Deuteronomy 31:8 “It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
It was the year 1406 B.C., the people of Israel had miraculously been delivered from their Egyptian slavery 40 years earlier and over 2 million people had survived in a harsh wilderness but by the grace of God.
As the Lord was preparing Israel to enter the promised land, Moses commissioned Joshua before the people. The commission was a declaration, reminding the people of how their leader was under a particular obligation to follow all of the Lord’s commands.
The task would have seemed enormous and the plan too great had not the Lord been with them.
Ancient Israel
Deuteronomy 31:7 “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it.”
The promise of God was to lead the people into a homeland that He had prepared for them. What He didn’t initially tell them was how taking the land would require great faith, trust, and perseverance. The indigenous culture of giants and idolatrous people groups would have rather seen Israel wiped off the face of the earth than let them dwell among them. A reality that has continued up until the present day.
Have the promises of God to Israel ended? Does the Lord still favor a people He once described as His beloved flock?
Certain theologians would say the promise ended when the Messiah came and formed His church. Some covenant theologians have adopted a view that many dispensationalists describe as “replacement theology.” This is the idea that the church has completely replaced Israel. Jews may still be saved on an individual basis by coming to Christ, but the nation of Israel and the Jews as a people no longer have any part to play in redemptive history.
Replacement theology is difficult to prove since so many scriptures indicate Israel’s tree was not chopped down but rather pruned and grafted with new branches of God’s church.
Romans 11:1-6 “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”
Israel is just as relevant today as it was 3600 years ago. The nation is just as rebellious, the population has faithful followers of the Lord, Orthodox Jews, atheists, and idolators living in their midst..not unlike the Israel of old. The biggest difference today is that the Messiah was revealed and He called both jew and gentile to salvation. Now God dwells within His people and no longer within a Temple. The greater church is a compilation of Spirit-filled believers living in every nation on earth. There is not a perfect denomination and there is no building that has greater holiness or worth than the people God has called and sanctified.
God’s Church
The root of God’s people is Jesus Christ. He is the One by which all of God’s people have been established and are given citizenship into God’s Kingdom. Without Christ, all who hope to be blessed by God will only find His wrath. Their sin has not been absolved, their judgement has not been appeased, and they fail to justify themselves through their own good works.
Galatians 3:16 “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.”
The one defining nation that is still protected by God is Israel. The nation of Israel was established by God and has remained a nation through millennia of attacks because God has a purpose that will be fulfilled. Believers can study end time events as they unfold in Israel and measure the seasons. A third Temple will be built in the last days and the Antichrist will blaspheme God’s name in that Temple, only to unleash a series of judgements the world has yet to know.
The rise of antisemitism around the world is a sign of the age.
The spirit of the antichrist is growing, hatred against jews is manifesting in every nation on earth and grows by the day. Traditionally christian nations like the United States of America are demonstrating a generation that not only shows hatred for Israel but against jews completely disengaged from Israel, it is a hatred that makes very little sense.
What do you think God’s response will be against such hatred?
Genesis 12:2-3 “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Hatred in general is akin to murder in God’s eyes. For those who have been chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will soon be free”, they are declaring the genocide of Israel. So not only are these antisemites showing hatred toward a people whom God chose to declare His glory, they are invoking God’s wrath by revealing their dark hearts.
1 John 3:15 “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.”
The promises that God made to Abraham regarding his seed were relative not just for Israel but to the church.
The church has a connection to Israel unlike any other nation since Israel is the homeland of the birth of Christ and the church. Israel, particularly around the Sea of Galilee, is where Jesus performed the majority of His miracles, teaching, and instructing His disciples. Israel is also the hub of end times prophecy, the center of the future antichrist’s attention, of world hatred and will be at the center of where the Messiah will establish His millennial reign.
Romans 11:25-27 “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob. And this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
Completion of the Promise
The Lord will honor Israel once again. The fullness of the gentiles is the time of the completion of the church. God has been calling His people to repentance in Christ for the past 2000 years, the day is coming when all who would come will end. When the church is taken away, a remnant of Israel will turn and believe. They will go throughout the earth proclaiming the true Messiah whom they had once rejected.
Romans 11:23 “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again”
To receive the promise of God is to receive Jesus. He is the promise who was foretold, to restore mankind into relationship with God, to complete the work of Creation, to form His Bride the church, and to establish the Kingdom of God that will have no end.
Hebrews 9:15 “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.”
Have you given your life to Jesus? If you have then you have partaken of the promise and your life is His. He is faithful to complete the work He has began in you and He will be worthy of all our praise.
God will lead His people into their eternal homeland and His people will reign with him forever, that day is coming and possibly sooner than we think.
U.T. 