Understanding Modern Israel

Julia Fisher

Description

To understand the complexity of modern Israel, you have to first understand the history. This is a nation that has been exiled not once, not twice, but three times... and each time has returned to re-inhabit their homeland. This is unique. How and why has this happened? This book encourages an audience who thinks Israel is an irrelevant issue to think again and understand what God has done and is doing through this small nation. This Bible is, after all, a Jewish book. Jesus was Jewish. Our destiny is tied up in both.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Israel
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 20 août 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800300149
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Text copyright 2021 Julia Fisher
This edition copyright 2021 Lion Hudson IP Limited
The right of Julia Fisher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Monarch Books
www.lionhudson.com
Part of the SPCK Group
SPCK, 36 Causton Street, London, SW1P 4ST
ISBN 978 0 85721 998 5
e-ISBN 978 1 80030 014 9
First edition 2021
Cover image: Humourous Quotes/Alamy.com
Acknowledgments
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation: Anglicized Text Version SPCK 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188, USA, and SPCK, London, UK. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NIV taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised. Copyright 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder Stoughton Ltd, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. NIV is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

I would like to dedicate this book to Ann Pawson, a true friend and fellow traveller on this journey to understand modern Israel and all that God is doing there. Thank you Ann.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1 The first exile in Egypt
2 The second exile in Babylon
3 The third and longest exile
4 Dani Sayag s story
5 Solomon s story: a Jew from Ethiopia
6 When God spoke to the Prophets
7 The Holocaust
8 Israel s rebirth in 1948
9 The story of Tel Aviv
10 Since 1948 - wars and Aliyah
11 What about the Arabs?
12 Palestinian Christians - from Gaza
13 Palestinian stories from the West Bank
14 What is a Messianic Jew?
15 Israeli society is complex!
16 Meeting a Muslim Background Believer
17 What is God doing in Israel today?
18 Exploring the one new man from a Christian Arab perspective
19 Why should I care?
20 The Olive Tree Reconciliation Fund
INTRODUCTION
The story of Israel is supernatural because never has a nation been exiled from its land only to return sometime later and re-establish itself as an independent state. In Israel s case, this has happened not once, but three times. The question is, why?
And, you may be wondering, why should I care? What has it got to do with me?
This is a book of stories - the story of Israel and the Jewish people and, more recently, stories of people living in Israel and the West Bank today who are believers in Jesus. Why is that remarkable, you ask? Because until approximately seventy years ago, there had not been a recognizable group of Jewish believers in Israel since the early church came into being after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Those events are well documented in the book of Acts and make exciting reading!
But then, just as the early church was growing in number and getting established, in AD 70 the Romans sacked Jerusalem, the people fled or were killed, and life there came to an abrupt halt.
However, we live in extraordinary times! Over the past one hundred years, and particularly during the past forty years, something has changed. Today not only are there several thousand Jewish believers in Israel, but there are also many Israeli Arab Christians and Palestinian Christians, some of whom are former Muslims - all sharing the same land!
For the past twenty years, I ve been following and reporting on this story. It is a story that has emerged slowly but surely and, for Christians, surely requires our understanding.
Modern Israel has risen out of the horror and ashes of the Holocaust - that dark time in history when, during the Second World War, European Jewry was hunted and killed by the Nazis whose avowed intent was to rid the world of Jewish people. However, they didn t succeed and, in 1948, against all the odds, Israel became a nation once again.
But how are we, as Christians who believe the Bible, meant to understand modern Israel? From a distance it appears a divided, unjust place where the two people groups who share the land are constantly fighting. While writing this book during January 2020, Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, announced his peace plan for Israelis and Palestinians. But can there be a lasting peace based on a political solution? There are many schools of thought on this and doubtless the arguments will continue. It is interesting to note, however, that to date, a political solution for this troubled land has not been found. So let us return to the question: how are we, as Christians who believe the Bible, meant to understand modern Israel?
In this book, we will attempt to look at the story of Israel from God s perspective. When we look at the story of Israel from a biblical perspective, this takes us above the level of politics and opinion to another realm altogether. It takes us to the Bible where we find the history of Israel told in great detail and the future of Israel and her people explained too.
One of the challenges we face today is sifting through the many differing, strongly felt opinions we hear through our news channels and other media. The danger here is that we can easily be influenced and thus the understanding we have becomes skewed by the opinions of others.
This is a book of stories stretching back 4,000 years and comes right up to date with true life stories that are emerging today. Then we will take a glance into the future and, by the end, I hope you will have engaged with this story - because it is a story that involves every one of us.
1
THE FIRST EXILE IN EGYPT
To understand modern Israel from a biblical perspective, we have to start at the beginning with the question, Who are the Jewish people and why have they been exiled from the land of Israel three times? When did it all begin?
The story of modern Israel began way back in history, approximately 4,000 years ago, in 2000 BC, and it is well documented. 1 What s more, each of the three exiles was predicted - accurately foretold. How do we know this?
Remember the story of Joseph and his multicoloured coat? Joseph was the favourite son of his father, Jacob. His grandfather was Isaac, whose father was Abraham, who became the founding father of the people of Israel when he left his homeland of Ur of the Chaldeans (in modern-day Iraq) in around 2000 BC, as mentioned in Genesis:

The Lord had said to Abram, Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.
GENESIS 12:1-3
Abraham married Sarah but they were unable to have children. This caused Abraham some grief because God had promised that he would become the father of a great nation!
He remonstrated with God,

O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don t even have a son?
GENESIS 15:2
In Abraham s mind, his servant, Eliezer of Damascus, would inherit all his wealth and become his heir. But the Lord reassured Abraham that he would, in time, have a son of his own who would be his rightful heir. The Lord also told Abraham that years later:

You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth After four generations your descendants will return here to this land.
GENESIS 15:13-16
It would be some time before Abraham and Sarah had the son that God had promised. Meanwhile, they took matters into their own hands. In doubt and despair that Sarah would ever conceive and have a child of her own, Sarah gave Abraham her Egyptian servant Hagar as a second wife and Ishmael was born. Abraham was eighty-six years old at that time and no doubt delighted to have a son at last; but Ishmael was not the son God had promised.
Time passed and if ever things looked impossible, thirteen years later, when Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him again:

Sarah, your wife, will give birth to a son for you. You will name him Isaac, and I will confirm my covenant with him and his descendants as an everlasting covenant. As for Ishmael, I will bless him also, just as you have asked. I will make him extremely fruitful and multiply his descendants. He will become the father of twelve princes and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will be confirmed with Isaac, who will be born to you and Sarah about this time next year.
GENESIS 17:19-21
And it happened! A year later Isaac was born. He later married Rebekah and they had twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Although Esau was theoretically the elder as he had been born first, the story of his carefree life and lack of respect for his parents in marrying foreign women with pagan religions resulted in Jacob easily tricking him out of his birthright and becoming his father s heir.
Jacob had twelve sons, his favourite being Joseph (aka the dreamer ). This special status - combined with Joseph s arrogance - caused his brothers to loathe him. One day, when they were miles away from home minding their father s sheep, their opportunity came to get rid of Joseph. Joseph arrived, wearing his coat of many colours, bringing some food from their father who had sent him to find out how his brothers were faring. At the same time, some Ishmaeli