The Wide Path Dropout

Who is Israel?

• Ginny • Episode 16

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In this episode we get into this hotly debated question of who is Israel? Has the church now become God’s chosen people or are the Jewish people still His chosen ones? Spoiler alert..it’s BOTH!! We learn who the Bible tells us Israel is by following what Scripture says. I mentioned a couple of resources you find these below. The first is the Jim Straley teaching called Identity Crisis. The second is the podcast show The Jewish Road with Ron and Matt Davis. I hope this episode blesses you!

https://youtu.be/VIegGV8Mejc

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jewish-road-podcast/id1582751084

Did you like this episode? Send me a message, tell me anything! I'd be honored to hear from you!

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Jenny. I'm a wife, a mom, an entrepreneur and, most importantly, a disciple of Yeshua Jesus. I've been a Christian for almost two decades, having studied the Bible for at least that long or better. Until about five years ago, I thought I knew Jesus pretty well. Then my world was rocked. I started studying the Bible from its Middle Eastern context and culture, and what I found has completely changed my and my family's lives forever. Join me as I share all that I've learned about our Jewish Messiah, in hopes of edifying and encouraging the bride.

Speaker 1:

This is a conversation for the Christian mom who wants more. This is the Wide Path. The Christian mom who wants more. This is the Wide Path Dropout Mama podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Wide Path Dropout Mama podcast.

Speaker 1:

I am your host, jenny, and I am so excited to be back. It's been so long since I've recorded an episode, so I'm very excited to be back in this space and talking about the things of God. If you have listened to specifically the beginning episodes, like my introductory episodes to this show, I kind of explained what I would be talking about, kind of like my process for putting out episodes, and what I said was that I would not be putting out episodes just to have content out there. I was only going to be talking about the things that the Lord has laid on my heart at that specific time, and so, staying true to that, staying true to why I created this podcast, this episode is no different. I think it's been over almost over a year since I've recorded an episode and I felt very strongly that I needed to, that the Lord wanted me to speak about this particular topic at this specific time, and so if you find yourself listening to this episode, I don't think that it's a coincidence. I think that the Lord wants to lay on your heart the things that he has laid on mine, and he may even want you to be speaking about it within your group of family and friends, and so I'm just going to go ahead and get into it.

Speaker 1:

This topic is a very heavy topic. It's a hot topic. It's being talked about all over social media, it's in the mainstream media. It's very divisive. I know specifically for myself there are people, there are Christian leaders that I have looked up to and respected that when I heard them speak about this, I was absolutely shocked and appalled and very taken aback, and so, without any further leading you on.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to get right into it. We are going to be talking today about Israel, about who Israel is and about how the Lord feels about Israel, about the land and His people. Yes, very, very heavy, divisive, hot topic, but we are going to get into it. We're going to look at what the Word says, what God Himself says about it. We're going to go through Scripture and I'm going to show you, I'm going to show you, that God is absolutely in love with his people, israel, and we're going to find out exactly who that is. So, grab a coffee, grab whatever you want. If you want to grab your notebook, because we're going to get into some scripture, please do, and I can't wait to get into this with you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's take a look at who Israel is, and to do that, we are going to go to scripture. We're going to find the very first place that we ever see Israel, and we're going to follow that all throughout scripture and let it lead us to who Israel actually is today. Okay, so the first place that we ever see the word Israel is in Genesis, chapter 32, verse 28. And that's when Jacob is wrestling the man in his tent. Let's read it. It says, when Jacob wrestled with the man in his tent, he told him he wouldn't let him go until he blessed him. And so the man asked him what is your name, jacob? He answered. The man said your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome. Okay, so now we know that the very first place we see Israel is when Jacob's name gets changed to Israel. Well, what happens from there? From there, jacob has 12 sons, and those 12 sons will be the patriarchs of what we know today as the 12 tribes of Israel.

Speaker 1:

So let's take a look at what happens to Jacob, or Israel and his sons. They end up having their own families, and the place that they live in now has come into a famine, so they have no food. So, jacob and his sons, or Israel and his sons, they now have their own families. They have no food, so they are forced to go to Egypt to get food. Now, when they go to Egypt, they are going to be going in a group of 70 people. They are going to be going in a group of 70 into Egypt.

Speaker 1:

Now what happens after that? They go to the land and they end up multiplying massively, so much so that the Pharaoh at the time was terrified of how much they were multiplying, and so he put them into slavery. Now this happens over the course of 430 years, so that multiplication that's happening, it ends up becoming massive by the time the Lord rescues them out of slavery, out of Egypt that, 430 years later, they have become almost over a million people. That is a out of Egypt, it says. And there were about 600,000 men on foot. Besides women and children, many other people went up with them, as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. Okay, so what started out as 70 people is now well over a million, as the Lord himself is leading them out of Egypt. And so now the Lord is going to lead them out into the wilderness and they're going to come to a place called Mount Sinai.

Speaker 1:

Well, in Exodus 19, right before he gives them the Torah, something really incredible happens. The Lord is about to, he is about to make himself vulnerable to this group of people, he is about to lay his heart out and he is going to ask them into a covenant he is basically about to propose to them on Mount Sinai. So when I read you this set of scripture. I want you to see it through that lens of the Lord laying his heart out and asking them if they will be his, asking them if they will enter into a covenant marriage. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Exodus 19, verses three through six. It says then Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said this is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession, although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. So he has just proposed to them. Now let's see what they say. We are going to pick up in verse seven. So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words that Yahweh had commanded him to speak. The people all responded together we will do everything that Yahweh has said. So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. Okay. So there's been a proposal and the people said yes. So they have now entered into a marriage covenant and the 10 commandments will be their marriage vows. So let's move on. They have now become an established kingdom with Yahweh as their king, and they are going to move into the promised land and they eventually ask for a human king, and so the Lord grants their request. He gives them a human king. So we have King Saul, king David and King Solomon.

Speaker 1:

Now, after King Solomon, something major happens. We have the split, or the division, of the nation of Israel. So it's going to be divided into two separate kingdoms. We're going to have the northern kingdom, which is called the house of Israel. That's made up of mostly 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel. And then you have the southern kingdom, called the house of Judah, and that's made up of mostly two of the 12 tribes. Now, with these separate kingdoms, you're going to have separate kings, and each of these kings is going to fall into one of two of these categories Either that king did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord, or he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Speaker 1:

Now, if he was doing what was right. That means that he was leading his kingdom into worshiping the Lord and obeying his commandments. If he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, that meant that he was leading his kingdom into idol worship and disobeying the commandments of the Lord. Now, in order to understand the rest of the story, you have to know that the worst punishment that you can get for being disobedient to the Lord's commandment is being captured by your enemies and taken off into captivity. And that is exactly what ended up happening to both of these nations of Israel.

Speaker 1:

The house of Israel the northern kingdom, made up of 10 of those 12 tribes ended up being carried off into Assyria. The southern kingdom, the house of Judah, which was two of those 12 tribes, ended up being carried off into Assyria. The southern kingdom, the house of Judah, which was two of those 12 tribes, ended up being carried off into Babylon. But here is the big difference, and this is a huge difference here, the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, was allowed to come back after 70 years Think the book of Daniel, the book of Nehemiah Ezra but the northern kingdom, the house of Israel, when they were taken into captivity into Assyria, they never came back. So you've got 10 out of the 12 tribes that make up the entire nation of Israel have been lost. They have been assimilated into the nations and they never returned. That is why Jesus says in Matthew he says in Matthew 15 and Matthew 10, when he was sending his disciples out to preach the gospel, he said don't go to the Gentiles, don't go to Samaria. I want you to go and find the lost sheep of Israel. Okay, I don't want to move past this part without mentioning the importance of what this actually means.

Speaker 1:

The splitting of these kingdoms and the fact that those 10 tribes did not return back. Come back the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, were made up of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, and we all know that Jesus was from the tribe of Judah and Paul was from the tribe of Benjamin. Now, I will say that I'm sure that there was a mixture of the tribes involved in each of these kingdom split. I'm sure it wasn't only the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, but for the majority, it was the tribes of Benjamin and Judah that were allowed to come back. I just want to clarify that.

Speaker 1:

But the promises that the Lord makes all throughout scripture has so much to do with the fact that these tribes were lost and they weren't allowed to come back, the fact that these tribes were assimilated into the nations the Lord talks about so much, where he says I will bring you back from the four corners of the earth from which I scattered you. There's so much of that talk in the prophets when he's talking about his promises to bring these people back to the land, and that's why you'll hear that the Jewish people all over the world are making what's called Aliyah. They're going back to their land in droves. All throughout history you can see that happening, and so I didn't want to quickly move past that as to not show you the importance of what that actually means. And there is a.

Speaker 1:

There's a teaching by a guy named Jim Staley. It's called Identity Crisis and you can find it on YouTube Identity Crisis and you can find it on YouTube. He does a deep dive into the splitting of the kingdom and what that actually means for us as Christians today, and I highly recommend you going and checking that out, because I can't get into that on this podcast today and I don't even know all of the implications the way that he does, and so please go check that out so you can really get the history of, and the gravity of, what that means, with those 10 tribes being lost. Okay, so, getting back to Jesus telling the disciples that he wants them to go reach the lost sheep of Israel. Now, when you read that, you'll have a better understanding of what that actually means and why.

Speaker 1:

Jesus said that. And you and I know that there was a partial blindness that got put over the Israelites so that the Gentiles could come in to the gospel. And that's where we find ourselves today. We are waiting on the fullness of the Gentiles, or the Lord is waiting on the fullness of the Gentiles to come in so he can lift the scales off of his people and allow them to come into the fold. And so that brings us to the question and the answer to who is Israel today, right now, who is Israel? Well, the answer to that question is anybody that believes in Jesus, that has come into covenant with him and the Lord. We are Israel. Anybody who is a physical descendant of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, anybody that can trace themselves back to the original 12 patriarchs of Jacob, the sons of Jacob. That is Israel.

Speaker 1:

And Ephesians 2.19 says consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. That's talking about believers in Jesus. And then again we can see in Galatians, chapter three, verse 29,. It says if you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. So those are telling us that we are, we are Israel along with God's people not in place of, but along with. And then in Romans 11, it tells us that we've been grafted in. And I want to read this to you, because not only does it talk about us believers being grafted into the commonwealth of Israel, but it also reiterates the fact that the Lord's love for his people, israel, is irrevocable and the fact that they will be saved is a promise.

Speaker 1:

So let's start off by picking up in Romans 11 verse. Let's see here 17. So it says if some of the branches have been broken off and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do consider this, you do not support the root, but the the root supports you. You will say then branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in Granted, but they were broken off because of unbelief. And you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant but tremble, for if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. And it goes on to read in verse 25, it says I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited.

Speaker 1:

Israel has experienced a hardening in part, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. And in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will turn godlessness away from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. So there it is. The calls from the Lord and the blessings on the people of Israel are irrevocable. And just as scripture has shown that, we have been grafted in and so now we are Israel, the people of Israel, the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, they are still Israel. So it is both and not a replacement. And so this idea of the Gentile believers, the church, replacing Israel as God's chosen people, that is what's called replacement theology and it's not biblical. And even though most of the people of Israel do have blinders on and they do not know Jesus as the Messiah, it does not mean that the Lord loves them any less. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They are the apple of his eye, and he is longing for them to be brought into the fold along with us so we can be one big, happy family.

Speaker 1:

I want to read you a few scriptures that I've found throughout the Bible that show you just how much the Lord loves his people, israel. Let's start in Jeremiah 31.3. It says I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with loving kindness. Jeremiah 31.9 says Because I am Israel's father and Ephraim is my firstborn son. 31.20 Is not Ephraim, my dear son, the child in whom I delight. Therefore, my heart yearns for him. I have great compassion for him, declares Yahweh.

Speaker 1:

Hosea 2.14. Therefore, I am now going to allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. In that day, declares Yahweh, you will call me my husband. You will no longer call me my master.

Speaker 1:

Hosea 3.1. Yahweh said to me go, show your love to your wife again. Though she is loved by another and is an adulteress, love her as Yahweh loves the Israelites, though, they turn to other gods Hosea 11.1. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt, I called my son. Deuteronomy 10, 15. Yet Yahweh set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations as it is today. And so that's just a small little portion of scripture that I found that shows how much he loves them, and we are grafted in to that love too. So now, whenever we read those scriptures, we can read ourselves into that, and that's how he feels about us as believers in Jesus now.

Speaker 1:

But Jesus and God, they love all of Israel, though that is their chosen people, that is, a people that they, that they wooed and brought unto themselves and went into covenant with and raised them and took care of them. And all throughout the Bible it is a love story between God and Israel. It's about Him bringing them into covenant, basically getting married together, and them, you know, saying yes and going into covenant and then breaking that covenant by cheating on Him, worshiping other gods, and Him punishing them for doing that and them asking for forgiveness and Him taking them back. It's that cycle over and over and over again, and you know, in Malachi 3, 6, it says I am Yahweh. I do not change the Lord and the love that he has for his people. The covenant that he established with them is unchanging. The only difference is is that he brought Jesus in so that that covenant would remain unbroken, so that he could have unbroken fellowship with his people. And one day, all of our brothers and sisters who have blinders on the blinders will be lifted and they will be in covenant with him and they'll be with us. We will be one big, happy family.

Speaker 1:

And so what should our attitude be towards our fellow brothers and sisters, the Israelites and the Jewish people? It should be an attitude of love. It should be a brotherly love. We should be praying for the ones that don't know Jesus as the Messiah to come to know him. And to the Israelites and Jewish people who do know Jesus as their Messiah, we should be locking arms with them and getting to know them. If we say we love God and we love Jesus, then we ought to be loving the things that he loves and hating the things that he hates. And he absolutely loves and adores Israel. And so we should be loving Israel, we should be supporting Israel, and I'm not saying that we need to support everything that the government of Israel is doing, but I'm talking about the land and the people we are supposed to love and we are supposed to pray for them.

Speaker 1:

And that brings me to one of the reasons why, one of the reasons that stirred up this desire and this passion in me about this particular subject is the interview that Tucker Carlson did with Ted Cruz. Interview that Tucker Carlson did with Ted Cruz and I'm sure if most of you have heard of that, at least heard the snippet of it that I'm about to share with you. But Ted Cruz was telling Tucker that, as a Christian, he believed that we were supposed to bless Israel and that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And Tucker said no, who curse Israel will be cursed. And Tucker said no, you're referring to Abraham. He said that to Abraham in Genesis 12, when the Lord said that he would bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And yes, that's true, the Lord did speak that over Abraham. But if Ted would have been secure in his scripture and if he would have known that it actually is written in scripture, he could have shared that with Tucker and I'm going to share it with you now so that you can see that, yes, the Bible does say about the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, that the Lord says I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you. And I'm going to read it to you now.

Speaker 1:

It's in Numbers 24. It's after the people of Israel have gone into covenant with Yahweh. They are now his people, they have now become the nation of Israel and he's leading them through the wilderness and they come along this kingdom. And this particular king is terrified of the number of the Israelites and he does not want them in his land. And so he goes to a prophet named Balaam and he asks Balaam to curse these people. And this is what happens In Numbers 24, I'll start at verse one.

Speaker 1:

It says Now, when Balaam saw that it pleased Yahweh to bless Israel, he did not resort to divination as at other times, but turned his face toward the wilderness. When Balaam looked out and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the Spirit of God came on him and he spoke his message. And I'm going to skip some of it. But in verse five it says and this is the Lord talking through this prophet Balaam. It says how beautiful are your tents, jacob, your dwelling places, israel. Like valleys, they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by Yahweh, like cedars beside the waters. Water will flow from their buckets, their seed will have abundant water, their king will be greater than Agag, their kingdom will be exalted. And then it goes down. It speaks a little bit more about them, and then this is the verse that I wanted you to know, and it says, in the second part of verse nine may those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed. So that is out of the mouth of the Lord talking about the people of Israel.

Speaker 1:

And then another scripture that I want to point out. It's in Psalms, psalm 122, it's verses six and seven. We are commanded to also pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And this is the Lord speaking through David, and he says this Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say peace, be within you. And that is Psalm 122, verses 6 through 8. And so there you have it. The Lord does say that I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and he also tells us that we are to be praying for the peace of Jerusalem. And so, as for me and my household, we will be standing with Israel. We will be praying for the people of Israel and we will be praying for those that don't yet know Jesus as Messiah to come to know him as their Messiah. Jesus as Messiah to come to know him as their Messiah. And I believe that anybody who loves the Lord, I believe that if you have the spirit of God living in you, that the Holy Spirit is going to guide you to that truth, to that knowledge and that love for his people as well.

Speaker 1:

All right, that's going to do it for today's episode. I really hope that you enjoyed it, I hope that you learned something from it and I hope that you'll share it with somebody if you found it interesting and helpful, and I want to invite you to join me on the next episode. I'm going to be talking about the period, the time period that we're in right now. It is a 40 day period, starting in our calendar on August the 25th, and it leads us to the fall feast days the feast of trumpets and the day of atonement and it's a 40 day period called the time of Teshuvah. So I want you to join me on the next episode where I will get into all of that. It's really interesting and I wanted to leave you with a couple of resources.

Speaker 1:

I know that I mentioned the teaching from Jim Staley Identity Crisis earlier on in the episode.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to link that down in the show notes so you can go check that out. But I also wanted to mention there is a podcast show called the Jewish Road and it's hosted by a father and son and they are Messianic Jewish men, meaning they are Jewish men who believe that Jesus is their Messiah and they talk all about the Jewish Jesus and the Jewish roots to our Christian faith. And they are major friends with Israel and they have a lot of friends who have ministries in Israel or ministries here in America that serve Israel or teach us about Israel. They have many IDF soldier friends and so they're getting this news and updates about what's really going on in Israel that we don't get to hear in the mainstream news and media. So if that's something you're interested in, I highly recommend that you check that out. I'll link that in the show notes below as well, and as always, I pray that the Lord keeps you in his perfect peace Until next time on the Wide Path. Dropout Mama podcast.