Israel: Past, present, and future

Do you believe that Israel’s future is secure? The God of Heaven and Earth has proclaimed that though He make a a full end of all nations where He has scattered the Jewish people, yet He will not make a complete end of them. (Jer 30:11) Do you believe that the Church’s future is secure? The same God of Heaven and Earth has declared that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it! (Mt 16:18) Why is this promise and hope so certain? Because of the resurrection of all who believe in the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Our hope is not in this world or in this life in this body, but in the new heavens and new Earth that YHVH God will create after He has finished all that He has planned and purposed for this creation.

The Jewish people have just finished celebrating and remembering God’s great works for her in history, and for His plan to finish what He began about 6000 years ago. The Feast of Tabernacles, with its closing day of Simchat Torah, will continue to be a sobering reminder of the peril and insecurity which Israel and the Jewish people still face from their enemies. Last Oct 7, 2023, was the darkest day since the unprecedented (till now) Holocaust during WW2, and the volcanic eruption of antisemitism worldwide has shattered our complacency: that we are somehow in control of assuring “never again”. 

The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob is the Creator, and He is the Savior in the Man Jesus Christ, the Messiah whom God has promised since the Garden of Eden. He came as a Jew in the line of King David, and He return to sit on the throne of glory in Jerusalem, according to God’s covenant with David. YHVH is powerful and faithful to do all that He has purposed to do, and He will do it according to His schedule! Jesus told us that the Father has set the day and the hour for Him to return: He will not come early, nor will He come late. He tells us to be ready for that unexpected time. Our time to die could come today; but the time for the Lord’s return is at the appointed time of the Father. So, I need to be ready today, that my life is right with Him, in case I should die somehow today. And I need to be ready, should I be alive at the time that He will come back physically to Jerusalem in the same way that His apostles saw Him go up to the Father’s throne in Heaven. Are you getting yourselves ready, sanctifying yourselves, with the help of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, purifying yourselves, for He is pure? The apostle John writes that all who have this hope of being with the Lord and being like Him will do this. This is the love of God in us. 

The descendants of Jacob are today called the Jewish people, even though there are twelve tribes of Israel that God still recognizes. We are a microcosm of all humanity. I can say that because God gave Israel, as a people and nation, to the Church as an example. (1Cor 10:1-14) The church/Body of Christ is made up of all kinds of people from everywhere; yet the Bible is the same for us all. The example of Israel is mostly negative from the human side; but from God who chose them, and us, to be His holy people, the example is positive for our faith, our hope, our love.  

When Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, sinned in the Garden of Eden, God did not give up on human beings or on this Creation that He created in six days, and rested on the seventh. The same God also did not give up on His first chosen nation, Israel – which He told Moses to tell Pharaoh that Israel is His firstborn son — just because they also sin. (Rom 9:1-21; Ex 4:21-23) This gives assurance to all who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord that He will not give up on us just because we are still human beings and so we sin. But in the fear of God, and for Him who first loved us, our hearts and minds and all that is within us must love Him above all and be faithful to Him: His name is holy, and His word is truth.

Satan, who rebelled against His Creator, is the enemy of YHVH God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – and the devil is the enemy of all humans, because God created us in His image and likeness, and has said that humans will rule and reign with Yeshua the Messiah in His kingdom. The angels will be subject to humans, and not the other way around. Satan is particularly against Jews, Israel, and Christians – because we are all in covenant relationship with the Creator and the Redeemer, which is not so of any other people or nation. Whatever the one true living God is for, the devil is against, our fallen nature is against, ‘the world’ is against. Jesus is not of this world, neither is His kingdom, and we are not either if we are born-again by the Holy Spirit and disciples of Jesus Christ.

God is for His holy name’s sake (Ezek 36:22-38); therefore, He must fulfill all that He has said, and had put in writing in the Tenach (OT)and in the New Testament, for good and for bad; for now, and for eternity. Whoever or whatever YHVH God chooses, His enemies are against:  God chose Isaac and not Ishmael; God chose Jacob and not Esau; God chose the Land of Canaan to give to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel. God chose David as His King, and Messiah is the Son of David, whom YHVH has decreed will be King in Jerusalem over all; God chose Jerusalem to be His city. You can see and hear for yourselves in this generation how there is conflict, dispute, and war about all of these things and people! And the Holy Spirit is holy, truthful, and pure. 

We must each make our choice of where we stand, of whose side we are on: on Yeshua’s/Jesus’ and His words; or, on the side that opposes Him and His words in this adulterous and sinful generation, and wants to replace all that is of the true God and Father with hatred, bitterness, perverseness, and paganism. (Mk 8:34-38) Every culture has their stories, their narratives, their legends and fables. YHVH gave the truth to Israel, and through them to the rest of the world, to set the record straight among all the so-called knowledge and wisdom of this world. Do we believe not only in the true God, but also what He says about all things? 

Israel asked for a King like gentiles have, and YHVH gave them Saul as their king.  He gave them what they wanted, and also said that they had rejected Him from being their King. God told Samuel the prophet to warn them of what having a king like Gentiles have would be like. The Jewish people till now also reject Yeshua/Jesus from being their King. He and the Father are both holy and righteous, and know the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Gentile kings do not. Jewish rulers have copied Gentile kings and rulers as their models. But YHVH is working to restore His people to Himself through severe Fatherly chastisements and punishments; and He will restore the Kingdom of YHVH back to Israel after Jesus returns to do so. The morning is coming, but also the night. (Acts 1:4-8; Is 21:11-12; Jn 9:3-4) 

The past of Israel has led to her present. After 1900 years of exile by God from living as a nation in the land which He promised with a covenant and an oath, the Jewish people began to move back in large numbers in the last 20 years of the 19th century. They were suffering antisemitic riots/pogroms in mostly Russia and eastern Europe, and God began moving by His Spirit to get them to begin to return to Zion. Many Gentile Christians, especially from Britain, helped them to know God’s will for them to return “back home”. This return was mostly secular, without a living faith in the living God who chose them to be His people, and a light to the nations.

Even during WW1, there was increased international and Christian interest and law to promote, encourage, and enable the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland. After the Christian military forces of Britain, New Zealand, and Australia defeated the Muslim Turks in Beer Sheva on Oct 31, 1917, the Balfour Declaration was declared by Britain to express their intention for the Jewish people to resettle in Palestine, biblically known as Israel. In 1920, the San Remo Convention legalized that intention, giving the English government authority to assist with the Jewish people’s return to Israel, and possession of the territory given to it. In 1922, the League of Nations gave full international legal support for the return of the Jewish people. All this was before the Holocaust!  So, the claims that the Jewish people are illegal occupiers of Palestine, and that it is only because of the Holocaust, are simply not true. The Holocaust was the final straw that broke the camel’s back, if you understand that expression.  

God, in His sovereign wisdom, used Gentile world powers to help with returning Jews to their homeland. The Gentile powers have not been faithful in standing with Israel through the years, and especially as we can all see for this last year till now.  But YHVH GOD is faithful to do what He said thousands of years ago: He does not change, and neither does His Word!  God’s word says that Christians are supposed to stand with Israel for the sake of the name of Jesus, by showing mercy to the Jewish people, which will provoke them to jealousy to become more open to the truth that the Messiah is in fact Jesus. (Rom 11:25-36)  

Christians thought that God had finished with the Jews and with the nation Israel because we killed the Messiah and Son of God (according to God’s redemptive plan for the world). They thought/think that the Church has replaced Israel as God’s people. Muslims think that God is finished with Christians and the Jews: the Jews killed Messiah; the Christians do not obey Him because they do not love their enemies. Jews think that after the Holocaust there is no God, at least not YHVH, who allowed such a catastrophe to happen to “His Chosen People”. But…YHVH, by enabling the reestablishment of the Jewish nation back in the land which He promised, and according to His prophecies, is saying, “I AM STILL HERE, AND DOING WHAT I SAID THAT I WOULD DO!” 

This present time leads us into the near future:  Jesus said that the generation that sees the fig tree put forth leaves will see the end, will see His return. We are in that generation! The State of Israel is a prophetic sign from God that is seen!  Many Christian commentators agree that the fig tree represents national Israel; that is, the Jewish people living in their own land. Many also say that because Jesus cursed the fig tree that God is finished with Israel and the Jews!  But then Jesus says that the generation that sees the fig tree (the same tree) put forth leaves, will see His return! He also tells us that this same generation will see the antichrist and the abomination that brings desolation, setting off the great tribulation (which is not God’s day of vengeance, His wrath on His enemies). Our God is the God of righteousness and grace and miracles and resurrection!  Praise the Lord!  Not only for individuals, but also for His chosen people and nation.

With this living hope and living faith in God’s wisdom and ways with the nation Israel and the Jewish people, more Gentiles will be saved, including Arabs, while Israel is still the enemy of the gospel. Because God also cares about nations, Egypt, for example, as a nation, will be among those whom Yeshua will preserve for the Millennial Kingdom – the 1000-year reign of King Jesus after He returns from Heaven to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Israel. Those who have part in the first resurrection and rapture will rule and reign with Him for 1000 years, and not need to fear the second death! 

For you young people, this blessed hope will sustain you in a world that offers no lasting hope or godly society. For you older people, this blessed hope sustains us knowing that the Father will send Jesus back again to make this world right. This is the best thing for our children and grandchildren. We need to be encouraging each other in this love and truth. Things will get worse, though, before the Lord returns, but there is glory on the other side of that suffering that we need to keep our eyes and heart on. Yeshua/Jesus has shown us the way; and He is the Way!