The Coming Ezekiel War
Part 1
“The Ancient Hatred”
Genesis 17:18-19 “18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” 19 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.”
The ‘descendants’ refers to the Jews.
Once Hagar is told what God said to Abraham, that the Abrahamic covenant would not be passed down through Ishmael, that their coming together had been a mistake, a resentment was born into the family between Hagar and Sarah.
This is the first spark in the Israeli-Arab conflict that would be passed down through the ages.
But it gets worse!
Gen 21:8-9 “So the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned. 9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing.”
Here we see Abraham holding a feast to celebrate the weaning of Isaac, who is not between 3-5 years old.
Ishmael is now somewhere between 14-19 years old.
In Jewish tradition you were viewed as an adult at this age.
The Bible says Ishmael was “scoffing” at the young boy Isaac.
In Hebrew ‘scofffing’ is from a word meaning laughing, mocking, showing ridicule, contempt, or derision.
And the verb tense intensifies the word so that it is a violent, intense mocking; like an aggressive attack.
Ishmael’s scoffing is brimming over with vitriol, hatred, resentment, and intense anger.
Clearly the animosity and bitter root in Hagar for her son being rejected as Abraham’s heir has passed down to Ishmael as we see by this derisive mocking of Isaac!
This is what Sarah saw through the window, causing her to say, “That’s it!” “They’ve got to go!”
It is here that Abraham and Sarah kick Hagar and Ishmael out permanently in a final parting of ways.
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Now, think with me—It is this same kind of violent aggression, mocking, ridicule, and contempt we see in the Middle East today from Arabs toward the Jews.
–Spiritual resentment and hatred has been passed down through the generations from this family conflict and the resulting bitter separation.
This is the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict rocking the world today!
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Now, it’s worth noting that this same kind of spiritual resentment is nothing new to Scripture.
It can be found all the way back to the story of Cain and Abel.
The time came when the two men brought a sacrifice to God, presumably to deal with the sin-guilt issue that had fallen upon the human race through their parents.
Cain brought an offering from the ground, likely some kind of vegetable offering, for he was a farmer.
Abel brought the firstborn of his flock, so he brought a blood offering.
My belief has always been that God had clearly communicated to the first family following their fall into sin that only a blood offering could deal with the guilt of their sin.
God had killed an animal to cover their nakedness, which was emblematic of their sin-guilt.
So God accepted Abel’s offering brought thru obedience, and rejected Cain’s offering, which came through rebellion to God’s prescribed method.
And what was Cains response?
“And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.”–Gen 4:5
It is here that God warns him, “You know that if you do what is right, I will accept you. But if you don’t, sin is ready to attack you.”–4:7
Sadly, the spiritual resentment and jealousy burning in Cain’s heart won the day and he committed the first murder to ever stain the human race by killing his brother.
It’s a similar spiritual resentment and jealousy that has been passed down to the Arabs ever since God chose Isaac over Ishmael.
When you think about it, even the lost world nurses a deep-seated jealousy and resentment toward, not just the Jews, but also Christians.
We, like Abel, have rejected the lie that you can come to God by your own good works like Cain did, and have come to Him by the one and only way of the shed blood of His Son!
The two people groups routinely hammered by the world today are the Jews and the Christians.
Why? Because the world’s attempts to be right with God by their own works have been rejected by God, and this produces a deep resentment in the lost.
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Now, hold that thought and let’s jump ahead to modern times and the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning Israel in the last days.
In chapter 35:1–36:15-24, Ezekiel makes several predictions about the Jewish people.
After being dispersed throughout the world, which happened in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple:
• The children of Israel would be brought back and restored to their native land of Israel, which was fulfilled on May 14, 1948.
• When this happens, predicted Ezekiel, the ancient hatred between Arab and Jew would be revived, and the Arab world would severely oppose their return to the point of bloodshed, which happened in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. And now we could add, on Oct 7, 2023!
• He predicts that the Arabs would use unconventional weaponry, which they have done since their military losses. Suicide bombers, placing bombs in buses filled with innocent people, and other modes of sneak attacks on unarmed people that can’t defend themselves has been the modus operandi of terrorists–much like 19 year old Ishmael unfairly attacking a 3-5 year old Isaac!
• Ezekiel also predicts that the Arab nations surrounding Israel would claim Israel’s land in 35:10, “You have said, ‘These two countries and these two nations shall be mine.”
• And that the entire process would be accompanied by blasphemous propaganda-35:12, “God says, ‘I have heard all your blasphemies which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel…”
Then in Ezekiel 36:2,4 the Prophet predicts the Arab response to the Jews returning to their homeland: “Your enemies have taunted you, saying, ‘Aha! Now the ancient heights belong to us!'”
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But the land doesn’t belong to Ishmael, it belongs to Isaac!
Up until the return of the Jews the Arabs, along with many other people groups, squatted on the land of Israel and did nothing to cultivate it, farm it, or make it better.
But as soon as Israel returned, they claimed the land belonged to them.
Interestingly, it is only after Israel re-enters the land to become a nation again in 1948 that the various terrorist groups began to pop up.
The PLO, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Taliban, and so on….none of these terrorist groups existed prior to Israel’s return, just as Ezekiel predicted!
The fact is that more than 95% of the Arab world is Islamic and thus guided by Islamic thinking regarding Israel–that they should be destroyed “from the river to the sea!”
That’s what Saudi Arabia thinks, what Iran thinks, what every major Arab country thinks. It’s imbedded in their minds by Islam, which teaches that Jews are pigs, apes, and infidels.
In hindsight, Islam became a perfect religion for the Arab world because it not only fuels the ancient hatred, but gives the Arabs a spiritual justification for their hatred.
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Now, I’m not slamming the Arab world, nor am I stereotyping a people group. It is God Himself that is telling us in His word what the people group will do, what their character will be, and the part they play in latter day events.
Keep in mind that God also called His own people Israel a stiff-necked people. Is God stereotyping? No, He’s telling the unvarnished truth!
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Now, that said, God describes the descendants of Ishmael this way:
“He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”–Gen 16:12
In the Middle East to this day there are herds of wild donkeys that wander in open, wilderness places. The idea here is that Ishmael would be nomadic, he would not possess the land promised in the Abrahamic Covenant, but would wander and make his home in other lands.
Also note the uncannily accurate prediction that he would live in open hostility toward all his brothers–Isaac and his descendants!
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Now, what about the claim of the Arab world that the land of Israel is their land and not the Jews?
This is all a lie.
The Jews occupied the land all the way back to the conquest of Joshua in around 1400 BC. It says in Joshua 21:43-45,
“So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. 44 The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hands. 45 Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.”
Even when Israel was expelled from their land, which has happened twice in history with the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem under the Romans in 70 AD, God promised they would return:
“Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it” (Deuteronomy 30:4–5).
This promise has been twice fulfilled in return from Babylon in 538 BC and in 1948!
Look what Jesus predicted in Lk 21:24,
“They (the Jews) will be killed by the sword or sent away as captives to all the nations of the world. And Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the period of the Gentiles comes to an end.”
A time was coming, Jesus tells us, when the city would once again be in the hands of the Jewish people. I doubt those listening to him at the time could have possibly imagined how many years would pass before this prophecy came true!
Now, for the first time in over two millennia, Israel regained control of Jerusalem in 1967.
In the 1967 6-day war, the Jews retook Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
Just as Jesus predicted, beginning in 1948 and then again in 1967 in the infamous 6 day war, the times of Gentile control over Jerusalem came to an end!
Author Joel Rosenberg writes, “In six days, the Jewish people defended themselves, destroyed their enemies, tripled their land; recaptured control of Jerusalem for the first time in 2,000 years and on the seventh day they rested!”
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Yet the Arab world that surrounds them has never accepted their victory. It has only stirred into a fresh fire the ancient hatred.
One day in the near future, we don’t know the date or time, a coalition of Islamic countries working in league with Russia will descend upon the land of Israel in a final great attempt to destroy it. Next week we will preview the players and the outcome!