The Church’s Responsibility Toward Israel.

And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 2 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Genesis 12:3

The first and most important thing God wants the Church to do for Israel is to believe the Bible.

When the Church has believed what God says about Israel they have responded properly and blessed God’s ancient people.

When the Church has not believed what God says about Israel she has ended up joining herself to Israel’s enemies in cursing the nation.

So the most important thing we, as the Church, can do for Israel is to believe God’s Word about His promise, plan and provision for the apple of his eye.

he who touches you (Israel), touches the apple of His eye.
Zechariah 2:8b

According to the scripture we read at the first, the Church is to Bless Israel. The ministry that has offered this gathering has as its primary goal to bless Israel. To bless Israel should be a stated, taught, internalized and acted upon goal of every church. It should inform every act they do.

And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Genesis 12:3

While the following is not an exhaustive list, it does represent what I believe the central attitudes and actions we as the Church are to have and do to bless Israel.

#1 The Church has a responsibility to bless Israel by:

Believing, Teaching and Publically Declaring the Everlasting Covenant of Love God entered into with Abraham and the nation that came from him – Israel.

Now when Abram was ninety nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless." 2 I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly.“ 3 Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, 4 "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, And you will be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 "No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 "I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. 7 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.”
Genesis 17:1-7

This scripture marks the beginning of the revelation of God’s eternal heart of love for and His covenant with Abraham and His Sons and Daughters.

It is an everlasting – eternal covenant. It has never been, nor will it ever be revoked or broken. It will continue as long as the sun shines in the day. It will be upheld as long as the stars glitter and moon beams fall on the Earth in the night.

Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: . 36 “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.”
Jeremiah 31:35-36 (NASB)

The love that motivated God to make this covenant is an everlasting – eternal – love. As He promised to Abraham He will continue to love Israel throughout all Ages – forever – no matter what their response to Him is.

Blessed be the Lord your God who delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel; because the Lord loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness.”
1 Kings 10:9

Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel For all that they have done,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:37 (NASB)

#2 If she is to bless Israel the Church must repent from her consistent hatred of the Jewish Nation throughout history and turn to love her.

If God loves Israel the Church must love her too.

In my talk last year we saw that the greatest crime the church has committed against the Jewish Nation has been to believe that we have taken her place. Beginning in the late first century most of the church has taught this anti – Bible and anti – Semitic doctrine.

It has resulted in horrendous suffering in Jewish people ever since. Even after seeing the church’s theology as a direct cause of the Holocaust this theology continues to spread its hatred toward the Jewish Nation Israel today.


 
used with permission from original poster.

More than words, we must act in ways that demonstrate our repentance.

#3 The Church blesses Israel when she serves her in repentance.

In 1976 I was given one of the greatest privileges in my life. I had a chance to join a group of young people to go as a team to Israel and work for a year on Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim 11 kilometers outside of Jerusalem.

We went there in a spirit of repentance for what the church had done through the centuries to serve the nation of Israel and her people.

For me the desire to serve Israel as a first intention came from the influence a group of women I had spent time with when I first visited Israel in 1973.

They were German nuns with the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. They were living out their repentance for the deeds of their forebears by serving the survivors of the concentration camps living in Israel.

The founder of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, M. Basilea Schlink’s writings helped me immensely in the early days of developing a heart to serve the nation as an act of repentance. I would highly recommend her writings for those who want to understand how to minister to Israel through serving them.

On their website the Sisters of Mary write: Considering the atrocities committed against the Jews in the name of Christ throughout much of Christianity's 2000-year history, how can we celebrate the millennium without first expressing our deep sorrow over the past in a spirit of repentance?

By our unchristian attitude and behavior we have brought shame upon the name of Jesus, making it offensive to His own people, the Jews …

Every Church needs to find ways to directly serve Israel in a spirit of repentance.

A fourth way the Church should bless Israel is a specific way to serve her. We should SUPPORT her with our finances.

Most churches give some of their finances to missions.

A Christ centered Church will give a significant portion of their income for this purpose.

Also the impulse to give for helping the poor grows out of the heart of the gospel.

Every church should have the nation of Israel as a part of this giving.

As the Gentile Church served Israel by sending relief for the saints in Jerusalem in the Bible period in the same way the Church today needs to support Israel.

but now, I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints. 26 For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. 27 Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things.
Romans 15:27 (NASB)

As the church in the first century supported the needy in Israel so we should in this century.

Where we give our money demonstrates where our priorities lie.

Individual members of churches and the corporate church can find many ways to bless Israel by supporting her directly or supporting ministries that support her.

#5 The Church has a responsibility to Bless Israel by:

STANDING WITH HER

Corrie Tenboom in her book, “The Hiding Place” tells how after the Nazi occupation the Jewish people of Holland were required to wear a yellow star of David with the word Jew in the centre.

Corrie’s father loved his Jewish friends and decided that he would stand with them. He began to wear the yellow star as well.

This clip cannot be embeded so you can watch it by clicking on the link below.

http://www.awesomestories.com/assets/jewish-yellow-star

I believe, as Mr. Tenboom did, if every member of the church in Germany and the nations they occupied had followed his example and stood with the Jewish people there would not have been a holocaust.

Even if there were a holocaust the church would have not been in the complicity of silence with those who sought to destroy the Jewish Nation.

We cannot be passive and stand with Israel. Her enemies will not allow us to. God will not allow us to. We will either take a clearly communicated stand or we will be complicit in the hatred toward the nation that is now being expressed and will grow stronger as the end draws near.

The Bible tells us that what we have seen in the past regarding the persecution of the Jewish Nation is a warning of what we will see in the future of Israel. The Bible says that one day all nations will forsake Israel. All nations will take up arms is demonic hatred against God’s beloved city - Jerusalem.

I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. 3 Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle.
Zechariah 14:2-3 (NIV)

As hard as it is for me to imagine that my nation, the United States, would ever turn her back on Israel I am watching it happen with my own eyes. Every day as I read, hear or see what my government is doing I can see clearly where the path is leading.

As the true goals of the Arab Spring are being seen, the hesitation to stand firmly with Israel in the leaders of my country makes it clear that they are weakening in their resolve.

This last week the news media reported the USA agreed to send over 450 million dollars worth of military aid to Egypt. The expressed goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, which today have a virtual monopoly of power in Egypt, is to wipe Israel off the map --to drive her people into the sea. How can any nation stand with Israel and send millions of dollars worth of weapons into the hands of those who want to use them for this very purpose?

Two years before he came into power as the prime minister of Egypt Mohamed Morsi said that “Jews were

descendants of apes and pigs……”



In light of Mr. Morsi’s words think of what Hitler said, “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.”

Dehumanization has always been the means by which genocide has been legitimized throughout the centuries.

When people begin to say that other humans are not human genocidal evil against them is purposed.

People believed the words of Hitler in the beginning were only rhetoric. How sad it is that they failed to see from the beginning they were not.

We must not think the words of those who say they want to destroy Israel are not purposeful and intentional. If they have an opportunity they will do it.



We also must not think that only God’s Ancient people will suffer. True gentile believers have always shared in the sufferings of Israel and will do so in the future. When evil is pronounced against Israel, make no mistake, that evil is pronounced against the Church as well.

In 1972 I visited a Jewish family in Chicago whose son I had led to Jesus. I thought that they would be angry with me but they were not. They showed exceptional love towards me and felt their son’s new faith was saving him from the lifestyle he had formerly been engaged in.

One evening as the father and I were speaking he said words I will never forget.

“True Christians always have and always will suffer with us. I know in the future we will once again suffer with each other.”

The impulse to destroy the Jewish Nation in Hitler did not stop with them. Six million Jewish people were killed but sixteen million gentiles were also killed -the majority of whom were believers in Jesus. A great tragedy occurred not only for Israel but also for the Church.

Edmund Burke - "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

It will not be enough to wait until all nations turn against Israel to stand with her. It was not enough for the church to make pronouncements of their support for the Jewish Nation after six million had been killed in the Holocaust. The time to stand with her was when Papa Tenboom did -- At the first sign of the coming storm. The Church must stand now.

Every church needs to teach the truths contained in the Bible about Israel. Every Church needs to make a clear statement of their intent to stand with Israel no matter what the cost to them may be. Every Church must be prophetically active to remind their culture of God’s decree that those who bless the children of Abraham will be blessed and everyone who curses her will be cursed.

The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper has been in this moment of history very much like Caspar Tenboom was in his day. Of all nations on the Earth only Canada has stood so radically with Israel. It is Mr. Harper who has led this standing. We should honor him greatly for his courageous stand and let him and others know we stand with him.


 
A sixth way the Church should bless Israel is to SEEK GOD for her.

Perhaps the most important act for the Church to do concerning Israel is to pray for her.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you. 7 “May peace be within your walls, And prosperity within your palaces.” 8 For the sake of my brothers and my friends, I will now say, “May peace be within you.” 9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.
Psalm 122:6-9 (NASB)

The call for prayer for Israel is depicted in the Old Testament as Watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem who cry out continually to make Israel a praise in the Earth.

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the LORD, take no rest for yourselves; 7 And give Him no rest until He establishes And makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Isaiah 62:6-7 (NASB)

Every Church and every member of the Church is called to be a watchman or watchwoman. There are no elite groups of people called to be intercessors. In reality there is only one who can intercede for us it is Jesus. Yet all of us can cry out to Him. And one of those cries is to be for the Peace of Jerusalem.

It may seem that we should respond to those who hate Israel with an opposing vengeance. But that is not the way of the Saviour. When we pray for the peace of Jerusalem we intentionally pray for her enemies to turn from their hatred and to love the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We pray that they will find the Saviour and be transformed by His love.

We also pray for ourselves. We pray that our hearts will beat with His love for everyone…… Jew, Gentile, Man, Woman, Slave, Free….. All are loved by God and all can know Him. We are praying that not only would we bless Israel but that we would be a blessing to everyone for His Name and For His sake.

The video of this talk is here:



The Power Point is here:

The Church’s Responsibility toward Israel by Leonard Terry