PRAY FOR ISRAEL POST REVISITED (Partial transcript of Sunday’s Message October 8, 2023.
While Israel was celebrating ‘Sukkot’ this past weekend, (also known as the Feast of the Tabernacles,) they were viciously and cowardly attacked by Hamas, Hezbollah, and radical Islam with the aid of Iran. This has been described as “Israel’s 911”.
Because of the rise of antisemitism in our society and especially in the so-called ‘halls of higher education’, it is important for Christians to be reminded of the importance of our relationship to the Jewish people and to the Nation of Israel.
I read a story about Queen Victoria and her Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. It took place during the late 19th century. Queen Victoria asked Prime Minister Disraeli the following question:
"Mr. Prime Minister, what evidence can you give me of the existence of God?" Disraeli thought for a moment and then replied, "The Jew, your majesty."
Think of it, according to Disraeli, the primary evidence that God exists is the existence of the Jewish people. It makes perfect sense. You can’t have one without the other.
The survival of the Jewish people is a miracle of God. The return of the Jewish people to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a miracle of God. A new nation that began in in 1948 and named after Jacob, whose divinely appointed name “Israel” means "Prince with God", is also a miracle of God.
We should pray for and support Israel because we believe that the words of Moses and the prophets of Israel were inspired by God. We believe that the birth of a Jewish state in the land promised by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was ordained by God.
God has a plan for our country and intends for us to be blessed, to prosper and be secure through him and in our relationship to Israel and the Jewish people.
We are with Israel in this war, we are with them as a wave of anti-Semitism is on the rise. We as Christians must pray and stand with them.
EX: Satan has been trying to cut off and destroy God’s purpose for his creation and the Nation of Israel since the Garden of Eden, to the days of Moses and Pharaoh, to King Herod and the killing of newborn male infants, to Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust during WW2.
Today, the names may have changed, but the same demonic influence has not. They now are called Iran, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, supported by Iran and are still trying to wipe Israel out.
ZECH. 2:8, “For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.”
"Why did God choose Israel to be His chosen people?"
Answer: Speaking of the nation of Israel, Deuteronomy 7:7-9 tells us, “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 of those who love Him and keep His commands.”
We owe Israel a debt. Christianity did not suddenly appear one night in Bethlehem. Our spiritual roots are in Judaism. Without the Jews and Judaism there would be no Christianity.
We owe a debt of love and thanks to the Jewish people and their worship of Jehovah God. Romans 15:27, “For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their (the Jews) spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things.”
God chose the nation of Israel to be the people through whom Jesus Christ would be born—the Savior from sin and death.
God confirmed that the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus Christ is the ultimate reason why God chose Israel to be His special people.
John 4:21-23, “Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews”.
The civil, judicial and moral code of our great nation that provides us with freedom and justice is based on the Word of God that was given to us by God’s prophets.
Walking up the steps to the building which houses the Supreme Court, you will see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers. The central figure who is facing forward in full view is Moses and the Ten Commandments!
In the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door. Inside the courtroom, the wall right above where the Supreme Court judges sit a display of the Ten Commandments!
A sculpture of Moses has been in the House chamber of Congress since 1950, two years after the modern state of Israel was founded in 1948.
If we as a nation abandon these codes of morality and ethics we call “The Ten Commandments, we will no longer be viewed by the world as the nation that is the inspiration of freedom, but will instead lose God’s blessings, security and standing in the world.
Psalm 122:6-7, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May all who love this city prosper. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.” NLT.
When we pray for Jerusalem and Israel, God promises prosperity, and security to you and I. I don't believe it’s possible to say, "I am a Christian" and not love Israel and the Jewish people.
Please set aside time in your daily devotions to remember to pray for our Leaders in Washington and for the nation of Israel that we not surrender to the strategies of divisiveness and political wokeism, but remain united in defeating tyranny and terrorism no matter where it happens and no matter what name it takes on.
I encourage you to listen to the full message I preached this past Sunday, October 8.
May God Bless and Keep You,
Pastor Richard Salazar
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