God s Everlasting Covenant presents The Mountains of Israel Part 1 And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD God, Because the enemy has spoken against you, Aha! and The everlasting heights have become our possession, therefore prophesy and say, Thus says the LORD God, For good reason they have made you desolate and crushed you from every side, that you would become a possession of the rest of the nations and you have been taken up in the talk and the whispering of the people. Therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD God. Thus says the LORD God to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the forsaken cities which have become a prey and a derision to the rest of the nations which are round about, therefore thus says the LORD God, Surely in the fire of My jealousy I have spoken against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who appropriated My land for themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and with scorn of soul, to drive it out for a prey. Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, Thus says the LORD God, Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and My wrath because you have endured the insults of the nations. Therefore thus says the LORD God, I have sworn that surely the nations which are around you will themselves endure their insults. But you, O mountains of Israel, you will put forth your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel; for they will soon come. For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you will be cultivated and sown. I will multiply men on you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities will be inhabited and the waste places will be rebuilt. I will multiply on you man and beast; and they will increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited as you were formerly and will treat you better than at first. Thus you will know that I am the LORD. Yes, I will cause men My people Israel to walk on you and possess you, so that you will become their inheritance and never again bereave them of children. (Ezekiel 36:1-12) The Four Pillars of Judaism These are some of the most important words written in the Scriptures. They are written for our benefit because they are written for our day. These words confirm the everlasting covenant the LORD God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their descendants, the nation and people of Israel, the Jewish people. And they are written for the last days, the days before the final war of Messiah and His reign. They are written for us, so we would understand what is happening in our day, so we can recognize where we are in history, and so we will not be deceived and end up on the wrong side of this most critical issue. Why is the LORD telling Ezekiel to prophesy to the mountains of Israel? Where are the mountains of Israel? What are the everlasting heights which the enemy has called their possession? Who is the you that has become a possession of the rest of the nations, and has been taken up in the talk and the whispering of the people? This is the main topic of what we re going to be studying. Let s turn to Genesis 12, which is a passage with which we are all familiar: Now the LORD said to Abram, Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father s house to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those 1
who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. (Genesis 12:1-3) This passage has become known as the call of Abraham, for obvious reasons. The passage goes on to tell us that Abraham left Haran, which is in modern-day Iraq, and went to the oak of Moreh, which is in Shechem. It was there God appeared to Abraham again. Let s look at the Scripture again, starting at verse 6: Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him. (Genesis 12:6-7). There are four places where Abraham built altars to God. These four altars established the covenant connection between God, Abraham and the Land of Israel. Shechem The first of these is Shechem. This is the first place in the Land of Israel where God revealed Himself. With the building of the altar, Abraham devoted himself to the covenant and God blessed it. Jacob built an altar here, reaffirming the covenant God made with Abraham and Isaac. Later, Jacob bought a parcel of land here for 100 pieces of silver from the Canaanite Hamor. During the Roman occupation of Israel, the Romans not only changed the name of Judea to Palestine, but they changed the names of many places and cities in order to try to remove the Jewish association and history with these holy places. Shechem was renamed as Nablus, and this is what the Arabs call the city to this day. This is also where Joseph s tomb is located. Both of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, were also buried here. This is how the so-called Palestinians have desecrated this holy site. Putting aside the political ramifications for a moment, we must remember this occurred where the altars of both Abraham and Jacob were built. This is nothing less than an attempt to desecrate and nullify God s covenant with Israel. 2
Beth El Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. (Genesis 12:8) Beth El means House of God in Hebrew. Abraham built his second altar here. It was in this same place where God reaffirmed his covenant with Jacob and his descendants in a dream which we have called Jacob s Ladder. And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed so Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Beth El (Genesis 28:13-14; 18-19a) Beth El is also the place where God changed Jacob s name to Israel. (Genesis 35:7-10). Beth El is located next to the Arab city of Ramallah. This is the place the terrorist Yasser Arafat chose as the capital of the Palestinian Authority. Former MK Benny Elon wrote in his book God s Covenant with Israel, Arafat tried to rebuild an altar to Baal in Ramallah. This was an attempt to adopt a Canaanite identity in order to prove that Muslim claims to Israel preceded the Jewish connections to Israel. In 1998, the Palestinian Authority issued a postal stamp with the name and image of Baal on it. (p. 26) Hebron Abraham built the third altar in Hebron. This took place after he and Lot separated. The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you. Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD. (Genesis 13:14-18) Hebron is called the City of the Patriarchs. Genesis 23 tells the story of Abraham purchasing the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron for four hundred shekels of silver, which is where he buried his wife, Sarah. Later, Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah were buried here in Hebron. Let s look at Benny Elon s book again on page 27: 3
The legacy of Hebron has been under attack by radical Islam in an attempt to break a physical link in the chain connecting God and Israel. The Jews of Hebron were forced to flee this holy city in 1929 after an Arab pogrom took the lives of 76 innocent Jewish residents. Jews returned to Hebron in 1967 despite many horrific attempts to drive them out. Dozens of Jews have been brutally murdered in Hebron in the midst of vicious attacks targeted at innocent civilians. We must encourage Jews to continue to live in Hebron and protect the burial site of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs as well as the site where Abraham built the third altar to symbolize his covenant with God. In its quest to conquer and destroy Israel, Islam has purposefully zeroed in on the sites which are fundamental to the covenant between God and Israel. Today this is unabashedly illustrated in Jerusalem, the site of Abraham s fourth altar: Mt. Moriah aka The Temple Mount. Jerusalem This is Judaism s most holy site. It is where Solomon built the first Temple, and where Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah laid the foundation for the Second Temple, and supervised the rebuilding of Jerusalem s walls after the return from Babylonian captivity. It is also the place where Abraham was willing to offer up his son Isaac when he was 30 years old. Isaac willingly laid on the altar and at the last moment, God called out to Abraham not to harm him and He provided a ram for the sacrifice. This was Abraham s greatest test of faith. The binding of Isaac on Mt. Moriah, called the Akeidah by Jews, symbolized the depth of the relationship between God and Abraham. Islam claims it was not Isaac who was bound on the altar, but Ishmael. According to Islamic teaching, it is not Isaac but Ishmael who God chose to continue the Abrahamic covenant. This is in direct opposition to what the Bible says: And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly But my covenant will I establish with Isaac. (Genesis 17:20-21) and for in Isaac your seed shall be called. (Genesis 21:12) Islamic leaders have systematically sought to destroy all evidence that there is any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. Their goal is to turn it into an Arab-Muslim site with mosques covering the compound. In 1996, the Waqf (the controlling body of the Temple Mount) turned two underground Second Temple period structures into a new large mosque. The digging resulted in the dumping of thousands of tons of ancient artifacts into the Kidron Valley, including pottery, coins, and other ancient evidence of Biblical/Jewish history. Many of these have been recovered by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. However, the so-called Palestinians deny Jews any access to their holiest site. In January 2002, Israeli Arab leader Sheikh Raed Salah told reporters: The use of the Temple Mount is exclusively a Moslem Arab Palestinian right. In addition, he said, There never was any First or Second Temple in the vicinity of the Mosque. (see http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/flash.aspx/17237) 4
There is not time in our study to teach about the details of Islam. However, in our opinion, Islam represents rebellion against the covenant that the God of Israel established with the Jewish people. Islam was founded more than 600 years after Christianity and nearly two thousand years after God gave the Torah through Moses to Israel. Islamic scholars have made attempts to recreate history to fit Islamic belief. Unfortunately, this revisionist history has been widely accepted, which has led millions into deception. The greatest deception is yet to come in our view. Islamic eschatology teaches that Jesus will return as a prophet of Islam in the end of days. Isa as they call him, will inform the Christians and the Jews they both had it all wrong, and he will submit himself to the 13 th Imam, or the Mahdi, who we believe will be the Antichrist described in the Bible. We can clearly see the diabolical purpose of the Islamic Palestinian Arabs is to remove all Jewish association in these four places, which are in the Biblical heartland -- Judea and Samaria. Calling it the West Bank does not change anything. It only furthers the cause of the enemy in deceiving those who do not care to educate themselves on these matters. This is why it is so important for the disciples of Yeshua to understand the truth and know what the Bible has to say about these things. We believe the entire Arab Palestinian narrative will lead to the Great Deception and falling away of even the elect, if it were possible. We need to take Yeshua s warning seriously. 5