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p. 1 Jerusalem a stumbling stone to the nations As a new war rages by the estranged brethren of Abraham, as the question of the ownership of the land and the people are still the main issue. There is no debate, this has been settled for 3,500 years. Gen. 12:5-7 “then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.” V.6… And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land."(Meaning Isaac and Jacob) 1 Chron. 16:16-18 “The covenant which He made with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac, And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel for an everlasting covenant, Saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance." Originally, seven separate nations inhabited the region: Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Girgashites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The people of the Land of Canaan were steep into idolatry and committed horrendous atrocities. God then took the land from them and gave it to the Hebrews (Deut. 29:17) who were to be a theocracy under his leadership. Long before the disputes of the land we have this recorded in Scripture thousands of years ago, Lev. 25:38 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.”Lev.14:34 “ When you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give you as a possession” God has spoken; 2 Chr. 6:6-7: “Yet I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there; and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.” 1 Chr. 23:25: For David said, “The LORD God of Israel has given rest to His people, that they may dwell in Jerusalem forever . ” So much of Israel’s ancient history is directly connected to this city and to David the king. The first time Zion is mentioned in the Scripture it identifies it with Israel’s great King David, (2 Sam. 5:7; I King 8:1) This is where the conflict is, as those of another god attack the people whom God gave the land to. Islam continually refuses to recognize Jerusalem as the city of the Jewish people .It was King David who founded the city of Jerusalem and the Jews (Hebrews) lived there. The Muslims ended up building their mosque over 1,000 years later in 687 AD. After Israel was removed from the land. Exod. 6:4-6 "I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.” Mohammed never traveled to Jerusalem, though Islam claims he did. Jerusalem is not mentioned in Qur’an (it is mentioned nearly 2,500 times in the Bible and refers to Israel). The Bible has nearly 800 references to Jerusalem being called “the City of our God” (Ps 48:1, 8), the city of the great King .” (Matt 5:35). Yahweh is called “the God of Israel,” He is NOT called the God of any other nation, certainly not Islam that rejects him and his covenant. Here is where the covenant is in effect with Abraham. God says in Gen 12:1-3: “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 yo u; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Notice God will give them the land and make a great nation from Abraham. And all the families of earth are to be blessed, Why? For the Messiah - Jesus, came through Abraham’s lineage, born in the land God gave his people Israel (Gal. 3:14-16). I King 14:21: “…Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there.” The Psalmist wrote Ps. 135:21: “Blessed be the LORD out of Zion, who dwells in Jerusalem! Praise the LORD!”The Lord was presently there when the Temple and ark were there. Palestine vs. Israel Israel has a long history of being in Jerusalem, as the land was given to them by God long before the incarnation of Jesus. The people that are called Palestinian intentionally ignore the facts of historical and archeological evidence. Here is what they tell their people: “There is not a single stone in Palestine that proves the [historical] Jewish existence [in the land]” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, 15 October 2000) the fact is there are multiple stones. Iran which is ancient Persia (read the book of Esther on them) has continued to destroy Israel, they have not learned their lesson. Iran's intention is and has always been the destruction of Israel in their ancient animosity. Amahmoud Ahmadinejad, when he was president of Iran, addressed thousands by declaring their intent, “Israel is a blot that should be wiped off the map.” (“World without Zionism” conference in Tehran, October 26, 2005) The PLO had formerly declared, “The struggle with the Zionist enemy is not a struggle about Israel's borders, but about Israel's existence.” This has always been a one way street to eventual war. The PLO intent has always been the destruction of Israel and Hamas carries this as they insist there be no Jewish state exist among the Islamic states. Hamas was formed in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, (originally founded in the 1920s in Egypt.) Article 7 of the Hamas Charter reiterates the apocalyptic hadith: “The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: `Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him'; but the tree Gharkad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985). What nation or leader in history has made repeated claims like these and has not tried to fulfill them? Sooner or later the world will have to face what they believe. The true God has said Ps. 129:5: “Let all those who hate Zion be put to shame and turned back.”As we watch this current Barbarism unfold, a ferocious abandonment of humanity, one is reminded of the Nazis, yet they were not as bloodthirsty as what we have just witnessed. How you serve the God you believe in, shows the God you serve! Is there any Palestinians? History tells us in 70 A.D. Titus came with Roman troops into Jerusalem and destroyed the temple and Israel was scattered throughout the earth (called the Diaspora). It is for this reason that in 135 A.D., the Romans officially renamed Israel Provincia Palestina,’ after Israel’s chief enemy the Philistines to mock them.
Nelson's Bible Dictionary tells us how the word was first used:
“The word itself originally identified the region as “the land of the
Philistines,” a war-like tribe that inhabited much of the region
alongside the Hebrew people. But the older name for Palestine was
CANAAN, the term most frequently used in the Old Testament.” Romans renamed the territory to be used as an insult to the Jewish people, denying God who gave the name Israel for their homeland. Naming it after the Philistines, their enemy, even though the majority of people were the Jews who lived there. Understand they renamed the territory, not the people. Not until recent times did they call themselves this name to have it look like they, the Arabs, are the true inhabitants of the land they were named “Palestinians.” There is no such ethnicity as a Palestinian, the word is not found in the bible, and Canaan was occupied by numerous people, but none claims them as their lineage. The modern people who call themselves Palestinians have no right to the LAND. The Bible addresses those who oppose the Messiah and what he has said about his people Israel. Deut. 1:8 “ See, Ihave set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers-- to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-- to give to them and their descendants after them.” The land is named in the bible over and over again. Remember the bible was written during these times of conflict and war. From 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman empire had control of the territory, Islam had Jerusalem for hundreds of years and it meant little to them until they found how important it was to the Jews after Israel was reestablished and reformed a desert to a sustainable land to grow crops. Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab or Muslim nation in history, even when they conquered it. Islam concurs in Sura 3:67 “Abraham was not a Jew nor yet a Christian; but he was true in Faith, and bowed his will to God's (Which is Islam), and he joined not gods with God.” (On Abraham being their father -see Acts 7:2; Rom.4:1;Jms.2:21) They see The Jewish belief and the Christian belief as not their God. They are correct because their God is against the God of Scripture that was penned over 2,000 years before Mohammed. God says to the prophet Isa.43:5 “I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west” He also said... Jer.30:18, 31:8 "Behold I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the ends of the earth." Jer. 29:14 “ And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.” The Lord always fulfills His promises as written. He made a covenant with Israel and the Jews and he will complete it. With this said without the actual name of the land the Qur'an states in Sura 5:22-23 states “Remember Moses said to his people: "O my people! Call in remembrance the favour of God unto you, when He produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave you what He had not given to any other among the peoples. “O my people! Enter the holy land which God hath assigned unto you , and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.” The prophet Moses and all the Jewish prophets give testimony to the land being Israel's land. In the Quran, the Muslim's own book their prophet agrees. The Jewish people returning from 19 centuries of exile to their land is actually found in Sura 17:104 says that “when the promise of the Hereafter comes to pass, We [Allah] shall bring you as a crowd gathered out of various nations.” Abraham is a Hebrew, which are Jew’s, He is the father of their nation. He is also called a Jew (not Palestinian) by Jesus, he is included in the detailed genealogical line of Israel.
The Covenant God made with Abraham was reinstituted with Moses includes the
assurance that God will give the land to Israel. Gen. 15:18 based on the
covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12 The Qur’an teaches it was Ishmael not Isaac that was sacrificed and that Ishmael was the promise. This is why Muslims change the historical record to make it Ishmael so they are connected to the land, but many of them know better. Abraham wanted Ishmael to be the son of the covenant!” Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him .” Notice he says everlasting, it's not a conditional covenant. Gen. 17:18-19 “But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year” (Gen. 17:19-21). God was speaking to Abraham regarding the future of his sons, Isaac and Ishmael. One from Sarah the other from his handmaiden. Arabs trace their lineage back to Ishmael, the Jewish people to Isaac, Jacob from Abraham. Notice that the covenant promise was bestowed to Isaac and his heirs, not to Ishmael. The land was not given to Ishmael. They fight against the true God who has covenanted with his people, they are so enraged they cannot hear what God says about this. The more religious a Muslim becomes the more hatred they learn for Israel. Mohammad himself said, “The last hour will not come before the Muslims kill the Jews in a fight.” This is what their goal is as they obey their prophet to fulfill it! Regardless of Israel being scattered for over 1,900 years, not being a nation after Rome’s assault on their temple in 70 AD., on May 14, 1948 — in one day she was found among the world’s nations again. The Bible contains this prophesied event in Isaiah 66:8, foundover 2,700 years before. “ Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.” God's faithfulness is seen among Israel as No nation or people in history has survived this long (nearly 2,000 years) out of their land and remained as cohesive as Israel as the Jewish people have. You would think some would take notice of this. They have been persecuted by so many nations, the Romans, the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms of Russian Empire of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and both Hitler, and Islam. To see the hatred of anti-Semitism one must pause and ask, why do people hate Jews like this? It is a spiritual war. That is what is displayed to the world as a physical war. The true God is the God of all people (Rom.3:29), both Jew and Gentile. He became the Messiah in his humanity, a descendant of King David as promised in his covenant to Abraham (Gen.12). If you hate the Jews you will hate the Messiah, for Scripture says salvation is of the Jews. So as the Muslims lead the world to hate the people and nation of Israel, having the world hate the Messiah. Islam instead teaches that Jesus does return a second time only to destroy the Jews and Christians. Which goes against everything the Bible teaches. God has spoken, Zeph. 2:5 “Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, The nation of the Cherethites! The word of the LORD is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistine: "I will destroy you; So there shall be no inhabitant." (see also Jer.47:4; Amos.1:8; Zech.9:6, the bible tells us whom Gods enemies are, Mt. 24:9; his enemies will kill believers thinking they are serving God) The rise of their anti-Semitism continually taking place on a worldwide scale brings the world closer and closer to the Tribulation where this activity will be normal, everyone will be tested. It is the gospel, the fulfillment of Genesis 12 for all being blessed that began in Jerusalem. Luke 24:47 That “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.’ This is where Christianity began by the Jews who followed the Christ whom the Scriptures speak of. Three times Israel is called "the apple" of God's eye” God says of Israel “for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye” (Zech. 2:8). Why? “For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.” (Deut. 32:9-10). Israel should not depend on the nations but needs to seek the Lord to be their help in this time of need. p.2 Explaining the inexplicable For further reading on this issue read http://www.letusreason.org/Juda12.htm http://www.letusreason.org/juda14.htm http://www.letusreason.org/Juda4.htm
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