Vatican WRONG on Issue of Israel/Chosen People

headline in the Jerusalem Post reads: “Vatican synod calls for end to Israel’s ‘occupation’: At conference on Christians in the Middle East, US Melkite archbishop says: ‘There is no longer a chosen people.’” With all due respect, the Vatican is wrong on this issue. The entire Bible — from Genesis to Revelation — makes crystal clear again and again the Lord’s love for the Jewish people, His decision to choose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their descendants for His very own, and His eternal promise to give the Holy Land to the Jewish people.
As such, it is the duty of all true followers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to bless Israel and reaffirm her fundamental legitimacy and right to the Land. Yes, we should bless and love the Palestinians, as well, because our Lord Jesus said as a Jew living in Israel, “Love your neighbor,” and, “Love your enemies.” But we should never accept the false teaching that God has rejected the Jewish people or rescinded His promises to the nation of Israel. That simply is not Biblical.
In Genesis chapter 12:1-3, the Lord makes it clear He has chosen Abram to “make a great nation” and the Lord says to him, “I will bless you and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” In Genesis 13:14-18, the Lord specifically takes Abraham to the land we now call Israel and said, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are (the Jordan Valley), 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.”
Doesn’t “forever” mean forever?
This promise is reaffirmed to Isaac, and later to Jacob, whose name the Lord changes to “Israel.” For example, in Deuteronomy 7:6-8, the Lord says to the children of Israel, “The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The Lord didn not set His love on you nor choose you because  you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers.”
In Genesis 48:3-4, Jacob tells his son Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and He said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your descendants after you an everlasting possession.”
Doesn’t everlasting mean everlasting?
Interestingly, the Apostle Paul prophetically anticipated that the Christians in Rome would one day think that God would reject the Jewish people and His promises to them because many Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah. So Paul wrote this in his letter to the Romans, chapter 11, verse 1 and 2: “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.  God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.”
The New Testament again and again affirms the Lord’s love for the Jewish people and for the nation of Israel. Indeed, in the Book of Revelation, we specifically see the nation of Israel regathered and playing a key role in the End Times. God defends Israel. God fights for Israel against her enemies. God blesses Israel and the Jewish people. And then the Lord Jesus Christ Himself comes with His saints to reign from Jerusalem. To deny such truths is to deeply and fundamentally misunderstand the Word of God.
May I encourage you, brothers and sisters, to share this message with others. Be kind towards the Catholic leaders. Let us show them the mistakes they are making, but do so in love. Let us also teach followers of Jesus Christ around the world the Lord’s deep love and compassion for the Jewish people, and His desire that they — and all people — come to faith in Messiah Jesus.
At the same time, please prayerfully consider becoming involved in The Joshua Fund to bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus in real and practical ways. And please prayerfully consider coming to Israel and the Epicenter Conference in Israel next May. Thank you, and God bless you.

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Vatican and Arab League sign agreement

Israel: Both the King of Saudi Arabia and the Pope claims to be sons of Abraham, and a part of God`s plan of salvation of mankind. And they share the same views on Israel, and calls Jerusalem an occupied city.

The Vatican and the Arab League have agreed to work together to promote peace and justice in the world, the Vatican said Friday. The deal was done after a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and the league’s secretary-general.

In a separate meeting, Amr Moussa and the Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, signed a memorandum of understanding between both sides, a Vatican statement said. During the cordial meetings, emphasis was placed on the importance of the agreement, which is intended to foster increased cooperation between the parties with a view to promoting peace and justice in the world.

Particular importance was given to the role of intercultural and interreligious dialogue, the Vatican statement said. The meetings allowed for an exchange of view on the international situation, especially in the Middle East, and on the need to find a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the other conflicts which afflict the region, the Holy See said.

The pope travels to the Middle East next month on a Holy Land pilgrimage. Benedict will visit Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. The Arab League demands that Israel shall give up Jerusalem as its capital, that the Jews shall leave their homes in Samaria and Judea, and give this Biblical heartland over to Muslim control so that a new Islamic state can be formed. The Islamic republic of Iran is not a member of the Arab League, located out of what is called the Arab World.

Read rest of story here


Note this quote from the story:
(The Arab League demands that Israel shall give up Jerusalem as its capital, that the Jews shall leave their homes in Samaria and Judea, and give this Biblical heartland over to Muslim control so that a new Islamic state can be formed.)

What???
Israel give up Jerusalem?
Jews leave Samaria and Judea?
Muslim control of Biblical heartland?
A new Islamic state?

They have no right or authority to demand anything!!! Stay tuned...

Don

The Vatican's True Intentions in Jerusalem

THE VATICAN'S PLANS FOR JERUSALEM

Various news agencies and journalists have been following plans for the coming visit of Pope Benedict to Israel. Because of the prophetic significance of these matters, we have included in this issue an article by journalist Ron Fraser who has been following closely the Vatican agenda as it relates to Israel and the city of Jerusalem.

WHY IS POPE BENEDICT VISITING ISRAEL, AND WHY RIGHT NOW?
"Now, as Benedict XVI prepares for his upcoming visit to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan this May, a tour incorporating his first visit to Israel since being elected pope. It is crucial that the Vatican agenda for the city of Jerusalem be publicized.

Back in the mid-1990s, a statement made by Pope John Paul II during an interview in his native Poland, broadcast in Italian over a Polish radio station, was noted by one of our Italian associates. She sent us a transcript of the interview, which included one particularly startling reference made by the pope regarding the Vatican's ultimate goal of transferring its headquarters from Rome to Jerusalem.

What was unusual about this admission of John Paul II is that the Vatican's intentions to possess Jerusalem are seldom publicized and little commented on. In fact, an air of secrecy, something that the Vatican has a history of creating over various of its affairs over the centuries, has surrounded this project since the failure of the Crusades, the most obvious of the overt and now very historical attempts by the Vatican to seize control of the Holy City. Those attempts have a long history with strong attachments to the German nation, right up to the past two world wars, and beyond to our present day.

As far back as the eighth century AD, emissaries were sent to Jerusalem by Emperor Charlemagne to negotiate an agreement with the Muslim Caliph Haroun al-Raschid. The result was that Jerusalem became a protectorate of the Holy Roman Empire.

Historical records indicate that such a protectorate was limited to the oversight of the welfare of Christians, the care and protection of designated holy sites, and the properties of the Roman Catholic Church in Jerusalem. The fact that the Caliph would be a financial beneficiary to this enterprise was a given. Muslim support of the Kaiser's army in World War I, and again of the Nazi regime in World War II, was the end result of a long historical nexus between the Muslims and Germany.

From the time of the Charlemagne/Haroun pact, through the attempt by Kaiser Wilhelm to seize Jerusalem in World War I to this day, elements within Germany have historically viewed themselves as protectors of the Roman Catholic Church. From the time of the failure of the great crusades, German elites have worked to find ways and means of seizing the plum job of protector of Jerusalem.

Recently, courtesy of the actions of Germany's Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany has aggressively stepped up its diplomacy in the Middle East. This action comes in advance of the upcoming visit by a German pontiff, Josef Ratzinger, under his adopted papal name Benedict XVI, to Jerusalem.

Both Vatican and German diplomacy in Israel are linked to a common end: possession of the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as most of the eastern half of the city. The Jews are the pawns in this grand game of international diplomacy, the Palestinians the all-too-willing grunts on the ground eager to facilitate the division of Jerusalem and the annihilation of the State of Israel in the process.

The Vatican already has a significant presence in Jerusalem by virtue of free access to its holy sites over which Rome has legal jurisdiction, under Israeli law, including both its institutions and assets in Jerusalem. The consolidation of these arrangements came by virtue of a bilateral agreement termed "The Fundamental Agreement Between the Holy See and the State of Israel," which the Israeli government signed with the Vatican on Dec. 30, 1993.

The terms of this agreement, composed in secret, were subsequently legislated by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. What remains largely unknown is the secret deal done by current Israeli President Shimon Peres and the leftist peacenik, former Meretz party member Yossi Beilin, known widely as "Peres's poodle."

Six months after the signing of the bilateral agreement between Israel and the Vatican, on June 15, 1994, the Israeli government inked a further agreement with the Vatican endorsing the Roman Catholic Church's participation in negotiations to determine the future of Jerusalem. This was followed in February 1996 by Secretary General of the Vatican Serge Sebastian announcing that Rome recognizes Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem. The Vatican had thus revealed its hand.

From here Rome was to go on to actively work through its proxies in the "peace process" to exploit Palestinian claims as a means of splitting the city of Jerusalem asunder, seizing the Old City and possessing East Jerusalem. This involved the management of Palestinian aggression as part of the process, regardless of the suffering and loss of life that it would inevitably incur. This would in fact be a vital part of the initiative to take East Jerusalem by force in the event of the failure of diplomatic means.

The same tactic had been instigated by Germany and Rome in the Balkan Peninsula to achieve a desired result with implicit UN agreement, with the Serbs becoming the pariah in the world's view. This time, it's the Jews who are being pilloried, in particular since the Gaza incursion, in the lead-up to a similar result as that in Kosovo: the seizure of iconic territory to be placed under the influence of Berlin and Rome with the willing acquiescence of the United Nations.

Journalist Joel Bainerman, a well-known commentator on Israeli affairs, claims, "The end goal of the Vatican is to seize control of the Old City of Jerusalem out of the clutches of the State of Israel. To that end they have a secret agreement with Israel which obliges Israel to respect the 'extraterritorial' claim to their physical presence in the city. In short, we have accepted the Vatican's rights to have little Vatican sovereign embassies throughout our eternal capital of Jerusalem. That same Vatican has committed itself, in public and in a written agreement, to ensure that the Palestinians have sovereignty in the Old City of Jerusalem."

By David Hocking
HFT Connect

EDITOR'S NOTE: The last three chapters of Zechariah center upon the future significance of Jerusalem, and this planned visit of the Pope to Israel this coming May should cause all Bible believers to take notice of how events in our world at the present time are moving rapidly toward the Bible's predictions.

Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of Man
cometh at an hour you think not.
Luke 12:40

PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM
PRAY FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


M. R. Seckinger Sr Editor
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