Recently President Obama reaffirmed his Christianity and stated that his faith helped sustain him during the last two years. Hopefully that means the Bible he was sworn in on is also his source of wisdom. However, as with all men, it is what one does and not what one says that confirms one’s agenda. That may help explain why just 34% of Americans believe Obama is a Christian while 43% have no opinion.
“…every good tree bears good fruit…A good tree cannot bear bad fruit…Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” Matthew 7:17-20
The final words of the president’s state of the union speech on January 25th were: “…and may God bless the United States of America.” The president’s Bible provides succinct instructions on how to obtain God’s blessings. The instructions are 4,000 years old and haven’t changed.
“Now the LORD had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country…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…’” Genesis 12:1-3
The ‘great nation’ mentioned above would be, is now, and will always be, Israel.
“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.” Deuteronomy 7:6
Israel’s history of disobedience, past and present, and the related consequences is well documented. However, the promises of a great and everlasting nation were unconditional and are also well documented. The nation of Israel was chosen for a grand multi-faceted mission, i.e. to receive and provide the world with the mind and word of God, to provide the world with the lineage of God’s Son, and to show an idolatrous world that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one true God. Israel’s mission is irrefutable, irreversible, and everlasting.
“Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for light by night… ‘If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever…If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD.’” Jeremiah 31:35-37
Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, was given additional aspects of Israel’s future.
“David My servant (David’s descendant, i.e. Christ) shall be king over them…Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob…where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever…and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore…The nations also will know that I, the LORD, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” Ezekiel 37:24-28
Those who subscribe to ‘replacement theology’ believe Israel has lost its favor with God due to the continued disobedience of its people and subsequently the blessings promised to Israel have been transferred to the ‘church.’ However, the New Testament adamantly denies such reasoning.
“I say then, have they (Israel) stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall (disobedience) to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their (Israel’s) fall (disobedience) is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!” Romans 11:11-12
“…blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved…” Romans 11:25-26
Therefore, Paul, himself a Jew, states unequivocally that National Israel is still the apple of God’s eye. That means God’s covenant with Abraham stands as written and those who bless Israel will in turn be blessed.
And when President Obama says, “…and may God bless the United States of America” perhaps we should be doing all we can as a nation to bless Israel which in turn elicits God’s blessings on us. When Obama accepted the Nobel peace prize last year and in his recent state of the union message, Israel wasn’t mentioned one time.
During the recent upheavals in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, it appears this administration is more concerned with stability in those countries as it affects our own economic interests than with the welfare of Israel.
The possibilities of the Muslim Brotherhood raising its head and implementing its deadly agenda against Israel have been mentioned in the media. How would it have been if our president had responded with a worldwide proclamation that America’s number one priority is the security of Israel? That would parallel God’s priority. In addition, that action would certainly fulfill Obama’s new motto to ‘win the future.’
Israel’s future has been written and it is glorious, with or without the participation of the United States. But imagine the blessings we are missing by not actively taking a stand for God’s chosen people.