Plucking the Eagle's Wings

Plucking the Eagle's Wings

natural branch to be severed.

The first church was a Jewish congregation, consisting of one hundred twenty believers in the upper room (Acts 1:14-16). Shortly thereafter, religious Jews began persecuting Jewish believers in Christ (Acts 13:45, 50; 14:2; 18:12). In Acts 9, Rabbi Paul received Christ as his Messiah, and shortly thereafter the Gentiles received Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:45). From that moment on, the Gospel was preached to the Gentiles throughout the Roman Empire. The Fullness of the Gentiles and the Dispensation of Grace This acceptance of the Gentiles into the new covenant began the season called the "times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24), and the "dispensation of the grace of God" (Ephesians 3:2). Since the first century, a Jewish remnant of believers worked alongside Gentiles to advance the Gospel. After the destruction of Jerusalem, the headquarters for Christianity was eventually moved to Rome, Italy. From that point, the number of Jewish believers began to decline as the Greek-Roman culture overpowered the smaller, Hebraic remnant in the church. The Gentile believers flourished for over 1,900 years. This dispensation of God's grace, commonly called the church age, will continue until the return of Christ for His church. Paul warned the Gentiles that, if they fell into unbelief, God would remove their branch from the olive tree and replace it with the original branch. Paul wrote, "For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee" (Romans 11:21). Paul also taught that Israel's spiritual blindness would be removed when God completed His mission among the Gentiles. "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved..." (Romans 11:25-26) The end-time pattern is as follows: the Gentiles will preach the Gospel to every nation, "then shall the end come" (Matthew 24:14). The word end does not mean the end of the world, but the end of God's dispensation of grace upon the Gentiles. Matthew 24:15 refers to the "abomination that makes Jerusalem desolate." This abomination causes

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