The Biblical Worldview

THE MEANING OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL
Dr. Allen M. Barber
February 14, 2012 (Revised) 

Warning!  You may not want to read this unless you are truly seeking the truth about Israel and the Church.

The following is the brief version of the Bible's meaning of the modern secular state of Israel (It is a much more detailed subject):
 
First , we must define "Zionism."  Zionism is the attempt to establish the nation of Israel back in the so-called holy land where the David and Solomon theocracies ruled the Middle East including the first temple erected by Solomon.  Jewish Zionists take the promise to Abraham of the land of Israel including the extended boundaries literally, particularly the orthodox Rabbis.  Zionist, like Benjamin Netanyahu, do not believe in giving land for peace to appease the UN and the Arab nations. They believe the land is theirs and that the state of Israel will eventually bring in the Messianic era.  The key here is they believe the STATE OF ISRAEL  will usher in the kingdom, not the Messiah Himself, that is, the Messiah will give the kingdom to Israel like in the days of David and Solomon, and the Jews will rule the world.  They also believe they are the chosen people above everyone else no matter that they have disobeyed the Lord and do not keep His Law. 
 
It would shock most people to know what the orthodox Kabbalistic Jews teach in their Talmud (The Rabbinic commentary of the Old Testament).  They teach the Gentiles are a hybrid race of Adam and fit only to be slaves of the Jewish race.  Gentiles to orthodox Rabbis (Including Arabs) are lower than dogs on the ethnic pyramid. This is why the Jews refer to Gentiles as dogs.  When Jesus used the term "dogs" in reference to the Gentiles (His discourse with the Syrophonician woman), he was using a Jewish term familiar with the Pharisees and Scribes of His day - He did not believe or teach Gentiles are dogs. His point was to show the on-looking Pharisees and Scribes who hated Gentiles that even the Gentiles could have the same faith as the Jews. Anytime Jesus healed a Gentile or associated with the Samaritans, it greatly angered the Pharisees (The Pharisees of Jesus day were Kabbalist - Jewish mystics that incorporated the mystery religions of Babylon into the Hebrew Scriptures by their oral tradition thereby making it an esoteric secretive religion - It is still that way today).
 
Then there is Christian Zionism - Christian evangelicals who believe the nation of Israel and the Jewish people are the chosen people, not the Church.  The Scofield Reference Bible, a product of Kabbalistic Zionism, has done much to invent and support Christian Zionism. Scofield was a scoundrel - abandoned his wife and child and committed adultery with an younger woman whom he lived with, then eventually abandoned her.  He was put in jail numerous times for theft (He tricked his wives into giving him money to support his causes and left them totally impoverished).  He also gave himself the name of Dr. Scofield yet never attended a Bible college or seminary.  The famed Lotus Club of New York (A branch of the occult) influenced by the Rothschild's (Jewish German Bankers) hired Scofield to design a Bible that would support Zionism and win the Christian Evangelicals to their cause.  Rothschild knew the United States was a Christian nation (In 1901) and was the key to establishing the Israeli state back in the ancient land of Israel.  The Scofield Bible with his notes promoted the dispensational position of Bible prophecy - that God has two people the Jews and the Christians, but the Jews are the chosen people.  Christian evangelicals fell for the deception hook, line, and sinker and the Dispensational Futurist position became the predominant eschatology of the modern Church (Dispensational Futurism means God has set aside the Jews in the present dispensation of the Church Age, but when the Church is raptured at the beginning of the 7-year tribulation, God will again work with the nation of Israel and restore their theocratic kingdom on earth).  I believe this is a dangerous and incorrect doctrine that has many pastors and saints totally confused and deceived.
 
Men like John Hagee, the now deceased Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson are/were dispensational Christian Zionists blindly following and teaching a false doctrine to the  Church.  Secular Israel is not the chosen people that do not need salvation in Jesus as the aforementioned men teach.  All men must come to faith in Christ whether Jews or Gentiles. These are the chosen people - Those who are IN CHRIST by repentance and faith are the chosen people of God.
 
To understand who are the chosen, we must start where God started and that was with Abraham. Abraham was chosen by God to be a blessing to all nations, not just to the Jews (Gen. 12:1-3).  There was no law when God called Abraham and no nation of Israel for his descendants would become Israel.  However, the apostle Paul made it very clear in Galatians (Read the whole letter) that those in Abraham or his descendants were not the whole physical nation, but the sons and daughters of the promise -those who placed faith in the promise God gave to Abraham of a coming deliverer.  Abraham believed the gospel that the promised one would come and save His people from their sins even though the concept of sin at that time was not developed as it was later when the Scriptures were written down.  The reason the patriarchs offered blood sacrifices before a sacrificial system was setup by theocratic Israel is because of oral tradition passed down from Adam.  When God slew the animals and clothed Adam and Eve for their sin, He gave them the revelation of the blood sacrifice for sin (We see this when Cain and Abel brought their gifts before God; Cain brought the best of his crops and Abel brought the the best of his flocks for a blood sacrifice; God accepted Abel and rejected Cain for only a blood sacrifice was acceptable to God). Abraham offered the blood sacrifice because he knew he was a sinner (The amazing thing about Abraham's faith is that it was before the law was given that defined sin; Paul said before the law came, he had no knowledge of sin, yet Abraham, the father of faith was given this insight even before the law that described sin as sin).
 
The true Jews are those who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham who have placed their faith in the "seed" of Abraham and the true son of  Israel - the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is why Paul said not all Israel is Israel and not all Jews are such by physical circumcision.  A true Jew is one of the heart - or spiritual circumcision via faith in Messiah Jesus. Therefore, when God said in Genesis 12:1-3 that He would curse those who curse Abraham's descendants, He was not speaking of unbelieving Christ rejecting Jews, rather He was speaking of the true Jews - those who have the same faith of Abraham and who believe in Abraham's seed - Christ Jesus the Lord.  It is the One New Man - the Israel of God and the true Church that there is a curse predicted for those who curse it, not secular Israel.
 
Chosenness requires authority and responsibility. When God confers authority upon a nation or an individual, he requires accountability.  Ancient Israel was chosen by God to be a light to the Gentiles and to obey His Word. They did neither.  They were also chosen as a race to bring forth the Messiah which they did in Mary who was a descendant of the tribe of Judah.  Moreover, Israel was responsible to bear fruit of the true kingdom of God upon the earth. The Beatitudes were the kingdom principles characteristic of a kingdom person. Israel in the days of Jesus bore no such fruit.
 
Why did God destroy Solomon's  theocracy which had been divided into two nations - Israel in the north and Judah in the South?  Why did He destroy the 10 northern tribes who were taken captive by the Assyrians and absorbed into the nations of Europe?  Why did He destroy Judah and Solomon's temple by the Babylonians?  For lack of obedience to His Law and to bear the fruit of a kingdom people who understood mercy, grace, justice, and love in dealing with their own nation and the Gentiles.
 
We need to digress and go back to Egypt and the first Passover.  God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage via the ministry of Moses and Aaron. Therefore, on the night they left Egypt, they took the first Passover meal while their houses were protected from the death angel by the blood on the doorpost and lintel.  This began the Passover Age and would last until the Pentecostal Age (Acts 2 - the birth of the true Israel of God - The Church). Passover is the first step in the journey of salvation or deliverance from sin and bondage to the lower sinful nature.  We are saved by the  blood of Jesus from our sins, but this is just the beginning.
 
Three days after Passover, the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai on the day of Pentecost - thus they observed the first Pentecost when the Law was given to Moses. God wanted to write His laws on their hearts at Sinai, but they were afraid of His voice and wanted a mediator, Moses, to hear the words of God for them.  Therefore, God postponed the real Pentecost until Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit came to fill the 120 disciples in the upper room. This was the beginning of the real Israel and the Judah Church, that is, the first fruits of the new Pentecostal Age were Jewish converts. Later, the gospel would spread to the Gentiles - the grafting in to the Olive Tree (The Olive Tree is not Israel, but the Lord Jesus Christ) which Paul mentioned in Romans 11. Since the inception of the Pentecostal Age, God has been grafting Jews and Gentiles into the Olive Tree and the One New Man - the Church of the Lord Jesus.
 
The same thing is happening today, God is wanting to write His Word on our hearts (newborn spirit) and speak to us in our spirit, but most want a mediator, that is, instead of paying the price to know the Lord by personal revelation of the Word and intercession of the Holy Spirit, the majority of the saints depend upon someone else to tell them what God is saying in His Word.  Those who pay the price to have Holy Spirit revelation are the overcomers or the first fruits of the overcoming mature Church. Even the Pentecostal Age is not the full outpouring of the Spirit for the Feast of Pentecost had leaven in it (A type of sin) - Leviticus 23:17.
 
With responsibility and authority comes debt or obligation.  Israel was indebted to God to Keep the "Debt Note," that is, when they did not obey the Lord to keep His Word, they became indebted to Him.  They owed Him a spiritual debt note.  The Lord in His wisdom knowing that Israel could not and would not keep the Debt note, placed Israel into bondage to Gentile nations. That is, God sentenced Israel in the court of heaven as guilty before Him for not keeping the Debt note. Therefore, He had to remove the original authority and responsibility from them and give it to another.  That means they were no longer accountable for being the Chosen people. Again to be chosen carries with it authority and responsibility.  Israel was sold into slavery to the Gentile nations and since  that time have been under the domination of the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and finally Mystery Babylon.  The Gentile nations are blind to the fact that God holds them responsible for paying Israel's debt note.
 
In the Bible when a man married, he assumed and was responsible for his bride's debt.  If the nations did not pay Israel's debt note, God would judge them also. This is part of the mystery of God that ungodly Gentile nations were given authority over the Jews for a long period of time to pay Israel's debt note to God for disobedience.
 
Some Bible scholars believe God in His mystery plan removed the debt note from Great Britain (The Gentiles) and gave it back to Israel in November 1947 by the UN Palestinian Mandate to give Israel one last chance to bring fruits of the kingdom. However, I do not believe that and will discuss why in a moment.  In May 1948, Great Britain pulled out of the Middle East and Israel quickly declared its independence on May 14 (This was a highly symbolic date as in the Torah, the Law, God told the Jews that if for some reason they could not observe the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread in the first month - March - April, they could observe it in the second month - April - May). In my opinion,secular Israel's rebirth in the second month (Sacred Calendar) allegorically typifies Israel's continued rebellion and disobedience to God and that the nation will never again bear spiritual fruit of the theocratic kingdom. I will discuss this more later on.
 
When Israel became a nation in 1948, the secular and Christian Zionists saw it as a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and proof that secular Israel is the chosen people. Countless books have been written by Christian evangelicals such as Hal Lindsey to stir up the emotions of the end time Church that with Israel back in the land, all the prophecies dealing with the land and the Jews are about to be fulfilled - the temple is about to be built, the Church is soon to be raptured, the Antichrist and the tribulation is on the next horizon, and Christ will return and restore the kingdom to the Jews.  There is more attention paid to the secular nation of Israel than the Lord's Church. The Church has been relegated to the sidelines while secular Israel has been given the limelight.  There is even a belief that the Christian Church should be part of Judaism and many Gentile believers are joining so-called Christian Jewish Congregations today and taking part in Torah Worship - the very thing Paul warned not to do in his letter to the Galatians.
 
So who are the chosen people and what is the secular nation of Israel todayl?  How about we start where God starts with the understanding of the nation of Israel?  While the world condemns the Palestinian and Arab terrorists, they overlook the terrorism of the modern day founders of the Jewish nation.  David Ben Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, Simon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Moshe Dayon, and others have been terrorists in their own right.  Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon in their memoirs admit killing their own countrymen in order to advance the Zionist cause.  They sunk a boat load of Jews escaping Nazi Germany and blamed it on the British. They assassinated the British Ambassador to the Middle East.  Begin also admits blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in which a number of Jews were killed. Sharon carried out orders to annihilate a Palestinian village where women and children were killed.  Therefore, before the Arab terrorists began to kill innocent Israelis, the leaders of Israel had provided the example.  During the Vietnam War, Israel attacked and sunk an American destroyer off the coast of Israel - many American sailors were killed.  In addition, Israel has made life unbearable for the Palestinian refuges - stealing their land and houses, killing whole families and leaving Palestinian children without mothers and fathers.  The Israeli Zionist believe the land of Israel belongs to them and that they have a right to confiscate and kill the Palestinian who oppose them. Even the Palestinian who were paid by the Israelis for their land and houses were done so by coercion - they were forced to sell their properties.  This is one of the reasons for the hatred of the Palestinian Arabs against the modern state of Israel.  For many years I was blind to these atrocities until I understood from the Bible and history of the real situation in the Middle East.
 
May I say there is no room in Bible prophecy to hate either Jews or Arabs, but that does not mean we close our eyes to the injustice done by both groups.  In Isaiah 34: 8, God said that in the Day of the Lord's vengeance, He would repay Esau for the controversy of Zion (The KJV uses the word controversy).  The Day of the Lord is the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (September - October) when the tribulation has ended in whatever year that is.  My book deals with the Day of the Lord. I believe the 7-year tribulation will end during the Feast of Trumpets in some year (Trumpets are the first 10 days of the month of Tishri - Sept - Oct). Tabernacles begins on the 15th day of the month Tishri and is an 8 day feast. The last day, the 8th day (23rd) is called the Great Day of  our God.  Jesus mentioned this in His discourse on the outpouring of the Spirit on the 8th day of Tabernacles - See John 7:37-38.  Therefore, Isaiah 34:8 is an end time prophecy.
 
The controversy between Jacob and Esau began in the womb for the Bible says the twins struggled in Rebekah's womb (wife of Isaac). While God in His sovereignty chose Jacob, the younger son, over Esau, and promised to give Jacob the birthright, Jacob along with his mother, took matters into his own hands and stole the birthright from Esau illegally.  He lied and deceived his father Isaac in pretending to be Esau - GOD HAS HELD JACOB RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS LIE AND DECEPTION TO THIS DAY AND JACOB HAS BECOME ESAU.  THIS IS NOT UNDERSTOOD BY THE CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS. 
 
The word, "Israel," means to rule as God.  The nation Israel was originally chosen to represent the government of God upon the earth and to rule as God rules.  After God dealt with cheating conniving Jacob and Jacob realized who God really was, God changed his name from Jacob to Israel - the one who rules as God.  Jacob became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel and the nation of Israel as a people. 
 
When Esau realized that Jacob had stolen his blessing and birthright, he begged Isaac for a blessing and Isaac gave Esau this blessing:
 
Genesis 27:39-40 NKJV
 
39 Then Isaac his father answered and said to him:
Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth,
And of the dew of heaven from above.
40 By your sword you shall live And you shall serve
your brother;
And it shall come to pass, when you become restless
That you shall break his yoke from your neck.
 
Notice, it says the fatness of the earth indicating wealth; also that when Esau becomes restless, he will break the yoke of Jacob off his neck.  The Hebrew word for restless is "ruwd" and means to be disconsolate and seek to be free.  When the house of Esau seeks to be free of the Jews' yoke, they will throw off the rule of the Jews over them.  This is what is going on in the Middle East today between the Palestinians and Jews. However, this is not the complete picture.
 
The House of Esau (Tribes of Esau - Esau married many Canaanite women and had many mixed children among the Arab peoples) is also called the House of Edom  and Idumea.
 
Malachi 1: 1-4 is an interesting prophecy about the House of Esau:
 
1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
2 Israel Beloved of God
"I have loved you," says the LORD. "Yet you say, 'In what way have You loved us?' Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" Says the LORD. "Yet Jacob I have loved; 3 But Esau I have hated, And laid waste his mountains and his heritage For the jackals of the wilderness."
4 Even though Edom has said, "We have been impoverished, But we will return and build the desolate places,"
Thus says the LORD of hosts:
"They may build, but I will throw down; They shall be called the Territory of Wickedness, [KJV says border of wickedness] And the people against whom the LORD will have indignation forever. NKJV
 
In this passage we see a prophecy that Esau (Edom) will return to the land of Canaan (land of Israel today) and rebuild his house, but God says He will tear it down and calls their border wickedness. Then the nations will know that these people were wicked whom God cursed forever. 
 
Not long after the prophecy of Malachi, the Edomites or House of Esau were conquered by Judah's Hasmonean Dynasty in about 126 B.C.  Go on the internet and put Hasmonean Dynasty in your web browser and you can read about this. Josephus, the Jewish historian said when the Jews conquered the House of Esau, they were from that time forward Jews.  The Judahites made the Edomites submit to circumcision and to obey the Torah. From 126 B.C. the House of Judah became responsible for the prophecies about the Edomites.  The prophecies such as the book of Obadiah, which predicts the utter destruction of the Edomites must now be fulfilled to the House of Judah since Judah forced the House of Edom to become Judahites. This is very important, but not understood by dispensationalists.
 
Again when a man marries a woman, he becomes responsible for her debts.  Judah married Edom physically and spiritually by forcing them to become Jews. There is no separate House of Esau today apart from the House of Judah.  I read commentaries about the House of Esau and the book of Obadiah where the Christian Zionists say this is a prophecy that God is going to destroy the Palestinians and Arabs who have persecuted the Jews.  However, if these prophecies for Edom are to be fulfilled, they must be fulfilled to the descendants of Esau which are now merged with the House of Judah (By the way, it is illegal for the nation of Israel to call itself Israel for that name was given to the House of Joseph/Israel not the House of Judah; the leading Rabbis of Israel today say the nation of Israel is primarily from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, which are the tribes of the House of Judah). The debt of the House of Esau must be fulfilled to the House of Judah or modern Israel.
Therefore, God is fulfilling a dual set of prophecies to the secular nation of Israel.
 
Jesus sheds more light on this in His parables and discourses in the gospels. In Matthew 21 Jesus sees a barren fig tree and curses it saying it would never bear fruit again. All prophecy scholars or at least most believe the fig tree in Matthew 21 represents Israel in its unspiritual fruitless state.  Then in Matthew 24 Jesus tells the disciples to learn the Parable of the Fig Tree (Most modern day prophecy scholars have not learned the meaning of this parable).  The Bible is a composite of books and the Gospel of Matthew should be taken in context about the fig tree. The cursed fig tree of Matthew 21 is the same fig tree of Matthew 24 which has leaves but no fruit.  Jesus was telling us in Matthew 21 and 24 that when we see the barren cursed fig tree back in the land of Israel, the end is near. In other words, the secular nation of Israel will never bear any fruit of the promised kingdom. In fact, in Matthew 21:43, Jesus said in reference to the cursed fig tree (nation of Israel) "the Kingdom of God shall be taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth fruits of the kingdom."
 
Christian Zionist and dispensationalists ignore this clear truth such as Hagee and Robertson - the modern secular nation of Israel will never accept the Lord Jesus Christ and will never be worthy of the Kingdom (A remnant from the exiled Jews will accept the Lord, but the nation as a whole will not).
 
In another Parable in Luke 3 Jesus says a tree that does not bear fruit is good for nothing but to be cut down and thrown into the fire. In Luke 3:9 Jesus says "every tree" whether a nation or an individual.  God has no favorites.  He does not respect the physical descendants of Abraham anymore than he does other ethnic groups who deny Him.  Again, God is not working with the nation of Israel as a whole, but a remnant and only God knows who that remnant is in the earth.
 
In Luke 13 Jesus gives yet another parable in which there can be no doubt as to its meaning.  In verses 6-9, He talks about a certain Vineyard owner who planted a fig tree and searched for fruit on it for three years, but found none.  Then he told the keeper of the vineyard to cut down the fig tree, but the keeper of the vineyard asked the owner to let him fertilize it another year to see if it would bear fruit.  This parable is prophetic of the Law of fruit bearing trees in Leviticus 19:23-25 and of the destruction and desolation of the House of Judah mentioned in Luke 21 and Matthew 23.  
 
Leviticus 19:23-25
 
23 'When you come into the land, and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised. Three years it shall be as uncircumcised to you. It shall not be eaten. 24 But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the LORD. 25 And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase: I am the LORD your God. NKJV
 
The Lord came to the House of Judah in 30 A.D. and for three years He looked for spiritual fruit in the nation and found none. They ended up crucifying Him according to God's divine plan. After His resurrection and ascension, God gave the nation of Israel 40 more years to repent and bear spiritual fruit.  They did not. Therefore, He sent the Romans to destroy the House of Judah in 70 A.D. and by 73 A.D. to expel them from the land one last time.  Until 1948, the Jewish nation was never again seen in the land.  However, their presence in the land today is to FULFILL THE PROPHECIES TO JACOB AND ESAU, which has more to do with judgment than kingdom restoration.
 
In Matthew 21:21-22, the same chapter in which Jesus cursed the barren fig tree, He speaks of His cursing the fig tree the same as telling the mountain to be cast into the sea. In Scripture a mountain is a nation or kingdom.  The Lord was telling His Disciples as representatives of the Church, they were to engage in spiritual warfare against the barren fig tree - that it would be removed out of the way for presently it stands in the way of the Church and of God's plan to usher in His spiritual kingdom upon the earth (By Spiritual I mean the Kingdom of the Lord from Heaven - His kingdom is not of this earth - does not originate from the earth as the  earthly kingdoms and settles down upon the new earth in the New Jerusalem).
 
Instead of obeying the Lord in praying the secular Jewish nation be removed out of the way because it is a stumblingblock to the Church and the world, Christian Zionists are perpetuating it and supporting it. This does not mean that we take matters into our own hands and desire the annihilation of the Jews - in no way are we to do that rather are we to pray that God will fulfill His Word to the House of  Jacob and Esau and bring the remnant of the Jews into the Church the Israel of God, which has both a spiritual and a physical fulfillment according to the Abrahamic covenant.   The Jewish remnant must repent of their sins and unbelief just like the rest of us to be part of the coming kingdom. THEY ARE NOT THE CHOSEN PEOPLE, THE CHURCH IS. 
 
The 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7 are the physical remnant that survive the tribulation and do not take the mark of the beast. God seals them for protection and they fulfill the physical promises to Abraham of the land.   God never said that he blinded the whole nation of Israel - only a partial blinding. Many Jews are coming to Christ today and are part of the Judah Church.  God in His sovereignty does not remove the blindness on the physical remnant until His Second Coming.  This is something God does and is part of the mystery plan of God that is finished at the 7th Trumpet.   We may not understand it, but that doesn't nullify the plans of God who said, "My ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts - Isaiah 55:8-9.
 
This is the brief version of the modern nation of Israel. Much indebtedness is due Dr. Stephen Jones for his insights into the modern nation of Israel and part of the above summation is derived from His book, "Secrets of Time" at www.godskingdomministries.org.   However, my personal commentary is also reflected in this article, that is, what the Holy Spirit has shown me about secular Israel.
 
God bless you.
 
Dr. Allen Barber