Post by mongoose on Mar 7, 2009 23:39:34 GMT -5
I know there's all kinds of political discussion about Israel, Palestine, and the current conflict between them. I'm more interested in the future, and the moral/spiritual/prophetic implications of what may occur there. It's all speculation, right? So I figure it could fit here and people will write stories.
The assumption at my church is that the generation after mine, those who are now in their teens and 20s, will be the last generation to grow old before the events prophesied in Revelation happen. If that is the case, AND if we take the Bible's word for what will happen in the "end times" we can be reasonably sure that Israel will remain a nation state in its current borders (more or less) until the end. I never paid a whole lot of attention to what happens to the children of Abraham in the end because I had been told that the promises were all transferred to the church. I now believe that theology was wrong, and God will fulfill his prophetic promises to the ethnic people of Israel. How might that play out if it does play out within our life times?
Alternatively, as no one knows the hour or the day of the return of Christ, what if several more generations remain before the end? It's hard to deny that Israel has fallen back into sin and away from God. They are, essentially, a secular nation much like ours. Not only that, but they have committed, and probably continue to commit atrocities against Palestinians and others in their perpetual conflict. We can see in Scripture that, although God instructed the Israelites to commit ethnic cleansing within the promised land, he never authorized Israel to engage in aggressive wars outside those borders, as they have done in modern history. So Israel is no longer obeying the Word of the Lord, as a nation, and is cruising for a bruising.
Don't get me wrong. I've accepted the theology that Israel remains God's chosen people, and that He will fulfill His covenant to them including the curses that He will impose upon them if they sin. In the end the Israelites are in Israel, and God mops the floor with all who rise up against them. But what if their current occupation of Palestine is not that which was prophesied for the end of the age? What if God is still going to punish them, again, for their current sinfulness? What would that look like in one of our stories?
There are those who say that America should take an active role in restraining Israel and even punishing her for her wrongdoings in Palestine. If you aren't just trying to bless Israel in order to be the recipient of blessings ("I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you"), and if you don't just assume that anything they do is right just because they're God's chosen people, then it would make sense for America to exert her influence to stop Israel from abusing people.
In that case, though, I worry not so much about the consequences of taking action against Israel, as I do about the implications about us if we take such actions. Looking at history we see that God only ever uses evil people to punish evil people, or even to punish His own people. There is not one time when He uses a righteous nation to punish an unrighteous nation. The only exception, depending on how you think about it, was when he commanded Israel to move in and punish the occupants of the promised land. But since then righteous nations and kings have only been authorized by God to punish those already under their authority. When Israel needed punishing He used the evil people that surrounded them. And when those evil people went too far (after the reign of David, at least) God used other evil people to punish those evil people. So what would it make America, if America were to punish Israel, even if Israel deserves punishment? It doesn't take an expert in logic to see that it would mean that God was using America, as an evil nation, to punish His chosen people.
We tend to assume that, in the end times, America is God's chosen instrument of justice in the world, and Russia is the great evil. But what if we aren't, and they aren't? What if we're the evil people that are prophesied to come from the north to attack Israel? Or what if it's our allies from Great Britain and Germany, or even France, Spain, or Italy? Has anyone ever considered what the End Times would look like if America were the next Babylon? Or what about the intervening period, if there's going to be another diaspora of Israel? Could another holocaust happen, and not at the hands of Iran or any other Islamic nation, but at our hands? How might that be set up and play out?
The assumption at my church is that the generation after mine, those who are now in their teens and 20s, will be the last generation to grow old before the events prophesied in Revelation happen. If that is the case, AND if we take the Bible's word for what will happen in the "end times" we can be reasonably sure that Israel will remain a nation state in its current borders (more or less) until the end. I never paid a whole lot of attention to what happens to the children of Abraham in the end because I had been told that the promises were all transferred to the church. I now believe that theology was wrong, and God will fulfill his prophetic promises to the ethnic people of Israel. How might that play out if it does play out within our life times?
Alternatively, as no one knows the hour or the day of the return of Christ, what if several more generations remain before the end? It's hard to deny that Israel has fallen back into sin and away from God. They are, essentially, a secular nation much like ours. Not only that, but they have committed, and probably continue to commit atrocities against Palestinians and others in their perpetual conflict. We can see in Scripture that, although God instructed the Israelites to commit ethnic cleansing within the promised land, he never authorized Israel to engage in aggressive wars outside those borders, as they have done in modern history. So Israel is no longer obeying the Word of the Lord, as a nation, and is cruising for a bruising.
Don't get me wrong. I've accepted the theology that Israel remains God's chosen people, and that He will fulfill His covenant to them including the curses that He will impose upon them if they sin. In the end the Israelites are in Israel, and God mops the floor with all who rise up against them. But what if their current occupation of Palestine is not that which was prophesied for the end of the age? What if God is still going to punish them, again, for their current sinfulness? What would that look like in one of our stories?
There are those who say that America should take an active role in restraining Israel and even punishing her for her wrongdoings in Palestine. If you aren't just trying to bless Israel in order to be the recipient of blessings ("I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you"), and if you don't just assume that anything they do is right just because they're God's chosen people, then it would make sense for America to exert her influence to stop Israel from abusing people.
In that case, though, I worry not so much about the consequences of taking action against Israel, as I do about the implications about us if we take such actions. Looking at history we see that God only ever uses evil people to punish evil people, or even to punish His own people. There is not one time when He uses a righteous nation to punish an unrighteous nation. The only exception, depending on how you think about it, was when he commanded Israel to move in and punish the occupants of the promised land. But since then righteous nations and kings have only been authorized by God to punish those already under their authority. When Israel needed punishing He used the evil people that surrounded them. And when those evil people went too far (after the reign of David, at least) God used other evil people to punish those evil people. So what would it make America, if America were to punish Israel, even if Israel deserves punishment? It doesn't take an expert in logic to see that it would mean that God was using America, as an evil nation, to punish His chosen people.
We tend to assume that, in the end times, America is God's chosen instrument of justice in the world, and Russia is the great evil. But what if we aren't, and they aren't? What if we're the evil people that are prophesied to come from the north to attack Israel? Or what if it's our allies from Great Britain and Germany, or even France, Spain, or Italy? Has anyone ever considered what the End Times would look like if America were the next Babylon? Or what about the intervening period, if there's going to be another diaspora of Israel? Could another holocaust happen, and not at the hands of Iran or any other Islamic nation, but at our hands? How might that be set up and play out?