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Question # 101 Where are the scriptures that talk about: ( a.) God's "eternal" promise of
the land to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac? ( b.) Where are
the specific boundaries of this Promised land?
Answer……… Lets begin with the fact that God and Abraham entered into a Land
Covenant. That basic covenant (Abrahamic Covenant) is found in Genesis 15:18: In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
Reconfirmed in: (Deuteronomy 1:5-8 On this side Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare this law, saying, The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount: Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates. Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.)
Again it is reconfirmed in Genesis 17:7-8: And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
Then it is confirmed through Isaac: Genesis 17:19-21 And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.
And confirmed again through Jacob: Genesis 35:10-12 And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.
The specific boundaries of the Promised Land were first spelled out in Genesis 15:18 mentioned above. Israel has never realized the blessing of the entire Promised Land because of her national disobedience as specified in Deuteronomy chapters 11 and 28; but God has stipulated that the covenant is an “everlasting covenant”, and that He (God) will bring it to pass in his own time. Several scriptures refer to that unbreakable promise of God! For instance: Jeremiah 31:35-37 Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.
And in Jeremiah 33:20-26 Thus saith the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. Moreover the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the Lord hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the Lord; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them. ( See also Psalms 72, 89, 102 )
No doubt you have read the word “everlasting” many times in these scriptures. The Abrahamic Covenant was an unconditional covenant, but the Palestinic Covenant was a conditional covenant. The land controversy exists because of Israel's failure, but the Kingdom promised to Israel is certain because God cannot fail!
Question # 102 I would like to know who the Amorites, Hittites, and Jebusites are. Were they Arabs or were they Black people? Also are Egyptians Black people or Arabs?
Answer…….. The Amorites and Jebusites were descendants of Canaan. Canaan was the son of Ham, who in turn was one of Noah's sons. The Amorite people were famous for being a giant race of people. (Amos 2:9) All of the descendants of Canaan settled in the region west of the Jordan River. Genesis 10: 15-19 gives a background on all of Canaan's immediate descendants and their domicile. All these tribes were from the Hamitic lineage. The Hitite people flourished in Asia Minor on the plateau of Anatolia, between about 1900 and 1200 B. C. The name Hittite comes from Hatti, another name for Anatolia, the capital of which was Hattushash. At a later date, the Hittites spread into northern Syria and populated such cities as Aleppo, Carchemish, and Hamath. The Amorites inhabited the land west of the Euphrates River, including Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. The Amorites were one of the major tribes, or national groups, living in Canaan. The Jebusites were the original inhabitants of the city of JEBUS, an ancient name for the city of Jerusalem. King David made this former Jebusite stronghold the "City of David," the capital of his kingdom. The site on which Solomon's Temple was built in Jerusalem was previously a threshing floor that belonged to a Jebusite by the name of Araunah (2 Sam. 24:16-24), or Ornan (I Chr. 21:24-25). David refused to accept this property as a gift from Araunah and paid him 50 shekels of silver for the land.
Canaan was the fourth son of Ham and the grandson of Noah (Gen. 9:18-27; 10:6,15). Ham's descendants were dispersed into several distinctive tribes, such as the Jebusites and the Zemarites. These people became known collectively in later years as the Canaanites, who were pagan inhabitants of the land that God promised to Abraham and his descendants. Under the leadership of Joshua, the Jewish people occupied the land of Canaan and divided it among the twelve tribes of the nation after God decreed that the Canaanite iniquity demanded judgment. (Deut. 7:1) Genesis 15:16 conveys the idea that God allots peoples a time-space to repent, then judgment comes. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
The ancient Canaanite tribes were not Arab. The Arab peoples did not yet exist as a tribal ethnicity. The Egyptians were descendants of Mizraim and the tribes mentioned in Genesis 10:13-14. Mizraim was neither black nor Arab. It is well to note that Eve, just 2000 years prior to this period in time was the multi-times great grandmother of all living. While environment and culture, and tribal mixing certainly played a part in tribal appearances, it is my earnest opinion that the racial divisions involving color occurred after the “Babel” episode. Although however it is believed that Nimrod was black. Nimrod was the son of Cush, and they constituted the earliest known history of the black races.
Question # 103 Whom exactly are the Palestinian refugees? Where did they come from?
Answer... There are actually two groups of Palestinian refugees. The first group materialized after the 1948 war while the second group appeared as a result of the 1967 war. Most Palestinians are descendants of Egyptian, Sudanese, Lebanese, and Syrian migrant workers within the current boundaries of Israel during a period from 1830 to 1945. These migrant workers were imported by the Ottoman and British overlords. The first wave of refugees came about as a result of the UN Partition Plan in 1947. The wealthy class of Palestinian departed from Palestine in anticipation of an Arab war against the Jews. However most Palestinians evacuated their homes by heeding the warning from Arab leaders to temporarily leave so as to be clear of their advancing armies into Israel.
UN census roles reveal that there were about 800,000 Palestinians permanently residing in Palestine before the war. Census roles after the 1948 war show that about 600,000 Palestinians fled the war and became refugees because the Arab nations lost the war and refused to assimilate them into Arab countries.
A second wave of Palestinian refugees was produced by the 1967 six- day war. King Hussein of Jordan, anticipating an Arab victory over Israel ignored advice to remain neutral and joined the Arab armies against Israel. As a result of losing the war, and losing the area of the West Bank Jordan helped to create another displaced 500,000 Palestinian refugees. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, through its Security Council Resolutions 194 and 237 provides funding and operation for the Palestinian refugee camps. (Those resolutions also call for the return of any refugee to his former home provided he is willing to “live-in-peace” with the current government )
Question # 104 Do the Palestinian refugees have a legitimate right to return to former
homes inside of Israel?
Answer……… The 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states
that the “right of return” is reserved to any person that is a common nationalist of that particular nation. It is important to remember that there never existed a Palestinian State either in 1948 or in 1967. The refugees of 1948 left a state that was ruled by Britain. The refugees of 1967 left a state that was ruled by Jordan. (Jordan has assimilated about 300,000 refugees into its country.) The problem of refugees is an unavoidable consequence of warfare. The right-of-return is intended solely for persons displaced from their homes and were not actively engaged in war. The right of return is not extended to masses of people that engaged in war against a neighbor. The right of return is also not extended to those seeking return in order to further engage themselves in conspiracy and warfare against the established sovereign state. History is replete with examples of displaced people having to secure a new home and a new life after the horror of war and the changing of political powers. It is a matter of fact that winners of wars determine political rights. This is a fact of life in the human jungle. (Fairness, truth and justice will only prevail in this world when Jesus Christ establishes his Kingdom.) This is just one reason that nations spend so much money on national defense. In an ethical and democratic nation, personal rights have dignity, regardless of ethnical background. Israel as a sovereign authority has granted full citizenship to Palestinians that “live-in-peace” and adhere to the laws of the state.
Question # 105 Why is Israel so reluctant and seemingly grossly intolerant to the idea of
granting Arafat's demand that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to Israel?
Answer……… For Israel to capitulate entirely on the right-of-return issue for refugees
means political demographic suicide. Even without the return of
refugees, Israel is facing the bleak prospect of a decline in Jewish
population projections that when factored in with the steadily increasing
Arab population in its midst, will result in Jews being a minority in the
world's lone Jewish State in just another 19 years. The current Intifada,
launched by Yasser Arafat has as one of its primary goals to effectively
decrease the immigration of Aliyah Jewry to Israel. Israel needs 50,000
Jewish immigrants yearly just to maintain the status quo demographically. Israel's enemies hope that terrorism will scare off potential immigrants. The suicide bombings are also intentionally targeting younger Israeli's in order to further reduce the prospects of Jewish propagation. Since the Oslo Accords were instituted in 1993, the Arab immigration into the West Bank has skyrocketed. Approximately 270 Palestinian-Arab settlements have been constructed in the West Bank compared to about 140 Jewish settlements during the Oslo process. Yet the controversy is centered about the Jewish settlement construction. Israel incorporated all of the Jewish refugees from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia that the 1948 and 1967 wars produced, but the Arab countries have never attempted to alleviate any of the problems presented demographically by the Palestinian refugees. It is obvious that the Arab countries do not care about Palestinian refugees, but rather are using them as pawns in continuing their war against Israel.
Obviously, the entire problem is about land. Each side is attempting to settle the most people on the land. Demographics is being used as a weapon against Israel, and small nations have always found it difficult to survive the numbers game.
Question # 106 Are the Palestinian people descendants of the ancient Philistines?
Answer……. Today's Palestinians often claim that they are the rightful heirs of
the West Bank because they are descendants of the Philistines. However, archaeology and history as well as Biblical History convey something to the contrary. The Philistines were an ancient sea faring people originating around the Aegean Sea, and relocating to the coast of Palestine prior to the days of Israel, in about the 12th century B.C. The Philistine tribes completely vanished from history after being conquered and enslaved by Nebuchadnezzar in the 7th century B.C. Therefore the Palestinian claim to be direct descendants of the Philistines is totally erroneous. The extinction of the Philistines stands in shark contrast to the survival of the Jews who were also taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar at about the same time.
Question # 107 There is a verse of scripture somewhere in the Bible that says something
about God wiping away all the tears from the eyes of his Saints. Where is that scripture and how will God wipe away all tears?
Answer…….. The scriptures that you are referring to are located in Revelation 7:17
and also in chapter 21:4. (Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.)
(Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.)
Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.
As to how God will wipe away all the tears of a Saint, I can only guess.
It is not too hard for God though. I am more awed by the fact that he can
wipe away all sins through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Since he can wipe away all sins, I don't think tears will be much of a problem!
I John 3:5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins;
I John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Question # 108 I have always studied the book of Revelation. In chapter 10 and verse 6
there is a statement that there shall be no more time. This statement has
often bothered me since obviously time/events continue to happen
afterwards. How do you explain this verse?
Answer……… Lets first share/review the verse in question. Revelation 10:6 And sware
by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
It is a common misassumption that this verse is implying that “time” will
cease in being an earthly dimension, or that the world has come to the
end of “time”. Rather, the verse is simply alluding to the fact that
God's righteous patience and longsuffering has finally been exhausted.
(II Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men
count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance) The verse is
correctly interpreted as meaning that “there shall be no further delay” in
the accomplishment or concluding of the “mystery of God. (Rev 10:7
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to
sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his
servants the prophets) The word “time” utilized in this context means
that the time-span, interval, or season of time. In Revelation 6:10, the
martyred Saints of the ages ask this question; How long, O Lord, holy
and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on
the earth? The righteous judgment of God requires justice. The seals,
trumpets, and vials represent the piece-meal fashion of judgment by
which God judges the world. Although there are 21 phased sequences in
the complete judgment, God in Revelation 10:6 has mandated that the
“delay” for judgment is passed. Sadly, after each series of judgments, the world continues to blaspheme God. (See Rev 9:20-21, Rev. 16:9, Rev. 16:11, Rev 16:21
Question # 109 Do you think that Statehood, even a provisional entity leading toward
Statehood for Palestinians is a good idea?
Answer…….. No, I do not think that the creation of a state on the West Bank of the
Jordan River is a good idea. One reason is simply because there has never been a State of Palestine. The formation of a new State of Palestine is a political scheme first of all to appease the Arab neighbors of Israel, and secondly to deny Israel land that God has given them. The real issue underlying the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is not the creation of a second Palestinian State (Jordan being one) but the existence of the Jewish State itself, and its occupation of the city of Jerusalem. Secondly, it would be tantamount to rewarding terrorism, and in fact be the creation of a new state that sponsors and harbors terrorism. The West Bank is not land that has been stolen from the Palestinians. It is contested land, or “disputed territory”. Israel has a Biblical deed to the land, but in the course of the world's “conflict resolution,” the land is being partitioned out amongst the various claimants. In reality the land controversy is a battle between the “God of Israel” and the “God of this world”( Satan). The creation of a new State of Palestine is ultimately a geo-political mechanism that will serve the Antichrist. Israel will be given a guarantee of security by the Last Days world power, but only after enclosing the perimeter of Israel's borders with a series of finalized peace processes. The American war on terrorism is actually rewarding the components of terror with a “terrorist state” in the hope that the Palestinian issue will go away. But it will not.
The real issue is the city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, and the God of this world will utilize all the principles involved to exalt himself!
Palestinian Statehood is just a stepping stone toward that eventuality.
Question # 110 What do you think of the new Bush Peace Plan, as envisioned in
President Bush's (June 24) speech on the Middle East? Is his vision of
“two states” living side by side concept for peace between Israel and the
Palestinians a good idea?
Answer…….. President Bush's new Peace Plan is only a good idea in the pragmatic
sense. If relying solely on human reasoning it could be considered a good idea. But when it comes to analyzing his peace plan by applying the standards of Bible Prophecy, his vision for peace is not a good idea. The Presidents vision for peace between Israel and the Palestinians rests upon the premise that a “democratic” state of Palestine would accept the existence of Israel and live in peace with Israel. Although democracy may be a noble form of government, and something that is totally absent in any Arab country, democracy alone is not the answer. The Prince of Peace (Jesus Christ) is the answer. God is working in the affairs of this world to bring Israel to its knees and finally to accept Jesus as her Messiah, and afterwards to reward Israel with all the Promised Land. The present “land-controversy” is in reality the “birth-pangs” of the Lord's imminent return to Israel. God has promised the land in question that would be granted by Israel under President Bush's peace plan to a new Palestinian State to Israel. Bush's peace package in essence would trade some of “God's Land” to what the President hopes would be an evolving democratic “non-terrorist” State. Nice try, even sensible, but Bible Prophecy indicates that it won't work, and it even indicates that any country that coerces Israel into a “land-give-away for peace-security” will be judged by God. Bible Prophecy conveys to us that the coming World Prince (Antichrist) will arrange a peace-security settlement for the Arab-Israeli Conflict. That scenario will only materialize after the world has dealt a severe blow to Middle East terrorism. The Bush Peace Plan is seeking to usurp the Palestine-West Bank entity from the extremist-terror element camps embodied in Yasser Arafat/Hamas, etc. Even with a temporary State called Palestine, eventually the world will have to deal with the cadre of terrorist organizations and terror-sponsoring states that are seeking the destruction of Israel. That scenario portends that the city of Damascus (Syria) shall become an obstruction to the whole idea behind the Bush Peace Plan. Damascus is the international headquarters for a dozen Palestinian and Middle East based terrorist organizations. The Bush Peace Plan, although seeking to dislodge terrorists from the “provisional Palestinian State,” will actually result in the creation of yet another Middle East State that sponsors terrorism! The Bush Plan is designed to drive a wedge between the moderate Arab states and the now infamous “Axis of Evil” (Iran, Iraq, Syria) states in the Middle East.
President Bush stated in his speech:
R
For too long, the citizens of the Middle East have lived in the midst of
death and fear. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage. The
forces of extremism and terror are attempting to kill progress and peace
by killing the innocent. And this casts a dark shadow over an entire
region. For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle
East.
I would agree with him that for the sake of “all humanity”, things must change in the Middle East. But it is Jesus Christ return to Israel, and not more Democracy in lieu of despots that is the answer!
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