GeneMBridges said...
Is America prosperous because of its relation to Israel? That would mean that America was not prosperous prior to 1948. That argument is highly dubious.

By way of contrast, we support Israel now, but look @ our nation. Our food supply is easily disrupted. MRSA is on the rise. STD's are on the rise. We've had a man with drug resistant TB enter the nation. The country is flooding and burning, literally. Our fuel supply is easily disrupted, which causes the cost of doing business to rise. This causes groceries to rise. Look at our nation, and tell me that something isn't amiss.

The biblical pattern is that when the covenant people are mistreated, whomever they may be, Israel or the church in the New Covenant era, judgment will ensue. Look at Rome in her day. Look at the nations of Europe that apostatized in the 18th century.

No, I don't think this is a promise for relations with national Israel. Rather, it is extended to those who are Israel, that is, the covenant community.

That said, I do think Israel remains with us as a warning and sign to the church, a parable, if you will, on the consequences of apostasy. She is embattled on all sides, and she remains in state of general rebellion against God and Christ. Most of her people are blinded to the gospel to this day, and truly what came upon "us and our children" has come to pass. I think that in this age, and this is just my opinion, God has put national Israel back on the map at a time when the Church (as a whole) is rife with apostasy within, doctrinal and practical latidudinarianism, and all sorts of ills. I think that God is saying, "Look at Israel, and do not think this will not happen to you." The picture Scripture paints of the Day of the Lord is not a pretty time for the covenant community. Sometimes it is said, "I hope I'm alive when Jesus returns." I'm not so sure I want to live in that time, because I suspect the Church will be at its nadir. She will need her Lord to return in order to clean up the mess she is in. When "the day of the Lord" came upon Israel of old, she was apostate, whether when Babylon came and took her or when they rejected the Lord Jesus Himself. I think the Church, when all is said and done, will have largely, and somewhat poetically, relived the history of Israel of old, such that when the Lord comes, there will be very few pious believers left in the nation, just as there were few in the day she was carried to Babylon and few when Jesus was on the earth. He's coming to judge us first, and the whole earth will be a bystander, as it were, caught in the judgment. Their judgment will come, because the Church will have earned the judgment of the Groom. But that's just my impression...
5/29/07 11:23 PM