I have followed your series with interest and feel till now you have been pro Israel, but on the article of the 1000 year millennium it appears you are saying that it is the church and not Israel in God’s program. If I have read this correctly what do you feel that God’s program is for Israel in the future? What do you do with God’s Covenant with Abraham and David’s covenant that they would have a kingdom and nation forever?
If we are the Bride of Christ for a thousand years and He is the King over the world, why would the Bride, having been given glorious garments of white linen at the rapture, even be in the presence of a sinful world?
No, I haven’t lost my heart for Israel. I agree that I didn’t pay much attention to Israel in the article, although all the references to life on Earth during the Millennium came from the Old Testament Prophets and refer primarily to Israel.
Since Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins focused on the lives of Church members and related Tribulation believers in their book, and since I was proposing an alternative story of the Church’s destiny, I was focused on showing my view of what the Millennial Age holds for the Church. I could have made a greater emphasis on the fact that on Earth Israel will be the pre-emminent nation during the Kingdom age, location of God’s Temple and throne, and required destination of every living soul for the annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration. I’ll take another look at the article and see if I can make this more obvious. Thanks for the heads up.
But as for the separation of the Bride from a world of sinners, that was the whole point of my article. LaHaye and Jenkins show them coexisting, but I see them separate with the Church in the New Jerusalem, a low orbit satellite in Earth’s proximity, but not on Earth and off limits to all sinners.