31 Sermon Illustrations on Israel

Palestine itself, at this moment, seems almost overspread by the curse. Its cities are the cities of the dead; its every acre is covered with the tombs of departed ages; it has a soil fit to grow corn that would positively crowd and overflow all the granaries of the world; but it cannot provide corn enough to feed its miserable, its starved and wretched peasantry. At this very moment, there is no Mount Nebo, or Mount Pisgah, from which a successor of Moses can see a goodly land overflowing with milk and honey. On every part of that land, the iron hoof of the Arab steed, and the naked foot of the papal monk, have trod in succession, and warred for supremacy. In rapid succession, the Roman, the Persian, the Arab, the Turk, the robber, have taken possession of Palestine; and the poor Jew—the fig-tree blasted—has a home anywhere and everywhere, but least a home in his own home; has possessions everywhere, but none in that land which is held by title-deeds more lasting than those of the aristocracy of England. His title-deeds are in Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, in the Psalms, and must last and live for ever and ever. You have, then, in the Jew, wherever you find him, a blasted fig-tree, a miracle-stricken nation; a people scathed by a curse which cleaves to them and consumes them; the people of the weary foot; the exiles of the earth; in it, and not of it, as if their very existence was a symbol of what God's people should be,—in the world, and not of the world. Dr. Cumming.

Their coming out of Egypt is a prophetic sign. The nations shall know Jehovah when He restores and blesses Israel in the kingdom. (Is. 2:1-3; 11:11, 12; 14:1)

The cunning and often faithless Jacob comes forth at last in calm elevation of faith to bestow blessings and impart dignities. Israel's part in last dispensation, after Christ's return

Note Joseph's plan to bring about full confession from his brethren that they might have fellowship restored. So Christ the anti-type, is dealing with His brethren the Jews. His plan will culminate in great day of confession in Great Tribulation when they will both confess and mourn.

Joseph presenting brethren in court—Christ in second advent presenting His brethren the Jews in heaven's court, restoring them to place of blessing in the earth. Jacob blessing the king pictures Israel's portion in millennium, that of blessing kings of the earth

Discussion of both sides of double standards in reporting of Arab/Israeli conflict. Double standards of: American politicians, American media, Israeli politicians, liberals, conservatives.

The land promises in the Old Testament are fulfilled in an extraordinary way in the New Testament - God's people, Jews and Christians, inherit the whole world. A literal interpretation of Gen 17:8 not only requires land for Israel, but circumcision for all believers. Paul [better: James] settled this at Jerusalem Council.

Four thousand years ago in the extreme south of today’s war-torn land of Iraq, the ancient city of Ur boasted among its inhabitants a man named Abram. In Genesis 12:1, God told Abram to leave his country and go to a land that He would show him.

God promised to give Abram that new land. God promised to bless those who blessed Abraham, curse those who cursed him, and to use him as the vehicle through which all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham’s obedience to God resulted in a God-made covenant that was reconfirmed with Abraham and his posterity on numerous occasions. Through hardships and sorrows, through Egyptian slavery, episodes of idolatry and moral failure, mixed with acts of incredible prophetic significance and heroism, Israel stayed in the Promised Land until 586 B.C.

The Northern Kingdom -- known as Israel -- fell in 722 B.C. In 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar overran the Southern Kingdom -- known as Judah -- and took most of the Israelites captive to Babylon. The few poor Jews left in the land were so frightened that they took the biblical prophet Jeremiah against his will and forsook the land, fleeing to Egypt.

When the Exile came to an end 70 years later, some of the Jews returned to the Promised Land led by Ezra, Nehemiah and Zerubbabel. But the vast majority of them remained in what is today Iraq and even Iran (ancient Persia) where the events of the Book of Esther occurred.

By the time of Jesus’ birth, the Jews had re-established themselves in the Promised Land. Then, once again, the Jews were decimated when Titus, the Roman general, destroyed the city of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and scattered the Jews once more by means of the now-famous Diaspora throughout all the nations of the world. Very few Jews remained in the land after that.

Some were there during the days of the Ottomans, whose rule was essentially from 1517 to 1917. A few more Jews made their way to Israel under the British mandate, which existed from 1922 to 1948.

As Jews began to come back into the land, they were not welcome. In some ways this was understandable. The land had been in Arab hands for generations, and seemingly there was not enough room for both Jew and Arab in such a small area of land.

In 1948 Israel declared itself to be a nation once again. In 1948 and 1949, a brutal war for independence erupted. Succeeding wars -- the Sinai Campaign in 1956, the Six Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and even the Palestinian intifadas today -- have left the land in turmoil.

Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), a Jew who was born in Hungary and grew up in Austria, was the leading spokesman and proponent of Zionism in the late 19th century. In 1897, he convened and presided over the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, which put him on the world stage as a proponent of re-establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1882, Eliezer Ben-Yehudah, a Lithuanian Jew, brought the long-since-forsaken Hebrew language back to life. Finally, in 1917, a political accident known today as the Baulfour Declaration set forth that the country then called Palestine was to become the home of the Jews once again.

Since that day, the tiny little country of Israel, boasting not a drop of oil, has nevertheless become a “political football” for the nations. This effort at a modern democracy has been supported by America, and to some degree Great Britain, but increasingly the world seems hostile to Israel.

This reaction in itself should be no surprise to Christian believers who have read Revelation 12 and understand that Satan’s inability to bring about the destruction of Israel despite all his efforts in history -- culminating in the Holocaust -- causes him to turn upon the offspring of Israel, namely those who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Revelation 12:17). Satan focuses his hatred not only upon Israel but on those who are followers of Christ.

Surrounded by hostile enemies, and with few friends on the face of the globe, does Israel have a chance to survive? Should she even survive?

Many Christians believe that God’s promises to Abraham are still to be taken seriously. After all, as my pastor Dr. Criswell used to say, “If God does not keep His promise to Abraham, how do I know that He will keep His promise to me?” But other Christians seem to feel that the Jewish rejection of their Messiah meant that Israel no longer had a place in the plan of God.

But, the Bible seems to indicate that Israel has a place in the plan of God. For example, Ezekiel 37 records the prophet’s famous “valley of dry bones” vision. Though often preached as an evangelistic sermon, this chapter is actually nothing of the sort. Ezekiel’s prophecy is that Israel, both northern and southern kingdoms, would once again be united in the land of Israel. That, of course, was never fully realized until the modern day.

In Romans 9-11, the Apostle Paul takes up the theme of God’s promise to the descendents of Israel. Paul refers to Israel’s future in the land by reaffirming that “the promises” still “belong” to the “Israelites.” In Romans 11:26, Paul even declares that there is coming a day when “all Israel shall be saved.” We should not understand that reference to be every Jew who has ever lived but, rather, all living Israel who survive until that time when the Jewish people realize that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.

Occasionally, someone objects to such a view and asks me the understandable question, “Why would God love the Jew more than He does the Arab?” I believe the answer to that question is that God does not love the Jew more than the Arab or more than any other Gentile. As a Gentile, I am profoundly grateful for this fact. But, God does say clearly in Ezekiel 36 that He has concern for His great name, which Israel has “profaned among the nations” wherever they have been scattered.

Ezekiel continues to speak for God and prophesies a re-gathering of Israel in 36:24: “For I will take you [Israel] from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.” But Ezekiel also declared that this would not be done for Israel’s sake. Verse 38 records the voice of God saying that the purpose is so that “they shall know that I am the LORD.” God’s name will be glorified and honored, and all men will know that He is indeed God when He is honored in His own ancient people, the Jews.

In light of the scriptural teaching that God has a plan for the future, which will eventually bring the Jewish nation to the land of Israel, what should the attitude of the Christian be toward the Jews and toward Israel?

• We are told to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6).

• We ought to urge Israel to promote religious liberty within its own boundaries. Tragically, the Jewish state has chosen to define religious liberty as the right of a man to remain in the religion into which he was born, but Israel really has not given freedom to its people, for example, to become believers in Jesus, the Messiah, if they wish. Many inhabitants of Israel are even atheistic or agnostic. The government of Israel is correct to tolerate that view, as tragic as such may be, but they should also tolerate those who choose to follow Jesus as the Messiah.

• We should work among all peoples -- Jews, Palestinians and other Arabs -- to dissuade them from the policy of retaliation, which has come to characterize the Middle Eastern theater. Until the string of efforts to retaliate for wrongs is brought to an end, there can be no real peace in the land.

• We can see the land and allow the people of the land to see the love of Christ as exemplified in Christian pilgrims.

• We can witness to Jews and Palestinians and other Arabs alike, sharing the love of Christ.

Some years ago, when I sat in the guest house of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad, Iraq, and shared with Yasser Arafat, then-president of the Palestinian people, I proposed to him the possibility of a real peace in the Middle East. I read to him the following verses from the eighth-century B.C. prophet Isaiah:

“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and

the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria,

and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day

Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria -- a blessing

in the midst of the land, whom the LORD of hosts shall bless,

saying, ‘Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My

hands, and Israel My inheritance’” (Isaiah 19:23-25).

I said, “Mr. Arafat, there is coming a day when there will be peace in the Middle East, and in those days, God will say, ‘Assyria, My people; Egypt, My people; and Israel, My inheritance.’ That peace can only come in the land and in the heart of an individual when Jesus is made the King.”

May God help us all to share that message with the precious people of the Middle East.

________

Paige Patterson is president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Booklet looks at Bible prophecy and the Middle East in the midst of the Kuwait-Iraq war. The Russian invasion of Israel (with Iranians) is presented.

Iraq is associated with Babylon, and its idolatry and astrology is outlined. They are trying to turn the ancient city into a vast museum. Isaiah 13 says the city will never be rebuilt, but it is speaking of the Tribulation period.

The basic tenets of Islam are briefly discussed.

Rabbi Menachem Schneerson of Brooklyn, New York, has predicted the coming of the Messiah due to the events in the Middle East. His followers say that Schneerson is himself the Messiah.

Future prediction by Virkler: Iraq will be rebuilt into a thriving financial powerhouse, which various prophecies assume.

Three new books look at Jesus through the Old Testament.

John’s gospel tells us that the Pharisee Nicodemus once stood up for Jesus by reminding a group of his colleagues that they could not arrest the Galilean rabbi without giving him a hearing. They were not pleased with this reminder. “Search the scriptures,” they retorted, “and observe that no prophet comes from Galilee” (John 7:52).

That was one of the earliest recorded salvos in a battle that has continued for many centuries over precisely how, if at all, Jesus fulfills the Old Testament. Today most Jews do not believe that Jesus fulfilled their Scriptures in any sense, and many view Christian claims that Jesus fulfilled this or that verse in the “Old” Testament as attempts to wrest Jewish traditions from their rightful owners. Christians, on the other hand, agree that Jesus and the church represent God’s faithfulness to his promises in the Old Testament, but they often disagree on the specifics.

Have God’s promises to Israel in the Old Testament been fulfilled in Jesus and the church in some way not immediately obvious to the authors of the Old Testament themselves? Or do some promises concerning Israel still await precisely the fulfillment that the authors of the Old Testament seem to have intended?

Three recently published books address these important issues. In “Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two?” David Holwerda tackles both Jewish concerns about Christian “plundering” of Jewish tradition and the debate among Christians over the relationship between Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament.

In the first chapter, Holwerda surveys recent assessments of Christian fulfillment theology and expresses dissatisfaction with each assessment; but here he only hints at his own understanding. Other issues demand discussion before he can describe his own provocative perspective in detail.

Holwerda begins discussion of these issues with the critical question, “Who is Israel?” and claims that the New Testament, Matthew in particular, has a ready answer. Israel is Jesus. Jesus broadened God’s redemptive work to include all ethnic groups, not simply physical descendants of Abraham. In doing this, he fulfilled the promise to Abraham that through him all nations of the earth would be blessed and so became Abraham’s true son, the true “Israel.” Matthew’s subtle identification of Jesus himself with Israel confirms this understanding: both came out of Egypt, both were God’s servant and son, and both were tested in the wilderness.

Other parts of the New Testament extend Jesus’ work of fulfillment to the prophetic visions of a restored temple in Israel’s future. Jesus becomes this temple as he forgives sins, purifies the unclean with his touch, and heals the sick, all functions of the temple’s sacrifices and priests. In addition, the New Testament teaches that the followers of Jesus have taken over the role of the glorious temple of prophetic prediction by showing that Jesus’ followers in some sense take their master’s place (John 17:22) and by explicitly identifying the local expression of the church with the temple (1 Cor. 3:16).

Holwerda then turns to the Old Testament promises that one day God would give back to scattered and exiled Israel the land that they had once won from the Canaanites and occupied during the monarchy. The New Testament, he says, does not spiritualize these promises so that they become mere allegories of some “higher” reality but instead universalizes them so that they apply to more than a single ethnic group. Thus Paul calls Abraham the inheritor not simply of Judea and Samaria, but of the world (Rom. 4:13); and when he quotes the promise section of the commandment to honor father and mother, he transforms it from a promise that all might go well in the land that God was giving to Israel (Deut. 5:16) into a simple promise that the believer might live long upon the earth (Eph. 6:2-3).

The church is also the recipient of the Old Testament law, although in a new form that removes its ethnic distinctiveness and makes it valid for all who believe the gospel, regardless of national affiliation. In addition, believers follow this new form of the Old Testament law by imitating Christ. This less specific ethical demand provides a helpful safeguard against legalism.

Does all this mean that unbelieving Jews have no place in the gracious plan of God? Holwerda, surprisingly, argues that despite the identification of Israel in the Old Testament with the church in the New, and despite the “universalizing” in the New Testament of many Old Testament promises to ancient Israel, unbelieving Jews continue to hold a special place in God’s saving work. “Disobedience,” he says, “need not cancel future hope rooted in God’s electing grace.” And so in Paul, he finds hope extended to unbelieving Jews that God, in faithfulness to his Old Testament commitment to his people, will extend mercy to many by opening their hearts to Messiah Jesus (Rom. 11:25-27).

Although the purpose of Christopher Wright’s “Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament” is different, his own approach to the Old Testament frequently coincides with Holwerda’s. Wright hopes to explain Jesus’ person, mission, and theology in terms of the Old Testament, for “without the Old Testament,” he says, “Jesus quickly loses reality and either becomes a stained-glass window figure colourful but static and undemanding, or a tailor’s dummy that can be twisted and dressed to suit the current fashion.” Like Holwerda, Wright believes that Jesus viewed himself as the inheritor of Israel’s sonship, and that where Israel failed in its mission to be the vehicle of blessing to the Gentiles, Jesus succeeded.

Also like Holwerda, Wright is not happy with the notion that every prophecy about the future restoration of Israel must be literally fulfilled in national Israel. The Old Testament is more a book of promise than of prediction, he argues, and, unlike predictions, promises can be fulfilled in ways that people alive at the time of the promise may never have imagined. Thus the promise to Abraham was fulfilled provisionally in the Exodus and at Mount Sinai when God constituted the nation of Israel and declared them to be his special people. The promise was reissued at Sinai in terms of settlement in the land, and fulfilled provisionally again in the next generation’s conquest of Canaan. It was reissued again at the time of David with the promise that David’s son would reign on the throne eternally, and that promise received fulfillment in the coming of the Messiah Jesus. Thus, the promises of the Old Testament have a “transformable quality” that allows them to be fulfilled in ways different from those in which they were originally understood.

If Wright is correct about this, he provides some basis for Holwerda’s approach. Holwerda’s claim that the New Testament “universalizes” the prophetic promises of a geographically restored Israel and a gloriously restored temple may be examples of how the Old Testament promises could be fulfilled in ways that were not readily understood at the time they were given.

Wright’s book is much more than a discussion of how the New Testament uses the Old, however. It is a brief theology of Jesus and his teaching in light of the Old Testament. It begins with a survey of the prominent theological themes of the Old Testament and includes, along with a discussion of the theoretical relationship between the Old Testament and the New, chapters on Jesus’ “identity,” “mission,” and “values.”

Jesus is God’s Son in the Gospels in the same way that Israel is God’s son in the Old Testament, with the crucial difference that whereas Israel rebelled against its Father, Jesus was obedient. Jesus’ mission is best comprehended under the Old Testament categories of Son of Man and Suffering Servant, again titles applied to Israel in the Old Testament, but melded together in Jesus’ mind so that Jesus as the Son of Man is not only the victorious Savior and coming Judge, but one who suffers in place of others and in obedience to God.

Jesus’ “values,” by which Wright seems to mean his ethical teaching, are also drawn from the Old Testament, whose emphases can be summarized in three statements: “God comes first,” “persons matter more than things,” and “needs matter more than rights.” Far from abrogating the Jewish law, Jesus emphasized precisely these issues and so brought “into full clarity the inherent values and priorities of the Torah.”

Walter Kaiser’s “The Messiah in the Old Testament” focuses upon every passage in the Old Testament that Kaiser considers a “direct prophecy” of the messianic age. Kaiser’s interpretive perspective stands in contrast to that of Holwerda and Wright. He believes that each of the passages he considers was intended to refer to the Messiah by the author who penned it and could have been understood as messianic by those who first read it. Modern readers of the Old Testament who fail to see how the original authors and readers of such texts could have understood them to be messianic are, like the two on the Emmaus road, “ignorant and slow in heart to believe everything the prophets spoke” (Luke 24:25).

After explaining this approach, Kaiser’s book engages in a thorough, and often technical, commentary on each direct messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. He proceeds chronologically through the Pentateuch, to passages written before and during the Davidic monarchy, to the rest of the Psalter, and finally to the Prophets.

Many readers will remain unconvinced that every passage in Kaiser’s volume was understood to be messianic by its original author and readers. It is particularly hard to see how the enmity between serpent and woman in Genesis 3:15 could have been understood this way by its author, or how David’s imprecations upon an enemy in Psalm 109:6-19 could have originally referred to the opponent of the last of David’s line (Judas). The difficulty in seeing such texts as references in their original contexts to the Messiah and the circumstances of his life seems to demand some other approach, and the perspective of Holwerda and Wright fits the exegetical facts without sacrificing Scripture’s trustworthiness. Their perspective will probably prove more satisfactory to most readers.

All three books, however, make a significant contribution to the evangelical debate over how best to understand Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Testament. Each comes from a senior evangelical biblical scholar whose experience in the classroom and years of learning lend maturity to his work. There is no youthful extravagance here, no experimentation, simply the fruit of years of thinking about a critical theological issue. Students, pastors, and laypeople interested in the relationship between Old and New Testaments will benefit from thinking through Kaiser’s perspective and learning from his detailed analysis of the relevant passages, from Wright’s illuminating examination of Jesus’ person and teaching in light of their Old Testament background, and from Holwerda’s fresh perspective on the age-old problem of Jesus and Israel. All three books illuminate Jesus’ person and identity. All three are worth buying, reading, and keeping handy for future reference.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two?” by David E. Holwerda (Eerdmans, 193 pp.; $12.99, paper)

“Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament,” by Christopher J. H. Wright (InterVarsity, 256 pp.; $14.99, paper)

“The Messiah in the Old Testament,” by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. (Zondervan, 235 pp.; $17.99, paper).

Reviewed by Frank Thielman, associate professor of divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama.

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctmar96mrj6T30586222

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If it's a matter of who got there first, the Israelis have a case against the Palestinians.

If it's a matter of who has controlled the land most recently and for the longest time, the Palestinians have a case against the Israelis.

And if those were the only two questions, the Middle Eastern conflict between Arabs and Jews still would be a tough nut to crack.

By some accounts, the current conflict in the Middle East is about land -- a relatively small piece of real estate bordered by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. Palestinians and Jews both claim the land as theirs. And history can be cited to support both claims.

Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority are "using history like a stiletto," said Christian historian Tim Weber, dean at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Illinois.

"The land has been contested for thousands of years," Weber said. "The different parties point to different historical periods, but ignore the rest, to make their case for ownership."

Both sides agree the land's history begins with early civilizations thousands of years ago. The first known inhabitants were the Canaanites, a collection of Semitic people who developed complex societies administered through city-states.

The Canaanites, according to biblical and historical records, worshipped fertility gods and used sex and mystical wizardry in their religious rites. The Old Testament condemns those practices as "detestable to the Lord."

The Bible says the children of Israel, acting on the promise of God, took possession of the land from the Canaanites. For the next 500 years, Israel flourished and expanded under the leadership first of judges and later kings such as Saul, David and Solomon. David made Jerusalem Israel's capital around 1000 B.C., and Solomon built the first temple there around 960 B.C.

By 720 B.C., however, Israel had been crushed by the Assyrians, and 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel were lost in the ensuing dispersion. The remnant of Jewish people held on to parts of the land for several more centuries, suffering under the rule of Babylonians, Greeks, Hasmoneans and Romans.

Israel held together in some form through the time of Christ until 70 A.D., when Roman troops destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the Jewish people far and wide in what is known as the Diaspora.

For the next 900 years, control of the Holy Land went back and forth between various occupying forces, including the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Christian Crusaders, the Mamluks and the Ottoman Empire.

Muslims were the third major religious entity to lay claim to the land, arriving as a distinct faith group in the seventh century A.D. Their founding prophet, Mohammad, was born in A.D. 570 and wrote the Koran in A.D. 610. By 691, Muslims had built the Dome of the Rock on the site of the destroyed Jewish temple. This is the third-most-holy site in Islam because according to Islamic tradition it is the site from which Mohammed ascended into heaven.

Jews and Muslims claim a common heritage through the patriarch Abraham, with Jews tracing their lineage and faith through Abraham's son Isaac and Muslims tracing theirs through Abraham's son Ishmael. Jewish Scripture records Ishmael as the child of Abraham and his wife's servant, Hagar. Islam, however, considers Hagar Abraham's second wife.

Jews and Muslims co-existed in the land, although Muslims had the upper hand through most of the latter half of the first millennium after Christ. They coexisted largely because of outside domination and because the Jewish people had not yet begun returning to the land in large numbers.

Four hundred years of rule by the Ottoman Empire ended in 1917 with a British conquest, and the British prime minister pledging support for a "Jewish national home in Palestine." That never fully materialized, however, until after World War II and the Holocaust. European and American sentiment for a Jewish state led to concrete action. And that, imposed by the United Nations in 1948, set the stage for conflict that has raged between Arabs and Israelis until the present.

With consent from the British, the victors of World War II carved out a new Israeli state, hoping to create a place of refuge for persecuted Jews worldwide. To do this, however, they made hundreds of thousands of Palestinians homeless.

So whose land is it anyway?

Jews claim historical rights to the land and a divine mandate given to Abraham to possess it. Muslims claim more recent possession of the land and a divine mandate as well.

"There are two types of reality going on," explained Paula Fredriksen, professor of Scripture at Boston University.

While the Israelis claim the land was theirs first, the Palestinians claim they have the latest revelation from God. In their view, Fredriksen said, "Mohammed trumps Jesus or Moses."

The Muslims have no basis to claim they were there first, because Islam wasn't founded until after the Holy Lands had been occupied by both Jews and Christians, she explained. "They know perfectly well that Islam is sort of the third-comer into the neighborhood."

Nevertheless, some Palestinian leaders have attempted to draw a connection between themselves and the Canaanites from whom the Jews originally captured the land. This rhetoric says, "Just as Joshua seized the land from the people who were the original natives, so the Jewish people are trying to do it again," Fredriksen said. "It's very clever rhetoric."

But it doesn't wash with history, she said. "The Palestinians are no more or less related to people in that area than Jews are. By referring to biblical narrative and identifying themselves as Canaanites, they are making a political claim to prior ownership, and those are two different things."

Nevertheless, the Palestinians make a strong argument on the point of most recent possession, argued Weber, who sees the Jewish demand to reclaim its land as unprecedented in world history.

"Are you aware of another people group that returned to ancestral land centuries after losing it and succeeded in establishing its rightful claim?" he asked. "I'm not. Western support and sympathy, often fueled by particular readings of biblical prophecy, made it all possible.

"Of course, few worried about the 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced to make the new state. Few worried about the long-term consequences of Israel trying to occupy and control Gaza and the West Bank after the 1967 war."

Fredriksen, who was raised a Roman Catholic but converted to Judaism, noted Christian Dispensationalism, an end-times theology that places great emphasis on the restoration of Israel, has played a large role in American support for Israel as a state. But that's not the only form of Zionism within Christianity, she added.

Guilt over the events of the Holocaust sparked another kind of Zionism, combined with guilt over other mistreatment of the Jewish people at the hands of Christians through the centuries, she said. "It's owning that and being responsible for it that feeds that kind of interest in the state of Israel."

That argument is lost on the Palestinians, however, she explained. "You have Arabs saying, 'Look, that's a European problem. Just because Europeans killed Jews doesn't mean we have to have them in our neighborhood.'"

Of course, the Jews have been in the land all along. The difference today is the large numbers of Jews who have returned to the land the shift in the balance of power that has occurred in the region since 1948.

Within Israel's borders, 80 percent of the population is Jewish, 15 percent is Muslim and 2 percent is Christian. In the West Bank, largely controlled by Palestinians, the population is 75 percent Muslim and 17 percent Jewish.

With 6 million people in Israel and 3 million in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel currently has the upper hand in numbers. But the number of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is growing rapidly. In that region, Palestinians are predicted to outnumber Jews by 2050.

Yet still, the arguments boil down to differing perspectives on history. And that reminds Weber of a favorite saying of one of his own history professors.

"History," the professor said, "is an argument without end."

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The main theological underpinning behind evangelical support for Israel hinges on one pivotal notion -- that the Jewish people are God's chosen people.

But not all conservative Christians believe that way.

"National Israel's rejection of Christ meant forfeiture of God's covenant blessings and that the true people of God today are Jews and Gentiles who have put their trust in Christ," according to Paul Copan, a member of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries team who is an authority on Jewish-Christian relations.

Copan holds degrees from Columbia Bible College, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Marquette University and is a well-published scholar. His books include "Who Was Jesus? A Jewish-Christian Dialogue."

"Any theologically significant future of ethnic Jews is bound up in their embracing Jesus Christ, which is not a national and political future," Copan said.

Copan, who said he speaks only for himself and not the evangelistic ministry he works with, sympathizes with those who see a future for political Israel, but he also finds "good scriptural reason to hold that this is not so."

Here's why: "The inter-ethnic church has replaced national Israel as the people of God. ... The promises to Israel have been fulfilled in Christ. The New Testament uses the same language of the church that the Old Testament does about national or theocratic Israel, and there is very good reason to believe the New Testament people of God in Christ, the church, are the fulfillment of the people of God."

Copan cites numerous Scriptures to make his case, including Luke 19:44, where Jesus tells the Jews "your house is forsaken," and Matthew 21:44, where Jesus says the kingdom of God will be taken away from the Jews and "given to a people who will produce its fruit."

"Christ threatened judgment upon Israel as though there would be no hope at all of restoration," Copan said.

This view runs counter to the teaching of dispensational premillennialism, which has heavily influenced Baptist thought in the South since the mid-19th century. According to this worldview, not only will God restore political and national Israel; it is essential to the end times that God do so.

"Read the Old Testament prophets," said Ed McAteer, a Baptist layman in Memphis, Tenn., and a staunch supporter of Israel. "God whipped the daylights out of them, scattered them. ... His constant call is 'I will bring them back again.'

"He allowed them to go into captivity; he sent them there. ... God put the lash on them, but he did not reject them forever. ... They did crucify your Savior and my Savior, but God is a forgiving God."

God will redeem Israel in the end times and bring the Jewish people to faith, according to McAteer and others who share his theological views.

Copan and other non-dispensationalists see it differently. "God's covenant blessings are presently enjoyed only by those who are in Christ," he said. "A Jew's enjoyment of covenant blessings will come only through being joined to Christ."

This requires a distinction between ethnic Israel and political Israel.

"Not one clear New Testament passage mentions the restoration of Israel as a political nation," Copan asserted. "Romans 11:16-24 simply speaks of the conversion of Abraham's physical offspring; it says nothing of the restoration of the Davidic kingdom."

What, then, do non-dispensationalists think of the modern conflict over the existence of Israel as a state?

"We should be quite cautious about reading into the events of the Middle East what may not be there," Copan suggested. "Even if these happened to be the outworking of biblical prophecy, we must be careful about being fatalists -- thinking it's going to happen whether we try to get involved or think contextually or not. We must be a people who seek peace, reconciliation, mediation and human flourishing wherever we can because of the cultural mandate God has given us."

That doesn't mean Christians must favor the Palestinians over the Israelis, but that Christians should take an informed perspective on both sides, Copan said.

While he is concerned about the Palestinians' refusal to denounce terrorism, they should be allowed to create a Palestinian state if they renounce terrorism and acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, he said.

At the same time, Israel has a right to protect itself, he said, but sometimes has overstepped its boundaries.

It is not enough for evangelical Christians to assume Israel can do no wrong, Copan declared. "Even though I am sympathetic with Israel's concerns and its actions of self-protection and even pre-emptive strikes against terrorist threats ..., evangelicals should also decry Israel's actions when it goes too far."

Still, the notion that American Christians should see Israel with a preferential view exists widely even beyond dispensational premillennialists.

"Paul says clearly that God's promises to the Jewish people are irrevocable," said Paula Fredriksen, a theology professor at Boston University and author of numerous books on ancient Christianity. Fredriksen is a nationally known scholar who was raised Roman Catholic but converted to Orthodox Judaism.

The "unmaking of Israel as a Christian theological position" emerged in the first and second centuries as part of the debate over whether Gentile Christians should have anything to do with the Jewish synagogue, she said. And by extension, this line of reasoning leads to anti-Semitism, she suggested.

Wherever Christians fall on the status of Israel as the people of God, they should be willing to think critically about the current issues rather than merely assuming nothing can be done, said Tim Weber, a history professor at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

"Does believing in Bible prophecy absolve them of grappling with issues of right and wrong?" Weber asked. "Does knowing how everything is going to turn out justify turning a blind eye to injustice? Do the ends justify the means just because the ends have been prophesied?"

*

“But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they [are] not all Israel who [are] of Israel, nor [are they] all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’” (Romans 9:6-7 NKJV)

The True Seed Of Abraham — Line Of Isaac

• hath…effect — Num 23:19, Rom 3:3, 11:1-2, 5, Luke 1:68-70 — in convincing and enlightening concerning Christ as the true Messiah

• not…Israel — Rom 2:28-29 — not all possessed of the general characteristics of the nation — pride, obduracy, etc. [Or, not all of Israel’s (Jacob’s) descendants are part of God’s true Israel, in the same fashion that not all Abraham’s children, etc. — RGH]

• which [who]…Israel — which are of that nation; since some have believed and are saved — John 1:47, Ps 73:1 — [Or, although all Israel was called, God’s word was only received through election by the faithful remnant. — RGH]

• because…Abraham, lineally descended fr. the father of the faithful — Rom 4:16

• are…children — Gal 6:16 — true,

spiritual descendants

• but…called — Gen 17:20-21, 21:12 — reckoned the children of Abraham externally: for some of his descendants came through the line of Ishmael

The work of God’s Word — Rev. S. Martin

I. The Gospel, a mighty cause. We may expect it to be so, and to continue so:

1. If we look at its nature;

2. The commission issued respecting its preaching;

3. If we connect with our Saviour’s promise to be present with the preacher, the extraordinary ministry of the Holy Ghost;

4. If we consider the representations given concerning it;

5. If we notice its first effects as recorded in our N. T., and its subsequent effects as chronicled in uninspired writings; or if we look at all which it is doing now.

II. What these effects are:

1. The effect is like unstopping deaf ears;

2. It is to loose the dumb tongue;

3. To strengthen the arms for work and conflict;

4. Cleansing the hands from all sins;

5. Restoring sensation and motion to withered and exhausted nerves;

6. A complete change of the heart.

Number of Jews in the World [These are figures circa 1880! — RGH] — Having taken special pains within the last twelve years to collect carefully from missionary statistics, furnished by the missionaries among the Jews throughout the world — missionaries numbering at least two hundred and fifty, a source the most reliable — I take a pleasure in furnishing a table in a specified order, as to the actual numbers already known:-

China, including Ka-fungfu, 60,000;

Russian Possessions in Asia, 3,000;

Russia Proper, 1,200,000;

Poland, 2,200,000;

Prussia Proper, 135,000;

Austria, 453,524;

Confederate States of Germany, 138,000;

Amsterdam in Holland, 35,000;

The Netherlands, 50,000;

France, 81,000;

Italy, 200,000;

England, 60,000;

Ionian Isles, 7,000;

Danish States, 15,000;

Sweden, 1,700;

Switzerland, 1,900;

Gibraltar, 4,000;

Galatia, 200,000;

Netherlandish Colonies, 500;

Kingston, West Indies, 5,000;

Demarara, Esequibo, 200;

New Holland, 50;

St. Domingo, 5,000;

Porto Rico, 3,300;

North America, 700,000;

South America, 10,000;

Fez, in Africa and Morocco, 300,000;

Tunis, 130,000;

Algiers, 30,000;

Habesh, 20,000;

Tripoli, 12,000;

Egypt, 12,000;

in the Turkish Dominions in Europe and Asia there are 2,500,000;

besides those in the East, at least 7,000,000:

grand total, 15,573,194. — S. Bonhomme

“This proflteth them no more than it did Dives that Abraham called him son.” — Trapp

“It was a false confidence the Jews did nourish, that they should dwell securely in their land, notwithstanding their provocations, because the worship and the House of God was in it, as if the Temple were a sanctuary for those that did profane it, and the horns of the altar would secure them, when it was the blood upon the altar called for vengeance.” — Dr Allestry

Acts 7:30–60 — Stephen’s Defence, Part II (outline by F. F. Bruce, NICNT) « Leader information shown in this fashion »

{A.} The Birth of the Church (1:1–5:42)

{B.} Persecution and Expansion (6:1–9:31)

{1.} Stephen (6:1–8:1a)

A. The Appointing of the Seven (6:1–6)

B. Progress Report (6:7)

C. Stephen’s Activity Raises Opposition (6:8–10)

D. Stephen Accused before the Sanhedrin (6:11–15)

E. The High Priest’s Question (7:1)

F. Stephen’s Reply (7:2–53)

1. The Patriarchal Age (7:2–8)

2. Israel to Egypt (7:9–19)

3. Moses’ Early Days (7:20-29)

Review: what is implied by what Stephen has already said:

(A) Abraham did not need Moses, the law, the temple for his having a relationship with God

(B) Patriarchs rebelled against God’s plan disclosed by Joseph

(C) God effected His plan despite them and through them

(D) There were 2 unrecognized deliverers: Joseph and Moses

4. The Call of Moses — 7:30–34 (NKJV): 30 And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. 31 When Moses saw it, he marvelled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, 32 saying, “I am the God of your fathers — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses trembled and dared not look. 33 Then the Lord said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.”

a. What makes a place holy (cf. Acts 6:13, Exodus 3:2)? « — the presence of God Himself; note this was Gentile territory »

b. Was this limited to the temple: Exodus 20:24, Numbers 6:27? « — no; God intends it be wherever His people should be »

c. What does removal of shoes mark? « — in visiting it showed respect to the host »

d. What did God’s message to Moses convey about Himself? « — omniscient, merciful, compassionate, wise, faithful, powerful »

5. Wilderness Wanderings — 7:35–43 (NKJV): 35 This Moses whom they rejected, saying, “Who made you a ruler and a judge?” is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years. 37 This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.” 38 This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, 39 whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, 40 saying to Aaron, “Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 41 And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. 42 Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: “Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 43 You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, Images which you made to worship; And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.” (Amos 5:25-27)

a. What marks of Israel’s rebellion are found in these verses?

(A) v. 35 « — repudiation of Moses »

(B) v. 39 « — disobedience to Moses »

(C) v. 39 « — rejection of Moses »

(D) v. 39 « — refusal of salvation coming through Moses — (hearts still looking to Egypt) »

(E) v40, 42–43 « — idolatry »

(F) v. 41 « — pride »

b. How did God use Moses despite Israel’s rejecting him?

(A) through Moses He S_________ … « (saved them) »

(B) through Moses He D____ … « (did wonders, miracles) »

(C) through Moses He F___________… « (foretold The Prophet) »

(D) He acclaimed Moses before the people at Sinai by His thundering voice and by giving living oracles to Moses

c. How did God respond to Israel

(A) Cf. Romans 1:24, 26, 28 « — abandoning them to idolatry »

(B) sending « them into captivity »

d. What parallels are found in Jesus Christ & His treatment

(A) wonders and signs « gave him only grudging acceptance which was quickly deserted »

(B) the living oracles « of Jesus’ teaching were soon ignored »

6. Tabernacle and Temple — 7:44–50 (NKJV): 44 Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, 45 which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David, 46 who found favour before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. 47 But Solomon built Him a house. 48 However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: 49 “Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me?” says the Lord, “Or what is the place of My rest? 50 Has My hand not made all these things?”

a. how was the tabernacle constructed

(A) verse 44 « — according to a God-given pattern »

(B) Heb 8:1–2 « — by men representing a spiritual reality »

b. What God answer David’s proposal to build Him a house?

(A) 2 Samuel 7:7 « — “I have never asked for a house” »

(B) 2 Samuel 7:11-12, 17 « — the true house as Christ (Heb 3:1ff) »

c. Was Solomon’s temple the real house of God?

(A) vv 48-50 (also I Kings 8:27, Isaiah 66:1-2) « — no, it was not adequate for the majestic, omnipresent God »

(B) Mark 11:17 « — earthly temple defective in use and scope »

(C) Isaiah 57:15, Ephesians 2:19-22 « — God’s people a temple »

7. Personal Application — 7:51–53 (NKJV): 51 You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, 53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.

a. Exodus 33:5, Leviticus 26:41; Whose words did Stephen use? « — both are quotes of how God described Israel; there are many similar statements; eg., Deuteronomy 10:16 »

b. Matthew 23:29-37; What is Jesus’ judgement? « — the rulers were of the same character as their forefathers »

c. 1 Thessalonians 2:14b–16; What is Paul’s judgement? « — this people is still the same »

«

d. The final judgement: they had not kept the law as shown by their actions to the prophets and their actions to the Christ. Contrast our reading with G. B. Shaw in the preface to the play, “Androcles and the Lion” »

G. Stoning of Stephen, 7:54–1:8a

1. Stephen’s Final Witness — 7:54–56 (NKJV): 54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

a. Did Stephen’s audience understand “his drift”?

b. See Mark 14:62; what supposed crime did Jesus & Stephen both commit? « — exalting Jesus to enthronement with God (term “Son of man” from Daniel 7:13–14; also, Psalm 110:1) »

2. Death of Stephen — 7:57–60 (NKJV): 57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

a. Stephen was treated as a blasphemer even though he had not pronounced the Name, At this date, the Jews allowed only the High Priest to say yearly, using Numbers 6:24-26

b. the presence of the witnesses at the stoning marks it as being an judicial execution; see Deuteronomy 17:7, Leviticus 24:14; why need they be there? « — their actions to back up words »

c. The only possible way this could have been justified under Roman occupation was considering it a temple desecration.

3. Saul’s Agreement — 8:1a (NKJV): Now Saul was consenting to his death. …

The Apostle Paul didn't know anything about Hezbollah or the Israeli defense ministry. But he did know something about hatred and hostility between irreconcilable people groups. And, more importantly, he knew something about the Kingdom of Christ.

Everyone watching the CNN and Fox News images of bombs bursting in air over Lebanon does so from a point of view. Palestinian sympathizers see an aggressive Israeli war machine on the march. Most Americans see a sovereign nation defending itself. Many worry that this could be, in the words of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the beginning of “World War III.”

But for Christians, there's a unique perspective. After all, we're watching citizens of Galilee, the home of Jesus, scurrying to bomb shelters. And our response to the Middle East crisis is linked inextricably to evangelical thought on the Kingdom of God. Some Christians believe peace in the Middle East is a hopeless endeavor, until Jesus sets foot on the Mount of Olives. Others believe peace in the Middle East can be hammered out in the West Wing of the White House. Both groups are partially right, but both groups easily can miss a crucial element of the biblical vision of Kingdom peace, the church.

It is difficult for contemporary Christians to grasp just how real the Jew/Gentile division was in the first-century congregations. This was about more than some rancorous business meetings. Instead, the issue was the gospel itself. Gentiles were more than just an ethnic category -- they were the heirs of Esau, the enemies of the people of God. In the midst of all this turmoil, the apostle Paul declared that the gospel meant the creation of a new humanity in Christ. The church, he concluded, was a model of the coming Kingdom that embraced both Jew and Gentile, reconciled to God and to each other through the last-days triumph of their common Messiah (Ephesians 2:11-21). Paul went so far as to declare that the peace within the congregation of Christ served as a herald to the cosmic powers that God has enthroned Jesus as the indisputable King of the entire created order (Ephesians 2:8-11).

Paul saw the big picture of humanity at war with itself, and with its Creator. He also saw the small picture of local congregations modeling the peace of the coming Kingdom. And he saw that these two foci were linked together. The church doesn't just pray for peace and justice; it is to demonstrate it within its own walls.

The Bible doesn't give us a blueprint for foreign policy negotiations. Good Christians can disagree about whether, for example, the Iraq war was a good idea or whether we should have intervened militarily in Rwanda. This seems particularly clear cut, however, regardless of where we fall on the theological or political spectrums. I, for one, support Israel's response (so far) to the terrorist attacks against it. It seems to me that, whatever our interpretation of Romans 9-11 about Israel, Romans 13 speaks clearly to the mandate of a state to defend itself against aggressive evildoers in this way. It also seems clear to me that, whatever our view as to the identity of the Israel of God, there's a reason why the nations continually rage against our Lord Jesus' kinsmen according to the flesh.

Whatever our view about Israel's place in Bible prophecy and whatever our view of the trouble in the Middle East, Christians should pray for the coming of our Messiah, who will decisively beat all swords into plowshares (Isa 2:4). But we should also pray for Kingdom congregations that declare the truth of the gospel with their very existence. That's not just overseas. As America's inner cities simmer still with racial tension, let's pray and work for churches in which white, black, and Latino Christians worship Christ and love their brothers, together.

And as the Middle East grows more and more incendiary, let's pray for political peace. But let's also pray for churches in which Jewish and Palestinian Christians pray to the same Messiah, and manifest the love and unity of the Spirit -- together.

The United Nations might not notice congregations like that. But Scripture promises us that the spirit world cannot ignore the message of such Kingdom-focused churches -- the message that Jesus is Lord.

________

Russell D. Moore is dean of the school of theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

The land of Israel was once mostly barren. Now it is lush with produce of every kind. Famed author Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in 1867. He published his experience in a work titled “The Innocents Abroad.” In it he made the following observation of Israel:

"A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over

wholly to weeds ... a silent mournful expanse ... desolation ...

[W]e never saw a human being on the whole route ... hardly a tree

or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those

fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the

country.”

If Mr. Twain could tour Israel today, he would find orchards and fields bursting with produce that is exported around the world. “In the days to come Jacob will take root,” Isaiah wrote. “Israel will blossom and sprout, and they will fill the whole world with fruit.” By effort and ingenuity, modern Israel seems to be fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy.