Israel Matters to God (Part 1)
(Genesis 12:1-3) “The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Introduction:
Adolph Hitler said; “If you tell a big enough lie for a long period of time that becomes the truth” Today all over the world there are lies and deception being perpetrated about Israel. Of course this is nothing new as Israel has been maligned since its rebirth in 1948 when a nation was born in a day, or we could say reborn after almost 2,000 years of exile (Isaiah 66:7-9). At the writing of this article Israel is at present engaged in a war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. All over the world, especially on University campuses, students are protesting against the Jewish people accusing them of being occupiers of so called ‘Palestine.’ Most if not all of these protestors have no knowledge of the real truth concerning Israel and the Jewish people. There are even those within wider Christendom who are ‘banging the drum’ against Israel and siding with those who are calling for the establishment of a so called ‘Palestinian’ state and for a two-state solution. Replacement theology is also on the rise within much of Christendom today. As far as Israel is concerned multitudes of professing Christians actually believe that God has not only finished with Israel but that the Jews have no right to the land today.
Those who propagate this lie from the pit of hell have no spiritual revelation of the sacredness of blood covenants that God cut with Israel in the Bible and that He never reneges on His Covenants (Genesis 9:15-16; Exodus 2:24; 6:5) (Leviticus 26:45)(Deuteronomy 4:31) (Psalm 105:8) (1 Chronicles 16:15) (Luke 1:72, 54) (Isaiah 63:11).
Five Theocratic Covenants:
In the Word of God there are five Theocratic Covenants which all point to the Messiah our Lord Jesus, covenants which were made with the Jewish people. You have the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3) (Genesis 13:14-17; 15:1-7; 17:1-8; 18:21). Then you have the Mosaic Covenant (Exodus 19:5-8) (Leviticus Chapter 28). Then you have the Land Covenant (Deuteronomy 29:10-15, 30:11-20) (Genesis 15:17-18; 17; 7-8). And then you have the Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7:4-17). Finally you have the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-35).
The first covenant is the most important because you cannot fulfil a covenant you have not made. The fifth Covenant, being the New Covenant we see in Jeremiah 31:31, is the most essential covenant in that through this covenant God formerly announced to the whole earth that He was going to bring salvation to the world, and that this salvation would be found only in the Messiah His one and only begotten and eternal Son our Lord Jesus, whose shed blood would fully and forever atone for sin, being the everlasting covenant, a covenant never to be repeated (John 3:16) (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12, 26-28; 10:10-12).
God’s Covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3)
(Genesis 12:1-3) “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Now God told Abram (before God changed his name to Abraham) to leave his country and his family and to go to a land that God would show him. He would be exchanging ‘concrete’ for ‘tent pegs.’ He would not have a permanent dwelling in this world because He was looking forward to that eternal city out of time as we know it down here on earth, that city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10). It was a city God had prepared for him and for all of us who walk by faith (Hebrews 11:16).
This call of God on Abraham’s life was a major big deal for him and for God in that Abraham would be seen as a father within the three great Monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. God said to him “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.” It would be a personal blessing to Abraham that would be extended to his offspring being the Jewish people and by extension the Body of Messiah, the faithful church and the spiritual offspring of Israel having been spiritually grafted into Israel, “the Olive Tree” (Romans 11:17-18) (Ephesians 2:11-22) (Acts 15:14-18) (Amos 9:11-12).
And then God said to him; “I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” His name would be great because he would become the father of faith and of all who believe in the Messiah our Lord Jesus for salvation (Romans 4:9-17). He was also to be a blessing to do what? He was to be a channel of blessing in that he would be the father of a nation separated from all of the other nations on earth in that God would have a nation exclusively His free from idolatry. Through this nation the Saviour of the world the Messiah our Lord Jesus would come. Now Israel is synonymous with the Jewish people. It was given to them through the lineage of Isaac and not Ishmael (Genesis 17:19-22). God gave the nation the name Israel to the Jewish people through Jacob and not through Esau (Genesis 32:28). We need to keep in mind that we are to love the Jewish people as God is about people not places. While the land is important to the Jewish people and to God, people are more important from God’s perspective (John 3:16) (2 Peter 3:9).
And then we read; “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;” God was saying to Abraham that “those who curse you curse Me.” God is very tight with Israel because Israel is His wife (Isaiah 54:5). True love is protective. If you see someone abusing of attacking your wife you intervene and fight for them. If you see a disagreement between a man and his wife that is not violent of course, don’t meddle as it is between that man and his wife. God is the same way with Israel. He has the right to deal with them as Israel’s husband but you and I have no right to interfere. We can get hurt doing that! Israel is God’s wife and we are to mind our business. If He wants to chastise her then that is His business. If you or I try to chastise her then we will have a problem with God. Does Israel need to repent? We all do! We need to always remember what we would be like if it was not for the grace, the love and mercy of God towards us.
Whether we are Jew or Gentile God shows no partiality where salvation is concerned (Romans 2:6-11). Having said this in no way cancels out His end-time prophetic purposes for Israel as a nation as they are God’s prophetic time clock for the nations and the Messiah our Lord Jesus is the king of the Jews and is coming back to sit on David’s throne at Jerusalem. Satan knows this and he has targeted Israel since the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and continues to this day seeking the annihilation of the Jewish people because he knows that if he can destroy Israel then the Messiah would have no kingdom to come back to. Of course Satan has already lost and Israel will survive and the Messiah, the son of David after His Second Coming will reign from Jerusalem in the Messianic kingdom of God. He will call the shots and rule the surviving nations with a sceptre of iron (Psalm 2:9) (Revelation 12:5).
And then we read; “…and all of the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” They will be blessed because of the faith of Abraham and that through the Jews the saviour of the world would come, the Jewish Messiah, a Jew and not a Gentile. Abraham’s offspring then are the physical decedents the Jews and the spiritual decedents the believing Gentiles spiritually grafted into Israel by the same faith that Abraham had in God. Abraham’s decedents would be like the sand on the seashore (believing Jews) and as numerous as the stars in the sky (believing Gentiles) (Genesis 22:17-18; 26:4).
Three Blessings:
In pronouncing the blessing upon Abraham, God was pronouncing three blessings. It was an individual blessing, a national blessing and a universal blessing. God is Triune in nature. His number is three which denotes Divine Perfection. God was saying to Abraham “You are going to be blessed personally.” He was saying to Abraham; “you are going to birth a nation.” He was saying to Abraham; “through that nation (Israel) I am going to save the world.”
“Salvation is from the Jews”
When the Lord Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan women at the well He said to her; “You Samaritans do not know what you are worshipping.” The Samaritans were half Jewish as they were the decedents of the Assyrians who had intermarried with the Jews and had their own form of worship. They worshipped at Mount Gerizim, not at Mount Sinai, nor on Mount Zion. They had their own priesthood and they even substituted some of the feasts of Israel. They were doing their own thing. In many churches today the congregations and ministers have forgotten or neglected their Jewish roots and many interpret the Bible through Hellenistic lenses instead of through Jewish lenses. The Bible itself is a Jewish book and must be understood and interpreted in the same way a first century Jewish Messianic believer would have interpreted it, and this includes Biblical Prophecy.
The Lord Jesus went on to say to the Samaritan woman; “We worship what we do know.” Who are “we”? He did not say “I” but “we.” This is the Jewish people. They are one people and the Lord Jesus is not separate from them, being a Jew Himself. Jesus was saying to her that the Jews worship what they do know about God as He is revealed in the Torah which was the Bible of the Old Testament scriptures which also included the Psalms and the prophets and the other books contained therein. He was saying; “we worship according to the Torah because Salvation is from the Jews.” If the Messiah our Lord Jesus is a Jew and salvation is from the Jews and you are saved, how can you not be crazy about the Jews? God is crazy about them as He is for the Body of the Messiah. How can it happen that many Gentile believers within the Body of Messiah today are not favourable towards Israel or to the Jewish people? Salvation is from the Jews. Israel matters to God!
God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and receive eternal life. God used Israel to accomplish this purpose, and He is still using Israel to accomplish that and in these last days God will use Israel again in evangelism to the Gentile nations as the times of the Gentiles subside (Joel 2:28-32). On the day of Pentecost this prophecy of Joel was partially fulfilled and will have its complete fulfilment right at the end of this present age. Joe’s prophecy telescopes to the day of Pentecost, however in the context of the Book applies prophetically to the last of the last days. This is why Israel matters to God. If Israel matters to God then if you love God then Israel should matter to you! After all “Salvation is from the Jews!”
Scattered and Regathered:
Once God declared that the nation of Israel was to bring forth the Messiah of the world a target was put on their back as a nation. Satan aggressively started to develop strategies to ‘take them out.’ Israel has paid a terrible price over the centuries for her calling, as well as for her disobedience at times. Sometimes people who are closest to God will pay dearly for their disobedience because they have the greater spiritual light and insight and have the most responsibility because “too much that is given, from much is expected.” With privilege comes responsibility. This is why teachers will be judged with a greater strictness (James 3:1). However, through repentance and God’s great mercy He has always brought Israel back to Himself and into His good graces. Although Israel His wife at times has forgotten the God of her salvation, the God of her salvation has never forgotten her. Why? Because Israel matters to God!
In Deuteronomy Chapter 30 the LORD Himself prophesied through Moses in the 14th century BC that Israel would forsake Him, that Israel would suffer and that as a nation they would go into exile but return again to the Land. (Deuteronomy 30:1-4). In the previous chapter God had set out blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy Chapter 28). The blessings and curses are still in operation. It also needs to be said that the power of the curses were broken at the cross where the Messiah our Lord Jesus bore that curse and its penalty by becoming a curse in our place whether we are ethnically Jew or Gentile. His atoning blood not only provided redemption and forgiveness for sin, but through the power of the Spirit the power of that curse was broken. Whenever a Jewish man, woman or boy or girl receive the atonement and are spiritually reborn from above through repentance and by faith in the Messiah as their Passover Lamb sacrificed for their sin, the power of that curse hanging over them is broken and they are cleansed by the Messiah’s blood (Galatians 3:13) (1 Corinthians 5:7) (Hebrews 9:14).
In the last days God said He would regather His people and bring them home and in the Land of Israel they would come to salvation through faith in the Messiah our Lord Jesus. He is gathering His people today and even though the Time of Jacob’s Trouble lies ahead for Israel a remnant will come to salvation and the nation completely restored spiritually and nationally (Ezekiel Chapter 37) (Jeremiah 30:1-10) (Romans 11:5). God will bring His people back and show Himself Holy in sight of all the nations existing on earth in that day and Israel’s malicious neighbours who had been briars and sharp thorns in their side will be punished (Ezekiel 28:24-26). In the end God will act on their behalf, not because they have earned it or deserved it, but for the sake of His name He will bring them home (Ezekiel Chapter 36). Israel matters to God!
