BIBLE TEACHING ON ISRAEL –

WHAT EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW

Today’s teaching connects us to the Word of God – speaking a literal truth to us in metaphorical way. We are going to be talking about land, territory, occupying land and territory, and asking questions about who has the rights and ownership to that land and territory?

The biblical lesson is of course from our current series “Philistine.” In the Bible, Philistine is known for godless thinking and godless living, as well as continuous arrogance, defiance and mockery of God and God’s people – Israel. Now, Israel has always had their own issues with God and rebellion.

However, Bible teaching on Israel is very clear that they – Israel, are God’s chosen people and they are the ones God bound Himself by covenant promise. Three thousand, seven hundred years ago God promised Abraham favor and blessing. God promised to multiply his offspring and to make him a great nation with a great name, Most importantly, by God’s own covenant promise He gave Abraham the territorial rights to a very specific region of land. This land was given to Abraham and his offspring by God – and Abraham and his descendants have occupied the land in some form or another – they have been there since God delivered it to their hands. What if you left your house for a month – when you came back someone else had moved and now said the home belonged to them. Whose house, whose land is it?

Here is our connection today. We, like Israel, are in covenant with God – they through Abraham, and us through Christ Jesus. We, like Israel have been promised blessings and favor – the gift of salvation and eternal life through the death and resurrection of Jesus. His promises are to those who choose to believe – His blessings to those who faithfully follow Him.

By covenant we receive the gifts and blessings of Christ – in turn, we give Him land and territory – we give Him our life. This land and territory are represented by our heart, soul, mind, and strength. By covenant, this is His land and He has territorial rights. We learned last week that we can hold back that land and territory from Him – that we can give it to someone other than Christ. Our spiritual metaphor is “Philistine” and today we must decide who this land and territory belong to…

Let’s begin our Bible teaching on Israel…

Genesis Chapter 15 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. 7 And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

The Land of Genesis Chapter Fifteen The River of Egypt (The Nile – River Southern Boundary) The River Euphrates (The Euphrates Syria – Northern Boundary) The Mediterranean Sea (Western Boundary) The Dead Sea, The Jordan River, and The Sea of Galilee (Eastern Boundary)

Introduction

Continuing our Bible teaching on Israel – there is no war, nor has there ever been a war between Israel and the Palestinians since the region was known as Philistia and occupied by Philistine – that was three thousand years ago. Today however, there is brutal war in Palestine between Israel and the Islamist’s Jihadist terrorist group known as Hamas. Hamas is an acronym of its official name, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya and is a political and military movement funded by Iran, Katar, and Syria. Hamas governs parts of the occupied Gaza Strip and even smaller parts of the West Bank Palestine. Hamas is not fighting this war against Israel to protect the civil and religious rights of true Palestinians – they are fighting Israel to obliterate and annihilate them. They do this in strict obedience the religious mandates of the Hamas Charter: “Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until judgment day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”

Interesting claim by Hamas since current DNA profiling evidence suggests that the Palestinians – are far more the Philistines’ modern descendants – than the Arabs. The non-Arab Palestinians have avoided intermixing their population to a remarkable extent. This is especially unusual because for centuries foreign armies continually marched through Palestine on their way to different battles.

Nonetheless a dramatic and explosive DNA discovery in Israel has implications for the present-day political struggle between Israelis and Palestinians. Three years ago, archaeologists digging in Israel revealed they had excavated a Philistine cemetery for the first time ever. Now, an extensive report on the DNA taken from the bones they uncovered has confirmed the origins of the Philistines – the ancient arch-enemies of the Biblical Israelites. “We’ve been able to demonstrate for the first time that actually the Philistines migrated long before the Arabs into the region of Philistia”, or what we now call Palestine. The region which by the way was already occupied to great extent by the Jewish descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and then after the Jacob by the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Before moving on to a timeline for our Bible teaching on Israel,  let’s go back for minute… You and I should know something significant. The Hamas charter mentioned earlier is not a mandate that stops with extinguishing just Israel from the face of the earth. The aggression of Hamas and other pseudo-independant (wink wink) military/political groups do not just have Israel and the Jewish people in their mandated line of sight. They also have the same intentions for Christianity and America the “great infidel” slated for religious jihad as well.

Listen to this quote from Khaled Qadomi an Iranian/Hamas spokesperson while being interviewed on Al-Jazeera Broadcast Network. “They ask, ‘Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Israeli Zionism?’ But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are altogether attainable and surely can be achieved. The regime that is occupying Jerusalem must be wiped off the map.”

Now we can move on. A common misperception is that the Jews were forced into the diaspora (dispersion/scattering) by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back.

In reality, as we have shown the Jewish people have maintained ties and varied levels of occupancy to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. A national language and a distinct civilization have been maintained both in what was known as ancient Israel/Palestine to present-day Israel/ Palestine.

Key Bible Teaching on Israel: What Christians Must Know About The Jewish Claim to the Land of Israel:

1. By His covenant, God promised the land to the Biblical patriarch Abraham
2. The Jewish people settled and developed the land long before any migrant people groups such as the ancient Pantheistic Philistines or the Islamic Arabs.
3. The international governance communities granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people. They are not there illegally.
4. The territory was captured in defensive antisemitic wars fought against aggressors seeking to eliminate the Jewish Race.

Timelines and Context

I. Israel is the only country in the world that has the same name, is located in the same land and speaks the same language as it did 3,000 years ago. Most of the Jews were forced by the Romans into the Diaspora (exile) after the destruction of King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. But the Jewish people did not all leave.

II. Communities were reestablished in Tiberius and Jerusalem in the ninth century. Five other communities grew in the 11th century. Many Jews died during the 12th century Crusades but communities rebounded and established new communities in the following three centuries. From their inception until the present the Jewish people have maintained ties to their homeland for over 3,700 years.

III. Palestinian Arabs deliberately targeted Jewish civilians in 1920-21 in violent riots in Jaffa and Jerusalem. More than 85 Jews were massacred in several locations in 1929. The Black Hand (the first Palestinian terror organization and a forerunner to the PLO) carried out attacks against Jews in the early 1930s. During the 1936-39 Arab Revolt, violence against Jewish civilians in Palestine was widespread.

IV. In 1947 the U.N. voted to partition not only the state of Israel but also the British Mandate of Palestine, in recognition that both Arabs and Jews had legitimate claims to the land. Israel then, and repeatedly since, accepted the two-state solution with an internationally administered zone in Jerusalem. The Arab population refused and rioted. In 1948 the Palestinians ambushed and destroyed a medical convoy and the civilians with it. The Arab-Israeli conflict is, at heart, about the existence of Israel and not about occupation.

V. Since the founding of the PLO in 1964, leader Yasser Arafat repeatedly stated his goal was the complete elimination of the state of Israel. Following him, the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas in Palestine, along with Iranian president Ahmadinejad, continued with the same aim: to destroy Israel entirely. To this day, the Palestinian media announces this goal repeatedly and the conflict continues through the Terrorist Group known as Hamas.

VI. War, terrorist acts, retaliations, and acts of violence have been ongoing for more than four decades. Suicide bombings began in 1989 and continue to this day. In recent years, shelling of Israeli targets has been done. Palestinians terrorists have their military targets embedded within civilian centers to increase the amount of collateral damage from any retaliatory strikes and swing public opinion away from Israel.

VII. Notable in the midst of all the conflict are the two countries which have forged lasting peace accords with Israel and established diplomatic relationships with the state of Israel. The nations of Egypt and Jordan are the only ones.

VIII. Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing country in the world, in proportion to its population size. With people from more than 100 countries from five continents, Israel’s culture is extremely varied.

IX. The official languages of Israel are Hebrew and Arabic. The Hebrew language was dead and had not been spoken for centuries until the Israelis revived it.

X. Israel is the only country in the world that has a mandatory military service requirement for women.

XI. Over 90 percent of the land is owned by the State of Israel and managed by the Israel Land Authority (ILA) which issues long-term leasing rights for it.

XII. All citizens in Israel, Jews and Arabs, enjoy full political rights. Women also enjoy full rights, like they are not afforded anywhere else in the Middle East.

XIII. In the second century A.D., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now known as the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word “Filastin” is derived from this Latin name.

IVX. Historically, in the Bible teaching on Israel, Scripture informs us that the Twelve Tribes of Israel formed the first constitutional monarchy in the Palestine region about 1000 B.C. Under his reign King David, made Jerusalem the Israel’s first capital. Although eventually Palestine was split into two separate kingdoms, Jewish independence there lasted for 212 years. This is almost as long as Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States.

XV. Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in Palestine continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.

XVI. Many Jews were massacred by the Crusaders during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century-years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement-more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel.

XVII. Historical Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. In fact, Palestine is never explicitly mentioned in the Koran, rather it is called “the holy land” (al-Arad al-Muqaddash).

XVIII. Israel’s international “birth certificate” was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel’s people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.

Conclusion of the Bible Teaching on Israel

Zechariah Nine

The oracle of the word of the LORD is against the land of Hadrach and Damascus is its resting place. For the LORD has an eye on mankind and on all the tribes of Israel, and on Hamath also, which borders on it, Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise. Tyre has built herself a rampart and heaped up silver like dust, and fine gold like the mud of the streets.  But behold, the Lord will strip her of her possessions and strike down her power on the sea, and she shall be devoured by fire. Ashkelon shall see it, and be afraid; Gaza too, and shall writhe in anguish; Ekron also, because its hopes are confounded. The king shall perish from Gaza; Ashkelon shall be uninhabited; a mixed people shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of Philistia. I will take away its blood from its mouth, and its abominations from between its teeth; it too shall be a remnant for our God; it shall be like a clan in Judah, and Ekron shall be like the Jebusites. Then I will encamp at my house as a guard, so that none shall march to and fro; no oppressor shall again march over them, for now I see with my own eyes.

For the Jewish people, October 7th was one of their darkests hours since the Holocaust. The Hamas perpetrated unspeakable horrors reawakening past traumas. In these dark times we can find some hope in the words of the book of Zechariah that predicts a conflict with Syria, Lebanon (=Tyre and Sidon) and Gaza and foretells the fall of the leadership of Gaza. It even mentioned freedom of captives from their prisons and the call of God “never again”. We not only pray for an awakening to the Truth of God’s Eternal word in the West, the Peace of Israel and God’s Kingdom come, but we pray against the rising culture of Deconstructionism and the forces of the antichrist against our families and the children. By the grace of God may this salvation come swiftly, for the sake of the Children of Israel, for the sake of humanity.

Zechariah Twelve

The oracle of the word of the LORD concerning Israel: Thus declares the LORD, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him: “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it. On that day, declares the LORD, I will strike every horse with panic, and its rider with madness. But for the sake of the house of Judah I will keep my eyes open, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the LORD of hosts, their God.’ “On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves. And they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem. “And the LORD will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not surpass that of Judah. On that day the LORD will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the LORD, going before them. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”