Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Dean Dwyer: Everlasting Covenants vs Temporary Peace Process (REPLAY)

Transcript

Dean Dwyer: Everlasting Covenants vs Temporary Peace Process (REPLAY) · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:00
  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
• 0:10
  defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits.
• 0:16
  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
• 0:20
  Friends, we're going all the way over to Australia for this episode where one of my favorite
• 0:26
  brothers from there, actually one of my only brothers that I know, I know we have more
• 0:30
  brothers and sisters there, but Dean Dwyer, I'll introduce him in a minute, but I want
• 0:34
  to point out his page at Harbinger's Daily, and you can find out, it's just some good
• 0:40
  information on him, some great articles, great writing, I love this brother, I love his
• 0:44
  voice, that's why I continue to have him on the podcast, and one of his most recent articles,
• 0:50
  the right and wrong way to wait for Jesus' imminent return.
• 0:56
  Also he's the pastor at Eiser Street Baptist Church, is it Eiser Street Baptist Church
• 1:01
  Dean Dwyer?
• 1:04
  It is.
• 1:05
  Good day from Australia, good to see you David.
• 1:07
  So good to see you.
• 1:08
  Now when you, when I say Harbinger's Daily, do you say Harbinger's Daily?
• 1:14
  Is that close?
• 1:15
  It's pretty close, yeah, we've probably reached the point where we can try to train you
• 1:20
  to say, good I might.
• 1:22
  Good I might.
• 1:23
  You're going to be very lazy with your tongue to speak Australian.
• 1:27
  Yeah, and speak it a lazy, unfortunately we're going to talk about being spiritually lazy
• 1:32
  and talk about Australia and America, and what we're going to focus on though today friends,
• 1:39
  I want you to direct you to Harbinger's Daily, and several weeks ago Dean wrote about
• 1:45
  the Abraham Accords and the Abrahamic Covenant, there it is, that's the article that we're
• 1:51
  going back to because of what the peace process with what President Trump just accomplished,
• 1:56
  which some would say it's miraculous between Israel and Hamas, I mean no one thought this
• 2:03
  was possible, but anyway the dealmaker worked this out, but before we do that Dean, I want
• 2:09
  to go back briefly to the podcast we did together, I think it was in July, and the title
• 2:16
  was the downward spiritual spiral in Australia and America.
• 2:23
  That's interesting so you get July, August, September, October, actually August, September,
• 2:28
  Charlie Kirk gets assassinated, we're seeing more people go to church, we're seeing Bible
• 2:34
  sales increase, what was the percentage of that?
• 2:37
  Some really crazy 40, almost 42% increase in Bible sales, spiritual app downloads are
• 2:46
  up 79%, more people are coming back to church, young people are searching for answers, we're
• 2:54
  at a very interesting time, so I want to ask you about your perception of how now Charlie
• 3:00
  Kirk wasn't as popular in Australia to be sure, but you said before we got on the podcast,
• 3:06
  some people were impacted, there were even memorials there, tell us a little bit about
• 3:11
  that because this is a global look at how God is moving, we don't know everything that
• 3:17
  He's doing and what the Holy Spirit is up to completely, but we can see signs across
• 3:22
  the globe, so tell us a little bit about Australia.
• 3:26
  As we've talked about in the past is a very unusual spiritual landscape in that Australians
• 3:33
  are pretty laid back and have a pretty comfortable lifestyle, a lot of people live along the coastline
• 3:38
  of Australia, so their lifestyle is pretty much based on sunshine and the ocean and the
• 3:45
  beach and really trying to have a good time with our temperate weather, beautiful beaches
• 3:52
  and scenic attractions, unfortunately what that does is that occupies Australians with
• 3:57
  a lot of temporal interests and a lot of material interests, so the spiritual landscape in
• 4:03
  Australia particularly post World War II, there was a bit of a bump in terms of interest
• 4:08
  in faith after World War II, particularly when we had some really great evangelists within
• 4:13
  the Australian spiritual landscape, but probably since then and certainly from the 70s onwards,
• 4:19
  Australia has seen a decline in an interest in Christianity, particularly a secular humanism
• 4:25
  has taken holes, Australia as we talked about, a little bit about last time is in the grip of
• 4:30
  probably a communist and socialist phase because we do have an openly communist prime minister
• 4:36
  at the helm who's trying to form a pretty tight relationship with China, much of course to the
• 4:41
  dismay of our US relationship, but once the event, the sad event with Charlie Kirk happened,
• 4:50
  we really did see an outpouring of grief in Australia, it did impact a lot of Australians
• 4:55
  quite heavily, my wife was one, she was deeply saddened as was I and a number of people in our
• 5:00
  congregation as well, so in our town here we did have a small memorial for Charlie and I know
• 5:07
  that there were others held throughout Australia as well, so it was an event that really reached
• 5:13
  into our shores as well and now I've seen some of the pictures coming out from America that there
• 5:18
  was an increase in attendance in the Sunday's following Charlie's assassination and to some degree
• 5:25
  that was true of Australia but certainly not to the degree that it's been true of America, so
• 5:30
  again as we talked about before the show began, what's it going to take for Australians to wake up
• 5:36
  and that's really the question and sometimes that can be the frightening question to ask yourself
• 5:40
  because what is it really going to take to shake people from their comfortable life and when we
• 5:47
  know the future tribulation period is going to do that to a very large degree but this side of the
• 5:52
  rapture, as much as we share the gospel, we talk about faith, we talk about current events,
• 5:59
  Australians still seem to be in that spiritual stupor where there may be not a lot getting through,
• 6:06
  so it does feel like we're not making headway too much in Australia and we're standing the very
• 6:13
  serious events throughout the world and of course unfortunately like many nations, there is a lot
• 6:18
  of any semitism in Australia, still a lot of pro-Palestine protests going on even now and so that's
• 6:25
  hard to work against as well. Why do we talk about this friends? You might think it's redundant
• 6:34
  but we will be talking about Charlie Kirk and this impact for a long time. Why? We're not idolizing
• 6:41
  Charlie Kirk. He wasn't a pastor, Turning Point USA is not a church or religious organization
• 6:49
  but Charlie Kirk had a biblical worldview and it's the same things that we talk about on this show,
• 6:55
  the same things that all of our guests that come on this podcast have and hold to and that is now
• 7:03
  considered hate speech. We have to grasp where we are now worldwide and especially in American. I've
• 7:10
  asked this question for the last couple of years or more maybe a dean. What is it going to take?
• 7:16
  I speculate with other pastors, bring them on. So if the church is lukewarm, if biblical illiteracy
• 7:22
  is climbing and people are just not in their Bible or passionate or sharing the gospel,
• 7:29
  what is it going to take to wake us up? We are too comfortable here and so this might be a catalyst,
• 7:34
  what we are experiencing and seeing now, it might be a catalyst. God is up to something there's
• 7:40
  no denying that. We don't know what we can speculate. You mentioned antisemitism. A lot of us were
• 7:47
  disappointed. I was going to say furious to see what happened on college campuses in America but
• 7:54
  we know. We shouldn't surprise us because we know the professors and the school administrators,
• 8:00
  we know their worldview. It is anti-Christ. It is against the Bible, the biblical worldview,
• 8:05
  against Western values and against even to some degree our constitution, definitely against
• 8:10
  Israel. We should not be surprised but I guess the way the media promoted it and started highlighting
• 8:17
  these protests and I'm tired of hearing it. I really am and I think a lot of Christians in America,
• 8:25
  we've got to make a decision and I know I'm preaching to the choir dean. Let's talk about your
• 8:30
  article. Do you want to go back to 2020 when the Abraham Accords were signed at the White House?
• 8:37
  That was another thing that few people thought was going to happen and few saw coming. Where do you
• 8:43
  want to start? Just over five years ago, these were landmark accords. In the past, obviously,
• 8:53
  the formula has been to try and solve this intractable problem in the Middle East is to give land for
• 8:59
  peace. We saw how much of a dismal failure that has been and particularly since we've seen
• 9:06
  through the disengagement process in Gaza that for the last 20 years all Hamas has done as
• 9:13
  dig tunnels and build a terranest. It's become pretty evident hopefully to the bulk of the world
• 9:19
  that this formula land for peace does not actually equal peace. In some degree, the Abraham
• 9:26
  Accords was a landmark achievement in that it pivoted to something very different which was
• 9:32
  trying to build integration and diffusing tensions throughout a hostile Middle East by bringing
• 9:39
  together some economic integration and trying to find a commonality there so that all nations could
• 9:45
  focus on a secure foundation and build a relationship from there. This is what the Abraham Accords
• 9:53
  sought to do. It sought to bring back to a common foundation which of course, as it's so named,
• 9:59
  is Abraham, the patriarch of the three monotheistic faiths. So the hope and so there's been some
• 10:07
  positivity in terms of the accords is that from that commonality, there will be relationship
• 10:13
  building and in Trump's own words, if there's some integration there, there can be a prosperous
• 10:19
  Middle East going forward. We have to focus on some of the positives that came from those accords
• 10:25
  in that it has to a degree allowed some normalization between Israel and some of its hostile
• 10:31
  neighbours and it allows some increase in trade so that there is some prosperity which allows
• 10:38
  some of the poorer regions within the Middle East to advance and hopefully they will advance past
• 10:45
  terror and they'll advance past ideological extremism and hopefully become more civilised in
• 10:51
  their approach and their approach not only to Israel but to the greater world as well. So this
• 10:57
  really was a landmark achievement in that degree and so when Trump talks about the advancement
• 11:03
  of the Abraham Accords, I know the other day he talked about Iran potentially becoming a
• 11:08
  signatory which I thought was probably more optimism than realism but there's one thing you can't
• 11:14
  accuse Trump of it's not being an optimist. That's true. When Iran comes into the picture you're
• 11:22
  kind of going well but you know I mean who knows I mean again this has got to be something that
• 11:27
  goddess is working through imperfect people. He has definitely sovereign over all these things
• 11:34
  but I've said on a couple of other episodes on this topic you know terrorists aren't good at
• 11:40
  keeping promises and working for peace because their worldview just is the opposite they need to
• 11:49
  conquer they need to control right and that's the whole thing about Islam, wipe Israel off the map
• 11:56
  they want that whole territory so who knows how it's going to go but we're in exciting times
• 12:02
  prophetic times. Dean I want to touch based on because you read about this in your article
• 12:08
  and I'll just frame it by saying when I read the Old Testament and some references in the New
• 12:12
  Testament I read everlasting covenant I mean God has a everlasting covenant and everlasting is
• 12:21
  forever so he has covenant with Israel did not stop when the New Testament was written let's just
• 12:29
  pause right there and think about that and now go ahead and share whatever you'd like to as we
• 12:34
  remind our viewers and our listeners that this is God's covenant God's heart for Israel has not
• 12:41
  changed go ahead Dean. I made four points in that article and you're right to bring up the word
• 12:47
  everlasting because I think when people come along with a different eschatological worldview and
• 12:53
  particularly when we talk about replacement theology or superstitionism all of a sudden everlasting
• 12:58
  doesn't mean everlasting because Israel's cast aside and favor of the church now the point I make
• 13:04
  to people is that if everlasting doesn't mean everlasting then we're in trouble when it comes to
• 13:09
  John 316 because we're promised everlasting life so why does the terminology all of a sudden or
• 13:15
  what is the definition all of a sudden change between the old and the new if God says something's
• 13:19
  everlasting in John 316 then we have to apply the same definition to how he speaks about his
• 13:25
  covenant so in the article I made four very good points which was one fulfillment of the covenant
• 13:31
  depends on God's faithfulness not Israel's and we're talking obviously about the Abrahamic covenant
• 13:37
  and its unconditional nature so this is one of the very reassuring things for Israel for
• 13:44
  God's chosen people is that the covenant depends on God's faithfulness not Israel's and so
• 13:51
  what we need to impress upon people and particularly those who hold to a superstitionist view is
• 13:56
  that Israel's rejection of Messiah did not cancel the Abrahamic covenant it did not cancel its
• 14:03
  terms it did not void it did not unknow it it is still in effect because it's unconditional
• 14:08
  in nature and it depends on God's faithfulness not Israel's so what we often remind people is that
• 14:15
  when the offer of the kingdom was made the kingdom was not cancelled it was postponed and we
• 14:22
  know that there will be a future kingdom when the remnant of Israel received Jesus Christ as
• 14:28
  king and Messiah and he sets up his rule and reign from Jerusalem so in summary first point is
• 14:36
  the Abrahamic covenant remains in effect because of its unconditional nature I like that love it
• 14:44
  and I also love that you emphasize and this is so good friend simple truth that it depends on
• 14:52
  covenants depend on God's faithfulness not Israel's and we obviously know Israel has not always been
• 15:00
  faithful I mean there's a whole record of their history of unfaithfulness and rebellion and pride
• 15:06
  everything else in the Old Testament go ahead Dean go ahead whatever point you want to go to next
• 15:11
  the second point I made is that the covenant is not cancelled because of Israel's sinfulness
• 15:16
  now we know that God has chastened Israel over many centuries but he's not cast away his people
• 15:24
  now we know and I reference the tribulation period that is going to be the means by which he breaks
• 15:29
  Israel's rebellion and brings a covenant back back to him but he never has nor never will
• 15:37
  terminate his relationship with these people Israel and and we can be assured of that both in
• 15:42
  the Old Testament and the New because we look at passages in Daniel and Zechariah we also look at
• 15:47
  Romans 11 which is one of the most important passages in the Bible where it concerns Israel Romans 9 10
• 15:54
  and 11 affirm that God is not finished with Israel and so despite the fact that Israel has been in
• 16:02
  rebellion and in sin and obviously remains in rebellion because it has rejected Jesus as Messiah
• 16:08
  the fact remains that that doesn't annul the covenant and in addition to that you look at the
• 16:14
  terms of the Abrahamic covenant particularly there are three branches to it a land seed and blessing
• 16:21
  now the land component of the covenant is basically overlooked by a lot of people because of
• 16:28
  the political expediency but we've also got behind all of that we've got something called the
• 16:35
  land covenant as well which was introduced in around Deuteronomy 28 29 and 30 so often that's
• 16:42
  sometimes called the Palestinian covenant but we like to call it the land covenant because if you
• 16:46
  call it the Palestinian covenant covenant in today's politics that's somewhat suggest perhaps
• 16:54
  there's a covenant with the current people who self-identify as Palestinians so we want to steer
• 16:59
  away from that confusion that's right so we call it the land covenant so there's there's really two
• 17:06
  great expressions of God's promises to Israel in terms of the land in the Abrahamic covenant and
• 17:13
  the land covenant and so in all of the discussions that are taking place around the Abrahamic
• 17:18
  chords and around how Israel is integrated into the region this is what is forgotten that God has made
• 17:26
  promises ever lasting promises to Israel in relation to their relationship to the land so the next
• 17:35
  point I just want to you know move you along because we're already at 10 minutes to go here
• 17:41
  talk to us about the Israel church distinction amen so important to make and because we know that
• 17:52
  the covenant said to be interpreted literally and this was one of my third points and we know that we
• 17:57
  have there's generally two interpretive methods when you look at the Bible we know there's an
• 18:03
  allegorical method which we reject and we know that there's another hermeneutic principle which
• 18:09
  works on a consistent literal historical grammatical interpretation of the Bible which is what we
• 18:14
  lean to so unfortunately if you're taking an allegorical method then its hermeneutic is not consistent
• 18:23
  and unfortunately what you generally end up with then is replacement theology so because the covenant
• 18:28
  has to be interpreted literally that should lead you to dispensational teaching which continues to
• 18:33
  maintain an Israel church distinction now a lot of people will accuse us of saying there's two
• 18:39
  ways we're promoting two ways of salvation but that's not true whatsoever God has two distinct
• 18:44
  programs for his people and so we have to reaffirm that Israel is part of his plan in the past in
• 18:52
  the present and also in the future Romans 9 10 and 11 so it becomes very convenient to a lot of people
• 18:59
  to hold to a supercessionist view and blur the lines between the Israel church distinction because
• 19:06
  prior to 1948 perhaps people might have seen it as much but in the post-48 world when Israel was
• 19:12
  reborn as a nation then it started to raise a lot of questions particularly within the framework
• 19:17
  of hermeneutic principle that people had to come back to the notion that well Israel is here
• 19:24
  and they're back in the land and there's still a people in spite of all of the odds over thousands
• 19:29
  of years and so yeah that's exactly right so when you read the Bible literally and you adopt a
• 19:36
  proper hermeneutic you can come to no other conclusion that there is an Israel church distinction
• 19:41
  and God has not finished with his people Israel yeah and you make it in point number four you again
• 19:47
  emphasize the fact that the covenant cannot be broken by Israel's sinfulness do you want to share
• 19:54
  anything else before we go on on on that point Dean now I think we've covered all that we need to
• 20:01
  as I said people can go to Romans 9 10 and 11 for that confirmation from the very word itself
• 20:06
  Romans 9 through 11 just like Ken Ham as I always talking about Genesis 1 through 11 go to Romans 9 through
• 20:14
  11 very important chapters friends in the New Testament in the book of Romans so Dean for those
• 20:21
  people we have a lot of people that are not watching the podcast we have a lot of different outlets
• 20:27
  that were on platforms a lot of people are listening in their car right now would you mind use
• 20:32
  quoted Genesis 17 7 and 8 in your article would you mind walking us through that just reading that
• 20:38
  and going to your next point sure so Genesis 17 7 through 8 very clearly says and it confirms once
• 20:46
  again the everlasting nature of the covenant and I will establish my covenant between me and you
• 20:52
  and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you
• 20:58
  and your descendants after you also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which
• 21:05
  you are a stranger all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession and I will be their God
• 21:12
  so you read and you touched on this earlier in the podcast David you read that word everlasting
• 21:17
  a number of times within that and we also read the words and their descendants so this is an
• 21:24
  ongoing promise and as I said this is an unconditional covenant in nature so it's not cancelled to
• 21:30
  any degree so when we talk about the Abraham accords obviously the intention was to bring the
• 21:36
  relationship back to a commonality which was patriarchal Abraham but as we know because we
• 21:44
  we have nations within the framework of the accords which are Islamic even though they might
• 21:49
  revere Abraham as a patriarch within their faith very quickly the commonalities end because Islam
• 21:57
  obviously is extremely different in nature as a religious system as a political religious system
• 22:04
  to the faith that we have in God the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and so this is something once
• 22:12
  again that the nations and many people even sometimes within Christianity have forgotten that the
• 22:19
  Abrahamic covenant is still in effect Israel is not occupying all of the land which is promised to
• 22:25
  it it will in the millennial kingdom but let's not forget that tiny Israel in God's eyes when he
• 22:32
  gives all of the land grants it's not going to be tiny Israel it's going to be quite a large
• 22:37
  territory and this is the principle it's all that's forgotten in amongst all of the conversations
• 22:41
  at an international level thank you for bringing that up because some people that are not maybe
• 22:46
  well versed on scripture here someone that's a Muslim saying well we believe in Abraham too
• 22:53
  you know not the same not the same covenant not the same way I do want to mention you also
• 22:59
  cite in your article Psalm 105 verses eight through 12 but the 105 verse eight says he remembers
• 23:07
  God God remembers his covenant forever the word which he commanded for a thousand generations
• 23:17
  I mean there's a lot there's so many verses like this in scripture Dean I don't know how people
• 23:23
  misinterpret this I just don't get it can you help me understand that look I think as I
• 23:30
  said before it comes down to some people have allowed the the allegorical method of interpretation
• 23:37
  to come into their outlook and their hermeneutic in terms of how they view the Bible and so if
• 23:45
  you start to spiritualize the Bible then all of a sudden you can kind of make the Bible say whatever
• 23:50
  you want it to say and so what I try to reinforce to people quite often is let the Bible speak to you
• 23:56
  sometimes people go through a process of isegesis now what isegesis is it sent and the
• 24:01
  theoretical to exegesis exegesis is allowing the scriptures to speak to us and we're drawing out
• 24:07
  the principles of scripture through as I said a proper hermeneutic principle but when you go
• 24:13
  through isegesis what happens is that you're reading in your bias into the scripture so that you
• 24:20
  trying to tell scripture what scripture should say to you and so I think when you take
• 24:26
  the the allegorical principle and you take the principle of isegesis then all of a sudden people
• 24:32
  are coming up with different doctrines that you can't take from the pages of scripture so I think
• 24:38
  to a large degree that explains it and as I said before replacement theology continues to remain
• 24:44
  an obstacle for those who are teaching the Bible in the right way adopting that literal approach
• 24:50
  to the word and and of course to eschatology as well so that's I think where the confusion comes
• 24:55
  from so it's that's why it's important for people to get in touch with a good Bible teaching
• 24:59
  church and good Bible teaching ministries so that people are able to connect with the with the
• 25:04
  word in the right way handling the word accurately and men you know so it we don't have to
• 25:13
  beat a I don't like that expression what I was just about to say beat a dead horse but the church
• 25:19
  has not and cannot replace Israel friends Dean really quick your speculation on where we're at now
• 25:29
  as far as the peace between israel and gaza we know it probably will be temporary who knows where
• 25:35
  it'll go from here but I think there are good intentions by some just your overall thoughts on your
• 25:40
  view when we were growing up a lot of people were fans of hollywood movies now there was a well-used
• 25:50
  line in a lot of movies which is we don't negotiate with terrorists now a lot of a sudden where did
• 25:55
  this change because all of a sudden the world's negotiating with terrorists and this is what we
• 25:59
  have to keep in mind and you said it well earlier in the podcast hummus they don't care about agreements
• 26:06
  they don't care about international reputation they don't care even about the Palestinian people
• 26:11
  all they care about is their wicked ideology and so this is when we talk about the ongoing
• 26:18
  peace process and I think Donald Trump used the word everlasting or eternal peace and again this
• 26:24
  is Trump's optimism but we know from the pages of scripture that the peace is not going to last
• 26:31
  we know sadly israel is exhausted their trips must be exhausted from constant war and battle
• 26:36
  but the pages of scripture do tell us there are significant wars coming as iql 3839 and obviously
• 26:44
  other skirmishes as well leading into then obviously the great battle at the end of the tribulation
• 26:50
  period so while we might reflect and we can take some positives from it particularly the release
• 26:57
  of the hostages as you well point out this will be a temporary peace and uh israel continues to
• 27:05
  need our prayers daily amen brother dean Dwyer pastor of izerstreet Baptist Church to Wumba
• 27:12
  australia and you can find his work at harbingers daily dot com and brother happy 27th anniversary
• 27:20
  today is today your anniversary today is my 27th wedding anniversary so hello to my wife
• 27:27
  alsa and thank her for her support love yes as you know david we just can't do ministry without
• 27:33
  our wives so we appreciate them very much yes i god bless you we're at we're going to be 25
• 27:39
  years next year but congratulations brother thanks for your time good to see you as always
• 27:44
  likewise thank you bro well friends god bless you and as always keep speaking the truth about
• 27:50
  things that matter see you next time