| |
In Defense of the Jewish People and the State of Israel
By Michael Bradley
As Christians, we have to stand firmly and solidly behind the Jewish people and their state of Israel. When you put all of the verses together on the original covenant God the Father made with their first forefather, Abraham, I believe that this original covenant is still in full force and full effect to this very day.
God made an original covenant and pact with the Jewish people in that He would be their God and they would be His chosen people. This everlasting covenant was made with their first set of forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He then tops it off by promising that they would be given the land of Israel as an everlasting possession.
Though the Jewish people managed to break their end of the bargain by all of their rebellious and adulterous behavior towards the Lord during much of the Old Testament, and managed to get themselves dispersed to the four corners of the world as punishment and judgment for this kind of unacceptable behavior towards Him in 70 AD, God still intends on keeping His side of the bargain.
The covenant God made with Abraham was an everlasting and permanent covenant, and nothing that the Jewish people would end up doing against Him, no matter how bad, was going to end up canceling, revoking, rescinding or breaking this covenant with Him.
The Jewish people lost temporary possession of the land of Israel as a result of this dispersion, but because God made this original covenant with Abraham on a permanent and everlasting basis, God will stay true to His Word and He will still keep to His side of the bargain.
As a result, God the Father is still the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all of the rest of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are still the chosen people of God the Father and they are still the apple of His eye. The land of Israel is still their everlasting possession and the land still belongs to them and them alone.
God Himself has made a sovereign choice to make this race of people His chosen people, and neither we as Christians, the Muslims or any of the rest of the world have any legal right to be attacking or questioning the Lord on the choice He made to single out this race and class of people to be His chosen people that would eventually supply the blood line that His Son Jesus would eventually be born into our world through.
The facts are the facts. God has spoken out loud and clear on this entire issue through His Word. This is why God has warned the rest of the world with the statement that He makes in the following verse I will now give you.
In this statement, God tells Abraham, when making this original covenant with him, that He will bless those who will bless him and that He will curse those that will try and curse him. When God is telling Abraham that He will bless those that will bless him and curse those who will try and curse him, I believe that He is talking about the entire Jewish race as a people and as a nation. He is not just talking to only Abraham.
Here is this most powerful verse and warning direct from the Lord Himself:
Now the Lord had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 12:1-3)
Per the article we have in the Current Issues section of our site titled "The Gaza Pullout and Hurricane Katrina," I do not think we are dealing with any coincidence in that one week after president Bush and Prime Minister Sharon arranged to have part of the Gaza strip handed over to the Palestinians, that we end up having the worse hurricane and natural disaster that has ever struck our country strike us after this land deal was completed with the Palestinians!
And to top it all off, 4 months later, Sharon ends up having a stroke and is completely knocked out of his position as the Prime Minister of Israel. And then Hamas, the dreaded terrorist organization and sworn enemy of Israel who also wants to wipe Israel off the face of the map, ends up winning the local Palestinian election and as a result, they are now residing right in Israel's backyard.
As far as President Bush, his poll numbers have now gone into a major free fall. At the time that I am writing up this article, his poll numbers have now dropped down to a very dismal 31% approval rating.
Is all of this just pure coincidental activity, or are we seeing the wrath and judgment of God hit those persons responsible for dividing up part of Israel's land to their sworn enemy based upon the wording of the above verse? Judge and discern for yourselves.
To sum it all up, I want to highlight and bullet point what all of the above verses are trying to tell us:
• God makes and establishes an everlasting - unconditional covenant with Abraham
• God promises to give the land of Israel to Abraham and the rest of his descendants that would follow after him as an everlasting possession
• The apostle Paul states that God has not cast away His chosen people and that all of Israel will eventually be saved and accept Jesus Christ as their true Messiah and Savior
• God the Father states that He will never cast off the seed of Israel from His sight
• God makes an everlasting covenant with King David in that his throne and kingdom will be an everlasting throne and kingdom that will know no end
• God will give His Son Jesus the throne of King David in the coming Millennium Kingdom where He will rule this entire earth from the city of Jerusalem for a 1000 years
• Jesus was born into our world as a Jew, and then was crucified as the "King of the Jews"
• Though God disperses the Jewish nation to the four corners of the world in 70 AD, He promises to bring them back and restore them to their homeland of Israel in the latter days
• Jesus will rule this earth from the city of Jerusalem in the coming 1000 year Millennium Kingdom
• After the 1000 year Millennium rule of Jesus from Jerusalem, God the Father will create a New Heaven and a New Earth. He will then bring down a "New Jerusalem" from Heaven itself where both He and Jesus will rule our New Earth from for the rest of all eternity.
The original covenant that God made with Abraham was an everlasting and unconditional covenant that would never end. The land of Israel, which He promised to give to him and his descendants, was given to him as an everlasting possession.
When God says that this covenant will be an everlasting covenant, this is now a done deal. And the Bible proves all of this out when the Jewish people once more regain possession of their land of Israel back in 1948.
If the Bible was not the infallible and inerrant Word of God, and God was not meaning what He was saying back in the Old Testament about re-gathering and restoring the Jewish people back to their homeland of Israel, then the restoration of the Jewish people back to their land of Israel in 1948 would have never occurred. But since it did, just like the Bible predicted it would, this once more shows us that our Bible is truly the inspired and infallible Word of our Holy God, and that everything that proceeds out of the mouth of our God will eventually come to pass.
I will leave you with one last thought in reference to the Jewish people, their state of Israel and what our spiritual relationship should be to them as Christians.
When you really look at what God the Father was doing when He initiated making contact with this race of people, we are looking at an incredible, profound reality.
After Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden as a result of disobeying a direct command from the Lord, all of mankind became lost with no real way to make it into heaven after we physically die.
At this point, God could have easily washed His hands of the entire human race as the Bible tells us that everyone that would be born after Adam and Eve would also become sinners and fall way short of the glory of our Lord. But because we are dealing with an incredible great, loving, merciful and good God, God made an incredible sovereign choice to have mercy on us. And when He made this choice to have mercy on us, He had to implement a plan and a way in order for us to be able to receive His mercy, forgiveness, pardon, salvation and redemption from our sinful states and natures.
As we all know now, this plan would be implemented through His one and only Son Jesus Christ. However, there was only one little problem with this plan. Jesus would have to leave His heavenly kingdom and literally come down onto our earth to be able to save us from our sins. And not only would He have to literally come down upon our earth, but He would also have to literally incarnate Himself into a human flesh body like the rest of us have. Jesus thus would have to become fully man, yet still stay fully God.
In order for Jesus to come down onto our earth in the flesh, God the Father was going to have to arrange to have a bloodline that He would eventually be born through at the time of His birth into our world.
Though Jesus was actually born of the Holy Spirit, He still had to pass through a female womb. And with Jesus having to literally pass through a female womb, this means that God the Father will have to deal with a line of descendants that would lead up to the virgin Mary being the one to bring Jesus into our world. Mary was a Jew, and God thus would have to deal with the generational bloodline that would proceed her.
It is no accident or after thought that God chose a race of people to be His chosen people back in the Old Testament. For whatever His personal reasons were on this issue, God sovereignly chose the Jewish people to be His chosen people, and through these people's descendants, the virgin Mary would be born, and through her physical body, God would have His Son Jesus birthed into our physical world.
Think of what was really happening with this entire scenario. We are talking about God Himself, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the triune Godhead, being willing to come into our world through a physical birthing process in order to be able to reach us to save us from our sins.
Bottom line - if Jesus was not willing to come into our earth through the womb of the virgin Mary, there would be no eternal salvation for any of us, and we would all physically and spiritually die in our sinful states, never being able to make it to heaven or have our spiritual relationship restored back again with God the Father.
Mary was a Jew and through her womb, we received our Lord and Savior. Had there not been a Jewish lineage and a Jewish heritage that she had come from, there would have been no Mary. As a result, all Christians owe an incredible debt of gratitude to the entire Jewish race as a result of Jesus being birthed into our world through their bloodline.
When God purposely isolates and sovereignly chooses and elects a special race of people to be His chosen people, and from the descendants of this chosen people come the virgin Mary, and through the virgin Mary our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is born into our world - we are talking about a very special class and race of people.
This is why the very first Gospel account goes to the trouble to list the lineage that Jesus would be coming from. This is why God went the extra length to state that His Son would also be called the Son of Abraham and the Son of David in addition to being called the Son of God.
Jesus had to be physically born into our world and in order for Him to be able to do so, He had to be incarnated into a human flesh body in order for our salvation to be able to occur through His physical death on the cross.
Though the Jewish people missed who Jesus really was when He came down to our earth, and are still in darkness to this very day on this issue, the facts still have not changed. God made the Jewish race His chosen people, and from their descendants Jesus would eventually be born into our world.
As such, all Christians owe a major debt of gratitude to the entire Jewish race for being the chosen people that God would eventually have His Son born into this world through.
The best way to look at this is like looking at a two sided coin. On the one side of the coin are the Jewish people and their covenant relationship with God the Father. Though they are not saved at this time, they are still God's chosen people and eventually God will save all of Israel as the above verses are telling us.
On the other side of the coin are all born again Christians saved under the shed Blood of Jesus Christ. Though we are now living under a new and better covenant than what the Jews presently have with God the Father because we have accepted who Jesus really is, this still does not negate the Jewish people and their original Abrahamic covenant that they still have with God the Father.
As such, we should consider all of our Jewish brethren as our brothers and friends of the faith since we both serve and follow the same God the Father.
Remember, the day will come when the Jewish people will accept Jesus as their true Messiah and Savior. But until that day comes, and these people see the real light, we should accept them, love them and solidly support, protect and defend them from the demonic forces that would like to try and totally annihilate them.
As I stated at the top of this article, now, more than ever, the Jewish people and their state of Israel need our continuing support. With another Hitler now rising out of Iran who is trying to develop the nuclear weapons to be able to attack and annihilate Israel, our country, along with the UN and some of our Western allies have got to stay on top of this building crisis.
Remember what the above verse from God the Father has told us - He will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who will try and curse her.
I rest my case for the Jewish people and their holy land of Israel.
About the Author
Article written by Michael Bradley of Bible Knowledge Ministries. Their website is a resource of Bible knowledge commentary and teaching. They currently have over 120 in depth Bible articles. All free of charge.
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/33203.html
| If you wish to add the above article to your website or newsletters then please include the "Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/33203.html" as shown above and make it hyperlinked. |
| Some other articles by Michael Bradley | 9 Fruits of the Holy Spirit
As you will see I the Scripture verse I will give you in this article - there
is one very special incredible verse that will tell you that God the Father
wants to transmit ...
Growing in the Knowledge of God
This first verse completely sets the stage for you to be able to receive knowledge from the Lord. This first verse is literally ...
|
|
| |
|
