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Israel Watch
ISRAEL WATCH
January 2010
THE LAND
The purpose of this part of the
website is to fulfill in part what God has placed in our heart concerning
Israel. We as a ministry and individually are called to honor Israel. This
area of the website will assist in our obedience to God’s mandate. This first
installment will deal with the land. Israel is continuously in the news. That
is not by accident. Israel is as the pupil of God’s eye and He personally is
looking after that land and His first covenant people. And that will be so for
ever. The focus on the eternal capital of the world, Jerusalem, and the country
of Israel is because the evil forces of this earth are bent on destroying that
people and occupying that land making God’s Word of no effect. Of course, this
is not going to happen. Many men in our time think they can bring peace to that
area. Many men (persons) think they can eliminate Israel. Neither is going to
happen. There will not be true peace until Jesus sets His foot on the Mount of
Olives at His second coming. There will be a false peace for a season after the
calling away of the Church and until mid-tribulation but no real peace. Israel
was reborn in a day (Isaiah 66:8) on May 15th 1948 and this nation
has an eternal covenant with Almighty God and will never again be absent from
the earth. Now let us look at the land.
Some 2000 years before the birth of
Jesus, the Christ, or about 4000 years ago Abram (later called Abraham) appears
on the scene.
Genesis 12:1-5 (KJV)
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and
from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew
thee:
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and
make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth
thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went
with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out
of Haran.
5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all
their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in
Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of
Canaan they came.
Abram or Abraham is the sentinel
Jew. He is the father of the Jewish nation through Sarah (Sari) and the Arab
nations through Hagar the Egyptian maid servant of Sari. Isaac is the son of
promise, the son of the Spirit who came by faith through Abraham and Sarah.
Ishmael is the son of the flesh, of human works that came through Abram and
Hagar. God’s covenant for the land of Israel is not with Ishmael but with
Isaac. More on this as we proceed. I want you to notice that the call to area
now called Israel was to Terah, Abrams father.
Genesis 11:31-32 (KJV)
31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's
son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth
with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came
unto Haran, and dwelt there.
32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah
died in Haran.
Notice what God says to Abram about
bringing him to the land.
Genesis 15:7 (KJV)
7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of
Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.
Haran was located either at the very
northern border of Syria or southern Turkey east of the most northwesterly
aspect of the River Euphrates. Abrams father, Terah, never entered fully into
the “Promised Land”. Notice in the passage above that they left Ur of the
Chaldees but stopped short of the goal. Could it be that Terah was to be the
first Jew? As we proceed into the twelfth chapter of Genesis we see the words
“Now the LORD had said unto Abram”. It appears this is an evidence of a family
call. Terah may have been selected but would not forsake his idols and follow
fully after God. So God dealt with Abram and of course we know the rest of the
story, he is the father of us all (Romans 4:16). Abram left Haran with Lot his
nephew which turned out to be a significant error but like Jesus I would say he
who is without error cast the first stone. When Abram moved in obedience to
God, God speaks to him.
Genesis 12:6-8 (KJV)
6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto
the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I
give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto
him.
8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel,
and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and
there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.
Please notice God is giving the land
to the seed, the progeny of Abram. Later God tells Abram that his people will
not actually get the land for about four hundred years but is theirs for ever.
This passage in Genesis twelve is the first mention that this land will belong
to the seed of Abram, the seed of promise. Notice that when God gives this
promise that Abram builds an altar in the vicinity of Beth-el which means house
of the Most High God. This is land of God’s people, Gods inheritance
(Deuteronomy 32:9). God repeats the promise of this land often in Scripture.
God is not confused about whose land the Jews now occupy in the Middle East. I
do want to point out that Israel is not the only one that has a covenant of
land.
Deuteronomy 32:7-9 (KJV)
7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:
ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when
he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the
number of the children of Israel.
9 For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the
lot of his inheritance.
The nations are seventy in number
and sprang from Noah’s three sons. In the one thousand year reign of Christ and
after, there will be seventy nations including Israel. The LORD next speaks to
Abram after Lot is separated from him.
Genesis 13:14-18 (KJV)
14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from
him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward,
and southward, and eastward, and westward:
15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to
thy seed for ever.
16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a
man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be
numbered.
17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the
breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.
18 Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the
plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the
LORD.
The promise is repeated for the land
but I want you to notice that Abram never walked the land God wanted his people
to have. He walked the land occupied by modern Israel which is not the land
promised to Israel. This illustrates consequences to actions that can persist
way beyond our own lifetimes. Let us look a little more closely at what God
wanted the Jewish people to have.
Genesis 15:18-21 (KJV)
18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto
thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river,
the river Euphrates:
19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,
20 And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,
21 And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the
Jebusites.
God wanted them to have from the
Nile River in the south across to the Persian Gulf, up the Euphrates River to
southern Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea. Let us look at two more passages that
help to clarify and confirm the land intended for and given to Israel by God.
Genesis 2:10-14 (KJV)
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence
it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which
compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium
and the onyx stone.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is
it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is
it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is
Euphrates.
Joshua 1:3-4 (KJV)
3 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have
I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the
river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the
going down of the sun, shall be your coast.
They never at any time occupied this
land. But they will! The Church mirrors Israel and just as Israel is backed
on a small sliver of land against the Mediterranean Sea so is the Church not
occupying all of the promises God as given her. We are living way below the
level God intended. Even though Ishmael arose from Abram he was not the
promised son, he was the son of doubt and unbelief and could not inherit this
land. God makes this clear.
Genesis 17:18-21 (KJV)
18 And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
19 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and
thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an
everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him,
and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes
shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.
21 But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall
bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.
In this passage we see that God
would make Ishmaels seed great and we certainly can appreciate that today as
represented by the Arab nations. God even told Hagar that Ishmael would be a
wild man and would be against every man and every man would be against him.
Genesis 16:12 (KJV)
12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every
man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all
his brethren.
I do not think it takes to much
imagination to see and understand this today. That land does not belong to the
Arabs never has and never will.
I hope that you will enjoy this
section of our website. Let it bless you and strengthen your stand with and for
Israel. When you stand with Israel you are in very good company for you are
standing with God Himself.
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