Israel and Prophecy By CHARLES L FEINBERG
through the Millennium. With the exception of this age, all national witness has been and w ill be through the nation of Israel. We will see this during the Great Trib ulation as well as in the kingdom age of the Millennium. The Covenant was also the im plementation of the promise God gave in Genesis 9. This was the declaration that spirituality was to be connected with Shem and his descendants. The plan of redemp- tion in the covenant was pro nounced to Abraham five times. It I was again repeated to Isaac and Jacob. Nothing in this world is more vital than salvation for mankind. D. L. Moody testified, "I was 20; j years old before I ever heard a 1 1 sermon on regeneration. I had al- j ways been told to be good. But ; you might as well tell a slave to be free without making the way pos sible. Christ actually frees us. It is astonishing how the devil blinds us so that we think we have some thing good to commend us. Do not talk to me about being 'natur ally good and angelic.' The first j man born of a woman was a mur- ( derer. Sin leaped into the world, full grown, and the whole race has | been bad all the way down. I have heard of 'reform, reform, reform.' I am sick and tired of the whole thing. It is regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost that we need!" This is the heart of the j Abrahamic Covenant. In Israel, the seed of Abraham, the broad lines of future predic tion are laid. By them national wit ness and redemption are brought through the Saviour in whom the entire human family is united once more.
God has always shown His love for mankind despite all of the heathenism, idolatry and almost universal corruption into which mankind has degenerated. God turned from dealing in judgment at Babel to dealing in grace with Abraham. The Lord took drastic steps to implement His own program of redemption for mankind. This is clearly revealed in the Abrahamic Covenant, "Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great: and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him" (Genesis 12 : 1 - 2 , 7 ). There was a narrowing of God's elective grace from the seed of the woman to the line of Shem and now to the seed of Abraham. What was stated concerning the suffer ing, victorious seed of the woman is now brought into sharper focus and detail. Although Abraham was childless, the prophecy is for in numerable seed. While homeless, the patriarch is promised a blessed land as his eternal inheritance. The curse upon Adam is to be done away with through the blessing on Abraham. The world was divided into na tions and would remain so until the end of the time on earth
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