The Nation Of Israel

And

The Promised Land

God is not slack when it comes to His promises.   When He declares will do something, He will fulfill His promise.    In the last post we saw how God raised up Abraham and promised a great nation would come for him and that God was giving to Abraham and his descendants the land that we often refer to as the Promised Land.

The Land Of Promise

Genesis 15:18-21
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites

Genesis 17:7-8
And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.
The land promised by God to the Jewish people stretches from the Sinai Desert, north and east to the Euphrates River. It includes present day Israel, much of Lebanon, the West Bank of Jordan, plus large parts of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.    If you think there’s trouble in the Middle-East now you haven’t seen anything yet.    The land God promised the Jews include all this territory which now sits in Arab hands.

This is the land promised to Abraham and his defendants.     His grandson Jacob inherits the promise.     As you may know, Jacob’s name is eventually changed to Israel, thus the name of the nation.    Jacob has twelve sons who form the twelve tribes of Israel.    They dwell in the land until famine forces them down into Egypt.    They are are in slavery in Egypt for 400 years until God raises up Moses to deliver them back to the Promised Land.


The Condition Of The Promise:
God doesn’t mess around with sin and disobedience,  so as they are preparing to enter the Promised Land once again, Moses reminds them that the condition for them remaining in the land is their obedience to Jehovah God.

Deuteronomy 4:25-30
When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger,   26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27 And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you.   28 And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29  But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice.
Disobedience would lead to the people being forced from the land for a period of time and this is where the problem comes in.

The Problem:
Israel wasn’t obedient and as a result there are three major departures from the Promised Land because of this disobedience.
Three Major Departures From the Promised Land
1. Departure For Egypt Under Joseph
The first departure as we just saw was during the regional famine that took the children of Israel out of the land and into slavery in Egypt for 400 years.
2. The Captivities

Under David and Solomon the nation obeyed God and prospered. But as disobedience and idol worship increased, the Prophets warned that the Jews would be driven from the land if they did not return to Jehovah.

 

•  In 712 BC the Assyrians took the Northern Kingdom. In 605 BC the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and the Israelites including the prophet Daniel were taken captive. In 586 BC Jerusalem was devastated. However, Jeremiah prophesied that the people would return to the land.

Jeremiah 29:10For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

 

• In 516 BC Ezra and the people returned to Rebuild the Temple and later, Nehemiah (445 BC) to rebuild the city.

Moses predicted a time when Israel would be scattered through out the world.

Deuteronomy 28:64-66And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
65 And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.
66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life.

3.  The World Wide Dispersion  - 70AD
　

Under Roman Rule extensive renovations were made to the Temple.    These renovations were underway when Jesus was born and were not completed until after He had gone to the cross.

Jesus predicted that this temple would be destroyed and the Jews scattered around the world.
And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down. (Matthew 24:2)
 In 70 AD Jerusalem was surrounded by war.    Roman legions slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims who had returned for a feast.     The city was destroyed and the stones of the temple were pried apart one by one and cast into a valley southeast of Jerusalem where they were discovered by archaeologists.    Once again the Jews were driven from the Promised Land, but this time they were scattered to the four corners of the world just as had been prophesied.
And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. 64 "Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known — wood and stone. (Deuteronomy 28:63-64)


Since that time, the Jews have been scattered throughout the world. They have been hated and persecuted and have lived with insecurity among the nations of the world.

But God is not slack to fulfill His promises.    As I understand it, God will return His people to the Promise Land one more time, in the latter days in preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.     For almost 2,000 years the Israelites, the Jews, have longed for a homeland, longed to return to God’s Promised Land where they could live in peace.

The stage is now set for one fo the most significant events in human history;  the return of the Jews to the Promised Land.    God is not slack concerning His promises. He doesn’t always work according to our time table.    In our life time, we are seeing amazing Biblical prophecy unfolding before our very eyes.

(Please Check back next week for the historic return of Israel to the Promise Land)