Prophetic Blind Spots (8) Israel

A serious blind spot for many modern prophets is their attitude to the modern nation of Israel. God’s promise to bless those who bless Abraham and his descendants has been twisted into a belief that the state of Israel can do no wrong, and that anyone who questions its activities is opposing God. The scriptural teaching on Israel is much more circumspect. It recognises that Israel is often presumptuous and attempts to manipulate the fulfilment of God’s promises. I discuss this issue more thoroughly in Nation of Israel.

Israel is not a Christian nation and most of its leaders are not followers of Jesus. That means that it still functions under the old covenant. Many of the decisions and actions of the Israeli government are contrary to the requirements of their nations covenant with God.

• Shifting people of their land;
• Destroying houses;
• Destroying olive trees;
• Different laws for different races;
• Political alliances;
• Political assassinations;
• Bombing other nations;
• Faith in military force.

Actions that break the covenant are denying the people of Israel access to the blessings that it promised. Unfortunately, many Christian prophets assume that Israel can continue in the blessings of their covenant without obedience. They just ignore the clearly-spelt out consequences of disobedience to the covenant.

God will fulfil his purposes for Israel as promised in the covenant, but he will not do it through political manipulation, military weapons and political alliances.

Successive Israeli governments have been emboldened in their actions by the unconditional support of all United States governments. Most US-based prophets have closed their minds to the injustices perpetrated by the Israeli government with their nation’s military, financial and political support. They seem to assume that everything that Israel does has God’s blessing, so they should bless it too. If Israel does bad things, they assume that it is justified.

Worse still, these prophets seem to assume that blind support for Israel will force God to bless the United States. They assume that sins of the United States do not matter to God, because their nation’s unconditional support for Israel has earned God blessing on their nation.

If God is speaking to these prophets about what Israel is doing, they have chosen not to hear. This complicity with injustice and evil creates a blind spot for many prophets.