Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made public statements that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map. This man is not even attempting to hide his hatred and disdain of the Jewish people and their state of Israel.
He is currently trying to enrich uranium for the purposes of developing nuclear weapons, and if he should ever succeed in being able to fully develop this nuclear technology, there is no doubt in my mind that he will try to arrange some type of nuclear strike against Israel and the Jewish people. He was just recently quoted as saying that the “Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm.”
Israel and the Jewish people now, more than ever, need the support of the United States and all Christians from around the world. Anti-Semitism is still on the rise across much of the world.
You would think that the world would have learned its lessons from what happened with Adolph Hitler and his extermination of 6 million Jews in the German holocaust, but much of the world seems to be turning a deaf ear to the next new Hitler now rising onto the scene. Russia and China do not even want any type of sanctions leveled against Iran, much less any type of military strike.
Time is now running out as our country and several of our European allies, along with the UN and its Security Council, are scrambling trying to find some type of solution to stop Iran from being able to successfully enrich uranium. The world saw what Adolph Hitler was able to accomplish in such a short period time once he embarked on his course to try and exterminate an entire race of people – and here we go again with the new president of Iran!
However, as I stated in my article on “The Looming Threat of Iran,” the Bible has already predicted how all of this is going to play out. Sooner or later, Iran will be teaming up with Russia and several other Arab countries, and they will attempt to launch an all out invasion and attack on Israel. But God Himself will personally intervene, and He will literally wipe this invading army right off the map.
God will end up having the last laugh on Iran’s president. What Iran’s president would like to do to Israel is exactly what God the Father Himself is going to end up doing to this invading army. They will be the ones who will be wiped off the face of the map, not the other way around. However, until this event finally happens, there is going to be a lot of saber rattling among all of these countries, and America and all Christians throughout the world have got to stand firmly and strongly behind the Jewish people and their state of Israel.
For those of you who are not aware of this debate within the Body of Christ right now, there is a doctrine called Replacement Theology that has seeped into the Body. I do not know how far back this doctrine goes into our Christian history – but it is a doctrine and belief that has been accepted by many theologians and great men of God – including many in our present day and age.
This Replacement Theology teaches that the Christian Church has now replaced Israel. Proponents of this teaching feel that God the Father basically did away with the Jewish people and their state of Israel as you get near the Old Testament.
Not only did the Jewish people not accept Jesus Christ as their true Messiah and Savior when He came onto our earth, but God the Father Himself ends up pronouncing a very severe judgment on them as a nation and as a people as you get near the end of the Old Testament, and then ends up scattering them among the Gentile nations of the world right around 70 AD because of their rebellious and disobedient behavior towards Him during a good portion of their roller coaster ride with Him in the Old Testament.
The Christians who have bought into this replacement theology feel that since God ended up driving them from their Promised Land of Israel as a result of the judgment He passed on them as you get near the end of the Old Testament, that God has now replaced Israel with the New Testament – New Covenant Christian Church, who are all born-again Christians saved through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
At first glance, this looks to be a very logical argument. But when you examine very closely the wording in the Scripture verses I will list in this article, and look very closely at what was really occurring between God the Father and His chosen people during their roller coaster ride with Him throughout much of the Old Testament, you will see that God the Father has not totally forsaken them, that He is not done with them, and that the Christian Church has not replaced these people or their Promised Land of Israel.
Granted, the Bible tells us that all Christians now have a new and better covenant through Jesus Christ in the New Testament, but this does not mean that God has forsaken His original Abrahamic covenant that He made with the Jewish people near the beginning of the Old Testament. This Abrahamic covenant between God and the Jewish people is still fully alive and still fully intact to this very day.
In the following captions, I am going to list each of the Scripture verses that will give you a very clear picture as to what was really happening between God the Father and His chosen people, the Jewish race. Once you put all of the appropriate Scripture verses properly together on this subject, there is no doubt in my mind that the original covenant that God made with Abraham is still fully alive and fully intact, and as such, we as born-again Christians, should stand firmly and solidly behind our Jewish brethren.
Though the Jewish people have not officially accepted Jesus Christ as their true Savior and Messiah, the day will come when they all will – and until that event actually happens, we all should fully accept them as our brothers in the faith since we both serve and follow the same God the Father.
Now here are some very powerful and profound verses that will set the stage as to what God the Father has arranged with these people, and how we, as Christians, are connected to God the Father and the original covenant that He made with the Jewish people.
1. God the Father Makes an Everlasting Covenant With Abraham
This whole scenario all starts out with the first and original covenant that God the Father makes with Abraham. The first four verses that I am going to list under this caption all set the entire stage as to what God’s original intentions were going to be with the Jewish people as a race and as a nation.
Study the specific wording in these first 4 verses very carefully. In my opinion, the key words in these verses will show us that God the Father made an everlasting and unconditional covenant with Abraham that will never end – I repeat, will never end!
- When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”
Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.
I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you …” (Genesis 17:1-10)
- And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are – northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth; then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.” (Genesis 13:14-17)
- Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an EVERLASTING COVENANT, and with His descendants after him.” (Genesis 17:19)
- “He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He has remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac, and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel for an EVERLASTING COVENANT, saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as the allotment of your inheritance …” (Psalm 105:7-12))
I believe that God always says exactly what He means and means exactly what He says. Notice the following in these first 4 verses:
1. God first starts out by making a covenant with Israel’s first forefather, Abraham. He then confirms the covenant and carries this covenant down to Abraham’s son, Isaac. And from Isaac, God then carries and confirms the covenant down to Isaac’s son, Jacob. This is why the Bible keeps making the comment throughout that God the Father is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were the first three forefathers that God started the ball rolling with on this covenant.
The reason that this covenant is called the Abrahamic covenant is because Abraham was the first one that God approached to enter the covenant with.
2. Now watch what happens next. In the first two verses, God then tells Abraham that He is going to give him all of the land of Canaan as his possession and as his inheritance. The land of Canaan is now the land of Israel. Right off the bat, in the very first book of the Bible, God is making these covenant statements to the very first forefather of the entire Jewish race and to all of the descendants who would come after him.
Notice that God then makes the extreme statement in the first verse that He is going to give Abraham the entire land of Canaan as his everlasting possession – I repeat, an everlasting possession!
The word “everlasting” means forever, permanently, for eternity, never to be taken back.
The different Bible dictionaries define the word “everlasting” as:
- eternal
- lasting through all time
- lasting forever
- unending
- of unlimited duration
- without end
In the second verse, God then makes the statement that He is giving all of this land to Abraham and his descendants “forever.” Again, I repeat – forever!
If God is telling you that He is giving you a specific parcel of land forever, and that it will be an everlasting possession for you and all of your descendants – then God is meaning exactly what He is saying to you. No if, ands or buts about it.
Bottom line – God made an eternal pact and an eternal covenant with Israel’s first three forefathers in that the land of Israel would be given to them and that they would have it for the rest of their eternal lives!
If God was going to be eventually done with all of the Jewish people as you get near the end of the Old Testament, then why would He be making these kinds of extreme, covenant statements to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob right at the beginning of the Bible?
Since God is all-knowing, then God knows everything that will be occurring in the future down to the very smallest details. As a result, He knew the Jewish people were going to get themselves in major trouble with Him as you get near the end of the Old Testament and that He would have to eventually pronounce judgment on them and scatter them to the four corners of the globe.
Since God cannot lie or ever be wrong on anything – then this means that He will be true to His Word and that the land of Israel will belong to the Jewish people forever. It will be an everlasting possession for all of them.
And if the land of Israel will be an everlasting possession for the Jewish people, then this is puzzle piece number one that will show us that God the Father has not done away with the Jewish people at this time and that He is not fully done with everything that He eventually wants to accomplish with them.
3. The third thing to notice is that not only is the land of Canaan (Israel) going to be an everlasting possession for the Jewish people, but the original covenant that God makes with Abraham is also going to be an everlasting covenant.
In the last two verses when God is talking about Isaac and Jacob and the original Abrahamic covenant being carried down and confirmed with the both of them, He specifically uses the words that this covenant will be an “everlasting covenant.” I repeat – an “everlasting covenant.”
Again – the words “everlasting” covenant means something that will be permanent, eternal, and never-ending. If God was going to wash His hands of the Jewish people as you get near the end of the Old Testament, then why would He be making an everlasting covenant right at the beginning of the Bible with these people that will never have any kind of end?
With God the Father specifically using the words “everlasting covenant” and the land of Israel being an “everlasting possession” for the Jewish people – I do not see any other way you can re-interpret or spin these verses. These verses are as clear and as plain as day.
Bottom line – God the Father has made an everlasting, eternal, never-to-end pact and covenant with the Jewish people in that He will be their God and they will be His chosen people for all of eternity – and the land of Israel will be their land for all of eternity. When God makes a promise and a covenant – He will keep to His Word. End of discussion!
4. The last thing to pick up on these first 4 verses is that this covenant is an unconditional covenant. The word “unconditional” means that there are no conditions or strings attached to it. In other words, God the Father is the One initiating and making this original covenant direct with Abraham and there was nothing that Abraham or the Jewish people had to do to start it off with God the Father.
As you will see in a caption below, though this covenant was unconditional, God still expected His people to abide by His laws and His ways for them. He told them right off the bat that if they would stay true, loyal and faithful to Him and live righteous lives, that He would keep them in this land and they would dwell safely with abundant blessings. But if they strayed, rebelled and chased after other gods, then He would allow their enemies to attack them and they eventually would be driven from their Promised Land.
And even though all of this eventually happened as you get near the end of the Old Testament – this still did not negate, cancel, revoke or break the original covenant that God had made with Abraham.
If God makes an everlasting covenant with you – it will stay intact forever, no matter what you do or don’t do! And as you will see in the last set of captions, God will stay true to His Word and He would eventually bring the Jewish people back to their Promised Land of Israel in the latter days.
These first 4 verses, in my opinion, perfectly set the stage for not only what God wants to do with the Jewish people and the land of Israel, but what He eventually is going to do with all New Testament Christians that would be born after Jesus comes to our earth. There is an incredible spiritual connection between all Jews and all Christians as you will see explained further below.
2. All of Israel Shall Be Saved
These next two verses are going to add perfectly to the ones just stated above. In the very first verse I will list, the apostle Paul himself states that all of Israel will eventually be saved!
Again, if God was going to be done with Israel and the Jewish people – then why is the apostle Paul making such an extreme and intense statement in this first verse in that all of Israel will eventually be saved? I believe that when Paul is using the word “Israel” – he is referring direct to the Jewish people, not to Gentile Christians.
In the second verse, God Himself makes a very intense statement stating that the “seed of Israel” will never be cast off from Him! Again, study the wording in these two verses very carefully.
- “I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew … And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” (Romans 11:1-2, 26-27)
- Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar
(The Lord of hosts is His name):“If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
Thus says the Lord: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 31:35-37)
Notice in the first verse from Paul that he starts right off by stating Israel has not been cast off by God. He specifically states that “God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.” He then ends this long passage by stating that “all Israel will be saved.”
The apostle Paul is writing all of this in New Testament, which is just more proof that God has not done away with or cast off the Jewish people from His original plan and covenant that He made with Abraham.
If God was going to wash His hands of the Jewish people at the end of the Old Testament, then Paul would have stated such in this passage. But instead, he states just the opposite – that God has not cast away the Jewish people. He then ends this passage by stating that all of Israel will eventually be saved, which means they will all eventually accept Jesus Christ as their true Savior and Messiah.
The second verse is coming direct from God the Father Himself. This message is being conveyed to the prophet Jeremiah who comes later in the Old Testament. By the time Jeremiah arrives on the scene, the Jewish people had already got themselves in major trouble with the Lord and God could have easily washed His hands of all of them at this point. But instead, He tells Jeremiah that the seed of Israel will never be cast off from Him!
Notice the intense language God is using in this verse to really try and drive home the point that He has absolutely no intentions of ever forsaking the Jewish people and their land of Israel and the covenant that He made with their first forefather, Abraham.
He says that if the sun would ever fail to shine, or the stars or moon at night ever fail to give their light to us in the night – then Israel would cease to be a nation before Him. The answer to this statement is obvious – the sun is never going to quit shining, and the moon and stars will never cease to give their light to us in the night – thus Israel will never cease to be a nation before Him.
He then ends the verse with one more intense statement in can the heaven above ever be measured or the foundations of the earth ever be searched out? Again, the answer is obvious to both of those statements – there is no way that any human could ever begin to measure the heaven above or even begin to search out all of the foundations of this earth. As a result, God says that He will never cast off the seed of Israel from Him!
If God was going to cast off the Jewish people from Himself at the end of the Old Testament as a result of all of their rebellious and disobedient behavior towards Him – then why would He be making these kinds of intense and matter-of-fact statements?
Since God is all-knowing, then He knew exactly how the Old Testament was all going to end up. He knew that He was going to have to end up scattering the Jewish people to the four corners of the globe – but yet He still has chosen to remain faithful to the original covenant He made with Abraham, and thus will never completely forsake them as a people and as a nation.
These two verses are just more positive proof that God has never had any intentions, even from the very beginning of things, of ever casting away the Jewish people from His sight and from His first original plan and covenant that He had set up for them.
3. God Makes An Eternal Covenant With King David
As you get further into the Old Testament, God continues to confirm the covenant that He originally made with Abraham down through their descendants. However, when you get to the story of King David, something else now occurs between Him and God the Father.
God now tells David, who ended up becoming the greatest king that Israel has ever had, that his seed and his kingdom would last forever – I repeat, forever! This is called by many, the Davidic Covenant. If God was going to end up doing away with the Jewish people, He would have never made these kinds of extreme and intense statements to King David.
The seed of David is referring to the descendants that would follow after him. Here are three more powerful verses all showing that God has no intentions of ever doing away with His covenant relationship with the Jewish people as a race and as a nation.
- “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son … And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.” (2 Samuel 7:13 -16)
- “I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David: ‘Your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations’ ” (Psalm 89:3-4)
- “Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David: his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me; it shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky.” (Psalm 89:35-37)
Notice that God has sworn to David to keep his seed and his kingdom fully alive forever – and that He cannot lie to David on this issue since He is God Almighty and thus cannot lie.
Now if David was going to end up physically dying like the rest of us do from this earth, then what exactly is God meaning when He says that the throne of his kingdom will last forever? David is eventually going to die, so he will no longer be the physical king over the land of Israel.
Who is going to take over his throne? This will now lead us into the next caption.
4. Jesus Christ Will Be Given the Throne of David
This next verse will tell us exactly how God the Father is going to keep the throne of David fully alive in the future. This verse will tell us that Jesus Christ Himself will be given the throne of King David sometime in the future. Here is the verse:
“He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:32-33)
This verse is specifically talking about Jesus Christ Himself. Notice that God is making the proclamation that His Son will be given the throne of King David and that He will rule over the house of Jacob forever. I repeat once again, forever and ever!
Jesus will be given this throne when He returns back to our earth for His second coming. When He returns back to us in His second coming, He will be setting up the 1000 year Millennium Kingdom from the city of Jerusalem, which is in the land of Israel. Jesus will rule our entire earth from the holy city of Jerusalem.
Think of the ramifications of the statement that God is making in the above verse – that from the blood line of King David, and from the original pact and covenant that He made with the Jewish people in the Old Testament, that God will have His Son Jesus rule from the kingdom and throne that King David ruled from back in the Old Testament!
If God was going to do away with His covenant relationship with the Jewish people, then why would He specifically give His Son Jesus the throne of King David from back in the Old Testament? Why not just give Jesus His own throne without it being attached to any previous Jewish King?
The fact that God the Father is purposely attaching His Son’s coming throne in the future direct to the throne of King David is just more positive proof that God has not done away with the Jewish people and the personal, covenant relationship that He had established with them back in the Old Testament.
5. Jesus Christ Was Born Into Our World As a Jew
This next fact is now going to seal the deal. The Bible specifically tells us that Jesus, when He was born of the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary, was born into our world as a Jew. He was not born of any other nationality or race. He was born into our world as a Jew, and He was then crucified and put to death as a Jew. In fact, the inscription on the cross that He was crucified on stated that He was the “King of the Jews.”
God even goes an extra step to drive this point home when in the very first Gospel account from the Gospel according to Matthew, He starts off this very first Gospel account by stating the lineage that Jesus would be descending from – and all of this lineage was a Jewish lineage. There were no other races or nations involved in this bloodline.
Here is the very first line from the Gospel of Matthew:
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham …” (Matthew 1:1)
From there, it goes on to describe the specific lineage that Jesus would be coming from. Notice that God even goes as far as to say that His Son Jesus is the “Son of David” and the “Son of Abraham.” In Revelation 22:16, Jesus Himself says that He is the “Root” and “Offspring” of David.
We already know that Jesus is the Son of God. But now God is going to take things one step further and also establish His Son as the Son of both David and Abraham.
If God was going to end up doing away with the Jewish people, why would he even bother to have His Son born through their bloodline onto our earth, and then officially state that He is both the Son of David and the Son of Abraham? And notice the two specific people that Jesus will be the Son of – Abraham, who God made the first original covenant with, and then King David, whose earthly kingdom and throne would eventually be handed over to Jesus in the coming Millennium Kingdom. Coincidence? I do not think so.
God is purposely isolating this patriarch and this king for a reason. He is isolating Abraham to once more show that the eternal and everlasting covenant that He made with him way back in the beginning of the Old Testament would be carried on into future generations as an everlasting, permanent, and eternal covenant.
He is purposely isolating King David because David ended up being the greatest king that Israel has ever had and Jesus would eventually be given his kingdom in the coming Millennium Kingdom and will be ruling this earth from the city of Jerusalem for a 1000 years – and then rule this earth from the new city of Jerusalem in the coming New Heaven and New Earth Kingdom, where both He and God the Father will rule from for the rest of all eternity.
It is no coincidence and no accident that God has the very first gospel account starting off with the specific bloodline that Jesus would enter into this world through. Combine this fact with the everlasting covenant that He made with Abraham, and I believe that we are dealing with a race and class of people that have not been done away with – either with the Abrahamic covenant that God the Father initially established with them, or as a people and as a nation. The Abrahamic covenant and the Jewish people are still intact and still in the fold of God the Father.
6. God Scatters the Jewish People Among the Gentile Nations
I believe that all of the above verses show us, without any other possible interpretation, that the original covenant God made with Abraham was a permanent, eternal and everlasting covenant – and as such, it is still fully intact and fully alive to this very day. The Jewish people are still God’s chosen people and still the apple of His eye.
What I think is one of the reasons that so many Christians have bought into this Replacement Theology is what happened near the end of the Old Testament and right at the beginning of the New Testament. Long story short, as a result of Israel’s constant rebellious, disobedient and sinful ways against the Lord, He ends up pronouncing a very severe judgment on them as you get near the end of the Old Testament with the later prophets.
After just about 2000 years of trying to get them to get their act together with Him, God finally gets enough of their rebellious and stiff-necked ways towards Him, and tells them that they will be driven from their Promised Land and that they will be scattered among the Gentile nations of this world.
This event officially occurred in 70 AD when the Jews were driven out of Rome under Titus. This event was called the “Diaspora,” which means the dispersion of the Jewish people from their homeland of Israel to other foreign lands of the world. The word “Diaspora” is a Greek noun which means a “scattering,” and is meant to be referring to an actual exile.
The Jewish people actually had several dispersions in the Old Testament as a result of some of the judgments that God brought down on them as a result of their adulterous and rebellious behavior towards Him. But this dispersion that occurred in 70 AD was the big one.
Here is the verse from the Book of Jeremiah where God foretells that He will be dispersing these people among the Gentile nations of this world:
And the Lord said, “Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, nor walked according to it, but they have walked according to the imagination of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them,” therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
“Behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the Gentiles, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.” (Jeremiah 9:13-15)
Notice the very last sentence where God is stating that He will send a sword after them after He scatters them among the Gentile nations. This may help explain why the Jewish people have become the most persecuted people throughout the history of our world.
When you first look at this prophetic proclamation being made by the Lord, and then the eventual fulfillment of it in 70 AD, at first glance, it would appear as if God had completely washed His hands of this people and completely done away with them as a people and as a nation. From there, it would be easy to conclude that God will now replace the Jewish people and the earlier covenant He made with Abraham with the New Testament Christian Church.
And not only did God pronounce this severe judgment on them back in the Old Testament as a result of their disobedient behavior towards Him, but to add insult to injury, they ended up rejecting Jesus Christ Himself when He came to our earth in the flesh and walked among us for 33 years.
Not only did God try to get them to get their act together with Him back in the Old Testament in the way that He wanted them to live and act, but He made one more attempt to try and get them to accept Jesus as their true Savior and Messiah. And when they finally refused to accept who Jesus really was and what His divine mission was really all about, that was going to be it. From there, God pulled the plug, and in 70 AD they were dispersed to the four corners of the globe.
With the severity of this kind of judgment, it would be easy to see how some people could buy into this replacement theology, which states that the Christian Church has now replaced Israel and the Jewish people in God’s final scheme of things.
But there are two things that have occurred that should totally discount and discredit this false teaching.
One, the covenant that God made with Abraham was an everlasting and unconditional covenant. This means that there were no strings and conditions attached to it. God initiated this covenant with Abraham and nothing on this earth is ever going to break it or take it away.
Second, and this is where many of the people who are ascribing to this replacement theology are missing it – though God disperses and scatters the Jewish people among the Gentile nations of this world, God promises one more little thing that will completely change this whole scenario.
God Himself states that in the latter days that He will bring the Jewish people back to their homeland of Israel and will once more restore and re-establish them back into their land.
This will now lead us right into the next big caption.
7. God Restores the Jewish People Back to the Land of Israel
Though God pronounces and carries out this very severe judgment on the Jewish people with this dispersion in 70 AD, God now has to do one more thing in order to fulfill the covenant He made with Abraham. He now has to re-gather and restore the Jewish people back to their home land of Israel.
Why – especially since they deserved this judgment and this dispersion? Because God had established an everlasting covenant with Abraham and told Abraham that the land of Israel would be an everlasting possession for him and all of his descendants that would follow after him.
God thus had to stay true to His Word to Abraham. God cannot lie. God cannot go back on His Word to Abraham. Our God is a covenant-keeping God. As a result, the Jewish people are given the biggest break of their lives – and in May of 1948, enough of the Jewish people had returned back to the land of Israel and they were able to officially establish it once again as their very own state – the state of Israel.
This event, which occurred on May 14, 1948, was a huge fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Here are the specific verses from Scripture that were prophesying this event to occur as it did in May of 1948.
1. “Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.”
“Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”
“And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there. Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:16-20)
2. “… that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you were driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.
Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:3-6)
3. “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’ For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.” (Jeremiah 31: 10-11)
4. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah – not according to the covenant made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
5. “I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them: they shall make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God. (Amos 9:14-15)
6. “It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathos and Cush … He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:11-12)
All of these verses are as plain as day. God first scatters the Jewish people among all of the Gentile nations in 70 AD, but then He prophesies that He will re-gather them once again and bring them back to their homeland of Israel.
And not only is God going to bring them back to the homeland of Israel, but He is also going to clean them up and make a new covenant with them by putting a new spirit and a new heart in them so that they can walk in all of His ways and never again rebel and forsake Him like they did numerous times in the Old Testament.
I believe that this new spirit and new heart that God will put in them will be when they finally accept Jesus as their true Messiah and Savior, and then they receive the Holy Spirit to come and live and dwell on the inside of them like all born-again Christians now have. The Jewish people will thus end up coming under the same covenant that we all now have with Jesus Christ.
Again, if God was completely done with the Jewish people as a nation and as a people, then why is He is going to these extreme lengths to re-gather them from the four corners of the world from where He had initially scattered them to and bring them back to their homeland of Israel? And then to top it all off, make a new covenant with them by putting a new spirit and a new heart in them so that they can stay true, loyal and faithful to Him for the rest of all eternity.
God says in the very first verse above that they will still be His people and that He will still be their faithful God. Also notice in the very first sentence in the first verse listed above – that even though God had to scatter the Jewish people to the four corners of the globe – He makes one very interesting statement in that He Himself will still be a “sanctuary” for them in the foreign lands that they will have to end up living in!
If God had completely done away with His covenant relationship with these people, why would He still be serving as a direct sanctuary for them in the foreign lands that they would all end up living in during this worldwide dispersion?
Once again, these Scripture verses are adding more positive proof that God is not done with the Jewish people as a whole, and that He will eventually get all of them saved under the blood of His Son Jesus at the end of the Great Tribulation and in the coming Millennium Kingdom where Jesus will rule this entire earth from the city of Jerusalem.
8. Jesus Christ Will Be Ruling This Earth From the City of Jerusalem in the Coming Millennium Kingdom
These next set of verses are now going to be adding some more icing to this cake. Not only has God promised to bring the Jewish people back to their homeland of Israel and eventually get all of them saved by accepting Jesus as their true Savior and Messiah, but God is also going to have His Son Jesus literally rule this entire earth during the coming Millennium Kingdom from the city of Jerusalem, which is in the land of Israel.
Jesus will literally be ruling this earth from the city of Jerusalem – not any other countries or cities in this world. So not only was Jesus born into our world as a Jew, died and was crucified as a Jew, but He is now going to come back and rule from the greatest Jewish city of all time – the city of Jerusalem!
Again, if God the Father was going to do away with the Jewish people, why would He be having His Son set up His home base from the city of Jerusalem in this coming Millennium Kingdom? Again, just more positive proof that the Jewish people are still God’s chosen people and that He still has not forsaken them.
Here are 6 very good verses all showing that Jesus will be ruling this earth during the coming Millennium Kingdom from the city of Jerusalem.
- “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
- Thus says the Lord: ‘I will return to Zion, and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, the mountain of the Lord of Hosts, the holy mountain.’ (Zechariah 8:3)
- “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” says the Lord. “Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall become My people. And I will dwell in your midst. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. And the Lord will take possession of Judah as His inheritance in the Holy Land, and will again choose Jerusalem.” (Zechariah 2:10-12)
- “… and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, where My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” (Ezekiel 37:26-27)
- The Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Then I heard Him speaking to me from the temple, while a man stood beside me. And He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. No more shall the house of Israel defile My Holy Name, they nor their kings, by their harlotry or with the carcasses of their kings on their high places.” (Ezekiel 43:5-7)
- “The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, “Let us continue to go and pray before the Lord, and seek the Lord of Hosts. I myself will go also.” Yes, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.’
Thus says the Lord of hosts; ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” (Zechariah 8:21-23)
Now if Jesus ruling this entire earth from the city of Jerusalem is going to be the icing on this cake, what do you think will be the candles? This will now lead us to the last section.
9. God Will Bring Down a New Jerusalem From Heaven
After the 1000 year Millennium rule of Jesus has passed, a most amazing thing will then take place. God the Father will create a New Heaven and a New Earth for all of us to live on. And after He creates this New Heaven and New Earth for all of us to live in, He then literally brings down a whole new city called the “New Jerusalem” straight out of heaven itself.
This new city of Jerusalem will come down straight from heaven itself and will be placed upon this new earth. From there, both God the Father and Jesus Christ will rule this new heaven and new earth forever and ever from this new city of Jerusalem.
The point to get is that the final ending to this entire saga will be God planting a whole new holy city in our midst – and this new holy city will be named the “New Jerusalem.” It will not be named New York, Los Angeles, or any other city in the world. It will specifically be named the New Jerusalem.
Again, if God was going to do away with the Jewish people, especially as a nation, why would He be naming this new city that will be coming down from heaven after the city of Jerusalem in the land of Israel? If He had really done away with the Jewish people once He scattered and dispersed them to the four corners of the world in 70 AD – you would think that He would want to name this new city after some other city in the world. But He does not!
Again, just more major proof that God has not done away with the Jewish people as a nation or as a chosen people.
Here are two verses from the Book of Revelation that will tell us about this new city of Jerusalem. It even goes as far as to give us some of the measurements and dimensions of it.
- “Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (Revelation 21:2)
- “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. And her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. And she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west.
Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as its breadth … And the construction of its wall was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.
And the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: each individual gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.” (Revelation 21:10-21)
When you put all of these verses together from Scripture on this topic, I believe the evidence is absolutely overwhelming in that God the Father has not abandoned or replaced the Jewish people and their state of Israel with the New Testament Christian Church.
I think this Replacement Theology needs to be replaced itself – with the truth, and all of these verses are giving us what I believe is the real truth on this matter.
Conclusion
When you string all of these verses together on this subject matter, I believe God is trying to tell us two things.
One, He made an original covenant and pact with the Jewish people in that He would be their God and they would be His chosen people. This everlasting covenant was made with their first set of forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He then tops it off by promising that they would be given the land of Israel as an everlasting possession.
Though the Jewish people managed to break their end of the bargain by all of their rebellious and adulterous behavior towards the Lord during much of the Old Testament – and managed to get themselves dispersed to the four corners of the world as punishment and judgment for this kind of unacceptable behavior towards Him in 70 AD – God still intends on keeping His side of the bargain.
The covenant God made with Abraham was an everlasting and permanent covenant, and nothing that the Jewish people would end up doing against Him, no matter how bad, was going to end up canceling, revoking, rescinding or breaking this original covenant with Him.
The Jewish people lost temporary possession of the land of Israel as a result of this dispersion, but because God made this original covenant with Abraham on a permanent and everlasting basis, God will stay true to His Word and He will still keep to His side of the bargain.
As a result, God the Father is still the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all of the rest of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are still the chosen people of God the Father and they are still the apple of His eye. The land of Israel is still their everlasting possession and the land still belongs to them and them alone.
God Himself has made a sovereign choice to make this race of people His chosen people, and neither we as Christians, the Muslims, or any of the rest of the world have any legal right to be attacking or questioning the Lord on the choice He made to single out this race and class of people to be His chosen people that would eventually supply the blood line that His Son Jesus would eventually be born into our world through.
The facts are the facts. God has spoken out loud and clear on this entire issue through His Word. This is why God has warned the rest of the world with the statement that He makes in the following verse I will now give you.
In this statement, God tells Abraham, when making this original covenant with him, that He will bless those who will bless him and that He will curse those who will try and curse him. When God is telling Abraham that He will bless those who will bless him and curse those who will try and curse him, I believe He is talking about the entire Jewish race as a people and as a nation. He is not just talking to only Abraham.
Here is this most powerful verse and warning direct from the Lord Himself:
Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3)
Per the article we have in the Current Issues section of our site titled “The Gaza Pullout and Hurricane Katrina,” I do not think we are dealing with any coincidence in that one week after president Bush and Prime Minister Sharon arranged to have part of the Gaza strip handed over to the Palestinians, that we end up having the worse hurricane and natural disaster that has ever struck our country strike us after this land deal was completed with the Palestinians!
And to top it all off, 4 months later, Sharon ends up having a stroke and is completely knocked out of his position as the Prime Minister of Israel. And then Hamas, the dreaded terrorist organization and sworn enemy of Israel who also wants to wipe Israel off the face of the map, ends up winning the local Palestinian election and as a result, they are now residing right in Israel’s backyard.
As far as President Bush, his poll numbers have now gone into a major free fall. At the time that I am writing up this article, his poll numbers have now dropped down to a very dismal 31% approval rating.
Is all of this just pure coincidental activity, or are we seeing the wrath and judgment of God hit those persons responsible for dividing up part of Israel’s land to their sworn enemy based upon the wording of the above verse? Judge and discern for yourselves.
To sum it all up, I want to highlight and bullet point what all of the above verses are trying to tell us:
- God makes and establishes an everlasting-unconditional covenant with Abraham
- God promises to give the land of Israel to Abraham and the rest of his descendants that would follow after him as an everlasting possession
- The apostle Paul states that God has not cast away His chosen people and that all of Israel will eventually be saved and accept Jesus Christ as their true Messiah and Savior
- God the Father states that He will never cast off the seed of Israel from His sight
- God makes an everlasting covenant with King David in that his throne and kingdom will be an everlasting throne and kingdom that will know no end
- God will give His Son Jesus the throne of King David in the coming Millennium Kingdom where He will rule this entire earth from the city of Jerusalem for a 1000 years
- Jesus was born into our world as a Jew – and then was crucified as the “King of the Jews”
- Though God disperses the Jewish nation to the four corners of the world in 70 AD, He promises to bring them back and restore them to their homeland of Israel in the latter days
- Jesus will rule this earth from the city of Jerusalem in the coming 1000 year Millennium Kingdom
- After the 1000 year Millennium rule of Jesus from Jerusalem, God the Father will create a New Heaven and a New Earth. He will then bring down a “New Jerusalem” from Heaven itself where both He and Jesus will rule our New Earth from for the rest of all eternity.
When you put all of these verses together, one right after the other, and study very carefully the wording in these verses, I believe we are dealing with literal interpretation. God is saying exactly what He is meaning to say.
The original covenant that God made with Abraham was an everlasting and unconditional covenant that would never end. The land of Israel, which He promised to give to him and his descendants, was given to him as an everlasting possession. When God says that this covenant will be an everlasting covenant, this is now a done deal. And the Bible proves all of this out when the Jewish people once more regain possession of their land of Israel back in 1948.
If the Bible was not the infallible and inerrant Word of God, and God was not meaning what He was saying back in the Old Testament about re-gathering and restoring the Jewish people back to their homeland of Israel, then the restoration of the Jewish people back to their land of Israel in 1948 would have never occurred.
But since it did, just like the Bible predicted it would, this once more shows us that our Bible is truly the inspired and infallible Word of our Holy God, and that everything that proceeds out of the mouth of our God will eventually come to pass.
I will leave you with one last thought in reference to the Jewish people, their state of Israel, and what our spiritual relationship should be to them as Christians.
When you really look at what God the Father was doing when He initiated making direct contact with this race of people, we are looking at an incredible profound reality.
After Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden as a result of disobeying a direct command from the Lord, all of mankind became lost with no real way to make it into heaven after we physically die.
At this point, God could have easily washed His hands of the entire human race as the Bible tells us that everyone that would be born after Adam and Eve would also become sinners and fall way short of the glory of our Lord. But because we are dealing with an incredible great, loving, merciful and good God, God made an incredible sovereign choice to have mercy on us. And when He made this choice to have mercy on us, He had to implement a plan and a way in order for us to be able to receive His mercy, forgiveness, and redemption from our sinful states and natures.
As we all know now, this plan would be implemented through His one and only Son Jesus Christ. However, there was only one little problem with this plan. Jesus would have to leave His heavenly kingdom and literally come down onto our earth to be able to save all of us from our sins. And not only would He have to literally come down upon our earth, but He would also have to literally incarnate Himself into a human flesh body just like the rest of us have. Jesus thus would have to become fully man, yet still stay fully God.
In order for Jesus to be able to come down onto our earth in the flesh, God the Father was going to have to arrange to have a bloodline established so that He could then eventually be born into our world.
Though Jesus was actually born of the Holy Spirit, He still had to pass through a female womb. And with Jesus having to literally pass through a female womb, this means that God the Father will have to deal with a line of descendants that would lead up to the virgin Mary being the one to bring Jesus into our world. Mary was a Jew, and God thus would have to deal with the generational bloodline that would proceed her.
It is no accident or after-thought that God chose a race of people to be His chosen people back in the Old Testament. For whatever His personal reasons were on this issue, God sovereignly chose the Jewish people to be His chosen people – and through these people’s descendants, the virgin Mary would be born, and through her physical body, God would have His Son Jesus birthed into our physical world.
Think of what was really happening with this entire scenario. We are talking about God Himself, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the triune Godhead, being willing to come into our world through a physical birthing process in order to be able to reach us to save us from our sins.
Bottom line – if Jesus was not willing to come into our earth through the womb of the virgin Mary, there would be no eternal salvation for any of us, and we would all physically and spiritually die in our sinful states, never being able to make it to heaven after we die or have our spiritual relationship once more restored back again with God the Father.
Mary was a Jew and through her womb, we received our Lord and Savior. Had there not been a Jewish lineage and a Jewish heritage that she had come from, there would have been no Mary. As a result, all Christians owe an incredible debt of gratitude to the entire Jewish race as a result of Jesus being birthed into our world through their bloodline.
When God purposely isolates and sovereignly chooses and elects a special race of people to be His chosen people, and from the descendants of this chosen people come the virgin Mary, and through the virgin Mary our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is born into our world – we are talking about a very special class and race of people.
This is why the very first Gospel account goes to the trouble to list the lineage that Jesus would be coming from. This is why God went the extra length to state that His Son would also be called the Son of Abraham and the Son of David in addition to being called the Son of God.
Jesus had to be physically born into our world and in order for Him to be able to do so, He had to be incarnated into a human flesh body in order for our salvation to be able to occur through His physical death on the cross.
Though the Jewish people missed who Jesus really was when He came down to our earth, and are still in darkness to this very day on this issue, the facts still have not changed. God made the Jewish race His chosen people, and from their descendants Jesus would eventually be born into our world.
As such, all Christians owe a major debt of gratitude to the entire Jewish race for being the chosen people that God would eventually have His Son born into this world through.
The best way to look at this is like looking at a two sided coin. On the one side of the coin are the Jewish people and their covenant relationship with God the Father. Though they are not saved at this time, they are still God’s chosen people and eventually God will save all of Israel as the above verses are telling us.
On the other side of the coin are all born-again Christians saved under the shed Blood of Jesus Christ. Though we are now living under a new and better covenant than what the Jews presently have with God the Father because we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, this still does not negate the Jewish people and the original Abrahamic covenant they still have with God the Father.
As such, we should consider all of our Jewish brethren as our brothers and friends of the faith since we both serve and follow the same God the Father.
Remember, the day will come when the Jewish people will accept Jesus as their true Messiah and Savior. But until that day comes, and these people see the real light, we should accept them, love them, and solidly support, protect and defend them from the demonic forces that would like to try and totally annihilate them.
As I stated at the top of this article, now, more than ever, the Jewish people and their state of Israel need our continuing support. With another Hitler now rising out of Iran who is trying to develop the nuclear weapons to be able to attack and annihilate Israel – our country, along with the UN and some of our Western allies, have got to stay on top of this building crisis.
Remember what the above verse from God the Father has told us – He will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who will try and curse her.
Read more: In Defense of Israel and the Jewish People http://www.bible-knowledge.com/defense-of-jewish-people/#ixzz1LR3QNutB
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