Let’s Talk About Israel

The year was 1917 and Robert and Lucy were a happily married couple with a prosperous farm in the south. In that year they had their first child, a son they named Israel because Lucy had been barren like Rebekah of old. Israel was their miracle son; an answer to their prayers. Eight years later, to their amazement, they began having additional children and by 1930 they’d had four more.

Israel was now 13, in eighth grade, but times were hard and he had to drop out of school to help his Dad on the farm because all other laborers had to be let go. He and his father worked together through the dust bowl years and managed to hold onto their land when others lost theirs. Israel knew Robert loved his other children and insisted that all of them get more education than he had. As the farm prospered again, Robert wanted Israel to go back to school as well, but he always refused.

Even though all this was true, Israel began harboring resentment toward his siblings and began drinking to numb the pain. Robert would often find him picking on his brothers and sisters or bullying them around while drunk. He tried to talk to his first born but a hardness had set in. It all came to a head one day when Robert heard Israel yelling at Lucy from outside the house. When Robert came in he witnessed Israel striking Lucy in the face.

Everyone was stunned. The other children had witnessed the fight, but all were afraid of their older brother. “Leave,” was all Robert said, so Israel packed up his stuff. Before leaving the house, he turned to his mom and dad with rage in his eyes and said: “I hate you.” Then he was gone.

Family gatherings simply didn’t include Israel in the following years. The other children all grew up and became successful, but all the news they heard about Israel was bad. How the grown up children felt about Israel varied.

One of them hated Israel for the pain he had caused their parents and purposed never to even bring up his name in front of them. As far as he was concerned, Israel was no longer part of the family. Two of them didn’t hate him, they were just indifferent. Israel had made his choices, they reasoned, and now he had to live them – a tragic story but there was nothing they could do about it.

But one child, after years of not seeing Israel, went to his father and asked him how he felt about his oldest child. This is what Robert said: “He’s my first born and I love him. My heart aches that he’s away and, for me, the family will never be complete until he’s home. Your mother and I have been anonymously supporting him for years and we pray for him every night.”

The child was moved by the tears in his father’s eyes and by the depth of his grieving heart, so he asked, “Dad, what can I do for Israel?” Robert answered: “Pray for him, please. Be kind to him for my sake. Honor the sacrifices he made which allowed you and your siblings to get an education. Forgive him, love him, and if he asks, let him know I love him too, and only want him to come home again.”

*Romans 11:17-29 How we respond to Israel has a big effect on the church. Let’s pray.

  1. Why we need to honor Israel.
  2. They are the root that supports us.
  3. John 4:38 “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.” *Col. 2:16-17 They labored in the dark of shadows and types – we see the fulfillment in Christ.
  4. Conceit or arrogance – we did not get here without them. Humility honors those whose shoulders we are standing on.
  5. Our debt as Gentiles is even greater because all of the apostles were Jewish and they gave their life for Christ but also for us. *Memorial Day.
  6. Even though they were judged, they are still chosen and loved.
  7. Why they were judged. Luke 19:41-47 “When He (Jesus) approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children with you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” *They missed the kairos of God for them. Please notice the tears.
  8. This was prophesied. Dan. 9:26 “Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.”
  9. Jerusalem is destroyed and the nation is scattered as a judgment for rejecting Christ. Luke 21:20-24 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” *Eusibeus about this prophecy.
  10. Those who bless Israel will be blessed and we need God’s blessing.
  11. Gen. 12:3 Many want to focus on God cursing those who are against Israel but we need to be very careful. Gal. 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. *Tithing
  12. We will never experience the full blessing of God without blessing Israel. *The church lost the power of God early on. “Breaking the Veil of Silence” (page 62) “Church fathers of the first to the fourth century, Ignatius of Antioch, Barnabas, Origen of Alexandria, and Chrysostom, just to name some of the most important ones, slowly developed a theology of hatred of the Jews….This began a long road of suffering that led to pogroms, inquisition, massacres, and destruction of synagogues in the Middle Ages, and was to culminate in the Holocaust in modern times.”
  13. Ambrose forbade intercession being made for the Jews.
  14. Augustine who believed in predestination applied reprobation to the Jewish race.
  15. Jerome: “If it is expedient to hate any men and to loathe any race I have a strange dislike for those of the circumcision. For up to the present day, they persecute our Lord Jesus Christ in the synagogues of Satan.”
  16. 1543 Martin Luther: “Let me give you my honest advice: First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be coveredor spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. Andthis ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order tht God may see that we are Christians.”
  17. 1560 John Calvin: “The Jews rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.” *We must return to God’s heart for Israel personally and as a church to have God’s full blessing.
  1. What’s happening right now in Israel?
  2. The blood moons. Pete Scheller:
  3. Jesus Himself stated that “there will be signs in sun and moon and stars…” So the idea that the blood moons may be significant is not without some biblical foundation.
  4. Almost no one has claimed to know specifically what these blood moons indicate – only that they signal “something” important, most likely in relationship to Israel.
  5. There is a much clearer sign of God’s activity that many people are overlooking: the return of the Jewish people to the Promised Land from all over the earth.
  6. Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. *The fig tree will bud again and it is. *1948 and 1967 – two amazing signs done right in front of us. Luke 21:32 “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place.” *The alternate reading of “generation” is “race” and in its context it can only mean race. Both their lifetime and the end times events are referenced. It makes perfect sense that it would be “race” since it will appear that the Jewish race would be wiped out.
  7. God is gathering Israel for His great Name. Ezekiel 36:23-24 “I will vindicate the holiness of My greatname which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations, gather you from the lands and bring you into your own land.”
  8. They are being gathered spiritually dry. Ezek. 37:7-8 “So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them.”
  1. The coming revival in Israel.
  2. Ezek. 36:25-28 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues, and you will be caeful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land I gave to your forefathers, so you will be My people, and I will be your God.”*The New Covenant Jere. 31:31-40 The Covenant includes the land. The mystery of the ages was that we would come into the spiritual promises of the new covenant before Israel. Col. 1:27; *Leah and Rachel
  3. The role the church will play in bringing Israel into its covenant.
  4. Reconciliation – we need to be honest about the church’s past failures and say the words past generations couldn’t find. “We’re sorry, please forgive us.”
  5. Kindness – Operation Exodus.
  6. Prayer – Bob Jones visitation in the early eighties – “As Harry Truman was a political intercessor for Israel; this prayer meeting will be a spiritual intercessor for Israel to be restored.” Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog to Harry Truman: “God put you in your mother’s womb so you would be the instrument to bring the rebirth of Israel after two thousand years.” *The prayer meeting in Kansas City began going 24/7 in 1999 and is still going strong 16 years later. This should be a sign and a wonder to us.
  7. Speak life. Eze. 37:10 “So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceeding great army.” *The possible role of America. *Dan. 9:27 Rejection of the image and of the anti-Christ. Rev. 12:14 “But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.” *America is Israel’s friend which doesn’t mean that every little thing Israel does is right any more than you being someone’s friend means you agree with everything they say and do.
  8. 144,000 sealed by God after the rapture – they will be protected from the wrath of God.
  9. The return of Christ possibly on the Day of Atonement. Lev. 23 Fulfilling the feasts. Zech. 12:10-13:1 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem…in the plain of Megiddo…In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.”
  1. The coming millennial kingdom.
  2. Jesus encouraged His disciples in the reality of the coming kingdom. Acts 1:6-7 “Is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.”
  3. Peter: Acts 3:20-21 “That He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.” *Isa. 2:1-4; 9:7; Every major and most of the minor prophets.
  4. Throne of the apostles: Matthew 19:28 “And Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” *We will be part of the ruling in that kingdom. *Rev. 2:26-27; 3:21; 20:4 “They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”
  5. The feast of tabernacles will be fulfilled.Zech. 14:16-17 16Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.17And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them.
  6. The eternal city which is the bride of the Lamb. Rev. 21:12-14 The gates have the tribes of Israel written on them and the foundation stones have the names of the apostles.