Just as in antiquity, these last seventy years and more have known many nations coming against Israel and have tried to decimate her, or even simply disenfranchise her of the capital of the State, Jerusalem (ZECH 12:1-2). Why is this? Why should this tiny nation about the size of New Jersey, with no significant harbor, land mass, integral infrastructures or pertinent resource be the cause of such global angst and obsession?
The USA and a handful of nations only recently relocated their embassies to Jerusalem, whereas the vast remainder keeps theirs in Tel Aviv, the city that the world insists is the true capital of Israel).
Quite recently we have witnessed things heating up in the Middle East, and while things seem to be simmering down . . . somewhat at least in perception, the potential for major crisis of the militant warfare is still very present.
As a biblical Christian, we love, cherish and pray for Israel, the nation that through the grace of God gave us the Holy Scriptures (ROM 3:1-2) as well as the Messiah of Israel, Y'shua ha Meschiach (Jesus Christ; MATT 1:1-17). Indeed, the very One Who indwells us is also the same Who loves His people, has committed His promises to them (ROM 15:8-9), and will one day rule and reign in Jerusalem over all Israel and the Gentile world (ROM 15:9-12).
Christians who visit Israel will often say that it feels like "coming home." I know it did for me, both times! To which one believer with insight replied, "That's because the One Who lives in us, is home!"
This land that is hotly contested, each side claiming it for their own, actually belongs to neither side: it belongs to God! One might say, the entire Earth belongs to God - and while that is true, Israel is the place He has especially chosen for Himself and as the Sovereign LORD of all creation, He has decided to give it to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - and their descendants. Notice what God says concerning the land of Israel:
JOEL 3:2
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted My land.
EXODUS 32:13
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
See also: DEUT 1:8; 11:9.
Inasmuch as I cannot understand the irrationality of nations coming against Israel, and with such animosity, I am all the more perplexed and dismayed to see professing Christians espouse the sort of Antisemitism that favors dogma as taught by Islamic and so-called Palestinians zealots. Being irrational however does not mean I don't understand the source of such animosity even if they themselves don't.
It is the ultimate goal of Satan to destroy God's nation just as he attempted - and failed! - to destroy Jesus (REV 12). He has used various nations in the past (Egypt, the Philistines, Assyria, Babylon) in his attempts, and he currently uses the EU, the UN and it's multitudinous resolutions (compare these numbers with UN resolutions against Iran), certainly the myriad of Muslim nations and their commitment to Jihad, especially where Israel is concerned, and even the State Department of the United States of America has often been in opposition to Israel!
For an excellent book on this subject, we recommend Dave Hunt's JUDGMENT DAY. Here is a brief 9 minute video where Dave explains why he believed - to date at that time - this was his most important book:
What distresses me is that professing Christians will quote from sources other than the Bible as evidence to show the wickedness of the Jews as predators of the poor, downtrodden Palestinians when in fact, it is the UN and Muslim nations that keep these people (who are actually, primarily Jordanians that migrated to the land) in the areas allocated for them, and used as political leverage to form public opinion against Israel.
For an excellent book on this subject, I recommend Joan Peter's From Time Immemorial and my own book report, as well as the previously mentioned Judgment Day.
The nightly news in major media typically and conveniently records Israel's response to hostilities and not the initial attack by Palestinians itself. The plight of victims, Palestinian children, who are wounded as a result of Israeli military is a primary cause of this media-generated hostility towards the IDF and Israel in general - but what seems to never get mentioned is that those same children are used by their own people as 'human shields' to protect them from artillery fired by the IDF and it's the Israeli soldier that has to make the hard call).
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it most poignantly: "If the Palestinians were to lay down their arms today, there would be peace in Israel. If Israel were to lay down her arms today, tomorrow, there would be no Israel."
These people that promote Christian Palestinianism will then deny Israel her (literally) God-given identity as His nation, claiming predominantly that because the Jews rejected and killed their Messiah, God has rejected them. There are those who will go so far as to insist that the people currently occupying Israel are nothing but imposters - not true Jews as all, but rather Slavic people known as the Khazars.
Pro-Palestinian Christians (among others) seem to go even further and claim that the church either has become the new Israel (a claim that the Roman Catholic church originated, but no church can ever claim to be 'the new Israel') or at the least, inherited the promises intended for Israel but now transferred to the church, using verses out of context to support their views.
All of this reveals a stunning lack of understanding, both of the grace of God and the revealed Word of Scripture. They are essentially touting the aberrant doctrine of Replacement Theology.
Add to the national rejection of Jesus Christ there are the gay parades that are hailed in Jerusalem as the grandest celebration the world over, the pluralistic nature of their society that embraces every religion the world has to offer, and many other things besides, and consensus and diatribes abound that Israel will never be graced by God: "they don't deserve to be called God's people!"
And it's true by the way! They are undeserving, and there have been many - the majority in fact, that the LORD would not accept because of their hearts (MATT 15:8) - such was the case with the Pharisees and Sadducees, who both John the Baptist and the LORD Himself referred to as "vipers" (MATT 3:7; 12:34) - the connotation was not lost on the Jews of His day; He was calling them the offspring of Satan and in John's Gospel He fired point blank at them:
JOHN 8:44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Yet the disciples were Jewish, as was Paul and the entirety of the early church, and let's not forget the MESSIAH Himself is Jewish!). This summary population of saints are referred to in Scripture as "the remnant", that is, of all who are the physical descendants of Abraham, a fraction of them would express genuine faith and spirituality as Abraham did (ROM 2:29; 9:27), and these He will receive.
How are we to distinguish the 'offspring of the devil' and true believers in today's Israel? First of all, any Jew who is saved, is in such spiritual condition because of an expressed faith in the only way of salvation, the LORD Jesus Christ (JOHN 14:6); but as far as making any such determination ahead of time concerning Israel's spiritual future, prior to national repentance in Israel, that lies strictly in the purview of the LORD, not mankind.
I addressed this issue in a TTUF article in the series of The MILLENNIUM: REIGN of the MESSIAH - Part NINE.
Yet there is coming a time when the church will be raptured out of this world and God will then turn His attention back to Israel and fulfill His promises (ACTS 15:16) to this undeserving lot - just as He likewise saved us undeserving Gentiles, whose own past is just as loathsome, if not more so, than Israel's present conduct! It is by God's mercy and grace we are saved, not of ourselves or our works (TITUS 3:5; EPH 2:8-9).
The intent of the nations to obliterate Israel is a theme found throughout the Old Testament, and here in PSALM 124 we have the following:
PSALM 124:1-8
1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; 2 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: 3 Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: 4 Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: 5 Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. 6 Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. 7 Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
It will be no different at the end of the age either! The LORD will eventually arrive and defend His people from the anti-Christ and the people of the world arrayed against her.
REV 19:11-21; ISAIAH 63:1-6; ZECH 12:3.
For more on this see the following:
ISRAEL AND PROPHETIC PROOF PART I
ISRAEL AND PROPHETIC PROOF PART II
ISRAELOLOGY - Why Israel Matters To the Biblical Christian - Part One
ISRAELOLOGY – Why Israel Matters To the Biblical Christian - Part Two
For a video on "Israelology" watch the following summary of the Part One and Two articles above:
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