Why I stand with modern day Israel

Why would anyone support the modern state of Israel?

Since Israel is a very secular society, and some of their leaders play dirty tricks so that they even mess with American politics?  And the Mossad will seemingly do anything to gain a secret?  They have had the pride parade in Tel Aviv for over thirty years.  So how can we support evil?

We can’t.  And God doesn’t support evil either.

Not to say that everything the media reports about Israel is correctly and fairly represented.  Today’s media seems to have a bias to make Israel look bad, as does the Muslim world – especially those militant groups whose stated purpose is to destroy Israel (at the time of this writing Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda have explicitly stated goals to destroy the State of Israel through military, political, or ideological means).  Working in league with each other these groups can start conflicts against Israel, and then make Israel look like the oppressor based on story angles and spins and omissions.

But for real, Mossad agents have slept with people to gain intelligence, and Israeli operatives mess with the affairs of state of other sovereign nations (or at least affect the lobbying in those nations).  And what about that Star of Remphan/David?  Israel are far from perfect.

And yet astoundingly, God supports the Jewish people and their right to a homeland.  Below we will show that from God’s Word, the Bible.  And He supports not just any homeland for them – He wants them to have a specific land that He promised to them forever.
So then it becomes a question of God’s character – does God stand behind His promises?
Or does the God in heaven do a bait & switch, or maybe He cowers in fear, or He waffles in His decision because the people have turned out more wicked than He expected?   But wouldn’t that be a small God?

Let’s take just Romans 11 to begin with.  In my Bible I have underlined many phrases that show that Israel will repent, or that God has a future for “His people” still… when He brings the remnant of them to repentance and salvation (check out the Bible picture down below).

Zech 12:9-10 also describes how all Israel (who are left in Jerusalem) will someday repent, when they behold Him “whom they have pierced”.

Why would God bring the residents of Israel to repentance?  Because Israel is a Jewish state, and God cares for the Jews forever…

• Rom 11:2  He foreknew the Jews, He knew what they would be like and what they would do.
• Exod 3:15  God tells us His “memorial-name” which will be used forever …. and it includes the Jewish patriarch’s names: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
• Jer 31:35-37 He says He will never cast off the offspring of Israel, He will never reject them fully in spite of ‘all that they have done’.

Closely intertwined with God’s commitment to the Jewish people is His commitment to give them a land….

• Psa 105:6-12  He promised the seed of Abraham, aka. the children of Jacob His chosen, that they would ‘forever’ have the land of Canaan, and He says this promise is good for a thousand generations (20,000 years?) but it also says it’s for ‘everlasting’ — so there is no time limitation to this promise.
• Gen 13:15  The land that Abraham was seeing before his eyes would be given to his children forever.
• Gen 25:31-34 Later Jacob inherited that birthright, so that the promises to Abraham were his.
• Gen 15:18, 17:8, Exod 23:31  This land is defined as being from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River, it refers to very specific land markings.
• Deut 11:12  God never stops caring for that particular land!

It is foretold that the Jews will be brought back to their own land, in the latter days…

• Jer 30:3, 30:10, 31:16  This one has a double fulfillment – the people were returned from the Babylonian captivity …but also again in the latter days (Jer 30:24).
• Eze 38:8, 11 assumes that the Jews will be back in their land in the last days.
• Zech 12:3 when all the peoples are gathered against Jerusalem, they are without hope until they look upon Him whom they have pierced (Zech 12:10).  It also refers to Judah being there, and the house of David (Zech 12:7-8), all back in their land.

And in the latter days when they are attacked, God will defend them, for the honour of His Name:

• In the latter days (Jer 30:24) when the people of Israel and Judah (ie. the Jews) have received their land back (Jer 30:3) and they live in peace there (Jer 30:10) …
• then many people will become angry with Zion / Zionism (Jer 30:17) …
• and then Israel will be attacked by all the nations of the earth (Zech 12:1-9, Rev 16:13-21, Rev 20:7-9, Rev. 19:19, Ezek 38:10-11),
• but Israel will be saved from this time of “Jacob’s trouble” and at the same time brought to repentance (Jer. 30:7, 14-18, 22, Zech 12:9-10, Rom 11:23-32, Isa 31:4-9),
• in fact those who touch the apple of God’s eye which is Jerusalem (Zech 2:8) will have their eyes melted within their sockets (Zech 14:12).  God is a like a lion & like birds to protect Jerusalem, His fire is there and His furnace resides there (Isa 31:4-9, Isa 31:4)
• and [the Son of] David will be their King (Jer 30:9, Ezek 37:24-25, Isa 2:1-4) who sits on his throne in Jerusalem (Ps. 2:6, Matt 25:31) and His apostles will also have thrones there (Matt 19:28)
  • See Acts 1:6-7 and Acts 3:17-21 — Jesus’s disciples actually expected that the kingdom would be restored to Israel at some point, and Jesus did not deny that it would be happening.

God chooses to live in Jerusalem

• Joel 3:21, Psa. 48:1-8, 110:1-2, Isa 2:2-4, 4:2-6, 16:1-5, 24:23-25:10, Micah 4:1-7, Isa 8:18, Joel 3:16-21, Zech 2:10-12, 8:1-8, 21-22, 9:8-10, Heb 12:22-24
• Rev. 21 God will dwell in the New Jerusalem that will come descend onto the new earth.

So is that enough reason to support the existence and well-being of the current state of Israel?  It is not about supporting their current leadership or military activities, it is about supporting the Jewish people and their hopes, because God does… it is about supporting God’s plan for the future, even if it makes no sense to us.  God will bring the Jews through a crushing time and then lead them to nationwide repentance, so they can follow His Son who is Jesus the Messiah, the One they have been waiting for for a long time.

But some will ask, don’t passages like Gal 3:16 and Romans 9:6-8 say that all the promises made to Israel were actually made to Christ, and therefore to Christians?  Here is an answer to that:

• Following that idea to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t that mean that Christians were promised the land between the Red Sea and the Euphrates River, for an everlasting possession?  Why don’t we go possess it then?  As per Gen 15:18, 17:8, Exod 23:31, Psa 105:6-12.
• Or we might say that those promises are satisfied in some symbolic way in Christ, because Christ inherits the whole world.  But isn’t that a cheap bait & switch?  The Jewish offspring of Jacob are promised that land for more than a thousand generations, but wait – they need to become Christians first, and then if they become Christians they still aren’t given that land because the promise has somehow become mystical.
• Also many promises to the Jewish people haven’t even been fulfilled yet, very specific ones with connections to a piece of land.  It would mar God’s character if He didn’t keep his specific promises to them… and how would a new Christian interpret these? In a very literal way, that’s how! (you have to be taught to see these symbolically):
  • Zech 14:2-7, about Jerusalem getting attacked in the last days when the Mount of Olives splits in two,
  • Zech 14:11-12, 2:8, when the attackers of Jerusalem will have their flesh rot while they stand on their feet, because Jerusalem is the apple of God’s eye that they have touched,
  • Zech 12:10 when the Jewish remnant looks upon Him whom they have pierced and they mourn for him as an only Son,
  • Jer 30:1-24 In the latter days when no one cares for Zion, God will set up (the Son of) David to be the king over Israel & Judah in their ancient land and then no one will make them afraid anymore, God will be their God and they will be His people.
  • … but these unfulfilled prophesies raise the question, how do we interpret Joshua 21:43-45 properly?  Because it says “not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass“.  Simply that all of the promises that were meant to be fulfilled at that time were fulfilled then.  But more promises would be given by prophets who came after Joshua (for example Zechariah, Jeremiah and Amos) that were meant for later times, even the “latter days” (as shown in Jer. 30:24 above for example).
• In light of those yet-outstanding promises for the Jewish people and their land, let’s examine some of the more difficult passages:
  • Gal 3:16-18 – Paul says the promises were spoken to Abraham “and” to his Seed, and Paul proves that the Seed here mentioned is Christ.
    • Which promises?  A few verses earlier in Gal 3:14 he mentions two specific promises: 1) the gift of the Holy Spirit,  also 2) he refers in Gal 3:14 to the blessing of Abraham, which he explained a few verses earlier in Gal 3:6-9 as the blessing of being deemed righteous if we have faith in God.  So we are talking about certain, specific promises drawn from the Blessing of Abraham (Gen 12:2, 3) but excluding the curse at the end that is against those who curse Abraham’s descendants (or maybe that one is also for Christians? are people cursed if they curse a Christian?)
    • Let’s consider this phrase, “Abraham and to his Seed”.  One way to interpret this, that is consistent with what we’ve learned above, is that two parties inherit these promises – Abraham and his descendants, and also the Seed (which is Christ) and His people.  After all, Gal 3:18 says the promise was freely given to Abraham.  And Gal 3:17 says that no law that comes later can nullify the promise that was already made – that would include the Law of Christ.  After all, the gifts and calling of God to the Jews are irrevocable (Rom. 11:28-29).  Yes it’s true that branches from Abraham can be broken off, but it is also true that the tree is inherently “their own olive tree” and they can be grafted in quite easily if they don’t continue in unbelief (Rom. 11:23-24)
  • Rom 9:2-4, 6-8 – the promises “belong” to Israel, Paul’s kinsmen “according to the flesh” for whom he has great sorrow… and then he mentions that the promises are to Christ.  But Paul just finished saying that the promises are to Jewish Israel.  Which is it?  See the next verse for further explanation…
  • Eph 3:6 – fellow partakers in Abraham’s promises – Paul’s biggest divine secret (Eph 3:6) was that the Gentiles have become fellow heirs & members of the body & partakers of “the promise” via Christ. Fellow heirs, not a replacement of them!
  • Rom 4: 11-18 Abraham and his descendants were promised that they would be heirs of the world!  If they have faith just like Abraham, as it says.  And Abraham becomes the father of the many gentile nations who also have faith.
  • Rom 11:1-36 What a great passage – here God clearly shows that He is not done with the Jews, but has a great restoration in store for them.  In my Bible where I have underlined the many phrases that show that Israel will repent, or that God has a future for “His people” still… when He brings the remnant of them to repentance and salvation….

Don’t write this off as dispensationalism.  It’s just the Bible, understood simply as a first-century Jewish Christian would understand it (many of whom spent a lot of time with Jesus discussing the end times, so that I don’t think what they asked in Acts 1:6-7 was ill-informed).  Dispensationalism teaches 7 different dispensations and a pre-tribulation rapture neither of which I can find in the Bible, but that is not part of this current study.  But dispensationalists would generally agree with what was written in this article.

Let’s be wary of where we land on this issue… because those who curse the descendants of Abraham will be under God’s curse (Gen 12:3) and those who are found waging war on Jerusalem someday will die a horrible death (Zech 14:12).  Think of who has lost in the wars against Israel  since their 1948 founding … a small country with 7 million people who are surrounded by 2 billion muslims in 52 muslim countries… with heavy funding and involvement from other countries such as Russia (1973) … this certainly seems like a miracle doesn’t it?  Do you wish to be found fighting against God?  Even the Pharisees in the first century were wise enough to avoid such a battle (Acts 5:38-40)

(We need an updated graphic that includes the current war!  Too many wars!  I am grateful to whoever prepared this picture, I cannot find the source of it, it was just circulating on social media)

And if you don’t agree with me – if you’re saved in Jesus Christ, we are still brothers & sisters!

In Christian love.

Trevor