“A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham…” Matthew 1:1
“A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham…” Matthew 1:1
Here we are at Christmas time again and as is so often the case, Israel rates highly in the world news. So much unfounded hatred for Israel – even after the despicable holocaust in WW2 we go back to our vomit and so many in the world want to eradicate this people group. Why is this??
You always know Satan’s work when you see people – made in the image of God – being debased. We see it in spades on our own city streets as people are destroyed through the drug trade. But the enemy pulls out all the stops when it comes to a people that God chose to demonstrate himself through to the world. Make no mistake – this is a spiritual issue!
We in the Alliance movement have had a burden for the Jewish people ever since our inception. AB Simpson, our founder, visited the Middle East in the late 1800s and determined to do something there for the gospel. After all, Jesus told his disciples in Acts to take the gospel to the whole world – starting in Jerusalem. In 1890, three years after the C&MA was founded, we started a work in Jerusalem to both Jews and Arabs and in 1908 built the church you see at the header of this blog, which still stands close to the Old City gates. Through the years, faithful Alliance people have done gospel work all through the country, starting churches and a bible institute. Working under the repressive Ottoman empire, then struggling through the miasma of WW2, then British rule, the founding of Israel as a nation has resulted over the years of many works starting and closing. It has not been an easy run to say the least. At the current time, the Alliance has partnered with other gospel organizations to encourage Messianic congregations in Israel – it’s an inter denominational thing.
Why should we support Israel? Just a few thoughts:
-They are a people that God chose. He said: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” Deuteronomy 7:6. He told Abraham in Genesis 12 that they were to be a people through whom the nations of the world would be blessed. They failed at that charge, but God isn’t finished with this people group yet. This doesn’t mean that we support everything that modern Israel does. They are a secular government like ours in Canada, and like our own government are not beyond doing stupid things.
-They have promises yet to be fulfilled. During God’s covenant with Abraham, He said this to him: “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” Genesis 17:7,8. I don’t know about you, but I think ‘everlasting’ is a very long time!
-We are spiritually tied to the Jews. Take a minute to read Paul’s teaching in Romans 10 and 11. He tells us Gentiles this: “…You do not support the root, but the root supports you” 11:18. We are tied to the Jewish people through faith. We are a part of them through the Old Testament. We have not supplanted them but are part of them – there is spiritual kinship there.
-They will be saved. Right now, gospel work with Jewish people is a slow business. But in that same chapter, Paul says this: “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part 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 turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins” Romans 11:25,26.
We stand on solid ground when we join God in seeing Israel as special!
I wish you all a wonderful and Merry Christmas!
Pastor Leon Throness
