John R. Houk
© October 7, 2013
Have any of you looked at a map that has a speck of nation called Israel surrounding by a sea of Jew-hating Muslims?
The green nations are Islamic. If you get a magnifying glass you can see Israel represented with a speck of red. Do you know that Muslims believe Jews stole this speck of land and gave the Muslim inhabitants the boot to make way for a modern Israel on May 15, 2013?
Of course from a Biblical view modern Israel only has a fraction of the land that God Promised to the Hebrew Tribes coming out of Egypt. The land was promised to the descendants of Abraham through a promised son from Abe’s wife Sarah. Abraham died never possessing the Land Promised by God. Abraham’s son of promise Isaac died never receiving the Land Promised to Abraham. Isaac’s son Jacob (renamed Israel) died never receiving the Land Promised to Abraham by God Almighty. Jacob had twelve sons of whom the Twelve Tribes of Israel are named. Jacob’s favorite son (probably by Divine choice) was Joseph the next to the youngest and the oldest son from his wife Rachel. Joseph and his eleven brothers did not possess the Land Promised by God Almighty.
Divine intervention led Joseph betrayed by his brothers to be second in power in Egypt to be only beneath Pharaoh in Egypt’s political hierarchy. Forgiveness and Mercy proceeded from betrayed Joseph to his betraying brothers and Jacob’s immediate family lived their days in peace in Egypt thanks to the God’s favor toward Joseph. Jacob’s family multiplied and became the Hebrew tribes, BUT with Joseph’s passing future Pharaoh’s did not have the same favor for the Hebrews. Pharaoh’s enslaved the multiplying Hebrews and oppressed them into rough manual labor. It is a good guess as Hollywood movies suggest the Hebrews were involved as the laborers of Egyptian building projects. Slavery in Egypt was brutal, hard and oppressive.
The Bible records that the sons and daughters of the Hebrews reproduced rapidly and to the point that the Egyptian ruling elite became alarmed the Hebrews would number more than the Egyptians. One Pharaoh’s solution was to murder the male babies of the Hebrews to reduce the Hebrew slave population. (Hmm … I just had a thought. Could this have been the first instance ethnic cleansing genocide the Jews faced?) One of those babies scheduled for birth murder was the youngest child of Amram and Jochebed from tribe named after Jacob’s son Levy (Levite Tribe). Jochebed decided to save her baby son Moses from the wrathful edict of Pharaoh. She placed Moses in a floating reed basket and launched him down the Nile River and told her daughter Miriam to follow along.
The reed basket floated to an area where a daughter of Pharaoh discovered Moses. Pharaoh’s daughter decided to raise the Hebrew baby secretly as an Egyptian. The Bible is unclear to when Moses realized he was the son of Hebrew slaves; however my guess is his knowledge was from earliest childhood. Moses needed a wet nurse as a baby and Miriam who had followed the basket suggested her mother Jochebed be Moses’ wet-nurse. Jochebed undoubtedly had an intimate relationship with her secret son and Moses knew Jochebed as his true mother.
The Bible also suggests that Moses was aware he had a destiny with his Hebrew brothers and sisters in a favorable capacity at a relatively young aged:
11 Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12 So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why are you striking your companion?”
14 Then he said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”
So Moses feared and said, “Surely this thing is known!” 15 When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well. (Exodus 2: 11-15 NKJV)
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.
24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in[a] Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.
29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. (Hebrews 11: 23-29 NKJV)
During 40 years of God testing the Hebrews Moses was only allowed to see the Land Promised by God Almighty to the descendants of Abraham. Joshua led the Hebrews to the Promised Land and possessed from a people that had become so unrighteous in their lifestyle they were unredeemable and worthy of death. Thus the Canaanites were defeated, killed or expelled. The mandate from God was to kill the abominators but Joshua failed to follow through and the Hebrews paid a price for that decision with Canaanites, Midianites, Amorites and so forth hanging around to tempt the Hebrews with forbidden sins which resulted in an ebb and flow of the control of their Promised Land.
Ultimately the tribes of the Hebrews decided they wanted a King rather than a Judge operating as a go between for the Hebrew people and God Almighty. This displeased God and Samuel became the last Judge and Saul was anointed the first king of the Land called after Jacob’s God-given name Israel. Saul was given directions Divine instructions in the conquest of another abominable people. Saul failed because he allowed women and children to live and spoils to be divided among the Israeli troops. God’s displeasure with Saul led to David the son of Jesse from the Tribe of Judah to become King.
5 Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and spoke, saying, “Indeed we are your bone and your flesh. 2 Also, in time past, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them in; and the Lord said to you, ‘You shall shepherd My people Israel, and be ruler over Israel.’” 3 Therefore all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel. 4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. 5 In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah. (2 Samuel 5: 1-5 NKJV)
God Promised David that a descendant of the House of David will always sit on the throne of Israel.
7 Wherever I have moved about with all the children of Israel, have I ever spoken a word to anyone from the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?’”’ 8 Now therefore, thus shall you say to My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people, over Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you have gone, and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and have made you a great name, like the name of the great men who are on the earth.
10 Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore, as previously, 11 since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the Lord tells you that He will make you a house.[a]
12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. 15 But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you.[b] Your throne shall be established forever.”’”
17 According to all these words and according to all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David. (2 Samuel 7: 7-12 NKJV)
David had the promise of a perpetual heir to rule Israel, but as you can read there was and is a catch. “If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you.” Solomon messed up later in his reign and many other direct descendants of David messed up as well. God kept his promise not to remove a descendant of David from the throne, but iniquity ended up having the northern 10 tribes deported by Assyria and about a 100 years later the last two tribes called Judah were deported by Babylon. It is from the tribe of Judah that the present day Hebrew people are called Jews. Today all Hebrews are referred to as Jews even if they are not from the Tribe of Judah.
When Babylon was conquered by the Persians, their King allowed the Jews in his realm to go back to their homeland. (Side Bar: Present day Iran is the Persia of old. I am betting the Ayatollahs would not admit that Iranian-Persians not only allowed the Jews to go back home but helped them rebuild Jerusalem and the new Temple named after a descendant of David; i.e. Zerubbabel.
The Genealogy of Jesus Christ
23 Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed [Blog Editor: This is actually a genealogy through Mary the mother of Jesus. Joseph’s genealogy - Matthew 1:1-16]) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat,[a] the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janna, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathiah, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathiah, the son of Semei, the son of Joseph, the son of Judah, 27 the son of Joannas, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmodam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Jose, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonan, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menan, the son of Mattathah, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (Bold & Underline Emphasis Mine – Luke 3: 23-38 NKJV)
The point being that even from a Christian perspective the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews! I have to admit I am totally unaware of the Jewish perspective on the throne of David and the Messiah being the King and descendant of David son of Jesse. I know the Jews are left with a bad taste in their mouth when a Christian tells them the Messiah is Jesus. History tells us that Christian dominated Europe persecuted Jews as Christ-killers and often gave them the choice of converting to Christianity, leave or die.
In Islam such choices are encoded in the Quran, Hadith and Sira. This is not the case in the Holy Bible/New Testament. Christian political and clergy leaders engaged in a bloody campaign against Jew completely contrary to how Jesus taught on how to share the Good News of Salvation.
10 1 After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also,[a] and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. 2 Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. 4 Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road. 5 But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. 8 Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. 9 And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘The very dust of your city which clings to us[b] we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’ (Luke 10: 1-11 NKJV)
16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they[a] will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16: 16-18 NKJV)
The Epistles do say God uses the governing authority (i.e. even if they are unbelieving heathen) to brandish the sword against evil doers. The context though is not in defining unbelievers as evil and physical punish is do that unbelief; however the context is toward those who break the Ten Commands. The sword is used for maintaining the social order and for protecting citizens from invaders.
Submit to Government
13 1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. 7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
Love Your Neighbor
8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,”[a] “You shall not covet,”[b] and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[c] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Put on Christ
11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. (Romans Chapter 13 NKJV)
Christian rulers using the Inquisition to persecute Jews in the same brutal manner as the Muslim holy writings to tell them to do is something we as Christians should ask for forgiveness and mercy to the Jews.
I understand the distrust of Jews toward Christians, especially Evangelical Christians that actively make it their mission to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to unbelieving Jews. Nevertheless, I stand with the Jews that desire to maintain their Homeland. The return of Jews to Israel is a Christian sign that Jesus’ return is closer than it has ever been. When Christ comes to reclaim His own, I believe the Jews who have not believed that Jesus is their Messiah as much as He is the Messiah to Believing Christians. Like the Apostle Paul often stated in his Epistles the Promises of God are to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles (See Also HERE).
It is remarkably uncivilized that a sea of Muslims cannot make peace with the idea of a Jewish State that is a mere speck on a Muslim map. The Muslim battle cry is for the Arabs that call themselves Palestinians should have their own sovereign nation. The problem Jordan was created as a location for Muslims to congregate and the Jews were promised a national homeland by the world powers of the day. That mandate became the British Mandate for Palestine. Somewhere along a historical line the British decided it was more in the UK national interests to be supportive Arab-Muslim sovereign nations than honoring a sovereign Jewish State. So first off the British carved out of the British Mandate for Palestine a Hashemite Kingdom called Transjordan. AND THEN the British desired to further whittle down their promise to Jews by moving toward further dividing their Mandate between Jews and Arab-Muslims. By the 1940s it was quite known that some of the world’s largest deposits of crude oil was in the Muslim Middle East. I believe it was only because Jews managed to gain a toe-hold in Palestine combined with the Nazi Holocaust that the British did not overtly give Arab sovereignty to all of the British Mandate for Palestine.
The British handled their geopolitical dilemma by indicating they were not going to deal with Jewish-Muslim hostility and were unilaterally going to pull out of the Mandate originally given to manage after WWI. The Jews in Israel correctly discerned that a British exit meant a Jihad to exterminate the Jews from Palestine Mandate. Thus cultivating self-protection because of British negligence led to underground Jewish paramilitary organizations to become an army under the self-proclaimed independence of the nation of Israel on May 15, 1948.
Arab-Muslim nations already given independence from European powers proclaimed they would invade this new independent nation of Israel rather than accept it. The invading Muslim armies warned the Arabs it might be safer to flee to a protected zone until the overwhelming odds of 5 or 6 invading Muslim armies butchered Jew into nonexistence thus ending the Jewish dream of returning to their Holy Homeland. Indeed the British overtly provided British Officers including a British Commander to lead Transjordan’s Arab Legion against Israel.
And this is when a Divine miracle occurred. A bunch of Jews fighting to live in a homeland in which a government does not persecute them managed to pull together enough in a united miraculous front that defeated the Arab armies EXCEPT the British led Arab Legion that went on to conquer Jewish Judea-Samaria and to annex the Eastern half of Old Jerusalem which contained a millennial aged Jewish Quarter on behalf of Transjordan. As Muslims desecrated ancient Jewish holy spots Transjordan changed its name to Jordan after formerly annexing Judea-Samaria and East Jerusalem as part of the Hashemite Kingdom. I am still mystified why the British allowed the Jewish Quarter to be dismantled with Jewish gravestones used in street building and the construction of latrines for the Arab Legion.
In 1948 Israel’s borders secured by truces and not treaties became an iffy existence. Muslim nations tried time and time again to destroy Israel. Israel won each time. BUT in 1967 another God-moment occurred.
Forty-five years ago, on June 5, 1967, the world was writing Israel's obituary. The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, along with military contingents from many other Arab and Muslim regimes, were all poised at tiny Israel's vulnerable borders, ready to annihilate the Jewish state. The odds appeared immensely stacked against Israel, and the likelihood of any outside military support, even from the United States, seemed remote. Israel stood alone.
The Arab Muslim street was shrieking bloodcurdling threats of mass extermination for all Israelis, young and old, and the Arab leaders were falling over themselves to see who could utter the most hideous promise of massacre and slaughter. The Muslim Arab cry Itbah Al-Yahud, an Arabic phrase meaning "Slaughter the Jews," was spewing from every Arab regime's controlled radio and television station.
…
Beginning in late May and early June 1967, Nasser sent 80,000 Egyptian troops and 900 tanks across the Sinai Desert to attack Israel, with air cover provided by 400 jet aircraft. Soviet-made Syrian guns and artillery on the Syrian-occupied Golan Heights were already pounding Israeli farmers and villagers in the valley below and firing on Israeli fishermen in the Sea of Galilee.
At the same time, indiscriminate shelling of Jerusalem by the Arab Legion from the Jordanian-occupied West Bank had killed scores of Israeli civilians and wounded 1,000 despite pleas from Israel to Jordan to stay out of the war. Meanwhile, disgracefully succumbing to Nasser's demands, the United Nation's buffer force in Sinai that had been in place since the earlier 1956 One Hundred Hours' War hastily left, even as Israel pleaded with Secretary General U Thant to honor the U.N. mandate to keep the peace.
Egypt was also blockading Israeli shipping in the Straits of Tiran, leading to the Red Sea, and Israeli ships were also prohibited from using the Suez Canal. This was strangling Israel's economy. Faced with all this, Israel struck back -- and won a stunning victory.
In a surprise move, the Israeli Air Force attacked while the Egyptian pilots were having breakfast and destroyed all 400 Egyptian planes on the ground. The Israeli armored and infantry units, though outnumbered, rolled up the huge Egyptian army, forcing it back to the Suez Canal; drove the Syrian forces from the Golan Heights; and reunited divided Jerusalem, liberating all the Jewish holy places in the Old City, which the Jordanians had desecrated and destroyed. The Jordanians had taken the ancient Jewish gravestones on the Mount of Olives and used them as latrines for the Arab Legion. At the same time, some 58 synagogues, some dating back centuries, had been blown up, their ruins used as stables for donkeys.
Many people believe that the astonishing Israeli victory was a miracle. I remember listening in England to Michael Elkins, the BBC reporter in Israel at the time, who broke the startling news of the Israeli victories on all three fronts; the Egyptian, the Syrian, and the Jordanian. But equally, many people also thought he was exaggerating Israel's total defeat of her enemies, preferring almost to the end of the Six-Day War to continue believing the strident but false Arab boastings that Israel was being destroyed.
I have to be honest I began this post as a lead-up to a tech article boasting on Israel becoming the next Silicon Valley in the Computer age. Evidently already Israel scientists have made huge contributions in the computer world to corporations like Microsoft, Intel, Apple and other such big dogs in the world of computers.
The point I was going to make is that little barely visible red mark on a map called Israel has made more contributions in science and technology than all the Muslim nations combined. Think on that the next time you hear some sap whine about those poor Palestinians because they don’t have a sovereign nation that will only have one reason for existing – Destroy Israel.
JRH 10/7/13
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