Israel: Past and Present

Introduction

For better or worse, we are a culture that’s derived toward the news, for good or bad. And what are the things over the last year or so which have dominated the headline? Well, I’ve got here a short stack of news magazines going back, well, really, to uh uh the fall of 2001, special issue, newsweek, September 11th, and the aftermath. In a way, simultaneously, it began to heat up shortly before 9-11 and got to a fever pitch a few months afterwards, the conflict in the Middle East, particularly in Palestine. Here a whole issue dedicated to Israel. How will it survive? And will it survive? And of course, the most recent crisis that is at a peak at this point, and that is Iraq, and the issue of Saddam Hussein.

Which has also prompted a lot of people, even in the media, to talk about things that they typically don’t talk about. Like this Newsweek issue of uh February of last year, the Bible and the Quran, searching the holy books for roots of conflict and seeds of reconciliation. These issues of Iraq and the Middle East and the fight over Palestine, the relationship of Jews and uh Palestinians, and the whole idea of the religion of Islam and what Muslims believe and practice, these things are really the backdrop to these news events. Indeed, the greatest issues of the backdrop to these matters are economic and political and military, but a very real part of the background to these events, and one’s really the one that most people have the most questions about, and the one that the most people have the most problems understanding are the religious connotations and the religious roots of these three faiths, how they overlap, how they intersect, and unfortunately, over the last year especially or so, in a most dramatic way, how they collide.

It’s prompted a lot of questions in our culture. Who was Mohammed? What is the Quran? What does it contain? What is it like? How does it compare to the Bible? What does it teach? What similarities do uh Christians and Jews and and Muslims have, and what differences are among them that are of consequence? Why is it that the Middle East is such a political hotbed with religious overtones? And what is the rationale of Muslim terrorists when they carry out violently their missions, sometimes killing thousands of people at a time. Is Islam a peaceful religion? Is Islam innately a violent religion? These are some of the questions that people have. And not only after exploring these questions can we be better informed so that when we see these things flash before us in the media that we have a better understanding of those things, even from a religious standpoint, which is beneficial, but more importantly, it’s important living in our time that we understand more about these things to assist us in our own personal quest of faith.

Because obviously, whether a person comes from an Islamic background or a Jewish background or some kind of Christian background. These are all people in some way or another quest on a quest of faith and a quest to know God and to be right with Him, which is the most important journey a person can make. And in our journey, though this may not have been so in years past, regarding our journey and the culture in which we live, these issues are more relevant than ever before. And especially as we interact with other people when they are trying to sort things out and make their journey for that which is important spiritually and that which is eternal. There’s a couple of goals we have in this series, and I want you to be patient as we try to accomplish the first one in this series, because that’s mainly what we’re going to do the first three nights as we search for answers in the face of conflict.

The first one being the idea of looking at the history and the roots of these three faiths. Your roots are very important to you. A tree will shrivel up and die if it’s cut off from its roots. Roots feed us and fuel us. Every now and then I’ll say something or do something that’s a little bit different, and my wife will look at somebody and say, You can take the boy out of the mountains, but you can’t take the mountain out of the boy. And there’s just something that comes out of me every now and then. Maybe you’ll hear a word or a phrase this week that is very Appalachian mountain like because that’s my roots. And we’re all like that, whether we’re a Yankee or a West Coast person, what race we’re of, or what uh culture we’ve been around.

That’s just the way things work. And it’s important to understand regarding Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, some things about their roots. Because it will help us to properly understand things that are going on today. And so, really, the first three nights, we’re going to be looking at a lot of background material, a lot of historical material, to lay some groundwork. And it’s really material that you don’t get in the news media. The news media is geared toward what’s happening now, it’s geared toward what is fast and flashy and shallow. And these things aren’t shallow. You have to think a little bit, you have to dig a little bit, you have to sort through some things. But these are some of the missing pieces that keep people in our time from better understanding these issues.

And the second thing that we plan to do is, and that’s mainly what we’re going to do on Sunday, is to make a comparison of Judaism and Christianity and Islam. What do we do when these three faiths collide like they have been in a most dramatic way? Well, there are some choices left for us. We have seen demonstrated one choice, and that is that when you have a strong religious difference, then you just fight it out, and the stronger person prevails and it answers the question. I think most of us as rational people realize that that is not an alternative. That does not improve anything, it’s destructive. Another alternative, and this was more the idea before 9 11, and probably is worth sinking back into this philosophy since 9 11, and that is sort of the ostrich with the head in the sand.

That we want to ignore the differences, downplay the differences, and say, well, it really doesn’t matter. Well, if it really doesn’t matter, why are there so many conflicts? And why are the conflicts intense, even at times violent if the differences don’t matter? That’s an unrealistic option. The third option takes more work. Third option requires of us a lot of honesty and effort. And that is to search for truth. To examine things honestly, as objectively as we can, whether a person’s a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian, and to study, to research, to think, to reason, and to search for what is right, what is believable, and what is true. That’s what I would encourage you to do. The New Testament says in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 21, test all things, hold fast what is good.

We understand this principle and anything else, don’t we? We go to buy a car, we want to find that which is good, test, drive it, check it out, research it. We go to find a physician for a certain procedure we need. We want to research it and ask around, get opinions, get references. Religion should be no different. We should test, we should examine, we should search, and then we are to find that which is good and hold on to it. I encourage you to do that over the next several days. Well, tonight, as we begin to lay our groundwork, we will start with the oldest of these religions as far as an organized faith, and that is Israel. We’re going to spend Friday and Saturday night talking mostly about Islam.

1. Three Promises Made to Abraham

And at the end of Friday night, we’re going to talk about how Islam and Judaism is clashing now, the land of Palestine, and why there is such a conflict in that land. Sunday we’re going to make the comparisons. But we begin laying some important groundwork tonight, not first by looking at Islam, but by looking at Israel. Surveying the history of Israel, both in the Bible, out of the Bible, and up to present time, past and present. The faith of the Israelites really begin in the book of Genesis, the twelfth chapter, where we’re introduced to a man by the name of Abram, who’s later named Abraham. And God makes him some promises. In Genesis chapter 12, it says in verse 1, Now the Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse them who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Note that there are really three promises made to Abraham. Abraham was promised a land. This is the land of Canaan, now called Palestine. This would be for his descendants. Second of all, that he was going to make out of this man a great nation. Abraham had no children of this time, though he was an aged man. But God made him this promise and he believed in it. That from him would come a great family, a great nation. And that he would have a protective relationship with Abraham and his people.

That I will bless you, and consequently bless those who bless you, but I will also curse those who curse you. I’m going to protect you. You’re going to belong to me in a very special way. And so Abraham left his home and went to the land of Canaan, where he did not really possess the lands, except for Cape for cave before burial sites. But he lived in tents in a nomadic fashion with the confidence and the hope of God’s promises that one day his family would be great, and it would be a great nation upon that land. And sure enough, he did father a child who fathered more children, who fathered children after that. And so after Abraham, we do see that his descendants are multiplying when we come to the book of Exodus, and that they have migrated to Egypt because of famine, and there they have fallen upon hard times, because the Egyptians have feared them for their great numbers.

2. A Law and a Covenant at Sinai

God is making them into a great nation, a large nation, and they put them into bondage. They cry out to God, and by the hand of Moses, they’re led out in the book of Exodus. And God, through mighty miracles, delivers the Israelites from their oppressive, evil masters, the Egyptians, including the Pharaoh. And he brings them out to Sinai and He makes a law and a covenant with them. And I want you to know what it said here in the book of Exodus, chapter 19, right before God gives the Israelites the law of Moses, which started with the Ten Commandments. He says in verse 4, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.

Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for the earth is mine. That is in essence what God said to Abraham in Genesis 12. I’ll bless you, I’ll curse those who curse 8 it says, then all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. So Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord. Understand something, and it is found throughout the Old Testament when God communicates to the Israelites. He makes them great promises. But those promises were conditional upon them heeding his word, upon them keeping covenant with him. He’ll keep his end of the bargain if they will. And that remains to be seen.

3. Then Things Began to Unravel

We see that they settle in the land of Canaan. They’re led there first by Moses, who gets them to the edge of the promised land, and then Joshua lead them in, and they invade and drive out the people, and they settle in the land of Canaan, which is a little bit larger than what we consider Palestine today. And there they lived for many years. They attacked the people who lived there and drove out. And these people will talk a little bit about this every night. Eventually they organized into a kingdom, not because of God’s will initially, but the people’s desire of wanting a king, that it was part of God’s overall plan, and he fitted into what he was accomplishing. They were led by Saul, David, and Solomon, and the empire grew with each king of the United Empire.

It became politically and militarily and economically stronger from Saul to David to Solomon. To the days of Solomon, it was a leading world power in that part of the world. But then things began to unravel. Because of Solomon’s unfaithfulness and committing idolatry, and the following generations, their idolatrous behavior, and turning their back to God and breaking the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai. The land first divides into Israel and Judah, Israel to the north, and Judah the territory, a separate kingdom in the south. But it got even worse. Because of their unfaithfulness to God. They were carried into captivity. Israel first by the Assyrian Empire. And when the tribes of Israel to the north were carried into captivity, they were assimilated into the Assyrian Empire, and they were no more an entity, no more a nation.

Judah to the south. Judah, from which our expression, Jew. They were preserved as a people. But they too eventually were carried into captivity by the Babylonians, who was then the world power. They spent approximately 70 years in captivity. The Babylonians came in. They destroyed the temple that was the centerpiece of their religion and their government, their nation, wiped out the walls of Jerusalem, brought them into captivity and ways. But God promised he would bring them back if they would repent. And they turned their backs, they turned their hearts back to God. And so several years later, after another generation is born in captivity, their return in small numbers. Not all of them went back, but a substantial group came back to live in the land of Judah or Judea.

And then henceforth they’re called Jews. It was an important time. The prophet said that they would be returned, and they’re returned. But you know what? There’s just something missing. They’re not as powerful as they were in the days of David. They’re not as prosperous as they were in the days of Solomon. And all through the writings of the prophets, they’re saying there’s going to be great peace. There’s going to be great blessings that’s going to come. But really, the prophets were ultimately pointing toward one who would bring these blessings in a spiritual way. And that would be the Messiah. For a long time this nation was small and dominated. They were between other world powers, and they were kicked around like a political football. They did not know their former glory like in the days of Solomon.

And so the Old Testament closes with them small and dominated. First by the Greeks, then by the Romans.

4. The Jews Rejected Jesus

By telling us the history of Jesus. And how that he was, how he interacted with the Jews, his own brethren. Jesus came first to the house of Israel. That’s where he ministered in their land. These are the people that he mostly worked with, Israelites or Jews. These are the people who heard his teaching and his preaching. And though his first disciples came from Jews, for the most part, the Jews rejected Jesus. And though he begged and pleaded with them, and though he proved himself to be the Christ of them, it was to no avail. And so shortly before he died, Jesus leaves them with these words. In Matthew 23, verse 37. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. The one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you were not willing. This is the same kind of parental love that God had in the Old Testament for Israel. God wanted to protect her and shelter her and bless her, but she was rebellious. Here Jesus came, the greatest offering of God, the greatest demonstration of God’s care for the Israelites. But they did not believe upon him being the Christ, the Son of God. And as a result, Jesus says in the next verse, see, your house has left you desolate. For I say to you, you shall see me no more till you save. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And the beginning of the next chapter tells us what this is about.

In chapter 24, it says in verse 1, then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said, Do you see all these things? Do you not see all these things? Assuredly I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. Desolation, destruction of the temple. Just as it occurred in the days of Babylon, when the Babylonians came and invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the temple and wiped them out as a people and took them into captivity, Jesus is saying a similar event is going to happen, and it’s going to happen because though I’ve loved you, you’ve rejected me as the Messiah. Jesus’ words to the Jews is to the Jews are, be prepared.

5. The Romans Marched Against Jerusalem, 70 A.D.

Great destruction is coming. And sure enough, after the record of the New Testament events, a few decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, and after several decades, really, of the preaching of the gospel in and around the Jerusalem area in Judea, the Romans marched against the Jews living in Judea. The Romans had controlled this territory for a long time, but they allowed the Jews their autonomy to a great extent. They allowed them to practice their religion and have some self-government. But there continued to be one uprising after another. That’s why Pilate feared letting Jesus go, because he thought that possibly, you know, it would get him in trouble because the people were always complaining to Caesar about the governor, and sure enough, years after that, Pilate was removed because of the people’s complaint about him.

There was a lot of political instability in Judea. And it was always a problem for the Romans. And finally they got tired of it. Vespasian led a march, a campaign through Galilee. He was called back to Rome and eventually became the emperor and his son Titus, General Titus marched upon Jerusalem, invaded the city, burned the temple, destroyed the centerpiece of Jewish life. 70 A.D. And the Jewish religious slash political system, which had been restored since the days of Babylonian captivity, was now dismantled. This whole system that you read about in the New Testament, this organization, the Sanhedrin Council, and all these things, it’s complete. The priesthood dismantled. They have no centerpiece, they have no temple. And though a few of them remained in this land or around this lamb, only a small amount, remained there, but never again for a long time in any organized fashion.

Well, that’s the history of the Jews found in the Old and New Testament. Have you ever done this? Have you ever read your Bible and read about the Old Testament and King David and Isaiah the prophet and come over the New Testament and you read about Jesus and the Jews and things happening there and the temple and the things happening with the first Christians? And yes, Jesus is saying that the destruction of Jerusalem is coming. And then you close your Bible and that’s it. You know that the Jews were about to be destroyed. And you hear some teacher say, or you read something out of a book like Josephus, it said, sure enough, as Jesus prophesied in 70 AD, the Romans marched against Jerusalem and leveled it.

6. A Period of Dispersion and Oppression

And then you go and pick up a newspaper. And there they are. Jews in Israel, living in Palestine. How did that come to be? As the New Testament closes, we see that their hours are, well, their days are numbered, their hours are numbered. They’re going to be removed once again from this land and dismantled as a political organization. Why is it today there is a modern state of Israel in Palestine? Organized and to some degree, a vibrant and even from a military standpoint, especially, a powerful entity. How does that come to be? Well, consider with me the history of Israel since the New Testament. There are several periods here, and there’s one large period that we can just simply call a period of dispersion and oppression.

From really AD 70 in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans to the 19th century. It categorizes this period. Many of the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem, just dispersed into the Middle East, North Africa, up in Asia Minor, and places like that. And as we’ll see the birth of Islam tomorrow night and the spread of Islam Saturday night, we see that many of these lands come to be controlled in the centuries following by Muslims. Powerful Muslim governments. It’s interesting when you dig back in history. And this is even true of what you read of Jewish historians. Is that there were occasional persecution of Jews by Muslims. And there were occasions of conflict between Jews and Muslims in these centuries. But they lived in relative peace.

Jews lived during the heyday of the Islamic civilization in relative peace among Muslims. There were exceptions. There were incidents. But it was not a continual thing like you see in Palestine today. Not at all.

It took many years for them to migrate there, but large numbers of them came to live in Europe. And for centuries in Europe, they lived a segregated life. And they were limited in what they could do in society. And all along the way, they were oppressed, especially when you come to the latter Middle Ages, 13 and 14, 1500s, even leading up to the 19th century. They are severely persecuted at times and in places. This is where we get our expression in ghetto. These were the pockets of populations of Jews who lived in certain areas. They were segregated and they were limited. And oftentimes they lived in squalor. You may have heard about the Spanish Inquisition, which was used for a lot of purposes, but it began to be used against people in Spain who were Jews, who had supposedly converted to Christianity or the Roman Catholic version of Christianity.

But they didn’t really believe they truly converted, so they began to put them on trial to see if they were true converts. And in the same year that Columbus said.