This is what most people miss....when God abandoned the Jews, he handed them over to the god they chose to serve....the ones who thought that ancestry carried weight that disobedience did not invalidate.
They were wrong! Their ancestry carried no weight at all when Christ came, which is why John the Baptist could say to that disobedient nation.......
“And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt 3:9-10 ESV)
What “fruitage” have this nation produced throughout their sad and sorry history?
When God was with them, no nation could defeat them...they did not have to rely on worldly nations to back them up.....their God alone was all the backup they needed, but when they made alliances with worldly nations out of fear and lack of faith, God left them to the consequences of rejecting him...he allowed their enemies to conquer them. If the nations of today like the USA failed to provide backup, Israel on its own would be lost....but they are still lost due to their own disobedience and reliance on others.....where is their God fighting for them?
Jesus said to them.....
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matt 23:37-39 ESV)
The house of Israel was left to them, desolate......that “house” (nation) would not see Jesus again until it recognises Jesus as Messiah, who came in the name of Yahweh, his Father.
For the last 2000 years Israel has denied Jesus as the Christ....and many hate Christians for pointing out to them that their Messiah is not coming....he’s been and gone and is due back again, “appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.”
Israel are just as much a part of the world as any other nation. They are not special, nor are they “saved” because Abraham is their ancestor.....God raised up another nation to replace them as his “people”.
This nation is exclusively God’s property and no ethnicity is required to become part of its citizenry.
Acts 10:34-43....
“So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (ESV)
There is so much in that passage of Scripture....what is “the good news of peace” that was preached in Israel so that they could be free of the conflicts and adverse judgments that had always plagued them due to their disobedience?
When God was with Israel, they prospered, but when they disobeyed, God abandoned them to their enemies, and they were helpless....defeated and lost, until he rescued them time and again. Why did he put up with their continued disobedience, when such conduct invalided his covenant with them?
His purpose in connection with them had to fulfill prophesy...they were the ones through whom the Savior would be born. And as Peter stated.... “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses“.
Those who support the physical nation of Israel today, are those who expect a reward for that support....the so called “Christian nations” who still believe what the Bible says, pertains to literal the inhabitants of Jerusalem....
Zechariah 8: 20-23 from the ASV....
“Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come peoples, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to entreat the favor of Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah of hosts: I will go also. Yea, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek Jehovah of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favor of Jehovah. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”
This is prophesy....though like many prophesies, not fully understood until after its fulfilment.
We see this today as the non-Jewish nations placating Jehovah for a reward for hanging onto the coattails of natural Jews, when speaking prophetically of a time when the natural Jews (as a nation) would be abandoned, as incorrigible....just as Jesus said. (Matt 23: 13-15, 33)
This is not a prophesy about literal Israel, but spiritual Israel, adopted as “sons of God” who will rule with Christ, not in literal Jerusalem but in heavenly Jerusalem.
Hebrews 12:22-26....
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” (ESV)
How do we understand the warning here?
God is about to bring his purpose to fulfilment.....to “shake” up not only the earth, where the rebellion took place, but also the heavens, where the first rebel originated, and took a third of the angels with him.
Israel is warning example to Christendom....
All mankind are about to face the end of this satanically controlled world, and the imprisonment of satan and his angels....so that they cannot interfere with his purpose any longer....this is in order to bring us back to Eden....to our beginning....and to the life God first intended for the human race. (Rev 21:2-4) A restoration.
Under the rulership of the “Prince of Peace”, all who love war, and who are involved in the filthy politics and bloodshed of this corrupt world, will have no place. (John 18:36)
Will we be among the saved or the lost? By our own decisions we determine our own destiny.
