ZIONISM - ISRAEL’S  RIGHT  TO  EXIST

By  WWW.FeastsOfTheLord.Net

 “Behold I will take the stick of Joseph … the tribes of Israel (10 Northern tribes)

 and will put them with them even with the stick of Judah and they shall make one stick … “.  Ezekiel 37:16

“Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen and will gather them into their own land and

I will make them one nation … and they shall be no more two nations.”  Ezekiel 37:21

For the last 2,000+ years, the Jews were denied their original homeland.  The world generally ignored Jerusalem and ancient Israel.  But on May 14, 1948, an event occurred that shocked world.  It was the great miracle of the rebirth of Israel; but not everyone was pleased.

When the state of Israel was reborn May 14, 1948, the Dry bones prophecies began their fulfillment.

                                              “Then He said to me,

“Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.

They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!

Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “

Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves,

and bring you into the land of Israel.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves,

O My people, and brought you up from your graves.

I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.

Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, says the Lord.” Ezekiel 11-14

After the 1st century Great Revolt and the 2nd century Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans expelled the Jews from Judea, changing the name to Syria Palaestina.  The Bar Kokhba revolt caused a spike in anti-Semitism and Jewish persecution.  The ensuing exile from Judea greatly increased the percent of Jews who were dispersed throughout the Diaspora instead of living in their original home.

The idea of returning the Jewish people to their“ancestral homeland is generally called Zionism.  Since the first centuries A.D., most Jews have lived outside the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel, better known as Palestine by non-Jews), although there has been a constant presence of Jews.  According to Judaism, Eretz Israel is a land promised to the Jews by God according to the Bible.  The Diaspora began in 606 BC during the Babylonian occupation of Israel.

Mount Zion is synonymous with the Temple Mount with its sacrifices of joy to the Lord.  It symbolizes the spiritual height of the land of Israel and offers to the people of Israel elevation of the soul.  Therefore it is synonymous with Mount  Moriah.

Mount Moriah is located on a hilltop to the North of the City of David.  It is the place where Abraham meant to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice and eventually became the Temple Mount.  Zion is a hill Southwest of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  However over time, it came to include the northern side of the Temple Mount at the location of the atonement offerings.  Therefore, the location is identified as a source of joy mentioned in Psalms 48 and 69:35 and referred to as part of the City of David in 1 Kings 8:1-2 and 2 Chronicles 5:2.  Consequently over a period of time, the original Mount Zion, Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount) and the City of David became collectively referred to as Mount Zion; indeed synonymous with the state of Israel.                                                                                                              

The return of the Israelites to the land didn’t happen because they suddenly all repented, reformed, and became perfect GOD-fearing people.  They returned because YHWH deemed it so.  Based on the prophecy in Ezekiel 4:3-6, and coupled with Lev.26:18, some Bible scholars who excel in math, have made the time calculations of Israel’s Divine punishment of their Diaspora as 360 lunar years (at 355 days/ yr.) x 7 = 2,483.8 years).  The results are stunning.  The prophecy begins at the end of Ancient Israel’s Babylonian captivity in the year 536 B.C.  Add to that date the 2,483.8 years and the total comes out to 1948; the very year ending Israel’s third Diaspora and fulfillment of prophecy that Israel would again be one nation at the end of the age.

Replacement Theology:

According to Dispensational theology, the Church rivals Israel by claiming that she is the "New Israel of the Spirit", superseding the "old Israel of the flesh".  A ‘Dispensation’ is a distinctive arrangement or period in history that forms the framework through which God relates to mankind.  This view sees a series of chronologically successive dispensations in Biblical history, with regard to the different Biblical covenant promises.  Dispensationalists place emphasis on to whom these original promises were written, i.e. the original recipients.  This has led to certain fundamental Dispensational beliefs, such as a distinction between Israel and the Church.

Dispensational Premillennialism generally holds that Israel and the Church are distinct entities and that the Church is the “New Israel”.  According to this view, the many promises made to Israel were forfeited (i.e. punitive supersessionism; divine judgment for their rejection of Messiah) and fulfilled in the Christian Church.  This position holds that the Jewish nation no longer has a place as the people of God.   That place was taken by the Christian community, which fulfills God’s purpose for Israel.  The blessings and restorations of Israel are spiritualized into promises of God’s blessing for the Church.  Yet the prophecies of condemnation and judgment still remain for national Israel and the Jewish people.  This view is called Replacement Theology because the Church replaces Israel in the program of God.

However, Israel’s rebirth as a nation provides proof of God’s everlasting covenant with Israel; as clearly stated in Genesis and Ezekiel:

Gen. 17:7       "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.”

Ezek. 37:26   "Moreover I will make a covenant (Karath) of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them. I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore.”

GABAR / HIGBIR:  TO CONFIRM

  1) to prevail, have strength, be strong, be powerful, be mighty, be great

a) (Qal) to be strong, mighty

b) (Piel) to make strong, strengthen

c) (Hiphil) to confirm, give strength

2) to confirm (a covenant)