Perhaps you are reading a commentary, and it obscures your viewpoint here. In Daniel 7, the prophet distinctly says “there arose,” as a future tense. As he writes the prophecy, Babylon and Persua have already arisen, and he has maintained high offices in each. It would not be a prophecy if your view was the correct one, albeit many have misled many by equating Daniel’s vision to Neuchadnezzar’s.

There are other reasons why this chapter does not equate to Chaper 2, and if I have not treated that yet on the web site, I may in due time.

The teaching you reference in 1st Peter is not about someone giving his own view, but is about rendering Scripture without the context of the rest of the Scriptures. I have often heard the view you give here, so I know it’s not your own, but it does not reconcile with the rest of Daniel, nor Revelation.

- John

First, let me say that I have a great love for Israel, and especially Jerusalem. And for the Jews. How could I not? My Savior is a Jew. Not WAS a Jew. He is. Then we have the word of God itself, the theme verse of this web site, and for the radio program when it was on, which is Romans 1:16, the Jew FIRST, and also the Gentile. I believe this entire dispensation, including right now, ought to be characterized by the gospel of the grace of God through faith alone in Jesus Christ, the Jew, alone being delivered to the remnant of grace that exists this very day.

But there is absolutely NO WAY that I am going to say that the nation in situ in the portion of land given to Abraham that currently outlines Israel as if one of the Gentile nations to the rest of the world (not without controversy) is the Israel of God! Not on your life. To say such, as some do, or seem to do, or vaguely do, or deniably do – to the delight of some no-small-part of a rewarding world – that what we have there today are the pinions, or foundation pieces of the Israel of God to come, would be most “disapproving”, by the Lord Himself, of me. I would most certainly be unfaithful, not that I claim for myself faithfulness.

I know for certain that Israel as yet will go through that awful fire of tribulation, known to them as the time of “Jacob’s Trouble”, and deservedly so. Perhaps that’s the saddest part. As I look at Israel today, I cannot help but be guided by the lens of what must yet come to pass for them. The will continue to decline morally, until they become known as Egypt, and Sodom. That’s as low of a moral standard than any other. It’s pretty bad already, when Islamic nations rightly accuse the so-called Christianized West of moral failure in such matters as abortion and general moral decay.

So I am not without judgment or feeling in the matter of Israel, and hold them to a higher expectation in conduct, despite their inevitable failure. So, sure, it is successfully arguable at the moment that Israel does uphold some superior moral qualities. It is also successfully arguable that the people representing those high standards in Israel today are being increasingly marginalized, and they know it themselves better than anyone else.

I hope, in your remarks above, you are not claiming that the nation we see today in the middle east is in anyway some fulfillment of the new covenant with Israel. That covenant has been secured by the blood of Christ, and so it is “in His blood,” but it is to be made with them “in that day,” when He writes his laws upon their hearts, and Israel goes forth in great blessing, and so forth. That’s not now! No way!! And it’s not next for them, either.

I have a friend who is a young Rabbi in a devout orthodox synagogue. Surprisingly, he has posed that the solution of the “Israel problem” lies in simply declaring itself to be a merely civl state, and to forget about trying to become something else. So, a thoughtful young guy who succinctly lays out the futility of Israel trying, essentially, to become what God says it should be. He’s actually got a real nugget in there, although he may not know it himself, because it is impossible for any nation or group of men in this world to achieve what is reserved for the Lord Jesus Christ alone to do, in the brightness of His appearing, when He will personally tread down His enemies.

So, let me summarize by saying I am writing to sheep, and so we know they will also hear the Lord’s voice.

This is where you have arrested me, it seems, as you claim that others around them are acting worse. Of course they are! This is a Bible study site, and anyone who reads their Bible and understands the prophetic qualities of it realize that a wild donkey of a man is going to misbehave from time to time, and excessively at that. In short, i do not think it is a fair charge to claim that, by criticizing Israel, I am somehow absolving those around it.

I will re-read my articles with your criticism in mind, and hope that I did not neglect to say that, despite Egypt’s relative nobility that it has when it throws the first punch at the Man of Sin, it will take a pretty serious drubbing as a result. That happens. But as you point out, we do see an honored Egypt in the Millennium as it resisted turning on Israel. I hope we can agree that the fulfillment of Isaiah 19 for Egypt occurs at the return of the Lord Jesus.