God’s Promise To Israel

Commentary

Scripture is full of insight into Israel’s relationship with God over the course of history. How they went through generations of loving and obeying God to despising and disobeying Him to the point of provoking His wrath. Many lessons can be learned from these accounts, and through them, we learn much about God’s character. The passage above records God’s promise to Israel, that He would eventually bring them back to their promised land and would ultimately give them a new heart for Him.

At this very moment in history, we are seeing the first part taking place, the return of Jews to their land in unbelief. They’re not being rewarded for great faith and obedience to the Lord; in fact, a vast majority of Jews today do not seek the God of their ancestors. God is doing what He promised, bringing them back to their land because He said that He would.

The importance of this can’t be overstated. There are many Christians today who believe that God is done with the Jewish people and that the Church has taken the spiritual place of Israel. But God has a plan for the Jews, particularly the last days remnant of Jews. God’s Word is replete with evidence of His promise to restore Israel back to Him, and the Bible teaches that God cannot break His promises.

As followers of Christ, we should take great comfort in this, since God cannot break His promise to Israel, then we absolutely can be assured that He will not break His promises to us.

Over the next four days, we will see what the Bible has to say about the Jewish people.

Commentary

Centuries before Jesus came to this Earth, God gave Daniel the bird’s-eye view of His plan for the Jews. As noted, this plan will fulfill many things.

To bring the rebellion to an end

To put a stop to sin

To atone for iniquity

To bring in everlasting righteousness

To seal up vision and prophecy

To anoint the most holy place

Expressed in a period of 70 weeks, it’s a total of 490 years, each week being a 7-year period of time. This prophetic timeline is focused specifically on Israel, as noted by the angel, and this 490 years has not been fulfilled in totality yet. The first 483 years began in Spring 445 BC, when Nehemiah was given permission by King Artaxerxes to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city walls, recorded in Nehemiah chapter 2. The first 69 weeks of this prophetic time went all the way through to Jesus’ ministry and His crucifixion, which I believe to have taken place in AD 32.

This prophecy is powerful evidence of the fact that not only is the Bible God’s Word, but that what He said He will do, He will do. There remains the last week, the 70th week, which has not yet come to pass, and Scripture tells us a lot about that last week or 7-year period of time.

Commentary

As Daniel’s prophecy stated, the Anointed One (as we now know, Jesus) would end the first 69 weeks or 483 years of time that God had set aside for Israel. After Jesus entered into Jerusalem during His ministry, He again warned them that a terrible time was coming because of their unbelief. This time He was prophesying about what would end up taking place in AD 70 and AD 135 as the Romans would destroy the Jewish Temple and later Jerusalem after uprisings by the Jews.

What happened as a result fulfilled more prophecy for Israel, which was the final scattering of the Jews among the Gentile nations. God gave them all that they needed to know about their then-coming Messiah. Through Daniel, He gave them even an exact number of days if they would’ve been paying attention, but the vast majority of them were not. Jesus Himself said that after this dispersion took place, then Jerusalem would be under the feet of Gentiles until the time of Gentiles is complete. This will be completed when Jesus returns. As a result, the 70th week of Daniel has not yet taken place and will not until the appointed time of the end, which only God knows.

By Israel, God gave us the Law, the Prophets, and Jesus. Through their disobedience, God has brought the gift of salvation to the Gentile nations. In their spiritual blindness, God has blessed the rest of the world with the ability to seek Him and find Him through Christ. We must understand that this same fact is true for the Jews; they must accept Jesus as their Savior in order to be saved. Believers prior to the revelation of Jesus believed by faith that God would bring a Savior, and now salvation is granted by believing in the Savior that He has brought. Witnessing to Jewish people is just as important as with any other person.

Commentary

The coming 70th week (7 years) of Daniel’s prophecy is also known by other names in the Bible, a time of trouble for Jacob (Israel), aka Time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7) and the Great Tribulation (Revelation 7:14). This last prophetic 7 years of time will be the sealing up of prophecy that God’s angel told Daniel about (Daniel 9:24). Jesus also described this time in Matthew 24 as the worst time this world will ever see.

God will allow Israel to be involved in a 7-year covenant with a prominent world leader, who will be revealed as the final Antichrist 3.5 years into that last 7-year period of time.

It’s at this time that the time of the Gentiles is made complete, and God once again turns His focus to Israel. He will use this horrific time as the catalyst which will bring all of the remaining Jews to faith in their Messiah, Jesus.

Jesus even said that Israel as a whole would not see Him again until they were calling out to Him.

This is the character of our God: that He would pursue those whom He loves with such devotion that they would come to Him. This is important to know as Christ followers, because when it looks like someone is unredeemable, only God truly knows. He just might surprise you when that person one day opens the door to Jesus’ call — a spirit once dead, made alive forevermore in Christ Jesus.

Commentary

During the 7-year Tribulation, God will seal 144,000 Jewish men who will come to know Jesus by faith and I believe they will be God’s chosen to evangelize with the Gospel during that time of wrath on the Earth. Also during that time, many will be saved from all nations, both Gentile and Jew. God will send His people Israel to a safe place once Antichrist overtakes Jerusalem, and near the end, God will fulfill His promise to restore His chosen people back to Him. All of Israel, at that time, will be saved.

At the end of the final 7 years, Jesus will return with all who died trusting in Him, to Jerusalem, where He will destroy the army that Satan has amassed, along with the Antichrist and False Prophet (Revelation 19). Jesus will establish His Millennial Kingdom on this Earth where He will fulfill His promise to rule over this world from Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:1-21, Revelation 20).

While many professing Christians throughout the centuries have fallen into the lie of believing that God is done with Israel, Scripture clearly and abundantly teaches otherwise. As followers of Christ, we should take great comfort in knowing that God has not changed His mind about Israel and will not change His mind about us either. While we don’t and shouldn’t support any evil things that Israel does, the Bible does promise blessing to those who show kindness and love to God’s chosen people, and also promises curses upon those who choose to persecute the Jews (Genesis 12:3).