Out of Zion

Dr. Susan Michael: Well, welcome to this week's Israel Answers, where we are going to finish our series about why Christians should support Israel. Today, I'm going to share with you some biblical reasons why you should be blessing the Jewish people and standing with the state of Israel.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Israel Answers series, connecting Israel, the Bible, and you. Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural perspective to equip the Christian world with a balanced and biblical response. Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith and bring the Bible to life in your everyday world. Now, let’s join Susan with your Israel Answers.

Dr. Susan Michael: So far in our series, we have talked about the personal reasons for Christian support of Israel, the practical reasons, moral and legal reasons, and today, I'm going to tell you the biblical reasons. At the end of today's podcast, I'm going to offer you a free downloadable: the “10 reasons why Christians should support Israel.” Those reasons are largely biblical, so I really encourage you to get them.

Today, I'm just going to focus on four different scriptures: one from the Torah, one from the Psalms, one from the Prophets, and one from the New Testament to show how the Bible is very consistent from beginning to end about this subject. From the Torah, from the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, we read the story of how God chose a man named Abram. This is what He tells Abram in Genesis 12:1-3: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. 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 him who curses you; and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Well, my friends, that's a whole lot of blessing. God would bless him, he would be a blessing, and God would bless everybody that blessed him, and through him, all the families of the earth would be blessed. So, let’s get in on this blessing. First of all, this is not a magic charm. This is not a verse that's your key to how you should be blessed because this verse isn't actually about you, and it's not giving you a magic formula. This verse is where God is announcing the initiation of His plan of world redemption.

He's telling Abraham, "I choose you. If you will follow me, I'm going to take you to a land I'm going to give you. I'm going to make you a great nation, and I'm going to use you and your people to bless all the families of the earth." The Apostle Paul later said that verse was referring to Jesus Christ. That is the blessing to the families of the earth. It's world redemption, or personal redemption, I should say.

God chose Abraham, and therefore, if you were to bless who God chose and you bless the plan God put into place, then you would be walking in fellowship with God and you would be blessed in return. I want to encourage you to get involved in blessing Israel and the Jewish people. Not just because you will be blessed, because you will, but because God is at work here. He has laid it all out very clearly here to Abraham, and don’t think for one minute that what He told Abraham has been revoked or is over. I'm going to show you why what He told Abraham is still in place today.

Let’s go to our next verse, which is out of the book of Psalms. Psalm 105:8-11: "He remembers His covenant forever, the word 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.'" The psalmist here is confirming that God's promise to Abraham, which included this piece of land, is an everlasting covenant that will not be broken. The gift of the land is a part of an everlasting covenant; therefore, it is an everlasting gift.

Now, let’s look at one of the Hebrew Prophets, Isaiah 62. This is another verse that tells us how God has invited us to partner with Him in what He is doing in Israel and in Jerusalem. Isaiah 62:6-7 says, "I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes and He makes Jerusalem a praise in all the earth."

Listen to this: it is God who is going to establish Jerusalem as a praise in all the earth. When is that going to happen? Well, that is going to happen when we have the kingdom of God on earth and the throne of David ruling from Jerusalem, and that has not happened yet. This scripture makes it very clear that while it's God who is going to do it, our role is to be watchmen on the walls, praying and interceding with persistence and never being silent until we see this happen. We have been invited to partner with God in this great plan of redemption. We are invited to be involved as intercessors, as those standing on the wall, and in so doing, we will be a blessing to Israel and the Jewish people.

Let’s look at a New Testament scripture. I'm actually going to read to you two scriptures out of the same section in Romans 9, starting with verses 4 and 5. This is where the Apostle Paul lists all of the blessings that we have received from the Jewish people. "Who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen."

What is this saying? It is saying that God gave to the people of Israel the adoption, His glory, the covenants that we learn from, the giving of the law, the service of God, the worship of God in the temple, the promises, the forefathers—all of these things that you and I hold dear as Christians came from and through the Jewish people. Once we understand their role as a birthing people to birth these things into the world for our benefit, we realize we have benefited so much from them. The very least we can do is to bless them, to support them, and to stand in solidarity with them.

Some people in the church teach that because the Jewish people did not accept Jesus, they lost it all. They say now God is working with the church and He has got a new plan and a new people. Let’s read what the Apostle Paul said just two chapters later in Romans 11:28-29: "Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable."

This is saying that while at the time the people Paul was writing to, and maybe even at other times in history, they have been seen as the enemies of the gospel of Christ, nevertheless, concerning their election and their chosenness, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. This is because God made these promises. We read about it in Psalm 105: His promise to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and to Israel. These are the fathers, and for the sake of these promises God made to them, He loves His people and He is going to see His plan to use them fulfilled.

It goes on: "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." Some of you might pronounce that "irrevocable." The calling of God cannot be revoked, nor can the gifts. What are the gifts? So much of the time in scripture, the land of Canaan was the gift, the inheritance to the people of Israel. This, my friends, has not been revoked. God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Moses, and Israel are still in place.

Exile from the land because of their sin did not revoke their ownership of the land, and it did not revoke their calling. In our days, God has brought the people of Israel back to their land. So, we had better get behind this. He is using them. They are still the called of Abraham. He is fulfilling His promises, so we had better not oppose it and find ourselves on the wrong side of this equation. We want to be on the side of God's blessings.

Let me just close with one final point. With such a firm biblical foundation for support of the Jewish people, it is no surprise to find that many of the fathers of the Bible-based evangelical Christian movement preached from the scriptures the return of the Jews to their homeland and the blessing that that return would bring to the world. Modern Christian supporters of Israel follow in the steps of great Christian leaders such as John and Charles Wesley, Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Charles Spurgeon, and many of the Puritan preachers, just to name a few.

Our series so far has demonstrated that while the biblical basis for Christian support for Israel is extensive, there are also a variety of other convincing arguments based on history, morality, legality, and just plain old common sense. I hope you have found this series helpful as I have reviewed the many reasons why we as Christians should support Israel. Are you ready now to bless Israel? Go to today's show notes where we are going to link to the ICEJ, where you can get more involved in our ministry there in Jerusalem.

I invite you, if you have never been to Israel, to go on one of our tours. Your life will never be the same, and you will have the opportunity to walk that land and to intercede as Isaiah 62 calls us to intercede while your feet are standing there in Jerusalem. I have two specific offers for you, so please stay tuned.

Give me just one more minute because I’ve got two special offers for you. First, I am sure that after hearing about Israel and the blessing of Israel, you would love to go there on tour and experience that life-changing experience that so many of us have had. We want to invite you to go to Israel with the ICEJ, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. We have a tour interest list we’d like you to sign up on so that you can begin saving your money, praying about the perfect time to go, and perusing what we have to offer each year, especially during the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall.

Please sign up on our tour interest list now. If that link is not down below in today's show notes, we invite you to go to outofzionshow.com/shownotes. There, we have all the links that we offer in any of our shows because every listening platform is a little different in how they allow you to provide links. You can always go to outofzionshow.com/shownotes. There, you can sign up for the tour interest list, for our email list, and for text messages. You can even sign up for any of the free downloadables and free gifts that we offer in our episodes.

Speaking of which, my second offer today is to get the free download called "10 Reasons Christians Should Support the State of Israel." This is a summary of the main points that we've been covering in the next few weeks in this series. I invite you to download that so you have the notes, you can remember them later, and you can share it with your friends. Share it with your Bible study members, with your church, with people in your family, and with young people that may have questions. Get it today: "10 Reasons Why Christians Should Support Israel." All this is always available at outofzionshow.com/shownotes. We look forward to seeing you there. God bless.

Guest (Male): We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael. Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, pray.com, Salem One Place, and Salem Life Audio. Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA. All rights reserved.