I would like here to repeat a humorous story that Billy Graham once told to seminary students and faculty and guests....as he was receiving an honorary doctorate. A man heads south for his annual hunting trip....and he asks of the proprietor of the lodge he was staying at if they had a hunting dog named....Preacher....that he could use. The owner said...."No.....I don't believe that we have a dog named....Preacher"....to which the man said...."Oh but I heard that you had an excellent hunting dog named....Preacher"....of which the owner then said...."Oh yes....come to think of it....we did have a good dog names Preacher.....but then someone came down here and called him....Doctor....and he ain't been a lick of good since."
You have heard the lament I'm sure....that there are so many denominations. We will say that the church is supposed to be united....one....and we have messed that up.....but I believe the issue is much more complex than that.....for example....if we had a situation today....protestant or any church...such as it was with Rome....then just as with any governing power throughout history that had absolute power....including our current president....that absolute power would be corrupted. In God's perfect design....in paradoxical form....some of our theology....a little or a lot in everyone....is imperfect.
On Israel and the church for instance....the truths seem to be very plain in God's Word....in that Israel as a people will be redeemed at the time of the end....and that miraculously....Israel as a state will once again come into being before this happens. Now here is where the Billy Graham humor comes in....as some of the....not all....'doctors'....of the church take these simple and plain truths....and theologize them into all sorts of catechetical and confessional doctrines....that replace the perspicuity with perspiration....literal perspiration as we try to figure out what they are talking about.
Yes....the same covenant of grace that saves us....saved the Jews with faith in the Old Testament. No....the church did not replace them....and also no....we did not just fulfill God's promises to them. Yes the Jews were "grafted out" because of their unbelief....but we had better be careful....because God still has a redemptive purpose for them. Many Christian scholars knew this long before May 14 of 1948.
The world will turn on Israel in the end-times....and that is happening right now....and it will appear to be the end of Israel....but then God Himself will intervene....not through any ally....as all these armies coming to Jerusalem....will be supernaturally destroyed....and the world will be amazed! A number of the Old Testament prophets described these coming events.
Here is something else that is very plain in God's Word....and very basic....and also ignored or obfuscated on our side. If a nation....any nation.....blesses these people....it will be blessed....and if it curses these people...it will itself be cursed. Russia is a prime example....as it cursed the Jewish people for a long time....centuries actually....prior to and after the Bolshevik Revolution....and that nation and its people have been cursed for well over a hundred years now. Germany? Germany was destroyed for what it did. America?
George Washington had empathy for the Jewish people....as did Abraham Lincon....as did Harry Truman....and many American Christians. We will be celebrating 250 years shortly....Lord willing....but the tide has turned....and we are in danger of cursing Israel. God's Word told us that Jerusalem would be a stumbling block to the whole world....but instead of seeing this as a prophecy being fulfilled....we double-down on Israel today as to having any biblical significance?
There are not and never were any permanent answers for the Middle East. The best that we could hope for was longer stretches of no war....but this whole paradigm shift in culture and governments and the financial system....threatens to void that empathy for Israel. The prophets had an answer for that too....in that God will hold those nations responsible for either ignoring the plight of Israel....or worse yet....laughing at....(taking satisfaction in their woes)....or even worse yet....taking part in their demise!
Addendum: Maybe you have seen the 2000 disaster film....The Perfect Storm. On October 28, 1991....a low pressure system developed suddenly off of Nova Scotia....while Hurricane Grace was forming off of Bermuda....and a high pressure system was forming over the Great Lakes. This took meteorologists by surprise....and the result was that a hurricane was formed that was never given a name....other than....The Perfect Storm. On the same day that the storm smashed into New England....President George H. W. Bush officially started the Madrid Peace Conference....pressuring Israel to attend....which began a series of peace conferences based around Israel's ceding land to the Palestinians....and on that same day....The Perfect Storm's seawall slammed into President Bush's vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine....smashing windows and flooding the entire first floor....causing significant damage. That conference continued....and moved to Washington D. C. on August 24, 1992....the same day that Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Florida! There are just too many of these....coincidences....to ignore....and you can read about them in more detail in a 2006 book by John P. McTernan....As America Has done To Israel. You can order the paperback from Amazon for $9.
