June 4, 2023
Alive at Seventy-Five…But What about Us?
By: James Wilson
My most recent post regarding Israel concluded with these words, “Let us choose obedience leading to blessing.” The reference is to the Biblical Genesis 12:3, in which the God of Israel declares that He will richly bless nations that bless Israel, but those nations that curse Israel – even those who lightly esteem Israel – He will profoundly curse. History records the fulfillment of this prophecy more than once.
Where are now the global empires of the once indomitable Spanish and Portuguese nations? How about Britain, France, Turkey, and Germany? And what of Soviet Russia? Germany paid for her crimes with her dismantling in 1945, followed by four and a half decades of subjugation to the allied powers that preceded her re-unification with the fall of the Iron Curtain. The Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East for Centuries, routinely oppressing and murdering Jews within her borders until Jews and Arabs alike threw off her rule in 1918; she has never again been anything but a third-rate power, and so she will remain until – at least – she repents of her genocidal sins. France held sway over vast portions of the earth in North America, North Africa, and the Middle East, not to mention Indo-China; she had her chance to bless the Jews following World War I, but chose the path of oppression and exploitation. France has been a paper tiger since 1940, and so she will remain despite holding nuclear weapons gifted from the United States.
Once the sun truly never set on the British Empire. Great Britain pledged her support for an Israeli homeland in the 1917 Balfour Declaration, a declaration more honored in the breach than in the observance, albeit renewed during World War II. Britain spent the thirties and forties disarming Jewish defenders of house and home and permitting Arab death squads to operate freely within what would become the resurrected nation of Israel. Today Israel is the strongest nation in her region while the former British Empire is a pale shadow of itself – barely able to hold Northern Ireland – worthy of nothing more than a room in a museum when it comes to worldly power.
And what of Soviet Russia, the empire that enslaved half the world from 1917 through the eighties? The Soviet Union actually befriended Israel in her early days – when it looked as though Israel would go socialist – and armed her enemies when that mirage faded. All that remains of her once mighty empire is an army incapable of subduing her former province – Ukraine – and accepting arms support from onetime socialist rival, China. What of Spain and Portugal, whose rulers styled themselves as Catholic Majesties, and whose explorers discovered vast portions of the globe in part from a zeal to serve the God and Father of Jesus Christ? Like the other empires cited above, they persecuted and betrayed the Jews – the people of Israel – to their deaths in hundreds of thousands. They too disappeared as world influencers of power, only their demise was earlier in history by centuries. What does the verse in Galatians say? “God is not mocked.” This is not a warning; it is an observation.
Of all nations on earth none has offered more support to Israel than the United States. Harry Truman was among the first of the world’s leaders to welcome Israel into the family of nations. God in His favor enabled America to fund the Marshall Plan for the restoration of Western Europe and Japan, while enjoying a remarkable season of postwar prosperity ourselves. We were enabled to the impossible during the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, both staunch supporters of Israel. We navigated a debilitating war in Southeast Asia, endured the upheaval of our own Civil Rights Revolution, and funded an ill-conceived War on Poverty while enjoying unprecedented prosperity. We even landed men on the moon.
We achieved similar fruit during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, the two George Bushes, and Donald Trump. By the same token, when Dwight Eisenhower pressured the Israelis to abandon their gains from a defensive war in Suez our nation was plunged into recession. When George W Bush championed the two-state Palestinian solution bank failure and recession began. Barack Obama was himself a notorious foe of Israeli autonomy and territorial integrity; his tenure led to racial re-division coupled with social and economic bleeding. That tendency has escalated dramatically under Joe Biden, because Israel has never known a more implacable assassin than Biden and his minions. We today stand on a precipice that can easily lead to national destruction.
“But,” many will say, “Americans for the most part love Israel. We are not our leaders, and should not be judged by their sins.” Reality is we elect our leaders – say what we will about stolen elections and national ignorance about what our leaders’ agenda may be. Like it or not, we are a government of the people, by the people and for the people. This sin is a national sin and it will lead to national redemption – if we the people repent and bear fruit that befits repentance – or the death of the greatest human experiment of all time.
Make no mistake; Israel will be saved by her God. Those nations who support her God in that endeavor will likewise be saved. Those who curse Israel and her children – or esteem her lightly with a lame “But that’s not my problem” excuse will be doomed alongside the evil doers we think more evil than ourselves. Evil is not some brutal incarnation – at the end of the day – but rather and quite literally a deficiency of life – evil being live spelled backwards. Our choice is clear: Life and liberty or death and bondage. Let us choose obedience leading to blessing. Let us choose Israel and her God.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships, The Holy Spirit and the End Times, Kingdom in Pursuit, and his first novel, Generation– available at Barnes and Nobles, Amazon, or at praynorthstate@gmail.com
