(May 31, 2010) I started writing a draft of this post more than a week ago. The subject is the importance (or lack thereof) of contemporary news events in relation to God’s overall prophetic plan for the world. Earlier today a still developing story occurred when Israeli forces boarded a supposed peace activist Gaza aid ship before it reached the shores of the Gaza Strip and injuries and deaths were incurred by the combatants.
Before addressing that issue I want to say that the idea for this post occurred to me after reading a blog article on the liberal Christian website maintained by the Sojourners organization. The majority (if not all) the posts on their God’s Politics blog are sympathetic to the Palestinians’ cause at the expense of the Israelis as the following linked article demonstrates: Christian Zionism: Theology that Legitimates Oppression
God has a global, eternal plan for the world and the universe, “9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.” (Isaiah 46:9-10) God is also interested in every individual soul and has a plan for every human being but that too is part of His universal plan as the apoatle Paul wrote, “3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 6 Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” (I Timothy 2:3-6) Contemporary politics of any era have little meaning except as to how they play a role in God’s overall plan. Israel is part of that plan and regardless of one’s worldview Israel was prophesied to become a nation again before the end and then all Israel (i.e. the Jews) will be saved.
Groups like Sojourners don’t seem to grasp that the rebirth of modern Israel could only happen as part of God’s prophetic plan for the world. The Bible makes it clear that the God Himself decides when the Jews live in the land of Israel:
In the Old Testament God declared that it is His decision when the Jews live in the promised land and when they don’t. He tells Moses to warn the Israelites that if they obey Him they will be blessed in the land of Israel. However, if they disobey Him, He will remove them from the land:
“And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field…And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind.” (Deuteronomy 28:1-3,63-65)
Notice in this passage that it is the LORD who scatters the Jews from the land.
Later in Israel’s history, God removed the Jews from the land for their disobedience. He used the Babylonian Empire to perform His judgment. However, He tells them that He will return them to the land after seventy years:
“Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon…For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” (Jeremiah 29:4,10-11)
Again God states that He is the one who caused the Jews to be carried away to Babylon and He will be the one to cause them to return to Israel. In the book of the prophet Amos God promised to bring the Jews back to the land forever:
“And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.” (Amos 9:14-15)
God declares that He is always watching Israel:
“But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.” (Deuteronomy 11:11-12)
God emphasizes throughout His word that He is always interested in what is going on in the land of Israel and that He determines when the Jews live in the land. Thus the Jews couldn’t have returned to the land of Israel unless it was God’s will for them to do so.
The Bible also makes it clear that Israel would play a central role in fulfilling End-Times prophecy. God made a promise concerning the Jews and the nation of Israel:
“33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. 35 Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: 36 If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for ever.” (Jeremiah 31:33-36)
It should be clear to any Bible-believing Christian that the modern state of Israel exists because of the will of God. News events like the one involving the “peace” activist Gaza aid ship today will continue because the world, including the U.S., is turning against Israel. The world is in the process of condemning Israel for today’s incident. Criticism of Israel, deserved or not, will likely increase the closer we get to the End-Times. Christians should generally be standing up for and with the nation of Israel regardless of contemporary political events because we know that God has created it as part of His overall prophetic plans.
