3 minute read
Peace Upon Israel
True Change-Of-Heart Comes From Christ Alone
The ongoing issues Israel faces in the Middle East can make it seem as though the region will be a never-ending cycle of conflict and struggle. And yet the Bible gives us keys as we seek to demonstrate the love of Christ to all people in that wonderful and troubled area.
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First, we need to remember that every person and every nation needs Jesus Christ.
The Bible says there can be no peace without the Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6, the famous passage which is also sung in Handel’s Messiah says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” If the Middle East, the world in general, and each of us individually, want peace, it is only going to happen through Jesus Christ.
We also need to remember that governments, though established by God, are not in and of themselves capable of ushering the true change of heart that Christ came to bring. We have to be careful not to assume that a political victory is synonymous with a spiritual one.
To that end, we as followers of Jesus need to show the truth in love to all peoples and be witnesses as Jesus commanded us in Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Second, even though Israel rejected the Messiah, God still has a plan for the Jewish people.
In Deuteronomy 7:6 God chose Israel out of all the nations to be His. “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.”
God promised land to Abraham and His descendants. Genesis 15:18 says: “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.’”
But is this promise and other promises made to physical descendants of Abraham or to spiritual descendants?
Romans 9:6-8 tells us: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.”
Israel’s general rejection of Jesus as the Messiah is truly heartbreaking. As the people group from which came the Patriarchs, Jesus, the disciples, the early Church, and most if not all writers of the Bible, we have an incredible debt of gratitude to the Jewish people.
We are to love all people, and God wants all people to get saved (1 Timothy 2:4). And we need to remember to show our support to Israel. Romans 15:27 says: “For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.”
No doubt, God has a plan for Israel. And in the end times he will fulfill his word as it says in Romans 11:26 “and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.”
/ PAUL BOGE is the author of Father to the Fatherless: The Charles Mulli Story and five other books. He is single and works as an engineer in Winnipeg.
