Scripture

“Come,” they say, “let us wipe out Israel as a nation.
    We will destroy the very memory of its existence.”

~Psalm 83:4, NLT

Quote

Yahweh was Israel’s covenant God, but He is more than the God of Israel, He is the God of all creation which includes every nation.

~Ya’akov

I preview the next days Psalm just before I go to bed at night. Tuesday night I sat at the kitchen table and read Psalm 83. I was a little depressed after reading it and went to bed muttering to the LORD, “I will not be sharing this one Sunday night.” But I was extremely tired and was not thinking clearly. When I read Psalm 83 the next morning; I saw things I had missed the night before. As I got into the NIV commentary, the sparks began to fly. We don’t really know definitively when this Psalm was written and there is no historical record of the ten nations mentioned attacking Israel. What we do know is that Israel has always been a despised nation and surrounded by hateful neighbors. In recent history, Great Britain and the USA have been Israels allies. I do not know of any nation in the Middle East that supports the State of Israel. The Kurds in Northern Iraq are amicable to the Jews but the Kurds do not have statehood.

In my reading I came across the acronym ISIS {Islamic State of Iraq and Syria}. Their goal is not to defeat Israel but to annihilate Israel. Wipe them off the map and make them a memory. HAMAS is or was a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political organisation with the same goal. Ironically ḥāmās is the Hebrew word for violence, wrongdoing and oppression. Israel is surrounded by people who want them utterly destroyed. Haman attempted to annihilate them during the exile and recently Hitler attempted to destroy them but no one has succeeded. An unbelieving monarch said to one of his court subjects, “Give me one good reason to believe in God.” His servant said, “The Jews, your majesty, the Jews!”

Keep in mind that Jesus was the Son of David and Abraham. The Messiah came from the Jews. God had a plan and His plan was a man, the Son of man {Son of God} to be born in Bethlehem as a descendant of King David. No nation or conspiracy of nations was going to thwart God’s plan. I firmly believe that God’s plan for Israel has not been completely fulfilled. In my opinion, no one and no alliance of nations is going to destroy them.

Now to the point of the blog and the truth that lifted my spirits. Does God love only Israel and is His redemptive plan only for them?  No, there is a redemptive message in Psalm 83. It is found in the imprecation…{verse 16,18} That they may seek Your name, O Lord.That they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord, Are the Most High over all the earth. I like Psalm 86:9, “All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O LORD, and shall glorify Your name.” Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 28:19…Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.John 3:16 is very clear also…For God so loved the world. Jesus loves both Jew and Gentile! The whosoever includes us, hallelujah!

Extra

A little cool spell is coming according to my weather ap. We should have four days in the 80’s next week. It will help! The last two have been sweltering. It rained on us all the way home last night; that is until we got to West Hartselle and then it dried up. All we got was trash thrown in our ditch. One of the problems of living on the Lawrence county free way is that you get trashed on a regular basis. The reds think the ditch is a garbage can.

Christy is really low. I plan to visit later this morning. Good attendance last night. Team Guatemala will be traveling today. They have had a big time.

God bless you: hope you have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.