Travelogue: Israel Is An Endangered Country Because Of Disobedience

By: Fenny J Fwa

There is no doubt that the Jews from the inception of the universe were God's chosen people. They had a personal and intimate relationship with God. Despite the special favour of God these special people had consistently disobeyed God, even worship other gods. Just for for 40 days Moses was with God to bring the 10 commandments, these stiff necked people asked Aaron to create a God for them using their precious metals and for that God decided to terminate their lives. It was through pleadings of Moses that most of them were resurrected back to life. Before they even reached the promised land they had committed a lot of unimaginable disobedience, although He punished them and thereafter allowed them to move on, nevertheless, God knew he had a problematic people in his hands.

The most devastating effect of their disobedience which is still hunting them was their failure to obey God's instruction that they should kill all the people they met in the promised land but didn't do that. This was what hunted them since they settled down in the promised and is still hunting them up today.

Even when they settled in the promised land with pockets of the people they didn't destroy, they continued their legendary disobedience. The most pronounced ones were:

1. King Solomon that desired wisdom which was immensely granted to him, but derailed and married foreign women and worship other Gods
2. Some of their kings did evil before the lord and because of that the country was divided in two,Judea and Jerusalem and because of that small and inconsequential nations defeated them in battle fields.
3. They harassed and persecuted their prophets because they told them to depart from their sinful ways that was offensive to God.
4. When God had enough of their disobedience, he sent them into captivity- Babylon. For 500 years they were in slavery.
5. Even after returning from captivity, they continued their disobedience and were subjected to conquest by pagan countries such as the Roman Empire.

All these were before the coming of Christ. The refusal to accept Jesus as their personal saviour was the mother of all disobedience. This what the old statement which they believed in said about coming of the messiah and Jesus fitted in the what the scriptures said. " The virgin will be with a child and give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us( Isaiah 7:14) "For unto us a child is born, unto us a child is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called wonderful, counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace( 9: 6). Despite these prophesies and others, they refused to accept the messiah. They are still waiting for a messiah, creating a wall known as wailing wall with a portion regarded as the gate their messiah will come through.

Since they rejected and crucified Christ, it has never been well with them. They moved from one disaster to another. These are few of them. They were conquered by the Othman Empire and were governed by them for 400 years. Having been dispossessed of their land and subjected to inferior foreign rule, they were dispersed to foreign lands. The most devastating blow to Jews was their being gassed by Hitler as about 6million Jews lost their lives and were being persecuted through out the world.

Despite these persecutions, the Jews still emerged from nowhere to survive all the time. By 1948, the state of Israel was formed and they kept reclaiming their land. People like me wonder why God kept on protecting this disobedient nation despite their legendary disobedience. The reason is found in the character of Abraham who was faithful and obedient to God and because of that God had a covenant with Abraham by releasing his blessing to Abraham. There was no way he could therefore abandoned Israel. .. 

"Because you have obeyed me and have not held your son, your only son, I swear by my name that I will multiply your descendants beyond numbers like stars in the sky and the sand in the sea shore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies."

This Abrahamic blessing is the primary reason for the survival of Israel and why the Jews all over the world control the mental resource of most nations they are found, but my take on Jews perpetual unease and being surrounded by enemy nations and hostile people all over the world could be attributed to their refusal to accept the messiah. That is my conclusion. I may be wrong.