Why We Pray for and Support Israel – 3

Why We Pray for and Support Israel – 3

Subject – Israel: The Apple of God’s Eye

By Rick Welborne

Genesis 12:1-3 (NLT2)
¹  The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.
²  I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.
³  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” 

--Today, again we are praying for Israel and the Jewish people. We bless them with our prayers, our words, and our support. God says to bless them so we do.

--We continue to pray for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for protection, wisdom, and success in this war defending their country and their people. 

--Hamas is refusing to let civilians in Gaza leave and are even killing some who try because they need human shields to protect them from Israel. It was a Hamas rocket that hit the hospital.

--I hope and pray daily that Holy Spirit will come upon you with a call to intercession. Souls of men, women, children, babies, the elderly are slipping into eternity. Many without God.

--And, no, there will not be 70 virgins waiting for those who are killed or martyred for Allah in paradise.

Hebrews 10:27 (NLT2)
²⁷  There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.

--Please do not forget that God will take care of Israel and though things look bleak for that tiny nation, God will keep His Word and they will survive.

Zechariah 12:1-3 (NLT2)
¹  This message concerning the fate of Israel came from the LORD: “This message is from the LORD, who stretched out the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the human spirit.
²  I will make Jerusalem like an intoxicating drink that makes the nearby nations stagger when they send their armies to besiege Jerusalem and Judah.
³  On that day I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock. All the nations will gather against it to try to move it, but they will only hurt themselves. 

--God keeps His Word and today I want to show you that what God promised Abram about the Jewish nation has, in fact, come to pass. 

1. All the Families on Earth Will Be blessed

Genesis 12:1-3 (NLT2)
¹  The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.
²  I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.
³  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” 

--As you study history, you learn that the indestructible Jew has left his indelible mark upon history. The Jewish people are not great in number. 

--Of the world’s population, they are only 0.2%. That’s not two percent. That’s less than one-fourth of one percent. 

--Yet did you know that 22% of Nobel Prize winners have been Jews? In 2013, six of the 12 laureates were Jewish. Think of that. God said He would make them famous.

--Abraham’s descendants consistently win high percentages not just of Nobel Prizes but other awards in medicine, health, music, and public life. What a mark they've made upon our world.

--Did you know it was a Jew who financed Christopher Columbus when he set sail for the west? Of his crew members, the first to set foot on American soil was a Jew. 

--Did you know that a Jew, Haym Salomon, financed General George Washington in our Revolutionary War?

--Have you ever taken an aspirin? Friedrich Bayer, whose company developed aspirin, was a Jew. 

--Were you vaccinated for polio as a child? The injectable and oral polio vaccines of Salk and Sabin were so effective; the disease has been all but eradicated.

--Has the dentist ever deadened your tooth before he started to drill? Alfred Einhorn, who developed Novocain, was a Jew. 

--If you're an anti-Semite, the next time you go to the dentist, why don't you say, “Just drill away, don't deaden my pain.” Have you ever had local anesthesia? Its inventor, Carl Koller, was a Jew.

--When you developed an infection, the doctor prescribed streptomycin, developed by Waksman, a Jew. 

--Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew. Are you a student of philosophy? Spinoza was a Jew. Do you appreciate the Salvation Army? Its founder, William Booth, had a Jewish mother.

--It's amazing to study the mark God's chosen people have made on the world. God said I will make you a blessing to others and that all the families of the earth will be blessed through them.

--Jews can be thanked for the discovery of electromagnetic waves, the transistor, the first laser, oral contraceptives, antihistamines, anti-leukemia drugs, the electron microscope.

--They can be thanked for vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague, the camera phone, nuclear fission reactor, sound-on-film technology.

--Also we can thank them for the discovery of neurotransmitters, the process by which we do MRIs, the Hepatitis-B vaccine, the first exact map of the moon.

--And do you like American music? Thank George and Ira Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Lerner and Lowe, and Stephen Sondheim, to name only a few.

--All history has been dramatically impacted by six Jews: Moses, the Apostle Paul, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, and above them all, the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. God’s Promise to Israel

Ezekiel 37:1-14 (NKJV)
¹  The hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. 

²  Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry.
³  And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" So I answered, "O Lord GOD, You know."
⁴  Again He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!
⁵  Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: "Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.
⁶  I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD." ' "
⁷  So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone.
⁸  Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.
⁹  Also He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." ' "
¹⁰  So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.
¹¹  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!'
¹²  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.
¹³  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.
¹⁴  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.' " 

--Dry bones, Israel, hear the Word of the Lord, "Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live… Then you shall know that I am the LORD." Israel will be saved.

Zechariah 12:10 (NKJV)
¹⁰  "And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. 

--There is a rattling, there is a noise but the bones are coming together. God is doing with Israel what He prophesied a long time ago.

Zechariah 13:9 (NLT2)
⁹  I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify them like gold. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’”

--They will be a great army because God will be fighting their enemies and they will win.

Zechariah 12:9 (NKJV)
⁹  It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 

Ezekiel 37:14 (NKJV)
¹⁴  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.' "