Trinity Baptist Church

What’s the Big Deal about Israel?

Jeremiah 31:10

 

We are only 48 hours away now from the election of the president and vice-president of our country.  I hope you have been prayerful as you have sought to educate yourself regarding the candidates and the issues and platforms they support. 

 

I have sought to be of assistance to you as your pastor as Election Day approaches.  Obviously there is much at stake and much that deserves our attention as we prepare to cast our vote. 

 

Ultimately we must keep in mind that we are kingdom citizens and as such it is our responsibility to uphold God’s standards and pursue His agenda.  After all, since governmental authority is granted by Him, it just makes sense that it should represent Him in how it is administered. 

 

And besides that, since the purpose of government is to promote that which is good and deter that which is evil, we need those who understand what right and wrong are according to the Word of God so they can make good, God-honoring decisions. Since they will be proposing the legislation that affects our behavior, we desperately need those serving us who understand God’s Word.

 

So to educate ourselves, we’ve spent the last two weeks looking at the party platforms in light of the Word of God regarding two primary issues.  One of those is abortion and the other is same-sex marriage. 

There is a third issue that is of particular interest to  Christians and that is where the candidates and parties stand regarding the nation of Israel. 

 

You may remember that this became a national headline during the democratic convention when former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who had served as the platform chair brought an amendment to the floor of the convention to include references to God and Israel.

 

Just for the record, here are the official party platform statements regarding Israel:

 

Democratic Platform (after changes):

 

 

 

Republican Platform

 

"Israel and the United States are part of the great fellowship of democracies who speak the same language of freedom and justice, and the right of every person to live in peace. The security of Israel is in the vital national security interest of the United States; our alliance is based not only on shared interests, but also shared values. We affirm our unequivocal commitment to Israel’s security and will ensure that it maintains a qualitative edge in military technology over any potential adversaries. We support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with secure, defensible borders; and we envision two democratic states— Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine— living in peace and security. For that to happen, the Palestinian people must support leaders who reject terror, embrace the institutions and ethos of democracy, and respect the rule of law. We call on Arab governments throughout the region to help advance that goal. Israel should not be expected to negotiate with entities pledged to her destruction. We call on the new government in Egypt to fully uphold its peace treaty with Israel. The U.S. seeks a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East, negotiated between the parties themselves with the assistance of the U.S., without the imposition of an artificial timetable. Essential to that process will be a just, fair, and realistic framework for dealing with the issues that can be settled on the basis of mutually agreed changes reflecting today’s realities as well as tomorrow’s hopes."

And some of us who are older may need a refresher on why America places such a high regard on support for the nation.  So this morning I want to educate or refresh our thoughts around the question, “What’s the Big Deal about Israel?”

 

If you pick up your Bible, you don’t have to read very far to find a mention of the nation of Israel.  The same could be said for any reputable newspaper.  Turn on a news broadcast or surf the net and you will multiple references as well. 

In fact, contrary to what politicians and pundits may say, Israel, not the United States, not Russia, but Israel, is the most important nation on earth.  Jerusalem, not Washington, not Moscow, not Peking, not Paris, not London, is the most important city on earth.  Why?

 

You cannot understand the future, you cannot understand Bible prophecy, you cannot even understand the ways and the workings of God, if you don't understand Israel.  The Jew is God's yardstick; God's measuring rod; God's blueprint; God's outline; God's plan for the future.

 

The Jew is going according to the Word, and the world is going according to the Jew.  Israel is to the nations what the sun is to the planets.  Just as surely as the planets revolve around the sun, the nations of this world revolve around Israel.

 

For instance,

 

Israel is the geographical center of the world.

 

Ezekiel 5:5 tells us, "Thus says the Lord God: 'This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her.'" 

 

The ancient rabbis used to refer to Israel as "the navel of the earth."  In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there in Jerusalem, there is an inscription which reads, "This is the center of the earth."  It is here at this tiny nation that three great continents - Europe, Asia, and Africa, meet together. 

 

Not only that, it is

 

Israel is the spiritual center of the world.

 

It is here that Jesus was born; Jesus lived; Jesus died; Jesus was raised; Jesus ascended; and one day Jesus will return to rule and reign over this earth. 

 

The three major religions of this world - Islam, Judaism, and Christianity (though Christianity technically is not a religion) all claim Jerusalem as a spiritual capitol. 

 

Israel is also the prophetical center of the world.

 

If you want to know what time it is on God's clock, look at Israel.  If you want to know what day it is on God's calendar, look at Israel.  If you want to know what degree it is on God's thermometer, look at Israel.  You can summarize biblical prophecy in three words: Jews, Jerusalem, and Jesus.  All are inextricably interwoven. 

 

Israel is the political center of the world.

 

It is here that Armageddon, the last battle of the last war, will be fought.  In Psalm 122:6, David exhorted those listening to "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." 

 

Now why did he not say pray for peace on earth?  Because there will be no peace on earth until there is peace in Jerusalem.  There will be no peace in Jerusalem until the Prince of Peace returns.

 

Frederick the Great of Prussia, was a staunch Lutheran in the old Prussian tradition, a very religious man. 

 

But he began to read after Voltaire, the French writer and skeptic, and he began to have doubts about his faith. 

 

He was being tormented by doubt, and he called in one of his court chaplains, and he said, "Forget your philosophy and forget your theology, give me some firm proof that there is a God, and that the Bible is the Word of God."   That court chaplain simply replied, "The Jew, Sire, the Jew." 

 

If you ever begin to doubt that God is alive and well and still on the throne, just look at Israel.  No other nation and no other people are as relevant to the child of God today as is the Nation Israel and the people called the Jews.

 

Think about

 

1.  Israel's History

 

Jeremiah 31:1-3

 

It was God Himself who loved this nation and called this nation and blessed this nation from all the peoples of the earth.

 

Do you realize that the Jewish nation is the only nation whose origin can be traced with total accuracy.  No one knows who the first Englishman was, or the first Swede was, or the first German was, or the first Chinese was.  But the entire world knows that Abraham was the first Hebrew.

 

And through Abraham and his wife, Sarah, by way of the Word of God, we get to witness the birth fot he nation. 

The history of Israel begins with a literal miracle.  Israel is here today as the result of a miraculous birth.  This birth of Isaac to Abraham is recounted in

 

Gen. 18:9-14

 

God had promised Abraham that He would make of him a great and a mighty nation.  He promised him a son. 

 

Now at the time God promised Abraham this, he was the president of H.A.R.P. - the Hebrew Association of Retired People.  Abraham was 100 years old.  He had been drawing Social Security for 40 years.  His wife, Sarah, was no spring chicken.  She was 90 years of age. 

 

To put it simply and bluntly, their get-up-and-go had got-up-and-went.  All of their reproductive powers were dead, and God asked a fair question that called for a simple answer.  "Is there anything too hard for the Lord?"  The answer to that is no.

 

Well Abraham believed God.  In fact, the Apostle Paul provides some testimony to the faith-life of Abraham when he says,

 

Romans 4:18-20

 

God honored his word and Abraham's faith, and gave him a son, and the rest, as they say, is history, a majestic history. 

 

And by the way, it deserves mentioning that just as every Jew owes his origin to a miracle birth, every Christian owes his origin to a miracle birth as well. 

 

The prophet Isaiah said, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." (Isa. 7:14)

 

So today there are 18 million Jews, Hebrews, Israelites who inhabit the earth all because of the miraculous birth of a baby boy to a 100 year old father and a 90 year old mother who dared to believe God. 

 

Next, think about

 

2.  Israel's Heritage

 

When God founded the nation of Israel He gave Israel four things: 

 

 

But Israel defiled the land; Israel defied the law; Israel deserted the language; and Israel denied the Lord.

 

Because of their rebellion against God, God allowed them to be taken from the land He promised them as a discipline and as a chastisement.  The Lord even predicted that this would happen.

 

Deuteronomy 28:15, 5, 37, 63-64

 

 

 

    

What God predicted is exactly what happened.

Israel rebelled, they rejected God, and they were overwhelmed by pagan nations and deported from the land. 

 

The final time this happened Jesus predicted in Luke 21:24, "And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations.  And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." 

 

That occurred in A.D. 70 when the city of Jerusalem was destroyed and now for two thousand years the Jews have been dispersed, dispelled, displaced, and despised by the nations.  Jerusalem has been trampled by the Gentiles. 

 

But does this mean that God was through with the Jew?  Listen:  God punishes and corrects His children, but God never completely rejects his children.  Listen to what the Lord said concerning Israel in 

 

Psalm 89:28-37

 

Now if you listened carefully, you heard a great principle there.  Discipline is not denial, and discipline is not desertion.

 

Let me tell you three rock-ribbed truths about God that you should never forget.

 

A.  God's people cannot be destroyed.

B.  God's promise cannot be denied.

C.  God's purpose cannot be defeated.

 

 

Look here in our text at verse 10 (Jeremiah 31) 

 

That promise was repeated again in Ezekiel 11:17,

 

"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."'  That is why the Jew cannot be assimilated or eliminated.  Where are the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Amalekites, the Philistines, the Assyrians?  They are no more, but the Jew still stands.

 

We call America the melting pot of the world, and so we are.  We have assimilated and absorbed Africans, Europeans, Asians, Scandinavians, but we have not assimilated and absorbed the Jew.

 

Why?  Because they are their own people.  The world and the devil have tried, but I am sure to the amazement of both, the most important date in the Twentieth Century, May 14, 1948, finally came to pass, and the most important event of the Twentieth Century finally took place when a nation was born in a day. 

 

Israel had been dead and gone for 2,000 years, and in a single day was raised to life.  How do you explain that other than the hand of God?

 

When this nation was born and recognized by the United Nations, there were approximately 650,000 Jews living in the land.  Just enough people to inhabit a large metropolitan city in America. 

 

 

 

They were surrounded by 40 million Jews that hated their guts and vowed the moment they came into existence that they would be driven into the sea and destroyed.

 

This tiny nation was outnumbered in soldiers, out-equipped in arms, outclassed in vehicles.  They were outnumbered forty to one in troops, one hundred to one in population, one thousand to one in military equipment.

 

Consider also that just twenty-four hours before they became a nation, a Jew could be arrested for even carrying a gun.  Now he had to defend himself against six Arab states.  The entire world thought they would never survive.    

 

But the Jews went to work.  They began to pass guns around.  They bought ammunition wherever they could.  They took boiler plates and welded to the side of school buses to make tanks and you can still see today some of those old broken down homemade tanks.

 

They took hoe handles, broomsticks, anything that looked like a rifle barrel, and pretended it was a gun, so they could at least frighten the enemy, even if they could not shoot them.  They used firecrackers instead of bullets to make it sound like the battle was even stronger and fiercer than it was. 

 

And true to their word, the Arabs attacked.  And when they attacked, they came from every direction; from Iraq, from Lebanon, from Syria, from Egypt.  They attacked with all the fierceness and might they could muster. 

 

Time will not permit to tell you the miracles of some of those battles that the Jews fought and won against such heavy odds. 

 

In just one battle 20,000 Arabs were captured by 400 Israelis.  Now you think about that.  By the time the United Nations stepped in and called for an armistice, that little nation that was supposed to be exterminated within just a few hours was 150 miles into Egyptian territory, and taking more ground every moment.  You say, how do you explain that?  I tell you how I explain it, the fight was fixed. 

 

I mean it sounds like something you would read about in the Old Testament or something!  Greatly outnumbered and fighting with things that weren’t even weapons.  You would expect to find out they were breaking clay pots and shouting to scare the enemy!

 

In 1967, in that famous war now called The Six Day War, Israel, this time outnumbered eighty to one, in just six days, defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, and when the war was finished they had amassed three times the land mass of their original territory. 

 

Today Israel, with a population of only about four million people, is the third strongest military power in the world, and the only middle-eastern nation that produces its own tanks, planes, and weapons.

 

What has happened since the people have been restored to their nation? 

 

 

 

 

First of all, the land has been revived.  God promised this would happen when they returned. 

 

Amos 9:14-15

 

You would not know it now, but Israel of fifty or sixty years ago was a land filled with rocks and dirt.  Sixty percent of the land was barren desert.  Yet you go there today, and you can see rocks turned into diamonds; dry desert turned into fertile farmland.

 

In Israel it only rains in the winter.  There is a scarcity of water.  Yet because of the most effective irrigation system in the world, the land now blossoms like a rose.  Israel today is only one of six nations that produce enough food to feed itself and to feed others.

 

Just forty years ago, the beautiful valley of Armageddon was a mosquito infested swamp, but is now a fertile valley that yields up to four different crops a year.

 

In the last twenty-five years, over one hundred million trees have been planted on barren hills and desert soil, trees that give much needed oxygen and nutrients to the soil. 

 

Another thing has happened. 

 

The law has been re-instituted.  Even though God-fearing orthodox Jews only make up 5% of the population of Israel, the foundation and cornerstone of their law, the Sabbath, has been established.  It is now the law of the land, and from sunup to sundown on the Sabbath, restaurants are closed, buses do not run, there is no television. 

Even hospitals shut down except for the most dire emergencies. 

 

But what has even been more amazing is the language has been resurrected.

 

The entire Old Testament, thirty-nine books of the Bible, was written in Hebrew.  When the Lord Jesus spoke to the Apostle Paul, Paul testified that He spoke to him in Hebrew. (Compare Acts 26:14)  Yet, Hebrew was a dead language even in the time of Christ. 

 

But a man by the name of Eliezer Ben Yehuda had a vision to revive that Hebrew tongue.  He took a vow never to speak any other language, and reared his children in Hebrew, and fought until on September 23, 1922, the League of Nations officially recognized Hebrew as a spoken language of the world.  It is the only dead language that has been restored to life in the history of mankind.

 

When the Roman Empire ruled the world, Latin was the universal language.  Yet who speaks Latin today?  I heard about a high school student who was taking Latin one time, and he wrote this on a bathroom wall.

 

        Latin is a dead language

 As dead as dead can be;

        It killed the Roman Empire

 And now it's killing me.

 

Nobody speaks Latin today.  Nobody speaks Babylonia today. 

 

 

But today there is a nation where Hebrew is the native and the mother tongue, and Israel may be the only nation in the world where the children are teaching the parents to speak the language.

 

I tell you there is an invisible hand on these people, and it is the hand of God.  You see, the Jew not only survives, the Jew thrives.  If you study history, you are going to find out that the indestructible Jew has left his indelible mark upon history.

 

The Jews are not a great people in number.  Only one-fourth of one percent of the world's population is Jewish.  Yet they have won twelve percent or more of all of the honors in medicine, health, music, public life, and science. 

 

Think of this:  Though making up only one-fourth of one percent of the world's population in the last twenty-five years, 25% to 1/3 of the Nobel Prize winners have been Jews.

 

But just think about what a mark they have made here in America.  Did you know that it was a Jew that financed Christopher Columbus' overseas voyage to the West when he discovered the Americas?  Did you know that it was a Jew that first set foot on this soil when the ships finally landed at the Americas?

 

Did you know that it was a Jew, Hiram Solomon, that financed General George Washington in the Revolutionary War?  You may not know it, but practically every day you are affected in some way or another by a Jew.

 

 

Have you ever taken an aspirin for a headache?  Bayer, who developed the aspirin, was a Jew.  Have you been vaccinated for polio?  Jonas Salk was a Jew.  Have you ever had a heart condition?  The doctor that prescribed digitalis was a Jew.  Have you ever gone to the dentist and had him deaden your gums before he started to drill away?  Well, Sticher, who developed novocaine, was a Jew.  Maybe you have gotten sick and had the doctor prescribe for you streptomycin.  Waksman, who developed that, was a Jew.

 

If you have ever been to a psychiatrist and had psychoanalyst, you know that Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew.   Have you ever taken vitamins?  Funk, the man who developed and discovered vitamins, was a Jew.

 

Have you ever given money to the Salvation Army, or been helped by the Salvation Army?  William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army had a Jewish mother, which according to Jewish law, made William Booth a Jew. 

 

Are you a student of philosophy?  Spinoza, the great father of philosophy, was a Jew.  Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, was a Jew.  If you've ever been married, you had to take a test for venereal disease.  It's called the Wasserman Test.  Wasserman was a Jew.  The greatest scientist who ever lived, Albert Einstein, who discovered the theory of relativity, was a Jew.

 

You want to know what the big deal is about Israel?  It’s found in the first introduction we have to a Jew in the Bible.  In Genesis 12, when God called Abraham, he made him a promise.

Genesis 12:3  (bless those who bless you; curse those who curse you) 

That’s why people work so hard to see that Israel is not excluded from their party’s platform.  That’s why we place such high value on supporting them and having them as an ally.  We desperately need their friendship!

 

In March of 2002, when White House rhetoric was moving against Israel, Our own James Inhofe gave a speech on the US Senate floor entitled “Seven Reasons Why Israel Has the Right to "Their Land".

 

1) The Archeological Evidence says it s Israel s Land

Every new archeological dig supports the fact that the Jews have had a presence in Israel for 3,000 years - coins, cities, pottery, other cultural artifacts The Jew s claim predates the claim of any other people in the region. The ancient Philistines are extinct as are other ancient peoples. They do not have the unbroken line the Israelis have. The first modern Israelis are direct descendents from the original Israelites.

 

2) Israel Has a Historic Right to the Land

Israel existed as a nation until the time of the Roman Empire. Even after the dispersions of 70 A.D. and 135 A.D. a strong Jewish presence remained. The Turks took control 700 years ago and ruled until they were defeated by Great Britain in WWI as allies of the Germans. British Field Marshal Edmund Allenby took Jerusalem without firing a shot.

 

 

 

Grateful for the contributions Jewish scientists and businessmen had made to the war effort, Britain promised in 1917 to set aside certain captured lands (all of present day Israel & Jordan) for a Jewish homeland. There was no outcry over the plan because the land was considered worthless, unable to sustain any sizeable population. Arabs began to repopulate the land only after the Jews reclaimed it and the land had begun to prosper. No nation in the region has a longer standing historic claim to the land than Israel. Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920; Iraq, 1932; Syria, 1941; Jordan, 1946 and Kuwait, 1961.

 

3) Israel s Practical Value to the Middle East

Israel is a marvel of modern agriculture. She has brought more food out of a desert than any other land. The Arabs should befriend Israel, import Israeli technology, and make the Middle East, like Israel, a food exporter.

 

4) Israel s Land: The Ground of Humanitarian Concern

Six million Jews were slaughtered in Europe in World War II. Jews were persecuted in Russia under the Czars, under communism and even now. For their own protection and development the Jews need their homeland. If not there, where?

 

5) Israel Is a Strategic Ally of the United States

Israel is an impediment to groups hostile to America. Were it not for our strategic ally, Israel, they would overrun the entire Middle East. We have only one friend in the region we can count on. Israel votes with us in the U.N. more than any other nation, including England, Canada, France and Germany.

 

6) Israel Is a Roadblock to Terrorism

The war we face is not against a sovereign nation, but against a fluid group of terrorists who move from one country to another. They are almost invisible. We need our alliance with Israel. If we do not stop terrorism in the Middle East, it will be on our shores. I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the U.S. because the policy of our Government has been to demand and pressure the Israelis not to retaliate in a significant way against terrorist strikes launched against them.

 

Since its independence in 1948, Israel has fought four wars: The War for Independence (1948-49), the 1956 war, the Sinai campaign; the Six-Day War in 1967; and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. In all four cases, Israel was attacked. They were never the aggressor. They won all four wars against impossible odds.

 

7) We Must Support Israel s Right to the Land Because God’s Word said So!

In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says: The Lord said to Abram, ’Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you arefor all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever... "

 

Now you may think all of this is pure coincidence.  I think it is sheer providence.  I tell you, Israel is the nation that will not go away.  She is an indestructible people. 

 

Do you know what it would take to destroy Israel? 

 

Jeremiah 31:35-36

 

 

If the sun quits rising and the moon quits shining, and the waves of the sea roll no more, then Israel will cease to exist.

 

Israel has returned to her land, her language and her law, but she still has one problem: the Lord is still rejected, which leads me to my last point.

 

3.  Israel's Hope

 

Jeremiah 31:31-34

 

Now we know that this has not happened.  But if you believe the Word of God you know that it is going to happen.  Now the question is, how is it going to happen?

 

Well even as we are witnessing in this election cycle, world opinion continues to harden against Israel. 

 

I find Zechariah 12:3 especially interesting

 

All of the nations of the earth are ultimately and eventually going to gather against this nation of Israel to destroy her once and for all.  It will look as if the final curtain has been drawn on this act that steadfastly refused to die.

 

But at that moment, when it appears that all is lost, and that the devil's superman, the anti-christ and the nations of this world will finally do to Israel what heretofore was not able to be done, the Lord Jesus is going to come to the rescue. 

 

Zechariah 14:2-3

 

 

Just like the Cavalry in the old cowboy movies, the Lord Jesus is going to come at the last minute and deliver Israel from certain destruction. 

 

When that happens, notice carefully Israel's response

 

Zech. 12:10

 

Now literally translated, the phrase "look on Me" reads, "look unto Me."  Scales of blindness will finally fall from Israel's eyes.  Her heart will be softened toward the Lord Jesus Christ, and in an instant, an entire nation will not only be saved physically, but will be saved spiritually. 

 

As the people of God, we are to love the land of Israel and the people called the Jews.  But the only  hope for Israel is not in a land, it's in a Lord.  It's not in missiles, might, money, or manpower, it's in a Master.  Her only hope is not in a politician, it's in a Person, and his name is Jesus.

 

You say, well what does all of that have to do with me?  Just this - if the Jew, God's chosen people, needs Jesus, so do you.  Whether it be Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, Jesus is not our best hope, He is our only hope.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

 

Let’s pray