The 4000-year war
CCCAG 10-22-23
Scripture- Gen 16
Introduction
Last week we asked the question, “Are we living in the end times” and then looked at what the people and the culture would look like as we approached the end times.
This morning, we are going to look back in time so that we have an understanding of the history of what is going on in Israel today.
Many of you might not realize that this fight between the Jewish people and the Arabs is not a recent development. This did not start in 1948 with the United Nations granting the land of Palestine, as it was called then, to those of Jewish descent after the holocaust.
The land given to Israel wasn’t a large section of land- a skinny little parcel that hugged the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains that run down the middle of that country. In area, it was about ¼ to 1/3 of what Israel had been in bible times
Then in 1967, an alliance of Arab nations, primarily Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon who were all financially backed by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan attacked and attempted to wipe out Israel. This alliance of Arab nations was crushed by the Israeli military, and in the ensuing battle Israel took a lot of land- creating a border that had not existed since the time of King David.
After the 1967 war, in an effort to keep the peace they had earned, Israel ended up giving some of that land back- most notably it gave the entire Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, but kept the area around Gaza.
It also kept what is known as the West Bank which is an area on the west side of the Jordan River. The United Nations still considers Gaza and the West Bank of the Jordan river to be “disputed territory”.
That’s the wars that have happened in many of our lifetimes, but this conflict It actually goes back much further in history.
Back beyond 1948, back beyond even the crusades of the Middle Ages.
Back before Jesus was walking this earth.
In fact, to discover the origins of this conflict, we have to go all the way back to Genesis and the Father of our Faith, Abraham to see where all of this started.
So let’s talk a little about Abraham.
Abraham is called by God to travel to what is now modern Israel.
God makes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15.
Let’s talk about this word covenant for a moment-
If you don’t know what a covenant is, it’s a formal contractual promise between two individuals.
There are two basic types of covenants in the bible- conditional and unconditional.
Conditional covenants requires actions from both parties involved in the covenant. In today’s terms, this would be like a mortgage on a home- the borrower of the money promises to give you the money, you promise to pay it back with interest.
Unconditional covenants are those who the greater of the two parties promises to do something for the person with who they are entering into this promise. It is also called a royal grant covenant- where a king gives a reward to a faithful subject for a service rendered, and that covenant is irrevocable because it’s based on the word and promise of the King HIMself.
In this covenant, God promised to bless him, and give him so many descendants that they will not be able to be numbered.
In essence, this covenant was a reward. It was based on Abraham believing the word of God to him. As Genesis 15:6 stated, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
God was so impressed by Abraham’s faith, that He gave Him this promise, and the promise was that Abraham’s descendants would be innumerable, like the stars in the sky.
Abraham questioned how God was going to do that, since he had no children, and his wife Sarah was barren, and they were well past childbearing years.
God assured Abraham that this would come to pass.
However, a year went by. No child
Then another year went by. No child.
5 years go by, still no child.
10 years go by….now they are starting to sweat a little. After all, Abraham is now 85 years old, and Sarah is 75 years old. Even in bible times, Sarah is well past childbearing years.
They keep staring at the nursery they built, and seeing that there is a lot of dust accumulating on the cradle.
So, they decide to help out God a little. This is the beginning of the conflict we see today.
Gen 16:1-4
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
Prayer
So Abraham takes Hagar to be a 2nd wife and she gets pregnant. In a fit of jealousy, Sarah begins to mistreat Hagar so bad that she runs away.
However, remember, this son is Abraham’s son she is carrying. This son is an heir to the covenant God swore to Abraham.
Hagar is met by The Angel of the LORD.
The angel of the LORD reminds her of this promise-
Genesis 6:11 The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”
The angel of the LORD further instructs Hagar to return to Abraham’s house so that they will be safe and cared for until Ishmael becomes a young man. So Hagar returns to Abrahams house and Ismael is born.
15 years later, and 25 years after God made his original promise to Abraham that he would have a son, Sarah gets pregnant at 90 years old and Isaac is born.
Soon after that, Ishmael was heard mocking and possibly threatening Isaac, so Sarah again as a fit, and this time Abraham sent them away.
Ishmael became the father of 12 sons, who became the Arab people. One of the Arab tribes would be what is known to day as the Palestinians, who along with other Arab fighters, make up Hamas.
This fight began because Abraham and Sarah tried to help God fulfill his promise, so they got a son of the flesh, who is now forever at war against the son of the promise. One son came through human effort, one son came through faith in God.
This is the true origin of the fighting we are witnessing today.
These two sons of Abraham have been at perpetual war with each other for over 4000 years.
There is a second part of this, and it was seen in Isaac’s sons- Jacob and Esau. Esau, like Ismael, was the first born and should have been the inheritor of everything that Isaac had.
If you remember the bible narrative- Esau was a man of high passion, and like his uncle Ishmael, a wild man- he had no patience and less wisdom. So much so that he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. Jacob then tricked his father for the blessing of the first born by imitating Esau and stealing that blessing.
Esau’s descendants include those now living in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. If the members of Hezbollah are from those areas, they may be descendants of Esau.
Again, 4000 years ago.
So that is the history, let’s talk about what is happening today. I want you to have that historical context so you can correctly interpret what is being talked about on TV and in the News.
I want to show you something about Hamas in particular.
Hamas is not a word per se, but an acronym. In Arabic, it stands for “Islamic Resistance Mov’t”. There is a very similar sounding word in Arabic that means “zeal” or those who are zealous.
The Irony of them choosing that name for themselves is that Hamas is also a word in Hebrew that means brutal, unjustified, evil, and wicked violence.
Isn’t that interesting? After the couple week of seeing the utter evil atrocities that Hamas has done to Israel, we have been firsthand witnesses to what this word means. We also see this word repeated throughout the Old Testament, and it’s always used to describe horrific acts of violence, rape, mutilation, and slaughter of innocents.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think the forces of darkness moved the leaders of the organization of Hamas to choose that name knowing what it meant in Hebrew to describe what they were about.
Now, some that are supporting what Hamas did are saying well, this is just war and bad things happen in war.
If they actually believe that garbage, their soul is severely damaged.
There is a moral and more importantly biblical difference between killing and murder.
There is a difference in war between executing your duties as a soldier and ending the enemy’s life, and doing what HAMAS is doing- living up to the Hebrew word in raping women, killing children, and other horrific acts that I won’t describe from the pulpit.
This is pure evil.
How evil?
Let me show you how evil this is, and how God views it
The first place the Hebrew word Hamas is used in in Genesis 6:11
Genesis 6 11- Noah’s flood
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence (Hamas). 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence (Hamas) because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
The first time Hamas was seen in the earth drew a very strong reaction from God.
God pushed the reset button on the whole planet.
Killed all but 8 people.
That is what God thinks about what is happening in Israel today. It should make any sane moral person recoil in horror and in fear and trembling about the wrath of God that will come.
As bad as all of this is for the Middle East, we should not only concentrate on what we see.
All of this is part of a greater spiritual battle that predates even Abraham.
Let me explain-
The Hamas terrorists are all members of the Muslim or Islamic faith, specifically Sunni Muslims. Like Christianity has Catholic’s and Protestants, Islam has two primary divisions- Sunni and Shia or Shite. Sunni Muslims are the largest of the two, with Shites being mostly in Iran.
Both divisions believe about 98% the same thing.
We should also remember this- Islam is a proscriptive religion meaning that it is intended to be part of everything in the life of its followers.
Run the day to day decisions
Be the primary government of the people.
Describe the exact ways they pray, what the pray, when the pray, and how they exercise their faith. Everything is laid out for them.
Including the idea of Jihad, or holy war.
To a Muslim, there is no sure way into heaven. In their faith, it’s called Isha allah, which means “Whatever Allah’s (the name of their god) will is”.
They have no assurance of salvation, except for one thing-
Participate and die in Jihad or holy war. They believe that they then become VIP’s in heaven get 72 virgins to take as their wives, and live in paradise under Allah’s favor forever.
So, by a fundamentalist belief in Islam, which is the predominant belief in the Middle east that many of the Sunni’s believe, the only sure way to get to heaven is to commit HAMAS.
Are their actions making a little more sense to you now as to why they are able to do what they are doing?
But- as much as we have been focusing on the physical, we have to remember- whatever is happening in the seen world starts in the unseen or spiritual
Eph 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Islam and Hamas is a spirit. It’s a dark and incredibly evil spiritual force within hell’s legions.
The bible doesn’t really get into how satan organizes his forces, but I’m assuming they copy what God has done in heaven, therefore I believe it’s some type of arch demon or hellish division of hell that enters into a people and compels them to commit these horrific acts.
This Hamas spirit is what is being unleashed on the earth today. We see it in the middle east.
But we also see it in sub-saharan Africa among the Muslims there waging Jihad on Christian and the native tribes there. You don’t hear about that because in large part America and the west don’t care about what happens in Africa, but’s happening constantly.
This spirit has been unleashed in it’s full measure upon the world today.
Why?
It’s the end times, and Revelation gives us a clue-
Rev 12:12
But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short."
With the exception of Jesus, the devil knows the bible better than any human who has ever lived. satan can see the signs that the end is coming, and therefore he is going to unleash his full fury and evil on the world. satan is going to infect and affect as many people as he can, to drag them down to hell with him. He is using Hamas and Hezbollah to do that to Israel, but really it’s his plan for all of humanity.
I want to end today showing you a video. It was actually my plan to talk about the kingdom of darkness, satan and demons during the month of October but then the war in Israel started and I switched gears to talk about that instead.
This video is going to teach us a bit about that. It’s about 5 minutes long and it’s from a movie called Nefarious. So that you understand what is going on, the central plot of the movie is that a psychiatrist has meet an inmate on death row to certify him to be sane so they can execute him. However, the inmate is claiming he is a demon possessing the man who did the crimes. We are going to watch the movie and see the demon explain their origin and their hatred of humanity.
Video Clip-
That video clip is the best synopsis I have ever heard about the Kingdom of Darkness and their mission.
WE spent a large part of this morning talking about the history of the conflict in Israel, but it really started right here. We are witnessing the battle of the ages being played out through people here on earth.
The take away is this- it’s a spiritual battle being played out through people.
Remember that when you are tempted to hate other people because of them having a different belief that you do- they are pawns in an age old battle to destroy humanity in an attempt to bring pain to God.
All rise.
(Video Clip referenced)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc7-JIhJ66I
