THE PROMISED LAND

By Akin Ojumu

“Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed…” When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.”” (Genesis 12:1-7).

There are those who, when they read the above passage, would squirm and wobble. They’ll try to muddy the clarity of those divine utterances to make them seem like a murky grey area of indeterminable meaning. Some may even suggest that God's promise only applies to Biblical Israel which, in their mind, is not the same thing as modern-day Israel.

The LORD must have had these scoffers in mind when He reiterated His promises to Abraham three chapters later. To silence the doubt of the doubters, the LORD defined, in unambiguous terms, the precise landmark of the Jewish nation. Just so to quash the dithering of the ditherers, the Divine Surveyor placed markers along the boundaries of the Promised Land for all to see and understand.

“On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”” (Genesis 15:18-20).

An oasis in the midst of a vast desert, Israel is a lone Jewish nation surrounded by twenty-two hostile Arab neighbors who are committed to their annihilation. Given what they’ve endured in their history, the Israelites should have been confined to history, like the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Amorites, Girgashites, and the Jebusites. That the Jewish people remain in existence today is an improbable act of providence. To deny that the mighty hand of God is upon the Jews is to deny an obvious reality.

Zionism may seem to some as nothing more than a modern political movement. To many, it is Jewish nationalism funded by Western nations in an attempt to colonize Palestine. That there are many who hold such a view shouldn’t surprise anyone. Degenerate souls have no understanding of the ways of God. Reprobate minds do not know that God works in mysterious ways to perform His wonder.

Simply put, Zionism is an affirmation of God’s promise to Abraham that He would give him and his offspring the land of Canaan. Being a Zionist is to recognize Israel’s claim to the Promised Land whose borders extend from the Red Sea (Egypt) in the South to the Sea of the Philistines (Mediterranean) in the West, and from the Wilderness (Arabian Desert) in the East to the Euphrates in the North, as the Bible described in Exodus 23:31.

To believe in the Bible is to believe in Zionism. If, as a professing Christian, you affirm that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit, then you are a Zionist like any other Jew. The reason that’s the case is simple. The Bible tells us that the Eretz Yisra’el, i.e., the Land of Israel, is God’s promise to Abraham and his offspring. Anyone who believes that is a Zionist at heart.

“Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” (Joshua 21:45).

“Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant.” (1 Kings 8:56).

If you believe in God, you should know that God is a keeper of promises. Those who belong to Him understand that not one jot or tittle of His promises will go unfulfilled. Your human logic cannot explain God. You cannot, by shallow reasoning, figure Him out. 

If you say you are a Christian, you ought to know that God will keep His promise to Abraham and his offspring no matter what. To doubt that is to waver like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.