From the River to the Sea: Why is attacking Israel — touching the ‘apple of God’s eye’ — a terribly dangerous thing to do? An Evangelical explains
DALLAS, TEXAS — Antisemitism is on the rise all over the world. America is now following many European cities in electing Muslim mayors many of whom have been vocal about their feelings toward the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
The evening news brings repeated videos of antisemitic protests on many of the most well known and once respected college campuses in the western world.
There is a common thread woven throughout each of these rallies.
There are always scores of professionally printed large posters accompanied by their loud and repeated chants, “From the river to the sea…Palestine must be free!” The not so subtle implication of this message is that the state of Israel must be extinguished from the earth.
Its present boundaries consume that land that is west of the Jordan River and east of the Mediterranean Sea.
Thus, these radical calls are indicating the desire is to see the total elimination and annihilation of the Jewish state with one replaced by the Palestinian population…hence their battle cry, “From the River to the Sea…Palestine will be free.”
This should come as no real surprise to anyone who has been knowledgeable of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the last many decades, especially dating back to the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
In fact, the very charter of the Palestinian people makes this plain.
The Palestinian National Charter, sometimes called the Palestinian National Covenant (1968), includes several references to the complete rejection of the legitimacy of the State of Israel and in more than one place calls for its elimination as a political entity.
It blatantly rejects a two state solution and in Article 9 states that an armed struggle is the only way to eliminate Israel.
The chant, “From the River to the Sea,” is not simply an appeal for Palestinian recognition but at its core there is the not so subtle message that there is no room for a Jewish state in our modern world and particularly one in their ancient homeland.
Sacred scripture carries with it a stark warning for those who so blatantly seek the destruction of the Jewish people.
God promises a blessing in the Torah to those who seek to bless Israel and a severe curse to those who curse them (Genesis 12:1-3).
History is replete with the fate of those like the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Germans and many others who have been so brazen as to challenge this promise.
God refers to these chosen people of Israel as “the apple of His eye.”
During their years of wandering in the wilderness the Bible says “He kept them as the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10).
In the Psalms, King David cried out to God to “Keep me as the apple of your eye” (Psalm 17:8).
And Zechariah, in his prophecy to the people of Judah 2,500 years ago, warned, “He who touches you touches the apple ofGod’s eye” (Zechariah 2:8).
The repeated Hebrew term translated “the apple of God’s eye” is an idiom used metaphorically in scripture to describe the pupil of the eye, its center, the iris which lets in light.
When we look closely into someone’s eyes their pupil serves as a sort of mirror reflecting our own image back at us.
The Bible declares that the Jews, His chosen people, are so precious to Him that they are metaphorically reflected in His own eyes which is to say they are the apple of His eye.
If it were possible for you to look into God’s eyes you would see His people whom He loves and anyone who touches Israel touches the apple of God’s own eye.
Those with such bitter antisemitic vitriol are not simply seeking to do away with Israel but in so doing are sticking their finger in the eye of God.
History has proven it is a dangerous thing to poke God in the eye!
The strong stand against any form of antisemitism and especially the visible and vocal support of the state of Israel by evangelicals like me is wrought with questions in some circles and can seem to some as a complex and complicated phenomenon.
It is not lost on me as I pen these words that many of our own Jewish friends are skeptical of our support and for several reasons, some justified and most not.
For those so small in number among the nations who have fought and sacrificed so much for a place to call “home” the keeping of their Jewish heritage and identity is, rightfully, of utmost importance.
History has recorded many attempts down through the centuries of persecution at the hands of the church and blatant forced attempts at conversion which has led to skepticism on the part of some Jews to any acceptance of Jewish support.
Understanding the unconditional and even enthusiastic support of evangelicals for the state of Israel still feels, for some, an uneasy and unhealthy alliance.
Who are we evangelicals anyway?
We number over 60 million in the United States and about 600 million world wide.
The word “evangelical” is derived from a Greek word appearing in the Christian Bible which means bearers of good news.
We are not Roman Catholics although a small percentage of those in the Roman church may identify as such.
We are not mainline Protestants although a minute and diminishing number of them call themselves evangelicals.
Evangelicals are Christians who adhere to a more literal interpretation of both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles (Old and New Testaments) believing that all scripture is divinely inspired and as Solomon proclaimed we believe that “every word of God is pure” (Proverbs 30:5).
We hold to an eschatological hermeneutic insisting that God is still in covenant relationship with the Jewish people, especially as it relates to the land of Israel, which the Almighty has given to them as an “everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8).
Consequently, to hear that all the land of the Bible “from the river to the sea” belongs to someone other than the Jewish people is not only offensive but a direct assault on the integrity and trustworthiness of Scripture itself.
Evangelicals take at face value the promise that God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:3) as well as the warning that those who touch Israel are in actuality touching the “apple of God’s own eye” (Zechariah 2:8).
In our day of overt and open antisemitism running rampant in the streets of our cities and neighborhoods what is our relationship, as evangelicals, to the Jewish people?
When it comes to the Jews, our guide, the Bible, is extremely specific and particular as to why we support the Jews in times such as this with such conviction and commitment.
As scripture unfolds we find it is because there is a particular promise…to a particular people…in a particular place…for a particular purpose.
THERE IS A PARTICULAR PROMISE
Promises made to us are always appreciated.
But it is the promises that are kept that mean the most.
It is one thing to make a promise and often something quite different to keep it.
Most all of us have been the recipient of broken promises in one way or another.
The Bible is replete with promises God Himself has made.
And, He has a perfect record of keeping all His promises.
Whether we keep our promises to one another or not is based on our own character.
How can we trust God’s promises to us?
It is because of His character and the fact that it is “impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18).
There are two types of promises we find in the Bible.
There are those that are conditional in nature and others that are unconditional.
For example, God promises to “forgive our sins” (1 John 1:9).
But, in the same verse there is an “if.”
“If we confess our sins…”.
We find conditional promises in the Hebrew Bible as well.
One of the of often repeated ones is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14 — “IF my people…will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways THEN I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”
However, there are promises in the Bible that are unconditional and their fulfillment has nothing to do with our own performance.
Every time we see a multicolored rainbow arching across the horizon it is a reminder of God’s unconditional promise that He will never destroy the world by a flood again (Genesis 9:13-16).
There are no “ifs” or “thens” in unconditional promises.
God's particular promise to Israel, given to the Jews alone, is emphatically unconditional.
Way back in the unfolding chapters of the Torah God made this particular promise to Abraham saying, “Get out…to a land I will show you…I will make you a great nation and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).
Later He enlarged this promise specifically stating that He was deeding to the Jews the land from the river to the sea and even beyond as an “everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:7-8).
And God has kept that promise.
The Jews are title holders to an “everlasting” covenant regarding the land of Israel solely based on God’s promise and not on their own ability to perform.
This particular promise is unconditional and irrevocable.
The debate today is centered around who has right to that tiny bit of earth’s crust between the river and the sea.
Evangelicals know that the Bible is clear.
The land was given by God Himself to the Jewish people as an “everlasting possession.”
Recorded human history as well, not simply the Bible, is on the side of the Jews.
A myriad of archeological discoveries too numerous to mention all validate the reality that King David established the city of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people three thousand years ago.
Descending the Mount of Olives on a donkey down Palm Sunday Road to the enthusiastic shouts of Hosanna from the people, Jesus declared, “If the crowds keep silent, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40).
Visit the excavations taking place in the City of David today and with every turn of the archeologist’s shovel the very stones of ancient Jerusalem are crying out.
No honest or serious historian can deny that the Jews occupied Jerusalem for many centuries before the fall of the city at the hands of Titus and his Roman legions in 70 A.D.
Then, after being scattered and dispersed across the world for almost two millennia and seeing literally one third of their entire world population annihilated in the German holocaust, they miraculously returned in the middle of the 20th century to establish, completely rebuild, and repeatedly defend their ancient homeland.
History, as well as sacred scripture, stand firmly on the side of the Jews.
One of the greatest of all tangible truths that the Bible is true is the way prophesies are made and fulfilled and the way promises are made and kept throughout its pages.
The most obvious ones are the particular promises God has made to His chosen people, the Jews.
If you are looking for proof that the Bible is true, take a trip to Israel and observe first hand the miracle of a people dispersed among the nations for two thousand years who have returned to their land of promise, made the desert bloom once again, and who against all odds have risen to become a world power…just as God promised.
No wonder we call it “the Promised Land!”
THERE IS A PARTICULAR PROMISE…TO A PARTICULAR PEOPLE
Who are these particular people to whom this particular promise has been given?
Hear the Lord, in His own words to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation— “TO YOU I will give…all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8).
This promise to this particular people was affirmed through the pen of the Psalmist David echoing God’s word — “TO YOU I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance” (Psalm 105:11).
And, in David’s song of thanksgiving recorded in the first book of Chronicles, he challenged the people to “Remember His covenant forever, the word that He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant that He made with Abraham, His sworn promise to Isaac, which He confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, TO YOU I will give the land of Canaan, as your portion for an inheritance” (1 Chronicles 16:15-18).
To whom does the land of Israel, from the river to the sea, belong?
In a day when what men say is becoming more important to many people than what God says this is a debatable matter.
But, those who believe the Bible is God’s word of truth, it is not up a second’s worth of debate.
Unquestionably, this particular promise is given to a particular people….this land belongs to the Jews and it is given, not for a period of time, but as an “everlasting” possession.
God loves Israel and He chose the Jewish people for His own purpose.
Moses, the great emancipator declared, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you…” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8).
While evangelicals have a long history of dedicated support of the people of Israel there is a present danger of a creeping virus infecting some of the younger generation of evangelicals stemming, in many cases, from the more reformed theological crowd of evangelicalism.
This infection is popularly called replacement theology.
Simply stated replacement theology is built upon three assumptions.
One, that God has rejected Israel.
That, in essence, He has retracted the promises He once bestowed upon them.
Two, these retracted promises have now been given exclusively to the church so that the church has replaced Israel in God’s design due to the Jew’s rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as the Jewish Messiah.
This reasoning removes national Israel from any special role in God’s plan.
Consequently, in the eyes of those adhering to this theology, Israel is no more worthy of our support than any of the other almost 195 countries across the world.
Finally, replacement theology adheres to the reasoning that the promises of God in the Bible are conditional and therefore revocable at any time.
Since this reasoning is based more on what man thinks within the set system of his own reasoning and what man may say about the particular matter, it seems to conveniently lay to the side the plain teaching of God’s own word.
While the replacement theologian says, God has rejected Israel, replaced it with the church, given to the church the previous promises bestowed on Israel, and finally, insists that these previous promises are conditional and therefore revocable, it bodes to ask if God might have an opinion in the matter.
And, if so, does He have a specific word about it in the sacred text?
For example, what does God say in His infallible word about the idea that He has rejected His chosen people Israel.
He could not be more plain and presents the question Himself through the pen of the inspired Apostle Paul, “I ask, then, has God rejected His people? By no means!…God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (Romans 11:1-2).
For most Bible believers what God clearly says is more important than what man thinks and says.
What about the idea that all these promises God once gave to the Jewish people are retracted and given to the church?
In the eleventh chapter of the book of Romans God uses the imagery of the olive tree to present His views on this matter of the relationship of Israel and the church in this dispensation of grace.
When mentioned in the Bible, the olive tree is used as a symbol for Israel herself.
Anyone who has visited the lands of the Bible has stopped for awhile in the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the famed Mount of Olives.
There we witness some ancient and gnarled olive trees, actually dating back two thousand years to the time of Christ.
They witnessed His agony in the garden the night before His crucifixion.
The same trees are still there after all these centuries, still standing upon their firm and deeply imbedded roots, still extending their branches for shade and still producing olives.
Using the imagery of this olive tree God has a clear and strong message to the church—“If some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree do not be arrogant about the branches.
If you are remember it is not you who support the root but the root that supports you” (Romans 11:17-18).
This is a clear and present warning to anyone who, in their arrogance, thinks that God has replaced Israel and rejected them.
This root of the olive tree represents the covenant God made with Israel, the root representing His promises, the olive tree representing Israel and the grafted branches representing those in the church.
The Bible emphatically reminds us that the church “does not support the root” but the root supports the church.
The church is not substituted for Israel but supplements her being grafted by grace into her trunk.
Finally, replacement theology teaches that God’s promises can be revoked and nullified.
Again, God’s word is clear at this point.
It makes crystal clear that “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).
God’s choice and calling of the Jews and His promises to them related to the land are irrevocable, not determined by their performance, but by His own promises and bestowed upon them as “an everlasting possession.”
Replacement theology is built on a premise and presumption that ignores God’s enduring promises to Israel and its real danger lies in the potential of fueling the fires of antisemitism.
In some cases antisemitism is the adopted daughter of replacement theology.
When the church begins to pridefully see herself as the new Jerusalem and labels the Jews as rejected by God Himself it has the potential of lending itself to a creeping disdain for the state of Israel and for the Jews themselves.
This has many modern ramifications not simply in theological debate but in political perspectives and policies as well.
Anti-Christian Zionists believe they have a license to outwardly oppose the existence of a Jewish state believing they have been given a pass because, as they contend, God has abandoned His own covenants with the Jewish people.
If Replacement theology is an affront to God’s word, then antisemitism is an affront to God’s own heart.
He repeatedly states in scripture that He loves the people of Israel.
Evangelical believers join the Psalmist in praying, “If I forget you oh Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy” (Psalm 137:5-6).
Yes, “It was not because you were more in number…that THE LORD SET HIS LOVE ON YOU and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because THE LORD LOVES YOU and is keeping the oath…that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you…” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8).
God’s particular promises are given to His own particular people whom He loves….not on the basis of their own performance but based on His irrevocable calling and His unconditional promises.
THERE IS A PARTICULAR PROMISE…TO A PARTICULAR PEOPLE…IN A PARTICULAR PLACE
The promise God gave to the Jews of an “everlasting inheritance” is assigned to a very specific piece of real estate.
Repeatedly in scripture it is referred to as “the land of Canaan.”
This Biblical term refers to the land previously inhabited by the Canaanites who were named after Noah’s grandson, Canaan (Genesis 10:6).
It contains much of what we know today as Israel, the West Bank, as well as parts of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Its broader mention is “from the river of Egypt to the Eurphates” (Genesis 15:18).
In essence, this land is the physical sign of God’s covenant with the Jewish people.
What we know today as the land of Israel is a particular place which God gave to a particular people in fulfillment of His particular promise.
Way back in the unfolding chapters of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch) God made a promise to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, saying, “Get out…to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation…and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).
Five chapters later the Lord enlarged on this promise stating, “I will establish my covenant for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants…also I will give you and your descendants after you the land…as an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:7-8).
God repeated this promise to Abraham’s son, Isaac, and to his son Jacob as well, “The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants…and in you and your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 28:13-14).
And, what God promises He performs.
The Jews have had an interesting relationship with this particular parcel of land. Israel became a world power under the kingships of David and Solomon.
But, they began to follow after other gods.
Repeatedly God warned them He would not tolerate the worship of these other gods and warned His people saying, “You will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you…you shall find no rest” (Deuteronomy 4:27).
True to His word the divided kingdom was scattered and exiled first by the Assyrians, then by the Babylonians, and finally by the Romans following the destruction of the city of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
For the next almost 2,000 years the Jews lived as an often despised and persecuted people without a land to call their own.
Against all odds and through uncounted pogroms and persecutions these chosen people managed to maintain their identity as for generation after generation they sat at their Passover tables in a thousand exiled and isolated places always holding to the hope that they would celebrate their future feasts by saying to one another…“Next year in Jerusalem.”
God did not forget His people and promised them through the prophets that there would come a day when He would regather them from the four corners of the earth, bring them back into their own land and reestablish them from the river to the sea so that they would become “a light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6).
Through His prophet Ezekiel, He declared that He would “take you from among the nations, gather you out of all the countries and bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24).
What God so long ago promised He performed and my generation has been blessed to witness it with our own eyes.
Never in human history has a nation been reborn in such a fashion as was Israel in 1948.
God was true to His word given through the Prophet Isaiah, “It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people…assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:11-12).
On Christian pilgrimages to Israel today we can walk the streets of Jerusalem and see Russian Jews who fled violent pogroms, dark skinned Ethiopian Jews some believe to be descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Sephardic Jews from the surrounding Arab nations and North Africa, and Ashkenazi Jews with their black coats and long beards from Eastern Europe all blending together, just as God promised, into one Jewish state, God’s own chosen people, reestablished once again in their own “Promised Land.”
God’s unconditional promises still stand. Journey outside tonight and look at the full moon suspended in space in all its radiance and flanked by billions of bright and twinkling stars all running in clock like precision.
Get up early in the morning and watch the majestic sun of our solar system rising faithfully in the east as it does every single day.
And when you do remember the words of Jeremiah, “Thus says the Lord who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and stars by night…the Lord of Hosts is His name; If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever” (Jeremiah 31:35-36).
The sun, the moon and the stars speak to us daily validating God’s promise of the land of Israel to the Jewish people as “an everlasting possession.”
After all, if God broke His covenant promises to Israel what hope do we evangelicals have that He would not break His new covenant with us and the hope of eternal life through faith in Yeshua, our promised Messiah?
Evangelical support of Israel is not going away…not now…not ever. Evangelicals worship a Jewish Messiah and we can not love Him without loving the Jewish people.
Evangelicals read a Bible that is a Jewish book and we can not love it without loving the Jewish people.
Regularly in our churches we “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6).
And, we confidently join the prophet in affirming, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep quiet; for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be silent” (Isaiah 62:1).
Evangelicals believe God has given a particular promise…to a particular people…and we believe they have a particular place in which God has deeded them the land.
Evangelicals stand with the God of the Bible and His chosen people the Jews…now…and forever!
THERE IS A PARTICULAR PROMISE…TO A PARTICULAR PEOPLE…IN A PARTICULAR PLACE…FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
Today the world is seeing the benefits of this particular people reassembled in this special land.
God had promised that in and through the Jewish people “all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).
And, in fact, they have truly become a “light to the nations” as Isaiah prophesied (Isaiah 49:6).
When I was a child we would often hear of one of our peers who had contracted polio and was consigned to spend their days confined to the trappings of an iron lung.
Then the Jewish physician, Jonas Salk, discovered a cure for polio and children in every nation were blessed.
Time and space does not permit the listing of Jews too numerous to mention like Michael DeBakey who developed modern heart transplant procedures.
If you have ever choked on a piece of food and someone performed the Heimlich maneuver on you, you can thank a Jew, Henry Heimlich, for perfecting this technique that has saved untold thousands of lives.
This list goes on and on in the arts and the sciences with Jewish composers such as Mendelssohn and Gershwin, Bernstein and Berlin and physicists in the vein of Albert Einstein.
While Jews make up only 0.2% of the world population almost one quarter of all Nobel Prize Laureates are of Jewish descent.
The next time you use google to search for an answer on your computer you can thank a Jew, Sergei Brin for inventing it.
And when you go on Facebook today to check up on your family and friends remember it was a Jew, Mark Zuckleberg, who made it possible.
Add to all this the rapid advance of artificial intelligence and if you look far enough you will find Jews continuing to bless the world and being a light to all the nations of the world.
But there is a deeper purpose in God’s choosing of the Jews and keeping His promises to them.
There is one prophecy yet to be fulfilled.
It is the coming of the Messiah to planet earth to set up His kingdom of peace and reign from the throne of David in Jerusalem.
Or, for us evangelicals, the second coming of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus.
At that time as we read in the prophet Zechariah, God will “pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy so that when they look on me, on him whom they pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly for him as one weeps for a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).
The most repeated command that God gave to the Jews, and to us, in the Hebrew Bible is the command to remember.
Dozens of times this is mentioned in sacred scripture.
The Psalmist made his plea, “If I forget you oh Jerusalem let my right hand forget its skill, let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you” (Psalm 137:5-6).
For centuries in exile and at thousands of Passover meals they remembered Jerusalem with the benediction, “Next year…in Jerusalem!”
The Jews do not have the luxury of forgetfulness.
Amnesia is not an option for them.
They place a mezuzah on the door post of their homes and touch it each time they enter or leave as a reminder of God’s promises.
The state of Israel exists today because the Jews have long memories.
They realize these particular promises are given to them for a particular purpose which ultimately will usher in the long awaited Messiah when “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:27).
And speaking of memories, Zalli Jaffe, long time president of the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem once stated, “To speak of evangelical support of Israel without mentioning the name of Dr. W.A. Criswell would be like speaking of the blood circulation system through your body without speaking about the heart.”
Dr. Criswell was for a half century the pastor of the historic First Baptist Church in Dallas, which, through the decades, has been counted among Israel’s dearest friends and strongest evangelical supporters.
Criswell was my own pastoral predecessor in the Dallas pulpit and was like a father to me in many ways.
He is remembered fondly by many as one of the first “friends of Zion” who vocally and visibly appeared after the establishment of the modern Jewish state in 1948.
He was the first evangelical to visit Israel immediately after the end of the War of Independence.
On that initial visit he had a chance encounter with Israel’s founder and first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion.
The two developed a life long friendship lasting until Ben Gurion’s own death.
A forest of ten thousand trees in the Galilee bears his name as well as his name being inscribed on the wall of the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem commemorating his love and loyalty to the Jewish people and the state of Israel.
In the fall of 1995 — and well into his eighties — he wanted to make one last trip to the land he loved.
My wife, Susie, and I took him to Jerusalem for this final journey.
It was in the days of the Russian Aliyah which saw an enormous infusion of one million Russian immigrants to Israel in the span of a decade.
It brought a tremendous challenge to the nation’s infrastructure resulting in the immediate need of well educated Russian medical doctors and learned university professors resorting to cleaning toilets in hotels to make a living.
Accomplished Russian musicians from the great symphonies of Moscow and St. Petersburg played their instruments on Jerusalem street corners for small amounts of change tossed into the hats placed at their feet.
One night after dinner a small group of us were strolling along the street mall on Ben Yehuda in the heart of Jerusalem.
It is lined with street vendors, coffee shops, cafes, jewelry stores and other places of commerce that nightly attracted both locals and visitors from across the world.
I suddenly noticed that Criswell had gone missing from our small group.
Walking briskly back down the street I began to search for him.
And there he stood near the bottom of Ben Yehuda Street before an aged violinist stroking his violin the the mesmerizing tune of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah.
Hatikvah in Hebrew means hope…expressing the hope and prayers of every Jewish exile for two thousand years longing for Jerusalem.
As I approached the two old white haired men I noted that Criswell had tears running down his cheeks as he stood in awe of the old violinist playing what Criswell viewed as the fulfillment of Bible prophecy he had preached and believed all his life and now had lived to see its reality.
To this day when I think of him that is the picture that is etched in my mind and speaks volumes of the fact that the regathering of the Jews from the four corners of the earth is proof positive that what God promises…He performs.
The next time you hear or see the words “From the River to the Sea” let it be a reminder to you that it describes the land that God owns and has given to the people of Israel as an “everlasting possession.”
And, it will do us all well to also remember that when you touch Israel you are touching “the apple of God’s eye.”
And He still takes that rather personally.
Evangelicals stand with God’s people because we believe God’s word and remember that these particular promises are for a particular people who live in a particular place and they arefor a particular purpose…to point people to the God of the Bible.
It is a good reminder to all of us that God does not base the fulfillment of His promises on Israel’s own performance but on His own promises.
And, by the way, evangelicals should be reminded that we will not get to heaven by our own performance, trying so hard to do right and to do good, but for us, and everyone, it is solely “by grace through faith alone” that we inherit eternal life and one day find our own place in the coming of the New Jerusalem.
Finally, to our Israeli friends — we are not going away…we will not keep silent…not now…not ever!
Am Yisrael Chai!
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O.S. Hawkins is a graduate of TCU (BBA) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv; PhD) and is the former Senior Pastor of the historic First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of over 50 books including the best selling Code Series of devotionals including the Joshua Code and the Bible Code published by HarperCollins/ThomasNelson with sales over three million copies.Visit him at oshawkins.com
