I went on a rant this a.m.

I was in a conservative bulletin board on a thread re: national policy. Some person posted the following below, re: how we are biblically mandated to support Israel. It ain't that simple.

[him]
We are facing a crisis with God's commandments toward the treatment of His chosen people. If we do not adhere to His Word, then THIS nation will fail no matter what our government does to protect us.>>
[me]
God's "chosen people" has as much to do with the atheists occupying a strip of land in the Middle East as the mineral Pyrite has to do with 24 carat gold. God's "chosen people" are the people who choose him, end of story.

Please, for a change, put down Tim Lahaye and pick up the Bible. It states CLEARLY in both Galatians and Romans that the "irrevocable covenant" was made NOT with Abraham and his physical progeny but with Abraham and his spiritual seed.., ie, those who follow the faith of Abraham. According to Paul (again in Romans 9-11 and in Galatians) this includes Jew and Gentile Christians and EXCLUDES unbelieving Jews (and Gentiles). To go back and impose a wooden literalism that says "Israel means Israel" in such an unthinking manner says that Paul simply doesn't know how to interpret the promises of the covenant as well as Darby, Scofield, and some Irvingite charismatic milkmaid from the 1800s. Not only Paul, but Jesus himself was mistaken, as he stated that the political Hebrews of the day were not sons of Abraham at all, but rather sons of Satan. Children of faith are children of Abraham. The geopolitical ethnically exclusive OT was like the scaffolding used to construct the worldwide, many peopled true Israel. The scaffolding is simply removed when the building is finished. You don't long for the day when the building will be mystically removed so that you can gold plate the scaffolding because that was the "original" plan.

I raise this obscure theological argument (which really belongs in another thread) because I see well meaning but poorly informed Christians shrieking "ISRAEL, ISRAEL" as though we were failing to make the yearly pilgramage to Jerusalem and offer sacrifice and Amos was standing on the grassy knoll in DC rebuking us for our national covenant failure.

America will likely be judged because of the rampant selfishness, shallowness, prayerlessness and incredible biblical ignorance of its believing "remnant," as well as the general godlessness of a godless culture. In that mix will be included the way we treat other nations, including both Israel AND the Palestinians. I am confident that the divine calculus will NOT include dredging up a promise to "bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you" and apply it to an entity not even recognized by old or new testaments. To make that the centerpiece of our national policy is unbiblical and silly.