Go to Revelation 14.
So in the book of Esther, for example, the Bible says this in verse 17 of chapter 8,
"'In every province and in every city whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came,
the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day.
And many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.'"
Just as in the book of Exodus, the Bible said that anybody who wanted to could join the
nation of Israel by becoming circumcised and keeping the Passover and they could join
the nation, well it was the same way with the nation of Judah hundreds and hundreds
of years later.
In the book of Esther we have people becoming Jews because the fear of Mordecai fell upon
them.
So yes, there could have been individuals from the northern kingdom, from those ten
tribes who migrated down to the southern kingdom and the Bible records it in the days of Hezekiah
and other days where they migrated down and joined the nation of Judah, maybe from the
tribe of Zebulun or the tribe of Asher and so forth.
But let me explain this to you.
The vast majority of the people in those ten tribes became assimilated with the heathen.
You say, why have you spent so much time explaining to us the Jews versus the Samaritans and the
northern kingdom of Israel versus the southern kingdom of Judah?
Here's why.
Because when we get to the time of the New Testament, when the Bible's talking about
the Jews, we're talking about people who are living in Judea, which is people of that
southern kingdom, which are primarily of the tribe of Judah, although a lot of Benjamites
were part of that southern kingdom.
And then you've got a few, there's only one person in the entire New Testament who's mentioned
as being from one of those ten lost tribes.
And that's the woman who prophesies about baby Jesus in Luke chapter number 2.
She is of the tribe of Asher and that's it.
I mean that's the only mention because predominantly you're finding people that are of the tribe
of Judah, Paul said I'm of the tribe of Benjamin, look Benjamin was a southern kingdom tribe.
And then also the Levites, you'll see some Levites mentioned.
Why is that significant?
Because of the fact that the ten tribes of the northern kingdom, many of them are completely
lost today.
Now you can easily see how that could happen, right?
When you've got the ten tribes being intermingled with a bunch of heathen, losing their genealogy,
losing their tribal identity, becoming totally mixed in with heathen nations to the point
where Jesus did not even consider them the children of Israel in Matthew chapter 10 when
he said, "'Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter
ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
He's looking at the Samaritans considering them different than the house of Israel because
they're so intermingled with the heathen.
Now notice Jesus draws a distinction there between the Gentiles and the Samaritans and
the house of Israel at that time.
And again, a whole other mistake is that people think that everybody who's not a Jew is a
Gentile.
Pastor Anderson, if you're saying that the ten tribes are not Jews, are you saying they're
Gentiles?
Look, Gentiles are the sons of Japheth.
Study your Bible, okay?
Go back to Genesis and figure out what a Gentile is.
It is not everyone who's not a Jew, but again, I don't have time to go into that.
So what we see here is that the children of Israel that were part of those ten tribes,
most of them were scattered, most of them were mixed in, and today, and even at the
time of Christ, there were very few representatives of those tribes.
There were some representatives that had come down into the southern kingdom, but there
were very few.
But listen to me, today in 2013, many of those tribes simply do not exist.
Fact.
Look it up.
I mean, get out an encyclopedia and look up the tribe of Gad, look up the tribe of Reuben,
and you know what it's going to say?
It's going to say this tribe was conquered by the Assyrians, mixed in, scattered abroad,
mixed in with the heathen, and therefore we cannot trace this tribe today.
We have no idea where this tribe is today.
This tribe has ceased to exist as a people group.
You'll find a bunch of people who say, we're Jews, but will you find the tribe of Reuben
today in 2013?
Show me a Reubenite.
Show me a Gadite.
Show me these tribes.
Now look, I would challenge you to even find, you know, a hundred people of the tribe of
Reuben.
But wait a minute, the 144,000 are 12,000 from each tribe.
Are you getting my drift here, are you seeing where I'm going with this?
This is not just, oh we found 144,000 Jews, prophecy fulfilled.
No.
I take the Bible literally here.
Those who want to say that these are 144,000 Jews, they're not taking it literally because
they're just roughly saying, yeah, 144,000 Jews, that'll work.
No.
It's not 144,000 Jews.
It's 12,000 of Reuben.
It's 12,000 of Gad.
It's 12,000 of Isaacar.
That is not something that exists today on this planet.
Let alone the other criteria, because look at Revelation 14.
And you'll see that this is even a tougher bill to fit.
You're not even going to be able to find 12,000 of these tribes, but look what else he says.
In verse 1 of chapter 14 it says,
And I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with them 144,000 having his
father's name written in their foreheads.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great
thunder.
And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps, and they sung as it were a new
song before the throne and before the four beasts and the elders.
And no man could learn that song but the 144,000 which were redeemed from the earth.
Watch verse 4.
Try to find this in 2013, or at any time in the future, of tribes that virtually and really
don't exist.
These are they, verse 4, which are not defiled with women, for they are virgins.
These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.
These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and the Lamb, and
in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God.
So here we see that these 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel, notice,
they're males.
They're all male.
Well that cuts out half the population right there, doesn't it?
Because we're only talking about men.
And notice this, they're all virgins.
So we're talking 12,000 saved male virgins from each tribe of the children of Israel
including tribes that were decimated centuries ago.
And I'm not making this stuff up.
Check out the encyclopedia.
Look up Gad.
Look up Reuben.
Look up these tribes.
Go down the list of them.
And I'm telling you, these tribes are gone.
And you know, taking this really loose interpretation of just saying, well, it's just Jews in general.
And you say, well, you know, all those Jews over in Israel and the Jews scattered throughout
the world, you know, God knows who they are.
God knows which tribe they belong to.
But look, you know what God knows?
He knows which tribe they belong to and most of them are from the tribe of Judah.
And some of them are from the tribe of Benjamin.
And some of them are from the tribe of Levi.
And maybe a few rare exceptions are from some of those other tribes.
But let me tell you something.
There are not 12,000 Reubenites.
That tribe was decimated and gone.
And so you say, well, what are you saying, Pastor Anderson?
I don't get it.
I don't understand.
What are you driving at?
If these aren't 144,000 Jews, then who are they?
I'm taking it literally.
They are 144,000 people from those specific 12 tribes, just like the Bible says.
Well, you say, well, how can that be if the tribes don't exist?
I'll tell you how.
Because these are Old Testament saints from the 12 tribes.
You see, find me 144,000 Jews that are even saved.
You talk to most of these messianic Jews and they're believing in a total works-based salvation.
You know that's true.
The 144,000 of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel are Old Testament saints from those
12 literal tribes that are going to come back and be on this earth during the time that
the wrath is poured out.
In fact, the 144,000 are already in heaven right now.
They're Old Testament saints who have passed on thousands of years ago.
Now look, that makes it very easy to understand how God could find 12,000 male virgins that
were righteous from each tribe.
Because if we look at the whole history of the nation of Israel before they were scattered,
you know, the 400 years they're in bondage, you know, the 400 years that they're under
the judges, the hundreds and hundreds of years that they're ruled over by kings, don't you
think in that span of over a thousand years you're going to find 12,000 very righteous
male virgin godly men from each tribe that could fit this bill easily?
Try to find it today.
It's a joke.
I mean, it's ridiculous to even think that you could find such a number of people.