Israel 70 Years: A Covenant of Love
By Rev. Willem J.J. Glashouwer.. Deuteronomy 7: 6-9 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord, your God, has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession.
The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your forefathers that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His Covenant of love to a thousand generations.”
Psalm 105: 8-11 “He remembers His Covenant forever, the word which He commanded, for a thousand generations. The Covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac. And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting Covenant, saying, ‘To you, I will give the land of Canaan as the allotment of your inheritance.’”
Israel does not exist by the grace of the United Nations. Nor by the grace of the United States of America. Nor by the grace of Europe, Russia or China. Nor by the grace of Christianity. Or by the grace of Islam. Israel exists by the grace of God on the basis of an everlasting Covenant to which He pledged a solemn oath and swore by His own Name – an oath that He will never break. God cannot lie, as Balaam declares in Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, not a son of man being, that He should change his mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfil?”
National and Spiritual Restoration
First Israel will be restored nationally, and then spiritually. Ezekiel says, “For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24). For decades now we have seen this happen. They are returning from the four corners of the earth where they were scattered all over the world: This is Israel’s national restoration.
But then also spiritual restoration will take place. The Lord says that when they are finally back in the land: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you, will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:25-28)
For many years we see the faithfulness of God in action. We are the generation that sees prophecies being fulfilled. We see God’s Covenants being fulfilled as we speak. We are living in prophetic days. We are on the way to the Coming of Messiah and of His Kingdom of Peace and Righteousness, covering the earth from Jerusalem. The true and final Theocracy.
Beginning of Redemption
The modern State of Israel is in existence for 70 years now. It is the beginning of redemption. This ‘beginning of redemption’ as the rabbis call it, the forming of a Jewish State of Israel and the return of the Jewish people to Israel and Jerusalem, has begun,
and it is an irreversible process. We have passed points of no return.
The prophet Amos 9:15 says, “…I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from their land I have given them, says the Lord your God…” Israel is there to stay. It will not be exiled again. Only two times the Lord raises His hand to bring Israel back to the land. The first time was after the Babylonian Captivity between 600-500 BC, the second time is now, after the ‘Roman’ Captivity of almost 2000 years.
Isaiah 11:10-12: “…In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His place of rest will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out His hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of His people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth…”
Nowhere do we read in the Bible that the Lord will raise His hand a third time. Israel is here to stay. They will not be uprooted again. The redemption process has started. National restoration first, followed by spiritual restoration. Messiah is coming.
Ezekiel 39:28 promises in God’s Name: “Then they (Israel) will know that I am the Lord their God, for though I sent them into exile among the nations (already fulfilled), I will gather them to their own land, not leaving any behind…” So ultimately all Jews will return back to the Promised Land, back to Zion.
Democracy or Theocracy?
When Israel declared Statehood in 1948, they chose to be a democratic state, taking the democracies of the Western world as an example. To live in the Promised Land as a people and a nation, one needs a form of government. Over the centuries we have seen all kinds of government in the world. Oligarchy, plutocracy, dictatorship, monarchy, constitutional monarchy, aristocracy and nobility, etc. So Israel has chosen to be a democracy. Which probably is – relatively speaking – the best – or the least worst – type of government. But we should not forget that Hitler democratically came to power. So democracy is not a safeguard against the development of all kinds of evil. Only if the laws in a democracy are inspired by the Judeo-Christian ethics, are inspired by the laws of God that we find in the Bible – such as the Ten Commandments, the golden rule for humanity – only then there will be true freedom and happiness and well-being and prosperity for all.
So democracy is not theocracy, which is the best type of government. Israel has not yet come to its best rule of statehood possible. That will only come one-day when Messiah will come again to planet earth. When His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, to fulfil what the angels Gabriel promised to His mother Mary in Luke 1: 31-33 “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David (in Jerusalem), and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants (the twelve tribes of Israel) forever, and of His kingdom, there shall be no end.”
True Theocracy is Coming!
May we live to see that glorious day! Then He will be the Peace to the ends of the earth!
