“I will make you into a great nation and I
will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a
blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses
you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed
through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)
” ‘The land must not be sold permanently,
because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.
Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must
provide for the redemption of the land. (Leviticus
25:23-24)
Right from the
beginning, the Lord made good on His promise to bless those who
blessed Abraham and curse those who cursed him. When the kings
of 5 nations kidnapped Lot and his family, Abraham went after
them, aided by Aner, Eschol, and Mamre, three leaders of the
Amorites. When the dust had settled, Lot was freed, the 5 kings
were defeated, and the Amorites received a handsome spoil from
the King of Sodom (Gen.14). Those who had
blessed Abraham were blessed and those who had cursed him were
cursed.
When Pharoah tried to prevent the Israelites
from leaving Egypt, pursuing them all the way down the Arabian
Peninsula, his armies were drowned beneath the Red Sea. (Exodus
15:4)
When the Amalekites attacked Israel in the
desert and were defeated, the Lord declared war on them “from
generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:16) Seen
any Amalekites lately?
When Joshua made a pact with the Gibeonites to
help the Israelites during the conquest of the land, the Lord
honored it, and the Gibeonites were spared. Later when Saul set
out to eliminate them from the land the Lord was angered and
sent David to apologize and restore them. (2 Samuel
21:1-4)
The Ammonites, the Edomites, the Moabites, and
the Philistines all gave Israel trouble from time to time after
they settled in the land. Sometimes God used them as agents of
His judgment against disobedient Israel, and other times it was
of their own volition. But eventually their animosity toward
Israel brought about their destruction. When the Lord sent
Babylon to execute His judgment against Israel, He had
Nebuchadnezzar destroy those nations completely.
But even the mighty Babylon earned the Lord’s
displeasure for the way they treated His people. He told
Jeremiah that as soon as Israel’s 70-year exile had been
completed, He would judge their captors (Jer. 25:12).
150 years earlier God had warned Babylon they would mistreat His
people and He would judge them because of it, but they paid no
heed. Read the words of Isaiah.
“I was angry with my people and desecrated
my inheritance; I gave them into your hand, and you showed them
no mercy. Even on the aged you laid a very heavy yoke. You said,
I will continue forever— the eternal queen!’ But you did not
consider these things or reflect on what might happen.
“Now then, listen, you wanton creature,
lounging in your security and saying to yourself, ‘I am, and
there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or suffer the
loss of children.’ Both of these will overtake you in a moment,
on a single day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come
upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and
all your potent spells.
You have trusted in your wickedness and
have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge mislead
you when you say to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides
me.’
Disaster will come upon you, and you will
not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you
that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot
foresee will suddenly come upon you.” (Isaiah
47:6-11)
At the end of the 70 years, the Lord sent the
Medes and Persians against them and the great City of Babylon
was conquered. Cyrus the Persian set the Israelites free,
returned the loot stolen from the Temple Nebuchadnezzar had
destroyed and helped them rebuild it. Later Persian King
Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah permission to rebuild the Holy City and
its walls (Nehemiah 2) an event that started
the clock running on Daniel’s 70 Weeks prophecy (Daniel
9:24-27). In return the Kingdom of Persia enjoyed
several generations of peace and prosperity.
When Alexander the Great came through the
Middle East but spared Jerusalem, he was blessed with an
unbroken string of victories the likes of which the world had
never seen, reaching into Africa and all the way across India.
That Was Then. What About Now?
In modern times Israel’s first benefactor was
Great Britain. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 made the creation
of the modern nation possible. The Lord had given the British
lands that spanned the globe. “The sun never sets on the British
Empire,” was their legitimate boast. But in 1938 when they
suddenly changed their tune and began a period of open hostility
toward Israel things changed. Today most of that Empire is gone
and Britain is no longer the dominant world power.
And now it seems like the US is learning a
similar lesson. In the years since the Madrid Conference was
held in 1991, a series of “natural” disasters have struck the
US, each on the heels of something we did or helped do that runs
contrary to God’s declaration concerning the real ownership of
the Land of Israel. I’ve listed them below.
1. October 30, 1991: The Perfect Storm – As
President George H. W. Bush is opening the Madrid (Spain)
Conference to consider “land for peace” and Israel’s Middle East
role, the “perfect storm” develops in the North Atlantic,
creating the largest waves ever recorded in that region. The
storm travels 1000 miles from “east to west” instead of the
normal “west to east” pattern and crashes into the New England
Coast. Thirty-five foot waves pound Kennebunkport,Maine,
the summer home of the Bush family.
2. August 23, 1992: Hurricane Andrew – When
the Madrid Conference moves to Washington DC and the peace talks
resume, Hurricane Andrew, the worst natural disaster ever to hit
America, comes ashore and produces an estimated $30 billion in
damage and leaving 180,000 homeless in Florida.
3. January 16, 1994: Northridge
Earthquake—President Bill Clinton meets with Syria’s President
Hafez el-Assad in Geneva. They talk about a peace agreement with
Israel that includes giving up the Golan Heights. Within 24
hours, a powerful 6.9 earthquake rocks Southern California, This
quake, centered in Northridge, becomes the second most
destructive natural disaster to hit the United States, behind
Hurricane Andrew.
4. January 21, 1998: Lewinsky Scandal –
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President
Clinton at the White House and is coldly received. Clinton and
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright refuse to have lunch with
him. Shortly afterwards on that day, the Monica Lewinsky scandal
breaks into the mass media and begins to occupy a major portion
of Clinton’s time.
5. September 28, 1998: Hurricane George – As
Secretary of State Albright works on the final details of an
agreement in which Israel would give up 13 percent of the West
Bank, Hurricane George slams into the United States Gulf Coast
with 110 mph winds and gusts up to 175 mph. The hurricane hits
the coast and is stalled there. On September 28, Clinton meets
with Yasser Arafat and Netanyahu at the White House to finalize
this land deal. Later, Arafat addresses the United Nations about
declaring an independent Palestinian state by May 1999, as
Hurricane George pounds the Gulf Coast, causing $1 billion in
damage. At the exact time that Arafat departs the country, the
storm begins to dissipate.
6. October 15-22, 1998: Texas Flooded – On
October 15, 1998, Arafat and Netanyahu meet at the Wye River
Plantation in Maryland. The talks are scheduled to last five
days with the focus on Israel giving up the aforementioned 13
percent of the West Bank. The talks are extended and conclude on
October 23. On October 17, awesome rains and tornadoes hit
southern Texas. The San Antonio area is deluged with rain. The
rain and flooding in Texas continue until October 22 and then
subside. The floods ravage 25 percent of Texas and leave over
one billion dollars in damage. On October 21, Clinton declares
this section of Texas a major disaster area.
7. November 30, 1998: Market Capitalization
Evaporates – Arafat comes to Washington again to meet with
President Clinton to raise money for a Palestinian state with
Jerusalem as the capitol. A total of 42 other nations were
represented in Washington. All the nations agreed to give Arafat
$3 billion in aid. Clinton promised $400 million, and the
European nations $1.7 billion. On the same day, the Dow Jones
average drops 216 points, and on December 1, the European Market
had its third worst day in history. Hundreds of billions of
market capitalization were wiped out in the U.S. and Europe.
8. December 12, 1998: Clinton is Impeached –
As Clinton lands in the Palestinian-controlled section of Israel
to discuss the “land for peace” process, the House of
Representatives votes four articles of impeachment against him.
9. May 3, 1999: The Powerful Super Tornado –
On the day that Yasser Arafat is scheduled to declare a
Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital, the most
powerful tornado storm system ever to hit the United States
sweeps across Oklahoma and Kansas. The winds are clocked at 316
mph the fastest wind speed ever recorded. The declaration is
postponed to December 1999 at the request of President Clinton,
whose letter to Arafat encourages him in his “aspirations for
his own land.” He also writes that the Palestinians have a right
to “determine their own future on their own land” and that they
deserve to “live free, today, tomorrow and forever.”
10. Week of October 11, 1999: Hurricane,
Earthquake and Dow Collapse – As Jewish settlers in 15 West Bank
settlements are evicted from covenant land, the Dow-Jones
financial averages lose 5.7 percent in the worst week since
October 1989. On October 15 the Dow lost 266 points, and a
hurricane slams into North Carolina. On the next morning,
October 16, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocks the southwest in
the fifth most powerful earthquake in 20th Century. The
earthquake was centered in the California desert and did little
damage but was felt in three states. (source:
www.truthorfiction.com)
11. August 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina.
One week before Katrina made landfall, Israel carried out the
evacuation of 9,500 residents from Gush Katif and four Samaria
communities. Residents were forced from their homes by Israeli
troops, some dragged away kicking and screaming and placed on
buses that took them from the area. The Gaza evacuation had been
supported and even urged upon Israel by the US. Projected
to be one of the most expensive natural disasters in our
history, Katrina is the latest in a string of events that most
experts agree are too consistent to be mere coincidence, but
disagree as to their relevance. (Source:
www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46178)
Coincidence Is Not A Kosher Word
The lessons of history are unmistakably clear.
Those who have blessed Abraham have been blessed, while those
who have cursed him have been cursed. The Law of Cause and
Effect is clearly established in the incidents I’ve described
above. Even those who deny the existence of God have seen
the trend. So when the US makes such an obvious change in
course toward Israel as our government seems to be making now,
what right have we to expect anything but disaster? Applying the
historic trend to the present, it wouldn’t take a prophet to
predict even greater disasters for the US in the weeks and
months ahead.
Here’s the latest development in the current
diplomatic crisis between Israel and the US. Pres. Obama
and Sec’y of State Clinton have issued the following ultimatum
to Israel:
1. The Netanyahu government must extend
the 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction to
include East Jerusalem;
2. When the moratorium runs out in
September, it must be renewed for the duration of peace
negotiations with the Palestinians;
3. Israeli must make more concessions to the
Palestinian Authority and its chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
This is all part of an effort to force Israel
and the Palestinians to start negotiating again. The
Israeli government was informed that until those conditions were
met, its ministers would not be received in Washington by
high-level American officials. This is a virtual boycott,
which downgrades the normal diplomatic, strategic and security
exchanges between the two administrations. So far neither
party to the difference has mentioned the US administration’s
fourth condition for resuming normal relations: an Israeli
commitment to refrain from attacking Iran’s nuclear program
without prior US consent.
But there’s still more. CENTCOM chief,
Gen. David Petraeus, has not as yet formally asked for the
Palestinian territories to be transferred to his command, but
did say: “Staff members at various times have discussed asking
for the Palestinian territories to be added to CENTCOM’s turf.”
If approved, this step would be tantamount to providing the
Palestinians with an American military umbrella against Israel.
(Source: debkafile. www.debka.com/article/8657/)
And this week Pres. Obama ordered a shipment
of arms already bound for Israel to be diverted instead to the
US Air Force base in Diego Garcia. Israeli PM Netanyahu
and Defense minister Barak will be in the US this week and will
try to persuade Pres. Obama to change his mind.
On the issue of Israel American believers are
hopelessly divided. Many of us have been so blinded by the
heresy called Replacement Theology (it teaches that the Church
has replaced Israel in God’s plan) that we’re like Belshazzar,
the spoiled Prince of Babylon. We’re trembling in fear but can’t
read the handwriting on the wall. (Daniel 5:5-6)
We need to forget everything else where Israel is concerned and
remember this one thing. God has claimed that land for Himself.
No power on Earth is great enough to give even one inch of it to
anyone else at any time for any reason without suffering the
consequences. We now have eleven clear examples of that truth.
How many will it take before we learn? Selah 03-20-10
