God's Chosen People

July 22

2 Chronicles 24-25

Psalm 83:1-8

Proverbs 18:17-18

I Corinthians 1

God’s Chosen People

“O God do not remain at rest; do not be silent and, O God, do not be quiet.  For behold, Your enemies roar, and those who hate You have lifted up their heads.  They make shrewd plans against Your people and conspire together against Your treasured ones.  They have said, ‘Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more.’  For they have conspired together with one heart; against You they cut a covenant.”  Psalm 83: 1-5 LSB

This passage could easily have been taken from today’s news. Just as in Biblical times, the nations have joined forces against God’s chosen people.  Not only are the Arab nations joining together against Israel, but many other countries around the world are joining them.  Make no mistake, this is a spiritual battle.  Satan hates Israel because God loves Israel.  God made a covenant with Abraham around 4,000 years ago found in Genesis 12, 15, and 17 to make him into a nation more numerous than the stars in the sky.  In the covenant, He promised to give Abraham’s descendants all of the land of Canaan from the Nile River to the Euphrates River.  The territory they currently possess is only a fraction of that.  It includes much of the land of Syria and Jordan today.  One day, Israel will possess all of it not because of their advanced military skills, the Iron Dome or because they have some plan to rule the world as many in the media would have you believe, but because God made that promise to them and He does not go back on His promises.  There will be no two-state solution.  Israel has not “stolen” the territory that belongs to Palestine.  Actually, there are no “Palestinian” people.  Palestine was a name given to the territory of Judea in 135 AD by the Romans.  There were two significant Jewish revolts in 70 AD and 132 AD in which Judea and Jerusalem were conquered.  The Romans changed the name of the region to Palaestina in order to minimize Jewish identification with the land, and as an insult to them because the Philistines had been one of their most hated enemies.  Primarily the people still residing there were Jewish.  There is an argument that the people referred to as Palestinians today are descendants of the Philistines who once resided in the territory along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.  This is not accurate either.  The Philistines were destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon in 604 BC. After the Babylonian conquest, the Philistines ceased to be a distinct ethnic group as they assimilated into the Arab cultures around them.  There are no Philistinian people that exist today.  The people in the Gaza strip who identify as Palestinians are Arabs.  There are 22 countries in the Arab League currently.  They have an area of approximately 5 million square miles.  By contrast, Israel currently possesses around 8,019 square miles, or if you add in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights, it totals around 13,000 square miles.  The territory of the Arab states is roughly 630 times larger than Israel.  If the Arab nations are so concerned about the Palestinians, who are their own people, they should provide a home for them in their vast territory instead of asking Israel to give up part of their land for them.  It would be much easier for them to assimilate into an Arab culture than to try to live beside people they clearly hate.   

Following the Roman conquest, different empires and people came in and out of the region, settling, colonizing the area and then leaving.  From 1517-1917, Palaestina was part of the Ottoman Empire.  As the empire declined it became an impoverished, barren and sparsely populated area.  When the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I, the land was ceded to the Allies who carved the land into new nations including Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.  The British Government was given control of the area of Palestine to implement the Balfour Declaration, a document creating a homeland for the Jewish people.  At the time, there were still some Jews living in the land, but Jews from around the world began to return to the land.  There were also some Arabs living there.  From 1923-1948 there was growing tension between the two groups resulting in increased violence.  Following World War 2 and the Holocaust there was growing international support for an independent Jewish State.  On November 29, 1947, the UN voted to end the British Mandate and give Israel control of the area.  On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli leader declared an independent sovereign state of Israel.  Since that time, Israel has been forced to defend itself against many attacks by the surrounding Arab nations.  Arab and Muslim states continue to deny the Jewish state’s right to exist.  They do not want a two-state solution. They do not want to live peacefully beside the Jews.  They want to destroy them.  The chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a call to annihilate the Jewish people.  There have been numerous attempts by US and other international leaders to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Arab nations over the last 75 years.  Israel has agreed to many of the proposals but the Arabs have not agreed because they do not want peace.  They want to get rid of Israel.  God has blessed and protected Israel and He will continue to do so.  Part of the Abrahamic covenant promises that any nation that blesses Israel will be blessed and those nations that curse Israel will be cursed.  God continues to fulfill that promise today.  The United States has been blessed in part because we have always stood strongly with Israel.  Thankfully, our current President has supported Israel.  If we cease to do that, we will no longer experience God’s blessings and will suffer the consequences.  We can see that happening with the nations around the world that are turning their backs on Israel.  This was a very brief summary of Israel’s history.  You can find much more information on the topic online if you are interested, but I wanted to dispel some of the lies I frequently hear in the media.  We are seeing Biblical prophecy happening before our eyes.  The Bible is always right.  God is true to His promises to Israel and to us.  We can rest in the knowledge that He is in control.  Everything is not falling apart, it is falling into place.