Glen Hartline

These past couple weeks with everything that have been going on concerning Israel, I’ve had quite a few people ask me my opinion on Israel and the Jewish people, and MANY others offer up their personal opinions in God’s name concerning the subject. This has led me to seek God and try to discern His heart concerning Israel the land, the Jewish people, and how we as Christians should feel and act. This is His response to me.

CONCERNING THE LAND

    The whole earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness. For whatever reason He decided to give that portion of land to the Jewish people and declare that it was their land forever. The only division of the land He allowed is the division between the tribes. Now I realize that the Jewish people have not always controlled or even lived in the land, before or after God gave it to them. That doesn’t matter; the land has always been the Lord’s and His to do with as He pleases. Now people who preach grace, I’m definitely one of them, will tell you that the Old Testament scriptures are valid as long as the go through the cross. That is they must be read in the light of Jesus’ sacrifice. What the Lord has shown me is that the giving of the Land is a promise that was not changed by the cross. This was a promise of a natural place to a natural people and the new covenant has no effect on that promise. The will of God IS for the Jewish people to inhabit ALL the land they have been promised.

CONCERNING THE JEWISH PEOPLE

    All men were created by God. He is the potter and we are the clay. He can create us to do or be anything He desires. With that it was his sovereign will to predestine the Jewish people to be His chosen people. They had nothing to do with it, He decided it and that was that. So what were they chosen to do? It wasn’t that they were chosen to be the ones to be saved, but that through them salvation would come to the whole earth. God predestined that through the Jewish people Jesus would come and bring salvation to ALL the earth. Like I said before, they didn’t have a say in it but that calling subjected them to be persecuted more than any other peoples on the earth. They would have to suffer so that we might be saved. This is no different then what the Lord spoke to Paul when He said He would show him all that he must suffer for the name of Jesus. It’s no different than what ALL the apostles discovered, and really any true believer will discover, that there will be persecutions. Does this mean that the sufferings of the Jewish people endured attributed to their righteousness or brought them special salvation? NO! They still must believe with their heart and confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord to be saved. No different than anyone else. It just means that they were called to suffer so that we could become sons of God. So as Christians we have NO right to boast that we are saved and they are not. They have paid a price so that you could receive salvation. The natural branch was not spared so that YOU could be grafted in, and if the wild olive branch can be grafted in how much easier will it be for the natural branch to be grafted in when their eyes are opened. We should all be thankful for what the Jewish people have done for us. They may not have done it with those intentions, but still they suffered and endured just the same. How can anyone with the heart of our Father feel anything but gratitude for what they have done?

CONCERNING THE CHRISTIAN

    Much of what I wanted to say was said above in the Jewish people section but there are a couple more things. We are not born again into the Jewish nation. We are sons of God, and a new creation. In the kingdom of God there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but one new man. We should pray for the Jewish people just as we are to pray for all people. The Jews need salvation just like any person that has not made Jesus lord and savior. We should pray that all of God’s will and promises be established on earth including the promises concerning the land of Israel. We must stand and pray will ALL peoples who are being persecuted.

CONCERNING JUDGEMENT

    This is a subject I have written on before and really didn’t want to deal with it here but the Lord says it is crucial to understanding what is going on, so if you want a greater explanation of judgment read my judgment blog. First of all we must look at all scripture in the light of the cross. Jesus took ALL judgment from God against sin onto Himself so that we will not be judged. If you understand God is no longer judging individuals then it’s easy to understand He is not judging nations. So why do bad things happen when we go against His will. Easy, why do you get sick or bad things happen to you when you sin. You open the door for the devil and he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. So when we come against God’s will for Israel, satan comes in to do what he likes to do and bring pain and suffering. He gets to do it in a timely fashion and God gets the blame. So you may say, “bad things happen, what does it matter if we say it’s the judgment of God or the work of the devil?” It matters a WHOLE lot. First of all you tell the world we serve a God that doesn’t care that much about His children. Let a national official say something wrong and God will kill a bunch of people, many who are His children who love Him. Why would I want to serve a God like that? Is that Love? Is that long suffering, forgetting when someone does you wrong, is that protecting? Love does all those things and God IS love. How can you have any assurance of salvation, healing, providing for our needs, when you never know when God is going to destroy your life? You see the problem with attributing the disasters to God? Another thing is people will start praying for Israel out of selfish desires to prevent God from judging them. We have established God’s will through His promise to the Jewish people so we pray so He won’t strike us down. You may think, “well, at least we are praying for them.” The reality is we should pray for the land because it is God’s will and the people because they are being persecuted. It is God’s love for them that should compel us to pray. If we pray out of fear, we will pray for Israel and the Jewish people only, but if we pray because we have the heart of God then we will pray for ALL peoples that are being persecuted. There are thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, many Christians that are being persecuted all over the world. It is God’s heart that we pray and stand up for them all.