Why Israel Must Survive - Part A

So there's claim and counterclaim. So much so that no human court could ever settle the matter in a way that would be amicable to all parties.

So, I appeal to a higher authority, and that is the Bible. And if you believe in the Bible, then the ownership of the land is settled and unambiguous. It's His land.

It's His land. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip begins his message, Why Israel Must Survive, and shows you why God is the true and uncontested owner of the land of Israel. Now, here's more about this month's resource to give you a deeper appreciation for Scripture's teaching on the end times. Is the end near?

That's a question on many minds, and that's why Pastor Skip Heitzig spent many months in 2023 presenting 26 full-length messages in his The End is Near series. The second coming of Jesus Christ dominates the Bible. Next to the subject of faith, the coming of Christ in the future is the most discussed topic in the book. To complement this excellent series, a study guide from Skip is now available. This study guide is over 100 pages in length and covers all 26 messages in the series. The End is Near study guide includes notes, summaries, and questions for group or personal study.

We need to understand the times, and this study guide will aid in this effort. With your gift of $50 or more to connect with Skip Heitzig, you will receive a copy of the End is Near study guide from Skip's in-depth 26-part series. Your gift will support the production and expansion of the Connect with Skip broadcast. Call 1-800-922-1888 or go online to connectwithskip.com.

That's 1-800-922-1888 or connectwithskip.com. Okay, let's get started. We're in Ezekiel today as Skip begins his teaching. Let me begin with a quote that took place in the 1700s when Frederick the Great was the king of Prussia, and he was having a discussion with his chaplain, court chaplain. The king said, can you provide for me proof of the inspiration of the Bible? The chaplain said back to the king, your majesty, I can answer your request in a word, the Jew.

The Jew, your majesty, the Jew, he said. If you study the history of Israel and you still don't believe in miracles, you are not a realist. Because they keep coming back and coming back to the land that God promised to them. What other nation has survived as a distinct race after 400 years of slavery, two total destructions, several deportations, 2,000 years of dispersion, plus a Holocaust? This is a message I'm calling why Israel must survive.

Why Israel must survive. Paul asked the question, we touched on it last week, Paul asked the question in Romans chapter 11, has God cast away his people? And then he answered it. Remember, very definitively he said, certainly not. Or no way, Jose, or by no means, very emphatic, certainly not. Has God cast away his people?

Certainly not. Some people would say, well, actually God has cast away his people. And that is under the theological title we've already discussed called Amillennialism. They say that the millennium, the thousand year reign predicted in scripture is not literal, it's just figurative that the millennium is between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ.

In other words, you're in it right now, and I've told you before, if this is it, I'm greatly disappointed. Because it is not what I anticipated from reading the promises of scripture. So the Amillennialists will say that not only is there not a literal kingdom coming, but it denies all of the promises God gave to Israel, that those promises were forfeited when Israel rejected Christ and the Romans destroyed the temple. Those promises, they say, are now fulfilled in the church. We are the Israel of God.

He will not revive the nation, literally. That thinking started, oh, second, third century AD with Origen and then Justin Martyr, and a while after that with Augustine. And today, Amillennialism is the view of the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, Episcopalians, the Church of Christ, the Mennonites, and the Amish.

All to whom I say respectfully, I disagree. Amillennialism takes the text of scripture and spiritualizes the meaning away. It spiritualizes especially all the prophetic passages regarding the end times. Now, there are a few different ways to look at scripture, and one way is to spiritualize it, to allegorize everything in it. It's a process of interpretation that disregards the plain meaning of the text. Whereas, as you have seen, we approach the scripture from what's called a grammatical historical approach. That is to interpret the text plainly, literally, unless we are compelled by the text itself to interpret it otherwise.

We've always believed that where the plain sense makes good sense to seek any other sense is just nonsense. So the fact is God preserved the Jewish people, brought them back to their land, and so if God has cast away his people, why are they back in the land? If God has cast away his people, why are so many of them in Israel coming to Christ more than ever before? Now, last week we talked about the place of Israel in prophecy. We looked at the Abrahamic Covenant, and today we continue with the idea of why Israel must survive. My pastor, Chuck Smith, used to say, some sermons are inspirational, and some sermons are informational.

This is an informational one. We hope that you will draw inspiration from it, but we're going to give you, like the last few weeks, we're going to let you drink out of the fire hose, so to speak, and give you the information. Why Israel must survive.

I'm going to give you four components, four components, the plot, the promise, the prediction, and the picture. Let's begin with the plot, and the plot, I don't mean like the plot to the story, I mean like the literal plot of land called Israel, the plot. The land belongs to God. Now, Ezekiel 36, as you can see, is a very lengthy chapter. We don't have time to go through it all.

I'm just going to touch on a few things. Go down to verse 5 of Ezekiel 36. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, surely I have spoken in my burning jealousy against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who gave my land to themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and spiteful minds in order to plunder its open country. So notice God calls it my land.

Go down now to verse 20. When they came to the nations, they being the Israelites, came to the nations, the other nations, Gentile nations, wherever they went, they profaned my holy name when they said of them, these are the people of the Lord, and yet they have gone out of His land. So God calls it my land. They will say of it, it is His land. I recognize that I am dealing with perhaps the most controversial issue in modern politics, and that is the Israeli-Palestinian issue, who has the right to the land.

Depending on who you are, whether you would be an Israel, Jewish person living in the land, or you would be a Palestinian or one of the Arab neighbors, there will be claims and counterclaims depending on which period of history you want to refer to. You can say, well, you're in it now, but before you were there, we were there. And they will say, yeah, well, before you were there then, we were there before that.

And they want to keep going back and back and back. So there's claim and counterclaim. So much so that no human court could ever settle the matter in a way that would be amicable to all parties.

So I appeal to a higher authority, and that is the Bible. And if you believe in the Bible, then the ownership of the land is settled and unambiguous. It's His land. It's His land.

First of all, Psalm 24, verse 1, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all who live in it. So by right of creation, God owns the world, but by right of selection, God owns the land of Israel. It's His land. This goes all the way back to Leviticus 25, verse 2 and 23, which says, When you come into the land which I give you, the land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me.

So politicians can talk all they want about what Israel should and shouldn't do, what policies they should or shouldn't adopt, who has the right to occupy the land, should the land be divided up or not. But at the end of the day, it's God's land. And because God is the owner and the landlord, He can give it to anybody He wants to. Well, He happened to give it to Abraham and then to Isaac and then to Jacob and their descendants.

Go down to verse 28 of Ezekiel 36. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, fathers being Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. You shall be my people.

I will be your God. That's the Abrahamic Covenant once again, initialized in Genesis 12, formalized in Genesis 15, amplified in Genesis 17. By the way, every single Old Testament prophet except Malachi repeats the land promise to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, every one of them.

So that's the plot. The land belongs to God. Let me give you the second component, the promise.

Now, the promise is that it is a permanent inheritance, a perpetual inheritance. Go down now to verse 16 where it says, Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds. To me, their way was like the uncleanness of a woman in her customary impurity. Therefore, I poured out my fury on them for the blood they had shed on the land for their idols, which they had defiled it. So I scattered them among the nations.

They were dispersed throughout the countries. I judged them according to their ways and their deeds. When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned my holy name. When they said of them, These are the people of the Lord, and yet they have gone out of his land. But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations wherever they went. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went.

God is rehearsing their history and basically saying, You guys blew it over and over and over and over again. You were sinful, you were rebellious, you were foolish, you defiled the land with your idols, and you kept doing it, and I brought you back anyway. And now you're in captivity, but I'm going to bring you back because my name is on the deal for my name's sake.

You know, the only love that I can compare God's love, and it's probably not the perfect comparison, I get that, but for me, I think of my mother's love. You know, I blew it so many times growing up. I did so many dumb things.

I remember the day when the police came to arrest me when I was like a junior in high school. And yet my mom said, Oh, you can do better, and you're awesome. And, you know, I was always her son. And God's love, just always willing to take back and to forgive. Now, in the Bible, yeah, you can clap for God.

There's some very anxious person to clap for God, so that's good. So eight times in the Old Testament, God calls the people of Israel stiff-necked. Seven times He calls them stubborn. Three times He says they did what is right in their own eyes. They complained when they were in Egypt. God delivered them into the wilderness. They complained in the wilderness, set up a golden calf. God took them to the Promised Land. They fell away and rebelled in the Promised Land. They persisted in their rebellion. God sent them into captivity for 70 years. They worshiped idols.

They rejected the Messiah. But God made a covenant with them, and that covenant was a perpetual covenant. This is Genesis 17. We touched on it last week. We're going to put it up on the screen this week, where the Lord said, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, here it is, here it is, for an everlasting covenant.

Sounds pretty permanent to me. Also, I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession. Doesn't sound to me like God says, I'm going to replace them with the church. It is a perpetual, everlasting covenant. Now, turn in your Bibles.

Go back a few books. Go to the book of Psalms. Go to Psalm 105. Just go ahead and turn in your Bibles right now to Psalm 105. And I want you to notice, there's so many scriptures about this.

I just want to give you a couple. So Psalm 105, verse 6, O seed of Abraham, his servant, you children of Jacob, his chosen ones, He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever.

The word which He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham, His oath to Isaac, and confirmed it to Jacob for a statue to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, To you I will give the land of Canaan. Now, go to the very next Psalm. Go to Psalm 106.

Psalm 106, verse 6. The psalmist says, We have sinned, we being the people of Israel. We have sinned with our fathers. We've committed iniquity.

We've done wickedly. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand your wonders. They did not remember the multitude of your mercies, but rebelled by the sea, by the Red Sea. Nevertheless.

It's a beautiful word. Nevertheless, He saved them for His name's sake, that He might make His mighty powers known. Go down to verse 13.

They soon forgot His works. They did not wait for His counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tested God in the desert. Verse 19. They made a calf. That's the golden calf. They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molded image.

They changed their glory into the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt. Go down to verse 24.

They despised the pleasant land. They did not believe His word. Verse 28. They joined themselves also to Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices made to the dead. Verse 32. They angered Him also at the waters of strife.

Man, did they blow it, like all the time. That's enough for God to go, I'm done. But go to verse 44. Nevertheless.

Wow, that's remarkable. Nevertheless, He regarded their affliction when He heard their cry, and for their sake, He remembered His covenant. So go back to Paul's question. Has God cast away His people? Has God rejected His people? No. Will He chasten His people? Yes. Will He send them into captivity? Yes. Will He displace them? Yes. Will He replace them?

No. He will never replace them. He will never cast them out. And that's why Paul said, Will God cast away His people?

Certainly not. He knew the history. He knew the texts. So that's the plot. That's the promise.

Let me give you the third component, the prediction. Now, that is chapter 36 of Ezekiel. 36 and 37 are two chapters filled with predictions of how the nation is going to be restored.

Now, keep something in mind. When Ezekiel is giving them this prediction, they are in captivity. They are no longer in their land. They have been taken captive in a foreign place.

So let me give you a quick rundown. Three times the Babylonians came against Jerusalem. Number one was 605 B.C. Number two, 597 B.C.

Number three, 586 B.C. That second one, 597, is when Ezekiel, who was a priest in Jerusalem, was deported to Babylon. While he's in Babylon, he's telling the people of Israel, you're not going home.

You're going to be here a while. In chapter 36 and 37, it's believed that it's 586 B.C. The news just comes that the city has been destroyed, the city of Jerusalem. The temple has been burned. It's annihilated. It's bad news. Now he predicts a restoration, a coming back into the land.

Something else. I just want to give this to you because you have noticed or will notice it in many Old Testament prophecies. There is sometimes a dual fulfillment.

Have you noticed that? A prediction is made, and it is fulfilled in a few years, a near fulfillment, and then there's a far fulfillment. It happens with so many different predictions so that the near fulfillment becomes a template of the far fulfillment, and without going through all the weeds of that, that's present in these two chapters. So let's look at a couple of these verses that predict the restoration. Go down to verse 8, Ezekiel 36, verse 8. But you, O mountains of Israel, he's speaking now to the land itself, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, for they are about to come. They're about to come back to the land.

Now, it's just been destroyed. For indeed I am for you. I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it, and the city shall be inhabited, the ruins rebuilt. I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall increase and bear young. I will make you inhabit it as in former times and do better for you than at your beginnings.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord. God promises to restore fruitfulness to the land so as to sustain increased population that will be there. I told you last week that Israel today has 9.3 million people living in that tiny little country. Almost 7 million are Jewish people, 43% increase due to immigration in the last several years. So a lot of people and the land can sustain them.

Most of their sustenance is all grown in the land of Israel. That's Skip Heitig. With a message from the series The End is Near, find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. We share these messages to help you connect to God through His Word and grow in your relationship with Him through intentional study of Scripture. And when you give to support this ministry, you keep these teachings you love available to you and to so many others around the world so they too can grow and connect with God. Just call 800-922-1888 to give a gift today. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate.

Thank you. Join us again tomorrow as Skip shows you why you're actually living in Bible times right now. Can these bones live? They're living. The bones have come together, the promise to Abraham fulfilled. You know, it's funny because some people say, man, I wish we could live like in Bible times. You are living in Bible times.

You're seeing it unfold before your very eyes. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection. Make a connection. Connect with Skip Hyton is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.