God’s Plan for the Land of Israel

• Now I want to come to possibly the most controversial topic in contemporary politics which is God’s plan for the land of Israel, mistakenly called Palestine. Let me point out to you that is totally contrary to Biblical truth to call it Palestine. Palestine means the Land of the Philistines. And it was never used until the Romans had conquered and destroyed the first temple.
• Then they used the name Palestine to assert that the Jews no longer had any claim to it. I mean it was a deliberately chosen anti-Semitic word. Ruth’s hair begins to turn up on end when I begin to talk about Palestine. She says, “Never call it Palestine.” Well I say sometimes you have to say Palestine because people are so ignorant they don’t know what you’re talking about if you don’t say anything else.
• God forgive their ignorance. But let’s talk about God’s plan for that land. Biblically it was called the Land of Canaan and in the New Testament you know what it’s called? The Land of Israel. In the first two chapters of Matthew it’s twice called the Land of Israel. That’s the biblical name for that land. Now let’s see what God had to say about it.
• In Genesis 17:7-8 God appeared to Abraham and He made a covenant with him —totally sovereign. I mean Abraham had nothing to do with it. God just decided and this is what God said to Abraham in Genesis 17:7-8. “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God of you and your descendants after you.
• Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” So there’s no dispute as about to whom the land belongs if you believe the Bible whether Israel are in it or outside of it. It makes no difference.
• God has given it to them as an everlasting possession. And then there’s a remarkable passage in Psalm 105, one of the most remarkable passages, I think, in the Bible. Psalm 105 —we’ll begin verse 7. It’s interesting in my Bible because I get to the bottom of the page and then I have to turn over to find out what the next verse says and it’s a remarkable turning point.
• This is a statement about God’s plan for a land and in it are used more words describing God’s total commitment than any other passage in the Bible I know of. Psalm 105 verse 7. He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. In other words what God decrees applies in every part of the earth. He has remembered His covenant forever, The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac, And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel for an everlasting covenant,
• In those four verses God uses more words to describe His total commitment to something than anywhere else in the Bible. You cannot find another passage in the Bible. Let me just list the words— covenant, word, command, oath, statute, and everlasting covenant. Now the interesting thing is, to what is God making such a total authoritative unreserved commitment and I have to turn the page in my Bible because I got to the bottom of the page.
• And my breath is taken away when I discover what it is. Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance,” So all those words, covenant, word, command, oath, statute, and everlasting covenant are all applied to God’s giving all the land of Canaan to the descendants of Israel.