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Never Again!! (part 1) - by Pastor Mike Taylor - http://www.churchofgod-usa.org/1/post/2016/05/never-again.html
"And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. v.15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God." (Amos 9:14-15) Has God cast away His people, Israel? Of all the nations of the earth, no other has been so blessed as Israel when she followed after the ways of God. But no other people has been so cursed, as when she forgot her God and followed after pagan gods and idols. Some will say that God divorced Israel and cast her away and the Church has replaced her. But is that true? Has God cast away His people who he brought up out of Egypt in ancient times. Has He cast off the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? The history of the nation of Israel is over 4000 years long and details cannot be fully covered in one offering, but we will touch on the high points of the historical events leading to the modern day establishment of the nation of Israel and the promises made to her. ANCIENT ISRAEL INTO CAPTIVITY Israel provoked God by her idolatry and following after the gods of the Canaanites who they drove out before them, but not all. God warned them repeatedly through the prophets that judgment and an evil was coming upon them if they refused to repent and come back to the true God of Heaven, Jehovah (YHWH). Till finally, God had had enough of their idolatry and unrighteousness and cast them from His site. "For the LORD shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger." (1st Kings 14:15) " For I have set my face against this city for evil, and not for good, saith the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire." (Jeremiah 21:10) "Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, and rock of the plain, saith the LORD; which say, Who shall come down against us? or who shall enter into our habitations? (v. 14) But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof, and it shall devour all things round about it." (Jeremiah 21:13-14) And so it was according even to historical records that Israel was cast away from God's sight for 70 years into the Kingdom of Babylon. But God was not done with Israel and history shows that Cyrus, King of Persia decreed in 538 BC, the returning of the Jews to Judea and authorizing the rebuilding of the Temple, which was nothing out of the ordinary for this unusual monarch (II Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-11; 6:2-5). God used a pagan king to return the nation of Israel back to their homeland. This was Israel's first dispersion and it's return to their ancestor's land. Israel dwelt in the land even under the rule of other nations, including the Roman Empire until the appearance of the Messiah, as they never regained their independence until recent modern times. The Bible shows that from the time of the rebuilding of the Temple by Israel until the coming of the Messiah, Yeshua Moshiach , Jesus the Christ was exactly 483 years when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a foal of a donkey and the city proclaimed Him King with a loud voice "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest" It was the only time that Jesus allowed the people to proclaim Him their King. Three days later on the day before Preparation Day for the Passover week, Jesus would be crucified on a cross by the Romans with the Jewish authorities as accomplices. From that hour, the prophetic time clock for the prophecy given to Daniel by Gabriel the ark angel stopped. God gave Israel 40 more years from the crucifixion to recognize Jesus as Messiah, until in 70 AD, Jerusalem and the Temple of God were destroyed by the Romans. Then putting down revolts with the last in about 135 AD, Jerusalem was completely destroyed and the land plowed under with salt and the Jews and Israel were no more. Remaining Jewish people were dispersed to distant lands by their conquerors and Israel was basically forgotten with her name changed by Rome to "Palestine" in recognition of the Philistines, Israel's most hated enemy. JEWS, A MUCH PERSECUTED PEOPLE Down through the ages, the Jewish people were persecuted and were forced into submission to other nations and cultures, and no other people would endure such a treatment and continue their own culture, besides the Jewish people. Fast forward to the 20th Century and a push for creating a nation for the Jews starting with the Balfour Declaration in 1917. History shows us that the declaration read as follows: "His Majesty's government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country" Due to rising anti-Semitic prejudices in the nations that harbored the Jewish people, the land of Israel was divided up for a homeland for Jews and Arabs, but almost immediately the Arab-Israeli conflict erupted and Jewish travel to Israel was minimal at best. Enter Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich for the persecution of the Jewish people we now know as the Holocaust where 6 million Jews died in gas chambers, ovens, and other means of extermination such as firing squads. I read in horror the account given by Jack Kinsella in the Omega Letter concerning what happened in central Europe nations such as Poland in cities including Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. Of the millions who entered these camps, only a handful emerged. "Can you imagine the outrage, had the Allies known of these camps? Clearly, the moment the Allies discovered that the Germans were systematically exterminating the entire Jewish population of Europe, the entire tenor of the war would have changed. No matter how critical other military targets may have been, it is difficult to imagine that any of them could be more critical than the death camps. No matter how many lives might have been at stake because of other targets, there was nothing that compared to the carnage of the Nazi death camps. What a terrible shame that they didn't know. Think of the millions of lives that could have been saved, had they destroyed those death camps, even as late as the last year of the war! Except they did know. And they did nothing." (Jack Kinsella, Omega Letter) You read that right. America did nothing. We knew, but we made excuses that the war effort did not allow us to use equipment and resources to save a people targeted for extermination. It was reported by a Jewish man, 19 year old Rudolf Vrba who informed the Allies through a Jewish Rabbi with what would become known as the Auschwitz Protocols of what Nazi Germany was doing to a whole race of people. Our war department had a policy in place and spoken of by Assistant secretary of war John McClory of the standing policy that no military resources should be allocated for "rescuing victims of enemy oppression." ('Victims of enemy oppression' was a code for "Jews". The Allies ACTUALLY had a policy in place to let them die.) I am ashamed of my government duplicity talking from both sides of their mouths when it came to the war effort and the saving of people from Germany's goal of world dominance. But out of evil, came about the fulfilling of a long ago prophecy that God used the evil intents of men for good and for His own purpose. ISRAEL WOULD BE REBORN The prophet Ezekiel was given a vision by God in the valley of dry bones where God brought Israel back from the dead. Everyone thought Israel would be no more, but God had a different idea: "And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: (22) And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all." (Ezekiel 37:21-22 The chapter speaks of the past, the present and the future of modern day Israel. Israel was regathered to her own land with more and more people from other countries from all over the world are making their aliyah, or immigration to Israel. National Israel was born in one day on Pentecost, May 14, 1948: "(7)( Before she travailed, she brought forth; Before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child (8) Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isaiah 66:7-8) It was and is truly a miracle and reinforcement that God has NOT abandoned His people Israel. Israel has had to defend herself since her inception and rebirth as a nation from her Arab neighbors having gone to war with her time and time again. Each time, Israel has been victorious over huge, seemingly, insurmountable odds that seemed impossible to overcome. "But with God, all things are possible". Even today, the world conspires to bring Israel to ruin. Her present Prime Minister and the man of the hour to lead Israel in these perilous times, Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed in many speeches of the resolve of his government to never allow the attempted extermination of the Jewish people. "If anyone thought that following the horrific events of the Holocaust this malignant phenomenon would vanish from this world, it is today obvious that he was wrong." "The sad fact is that while we mark the Holocaust Memorial Day here at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, some chose to attend the show of hatred against Israel held as we speak in the heart of Europe," Netanyahu said. "We will not let Holocaust deniers carry out another Holocaust of the Jewish people. This is the supreme commitment of the state of Israel." Speaking at the International Holocaust Memorial Day in Auschwitz, the PM of Israel was quoted in the Jerusalem Post: "Israel, he said, must stand at the forefront of all civilized nations and warn them about impending danger - while also preparing to defend itself against all threats. "I promise, as head of the Jewish state, that never again will we allow the hand of evil to sever the life of our people and our state," he solemnly added. Netanyahu chose not to specifically refer to the Iranian regime and its nuclear drive, but has drawn a link between the Nazis and the Iranian threat to the Jews in many recent speeches." see: http://www.jpost.com/International/Netanyahu-at-Auschwitz-Never-again Despite the lessons of the Holocaust, the world learned nothing. The burden of Jerusalem remains as heavy today as ever it has over the millennia. "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zechariah 12:2-3) No other nation has caused so much division and world anxiety as the tiny nation of Israel. In the past quarter century, subsequent presidents of the USA have tried to broker a "Peace Treaty" with the Palestinians (a made up people)and Israel, but have failed. Why? Because the Arabs within and without Israel will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state and let them live in peace. Their goal, their intent, and their speech proves that their only ambition is to drive the Jewish people into the Mediterranean Sea to drown. They want the so called "Palestine" to be " Judenrein" (Jew-free). No free people can bargain with the likes of those who only wish your death and destruction, much like Hitler and Nazi Germany. To be against Israel is to go up against the God of Heaven who proclaimed that Israel would always be a nation before Him: ""Thus saith the Lord that giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, that divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the LORD of hosts is His name: If those ordinances depart from before Me, then the seed of Israel shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. 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." (Jeremiah 31:35) It would be well advised that the Evangelical Church such the likes of the "Christ at the Checkpoint" (sic) which began in 2010 as a biennial conference with the idea that Jesus was a Palestinian who could be suffering under Israeli occupation today as he once suffered under Roman occupation. David Neff, who co-convenes an annual evangelical-Jewish leader dialogue, said his Jewish friends have expressed some nervousness over recent gatherings and activities, including Christ at the Checkpoint, which took place in March. "I think it's more anecdotal at this point, but nevertheless, it is reasonable to think that with Christ at the Checkpoint people getting the attention of some," Neff said, referring to Lynne Hybels, wife of megachurch pastor Bill Hybels, and progressive evangelical leader Tony Campolo. "There's no question: People who have sympathies for the plight of the Palestinians have more access than they used to." 
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