UNIQUNESS OF ISRAEL
The world seems to unconsciously understand the State of Israel and Jews as special people and the nation’s behaviour naturally reflects her inherent uniqueness.
Israel in every generation has always been reminded to return to her fundamental faith in the LORD through the Scriptures. In the same way, all Gentiles are invited to believe in Him and bless His people according to God’s written Word, the only infallible promises for all the people on earth....
‘But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, “You are my servant”; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. ‘All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all. For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.
Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,’ declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. ‘See, I will make you into a threshing-sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff. You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up, and a gale will blow them away. But you will rejoice in the LORD and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
‘The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set junipers in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it. ISAIAH 41:8-20.
Israel, God’s servant is a very unique nation. Despite her status as God’s chosen people, Israel’s history has not been easy at all. It has witnessed incessant battles with other nations with the devil working behind the scene. In Israel’s history, God continued to send His prophets to convey His will and plans to the nation.
Isaiah, His prophet foresaw the fall of Jerusalem in 587/6 BCE by Babylon more than a century previously, when Babylon had not even existed as a State. Such traumatic events would be too terrible for Israel to continue to keep faith in God if it came true. However, Isaiah never regarded this as an inadequacy of God’s sovereignty but rather, as part of the drama of history, played one after another by Israel’s neighbouring nations such as Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and so on. Needless to say, the author of the script was the LORD.
With this in mind, Isaiah felt the need to address and encourage those who might lose their spirit and hope to live, in the face of the unassailable might of the enemy, when the prophecy came true.
In the passage quoted in the beginning, Isaiah tried to remind them that they were the surviving remnant of Israel and God’s chosen servant, who God would never abandon and so, even if they felt fear by what they saw around them, they should not give in to it because such fear was irrational and baseless. In practice though, under such threatening circumstances, how could they overcome fear? They needed reassurance of their collective significance as God’s servant just as their ancestors Abraham and Jacob were. As their ancestors faithfully served the LORD, they, as their descendants still shared in Abraham’s calling to be a blessing to the whole earth:
‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’ (Ge.12:2-3).They might have felt like ‘worms’ and ‘poor and needy’, but the LORD declared: ‘I myself will help you’.
In the following passage, Isaiah illustrated how they would serve, by using a metaphor, in sharp contrast with their present helpless and insignificant condition:
‘I will make you into a threshing-sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff’.Threshing is a metaphor for judgment and mountains are a figure for world powers. A threshing-sledge was a tool to separate the grain from the chaff, and on the threshing-floor the chaff was carried away by the wind while the grain remained there when both were tossed into the air. When God called Abraham and promised him His blessings, He also declared that all nations’ fate depended on their response to Abraham and his descendants. Accordingly, God’s judgment upon all nations started at that point.
Here, Isaiah reminds the exiled, hopeless people of God’s enduring declaration, in which He would still hold the nations accountable for how they treat His people Israel.
Fear and anxiety might be understood as the enemy within. While God deals with external enemies as He promised, if they cannot overcome such negative feelings within their hearts, that could undermine their relationship with God by distrust and faithlessness. Isaiah encouraged the disheartened people by bringing them back to their fundamental faith in the LORD, referring to their election, redemption, promises and faithfulness of God.
Israel in every generation has always been reminded to return to her fundamental faith in the LORD through the Scriptures. In the same way, all Gentiles are invited to believe in Him and bless His people according to God’s written Word, the only infallible promises for all the people on earth. Christ also taught that the nations will be judged by Him at His Second Coming through the parable of the sheep and the goats:
‘…Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty…? …The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”…’ (Ma.25:31-46).The Bible is relevant to all the nations in every generation on earth.
The following article tells us how important it is to study the Bible itself individually and not to just be informed about the Bible from others, in order to cultivate a biblical worldview.
What is the best way to study Bible passages on the end times?
There are many reasons for reading the entire Bible over and over again. One reason is to ensure that we find all its references to whichever theme we are studying, including the end times. More important, however, is that we cultivate a biblical worldview.
Instead of reading and interpreting the Bible through the lens of our worldly experiences and what others have told us, we look out on the world and judge what we see through the lens of Scripture, ingrained into our hearts by the Holy Spirit as we study carefully and prayerfully.
Today, particularly in the West, we live busy lives and have access to a wealth of information on all subjects, including Bible themes. Such information is no longer contained in Christian bookshops but also proliferates online. Without realising it, we can end up taking shortcuts in our Bible studies, gleaning from others rather than studying for ourselves. In so doing, we are in danger of imbibing the mindsets of others, rather than working out our own through a personal walk with God. This surely is a major reason for many of the conflicting views on the end times. Would it be different if our attitude was like that of the Bereans (Acts 17:11), who searched the scriptures for themselves to see if what they heard was true?
Biased Perspectives and Their Consequences
For example, perhaps even without realising it, we may still retain an element of Replacement Theology in our thinking, leading us to concentrate overmuch on God's plan for the Church in the Gentile world. In turn, we easily lose a balanced perspective on his designs for Israel and therefore his overall covenant plan.
We might also cultivate a habit of seeking to select verses of Scripture – often out of context - as 'proof texts' for our hopes for the future of the Church. Surely this is why there is so much contemporary emphasis on an expectation of the 'rapture', when the Church will be taken out of the difficult circumstances of the world, and when this will occur. 'Proof texts' used in support for this are Matthew 24:37-41 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17.
If we focus too much on this hoped-for event, out of context with the rest of Scripture, we begin to read every other aspect of end times Scripture through this lens. We become more and more concerned to find the best estimate of where to place the 'rapture' – and others do the same, with different conclusions, resulting in conflicting views of 'pre-', 'mid-' and 'post-tribulation' rapture. Though Paul told the Thessalonians to comfort one another with an expectation of the Lord's return (1 Thess 4:18), I do not think he would have had them take his dramatic description of the way it will happen so out of context, as many today seem to have done.
The Background of the Covenant
The context of the end times (and all the events leading up to the return of the Lord) is the overall covenant plan of God. 'Covenant' and 'end times' are two intersecting themes that weave through Scripture, overlapping to become totally dependent on one another. If we read the entire Bible with this in mind, we cannot also fail to see that there is another theme bound up with these two – namely, God's purpose for Israel. A biblical mindset holds all this in balance. We find these overlapping themes behind the writings of all the Prophets, e.g.:
• The promised New Covenant proclaimed to Israel and Judah (Jer 31) is within the context of God's end times plan for Israel.
• The end time passages in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are in the context of the re-birth of Israel in Ezekiel 37.
• The great end time deliverance of Israel shown to Daniel (Dan 12) is in harmony with the other Prophets and with the Book of Revelation.
• Jesus, in speaking of his return (Matt 24; Mark 13; Luke 21), was talking to his disciples in the Land of Israel, to where he will return.
Harmony of Scripture
In reading the scriptures as a whole, we find that there is balance and harmony in all the major Bible themes. But without realising it, we often read one set of scriptures and put it in one compartment of our mind and another set and put it in another compartment, as if there are parallel worlds to which they apply.
This applies to reading the New Testament and Old Testament in isolation from each other, as much as to reading certain passages and Books in isolation. All the scriptures build together to emphasise one period of end time history. Ezekiel and Daniel, for example, both speak of the same time and circumstances, as do Jesus in the Gospels and John in the Book of Revelation.
If we study the scriptures in a balanced way, we will find themes echoing across the whole of the Bible that will help us prepare, understand the signs of the times and have a sense of God's timing. For example:
• The 'sacrificial meal' and its context in Ezekiel 39:17-20 is echoed in Revelation 19:17-21. These surely are descriptions of the same event.
• Could we consider before God whether the sealed scroll of Daniel 12:4 was the same one opened by Jesus in Revelation 5:9-10? It is reasonable to assume this, since the last things on this earth could only be released after the Sacrifice of Jesus opened the way for the Gospel to go out to the entire earth, prior to the final judgments.
• Also, surely, the events so clearly revealed in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 are precisely the same events proclaimed more mysteriously in the Book of Revelation. …
Haggai Speaks of the End Times
Many of us believe that, over recent years, God has spoken to us concerning the fulfilment in our day of the great shaking of Haggai 2:21-22, repeated in Hebrews 12:25-29. …This also focuses our attention on the covenant priorities of our age - completion of God's purposes for Israel and the strengthening of believers across the world. (12th August 2016)
(http://prophecytoday.uk/study/teaching-articles/item/469-the-end-times-iii-harmony-in-the-scriptures.html)
The following article on ‘Middle East Migration: Muslims Out, Jews In’, issued on 18th July 2016 is interesting. The world seems to unconsciously understand the State of Israel and Jews as special people and the nation’s behaviour naturally reflects her inherent uniqueness.
According to the UN Population Division, there are today 244 million immigrants or people living in a country other than their own, 60 million of whom are refugees. The UN defines a refugee as “someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence.” Though living in a state of bloody conflict for decades, Israel, including the West Bank, is not considered a country at war, which is why those leaving Israel today are not considered refugees.
Arab countries around Israel that are ravaged by war produce a staggering amount of refugees and immigrants. According to Pew Research Center, between 1990–2015, there are 5 million Syrian, 1.5 million Iraqi and nearly one million Lebanese displaced people, most of whom are defined as refugees. During those same years, almost one million non-Syrians, 350,000 non-Iraqis and 2 million non-Lebanese settled in these respective countries. Most of this influx represents Muslim refugees from neighboring countries, not immigrants by choice. When considering Israel, the very opposite seems to be happening. Between 1990–2015, some 2 million Jews arrived in Israel, while 340,000 left the country. Among Middle Eastern states in conflict, Israel is the only one that attracts more people than it repels.
This is even more striking given that almost all the newcomers immigrate by choice. The only Arab states where this is true are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which attract millions of immigrants seeking a better life, but are comparatively not engaged in open conflict. This picture is even more intriguing considering that while millions of Muslims who are forced to leave their countries are choosing the West as their destination, Jews are going in the opposite direction.
To further emphasize this point, European Jews who have other choices of destination besides Israel are nevertheless choosing to migrate to the Jewish state in the Middle East rather than go elsewhere in Europe or to the Americas. There is often a grim truth behind this choice.
Today, a great many Jews are leaving free, democratic countries - French Jews in particular - because they no longer feel safe there. Most arriving from well-to-do countries are doing so because they once again feel compelled by the rise of anti-Semitism. Though the phenomenon is by no means a reflection of deliberate policy, Jews are nevertheless once again being expelled from Christian nations. But contrary to centuries past when fleeing Jews could only trade in one hostile country for another, today they believe that Israel, imperfect as it may be, is the only place where our people can feel perfectly at home.
(http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/29639/Default.aspx)