Why Does Satan Hate Israel?
by
Stephen Yulish
As Israel is chastised by the entire world for its tough response against Hezbollah rocket attacks from Southern Lebanon, some Christians want to know what this has to do with them. They wonder if God may be finally finished with Israel after all their years of stiff necked defiance and refusal to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They see the United Nations, the EU, the Vatican, and other religious organizations calling for a ceasefire. Only the United States thus far has stood behind Israel’s right to defend itself against kaytusha rocket attacks against its civilians in the northern Galilee and Haifa.
I wrote a similar
article last year, “A Promise is a Promise”, when people were concerned about
Israelis leaving their settlements in Gaza. Look what has happened. They left
southern Lebanon in the year 2000 and were promised that the militias like
Hezbollah would be disarmed. They left Gaza last year hoping that a land for
peace strategy would work. Both withdrawals failed, as Gaza and southern
Lebanon have both erupted in violence. I did a radio interview last week and
was asked why the Jews and Muslims could not just get along. The reason is that
Satan hates the Jewish people, especially the Israelis, and there would not be
peace until the Prince of Peace returns (Isaiah 9:6).
Why is this? Paul summarized it best in Romans 9:4-5
“Israelites to who belongs the adoption
as sons and the glory and the covenants
and the giving of the Law and the temple
service and the promises, whose are the
fathers, and from whom is the Christ
according to the flesh, who is over all…”
God used His first born chosen people, the Jews (through the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Temple) to bring His word, the Law and morality, to the earth and then sent His Son in a Jewish body to save the world from its sin. Satan hates God and His word and he hates God’s chosen vessel, the Jews, from who came Jesus Christ. Satan used the Babylonians and the Persians and the Assyrians and the Hittites and the Egyptians to try and destroy this royal bloodline by destroying the Jews, but he failed. Then after Christ died on the cross for our sins, he continued to try and see that the scattered Jews would not return to their homeland and reestablish their Jewish nation. He infiltrated the Church and helped instigate the Crusades and the Inquisition and the pogroms and the Holocaust in order to destroy the Jews so they could not create another Israel.
Why was he so
hell-bent on preventing that from happening?
Because Jesus Christ is to return
to the Mount of Olives (Zech 14:4) to rule and reign from Jerusalem for a 1000
years from the rebuilt Temple. Recently he has infiltrated the Mosque and is
using Islam to try and destroy the Jews and Israel. While once it was the
Crusader and the Grand Inquisitor and the Nazi, today it is the Imam and the
Islamic Cleric and the President of Iran who have called for the destruction of
Israel and the Jews. Unfortunately, however, Satan is still alive and well in
the body of Christ spouting such lies from the pits of hell as “replacement
theology”, that the church has somehow replaced Israel. It is Satan trying to
show that God’s word is a lie. He will of course fail but many souls will be
lost in the process, Muslim as well as Jew as well as so called Christian.
What Christians fail to realize, is the fact that if God
is finished with Israel then maybe He might be finished with them as well. Ludwig Schneider wrote “Christians note the
veil over the eyes of Jews that binds them from seeing the Messiah, but when non
Jews don’t believe that God’s promises to Israel are still valid today, there
is a veil over their hearts which encompasses all the nations. Whether Jew or
Gentile, these veils must be removed.”
The
Abrahamic Covenant gave ownership of the land of Canaan unconditionally to the
descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was an everlasting possession
(Genesis 17:7-8). That means forever. This was reiterated when an Angel of the
Lord said; “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have
sworn to your fathers and I said I will never break my covenant” (Judges
2:1). God keeps His promises that He confirmed to Israel as an everlasting
covenant (Psalm105:6-11) and He says that the offspring of Israel will cease
from being a nation when the fixed order of the sun, the moon and the stars
departs (Jeremiah 31:35-37).
If
Israel ceases to be a nation on that land, then what was Paul speaking of when
he said of the Jews that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans
11:29)? Jesus Himself said that all the things talked about in the Law of Moses
and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. It means the Temple must be
rebuilt (Daniel 9:27). The House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem must
recognize Him that they have pierced (Zechariah 12:10). That will never happen
if Jerusalem is ceded to the Palestinians. Paul in his Second Letter to the
church at Thessalonica said that the antichrist will reign from the Temple
(2Thess.2:4). The Temple will not be rebuilt under Palestinian control.
And
finally Paul wrote that someday all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:26). This
will not happen if Israel no longer exists.
What
does all of this mean to Christians? If God promised Israel that land and
reneges on His promise, then He might renege on your promise of salvation as
well. Paul wrote to Titus about “the
hope of eternal life which God promised ages ago” (Titus 1:2). God cannot lie
and His promises are faithful (Hebrews 10:23). Thus if God keeps his promises
to Israel and the land, then He will keep His promises to you about eternal
salvation. Watch God working with Israel and rest assured that He will keep
working with you because a promise is a promise. And like He did not forsake a
stiff necked rebellious Israel, God will not turn His back on you. God loves
Israel and Satan hates Israel. God says that anyone that touches Israel touches
the apple (pupil) of His eye (Zechariah 2:8). That means that anybody that
messes with Israel sticks his finger in God’s eye. Why does Satan hate the Israelis?
He hates them because God loves them in spite of their unbelief and one day is
going to set up His kingdom in their midst for a thousand years as He gives
them a new heart and a new spirit (Zechariah 12:10 , Jeremiah 31:33).
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