Almighty God, the creator of the universe, sovereign over the universe, Ruler – indeed (Genesis 14:19) the Possessor — of heaven and earth, and all that is in it chose the seed, the offspring of a man first called Abram, then Abraham, to be a special, the most special, nation of all the earth. That nation is Israel.
God explained that he found in Abram a most unusual quality – obedience (Genesis 12: 1-4). And as God required that obedience from Abram, he made a promise to Abram, in Genesis 12: 2-3: I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you; and in you all families of the earth shall be blessed. With this promise in hand, Abram obeyed – as it says in Genesis 12:4, So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him. . . .
And on this long journey made by Abram and his entourage of people, livestock and possessions, Abram encountered many new and powerful people and much opposition of Satan. God knew the fearful things confronting Abram and encouraged and strengthened Abram with this assurance in a vision, Genesis 15:1, Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.
What God found in Abram, his direct obedience, and his faith in God, so engaged our God in the life and lineage of Abram. In Genesis 15:6, in what to me is a breath-taking passage, Scripture simply records that Abram believed in the Lord and He accounted it to (Abram) as righteousness.
Righteousness counts for something in the kingdom of God, for there is no righteousness apart from God, citation. Jeremiah describes our Lord God as “Our Righteousness”, Jeremiah 23:6. In Paul’s Second Letter to the Church at Corinth, II Corinthians 5:21, Paul explains and encourages that Jesus became our sin . . . that we might become the righteousness of God in (Jesus). That is how much righteousness counts in the kingdom of God – it is the whole reason for Jesus, indeed the whole reason for mankind. God imparted righteousness to Abram, not through Jesus, but through the reality of Abram’s obedience to God and Abram’s faith in God. On that seed, the seed of obedience and faith, God chose, in his sovereignty, a special people to be, as recorded in Deuteronomy (32:10), Lamentations (2:16) and Zechariah (2:8), the apple of His eye. That is the nation of Israel, the apple of God’s eye!
And God made a promise to Abram of nation-building, a promise of many descendants (and this to a man who was childless) and the grant of land for all those people to live as a nation, which became known as Israel, in what is now called the Middle East.
First, God told Abram in this promise (Genesis 15:5) . . . “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And (God) said to him, “So shall your inhabitants be.”
Second, God told Abram in this promise (Genesis 15: 13-21) that much land was appointed to the descendants of Abram: . . . “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years(Egyptian bondage). And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a burning oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. [“Pieces” refers to the animal sacrifices God requested and Abram provided in Genesis 15: 9-11.] On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying; “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates – the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” This is a great size of land, obviously, running from Egypt to the Euphrates and out into what is now Iraq, Jordan, Syria, etc.
God’s covenant with Abram – whom God called Abraham
when he was 99 years old, and established the covenant of male circumcision with Abraham at that time, based on this principle: Genesis 17: 1, . . . I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. To be blameless is to be without sin and therefore to be righteous. From Abraham, we know that God recognized that Abraham’s obedience came from his trust in God, his faith in God: this was so important in God’s kingdom that He accounted it to Abraham as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
Other than the truth and reality of Jesus Christ, Himself, there is no other more important truth and reality for all the other nations of the earth than to understand that Israel is the apple of God’s eye, that Israel as a nation and as individual Jews was and is, were and are, the specially chosen by God, His chosen people (I Chronicles 16:13]. The nations that forget this truth, this divine reality, and the nations that know better, but don’t do better, are in for a heap of trouble, for God has covenanted to curse those who curse Israel. And He will bless those who bless Israel. There are few blessings more important to Israel than supporting her, standing with her, in her national defense as we prayerfully support her and her people, the chosen ones of God, the apple of His eye.
Recently, Pastor Horn and I have been emailing messages about the significance of the news, recently announced, that the United Nations Security Council last week was to discuss a plan to bring itself into agreement with President Obama and force Israel to give up land to create an enlarged and separate Palestinian State. The result would be a UN mandate for Israel to return to the pre-1967 War, the Six-Day War, boundaries, including giving up to the Palestiniams much of Jerusalem including the Wailing Wall. The UN Security Council has a dozen or so members, including the United States and each of its members has veto powers over the Security Council actions. Obviously, the United States has not acted to veto this agenda of the Security Council. The current President of the United States has spoken and only attributes the modern, 1948 re- establishment of Israel as a nation to the Holocaust, ignoring the Word, Covenants and Promises of God. [April 23, 2009 Speech at the U.S. Capitol.] Under the current administration of government in the United States, there is, therefore, seemingly no interest in the real protection, real support, of Israel, but rather an interest in parceling out Israel to the ownership and subjugation of its neighbors. One could surmise that the current president of the United States did not think he could get support from within the United States to dismantle the nation of Israel, so he has turned to the United Nations to have it do the dirty work desired by this administration and by Satan.
Today, I am called to share with you some of the discussions Pastor Horn and I have shared so you may grasp the principles, the spiritual principles, deeply at work as our nation ponders whether it will be a blessing or a curse to Israel in our generation. To put it another way, the question is whether God will, by our choices, extend His hand of blessing to us or withdraw His hand of blessing, and instead, shower us with His curse.
Please remember and consider that there is substantial proof in the early writings of the founders of this nation, America, that our nation was founded on the premise that we, like Israel, were created by God for an eternal purpose. God’s two most important eternal purposes are: (1) the fulfilling of the Covenants/Promises through the earthly kingdom/nation of Israel founded through the heritage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel; and (2) the fulfilling of His eternal Covenants/Promises through the eternal kingdom/nation of His True Church.
The founding of the United States of America was based on a remarkably clear understanding of having been called by God for salvation works for God’s eternal purposes. For example, consider:
- The founders described America as a “shining city on a hill” (not a Reagan phrase, but adopted by him). [The phrase comes from Jesus’ parable of Salt and Light, Matthew 5:13-14. According to Wikipedia, the phrase entered the American lexicon early in its history, in the Puritan John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity”. Still aboard the ship Arbella, Winthrop admonished the future Massachusetts Bay colonists that their new community would be a “city upon a hill”, watched by the world.[1] Winthrop’s sermon gave rise to the widespread belief in American folklore that the United States of America is God’s country because metaphorically it is a Shining City on a Hill. Wikipedia cites this as an early example of American exceptionalism; we see it as that, and more, that it is a founding recognition of the call in the establishment of America for God’s eternal purposes.]
- America has been and is a destiny example in the lives and histories of the nations of the world that could be, and has been, followed by other peoples and nations, historically.
- America has led the way in evangelism of the world, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, to every language, people and nation, to fulfill the Great Commission.
- Seemingly, every President since President Truman, who, in 1948 extended national recognition to the new nation of Israel, making America the first nation to do so, has made policy decisions based on an acute awareness that America has a God-given responsibility to nurture and protect the new nation of Israel, a continuation of the one that ended in 70 A.D.
Therefore, the news about the US abdication of power, of interest in nurturing and protecting Israel, is most disturbing. We know that God must be true to Himself and to His eternal Word. If, under the current administration, or any other administration, really withdraws its support, its nurturing, and its protection – its blessings – from Israel, then God will
remove His hand of support, nurturing, and protection – His blessings – from our nation, and shower us with His curse. That is the way He will be true to Himself.
The Great Commission is not yet fulfilled. Withdrawal of the hand of God’s protection over America may not get us close to Armageddon, but may well deliver America, and the world, into a chaos that only Satan and Mohammed could enjoy, as we consider that we may be no different than the Amorites, whose iniquity is not yet complete (Genesis 15:16). Joel 2 tells us about the Lord’s justice, as in Joel 2: 11, the Lord gives voice before His army and His day is great and very terrible, who can endure it? And just as Joel, the prophet, lamented and wondered, Joel 2: 14, Who knows if (God) will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him – – . Joel describes the apostasy of the nation of Israel, brining forth the certain judgment hand of God, making the nation, Joel 2: 19, a reproach among the nations. As the iniquity of America becomes compete, like the Amorites, will we be in less apostasy?
Today, I encourage you to support Israel and to encourage all whom you know, all whom you vote for, to support Israel. I encourage you to repent, for yourselves and
for America, that, Joel 2:17, and say to the Lord God, “Spare Your People, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach that the nations should rule over them.” This is a heart cry for Israel and America, that other nations – whether Palestine or the United Nations – would not rule over Israel or America.
This is a great era of spiritual deceptions – we will not have peace by carving up Israel and giving it up to the world. Peace will only come through our Lord, Jesus Christ, and that not necessarily soon. We at least should want to be on the right side, the good side, God’s side, of that war. If America allows Israel to be drawn and quartered, if America withdraws its hand of nurture, of protection, of support, then we can expect no better as our Lord, being true to Himself, must bring His curse upon us, upon America.
It is time, as in Joel 2:12, to hear the heart cry of our Lord, and to turn to Him will all of our heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning, and, II Chronicles 7:14, to humble ourselves and pray, and seek the face of our Lord, and to turn from all of our wicked ways in America and to ask the Ruler, Possessor and Lord of all heaven and earth to be zealous for His land and to pity His people. A word to the wise ….