one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in Thine hands? Then He shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." God is not done with the Jews. Before the day that their eyes are opened, I believe that they are going to endure days which are going to make the Holocaust seem like a walk through the garden. I believe that the Jews' worst days are yet ahead, but guess what? I also believe, from my reading of Scripture, that the Jews' best days are ahead. Jesus Christ is going to split the Mount of Olives in two; God is going to level Jerusalem, and healing waters are going to flow out toward the Mediterranean Sea and toward the Dead Sea. The desert is going to bloom like a rose; the lame, the blind, and the sick will be healed, and the Jews will be restored. All nations shall flow into physical Jerusalem, just as the Bible says.
One of the great dangers of Stephen Anderson's teaching is one that Paul warned about: the wild branches boasting against the natural branches. He said that we Gentiles should walk with fear and trepidation in this area and not be haughty. Anderson, though, has no fear to violate these very serious warnings and to teach others to do so. Anyone who could read the Old Testament and compare it with the New Testament and come away with the idea that God is finished with Israel is not qualified to teach Sunday school to first graders, much less pastor a church. He has proven himself to be a false teacher.