Israel and the apostate church
Stephen Yulish
http://a9.com/stephen%20yulishPeople keep asking me what the conflict in Lebanon really means. They want to
know if this is the beginning of the end and if Jesus is coming back soon?
What strikes me as most significant about this entire affair is the fact of
how many self professed Christians are questioning the legitimacy of the
Israeli response and some are even going to the extreme and questioning Israel
's right to exist at all. I am dumbfounded and saddened by this attitude.
Sure, many couch their true feelings in language of how horrible the civilian
deaths are in Lebanon (which they are, but Hezbollah is to blame), but there
is more to it than that.
Several of my friends who have Christian prophetic websites wrote me last week
and asked me for help in trying to diffuse some of their subscriber's growing
resentment towards Israel. When I put my latest article, "Why does Satan hate
Israel?" on some so called Christian blogs, I too was met by hostility. I was
told that God never promised Israel the physical land only a spiritual entity.
Genesis 17:8 seems pretty physical to me. Another said that Israel was never
one single group of people and they continued that Jesus supposedly said it
was anyone that accepted God. What does that mean? Another individual went on
a tirade telling me that the Israeli response was not Christian. Jesus would
never do it this way, he ranted. I just learned that a missionary that I know
believes that the Jews caused 9/11! As my dear departed mother used to say,'oy
vay ist mir', which means 'oh woe is me.
Christians love to talk about an end time's revival. That is wonderful and I
hope that it is happens, but my Bible talks about a falling away (2Thess. 2:3)
and a spiritual blindness (2Tim.4:3-4) in the last days and that is what I am
seeing. In these traumatic days when Islamic fascists are trying once again to
destroy Israel and prove God a liar when He said that they would never cease
to be a nation (Jeremiah 31:36-37), Satan is alive and well not only in the
Mosques fomenting terror but also in the body of Christ causing them to be
blinded to His word about Israel and the Jews. Instead of standing side by
side with God's first born people in their hour of need like a Pastor John
Hagee or a Pat Robertson or other Bible believing, God fearing men like my own
Pastor Mike, many are saying that maybe God is finally finished with Israel
since they Christians are after all now God's chosen people. That's what the
Jews call meshuga, or craziness.
The obstinate Jewish people are not easy to love, just ask any of my Christian
brothers. They (we) are stiff necked, overeducated, know it alls. But God says
you that you have to love them. And you should be "thankful for their
transgression because by it salvation came to you Gentiles" (Romans 11:11).
God blinded them and only He can remove those blinders (Romans 11:8-10) as He
did for me. Read Romans 9-11 and know that God is not finished with the Jewish
people. If He reneges on his promises to them, maybe He will renege on your
promise of salvation.
The conflict in the Middle East between Arab and Jew goes back thousands of
years. The Bible (The Torah), in Genesis 22, speaks of Abraham offering up
Isaac as a sacrifice as God commanded. The Koran in Sura 37 says that Abraham
offered up Ishmael. This is crucial to understand. The Bible says that God
made His covenant with Isaac not with Ishmael (Genesis 17:19-21). It says that
God would bless Ishmael and his descendants even though he was a wild donkey
of a man and his hand would be against everyone (Genesis 16:12), but in
opposition to the Koran, however, it says that the covenant was with Isaac not
with Ishmael. These two sons of Abraham are at the center of the dispute over
this land. Which do you believe the Bible or the Koran?
There is also a very interesting passage in Romans 9:6-8 where Paul says that
not all Israel are descended from Israel, neither are they all children
because they are Abraham's descendants but through Isaac your descendants will
be named. Not the children of the flesh who are children of God but children
of the promise are regarded as descendants. Christians have used this passage
over the centuries to show that they are also the children of the promise, but
I think that it speaks also to the Arabs. They are descended from Abraham
through Hagar and are his physical descendants but are not children of the
promise which went through Isaac.
The Muslims through their Koran trace their lineage back to Abraham as do the
Jews (and the Christians) but they are not the children of the promise because
the covenant with God was with Isaac not Ishmael. Christians need to read
these passages and remember that Israel is the apple of God's eye (Zechariah
2:8), and that He is "exceedingly jealous for Zion and Jerusalem" (Zechariah
1:14), and He said that He would bless those who bless her and curse those who
curse her" (Genesis 12:3).
Israel is where Jesus plans to return to rule and reign for 1000 years
(Zechariah 14:4, Revelation 20:3). If the children of Ishmael have their way,
there will never be a rebuilt Temple on the Temple Mount and God will proved
to be a liar (2Thess.2:4).
Christians need to also heed Paul's warning in Romans 11:20-21 to not be
conceited but fear because if God did not spare the natural branches neither
will He spare you!
I grieve as Paul did for my unsaved Jewish brethren, and I too wish I was
accursed for sake of my brethren according to the flesh so that they too may
know Christ (Romans 9:1-3) True Christians are mandated to make the Jews
jealous of them (Romans 11:11). That will never happen when they are attacking
their right to defend themselves or even to exist. An apostate church will
never make the Jews want to be like them. It will take a blood bought, God
fearing, church that is willing to die for the Jews as Jesus died for them.