“Surely the Lord God does nothing Unless He reveals His secret counsel To His servants the prophets.”
(Amos 3:7) (NASB)
This will be for some a hard pill to swallow. It will challenge long-held beliefs and customs. It may reveal secret prejudices or test one’s will to follow the word of God wherever it may lead. But there exists an undeniable truth that needs color all our beliefs. There is a theme in Scripture. It is woven in from the very beginning. And many – perhaps most – Christians have missed it. In many ways it is the key to God’s heart – and still true followers of God have missed the thing entirely. In fact, as history has shown, the professing Church has often taken the opposite tack. They’ve operated as if God never said what He said – or perhaps meant what He said. Yet we can find it expressed from Genesis to Revelation; through the Law and the Prophets, in the Gospels and the writings of Paul. It is the theme of God’s love for Israel – physical Israel – and the people that comprise it. God clearly states that Israel was to serve as a blessing for all the nations. And Israel, though twice banished, was to one day return to the Land and possess it forever; an everlasting possession. More than that, scripture tells us that Gentiles are to aid in this process; and prophecy confirms that they will. That return of the Jewish People – God’s Chosen – to the Land, serves as the prophetic signal for the return of the soon-coming King-Messiah. We watch that prophecy unfold today. It is the key to everything else. It is the – ‘clause without which’ – anything else can come to pass. It is laid out in God’s holy, immutable word. And we are watching it come to pass today.
FROM THE BEGINNING
It all starts with the love of God, expressed through the creation of man, a being fashioned in the very image of God. If that is not love! “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) The Bible draws a picture of an intimate relationship between the human and the Divine. It describes it as God walking with man. But Adam and Eve, and by extension all mankind, are freewill beings. So when the temptation came to set up shop for themselves – to take for themselves the prerogatives of God, they did so. And thus the fellowship was severed. With that broken bond between God and man came a curse upon all creation. A separation now existed, that no man could bridge. But God was not left without a plan. God….being God, did the Godly thing. Since He knew the end from the beginning – (being outside of time and all) – God knew just what He would do. Even as He was pronouncing sentence for the consequences of sin God gave the first hint of His promise of a Savior. To the serpent he said: “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15) (ESV) This was confirmed by Job in the oldest book of the Bible when he said: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.”
(Job 19:25) (ESV)
So, in the centuries that followed God worked His plan. In the course of time, He chose Abraham as a vessel worthy to serve as the father of the nation from which Messiah would come. That chosen nation was Israel. In Genesis 12:1-3 we see God’s charge to Abraham. “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (ESV)
God’s promise to Israel was a sacred covenant. Deuteronomy 7:6-9 records a reminder to His chosen nation. “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.”
But though Israel was chosen as the vehicle for the Messiah, the salvation that He offered would not be limited Jews alone. “His Name shall endure forever; His Name shall continue as long as the sun. And men shall be blessed in Him; all nations shall call Him blessed.” (Psalm 72:17) And when Abraham proved obedient by showing his willingness to sacrifice his only son, God confirmed once again His plan to bless both Israel – and all the Gentile nations through them. “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:16-18)
In Isaiah 49 we see once again a confirmation of God’s promise to Israel and a restatement of its purpose; to convey salvation to all of mankind. In verse 3 He states: “You are My servant, O Israel, In whom I will be glorified.” Then just a few verses later He adds this: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6) (ESV)
We see that scripture clearly establishes that Israel was chosen by God to serve as His vehicle of redemption. However, some point out that that charge was completed. Jesus came was murdered and rose again to fulfill His promise given to Adam and Even in the Garden and fleshed out more in His dealings with Abraham and the prophets. But God’s promises are not done and He is certainly not finished with Israel. “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:7-8) (ESV) So, what we have here is: #1 an “everlasting covenant” lasting through all the generations of the physical offspring of Abraham – and – #2 the land of Canaan promised to these same people as an “everlasting possession.” The wording seems clear: This involves the physical Land of Israel. [And as we’ll see, it encompasses more than just Israel’s tiny land-mass today.] That will serve as our jumping-off point for next time.
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