The Middle East is constantly highlighted across the media. In particular the arguments between the Palestinians and the Israeli’s over who in entitled to the land the Bible called Canaan. Islam tries to stake a claim to it all. Unfortunately for them even their Koran specifically mentions God gave the land to Israel. Then the Jewish Scriptures assert, with the support of history, that the land belongs to Israel.
However there is a problem. The small country which makes the world tremble whenever trouble breaks out doesn’t belong to anyone nation or tribe. Leviticus 25:23 makes this clear: The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. (Emphasis added) To whom is the ‘mine’ referring. Not to Allah. It belongs to Yahweh (Jehovah)!
When the Lord God of Hosts chose such a small parcel of the earth as His own He had a strategy in mind. Ezekiel 5:5: Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the centre of the nations, with countries all around her.’ According to the Scriptures this land was special to God for specific reasons. Some of those we will consider in coming weeks. This should actually make individuals and nations serious think through how they treat what God delights in. We are told that His eyes are on this area constantly for He cares for it.
How then did the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob come to possess it? The Scriptures tells us the Lord God gifted it to them as an inheritance. Jeremiah stressed this in a prophecy recorded in 3:18: In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I (God) gave your ancestors for an inheritance.’
Why would the Eternal God and Creator want to do such a thing? As with anything recorded within the pages of the Bible, there is a purpose. It has to do with redeeming a lost world, overthrowing a usurper’s attempt at domination and dethroning Death’s claim to sovereignty. It is within the book of Genesis we will begin our journey of discovery and understanding why this all was necessary.
The land God has claimed as His own is featured in the Bible as the centre for Moral and Spiritual domination. This is the real issue which is being played out behind the political games of the nations and the anti–Jewish rhetoric throughout the media. Consciously or unconsciously the anti–Christ and anti–Yahweh forces of this world want to rob God of His land and destroy His purposes and obliterate those He claims as His inheritance. You can read all about it in the books of Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah and Revelation for starters. You will also read of the failure of such opposition.
To be continued.
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