Introduction:
Have you ever considered why there are protests only against Israel in western cities around the world? Whether it is Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and even in the United States for starters, Israel is being condemned, damned, accused of committing Genocide against the Arabs in Gaza and denigrated and accused of being an apartheid country that has repressed its Arab population in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria.
No one protested on the streets about the tens of thousands of civilians that were culled by the Islamic Jihadist sadistic regime in Iran that was perpetrated against Iranian civilians before Israel and the United States made a pre-emptive strike against the evil regime controlling Iran.
No one is protesting on the streets about what is happening in the Congo where the Congolese Revolutionary Army, backed by Rwanda, continues to perpetrate atrocities, contributing to a humanitarian crisis with millions displaced and in need of aid.
No one is protesting on the streets about the mass killings in the Sudan particularly in the Darfur region, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are accused of committing widespread atrocities against non-Arab communities, including mass killings and ethnic targeting leading to a severe humanitarian crisis with millions displaced.
No one is protesting on the streets about violence against Christians in Nigeria, with reports of killings and kidnappings attributed to Islamist groups like Boko Haram and Fulani militias.
However, why is Israel being targeted? Why are the United Nations and the European Union by and large calling for sanctions only against Israel and the whole Islamic Arab world in reality calling for Israel’s demise as a nation?
Salvation is from the Jews
It was a Jew our Lord Jesus that brought Salvation to the world (John 4:22). That same Jew stripped Satan of His power at the cross putting him and his cohorts from Hades to an open shame (Colossians 2:14-15).
That same Jew after He had made purification for sins was physically resurrected to sit down at the right side of His Father, the Majesty on High in Heaven after having obtained eternal redemption to rescue men and women enslaved to sin, heading for hell and under Satan’s power (Hebrews 1:1-3) (Hebrews 9:11-12). After our first parents Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden of Eden and by that act of rebellion against their creator gave the human race into Satan’s clutches (Luke 4:6).
God Himself prophesied in the Garden that one would come who would reverse the curse and through His atoning death, and by His shed blood, reverse that curse upon man so that any who repented and exercised faith in Him to be reconciled to God would be set free from the power of sin and out of Satan’s grip (Genesis 3:15) (1 Peter 2:9).
God called Abraham to be the father of a nation exclusively belonging to Himself and that one of Abraham’s descendants through the lineage of Isaac and Jacob would become Israel’s Messiah, and the one who would be their Passover Lamb, who would be the appeasing sacrifice for Israel’s’ sins and for the sins of the whole world (John 1:29) (1 John 2:2).
God in His foreknowledge knew that Abraham would bring his children up in the ways of the LORD (Genesis 18:19).
Satan’s knee jerk reaction!
Satan became aware of this nation that God had birthed through His servant Abraham. From its inception Satan decided to destroy this nation in the hope that he might prevent the one who would defeat him. Satan knew that the prophecy of his defeat given in the Garden of Eden would come true.
We know from the Bible that God gave Abraham and his decedents through Isaac and Jacob the land of Israel from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates and everything in between to be for them an everlasting possession (Genesis 15:17-21; 17:7-8).
We know that the struggle between the Jacob and Esau in the womb of their mother Rebekah that Esau, the father of the Arab nations, would seek to fight against Jacob the father and patriarch of Israel and that Esau and his descendants would serve Jacob and his descendants (Genesis 25:21-23).
Isaac pronounced a blessing of favour upon Jacob (Genesis 27: 28-29), but a pronounced a curse on Esau (Genesis 27:39-40). From that time onwards Esau hated Jacob and sought to kill him (Genesis 27:41). Hence we see the source of the hatred of the Jews by the Arab nations today, a source that had its roots in Satan.
God’s Foreknowledge
Even though Jacob obtained the birthright through deceiving Isaac and had to live with the consequences, in Jacob’s heart was the desire to be blessed by God. In His foreknowledge in eternity God foresaw Jacob walk in the blessing of the birthright that in the natural should have been given to Esau.
However even before the boys were conceived and before they had even done right or wrong, God in His foreknowledge and absolute sovereignty also saw that Esau would not care less about the birthright and that he would despise it to live his own life without walking with God (Romans 9:11-16) (Genesis 25:29-34) (Hebrews 12:15-17).
God gave the name Israel to the Jewish people
God later bestowed the name Israel upon Jacob after the patriarch himself had wrestled through the night with the pre-existent Messiah our Lord Jesus before His incarnation as a man (Genesis 32:24-30).
When God told Abraham that through him all of the nations on earth (including the Arabs) would be blessed through one of his decedents, which was the Messiah our Lord Jesus, that Satan now upped the ante on his twisted and perverted desire to destroy the Jewish people to prevent the Messiah, a Jew, from being born into this world as a man, and the one who would decimate Satan’s kingdom.
Hence we see Satan working through Pharaoh of Egypt seeking to destroy the first born of the Jewish babies in Egypt (Exodus 1:15-16). Then we see Satan working through King Herod who sought to kill all of the Jewish baby boys under two years of age born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:13-18). Both the King of Egypt and King Herod were a type and foreshadow of the Antichrist to come who will persecute the women (Israel) and her spiritual offspring, the faithful Body of Messiah (Revelation 12:13-17).
Israel’s suffering
Down through Israel’s long history the Jewish people have suffered more than any other nation. They had a covenant with God which had attached to it blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy Chapter 28).
However they kept breaking the covenant and persecuted stoned and killed the prophets God sent to them to turn them back from their wicked ways, but by and large, except for a faithful remnant in each generation, the people of Israel did not repent and turn back to Him. Hence the LORD sent foreign armies against them.
Finally after sending the prophets God sent the Messiah His one and only begotten eternally existing Son to become flesh and to tabernacle among them, however by and large His brethren killed Him, the author of eternal life (Matthew 21:33-45) (Acts 3:15). During His earthly ministry many Jews did come to a saving knowledge and faith in Him as the Messiah and the saviour from sin. We see this in the gospels in the New Testament.
After the Lord’ Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and ascension to heaven, the apostles in the power of the Holy Spirit went all throughout Israel preaching the good news of the salvation that the Messiah had provided for the Jewish people. Eventually the message spread to the Gentile nations which was God’s eternal purpose for the Gentile nations (Acts 1:8) (Acts 15:8-18) (Amos 9:11-12).
Because of the curse of the Law and the rejection of the Messiah and the salvation found only in Him (Acts 4:12), most of the Jewish people down through their long and troubled history have suffered because of the curse they put upon themselves and upon their children when they called for Jesus’ crucifixion at His trial (Matthew 27:25).
The Holocaust as terrible as it was and the tragedy of it was the curse and caused by Satan, not God. In fact at the cross the Messiah our Lord Jesus did not curse His brethren in the flesh but prayed for them that His Father in heaven might forgive them.
Knowing full well, the sacking of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple by the armies of Rome that would come upon Israel 40 years later, He grieved over His Jewish brothers and sisters saying; “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD” (Matthew 23:37-39).
In 70AD when Jerusalem was ransacked by the Romans and the temple destroyed Biblical Mosaic Judaism ceased to exist. Today the Judaism in Israel is not the Judaism of Moses. There is no temple, no high priest and no animals suitable to be sacrificed.
The end of continuous sacrifices for sin
While the Orthodox Jews in Israel today are seeking to rebuild the Temple and reinstate the High Priesthood and breed the heifer for sacrificing, it is no longer acceptable to God because the perfect Passover Lamb the Messiah, our Lord Jesus, has been sacrificed once and for ever, ending the need for continuous sacrifices and offerings to atone for sin which is clearly taught in the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament. See (Hebrews 7:25-27; 9:11-12, 23-27; 10:10-18).
Any sacrifice offered to atone for sin is an affront to the sacrifice the Messiah our Lord Jesus made on behalf of Israel and for the whole world. The curse is still out there and it rests on all who reject the salvation in the Messiah our Lord Jesus whether they are Jew or Gentile (Romans 2:6-11).
Rabbi the Apostle Paul deals with this in the Book of Romans. He deals with the fact that all have sinned whether Jew or gentile (Chapters 1-2). He writes about God’s faithfulness and His righteousness received by faith and not by works, exposing the futility of Israel’s works based righteousness (Chapter 3). He then writes about all who have faith in the Messiah whether Jew or gentile that they are spiritual children of Abraham, the father of faith and of all who believe for salvation (Chapter 4). Then in relation to Israel as a nation he clearly writes about their end-time restoration as a nation (Chapters 11:25-29).
God always remembers His Covenants
God always remembers His Covenants including those made with Israel as His call and gifts are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). Added to this, the New Covenant cut in the blood of Messiah was made with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, not with a gentile Church (Jeremiah 31:31). Gentiles who believe in the Messiah are spiritually grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel and partake of the blessings given to Abraham and his decedents the Jewish people (Romans chapter 4; 11:17-18) (Ephesians 2:11-22) (Amos 9:11-12) (Acts 15:8-17) (Psalm 105:6-11).
Satan’s rage against Israel
Those into the replacement theology camp teach that the Triune God of Israel has rejected the Jewish people as a nation because of their rejection of the Messiah. This is a lie that Satan is spawning from hell today within wider Christendom as he also turns the pagan nations against the Jews big time!
In his rage he now knows his time is short before his incarceration below the earth away from all human contact (Revelation 20:1-3). Satan is pulling out all the stops to destroy Israel as a nation because He knows that God’s prophetic end-time purposes for the whole world depend on the survival of Israel as a nation. In his twisted and warped mindset Satan thinks if he can destroy Israel that it will prevent the Second Coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus. However, we know Satan’s defeat is already assured as prophesied way back in the Garden of Eden and throughout scripture.
The Time of the Big Trouble
Israel as a nation as yet is to pass through the Time of Jacob’s Trouble which will see a remnant of Jews survive to enter the Millennial Messianic kingdom (Jeremiah 30:1-10). This time of the Big Trouble will be the darkest hour for Israel which will see only a remnant saved (Zechariah 12:11:13:1) (Zechariah 13:8-9) (Isaiah 10:22-23) (Romans 9:27). In those days lasting for three and a half years the only friends the Jews will have will be the faithful Body of Messiah who will love them and support them and in many cases suffer and die with them as they did in the Holocaust in WWII.
In light of what happened in the Holocaust, and what is happening to the Jewish people today, I personally do not like to mention this aspect of God’s dealing with His people during this Time of Jacob’s Trouble because I love the Jewish people and believe in the spiritual and national restoration of Israel as a nation at the end of this present age, and because I am fully aware of all of the terrible suffering they have experienced, are still experiencing, and the global rise of Antisemitism they have started to experience. One cannot profess to Love the Lord Jesus and not love His brothers and sisters in the flesh!
Persecution of the Woman and her spiritual offspring
During the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, also called the Time of Great Tribulation, both Israel and the faithful Body of Messiah will be persecuted by the beast empire of the Antichrist for three and a half years in duration. Satan through the Antichrist and his beast empire will seek to destroy Israel but not succeed, and in a rage go after her spiritual offspring, those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus, the faithful Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into Israel (Revelation 12:13-17) (Daniel 7:21; 8:9-12) (Revelation 13:5-7).
Ruling the nations with a rod of iron
When the Time of Jacob’s Trouble comes to an end, and the Messiah is back in Israel sitting on David’s throne in Jerusalem reigning over the surviving nations with a Rod of Iron, as foretold in the Word of God, He will rule the whole world and bring about the regeneration of all things; enabling the world to fulfil the original purpose for which it was created, namely for the welfare of man. The conditions of Eden before the fall will be restored! (Isaiah 9:6-7) (Luke 1:32) (Jeremiah 30:8-9) (Ezekiel 37:15-28) (Isaiah 2:1-5) (Micah 4:1-5) (Matthew 19:28) (Revelation 12:5) (Isaiah 65:17-25).
Breaking the curse
Today Israel as a nation is still labouring under the curse of the Law, rejecting the Messiah and the salvation only found by faith in Him, and this is the very bad news because of what it will bring upon the nation. However, the best news and Jewish man or woman, boy or girl can have is that when the Messiah died on the cross He became that curse (Galatians 3:3).
He bore the full weight of Israel’s sin and its punishment (Isaiah Chapter 53). He was the ultimate perfect and final Passover Lamb sacrificed for the sins of Israel (1 Corinthians 5:7). When a Jewish man, woman, boy of girl are spiritually reborn from above the law of Moses is written on their hearts by the Holy Spirit and they become new spiritual creations in Messiah (Jeremiah 31:31-36) (2 Corinthians 5:17).
When any Jewish man, woman, boy or girl come to repentance and saving faith and embrace the Messiah as their personal saviour and Lord that curse of the Law hanging over their life is broken, their sin purged and cleansed by the Messiah’s blood, their sins forgiven, and they are reunited with their Messiah who has loved them from eternity. They do not cease to be Jewish or have to lose their Jewish identity, but come into the full supernatural revelation of what it means to be a child of Abraham and of the Triune God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
The whole word lies in Satan’s clutches
The hate, the denigration, the protests, the curses and the railings of anti-Semites in the world and even in much of wider Christendom is all the work of Satan and those who serve him, in the world and even within wider Christendom. The wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest comes when the Lord Jesus comes back and the tares are separated from the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). From a distance the wheat and the tares look virtually the same, however on closer inspection one can tell the difference.
When you think of the genocide happening in many nations around the world at the behest of wicked and cruel governments, or at the hands of Islamic terrorists that do not evoke protests or gain the attention of the majority of the main stream media, why is it that Israel is constantly targeted?
Humanly speaking it is irrational! It does not make sense to the pagan and the spiritually unregenerate mindset or to the uniformed beliver. However in the light of God’s Word it makes perfect sense as the unsaved people in this crooked and perverse generation lies in the clutches of the wicked one (1 John 5:9). Satan, the ‘god’ of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of the Messiah, who is the image of God, and who is Jewish! (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Why only protests against Jews and Israel bashing?
Why do the United Nations and the European Union and the Arab nations and the whole Islamic world for that matter really hate Israel? Humanly speaking it makes no sense! What about the repressive governments in North Korea, Russia, China and in virtually every other Muslim country? Where are the world wide protests over these wicked regimes?
However, when you look at Anti-Semitism from a spiritual perspective according to God’s Word we can clearly see why it is still rampant in the world today. Satan is behind it all. Those nations that seek to change the status of Jerusalem, divide up God’s real estate and persecute His people Israel will be severely judged (Joel 3: 1-3, 12-16) (Zechariah 12:1-9).
The sheep and the goat nations
After the Messiah has come back, destroyed all opposition to the establishment of his Messianic Kingdom, and the surviving nations stand before Him, He will separate the sheep nations from the goat nations. The goat nations that did not support Israel during their darkest hour will be banished into an eternal punishment, whereas the sheep nations that supported Israel during their darkest hour will enter into the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom and inherit eternal life! (Matthew 25:31-46). One cannot be a saved Christian and hate Israel and the Jews at the same time!
God has not finished with Israel!
Let’ be clear! God has not finished with Israel! Satan’s final defeat and that of the coming Antichrist along with his beast empire is assured! (Revelation 19:17-21; 20:1-3, 7-15) The Jewish people are still the apple of God’s eye!!! Those who mess with Israel mess with God!!!
The four main covenants
Through the Abrahamic Covenant God gave the Jewish people a land to be for them as “an everlasting possession.” Through the Mosaic Covenant He gave them a law by which to live by in the land He had bequeathed to them as His people. Through the Davidic Covenant He gave them King David who was a foreshadowing of the Messiah reigning in Israel. Through the New Covenant made with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah cut in the blood of the Messiah, our Triune God has given the Jewish people the Messiah, the ultimate and final King of Israel, king of the Jews, who will reign over them in the Messianic age to come after the close of this present age!
In closing where Israel as a nation is concerned God’s Word is clear…
“…the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen” (Romans 9:4-5).
God’s gifts and His call are Irrevocable
Rabbi the Apostle Paul speaking to the Gentile New Covenant believers in Rome who were starting to think that they were somehow superior to their Jewish brothers and sisters in Messiah, in his letter to them he was in fact addressing what was potentially an embryotic form of replacement theology.
He writes concerning the people of Israel…
“I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:25-29).
As Isaiah prophesies…
They (the redeemed Jewish remnant) will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD—the grain, new wine, and oil, and the young of the flocks and herds. Their life will be like a well-watered garden, and never again will they languish. Then the maidens will rejoice with dancing, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into joy, and give them comfort and joy for their sorrow” (Jeremiah 31:12-13).Selah!
