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Sunday, November 23, 2008

Is Israel back in its homeland yet?

Ezekiel 11:17 Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.’ 18 And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. 19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (ESV, emphasis added)

Many people claim that the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948 fulfills prophecy, and is one of the signs of Christ's imminent return. Perhaps they are right. Many people claim that the Jews should control the same boundaries that they did in, say, David's time, in fulfillment of prophecy. Perhaps they are right. But I wonder. The current Jews may be in Israel as a result of human effort, not God's end-time action, just as they tried to enter the land before they were supposed to, in the time of Moses. They don't seem to have "one heart," and a "new spirit." They seem to be divided, with many current Israelites not believing in God at all, and most of them rejecting Christ as Messiah. They seem to have an "old spirit."

Here's more from Ezekiel:
28:25 “Thus says the Lord God: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob. 26 And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.” (ESV, emphasis added) Israelis don't seem to feel very secure now. Perhaps it's because God didn't gather them back yet.

For more on this topic, see a post from Ken Schenck, Bible scholar, who says "The long and short of all these things is that it would be perilous to make contemporary political decisions in relation to the nation of Israel and the Middle East on the basis of supposed biblical prophecy."

God help them, and help us.

2 comments:

Superb Jon said...

Brzezinski spawned Zia al Haq, Khomeini, and bin Laden. Carolignian Brzezinski wants to break up the superpowers using Aztlan and Kosovo. That's what Joel Garreau's Nine Nations was about. Brzezinski and Buchanan are winking anti-Semitic votes for Obama, deliver USA to Pope's feudal basket of Bamana Republics. Michael Pfleger and Joe Biden prove Obama is the Pope's boy. Talal got Pontifical medal as Fatima mandates Catholic-Muslim union against Jews (Francis Johnson, Great Sign, 1979, p. 126), Catholic Roger Taney wrote Dred Scott decision. John Wilkes Booth, Tammany Hall and Joe McCarthy were Catholics. Now Catholic majority Supreme Court. NYC top drop outs: Hispanic 32%, Black 25%, Italian 20%. NYC top illegals: Ecuadorean, Italian, Polish. Ate glis-glis but blamed plague on others, now lettuce coli. Their bigotry most encouraged terror yet they reap most security funds. Rabbi circumcizes lower, Pope upper brain. Tort explosion by glib casuistry. Bazelya 1992 case proves PLO-IRA-KLA links.

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks, I think . . .

I'm sorry, but I don't really know what you are talking about, except that you seem to think Catholics are the real villains of history. That's possible, I guess, but even if it were true, I don't know what that would have to do with whether the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 was, or was not, the fulfillment of prophecy.