War and Hope

Hello and welcome to Van Life Devotions. The events over the past two weeks in Israel and Palestine has and continues to shock and concern us all. The atrocities caused by Hamas are horrific and Israel has been accused of breaking international rules of war. What’s next only God knows.

Leisl and I are booked to go to Israel and Egypt in February next year and we are planning to film a whole bunch of Van Life Devotions for Season 3. This is obviously looking doubtful but our disappointment pales into insignificance to what many are going through. Like you we are praying for peace, that aid will get to the needy, and for the church in Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank.

In today’s special Van Life Devotion, Leisl and I want to pass on a message of clarity and hope.

Where did all this start? It started in the Garden of Eden when humanity sinned against God leading to a host of issues, including tension between people, as shown by Adam and Eve blaming each other. When we look at Genesis 12, we see an example of this tension that has continued today that includes the current war between Israel and Hamas. In Genesis 12 there is a man named Abram. God chose this man to have a blessed family and to inherit a new land that would become very significant. It was Canaan, a land that is today still very contentious. In Genesis 15, God again appears to Abraham and promises through a special covenant that this land will be his, that His family line will be special, and He will remain their God. All was fine until Abraham and Sarah struggled to conceive and they took matters into their own hands with Sarah suggesting to Abraham that he sleeps with Hagar, an Egyptian unbeliever. She gave birth to a son named Ishmael. The Angel of the Lord prophesied the future of Ishmael and his descendants in Genesis 16:12, “This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives” (Genesis 16:12 NLT). Ishmael goes on to have 12 sons, just like the 12 tribes of Israel. But, in the years to follow, Sarah too has a son named Isaac, just as God had promised.

Now we have a tension – Abraham, two wives, two sons, one covenant. Who gets the land? Who will have the blessed family linage? In the end, God chooses Isaac and rejects Ishmael and history reveals that the nation of Israel or The Jews came from Isaac and Islam came from Ishmael. Through the Prophet Mohammad, Muslims believe that it is Ishmael that God chose and not Isaac, therefore the promise from God and the Land is theirs, so they believe. For thousands of years there has been tensions and wars over this land and who’s side God is on. Within Islam are some extreme radicals such Hamas that want the Jews eradicated and will go to extraordinary lengths to do this as we have seen in recent weeks. Hamas is a Palestinian acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. In Arabic the word means zeal. Now, get this. In Genesis 6:11, it says, “Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence”(Genesis 6:11 NIV) – that word violence in Hebrew is Hamas. This spirit of Hamas is of the devil and in the past and still is causing havoc.

Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Promised Messiah, God’s very son, and, according to the genealogies found in both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels, is from the linage of Isaac. God’s promise was perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He came to offer forgiveness of sin. Paul teaches us in Ephesians 2:14, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14 NIV). Christ has destroyed that wall of tension between Jews and Gentiles.

Knowing that the spirit of evil and God’s Holy Spirit can’t coexist peacefully in the world, Jesus taught that in the Last Days tensions will increase. He said in Matthew 24, “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars… Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places”(Matthew 24:6-7 NIV). Paul also had much to say about the Last Days, one passage that I find terrifying is 1 Thessalonians 5:3, “While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly… and they will not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3, NIV). Isn’t this what happened on Saturday 7th October when Hamas surprised everyone when they brutally attacked many innocent lives, even though there were peace and safety discussions going on between Palestine and Israel? Zechariah’s prophecy is even more direct and frighting. He said about the future, “I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped…” (Zechariah 14:2 NIV). Tragically that happened.

God still has a special heart and plan for Israel which is why Satan, and his evil spirits are doing their best to defeat this plan. Whenever Israel has existed as a nation, they have been persecuted by other nations such as the Egyptians, Amalekites, Midianites, Moabites, Ammonites, Amorites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and the Romans. Evilness has also caused antisemitism from the king of Assyria to Hitler and his evil regime. For such a tiny nation that has been attacked and persecuted for so long by so many and has survived is a testament that God’s plan will prevail.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:6, “Such things must happen, but the end is still to come” (Matthew 24:6 NIV), and whenever the end starts to really intensify, I believe that the church will be spared as it will be rescued at the Rapture. Jesus says in Revelation 3:!0, “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth” (Revelation 3:10 NIV).

The war in the Holy Land is frightening, so too are the wars and violence in Ukraine, Myanmar, Africa where often women, children and the elderly are profoundly affected. Keep on praying, give to aid appeals, speak up for the vulnerable, and hold fast to your faith in God. As sin and evil wreak havoc, God is still in control and has and will keep His promises. King David has written: “The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does” (Psalms 145:13 NIV).

Let’s pray:

God of mercy and compassion, we pray for peace in Your Holy Land, and in other parts of the world. Please stop this evil. We pray that aid will reach those in desperate need. Help us to keep our faith in You and Your promises. O God, preserve us who travel; surround us with your loving care; protect us from every danger; and bring us in safety to our journey’s end; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Please donate to the Baptist World Aid Middle East Crisis Appeal

https://baptistworldaid.org.au/appeals/middle-east-crisis/