ZIONISM

CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY | home

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unless you live under a rock you are likely already well familiar with popular world opinion regarding the restoration of Jews in Israel, as judged by most that are of the world, to be a geopolitical inconvenience at best. However the term "expansion" might be more appropriate than "restoration", since Jews have maintained a continuous presence in Israel ever since God have them the land as an everlasting possession through an everlasting covenant, about 3500 years ago. In regard to the institutional church, partial preterists generally reject that the return of Jews to Israel is of the Lord, while futurists and some historicists join those from many centuries before us, who anticipated this expansion through bible prophecy. The dating of the expansion of Jews is often falsely ascribed to the late 19th century when Theodor Herzel coined the term "Zionism", however the historical fact of the matter is that Jews began to be restored to control over Israel in the early 19th century.

In "A History of the Jews" Paul Johnson writes on page 321: "Between 1827 and 1839, largely through British efforts, the population of Jerusalem rose from 550 to 5,500 and in all Palestine it topped 10,000 - the real beginning of the Jewish return to the Promised Land." By the 19th century, 1200 years of Islam had rendered Israel a spiritually and physically desolated, denuded, deforested, desertified, barren wasteland. This desolation is well attested by many eye witnesses, just as would seem to have been prophesied in scripture, prior to Israel's physical regeneration. Centuries before the restoration of Jews to their /our covenant land began, or the term Zionism was ever coined, Christians recognized the likelihood thereof through bible prophecy.

Links to sections on this page include Reformers on Restoration of Jews to Zion, Prophecy Regarding Restoration of Jews to Zion, Israeli Non-Muslim Arabs, Institutional anti-Zionism, Israeli Christians in Gaza, and The Fruit of Anti-Zionism. For more complete coverage of this subject please visit our companion site at the following link.

Reformers on the Restoration of Jews to Zion (URL)

Matthew Henry wrote: "If God will build Jerusalem for the people and their comfort, they must inhabit it for him and his glory. The promises and privileges with which God's people are blessed, should engage us to join them, whatever it costs us."

In 1641, the British Puritan leader, Oliver Cromwell stated, "And it may be, as some think, God will bring the Jews home to their station, 'from all the isles of the sea,' and answer their expectations 'as from the depths of the sea.'

In 1635, Thomas Brightman wrote a commentary on Daniel 11-12 which he sub-titled, 'The restoring of the Jewes and their callinge to the faith of Christ after the utter overthrow of their three enemies is set forth in livelie colours.'

Similarly Isaac Newton: “Hence I observe these things, first that the restauration of the Jewish nation so much spoken of by the old Prophets respects not the few Jews who were converted in the Apostles days, but the dispersed nation of the unbelieving Jews to be converted in the end when the fullness of the Gentiles shall enter, that is when the Gospel (upon the fall of Babylon) shall begin to be preached to all nations."

Prophecy Regarding Restoration of Jews to Zion (URL)

Prophecy such as the following, and more:

Ezekiel 36:18 Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols [wherewith] they had polluted it: 19 And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them. 20 And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These [are] the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land. 21 But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. 22 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not [this] for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. 23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I [am] the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. 24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. 25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do [them]. 28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Thus it shouldn't be a surprise that many have been restored to their/our covenant land even in unbelief, not so much for their sakes, as for the sake of God's holy name. A fulfillment of prophecy so stunning that even "the heathen shall know that I [am] the LORD".

Ezekiel 36:35 And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden;

and the waste and desolate and ruined cities [are become] fenced,

(map of Israeli security fence)

[and] are inhabited.

Having restored His people to their/our land after more than 2500 years of being scattered among, and persecuted by, the Gentile nations. Now that we can confirm mathematically that we are in what Daniel's prophecy calls the "time of the end", and thus his book has been unsealed, we can see Daniel prophesied this restoration through two parallel problems that span 2500 years, and pin the year of the restoration of His people to their land in 1948, and to their city in 1967 fulfilling the "times of the gentiles" in Jerusalem - right to the year.

Israeli Non-Muslim Arabs (URL)

While the opinion of the non-Israeli world that has persecuted Jews for over 2500 years, isn't hard to find via the mass media, what is the opinion of the vast majority of those who were born in Israel and actually have to live there? Let's start with non-Muslim Arabs:

"In contrast, a poll of 507 Arab-Israelis conducted by the Israeli Democracy Institute in 2007 found that 75 percent profess support for Israel's status as a Jewish and democratic state which guarantees equal rights for minorities. Israeli Arab support for a constitution in general was 88 percent.[31]"

Institutional Anti-Zionism (URL)

The Lutheran as well as Evangelical Lutheran Church seem to be given wholly over to anti-Zionism, basically proposing national suicide for Israeli Jews through naive suggestion such as: "The campaign supports ..... a shared Jerusalem with equal access and rights for Jews, Muslims and Christians." Thus effectively supporting a resumption of the pre-security fence suicide-bombing of Israeli schools and market places, by Israel's enemies who remain committed to genocide of all Israeli Jews - indeed all Jews - while they continue to target innocent Israeli women and children. Though the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) would seem to be emerging as chief among activist anti-Zionist Protestant "church" institutions. From their "Israel and Palestine General Assembly Action":

"Item 12-03 calls on the General Assembly to oppose Christian Zionism and to develop a plan to communicate the theological and political ramifications it engenders to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in the mass media, and among U.S. government officials."

We would encourage all such misguided Christians to read Alan Dershowitz's "The Case For Israel", that was powerful enough to convert a heavily propagandized Jew-hating anti-Zionist Muslim college student, into a Jew loving pro-Zionism Muslim. His having exhibited such a love of truth as well as willingness to follow it, perhaps it won't be long before this young Muslim overcomes Islam and comes to to know the love of Jesus Christ as well - no thanks to the preterist, supersessionist, liberal wing of the church, and their fellow-fruit in the anti-Zionist tree.

Israeli Christians in Gaza (URL)

What about the freedom and right to self-determination of Gaza Christians, that was formerly protected by the democratic Jewish state, after the non-Israeli anti-Zionist world advanced the Islamic conquest thereof?

Militant leader in Gaza says missionaries will be 'dealt with harshly,' demands women wear headscarfs

Published: 06.19.07, 09:54 / Israel News

Christians can only continue living safely in the Gaza Strip if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings, an Islamist militant leader in Gaza told WND in an exclusive interview."

[To understand what is meant by "women roaming publicly" one needs to understand the Muslim mindset. In Saudi Arabia for example, women are not allowed in public without an escort (it is effectively an invitation to rape), men lock their wives in their homes during the day, and women are even arrested for driving cars. Women "roming publicly" can even be construed as an invitation to rape. And since an accusation of rape must be confirmed by three witnesses under Islamic sharia law.....]

"The militant leader said Christians in Gaza who engage in "missionary activity" will be 'dealt with harshly.'

The threats come two days after a church and Christian school in Gaza was attacked following the seizure of power in the territory by the Hamas terror group.

'I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza,' said Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, an Islamic outreach movement that recently announced the opening of a "military wing" to enforce Muslim law in Gaza.

Jihadia Salafiya is suspected of attacking a United Nations school in Gaza last month, after the school allowed boys and girls to participate in the same sporting event. One person was killed in that attack.

'The situation has now changed 180 degrees in Gaza,' said Abu Saqer, speaking from Gaza yesterday.

'Jihadia Salafiya and other Islamic movements will ensure Christian schools and institutions show publicly what they are teaching to be sure they are not carrying out missionary activity. No more alcohol on the streets. All women, including non-Muslims, need to understand they must be covered at all times while in public,' Abu Asqer told WND.

'Also the activities of Internet cafes, pool halls and bars must be stopped," he said. "If it goes on, we'll attack these things very harshly.'

'Fatah behind church attack'

Abu Saqer accused the leadership of the Gaza Christian community of "proselytizing and trying to convert Muslims with funding from American evangelicals."

'This missionary activity is endangering the entire Christian community in Gaza,' he said.

Abu Saqer claimed there was "no need" for the thousands of Christians in Gaza to maintain a large number of institutions in the territory.

About 2,000 Christians live in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of over 1 million.

Abu Saqer said Hamas 'must work to impose an Islamic rule or it will lose the authority it has and the will of the people.'

His comments come after gunmen on Sunday attacked Gaza's Latin Church and adjacent Rosary Sisters School, reportedly destroying crosses, bibles, pictures of Jesus and furniture and equipment. The attackers also stole a number of computers.

So the conquest and dhimmitude of the Islamic slave state of Gaza begins, thanks to non-Israeli anti-Zionists advancing the 1400 year goal, of the false prophet Muhammad 's aggressors. Could anyone really imagine, even for a moment, that any non-Muslim Israelis, would want Israel's democracy to be converted into just another sharia law ruled, female circumcising, child doing, multiple wife and concubine beating, Christian and Jew beheading, Islamic slave state?

In a vote of 138 to 9 the United Nations voted to give the fictional state of "Palestine" observer status. Who's next? Narnia? Perhaps Atlantis? The following reads more like a headline:

Zechariah 12:3 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.

Paraphrasing and correcting Benjamin Netanyahu's more politically correct matter of fact observation:

"If the Muslims put down their weapons there would be no more violence, if the Jews put down their weapons there would be no more Israel."

From the desire of the overwhelming majority of non-Muslim Arabs in Israel, cited at the beginning of this page, we can see that Netanyahu incorrectly said "Arabs" when he should have said "Muslims".

Here's a YouTube of an Arab Muslim Imam, describing what Muhammad's followers are commanded to do. Indeed if the non-Islamic world continues to put down our sword the false prophet Muhammad's followers will continue to prevail.

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places].

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

Tragically, our own military collected up and burned, bibles in Afghani dialects that some of our soldiers were offering to hosts that invited them into their homes, thereby disarming our troops of the very weapon God gave us to engage the enemy with. Certainly not inconsistent with the rest of U.S. military misadventures, ever since we kicked God out of our country through the Everson decision in 1947, and the McCollum decision of 1948. What we should be doing is millions of tracts of the Gospel John, or Mark, throughout the middle east Islamic world. Followed perhaps by tracts regarding the absence of a history of Mecca before the 4th century AD. Then maybe follow that with the First Epistle of John. Folks in the middle east that become quickened by the spirit today must hide the fact, because the penalty for leaving Islam - for apostasy - is death. But what might things be like if suddenly they all had access to the scriptures simultaneously? Ah but then it would first require the politically correct powers that be to recognize that the enemy of the world is Islam itself - not a concept, such as "terrorism".

Indeed Muhammad himself was one of the most consummate, as well as self-admitted terrorists in history:

Sura 8:12 I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them

It is Muhammad that commands his true followers to:

Bukhari, V1 B2 #24 Narrated Ibn 'Umar: Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform a that, then they save their lives an property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah."

To fight and slay non-Muslims:

Quran Sura 9.111 Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah. then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.

That is of course a lie regarding the Gospel binding Christians to fight and slay, but a mandate for Muhammad's true followers. Even if those non-Muslims are the "people of the book", that is, Christians and Jews, until bent into submission to Muhammad's followers.

Surah 9.29 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. 30 The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!

This as the followers of the false prophet Muhammad 's desires, in modern times, were manifest in Adolf Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem 's interest in genocide of Jews during WWII for all to see. Here's why:

Sahih Bukhari B52 #177 Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "the Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

Please visit this link regarding blindness to the Gospel God gave some Jews.

While futurism might not even be reconcilable with the Gospel, at least futurists love Jews and support their democracy, and at least their doctrine doesn't blind them to the over 20,000 deadly Islamic terror attacks perpetrated around the world just since 9-11, during this Second Islamic Jihad. The punitive supersessionism of preterism and anti-Zionism and anti-semitism it breeds, prevents its adherents from recognizing Jews as other than a monolithic group. However the "mystery" detailed in Romans 11 including the "spirit of slumber" that God gave some Jews seems to warn against supersessionism.

Sahih Al-Bukhari - "Jihad is holy fighting in Allah’s Cause with full force of weaponry. It is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its Pillars. By Jihad Islam is established, Allah is made superior and He becomes the only God who may be worshiped. By Jihad Islam is propagated and made superior. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and Muslims fall into an inferior position. Their honor is lost, their lands are stolen, and Muslim rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim. He who tries to escape this duty dies as a hypocrite." page 580 of Maktba Dar-us-Salam's Sahih Al-Bukhari

It should be painfully obvious that there are only two sides to the issue of the restoration of Jews to Israel. From a Christian perspective it can be summed up as light VS darkness, good VS evil, and God VS Satan.

The Fruit of Anti-Zionism (URL)

The Gospel suggests we may be able to judge things by the fruit that is produced:

Matthew 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Some self-described Christians that reject that the return of Jews to their land is of the Lord are: Arnold Murray and his Serpent Seed cult, David Duke and the KKK, Jeremiah Wright, Ted Pike and the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., who are joined by Muslims from around the world, Louis Farrakan and the Nation of Islam, as well as secular groups like Nazis, skinheads, white supremacists, communist Soviets, the United Nations, George Soros and his Center for American Progress, and antisemites of all stripes. Whether with intent or inadvertently, these groups support the terrorism of Hamas and Hezbollah while advancing the 1400 year goal of Islamic conquest of all the kingdoms, and subjugation of all people in the world to denying the Son of God and rejecting His shed blood as articles of their faith in the false prophet Muhammad alone. The conquest of Israel and subjugation of Israeli Jews, Christians and non-Muslim Arabs, serving as just a stepping stone, as it was during the First Islamic Jihad conquest of nearly the whole known world until stopped in The Battle of Tours France and Vienna Austria.

What does Zionism have to do with the Islamic conquest and butchering of Christians in Nigeria? Or the two million innocents killed or displaced in the Sudan alone? Or the over 22,000 deadly Islamic terror attacks around the world, just since 9-11?

CNS reports: "Sunni Muslim terrorists committed “about 70 percent” of the 12,533 terrorist murders in the world last year, according to a report by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)."

That's for the year 2011, and that percentage doesn't even include Shiite Muslim terrorist murders. Thus it should be obvious to all non-Muslims, that the world would be largely at peace today, if the followers of Muhammad had not been commanded to "fight and slay" non-Muslims in the "cause" of "Allah".

Where did the fiction of a "state" of "Palestine" and a people called "Palestinians" spring from? It certainly provides a convenient mask that obscures the identities that are actually in conflict with each other in Israel. The struggle not being between Israeli Jews and so-called "Palestinians", but rather between Israeli Muslims and Israeli Jews, Christians and non-Muslim Arabs. The same struggle we find anywhere there is any significant number of Muslims. It is the same old 1400 year running conflict between the dar al-Salaam VS the dar al-Harb.

There is a considerable amount on the subject of Zionism on our companion site ZionismChristian.com at this link. There is also a category devoted to Zionism and anti-Zionism in the Islam-Christian Forum at this link.