A nation Born in a Day!
(Isaiah 66:8-9) “”Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons. “Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD.”
Today, more than at any other time since Israel became a nation again in 1948; anti-Semitism is rapidly spreading like gangrene through the nations and through Christendom (Institutionalised Christianity). This is no coincidence but within the providence of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are even those today claiming to be born again Bible believing Christians who believe that God has finished with the Jewish people and that He is now working in and through the Church and that Israel has no future.
Occupiers? An Apartheid State?
Some are even saying the Israelis are the occupiers and Israel ‘an apartheid state’ not to mention those pushing Replacement theology. Today the ‘Palestinian’ Arabs claim Israel is their land. They see the Israelis as usurpers and occupiers and there are those in the international community endorsing this thinking and even calling Israel an ‘Apartheid State.’ Most recently UNESCO publically promoted the idea that the Israelis had no historical connection to the Temple Mount or Jerusalem. Of course they can be proved wrong both Biblically and archeologically. Having said this what does the Word of God say about the Jewish people and the Land of Israel?
We will very briefly look at some basic Biblical facts that clearly tell us what God says about Israel.
1. God chose the Jewish people to be His people:
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the people who are on the face of the Earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6).God wanted a people free from idols because of the idolatry of the nations so He started with Abraham and his descendants would come through Isaacs line, not Ishmaels. (Genesis 17:15-21)
2. God gave them the land of Israel as their inheritance:
“The Earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). God Himself owns the land so the ownership is settled. God has a right to apportion it to who He pleases and He pleased to give it to Abraham’s line through Isaac and Jacob and not through Ishmael and Esau the fathers of the Arab nations. As the LORD Himself also said; “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9). God set the boundaries, not man.
3. God gave Abraham’s descendants the land of Israel to be their everlasting possession:
“The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this Land'” (Genesis 12:7). God further said to Abraham: “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:7-8). Even though they were exiled because of disobedience God remembers His covenant. In the last days God promises He would restore the Jewish people to the land of Israel. They would be gathered in unbelief but be spiritually transformed after they were back in the land. (Ezekiel 37:1-10) (Zechariah 12:10-14) They have as yet to pass through the time of Jacob’s Trouble but will be saved out of it. (Jeremiah 30:1-7) They are destined to rule over all of the surviving nations in the Millennial Kingdom of the Messiah. (Isaiah 2:1-5) Jerusalem will be the capital of the world.
4. God has set Israel at the centre of the nations:
“This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the centre of the nations, with lands around her” (Ezekiel 5:5). The Land that God chose for His people is located in the centre of the nations, connecting the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia. Because of this strategic location, the Jewish people had ample exposure to all the nations of the world. It was no accident that the Gospel went forth from Jerusalem and Israel. In the Millennial Kingdom God’s Word will go forth into the nations once again. (Isaiah 2:3) (Micah 4:2)
5. God promised the land to Jacob and his descendants in a dream:
“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the Land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.” (Genesis 28:13). God later appeared to Jacob and said to him, “the Land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, and I will give the Land to your descendants after you” (Genesis 35:11-12). This promise deeds the Land of Israel to the descendants of Jacob who are the Jewish people of today.
6. God set the borders of the land which are described in scripture:
“The Lord said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever… Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you'” (Genesis 13:14-17). “The Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, ‘To your descendants I have given this Land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates'” (Genesis 15:18-21). “I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates” (Exodus 23:31). Therefore we must conclude that the entire Land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, the so-called “West Bank”, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and all of Jerusalem, was given by the God of Israel to the people of Israel in perpetuity. The Jewish people alone have been given the title deed to the Land of Israel as a permanent inheritance by the LORD. No human government or coalition of governments has the right or authority to divide up the Land of Israel to anyone else. Those who seek to divide up the land will be judged by the LORD. (Joel 3:2)
7. God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people through a covenant:
“He has remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac. Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion of your inheritance'” (Psalm 105:8- 11). According to scripture it is impossible for God to break an oath. (Hebrews 6:16-18) Even though Israel has been unfaithful and suffered for it the land still belongs to them and will be their everlasting possession. They returned in 1948 and even though there are still troubled times ahead in the Millennial Kingdom of the Messiah Israel will “possess their possessions.” (Obadiah 1:17)
8. God bestowed their name upon them:
“Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”(Genesis 32:24-28) As for the term ‘Palestine” or ‘Palestinian” what many do not realize is that the term “Palestine’ was invented by the Romans to destroy the identity of the Jewish people. The word ‘Palestine’ was derived from the word ‘Philistine.’ The Philistines were an Aegean Greek people, not Semitic. The LORD Himself, His prophets, the Lord Jesus and the apostles all refereed to the land of Israel as Israel, not Palestine. The whole ‘Palestinian cause’ is nowhere to be found in scripture. Besides, the Arabs had the Transjordan for around 20 years given to them under the British mandate. The Arabs had a homeland within Israel but in God’s eyes the land itself was called Israel. After all the name originated with the LORD and not with man.
God remembers His Covenants
Right now Israel on the whole is in unbelief in their Messiah our Lord Jesus. There are those within the rank and file of Christendom who think that the Jewish people have no right to be there anyway because of their unbelief and pagan lifestyles and because they reject their Messiah and many live as enemies to God and in violation of Torah law. But those who condemn Israel as an apartheid state and accuse the Israelis of being occupiers have no revelation of what God is doing within Israel and in fact relegate to antiquity the Word of God concerning Israel. God remembers His covenants and does not break them and whatever it takes, and it will take the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, the LORD will bring about Israel’s repentance and their acceptance of the Lord Jesus as their saviour and Messiah. He will bring His people back to Himself through applied pressure and a revelation of their Messiah.
The Mountain of the House of the LORD
In that day the prophet Micah tell us how it will be; “Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the Lord Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.” (Micah 2:2-4) In that day ‘Jacob’ and ‘Esau’ will have a reunion!
