AubreyJ said in a comment on a previous posing that, "I'm still waiting on you to put up a couple of posts on North Korea and Israel.
Love to hear your take on all this mess....".
Here now is the second installment AubreyJ. I was going to put them into one post but the first half got rather long. - We'll see how the second one goes...
Before I get started on this I would like to explain a bit about the term covenant. The marriage vows we have today are the closest thing we can compare to the old time covenants. The two become one, everything they have becomes the property of the other, promises to protect care for, etc... - Becoming blood brothers is covenant making. Livingston, in going through darkest Africa, made his way through by having blood covenants with tribal chiefs as he met them. Each covenant would protect him as he traveled towards the next tribe. The ceremony might be different from place to place but each covenant maker puts their lives at the disposal of the other. Trust is paramount. Breaking the covenant was unthinkable.
Israel
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
"May those who love you be secure.
May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels."
- Psalm 122: vs 6&7 -
~~~~~
We need some Muslims to read that and believe that the Living God meant it. Then they need to tell their buddies and so on. It is God's desire for peace in Jerusalem and indeed all of Israel. What stops this prayer from the book of Psalms becoming reality is that there are people in this world that refuse to believe that God did indeed give a piece of property to one man for him and his chosen descendents.
~~~~~ Genesis 13: vs 14-18 (NIV) ~~~~~
14 The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you."
18 So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD.
~~~~~ and Genesis 15 vs 18-21 says ~~~~~
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river
of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."
~~~~~
After this it gets a bit complicated. Abram had two children. One, the first son, with Hagar, his wife's servant. (Genesis 16) Sarah, does not have any children and the prospects of having any gets rather dim. She was 76 and Abram 86 when she demanded her husband, Abram try to have a child with Hagar, her handmaiden. The child would have legally been Sarah's. Remember this was prior to the 10 Commandments being given to Moses. Ishmael is born and God rejects him as the recipient of the covenant God had made with Abram (Now called Abraham)
- Ishmael is 13 years old when: -
~~~~~ Genesis 17 vs 17-22 ~~~~~
17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?" 18 And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!"
19 Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. [d] I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year." 22 When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.
~~~~~
Enough of history. It turns out today that we have two sets of Abram's/Abraham's children fighting one another. Both want to claim the promise of property God gave to Abraham. Both want to be the recipients of God's covenant with their father. Both have completely missed the true purpose of the covenant. There was a promise mixed into all of it of a better way to really know God. Not to just know ABOUT Him but to KNOW Him in a real and personal way. A promise to become God's true children related to Him in a real and tangible way.
~~~~~~ John 1 vs 10-13 ~~~~~
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
~~~~~
Paul Billheimer said of this scripture that in and through Jesus Christ God the Father realizes his paternal longings.
The majority of the Jews and the Moslems have missed this. Many Christians have missed this too. Hence the fighting. "We are all God's Chillun", as the saying goes. But this is only true for those who have joined into the real Blood Covenant which was fulfilled when Jesus died and rose again.
As for today's most recent developments in the Middle East and specifically Israel and Gaza I think that it would be best for the U.S. to just back out and let the two go at it.
I believe the property Israel won in the 6 Day War was won fair and square. Israel was attacked and fought back. Their enemies lost property. Israel should have kept the property but instead gave it to a peoples government that will not be satisfied with the gift. They will never be satisfied because they are missing the only thing in life that can truly satisfy the Inner man. That is a relationship with the Creator of all that exists.
A solution to the Middle East problem? Wait for the Second Coming. - Can we do anything to hurry up the day? No, so trying to start Armageddon is foolish and will not work. Pray for Peace in Jerusalem even though it looks hopeless? Yes, because the Psalms instructs us to.
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