God Keeps Covenant Day 4: I remember a tense moment in a gathering of Christians and Jews just before the movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” was released. The question was asked, “Did the Jews put Jesus on the cross?” Every eye was riveted on the speaker. “No!” he said. “Our sins put Jesus on the cross!” Oh! If only the Church had given such an answer down through its history!

So many Christians through the centuries have believed not only that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death but also that God has utterly forsaken them. These Christians think the Church has completely taken the place of the Jewish people as the “Chosen” of God. The history of most of the last 2,000 years would seem to support their belief. 

However, we have examined the Lord’s promises that His love and His Covenant are forever. Does “forever” not apply as well to the last two millennia? Perhaps the following Scriptures give us a clue. 

“For a brief moment I abandoned you, (Remember 1,000 years is as a day)
but with deep compassion I will bring you back. 
…I hid my face from you for a moment,
But with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54: 7 & 8)

“No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate.
…for the Lord will take delight in you.” (Isaiah 62:4)

“I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’
‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” (Hosea 2:23)

Paul asks the believers in Rome who were struggling with anti-Jewish emotions: “Did God reject his people? … Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery?”
“Not at all!” comes his resounding answer. (Romans 11:1&11)
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God Keep Covenant Day 3

Without smog, Abraham could see a very long way from the mountains of Israel! In the Genesis 17 passage we studied on Day 2, the Lord continues in v.8, “The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you.”

This is confirmed to Jacob. “I am God Almighty…The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and…to your descendants.” (Genesis 35:12)

The book of Deuteronomy describes the Lord’s comments and final instructions before Israel entered the land after their forty years of wandering in the desert. The Lord is very forthright: “It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land;” (Deuteronomy 9:5) in fact, He says in chapter 31:21, “I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath.”

We know from history that Israel rebelled against God until finally He sent them into exile. The first exile was for seventy years to Babylon, and the second has lasted for almost 2,000 years – beginning 40 years after Jesus wept over them and warned them of what was coming. 

But even before they entered the land the first time, Moses’ words to them provide us with a glimpse of the Lord’s future plan.

“When all these blessings and curses (see Deuteronomy 28 & 29) come upon you…wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord…God will…have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations. …God…will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it.” (Deuteronomy 30:1-5)

This covenant is not void! It is indeed forever! And it includes the land, a portion of which we again see in Israel’s possession today.

Have all those Israelis who are now back in the land “returned to the Lord”? (Deuteronomy 30:2) No. But many have. Others are coming to Him as they settle in their ancient towns and cities. Congregations are springing up everywhere, and Israeli friends tell us that there are now more followers of Yeshua (Jesus) in the land than there have been since the first century AD.

There are also many godly Orthodox Jews who trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with all their hearts, who are waiting for Messiah to be revealed.

As we begin our teaching on this very important subject of Why Israel, let’s start by asking a question of ourselves: On what basis are we praying for Israel? The simplest answer is that “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). As Christians, we need to acknowledge our unfathomable debt to Israel and to always pray on the basis of that total indebtedness.

In my booklet, Our Debt to Israel, I make the following statements:
Without the Jews, we would have no patriarchs, no prophets, no apostles, no Bible and no Savior! Deprived of all these, how much salvation would we have left to us? None!

The nations of the earth owe all that is most precious in their spiritual inheritance to the Jews. This is true of all of us – whether we be Arabs, Africans, Asians, Europeans, Russians, Americans or Chinese. We all owe a spiritual debt to the Jews that cannot be calculated.

One of the best ways we can begin to repay that debt of love is by prayer and intercession. As our awareness of Israel’s place in God’s plans grows, let’s open the Scriptures to gain a clearer understanding of the significance of the land and the people of Israel. To pray effectively for Israel and the Jews, we need to be informed about them. The information we need does not come from the world’s perspective or from the media. It comes from God’s viewpoint, which we find in the Bible.

Day 5 of God Keeps Covenant: A FOREVER COVENANT

In ancient times, a covenant was the most binding contract one could make with another – far more serious than anything we can understand today. Modern society has nothing that comes close to its equivalent. The possibility of breaking covenant was unthinkable.

In the passage above, Almighty God Himself was making a covenant with Abraham that was to last forever. He renewed that everlasting covenant with Isaac, (Genesis 26:3 & 4) and then with Jacob. (Genesis 28:13-15) By the Lord’s sovereign choice, He was setting His attention on a man, Abraham, and specific descendants of his, Isaac and Jacob, and their posterity.

In this age of egalitarianism, the Lord’s Sovereign choice is a difficult concept. Perhaps it helps to look at this choice as a difference in function. God was calling Israel – the name first given to Jacob and by extension, to his descendants – to a specific purpose in history. In the midst of a totally pagan world that had no remembrance of the one, true God, He injected Himself into the life of a man and his family to make a covenant with them that was designed to go on forever, in order to accomplish His will on the earth.

The word “forever” is used numerous times throughout Genesis and other Scriptures regarding this covenant. In spite of Israel’s rebellion, the Lord declared in Judges 2:1, “I will never break my covenant with you.”
In Psalm 89:34 the Lord vowed: “I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.”

King David reminded his nation the day he brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem: “He (the Lord) remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded to a thousand generations.” (Psalms 105:8 & I Chronicles 16:15)

In light of these declarations by the Lord God, can we doubt that He will keep His covenant with His ancient people? “God is not a man, that he should lie.” (Numbers 23:19) If the Lord does not keep Covenant with Israel, what assurance do we Christians have that He will be faithful to us, the Church?