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A Passion for God’s People
Ray Bentley

There are now, for the first time in over 2,000 years, more Jews in Israel than anywhere else in the world!


“Now I get it,” my friend said to me after I spoke to a small group about one of the greatest passions in my life.  “I finally get this thing with the Jews and Israel.” 

I resisted the impulse to stare at him incredulously – after all, I’ve been talking about my love for Israel and my desire—and calling— to be part of the story of God’s chosen people for a few years now.  Shouldn’t everyone else feel the same way?  But then I realized it was my turn to “get it.” 

Not everyone shares this passion I have. People have busy lives, other callings, problems like  family members who are sick, in trouble, unsaved...bills to pay, wars to worry about...life is all consuming on all levels. 

And there is so much need in the world!  My wife loves the children of Uganda and sighed to me one night, “You want to save Israel and I want to save Africa.  It’s too much.”  It is too much – for any human being.  But God has called us, the body of Christ, to represent Him to the world, and we go where we are called.

Israel has captured my heart.  But it’s not all emotion.  There are very sound Scriptural, historical, and practical reasons for taking an active role in what God is doing with Israel today—and He is doing a lot.

  Jews are coming home to Israel at an unprecedented rate, in spite of the dangers and turmoil of choosing to live in such a volatile place.  Many are leaving hard lives, battered by anti-Semitism in foreign lands.  Many, however, are leaving comfortable homes and careers in the U.S. and other countries to follow this call to Israel.

There are now, for the first time in over 2,000 years, more Jews in Israel than anywhere else in the world! They have been wandering the planet for centuries, without a homeland, barely surviving under relentless persecution and hatred.  As a rabbi once said, “It’s no fun to be the chosen people.”   But at the same time, Israel's belief in its own special calling, and God’s provision for them, has enabled it to survive for thousands of years with its identity intact, even without a land of its own. There are only 15 million Jews left in the world, residing in Israel, the United States, Russia, and scattered throughout the world.  Amazingly, the majority of them are home!  But many are still trying to find their way home, and that is where we are getting involved. 

Exiled
From the moment God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as a punishment for their sin, He set a precedent. “He drove out the man; and He placed a cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword...to guard the way to the tree of life”  (Genesis 3:24).

The Lord had created a specific place for Adam and Eve, with built in blessings and the freedom to reproduce, establish a family, explore the world, tend the garden, create, grow, watch their children and animals multiply—to live abundantly!  But they chose disobedience over blessing, and were banished from the garden, exiled into the world. God, as we now know, had a plan for redemption, but meanwhile mankind suffered the consequences.

Generations later we meet Abraham, and the beginnings of what would become the nation of Israel.  When Abraham was 99 years old, God appeared to him.  Abraham fell on his face and God confirmed again His covenant with Abraham: “Behold, My covenant is with you...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.  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; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17).

That covenant was reiterated over and over, century after century, throughout the Old Testament in a variety of forms.  God once again set aside a certain place for His people, a “land of milk and honey” where they could prosper and live an abundant life.

Yet in spite of this covenant, the people grew restless and their hearts wandered. Sin, greed, rebellion, turned their footsteps away from the Promised Land again and again, and back on the road to exile and captivity.  But now, the world was populated with people who did not know God and who despised these “peculiar” people who claimed to know the one true God; these stubborn people who were often in need of repentance, and always in need of rescuing. They suffered through captivity, slavery, and persecution at the hands of Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans.  They were murdered in the Inquisitions of Europe, burned and driven from their homes in the pogroms of Poland, thrown into gulags in Russia—and they died by the millions in Germany’s murderous holocaust.  In the midst of this misery, God kept His covenant and His arms around His people, calling them back to Him, and finally, in 1948, back to their land.

Look at God talking about His beloved Israel:
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim [Israel] to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them.  I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.  Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me...” (Hosea 11:1-7).

An angry and anguished father, disciplining, loving His children—yet always honoring His covenant:
“Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Admah and Zeboiim? My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows. No, I will not punish you as much as my burning anger tells me to. I will not completely destroy Israel, for I am God and not a mere mortal. I am the Holy One living among you, and I will not come to destroy. For someday the people will follow the LORD” (Hosea 11:8-10).

Scattered like precious jewels throughout the world and history, the constant presence of the Jewish people reminds the world of the One True God.  In a vast religious landscape, where multitple gods have been served and worshipped, there is a stubborn, tenacious people who know, for all their tribulations, that there is One God.  They have been like God’s missionaries —reluctant ones for sure—spread throughout history to remind the world of the Lord and His faithfulness.  In spite of their backsliding, their rebellion, even their disbelief, God has honored His covenant with them and will continue to do so—forever.

This is what the Lord says: "He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar-- the Lord Almighty is His name: 'Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,' declares the Lord, 'will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me...Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,' declares the Lord." —Jeremiah 31:36-37

Only when the sun fails to shine or the moon and stars go out by night...or when the heavens can be measured, only then will God reject Israel.  In other words, never.  Nor will He allow the powers of darkness to destroy her completely.

Step Into the Story
God loves Israel.  I believe that we are meant to love her too, and to be actively involved in the final chapter of her story.
Gentiles have always been involved in the redemption of Israel. 

Look at the story of Ezra and Nehemiah.  In the fifth century B.C., the Babylonians, under King Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Judah and took most of the Jewish people into captivity for 70 years. When Babylon was conquered by the Persians, King Cyrus came into power, and he issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to begin building their temple.  A Gentile king accomplished what the Jews were not able to do for themselves—open a way to return home.

There are numerous other examples throughout history, from biblical times to the present:  From the Egyptians furnishing the children of Israel with material goods to leave for the Promised Land, to the Corrie ten Booms and Oscar Schindlers of War War II , and the “Gentile” political leaders who sanctioned the formation of the new State of Israel—to the present day where many Christians are actively involved in supporting Israel and helping Jews return to their homeland. Gentiles are part of God’s plan to protect and assist His chosen people.

The Word of God makes it clear not only that “He who scattered Israel will gather them” (Jeremiah 31:10) but that God will use Gentiles to help carry them home: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders’” (Isaiah 49:22).

Henry Blackaby (Experiencing God) said, “Watch to see where God is working and join Him.” God is working all over the world in wonderful ways—including Israel.  In these days when Jews are returning home at an unprecedented rate, answering a heart call, an instinct, a tug of their spirits—I am ready to join what God is doing.

We can literally step into the story of God’s people by responding to God’s beckoning.  That is what our Nehemiah Project  is all about—being part of God’s blessing to the Jewish people, rather than the instruments of torture and persecution some parts of the church have been over the centuries.

When Adam and Eve were banished from Eden and exiled into the world, God shielded the Tree of Life with a flaming sword, forbidding them access.  In a similar manner, being exiled into the world for hundreds of years, the Jewish people have been denied access to the new Covenant, promised to them (not Gentiles, the Jews) in Jeremiah 31:31—“‘The time is coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah”—and sealed with the blood and broken body of Jesus. Notice that there is no covennant with the Church – it was made with the Jewish people, and the Church was grafted in.  But the eyes of the Jews have been blinded to their own Messiah, their own Jewish brother, Jesus. 

Now the day is coming, I believe, when Zechariah 12:10 will be fulfilled:
"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.” The Jews will know their Messiah, for God is a promise keeper and will keep the covenant He made.

My friend Willem Glashouwer writes:
“Christian church, and Christian community, do not be arrogant...be astounded at the grace of God toward you.  Note that He will remember His grace and will never neglect His faithfulness with regard to Israel.  For the Jewish people are coming home!  Israel is reborn as a nation!  And that means the Savior is on His way!  In His own way and in His own time, the Messiah will reveal Himself to His Jewish brothers and sisters.”1

These are blessed, historic, exciting times.  These are the days when we see the Bible come true before our very eyes—and we are invited—indeed, beckoned by God—to be part of the story!


Your feedback and comments are welcome here:  media@maranathachapel.org

Read more about the Nehemiah Project here.

•For an earlier article by Pastor Ray giving more background on the Nehemiah Project, click here:
•For a series of articles on Israel, the Mideast, and prophecy, click here:

1.    Glashouwer, Willem, J.J., http://www.christianity.ca/church/history/2004/07.000.html
Rev. Glashouwer is president of Christians for Israel International