Christians United for Israel - We speak and act with one voice in support of Israel: Learn about Christian Zionism

Christians United for Israel - We speak and act with one voice in support of Israel: Learn about Christian Zionism: "Why Chrstians Shouls Support Israel What is Christian Zionism? Introduction to Standing with Israel by David Brog Biblical Reasons for Christian Support of Israel Christian Zionism Defined Christian Zionist Forerunners Jews And Evangelicals Together: Why some Christians are pro-Israel Standing With Israel—Q & A with David Brog Why Christians Should Support Israel or this is what the Lord Almighty says: 'After He has honored me and has sent me against the nations that have plundered you - for whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye - I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me. Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion... Everything Christians do should be based upon the Biblical text. Here are seven solid Biblereasons why Christians should support Israel. Genesis 12:3 'And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed.' Point: God has promised to bless the man or nation that blesses the Chosen People. History has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the nations that have blessed the Jewish people have had the blessing of God; the nations that have cursed the Jewish people have experienced the curse of God. St. Paul recorded in Romans 15:27 'For if the Gentiles have shared in their (the Jews) spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things.' 

Christians owe a debt of eternal gratitude to the Jewish people for their contributions that gave birth to the Christian faith. Jesus Christ, a prominent Rabbi from Nazareth said, 'Salvation is of the Jews!' (St. John 4:22) consider what the Jewish people have given to Christianity: a) The Sacred Scripture 
b) The Prophets 
 c) The Patriarchs 
d) Mary, Joseph, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth 
 e) The Twelve Disciples 
 f) The Apostles
 It is not possible to say, 'I am a Christian' and not love the Jewish people. The Bible teaches that love is not what you say, but what you do. (1 John 3:18) 'A bell is not a bell until you ring it, a song is not a song until you sing it, love is not love until you share it.' While some Christians try to deny the connection between Jesus of Nazareth and the Jews of the world, Jesus never denied his Jewishness. He was born Jewish, He was circumcised on the eighth day in keeping with Jewish tradition, He had his Bar Mitzvah on his 13th birthday, He kept the law of Moses, He wore the Prayer Shawl Moses commanded all Jewish men to wear, He died on a cross with an inscription over His head, 'King of the Jews!' 

Jesus considered the Jewish people His family. Jesus said (Matthew 25:40) 'Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren (the Jewish people… Gentiles were never called His brethren), ye have done it unto me.' 'Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee.' (Psalm 122:6) the scriptural principle of prosperity is tied to blessing Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Why did Jesus Christ go to the house of Cornelius in Capernaum and heal his servant, which was ready to die? What logic did the Jewish elders use with Jesus to convince Him to come into the house of a Gentile and perform a miracle?

 The logic they used is recorded in Luke 7:5; 'For He loveth our nation, and He hath built us a synagogue.' The message? This Gentile deserves the blessing of God because he loves our nation and has done something practical to bless the Jewish people. Why did God the Father select the house of Cornelius in Caesarea (Acts Chapter 10) to be the first Gentile house in Israel to receive the Gospel? The answer is given repeatedly in Acts 10.

Acts 10:2 'a devout man, (Cornelius) and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.' Who were the people to whom Cornelius gave these alms? They were the Jews! 

Again is Acts 10:4 '… thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.' 

 Again in Acts 10:31 '… and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.'
The point is made three times in the same chapter. A godly Gentile who expressed his unconditional love for the Jewish people in a practical manner was divinely selected by heaven to be the first Gentile house to receive the Gospel and the first to receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 

These combined Scriptures verify that PROSPERITY (Genesis 12:3 and Psalm 122:6), HEALING (Luke 7:1-5) and the OUTPOURING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT came first to Gentiles that blessed the Jewish people and the nation of Israel in a practical manner. We support Israel because all other nations were created by an act of men, but Israel was created by an act of God! The Royal Land Grant that was given to Abraham and his seed through Isaac and Jacob with an everlasting and unconditional covenant. (Genesis 12:1-3, 13:14-18, 15:1-21, 17:4-8, 22:15-18, 26:1-5 and Psalm 89:28-37.) What is Christian Zionism? by The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem Tens of thousands of churches, and literally tens of millions Christians in the USA have a committed belief in the importance of standing with Israel and blessing the Jewish people. The verse most often referred to as their biblical mandate is Genesis 12:3 in which God tells Abraham “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Since the birth of the State of Israel in 1948 the theological error known as Replacement Theology has begun to decline and increasing is a theology of Christian Zionism that understands the importance of God’s everlasting covenant with Abraham and the nation he would birth. However, just as the term “Zionism” has been turned into a negative word by Israel’s enemies, so “Christian Zionism” is under attack and often misrepresented in the media and in some public discourse. For this reason, the ICEJ’s articles and monographs defining and clarifying the beliefs of Christian supporters of Israel and placing their “love for Israel” within its proper biblical context are proving invaluable. Click Here to read the original article. TOP Introduction to Standing with Israel by David Brog Thirty-five years after the Holocaust, the Israeli air force destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, outside of Baghdad. The Israelis had determined that Iraq was using the reactor to develop a nuclear bomb, a weapon this implacable enemy might one day use against them. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin justified the action to the world by declaring that he would not permit “another Holocaust in the history of the Jewish people.”(8) Israel was universally condemned for the Osirak raid, including by its ally the United States. In San Antonio, Texas, a pastor named John Hagee was dismayed by the loud outcry against Israel's action. He decided to counter the chorus of criticism with a public show of support. With the help of a fellow pastor and two rabbis, Pastor Hagee organized a “Night to Honor Israel.” The day after he held a press conference to announce the upcoming event, someone phoned Pastor Hagee's church and said, “Tell that preacher he'll be dead by Friday.”As the evening of the event drew near, someone shot out the windows of Pastor Hagee's car while it was parked in front of his house. The Night to Honor Israel went ahead as scheduled. After the speeches, Hagee presented a $10,000 check to the president of the local chapter of Hadassah. Then, at 9:27 p.m., Hagee was handed a note. Someone had phoned the San Antonio Express News threatening to blow up the auditorium at 9:30 p.m. The room was quickly evacuated. Despite this troubled start, Hagee's Night to Honor Israel became an annual event. Over the years, the size of the crowd grew, and a massive television audience was added. And the checks got bigger. At the 2004 Night to Honor Israel, Pastor Hagee presented checks totaling $2.25 million to two Jewish organizations that fund the immigration of Jews to Israel and one that supports Israeli orphans. When asked why he so staunchly supports Israel, Pastor John Hagee speaks of a “biblical mandate to bless the Jews” and of a Christian “debt of gratitude” to the Jewish people. Pastor Hagee notes that: The Jewish people gave to us the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The prophets, Elijah, Daniel, Zechariah, etc.-not a Baptist in the bunch. Every word in your Bible was written by Jewish hands. The first family of Christianity, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, were Jewish. Jesus Christ, a Jewish rabbi from Nazareth, made this statement: “Salvation is of the Jews.” The point is this: If you take away the Jewish contribution to Christianity, there would be no Christianity. Click Here to read the entire introduction. TOP Biblical Reasons for Christian Support of Israel by Alan C. Lazerte B.A., LL.B. Excerpts of the article that appeared in Christian Action for Israel Christians have good biblical reasons, past present and future, for supporting modern Israel. Christianity was birthed by biblical Judaism. Moses prophesied of the disobedience, dispersion, return and ultimate restoration of Israel, due to the faithfulness of Jehovah. Some eighty percent of our Bible (what we call the 'Old Testament') was written in Hebrew, by Hebrews, for Hebrews; and although Gentiles could come to God, they had to come through Israels God-given religion. Jesus himself instructed the disciples to go only 'unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel', and reminded the Samaritan woman, and us, that 'salvation is of the Jews'. (John 4: 22) Click Here to read the original article. TOP Christian Zionism - Defined by David Krusch Christian Zionism can be defined as Christian support for the Zionist cause — the return of the Jewish people to its biblical homeland in Israel. It is a belief among some Christians that the return of Jews to Israel is in line with a biblical prophecy, and is necessary for Jesus to return to Earth as its king. These Christians are partly motivated by the writings of the Bible and the words of the prophets. However, they are also driven to support Israel because they wish to “repay the debt of gratitude to the Jewish people for providing Christ and the other fundamentals of their faith,” and to support a political ally, according to David Brog, author Standing With Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State. Christian Zionists interpret both the Torah and the New Testament as prophetic texts that describe future events of how the world will one day end with the return of Jesus from Heaven to rule on Earth. Israel and its people are central to their vision. They interpret passages from the books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah as foreshadowing the coming Christian era. The New Testament Book of Revelation is read by many Christians as a prophetic text of how the world will be in the End Times. Christian support for Israel is not a recent development. Its politcal roots reach as far back to the 1880s, when a man named William Hechler formed a committee of Christian Zionists to help move Russian Jewish refugees to Palestine after a series of pogroms. In 1884, Hechler wrote a pamphlet called “The Restoration of Jews to Palestine According to the Prophets.” A few years later, he befriended Theodor Herzl after reading Herzl’s book The Jewish State, and joined Herzl to drum up support for Zionism. Hechler even arranged a meeting between Herzl and Kaiser Wilhelm II to discuss Herzl’s proposal to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The two men remained close friends up until Herzl’s death in 1904. Click Here to read the original article. TOP Christian Zionist Forerunners by JoAnn G. Magnuson While most of the early Christians were Jews, the church gradually lost interest in its Jewish roots and heritage as it moved to the pagan world. By the 3rd century C.E. few Christians thought of Jesus as a Jewish teacher or rabbi. Fewer still thought of the Jews as God’s prophets, priests, kings, and apostles. Some medieval Christian pilgrims related to the ancient Jews as they traveled to the Holy Land, but few felt connected to the contemporary Jews they met along the way. For over 1000 years most of the church believed that Christians had replaced the Jews as God’s covenant people. There were isolated instances of Christians who read the scriptures differently but until the Reformation few Christians considered the possibility of a Jewish return to Israel. The translation of the Bible into the language of the common people, particularly the English Bible, produced a radical change. Barbara Tuchman, in her book, “Bible and Sword,” says, “...without the background of the English Bible it is doubtful that the Balfour Declaration would ever have been issued...” Click Here to read the original article. TOP 'Jews And Evangelicals Together: Why some Christians are pro-Israel' by Kathryn Jean Lopez Kathryn Jean Lopez: Which Christians in the U.S. are most Zionist and why? David Brog: The evangelicals. No contest. Their Zionism comes directly from their theology. But, as opposed to what most people think, this theology is driven by the biblical promises of the Book of Genesis, not the biblical prophecies of the Book of Revelations. Lopez: Was there an event that made this alliance stronger? Has it always been under the radar? Brog: Evangelical Christians largely shunned politics until the late 1970s, when Jerry Falwell created the Moral Majority and led them back onto the political playing field. Israel was among the priorities of the Christian Right from the start. In fact, when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority he made support for Israel one of the group’s four organizing principles along with the issue of abortion, traditional marriage, and a strong U.S. defense. While Israel was always important to evangelicals, a recent event did make Israel even more of a priority. On September 11, 2001, evangelicals recognized along with many other Americans that radical Islam was the greatest threat facing our country and that we were in a war with its proponents. And in this war, Israel is seen as an ally and as the first line of defense of Judeo-Christian civilization. Support for this embattled ally has moved to center stage. Click Here to read the original article. TOP 'Standing With Israel' Q & A with David Brog by Jamie Glazov FP: Tell us what Christian Zionism is. Why do certain evangelicals support Israel so strongly? Brog: “Christian Zionism” is a devotion to Israel as a Jewish state that is widespread and growing in the Christian world. And this devotion to Israel is the direct result of Christian theology. These theological roots come as a surprise to many, since Christian theology has typically not been very friendly to the Jews or their dreams of a state in their ancient homeland. But during the course of the 20th century there was a revolution in Christian theology towards the Jews which has dramatically changed the way that many Christians feel towards the Jewish people in general and Israel in particular. To briefly summarize, for most of Christian history the dominant Christian theology towards the Jews was “replacement theology,” which held that when the Jews rejected Jesus as their messiah, God rejected the Jews as his chosen people. The Church replaced the Jews as the “Israel” to whom so much is promised in the Bible. Once the Jews were thus removed from God’s love, the door was opened to man’s hate. And this was a door through which generation after generation of Christians walked. But ever since the Reformation, there have been some small groups of Protestants who have rejected replacement theology and who believe as Jews do -- that the word “Israel” in the Bible means the Jews. Under this reading, the Jews are still the chosen people, they are still in covenant with and beloved by God, and they are still the rightful heirs of the land of Israel. Christians who read their Bible this way tend to reject anti-Semitism and embrace both the Jewish people and their national aspirations in Israel. In early twentieth century America, the nascent fundamentalist movement embraced this minority view and rejected replacement theology. As the fundamentalist movement grew and spread throughout America, the number of adherents of this positive theology towards the Jews grew as well, to the point that it is the ascendant strain of American Christianity today. Thus fundamentalist/evangelical support for Israel is not a trend, fad, or public relations ploy -- it is a bedrock religious belief. It is hard to find support for Israel that is more deeply rooted. It is also important to add that, after the Holocaust, the Roman Catholic Church and most mainline Protestant denominations recognized the danger of replacement theology and formally rejected it. But replacement theology under new names and guises is still out there, and it still does theological combat with the more Judeo-centric interpretation that drives the Christian Zionists. Click Here to read the original article. – Envoyé à l'aide de la barre d'outils Google"