Is The LORD Done with Israel?
12/16/24-
Exodus 3:2, “The angel of the LORD appeared unto (Moses) in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” And so, Israel a bush burned with fire, yet not consumed.
The chosen of God, the apple of his eye, have been expelled, exposed to misery, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered from the time of their captivity in Egypt to this very day, yet Israel lives as a nation. Have you ever asked yourself why, why have the Jews been persecuted so horribly, yet preserved as a people and nation?
The Plan:
The LORD planned to use a descendant of Noah, from the line of his firstborn son, Shem, to separate a people for himself and create a nation. And through all their corruption, and foolishness, the Jews remain the “apple of God’s eye.” Here is the LORD’s explicit declaration to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, his twelve sons, and all the generations to follow.
Genesis 12:2, “I (the LORD) will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and make your name great,” The promise of a nation assumes the existence of a national homeland.
Genesis 17:19, “Sarah your wife shall bear you a son indeed, and you shall call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an EVERLASTING covenant, and with his seed (his descendants) after him.”
Now because of their sins against God, the ten Northern tribes were overrun by the Assyrians between 770 and 740 B.C. The Babylonians murdered tens of thousands of Jews, and in 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Around 465 B.C. the Jews escaped the ruin designed for them by Haman. They would suffer the onslaught of Ptolemy Lagus King of Egypt, the dispersion by Seleucus Nicator, the slaughter by Antiochus Epiphanes, the ravaging by Crassus the Roman General, and by Herod the Great.
After murdering the Lord Jesus, the scepter would temporally depart from Judah. But this was only the beginning of Israel’s calamities.
Deuteronomy 28:29, “And you (Israel) shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and spoiled (be plundered continually) evermore, and no man shall save you.” See Mathew 24.
Matthew 27:25, As the Lord hung from the cross, the people cried out, “Let his blood be on us and our children.” The people put a curse on their own heads and the heads of their children. Thousands would be killed at Ceasarea, Damascus, Bethshan, and Alexandria, by Vespasian, and by the Roman Legions led by Titus. In Jerusalem, over a million were killed, and at Masada a thousand more died by their own hand. Then the Roman Catholics began their persecution of Jews, this followed by the Islamic hordes, the Ottoman, and most recently Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party who took the lives of 6 million. The LORD’s judgments upon the Jews have been terrible, extending to the people, their religion, and the land. Their ceremonies essential to their religion are no longer observed, except by the Orthodox Jews: also, no longer observed is their ritual law, for they remain without a Temple, altar, and a sacrifice.
But the LORD has kept his promise, Ezekiel 37:24, “I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and all your idols, will I cleanse you.”
The time of cleansing had arrived: It began on May 14, 1948, when a generation of newborn babies came into the World. God’s promise, “This generation shall not pass away until all these things (Matthew wrote about) are fulfilled.” This generation is now 76 years of age. Israel is at war in the North, South and West. Antisemitism abounds throughout the world, and hatred against them is on the rise. There remains for them one friend, the community of Christians. We must continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
The bush of Moses, surrounded with flames, forever burns, yet it will never be consumed.