Overlooked in the discussion of Israel and Hamas: GOD
And our attention stays on the periphery and not the heart of the matter, which is the unresolved controversy between ancient Israel and its God
Without going into minute details of the controversy, but the broad outlines of it: in ancient / Biblical times Israel had a blood-sealed covenant with the LORD its God, the God of Abraham and of Moses. It walked away from that covenant and forsook the LORD and activated the negative stipulations of the covenant as elaborated by Moses in his prophecies in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which were the curses instead of the blessings.
While there remained what is called “a faithful remnant” among the people of Israel, they were few, and eventually a “moment of truth” came upon the people – when the long-promised Messiah, the deliverer from sin and death, was sent by God (His eternal Son!) to be born as a man and destroy the works and the power of the Devil. He was rejected by the Jewish religious leaders of the nation, as foretold by one of the Hebrew prophets:
For the leaders of this people cause them to err;
and they that are led of them are destroyed (Isaiah 9:16).
As a result of their rejection of Messiah, and seeking the death penalty for Him, the Gentile (Roman) governor over Israel pressured to concur, the covenant with Israel was annulled, and as a geo-political nation and people there was no longer a “covenant” entity called Israel. According to Moses – through whom the LORD spoke – to disregard the Messiah and His words would result in those who did so being cut off from God’s Israel, and His salvation (Deuteronomy 18:18, 19).
All those who did receive Messiah, Jew and Gentile both, would be accepted by the LORD as His people, His faithful Israel – at this point in time a spiritual nation comprised of men and women from out of all the nations – and when this present world is ended and the creation of New Earth, free of death, sin, pain, toxins, and tears, the spiritual Israel would have their glorious “resurrection bodies” on this new earth, and God Himself would be in this paradise with them, called New Jerusalem, the entire planet His “holy of holies” temple of glory and joy.
This gathering of Jews and Gentiles from all the nations and peoples of the earth into God’s people was promised to Abraham and the Hebrew prophets up through the ages, so this “multinational spiritual nation” is nothing new.
Back to this point in time: that old dispossessed-from-Israel Jewish people were able to gather again as a secular nation in 1948 – not related to the Israel of old, save by blood-lines – and they have so far survived many onslaughts by enemies. They were able to gather as a nation by a decree of the U.N. giving them a portion of land in the old territory they used to inhabit 2000 years earlier. Most of the world – but not many Muslims – agreed, due to the near extermination of them by Hitler earlier in that century.
And here is the overlooked issue few understand: Those covenant curses spoken some three and a half thousand years ago have followed the scattered Jewish people up through the last twenty centuries. They have removed themselves from the covenant protection and care of their LORD and God, and He has not prevented the Devil from assaulting them horribly. This sort of thing is nothing new to the Jewish people, with their God leaving them to their own devices:
When He is gone, and darkness is in their house, then devils come to wreak havoc in those once called the people of God. He said through the prophet Hosea, “yea, woe also to them when I depart from them!” (Hosea 9:12) And through Moses He said – with respect to the breaking of the covenant:
"Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?" (Deuteronomy 31:17)
So what we are seeing today is more of what are called, the “Deuteronomic curses”. And there are Messianic Jews (who believe in their Messiah) seeking to call their countrymen and women back to Him. It may well be there are more horrific calamities to befall those in the Jewish State before the final – the eternal – Judgment at the end of time.
As for those who seek to harm and destroy the Jewish people worldwide with their barbaric butchery and genocide – or egg others on to do it – they do the work of their father, the devil, and shall reside with him in that place prepared for Satan and his angels: the Hell of Gehenna, and at the very end, the lake of fire.
Many Israelis today are willing to have a “two state solution” with peace-loving Palestinians as long as those fanatics committed to their utter destruction and genocide are not among them. But the devil and his children want no peaceful political solution, only blood, from the river to the sea.
The LORD, overseeing all this, wants those among the Jews in the land who hear His voice to return to Him, lest they perish with the devil. It is a kindness that He calls them again, even in the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10), that they not perish eternally.
How it will turn out remains to be seen. When the devil is involved nuclear weapons certainly are on the table. World leaders are not in their right minds in these days, but open to evil and madness. Did you not know? we are nearing the finish of the Apocalypse, and fabled Armageddon, the last great battle – more on which in another writing.
It would behoove those who look on the doings in the Middle East, to themselves avoid the coming judgment at the end of time. Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s Messiah, is also the Saviour of the world, having made an atoning sacrifice of Himself for the sins of all who believe in Him, having taken their judgment upon Himself on the cross as He bore God’s wrath in their place. He rose from the dead three days later according to the Scripture, and is now seated on the throne of Heaven, forgiving sinners who come to Him for forgiveness and eternal life.
It’s funny, or curious, as sometimes happens in our conversing with Him ... I was wanting more discussion, clarification from you about what you recently wrote about the relationship of the secular (and rabbinic) Jews, and the land of Israel. And here it came when I read your “Overlooked ...” article.
Been working on stuff, haven’t read 3 of your most recents, will get there. (Working on making a pinhole camera. Collected all the small things needed, will put it together shortly -- whatever ‘shortly’ means.)