November 26, 2006

Whose Land Is It Anyway?


Numbers 34:2-15; Joshua 11:16-23; 13:1-11

"It's 1938, and Iran is Germany," Benjamin Netanyahu said on November 14, 2006 in a speech to the North American Jewish community. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [the Iranian president], Netanyahu continued, "is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state." See http://www.haaretz.com/ for further details.

It is said that Tehran cannot consider a nuclear holocaust against Israel because that would be tantamount to killing large numbers of Muslims whose lives it has sworn to protect. However, the fear in Israel is that Islamists will spare no one in their quest to rid the Jewish state. Case in point, in Iraq, the killing of non-combatants (in particular, non-combantant Muslims) has grown so astronomically as to resist an accurate count. During the recent war in the north with Lebanon, nearly half of the Israeli civilians killed by Katyusha rockets fired by Iran's client militia Hezbollah, were Arabs.

It’s interesting to read in the Jewish newspapers that in recent decades, radical re-interpreta-tions of Koranic law suggest a growing willingness among Islamic extremists as well as clerics to justify the killing of Muslim by-standers in a suicide bombing. The prevailing ideology of suicide bombing holds that the "involuntary martyrdom" of Muslim bystanders killed in a suicide bombing is viewed as "no less glorious for being unintentional."

The first striking observation is that the Koranic law is subject to change, depending on the circumstances and needs of their “faithful”. In contrast, God’s Law is unchanging, good, holy, perfect and perpetual. The Law gives the knowledge of sin and is designed to lead to Christ (Galatians 3:24). Indeed, it was written in stone (Exodus 20); it is immutable.

The second item of interest is the ongoing argument of Israel’s real estate. If you look at God’s blueprint, it is very clear in the Bible that Israel’s boundaries are recorded in Numbers 34:2-15; Joshua 11:16-23; 13:1-11; and Ezekiel 47 & 48. Pastor John Hagee refers to it as God’s Land Grant to the Jews and is a perpetual covenant (Genesis 17:8) between God and Jacob (and his seed) that declares that the land of Canaan is an everlasting possession.

Indeed, on May 15, 1947 the Jewish State of Israel was established against all odds. After all, history records the wars against the Jews by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany and others. If history points to anything, the Jews have overcome formidable obstacles, including history itself, because of God Jehovah (not god Allah, which is a polytheistic god of Islam). If you have any doubt, start with Genesis 1:1 to learn who God really is.

The final observation is about the Arabs’ anti-Semitic zeal. This fervent hatred is rooted in its historic struggles between Abraham’s descendants from the tribes of Ishmael and Isaac as well as from the tribes of Jacob and Esau. Consider Genesis 16:12 about the source of the Arabs’ hate for the Jews. These rivalries stretch for thousands of years.

In the end, the differences between Jehovah and Allah come down to this: For Jesus, God is a loving father; for Muhammad, Allah is a demanding task-master. Christ told the parable of the Lost Lamb as He related God’s search for us. What a beautiful knowledge to have about God the Father who searches for the one lost lamb, until He finds it and brings it home rejoicing! I invite you to read the Bible and see for yourself the love God has for you (John 3:16). Come and join His family.

One last thought: It is said, “If the Arabs (Muslims) put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Israelis put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”

Support Israel in Her right to defend Herself!

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