Part 2 of 6 – Israel's God-Given Destiny

Equipping God's Saints (Followers of Christ) through the Prophecies of the End Times …

In Part 1 we met Abraham (100 years old) and Sarah (90 years old). God had made a covenant, two unbreakable promises with Abraham:

1. The promise of the Promised Land
2. The promise of the Promised Seed

God gave Abraham and Sarah a miraculous son named Isaac. As the years passed, everything seemed to be going wonderful for Abraham as his relationship with his son, Isaac, developed, and Abraham continued to walk with God.

The time came when God needed to test Abraham. If God is going to make Abraham the pivot of human history... The father of the physical people of God upon the earth ~ The Jews. The father of the spiritual people of God upon the earth ~ The Church... He's got to make sure where Abraham really stands in his loyalties.
In Genesis 22:1-2

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, behold, Here I am, and he said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”

Wow! What a test God was giving Abraham. He told him to take the joy of his life, his long awaited promise and prove to God which he loves: God, himself, or does he simply love God's blessing, God's promise. God needed to know which one Abraham loved the most. Abraham's faith was tested.

God led Abraham to Moriah. Why is that important? Because Mount Moriah, 1,000 years later, was destined to be the Temple Mount. King David built the first Temple there and it is still known as the Temple Mount, today. Where we are today, God was planning this all out in 2,000 BC.

When Abraham, Isaac and their servants get to the mountain, Abraham tells his servants to “stay there and the lad and I will go to yonder mountain to worship and RETURN.” What a declaration of faith.

Abraham had a promise and he knew that God never failed His promises. The promise he had in Isaac was that, “All your seed is going to be blessed”. Abraham probably thought in himself, “How is God going to do this? If He wants me to kill my only son, Isaac, and my seed is to be blessed in Isaac, and Isaac has no children yet, God is either going to stop me before I kill him, or He will raise Isaac from the dead. God cannot break His covenant.”

Abraham and Isaac get up there and Abraham binds Isaac's hands and legs and lays him on the alter. He raises the knife over the son he loves so dearly.

This is going to happen to everyone of us who walk with God. Sooner or later God is going to ask you for the very thing that you love the most because He wants to know that we love Him more than we love anything else in the world.

In Genesis 22:12-13 is the account of what happened as Abraham had the knife drawn and almost ready to plunge it downward, suddenly the voice of an angel spoke:

“And he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do though any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.”

This was a foreshadowing of the fact that you and I were destined to die and yet God provided himself a sacrifice. He made Himself a body and said, “I will die in their place.”

What does God want to know about you and me? He wants to know if we love Him more than anything else. He also wants us to know that He has provided for us a sacrifice

Remember the promise in Genesis 22:18:

“And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou has obeyed my voice.”

This is the acid test for all of us. Do we obey God's voice in our life? We have His Word, the Bible. That's His voice. We have His Spirit. That's His voice. That's what God wants to know, not just from Abraham, but from all of us. Have you obeyed My voice?

Notice that “...in thy seed...” is singular. The Apostle Paul made a big deal about that this word was singular. He said in Galatians 3:16:

“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ.”

All the promise was pointing to the answer of God for the human race, Jesus Christ. So when He said “in your seed all the nations will be blessed...” He's saying in the Messiah ~ in Jesus Christ ~ will all the nations of the earth be blessed.

Isaac lives and has 2 sons. Everything was wonderful. These sons were twins named Esau and Jacob.

Esau was born first, so he had the birthright and the patriarchal blessing due to him, however, Jacob yearned for the things of God. Esau didn't really care. Esau liked to hunt and hang around with dad. Jacob had this consuming hunger for God and he thought, “If there is a birthright, I want to get it.” He began to plan how he could get this birthright from his brother.

The Bible says, “Seek and ye shall find” and “they that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.”

One day Jacob had been cooking potage and Esau had been out on a deer hunt. Esau comes into the house weary and feint. He drops down into a chair and tells Jacob to give him some of his pottage. He's so tired, he's about to die. He cannot go another step.

Jacob tells him he'll give him a bowl of his pottage if Esau will sell Jacob his birthright. It's a good trade. It's just a piece of paper.

Esau thinks about the offer a moment and thinks it is no good to him. He's about to die. The birthright meant nothing to him. The spiritual things meant nothing to him. Esau was all for the here and now. He was all for the material, the physical. So he sold his birthright.

Later on, Jacob also managed to get Esau's blessing. Jacob then had to run for his life because after the fact, Esau became very angry, especially when he lost the patriarchal blessing. He didn't care that much about the birthright, but he wanted to be a blessed person. So Jacob has to run for his life when his brother, Esau, realizes that Jacob has stolen his blessing.

Jacob ends up going to the household of Laban who is related to Abraham's family. There, he marries 2 wives, Leah and Rachel. He ended up having 12 sons. These 12 sons became the heads of the 12 Tribes of Israel. Now the nation of Israel is being born.

After Jacob had these children, he decided it was time to get his life straightened out. He knew he couldn't keep running forever. He wanted to see his parents again. He wanted to see his brother, Esau, again. He knew it wasn't right to continue to be at odds with Esau. Jacob had spent all his life cheating and cutting corners and trying to take other people's places and he was sick of living this way. He needed to have peace in his life and his heart. So Jacob heads back toward his homeland.

Esau hears Jacob is coming and he goes out to meet him. Jacob knows that Esau is a mighty hunter and he knows that Esau had great wrath against him. The last time Jacob saw his brother, his brother wanted to kill him. So Jacob knows tomorrow might be the crossroads for him.

That night Jacob sends all of his wives, all of his children, all of his servants and all of his cattle across the brook and he says, “I've got to be alone with God.”

All of us will come to a place like that in our own lives.

As Jacob began to pray, the Bible says an angel shows up and the angel begins to wrestle with Jacob. And Jacob wrestles with the angel. Jacob says, “You know, I've got the chance of a lifetime. I've got a visitation of God on my life and I'm not going to miss this.”

He grabbed hold of the angel and they wrestled through the night until finally the breaking of the day. The angel said to Jacob, “You've got to let me go. People are going to be coming by. They are not allowed to see me.”

Jacob said, “I don't care what you say. I will not let you go until you bless me. I'm tired of my lifestyle. I'm tired of not really being right with God. I'm not really being right with my brother.”

Finally the angel said, “Ok. Alright. Tell me your name.”

Jacob said, “My name is Jacob,” which means cheater, supplanter.

The angel said, “Your name is not going to be that anymore. I'm changing your nature and I'm changing your name to Israel. As a prince, thou has prevailed with God and with men.”

That's when the name Israel was born. The name goes on and we have the nation of Israel with us today.

The promise was repeated. This promise of the Promised Land and of the Promised Seed was not simply to Abraham. Notice in Genesis 50:24:

“And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land {they were in Egypt} unto the land which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

So this was not simply a promise to Abraham, only. This was a promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Coming up we are going to skip ahead 1,000 years. You won't want to miss what's coming up.

Resources: The anointing of the Holy Spirit and God Almighty, who I am accountable to. I have prayed diligently and am led to follow and support the teachings of Pastor Irvin Baxter from Endtime Ministries and his teachings of Understanding the End Times. I encourage you to visit his website at endtime.com.