ISRAEL, PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE IN A NUTSHELL
Here are the main messages of this website - all of which are fundamentally important for us (especially those who believe in Jesus the Messiah) to understand today, and will only increase in preeminence as time passes. The whole drama of world history is about the restoration of God's honor and that His will alone be done ("Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come and your will be done..." Matt 6:9-12).
As far as possible, these statements are referenced on this website with Scripture passages as far as Israel is concerned.
(If you have any comments on these topics, please send them to us.)
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1. What is God's purpose for Israel?
Israel is the prototype (the model) of a nation properly related to God (1)
Israel is the test-tube that shows how God responds to violations of His standards and how nations are to respond to His actions.
Israel is the channel through which God reveals Himself to the nations and blesses them.
God plans to dwell among the Jews
God plans to dwell among the Jews in the land of his promise - that is why He wrote His name there
all Gentiles who have joined themselves to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will also dwell in the land of promise with the Jews
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2. What has He done with them in the past?
He chose and separated them
He made a covenant (of blood) with them and renewed / confirmed it repeatedly, culminating / sealing it with the new (renewed) covenant
He guided them to the promised land, He protected them, and He disciplined them as a father disciplines his children
God used Israel as the channel through which He revealed Himself to all men
through history
through Jewish acts, kings, psalms, prophets and scientists
through Yeshua / Jesus
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3. What is God doing now with Israel?
He is fulfilling His promises, for example, by bringing the Jewish people (remnant) back to the promised land, His land
He is fulfilling His promises to have His nation of covenant people be reborn in one day (1948)
He has made (and is making) Jerusalem the single most important international focus
He is resurrecting the believing Jewish remnant
He is allowing the nations to see that there is no man-made solution to the "peace problem" - which is centered on the ownership of Jerusalem, and ultimately the Temple and Temple Mount. Either it was given by God (YHWH) to the Jews or by Allah to the Palestinians (Islam). There are no lasting compromises on this fundamental issue.
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4. What will God do with Israel in the future?
He will bring about the time of "Jacob's trouble"
Yeshua / Jesus will return to the mount of Olives in Jerusalem for the judgment of the nations
He will establish his throne in Jerusalem
He will remove the blindness of the Jews and of the remaining nations
The Jews will turn to the Messiah whom they had rejected and all Israel will be saved and delivered
(all Israel = at least those left (remnant) at the time of Messiah's coming)
His Word will go out of Zion to the nations of the whole world
Israel will be at the head of the Nations and rule over them under King Yeshua's sovereignty
He will fully reconcile the Christians and the Jews (the younger and the older brother) to each other, thereby making the "One new man"
(1) "a pilot-project for the entire human race" [Paul Johnson, 1987. p 586]
