Christians throughout the world preach the message of salvation. But few are very specific about what precisely God has planned for the world and for humanity.
After all, how could people know exactly what God is going to do in the future?
They could read the Bible, contends WND founder Joseph Farah, who says all the answers are there.
And the Gospel, the good news, he asserts, is more remarkable and far more specific than many Christians are aware.
Farah recently talked about his new book, “The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians and the End of the Age,” in an interview with Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries.
Farah said he was won to faith through studying prophecy and by observing how the events foretold in the Bible were being fulfilled. And he learned from arguably the most influential eschatologist of the last half century, Hal Lindsey, author of “The Late Great Planet Earth.”
“Early in my journalism career, I had an opportunity to meet Hal Lindsey and really get to know him and work with him for 10 years, basically sitting at his knee and collaborating on books and TV shows,” Farah recalled. “It was a great opportunity God gave me, and that was kind of the kickoff. I had read his book in the 1970s, ‘The Late Great Planet Earth,’ and it was the key to my understanding the salvation message.”
The experience gave Farah the critical insight that has guided his approach to understanding Christianity: The Bible is true and God means exactly what He says.
“I start with the premise that what’s in the Bible is absolutely
true,” Farah told Markell. “No equivocation. And if you don’t believe that, my book is not for you. Period, end of story.
“I go to the Bible every day to learn something about truth. It’s the ultimate test of truth. It’s the ultimate test of what is right and what is wrong. And if we deviate from that, who’s going to tell us what’s true and what’s right and what’s wrong? I don’t think it’s possible.”
And the Bible has several things to say that many Christians may find surprising. Both Markell and Farah observed Scripture tells an unfinished story focused on Israel and the Middle East, not Europe or North America.
“Jesus doesn’t come back to be the president of the United States,” Markell said. “He doesn’t come back to be the secretary general of the United Nations. He doesn’t come to rule the European Union or sit in the Vatican. He comes to rule and reign from Jerusalem as King of the Jews. But he will also rule the entire world from there.”
It’s the book that gives you tomorrow’s news today! Get your autographed copy of “The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians and the End of the Age.”
“We’re headed into a very Israel-centric world,” Farah said, expanding on the point. “One of my concerns when I was writing the book was, ‘Wow, I don’t think many Christians fully understand this; I don’t think they’re looking at those passages at what the Kingdom is about and understanding.
"Yeah, they’re excited about what their destiny is, but they don’t fully understand it," he continued. "And that reminded me of the first time that Yeshua-Jesus came; there were a lot of people in Israel who weren’t expecting the Messiah to look like this, to act like this, to be so meek. They were expecting a conqueror who would free them from Rome.
"I think it’s dangerous when we don’t fully understand what’s being revealed to us in Scripture, very clearly I think, about what the future is going to be like," he said.
“People had the Scriptures back in Israel, yet they didn’t recognize their Messiah. And it makes me think, well, aren’t there so many Christians who don’t understand what we’re headed to in the next world? Aren’t we in the same boat as some of the Pharisees and Sadducees who weren’t really anticipating an accurate picture of the Messiah?" Farah said.
"We think we know Jesus, but do we really know the Jesus of the Bible or do we see him through some kind of a caricature that’s been portrayed to us by our own tradition? That’s one of the other things I try to tackle in this book.”
Markell raised the question that arises from Farah's conclusions: Why is God so Israel-centric?
Farah answers that the Jews have been given a special mission, but their mission is important for the whole world.
“[God] tells us in His words that the Israeli people have a very special mission,” Farah said. “They were chosen. We say they were chosen – well, what were they chosen to do? They were chosen to carry the Scriptures to the whole world. And the knowledge of the one true God of the universe. That was their mission! They were to be a light to the Gentiles, meaning all the other nations.
“The question is, have they succeeded? And you know, there have been some shortcomings along the way, which has caused them to be judged at various times in their history by God. But you know what? There are people all over the world that because of that mission now know who the true Messiah is,
who now know who the God of the universe is. We owe that to God and to Israel, because to some extent or another, they carried out the mission.”
Christians, Farah argues, are incorporated into this tradition and mission through Jesus Christ.
“The question that should come to any Christian is, was Jesus’s intent to start a new religion?” asked Farah. “And my answer to that is no, not really. What Jesus came to do is to save the world. He came as Messiah to the Jews and to the rest of the nations as well, to enlighten the whole world as to the truth. That’s why He came. And He’s the Messiah to the Jews and He’s our Messiah. We’re grafted into the promises of the nation of Israel, as Paul explained.”
Farah will teach some of what he learned in the research and writing of the book next month on a cruise to Alaska, at a conference in October and on a tour of Israel in November.
And he says Christians should be excited about the world that is coming, the Millennial Kingdom on Earth.
“That’s the good news,” he said. “That’s what the Gospel is all about. And the Gospel is about the fulfillment of all of this in the [Millennial] Kingdom. And if you don’t believe in the Kingdom, you don’t really believe in the Gospel! All of the prophets since Creation – that’s what Peter says, and I put it to the test in this book… in every single one of those books, [they talk about] the restoration of all things, the Garden of Eden-type restoration that takes place at the end of the age as part of the Gospel story. Jesus talked about the Kingdom more than anything else in all four gospels!”
Perhaps more importantly, as Farah argues, today’s Christians are often focused on eschatology and the end times. The Tribulation will only last a few years, he points out, and Christians are largely ignoring all the wonderful things that will happen on Earth immediately afterward.
“There’s not a very long period of time that the world goes through this Tribulation,” he said. “But we have a thousand years after that! Of glory! And paradise! And the Garden of Eden! Why don’t we dwell on that? Because that’s something I think young people will be happy about as much as old people. … It’s all good news!”
It’s the book that gives you tomorrow’s news today! Get your autographed copy of “The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians and the End of the Age.”