The Promised Land (MP 20)

When God marks it off and gives you the land,
It need not be filed with the county clerk;
Woe be unto the nation or the man
Who claims it by some man-made legal quirk!
God gave Abram the land that Canaan had,
To belong to his offspring forever;
God helped them take it, and they dwelt there glad,
Till sin caused God from them it to sever!
For two thousand years they’d no home on earth;
Hounded, killed, and driven from place to place;
A thin slice of that given them at birth,
God caused the U.N. to grant Jacob’s race!
Now, Abram’s offspring huddle in defense,
Surrounded by Satan’s Muslim offence!

Scripture Quoted: Genesis 13:14-17 (NIV)
“The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, ‘Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.’ “

Commentary
The land that God promised Abram in 2000 B.C. was not large in comparison to the influence it has had on world affairs. To this day it has been a powder keg, a threat to world peace and the cause of countless wars. When God promised it to Abram, it was called Canaan, and it was occupied by several tribes. Abram was childless at the time and must have wondered just where his “offspring” could possibly come from. Nevertheless, he believed God in faith and obeyed Him, and that’s why God blessed him and made it all come to pass.

Actually Abram had a total of six sons; his son Isaac by his wife Sarai, was the Chosen of God; he then fathered Jacob and Esau, with Jacob being the chosen one that fathered the Hebrews and the nation of Israel. Abram’s other five sons, Esau, and the sons of Lot all sired tribes who became known as Arabs; they have been deadly enemies of Israel throughout history. All Jews and Arabs are included in the “offspring” of Abram, but so are all Christians. When Jesus brought Christianity to the world in the first century A. D., He established a spiritual kingdom, the Kingdom of God; by adoption into Christ’s Kingdom, every Christian is considered spiritually to be a child of Abram. When God likened Abram’s offspring to be like the “dust of the earth” in number, the total number of Israelites, Arabs, and Christians is what God meant; over one half of the population living in the world today are Abram’s “offspring”.

It required about 500 years, until the time of Moses and Joshua, for the twelve tribes of Israel to acquire the land of Canaan, which was 1500 B. C., approximately. The zenith of the nation Israel occurred under King David (1000 B. C.) and his son Solomon. If you have access to a current map of the Middle East, Israel occupied all the lands of Jordan, much of Iraq, and all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. But it was not to last; man’s old nemesis sin by Israel so angered God that His aid to them turned into judgment. The nation split into two kingdoms, each of which were captured, leveled, and plundered, and most people were hauled off into captivity. Though always under conquest by Persia, Babylon, Alexander the Great of Macedonia, and finally the Romans, a couple of million were in the land when Jesus was born of a virgin in about 4 B. C. He was their promised Messiah, but in one last great sin they rejected and crucified Him. That was the last straw for God; He brought the Romans under Titus to besiege and destroy Jerusalem in 70 A. D. Titus killed more than one million Jews; sent 300,000 into slavery for a penny each; cut down all the trees along the Jordan River; plowed all the land and sowed it with salt. The land that “flowed with milk and honey” turned into desert; Israel had no homeland. For 2,000 years they lived as aliens in other countries; suffered persecution; were hounded from place to place; and Hitler sent 6,000,000 to their deaths.
But God had not forgotten the “apple of His eye”. With the undisputed leading nation of the world, the United States, He caused the new United Nations to end Israel’s milleniia of horror by granting Jews a small slice of land along the Mediterranean and a large chunk of desert in 1949, and the second Israel was launched June 15th. The Arab world went to war against Israel that same day; 200,000 Jews who had clung to a bare existence in Arab lands disappeared overnight. God’s Master Plan spelled every detail of this long struggle out, and the Bible prophesied it all before it came to pass. What is more, the Bible tells also what is to happen to Israel in the future.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life,” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 19:9)