Israel and the Apostate Church by Dr. Stephen Yulish

Tuesday, 09 October 2007 15:19 |

Israel and the Apostate Church

Stephen Yulish PhD

People keep asking me what about Iran and Syria attacking Israel? They want to know if this is the beginning of the end and if Jesus is coming back soon? What strikes me as most significant about this entire affair is the fact of how many self professed Christians are questioning the legitimacy of an Israeli preemptive attack and some are even going to the extreme and questioning Israel’s right to exist at all. I am dumbfounded and saddened by this attitude.

Several of my friends who have Christian prophetic websites have written in the past and asked me for help in trying to diffuse some of their subscriber’s growing resentment towards Israel. When I put my latest article, “Why does Satan hate Israel?” on some so called Christian blogs, I too was met by hostility. I was told that God never promised Israel the physical land only a spiritual entity. Genesis 17:8 seems pretty physical to me. Another said that Israel was never one single group of people and they continued that Jesus supposedly said it was anyone that accepted God. What does that mean? Another individual went on a tirade telling me that the Israeli response in Lebanon was not Christian. Jesus would never do it this way, he ranted. I just learned that a missionary that I know believes that the Jews caused 9/11! As my dear departed mother used to say, ’oy vay ist mir’, which means ‘oh woe is me.’

Christians love to talk about an end time’s revival. That is wonderful and I hope that it is happens, but my Bible talks about a falling away (2Thess. 2:3) and a spiritual blindness (2Tim.4:3-4) in the last days and that is what I am seeing. In these traumatic days when Islamic fascists are trying once again to destroy Israel and prove God a liar when He said that they would never cease to be a nation (Jeremiah 31:36-37), Satan is alive and well not only in the Mosques fomenting terror but also in the body of Christ causing them to be blinded to His word about Israel and the Jews. Instead of standing side by side with God’s first born people in their hour of need like a Pastor John Hagee or a Pat Robertson or other Bible believing, God fearing men like my own Pastor Mike, many are saying that maybe God is finally finished with Israel since the Christians are after all now God’s chosen people. That’s what the Jews call meshuga, or craziness.

We obstinate Jewish people are not easy to love, just ask any of my Christian brothers. They (we) are stiff necked, overeducated, know it alls. But God says to you that you have to love them. And you should be “thankful for their transgression because by it salvation came to you Gentiles” (Romans 11:11).

God blinded them and only He can remove those blinders (Romans 11:8-10) as He did for me. Read Romans 9-11 and know that God is not finished with the Jewish people. If He reneges on his promises to them, maybe He will renege on your promise of salvation.
The conflict in the Middle East between Arab and Jew goes back thousands of years. The Bible (The Torah), in Genesis 22, speaks of Abraham offering up Isaac as a sacrifice as God commanded. The Koran in Sura 37 says that Abraham offered up Ishmael. This is crucial to understand. The Bible says that God made His covenant with Isaac not with Ishmael (Genesis 17:19-21). It says that God would bless Ishmael and his descendants even though he was a wild donkey of a man and his hand would be against everyone (Genesis 16:12), but in opposition to the Koran, however, it says that the covenant was with Isaac not with Ishmael.

These two sons of Abraham are at the center of the dispute over this land. Which do you believe the Bible or the Koran?

There is also a very interesting passage in Romans 9:6-8 where Paul says that not all Israel are descended from Israel, neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants but through Isaac your descendants will be named. Not the children of the flesh who are children of God but children of the promise are regarded as descendants. Christians have used this passage over the centuries to show that they are also the children of the promise, but I think that it speaks also to the Arabs. They are descended from Abraham through Hagar and are his physical descendants but are not children of the promise which went through Isaac.

The Muslims through their Koran trace their lineage back to Abraham as do the Jews (and the Christians) but they are not the children of the promise because the covenant with God was with Isaac not Ishmael. Christians need to read these passages and remember that Israel is the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8), and that He is “exceedingly jealous for Zion and Jerusalem” (Zechariah 1:14), and He said that He would bless those who bless her and curse those who curse her” (Genesis 12:3).
Israel is where Jesus plans to return to rule and reign for 1000 years (Zechariah 14:4, Revelation 20:3). If the children of Ishmael have their way, there will never be a rebuilt Temple on the Temple Mount and God will proved to be a liar (2Thess.2:4).

Christians need to also heed Paul’s warning in Romans 11:20-21 to not be conceited but fear because if God did not spare the natural branches neither will He spare you!

I grieve as Paul did for my unsaved Jewish brethren, and I too wish I was accursed for sake of my brethren according to the flesh so that they too may know Christ (Romans 9:1-3) True Christians are mandated to make the Jews jealous of them (Romans 11:11). That will never happen when they are attacking their right to defend themselves or even to exist. An apostate church will never make the Jews want to be like them. It will take a blood bought, God fearing, church that is willing to die for the Jews as Jesus died for them.

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