It is every bit as instructive
as the Apostle Paul's Romans 9-11
In verse 3 of the Song of Moses it is written, “For I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Ascribe greatness to our God! 4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; ALL HIS WAYS ARE JUST. A GOD OF FAITHFULNESS WITHOUT INJUSTICE, righteous and upright is He.”
This is not speaking that we are to be passive as a doormat (1 Cor 10:13) or that God does not allow Israel to wage war against those who attack her. This is speaking on personal motivations of individual actions, and corporately forbidding REVENGE taken by God’s people.
If you consider the history of pogroms against Jews in the Diaspora, you see that the Jews never became a force of revenge. At times they fought back to preserve their lives in the Diaspora, as they do now in the restored State of Israel against implacable enemies, but they do not fight in revenge. That is important to all believers on an individual personal level and it is a significant ethic that God imprinted upon His children corporately. Israel was set apart by the corporate ethical expectations of their Father God. Although they failed in many ways, God did imprint the children of Israel with His own Divine boundaries of justice.
This is demonstrated even today in the ethical way Israel has dealt with their implacable enemies for the past 76 years of the modern State. There may be pockets of Israelis who take revenge on the Palestinians, but the corporate ethic is not revenge, but self-defense. That is a powerful statement of the Divine DNA of the children of Israel, and Christians are to learn from that example. Many believers make the mistake in thinking they have the “right” to seek their own vengeance on those that have harmed them. God says to His children: Don't do it. Allow me because only I can execute pure judgment. You cannot because you yourself are not pure enough to judge what that is.
The Song of Moses is Prophetic | The Song of Moses is an incredible chapter that explains what God's intentions for Israel are. As the apostle Paul explained it to Christians in Romans 9 through 11, the Song of Moses predicts everything that has played out in history. It is a comprehensive view of God's perspective of what He is doing with Israel. It spans from the time He singled them out to be "a chosen people" to the very end when He vindicates them. He vindicates them from their enemies because His own name is placed on them. He says if Israel's enemies wipe them out, they will think they not only had prevailed against Israel, but against God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. (DT 32:26-27)
In this chapter God expresses his anger with Israel because in their prosperity, they forgot all about Him and adopted other gods, mere idols. In Romans 11:17-20 the Apostle Paul warns Christians along the same lines. Christians are not to disdain the Jewish people, but to recognize we stand on their spiritual shoulders. Israel was only set aside by God for a season in order that Salvation (Yeshua) could be extended to all the nations.
If we do not have that in right understanding, we think it is okay to seek revenge on Israel, calling them “Christ killers” and rejected of God. We better heed Paul’s warning or we are in danger of being cut off by God in a time when there is no recourse left to repent. It is the time that God returns to the natural restoration of the Promised Land and the spiritual restoration of the Chosen People, the People of the Book who “for better or for worse” have born the name of the LORD since He first singled them out for that purpose.
God said prophetically about the idolatry in the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 32:19-21: "When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters. He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation—children of unfaithfulness.
21 They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.
This "nation without understanding" is nāḇāl goy. Goy means nations that are not Israel. So goy refers to all the nations that Salvation (Yeshua) was opened up to by the setting aside of Israel. Now nāḇāl means foolish, which also means “with no perception of ethical and religious” boundaries. In other words, God laid out His ethical and religious boundaries to the Chosen People, but the peoples of the nations that came to Salvation by faith in Yeshua/Jesus did not have any perception of those things. In great part, many still do not because they reject the Hebrew scriptures of the Bible as having any significance to them. Big mistake.
In fact, in Acts 15:21, the Apostles express an expectation that Gentiles coming to faith will be taught what God’s ethical and religious boundaries are saying they will not lay a lot of rules on the Gentile believers because, "For [the books of] Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” What that means is the Torah, or the Instruction which are the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This was the Apostolic expectation that Christians would continue in learning God’s standards of righteousness and ethical conduct, and the Holy Spirit would convict us of how we are falling short of that. Impossible to let the work of the Holy Spirit have full access to our hearts and minds if we fail to regard the Old Testament as having nothing to do with Christianity.
Making Israel Jealous: Will God make the Jews jealous or will Christians with no regard for Israel’s Jewish followers of Jesus? | Christians who believe it will only be Gentile Christians who make Israel "jealous" enough to come to faith, do not take into account God's original explanation of the jealousy in the Song of Moses.
First off, many of us think we as Gentile Christians have done so much better than Israel did at being a called out people, when the truth is that we have failed just as completely as Israel has according to God’s prophetic complaints lodged against Israel touched on in this Song of Moses.
Christians are not a people but are from all the other nations in the world. Israel was made a nation, a special people set aside by God to cultivate as His own, and made to be a chosen people bearing the name of God like no other people on the earth. We Christians separated from the Messianic Jewish body and understanding the instructions received by Israel as God’s ethical and religious boundaries. Imperfect as they have been, Israel has borne the name of God continuously, and corporately they have carried the ethical and religious imprint of God too. That is why there is so much hatred toward them and why they have been persecuted by all the nations - Christians included - because we are jealous of them! We Christians are a nation without understanding of the ethical and religious boundaries as God, by our faith in Yeshua/Jesus, or that He has set us into His family and kingdom, "the commonwealth of Israel" (Ephesians 2:12-14). We do not live in Israel, but we are citizens of Israel, in the sense of “the commonwealth.”
It is an important distinction to grasp because so many Christians to this day do not understand that God did not institute a new "Chosen People" but He adopted us into the original Chosen People. It is a familial place where we stand alongside all Jews from the first century to the present day of Jews standing before God by faith in the Messiah of Israel, Yeshua of Nazareth.
In the Song of Moses, God clearly says that for the sake of Israel's enemies not thinking they can prevail over Israel and the Jewish homeland off the face of the earth, a genocide of the People of the Book, upon whom the name of the One True God has been placed, that His MESSIAH will return to rescue them definitively. Also we Christians from all the nations that remain at that time will need His rescue too. We Christians are not ‘just another religion’ that a mad and evil world of antichrists despise, but Christians are the adopted family members into the family line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It makes us citizens of the commonwealth of Israel who do not live in Israel but are of the Messiah’s kingdom.
The timing of this is indicated in the Song of Moses – DT 32:36 For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is exhausted and there is no one left who can restrain, rescue or restore.
37 He will say: “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, 38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let them give you shelter! 39 SEE NOW that I am He; there is no God besides Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand. 40 For I lift up My hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever, 41 when I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me.
In verse 36, I believe that God is telling us when He is going to have compassion on Israel - when their strength is exhausted and there are none who can rise up to save them. It is how many of us come to faith personally, and it is how many in Israel have been coming to faith increasingly since 1948 - and at this time like never before. When we think we can do it ourselves, that is what we depend on ourselves and not God; but when we come to the end of ourselves, that is when our spirit finally opens to our great need for salvation. That is when we get over our trust only in ourselves and gladly grasp the Hand of the One who can restore our life to us.
In verse 39 God makes a declaration "SEE NOW that I am He; there is no God besides Me." The declaration God makes over each of us, and over Israel to is "SEE NOW that I am He." Our faith is possible by His command that removes the veil from our eyes, so we can see.
The Song of Moses is an amazing outline of God's intentions and anyone who reads it searching for the truth from God's lips should be able to see none of are "all that" in ourselves, but only as He sees fit.
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