Does God Still Favor His People

My Trip To Israel

Last summer I recieved a link to apply for a trip to Israel. I applied, and against all odds was selected to receive a free trip to Israel. Air fair, food, hotel, and tour all organized and mostly paid for by an organization called Friends of Zion. The trip was 1,000 pastors showing their support for Israel in light of the Oct 7, 2023 attack. Since this was a trip set up for this purpose and since the organization was organizing the tours this was not a typical Holy Land tour. We did get to see some special holy sights. We also got see some of the horrors of a terroristic military invasion. The trip seemed to me divided into 2 parts. Things that happened 2 years ago, and things that happened 2000 years ago.

Dec 2

On December 2nd at 6:30 in the morning I arrived in Israel (Show welcome to Israel Picture). By the time I arrived in Jerusalem a couple hours later I had been awake for nearly 24 hours. I am almost embarrassed to admit that my first day in Israel was almost entirely spent sleeping. Since there were 1000 pastors we did not arrive at the same time. That evening we were divided into our various tour busses. Each day had events for everyone, and events where we split into our various bus groups and toured different places.

Dec 3

December 3rd the trip really began. We headed south from Jerusalem to an area of Israel bordering the Gaza Strip. (Show map of Israel with the various attacks or at least Nova highlighted) We headed to the site of the largest massacre on Oct 7. It was a festival ground called Nova. There was a music festival going on that day. At around 6:30 in the morning the missiles started coming. One of the many crazy things to me was that for 15 minutes with the sky full of missiles, and sirens wailing the music didn’t stop. Not because they didn’t notice, but because it was so normal. In southern Israel beside every bus stop is a bomb shelter. Inside every house is a bomb shelter. At the Nova Site they had brought mobile bomb shelters. That part of Israel has been under such constant rocket attacks for years that a rocket attack wasn’t a big enough deal to stop the party, it was every day life. After 15 minutes, and hundreds of rockets that just kept coming people finally started to realize that something was not normal about this. It wasn’t stopping. The 3500 or so attendees began to leave the site. The roads turned into a traffic jam. The terrorist went up and down among the stuck cars murdering the occupants. People hid in the bomb shelters, including the large one at the festival grounds. Those people died. 364 people were killed, or far worse and then killed. Whatever the worst thing you can imagine is, it happened there. Dozens were taken hostage.

(Show picture of the hostages) The event at the festival grounds was an event with all 1000 pastors. We heard from several people who were taken hostage as well as a military leader and American citizen Edan Alexander.

(Show pictures of the flowers, and the trees, and the stage.)

After the ceremony we toured the memorial for a few minutes to see the pictures and read the stories of each person who died there. Then we gathered in our bus group (about 35 people) to hear the story of a survivor of that day. (Show picture of our group) She survived by driving across the fields around the traffic jam, and after being forced back into the traffic she helped a person who was shot and then ran on foot across the fields, at one point hiding in a ditch while terrorist searched for her and her younger cousins and siblings. They were close enough to hear them walking and talking. Eventually they were able to run some more. As they ran they were at another point in a valley or had run down from a ridge and were shot at as they ran across the valley for awhile. The group of people with her finally found a car and drove across fields until they came to a village that had not been capture. She survived along with her younger sibling and younger cousins that she was taking care of.

(show picture of the attack map from Sderot) That was the first event of the trip. Welcome to the Holy Land. Our next event was even more difficult. Our bus headed to Sderot. A village that sits only a few hundred yards from the border fence. This town was one of 32 towns taken over by the terrorist and one of 33 attacked. Hamas attacked on 7 different fronts simultaneously, breaking through the fence, going around it on the Mediterranean and going over it with Paragliders. We were probably the first foreign tour group to visit a new museum in this town. The museum features audio and video footage, unedited, from Oct 7. The claim is that nothing graphic is shown, that’s barely true I guess. It depends on your definition of things. There was an intro video then there are 2 options. You could watch some virtual reality videos about some survivors and heroes of that day, which we did. Or you could put on some noise cancelling headphones and listen to audio from that day. There were I think 5 audio recordings and we all got to hear about 4. That was the hardest thing. I listened to parts of a conversation of a young girl, I think 6 years old, talking on the phone to her mom. She was under a blanket in the corner of a room hiding from terrorists who had just killed her father and older brother. When they left the house she called her mom. She, along with her younger brother who was with her survived. Another audio clip was from inside one of the roadside bomb shelters (made to hold 8 people with over 20 inside) as 1 unarmed soldier heroically, but ultimately unsuccessfully defended it from a small group of terrorists. Throwing back 7 grenades before eventually being killed. While nothing horrifically graphic was seen at this museum, I can’t really describe the audio.

(show pictures of opening ceremony) That evening we had an official opening ceremony featuring Isreal’s president (not to be confused with prime minister), a senior Israeli diplomat, Friends of Zion founder and chair Dr. Mike Evans and Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee is a tremendous speaker by the way. I think it was at this even that a former hostage name Omer Shem Tov spoke. He was a captive for 505 day, about 450 of those he was held underground. He was fed with a crust of bread and a bit of water each day. Early on in his captivity he prayed, I think for some food or something and was given a small container of grape juice. He used it to celebrate the Sabbath each week, to obey 4th commandment even in captivity underground.

That was just our first day!

Dec 4

Our next day was not so long, but really no less intense. (show pictures of Mt. Herzl) We had an event at Mt. Herzl, which is Israels Arlington National Cemetery. We heard from people who had lost husbands, wives, or children in the fighting both on Oct. & and over the last couple years. We placed a rose at the grave of a fallen soldier and then we headed to I think the headquarters of the border police. (Show pictures of their equipment) There learned more about the attack, the defense, the war, and we saw several videos that were incredibly graphic. I could not watch all of them.

Finally we headed back to Jerusalem to begin touring the places where Jesus lived and taught. (Show pictures of Southern Steps event) As the sun set we gathered on the southern steps of the temple mount. Steps that Jesus would have walked up on his way to worship in the temple. We sang and worshiped and heard a devotional while sitting on steps that Jesus walked on. (Show pictures of the Western Wall) Then we went around the corner to pray at the Western Wall.

Dec 5

While that evening was special it did not compare to the next day. My favorite. Some context is important. I have requested prayer for my sister-in-law and for my nephew. I am bad at giving updates. Well on December 1st my nephew Samuel was born. He is healthy and doing well. At his one month checkup there were no issues. My Sister-in-Law is doing better as well. She continues to get better and get stronger, but slowly. She is finally off of all major medications.

(Show picture of Shiloh) Just a few days after Samuel was born, and after 2 days full of the horrors of terroristic warfare we visited Shiloh. That might not seem at all that special to you. It didn’t to me either at first. When we think of Israel we think of Jerusalem, of Bethlehem, of the sea of Galilee. Yet the first capital of Israel was Shiloh. Shiloh is where Joshua set up his camp and lead the people from. Shiloh is the city where the tabernacle rested after the wilderness wonderings. Shiloh is the place where people came to worship in Israel, the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, for almost 400 years. Over 3000 years ago the city was destroyed. We read in the Bible about the defeat of Israels army that probably led to the destruction of Shiloh and the tabernacle. But I want to read from a little before that. 1 Samuel 1:1–2 “Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite: And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh.

(Show picture of tabernacle site) I have always pictured Hannah praying at the temple. Eli being at the temple. etc… that whole story I have always viewed as happening in Jerusalem. But it happened here, in Shiloh. If you thought like I did, that it was all in the temple you should be embarrassed. Trust me, I am.

Who built the temple? Solomon. Who was his father? David. Who anointed David and died before David was king? Samuel. So how could Hannah pray at a place that was about 2 and 1/2 generations from being built?

At Shiloh they have found the exact location of the tabernacle. We were allowed to go out onto the tabernacle foundation and to pray. At the place where God answered the prayers of Hannah for Samuel, At the place where the presence of God had a physical dwelling place for 400 years we got to pray. And just a few days before an answer to so many prayers. My nephew Samuel was born.

I know that we are the temple of the living God. I know that God’s Spirit dwells within our hearts, but it was still a special special place.

Shiloh is in the territory that is known as Judea and Samaria. I’m not sure when they combined the naming of them into 1, but that is how they constantly referred to it. Many of the Bible’s stories happened in this area. Jesus ministry was much in this area. Yet us being there had to have been by far the most dangerous part of our trip. That whole area is Arab controlled. It is inside of Israels military boundaries, yet it, like the Gaza Strip, has a mostly Arab population and is largely self governing. I’m glad I didn’t think about it until that evening when we were safely back in Jerusalem.

This area, also known as the west bank borders the city of Jerusalem. It also contains Bethlehem. It is a massive security risk and our event their was Dr. Mike Evans calling for Israel, (and for American support) to fully annex Judea and Samaria.

(show pictures) After Shiloh we travelled back to Jerusalem and to the Garden Tomb. We saw the hill that used to look like a skull. It doesn’t anymore because of erosion. We enter an empty tomb and see a place where Jesus may have been laid. We then had a communion service as the sun set in the Garden around the empty tomb.

That was our day, and it was a truly special one.

Dec 6

The next morning we explored the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Old City is occupied by 4 distinct groups and each one lives in their own section of the city. There is the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Armenian Quarter, and the Muslim Quarter. Jerusalem is a key city for 3 religions. The Armeniens would also be broadly under the Christian umbrella as Armenia is the first country to be a Christian Country and it remains so to this day, as least in name. So these 3 religions share a city in an uneasy peace. All 3 though wish to preserve the sacred sites found in the old city.

(show pictures of upper room) In our morning tour we got to tour the upper room. Now it has been destroyed and rebuilt since Jesus time, but the location is correct, even if the architecture is not. We sang and worshipped in the place of the last supper and in the place where the Holy Ghost first fell on Pentecost. We also saw Davids tomb. (Hezekiah’s wall) We saw the foundations of Hezekiah’s wall, as well as the Roman marketplace, I think from the time about 100 years after Jesus time when a Roman emporor decided to wipe the memory of Jerusalem and the Jews from the face of the earth. He removed all Jewish people from the area and renamed and rea-arranged the city. What he named the city, I don’t remember. His name? I think it was Hadrian. I’m not sure. I do know that today the city is Jerusalem, and the Jewish people have come home.

(Show picture of the Menorah) There is a group of Jews who want to rebuild the temple and re-instate the sacrificial law. They have built all the altars and implements for the temple. They lack only the temple itself and the Ark of the Covenant.

(Show picture of the temple mount) Why don’t they start building? Well the temple mount is home to 2 Mosques and in fact Jewish people are not allowed on the temple mount. So they wait. With varying degrees of patience.

We visited the Friends of Zion museum where we learned about various Christian leaders who have helped found the modern nation of Israel dating back to the early 1800’s.

In the afternoon we went back to the old city and walked the Via Dolorosa. The way of the cross. We visited ancient churches set on the places where Jesus was convicted, was beaten, we stopped at various places where it is believed that Jesus stumbled as He carried his cross.(pictures of the cross area and tomb area. And finally we arrived at the Church of the Holy Sepulcure. The traditional place of Jesus crucifixion, burial, and resurection.

While the Garden Tomb fits the biblical detail down to a tee, so too did the place the church is built over. about 1700 years ago the sites were established with buildings. With a small church over the empty tomb. I think that the early Christians wouldn’t have forgotten something so important in just a few generations. We remember where the important things of our country occured. We know where the declaration of independence was signed, where the Constitution was formed, and going back much further than that we know many locations of unimportant happening during colonial times. I think the early Christians probably remembered long enough for Christianity to become legal, and for the sites to be officially established. about 1100 years ago the massive church that covers the garden, the tomb, golgotha was built and it also covers at least one earlier church. For all the peace and serenity of the Garden Tomb, the church of the Holy Sepulchure is overwhelming in architecture, in decoration, in pomp and circumstance, but both are done to worship the one who died for us.

That evening we went and toured some archeological tunnels underneath the Arab quarter along the western wall of the temple. Very cool, but I promise I am trying to hurry.

Dec 7

The last day. We began the day with a full 1000 person service on the mount of olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem and the temple mount. Between the hotel and the mount of olives is the garden of Gethsemane. We weren’t scheduled to see it so I decided to walk and see it myself.

(Show picture from halfway point) I climbed halfway up the Mount of Olives and descended on the path that Jesus would have come down during his triumphal entry. Just a little below where he is supposed to have stopped and wept over the city I stopped and looked also.

(Picture of Eastern Gate) I don’t know if you can see or not but there is a blocked gate, and just below it a cemetery. Jesus is supposed to come through that gate so the Muslim Turks in the 1500’s filled it with concrete and put a cemetery there. I don’t think that will be a problem at all.

(Show picture of the trees) In the garden of Gethsemane are several old Olive trees. This one estimated to have been alive during the time of Jesus. (picture of rock inside church) There is a church built here, over the rock where it is beleived that Jesus prayed in the Garden just before being betrayed by Judas. Whether over this rock or not, it was in this place where Jesus said “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

Then I went on and joined the others on top of the Mount of Olives to worship near the place where Jesus ascended into heaven.

We closed out the trip with a lengthy ceremony with lots of important people including George Barna of the Barna group.

Then we came home.

Israel Was God’s People

Tonight I didn’t want to just tell you about my trip and show you the pictures. I have a much more important purpose tonight. I opened talking about some non-negotiables that have been negotiated in recent years. One of those, one that has in some ways been the most surprising and in other ways the least surprising is that some people no longer believe that the Jewish people are God’s chosen people. And they do not believe that the land God gave to them is rightfully theirs. I sure hope I don’t need to talk about the political and societal defenses for Israel. And this isn’t the place for it anyway. I will say that Israels war on Hamas is perhaps the most just war in the history of all wars and it has been fought with extreme restraint and respect for the dignity of human life, even of those who are trying to kill you. I didn’t mention earlier that in some of the villiages overrun by Hamas that it wasn’t just soldiers and terrorists that showed up. The people followed the soldeirs in and looted and stole and probably worse. But all that is beside the point.

My question tonight is this. Does God still favor His people? Lets start with what every Christian believes. Israel was chosen special by God. Abraham was called to be the father of a nation that would one day bless the world. That blessing came through Jesus Christ. Genesis 12:1–3 “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Now that promise some might say only applied to Abraham. But it was repeated to Isaac and Jacob and Judah. Genesis 17:19 “And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.” Here God calls his promise through Isaac everlasting. Everlasting, not temporary.

I don’t need to spend time here. So lets move on.

Israel Will Be God’s People

Just as clear as it is that God chose the nation of Israel as His special people and gave them their land, is the fact that God will in the future choose Israel.

Let me first go to Ezekiel. You know the story of the dry bones? Ezekiel was put in a valley full of dry bones and told to prophecy that they would live again and God brought life back to these dry bones. Now what is that story about? Ezekiel 37:21–28 “And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: (Jumping ahead) so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.”

How about Amos 9:14–15 “And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, And they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; And they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; They shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, And they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, Saith the Lord thy God.”

Ezekiel 38 details a time when Israel is dwelling safely and armies will gather to destroy them. Verse 16 even defines it as occuring in the latter days. God says the enemies will gather against His land, that the heathen may know God when God protects His people.

The book of Revelation speaks of the 144,000 Jews being saved in chapter 7.

We see in these prophecies words like everlasting. Statements like they will be no more pulled from the land. Plain statements that these prophecies are about the latter days, days which are yet to come, or are currently upon us.

One of the key messages of the Bible is that God keeps His promises. God has promised much to Israel that has yet to be fulfilled. Or promises that we can see with our eyes being fulfilled. Micah 3:12 “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, And Jerusalem shall become heaps, And the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.” This has already happened. But what happens next? Micah 4:1 “But in the last days it shall come to pass, That the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, And it shall be exalted above the hills; And people shall flow unto it.” Now that hasn’t happened yet.

Micah 5:7–8 “And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people As a dew from the Lord, As the showers upon the grass, That tarrieth not for man, Nor waiteth for the sons of men. And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people As a lion among the beasts of the forest, As a young lion among the flocks of sheep: Who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, And none can deliver.”

That happened. The people were scattered, yet have been blessed of God wherever they went.

Micah 7:14 “Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, Which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.” Matthew Henry wrote, early in the 1700’s

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible Chapter 7

When God is about to deliver his people, he stirs up their friends to pray for them.

This was fulfilled starting in the early 1800’s as people began to pray for the restoration of Israel to the Israelites. This passage goes on to talk of God’s grace and forgiveness, of how God had once brought His people out of Egypt and how again Micah 7:16 “The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: They shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf.” Matthew Henry realized at least to some degree what this meant.

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible Chapter 7

These engagements relate to Christ, and the success of the gospel to the end of time, the future restoration of Israel, and the final prevailing of true religion in all lands.

Israel was restored in 1948. Prophecies, clear prophecies are being fulfilled before our very eyes and yet we say that God has abandoned his people! Why? (By the way, this is by no means and exhaustive study. These are just a few verses I noticed in my devotions for the most part!)

The Root of the Opposition

As much as I believe it is a lie from Satan Himself, like most of Satan’s lies it starts with a nugget of truth that is twisted until it means the opposite of what God said.

Romans 11:17 “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;”

So here it is. The unbelieving branches broken off, and the gentiles grafted in.

Romans 11:21 “For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.”

Ok. But lets look at the beginning of the chapter.

Romans 11:1 “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid.

Romans 11:2 “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.

Romans 11:11 “I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” Remember how Ryan talked of God calling His people back through struggle? God is calling His people, not rejecting them.

Romans 11:18–20 “Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:” Between the verses that are used as the basis of God’s rejection of Israel is quite a warning to us.

Romans 11:25–29 “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

I hope I have put to rest in your minds this nonsense idea that God is done with His people. At this point in history, it circumstantially baseless, and Biblically idiotic!

One more thought for the road though. Jesus had some things to say about the end times. We look often at Matthew 25, but in Luke 21 Jesus had some interesting things to say. A verse jumped out at my dad over New Years that none of us had ever noticed before.

Luke 21:24 “And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Sounds a lot like Romans 11 doesn’t it? Blindness in part by Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

The context of Luke 21 is the second coming of Christ. We are watching prophecy be fulfilled today. From about 70 AD until 1948 very few Jews lived in Israel and Jerusalem. It was very much trampled under foot of the Gentiles. Micah prophesied of a time when people would be stirred up to pray for God’s people. In the early 1800’s a movement began to return Israel to the Jews. Micah Prophesied that they would be regathered, like when they returned after captivity in Egypt and that the nations would be confounded at their might. That certainly did not happen until 1948 and today people are so confounded at the might of Israel that they blame everything on Israel! Certainly a prophecy that has come true. So now Jerusalem is no more trampled under foot of the Gentiles. It is the capital city of a mighty Israel. That sure seems to mean that the time of the Gentiles, our time is fulfilled. So what comes next? Luke 21:31–34 “So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.”