The whole world has its eyes on Israel right now, but it has been watching them ever since they were re-established as a nation in 1948. But more than that, the nations have been watching Israel ever since they saw God bring them out of Egypt. And it would be fair to say that the hatred for Israel began when the world saw God choosing them to be His elect beloved people. And, just as Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith, so Satan is the author and finisher of all that hate.

In looking at Israel and their future, I see two plans laid out for them: the first is God’s plans, and the other is the world’s, which is drawn up by Satan himself. Iran’s plan for Israel, publicly stated, is simple: annihilate them, utterly destroy them. Earlier, that was Yasser Arafat’s plans; before that, Hitler pursued that plan. But approximately 3,000 years ago, those same plans were announced:

“O God, do not remain silent; do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand aloof, O God. See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads. With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those You cherish. ‘Come,’ they say, ‘let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.’ With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against You…” (Psalms 83:1-5).

If you have ever wondered where the hatred for Israel comes from, this passage makes it clear. The world hates God, and it hates those He cherishes. Jesus made this progression of hatred clear to His disciples:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own…. Whoever hates Me hates my Father as well…. They have hated both me and my Father…. This is to fulfill what is written in their law: they hated Me without a cause” (John 15:18-25).

But those words were directed to the church of God. What about the Jews who rejected Christ? He was their long-awaited Messiah and King, and they had the Romans nail Jesus to a tree. By that very act, did God cast them off forever? Did they cease to be God’s elect chosen people? On that day, did God cease to love Israel? If that were the case, then Israel would then belong to the world, and the world would love it. Evidently, the devil has a better understanding of God and Israel than many Christian folk do.

The apostle Paul had a good understanding of Israel’s position with God after they crucified Christ. He explained:

“I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’ As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:25-29).

The point I want to make here is that the world’s continuing hatred for Israel and the Jewish people is proof that they are still His chosen people and are loved by Him. The world has spoken: it indeed plans to destroy Israel completely, but the Lord God Almighty has spoken also, and He has plans for Israel and the Jewish people.

Through several prophets, God gave very specific and detailed plans for the future of Israel. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah reveal the Lord’s plans for Israel. I will attempt to present some main points from one or two of them. I remember the first time I read through the Bible and began to read these prophecies. I was in awe at what the Lord was foretelling, and then I thought most of this is yet to come.

One specific prophecy, found many times in the prophetic writings, has been literally fulfilled. And that is the gathering of the Jews from every part of the world where the Lord scattered them, and bringing them back to the land of Israel. Listen:

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them” (Ezekiel 37:12-13).

“Hear the word of the LORD, you nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd’” (Jeremiah 31:10).

“Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,’ declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 31:28).

For the better part of 1,800 years, the land of Israel lay desolate, barren, and not fit to live on. Many took this to mean Israel had ceased to be God’s chosen people. But little by little, Jews started going back and buying property in the land.

“This is what the LORD says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, ‘It is a desolate waste, without people or animals, for it has been given into the hands of the Babylonians.’ Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes, declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 32:42-44).

In May of 1948, the declaration of Israel being re-established as a nation was a literal fulfillment of the word of the Lord. But there is another word of the Lord that is yet to be fulfilled, but it’s coming.

“The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD. ‘This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people’” (Jeremiah 31:31-33).

God doesn’t have a different plan of salvation for the Jews. He will sovereignly open the hearts of the remnant nation and reveal Jesus to them. We have a beautiful and perfect picture of this in Genesis when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers who hated him, intended to kill him, but sold him into slavery. Jesus, who they have rejected for 2,000 years, will be revealed to them as their Savior, Elder Brother, and King.

Zechariah describes a time when this will happen. He foretells of a day when all the nations of the earth will be gathered against Jerusalem. He tells how the Lord will step in and strike those who attack, but “watch over the house of Judah.” He describes how the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And then the Lord says this:

“On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem…. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on Me, the One they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son” (Zechariah 12:9-10).

Now come my thoughts concerning a time after that. I believe the thousand years of Revelation 20 will begin. I believe that the apostles and the church of God will serve as judges over the house of Israel during that time. I base that on this:

“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’” (Matthew 19:28).

“…Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” (1 Corinthians 6:2).

I believe Isaiah describes the blessedness of that time in his prophecies.

What about the war raging between Israel and Iran right now?

Gabriel revealed the vision of the 70 weeks determined for Israel to Daniel. When he spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, he said this: “…And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined” (Daniel 9:26).

I believe it has been determined that Israel will face wars until that final war, when the Lord steps in. This I know for sure: no nation or all the nations together will ever annihilate Israel. The Lord said,

“Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves” (Zechariah 12:2-3).

God has Israel’s future all planned out:

“…I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Brother Bill Oldham

bboldham@sbcglobal.net

 

In the book of Corinthians, in Chapter 13, Paul the Apostle, chosen personally by Jesus while on the road to Damascus, had much to say about love being the greatest of all the heavenly gifts.

Paul said these words:

“I may speak in different languages of people or even angels. But if I don’t have love, I am only a noisy bell [gong] or a crashing [clanging] cymbal. I may have the gift of prophecy. I may understand all the secret things of God [mysteries] and have all knowledge, and I may have faith so great I can move mountains. But even with all of these things, if I do not have love, then I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and I may even give my body as an offering to be burned. But I gain nothing if I do not have love.”

The above words are true for all of us. Especially all of us who call ourselves Christians.

Love is our highest calling, and Jesus is our greatest example of what real love looks like.

Jesus once said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

Not long after He said that, Jesus laid down His life for His friends.

Jesus demonstrated the greatest gift of all on the hill called Calvary. He offered up his body as a sacrifice for everyone who had ever sinned, which, as it turns out, is everyone reaching the age of accountability who has ever lived and breathed in the air on planet Earth.

All who trust in and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior become His dear friends. He then bestows upon his friends the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then Jesus, with the help of the Holy Spirit, begins to transform our worldly, sinful hearts into hearts like the heart of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The goal of Jesus is to change our hearts into hearts just like His own heart. Hearts that are filled with mercy and compassion and in a spirit of selflessness. Hearts that are willing to put the welfare of others above our own. Tender hearts that weep at the thought that anyone might perish.

Hearts filled with thankfulness for all that God has done for each of us.

Gracious, tender, merciful, compassionate hearts that are as gentle as a dove and yet as brave and courageous as a lion.

Hearts like the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah.

Hearts like the heart of Jesus.

This is what Paul was talking about to the Corinthians.

Any one of us could embody every gift under the sun, and yet without love, all of those gifts would be in jeopardy of slipping into the abyss of vanity.

Without the love of God, “all is vanity under the sun.”

Earthly love can be interpreted many different ways, for example: “Love is a battlefield,” or “Love isn’t always on time,” or “If you can’t be with the one you Love, then, honey, Love the one you’re with,” or “I wanna know what Love is,” or even “All you need is Love.”

These words and lyrics make for some very catchy songs; however, they have little to do with the kind of love Jesus exemplified when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” and then proving it by doing that very thing.

Our Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit love each of us and provide for each of us in sometimes amazing ways.

Something that happened in my life at the age of 20 years old, something I call the $5 miracle, was instrumental in me learning something about how much God loved me and was looking out for my little family that, at the time, consisted of my wife Toni and I and our daughter Jamie, who was two months old.

It was in the summer of the year 1967 that Toni and I sold nearly everything we owned and left the house we had been renting in Topanga Canyon from Honest John, the wrestler. A house that soon after crumbled and fell onto Topanga Canyon Blvd. But that is another story.

We took that money from selling most all of our stuff and bought plane tickets to the island of Maui. We arrived with Jamie and our cat named Beverly and two hundred dollars in our pocket.

We rented a small house in Kihei from Johnny Akina for $35 a month and bought a 1949 Plymouth for $50 from a friendly Chinese man named George in Wailuku.

I began looking for a job, but as one might guess, it wasn’t too long before the money we had left over had begun to run out. Well, I was able to find a job at the Maui Hilton Hotel as a waiter in the Lokelani dining room. However, the job was not scheduled to start until about four days from when I got it, and at that point, the money had completely run out, and we had no food left or anything at all to feed our little girl, Jamie.

Faced with this predicament, I walked down to Charlie Young Beach in Kihei to pray. In 1967, there were very few people on Maui, and especially in Kihei.

There was not one other soul on the beach, which was about half a mile long from one end to the other.

I walked about halfway down the beach and randomly sat down at the high-tide line and began to pray.

I remember saying something like, “Lord, thank you for the job at the Hilton, but as you must know, it doesn’t start for a few days, and we have no money left and nothing to feed Jamie.

I then felt the urge to open my eyes and look down at the water. To my complete shock, I saw a five-dollar bill wash up out of the ocean straight to where I was sitting. I didn’t even have to move an inch. I reached down and picked it up in utter disbelief. I dried it off in the breeze, still wondering if this actually just happened.

As I realized that it did actually just happen, I began running along the beach, jumping up and down, clicking my barefoot heels together and praising the Lord with all of my heart.

I ran home and told Toni what had happened, and she could barely believe it either.

Back in those days, even on Maui, five dollars went a long way, and it was just enough to pull us through until my new job as a waiter at the Hilton kicked in. Since, as a waiter, there were tips involved, I didn’t have to wait for a paycheck to have some money. Because of God’s love for us, we were able to buy what we needed for Jamie.

To this day, I am amazed at this miraculous story and how it set me on the path of knowing the wonders of God’s love and also knowing that He can do anything.

It still gives me goosebumps, or chicken skin, as the Hawaiians would say.

I could have sat down anywhere on that beach on that given day and missed out on the “Five Dollar Miracle.”

But I didn’t. Instead, I sat down in the exact spot that Almighty, All-Knowing, and All-Merciful God led me to. The spot where a miracle would take place.

The love of God knows no boundaries. No boundaries indeed, no boundaries whatsoever.

Recounting this story of the “Five-Dollar Miracle” reminds me not only of how much God loves me but also of how much I love Him.

It is what set me on a path to pursue that which Paul, the chosen apostle of Jesus, described to the Corinthians as the “greatest gift of all.”

And the greatest gift of all, as Paul so beautifully articulated in Corinthians Chapter 13, is Love.

Your good friend in Jesus,

Rick Segoine