The Nugget:
Psa 122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
My Comment:
President Trump is most correct when he determined to regard and declare Jerusalem to be the capital city of Israel and will place our embassy there.
Criticism of this move is misplaced. The enemies of Israel don’t like this new stance on the part of the United States of America. But get this straight: the enemies of Israel are the enemies of God.
There are too many utterly misguided and misinformed Christians who fail to stand for Israel. These Christians are ignorant of the Bible, the Word of God. I have even come across a few Christians that are for North Korea and against their own country, the United States of America, claiming the United States is in the wrong. They would also claim, no doubt, that Israel is in the wrong. I suppose all would agree that no nation is entirely in the right. We ought to support what is right and withhold our support from what is not right.
Some Christians mistakenly believe that the nation of Israel in our day has nothing to do with the Israel of Bible times. They are against so-called Jewish Zionists and against Zionist Christians. That shows that if these Christians have been reading the Bible at all, they have been reading it with blinders on. Many Christians who fail to see present day Israel as the fulfillment of Bible prophecy are Amillennialists–they do not believe that Jesus Christ will return to this earth to set up His kingdom to literally reign as king over the whole earth from Jerusalem upon the Throne of David. Many Calvinists are woefully ignorant and misinformed about Bible prophecy pertaining to the nation of Israel. And yes, I dare to call them out on this!
God plainly declares that He regards Israel as “the apple of His eye.”
Deuteronomy 32:10
10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Zechariah 2:8
8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
These utterly mistaken interpreters of the Bible would have us believe that God has replaced natural Israel with the Christian Church, transferring the blessings promised to Israel spiritually to the Church, but conveniently leaving the curses to Israel. That is just so much nonsense. The promises of the great Abrahamic and Davidic Covenants are still in force and are yet to be fulfilled. God is not finished yet. God is not finished with Israel. Have Calvinists and others forgotten Malachi 3:6? They and everyone else need to get their Bibles out, shake the dust off them, and start searching the Scriptures carefully to see what they actually say:
Mal 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Here are the cross references I have collected for this important verse:
I am the Lord. Gen 15:7; Gen 15:18; Gen 22:16, Exo 3:14-15; Exo 6:2, Lev 18:5, Neh 9:7-8, Isa 41:13; Isa 42:5-8; Isa 43:11-12; Isa 44:6; Isa 45:5, 6, 7, 8; Isa 46:4, Jer 32:27, Hos 11:9.
I change not. God the Father is immutable (Psa 33:11, %Mat 12:32; +*Mat 28:19 note. Heb 6:17; %Heb 13:8). Gen 6:6, *Num 23:19 <rp. 1Sa 15:29, Psa 102:26-27, +*Isa 31:2; Isa 59:1, Dan 6:26, Hos 13:14, +*Rom 11:29, Heb 1:12; *Heb 6:17; *Heb 6:18; +*Heb 13:8, **Jas 1:17, +*Rev 1:8; Rev 22:13.
therefore ye sons of Jacob. Lev 26:42 note. Num 23:27, **1Ki 8:23, Neh 9:19, Psa 78:38; Psa 78:57; Psa 103:17; Psa 105:7-10, Isa 40:28-31, Lam 3:22-23, Rom 5:10; **Rom 8:28-32; Rom 11:28-29, *Php 1:6, **2Th 2:13; **2Th 2:14.
are not consumed. +**Lev 26:42; +**Lev 26:44; +**Lev 26:45, **Psa 89:34, +Isa 1:28; +*Isa 41:8; +*Isa 41:9; +**Isa 54:7-10; +**Isa 55:3; Isa 64:5, +*Jer 33:20; +*Jer 33:21 note. **Lam 3:22, Eze 16:60, Amos 9:9, **Zec 10:6.
Notice especially the references to Leviticus 26:42, 44, 45,
Lev 26:42 Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.
Lev 26:44 And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God.
Lev 26:45 But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.
And no, these promises have NOT been fulfilled already! Stephen, the first Christian martyr on record in the Bible, tells us plainly in his final sermon that Abraham has not yet received what God had promised him,
Act 7:5 And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.
The point is, that the promise was made personally to Abraham that he would himself inherit the promised land, but Abraham himself never personally possessed the land God promised to him. It is for this reason that God, who cannot lie, must resurrect Abraham and bring him personally into the promised land in order for the Abrahamic Covenant to be fulfilled. How many Bible scholars have failed to notice the explicit statement of Scripture here, which declares that Abraham did not receive the inheritance, and have taught the opposite, and worse, have spiritualized and transformed the covenants into something they were never meant to be, taking to themselves or the church the blessings promised to Abraham and the Jews, but very carefully leaving the curses to Israel, literally interpreted at that.
The author of Hebrews declares the same thing that Stephen did:
Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Heb 11:39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
Back to the issue I started with. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. That has always been the case. I am thankful that President Trump has kept his promise to support Israel. From the standpoint of the Bible, that may be one of the most important things Mr. Trump ever did:
Gen 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
It is very unwise to take a position against Israel, as our former President did. It is better to place our country on the path to God’s blessing, not His curse.