Jealousy

          “And when Rachel saw that she bear Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.”  Gen. 30:1                                                                                                                                                               One of the most unheralded signs of the times is the church’s provocation of Israel to jealousy.  As it says in Rom.11:11, “Salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” 

          Rachel becomes jealous of Leah in the same way Israel is becoming jealous of the church.  This has always taken place on a local scale, you can see it dating back to the book of Acts, but in our time it is beginning to take place on an international scale.  True Christians have come to the defense our sister Israel time and again in recent years.  Millions of Christians from all over the world make pilgrimages to Israel every year.  The Israel board of tourism has softened its position on the accessibility of Christian materials and icons in Israel, realizing that Christian dollars from all parts of the world is helping their economy.  They are beginning to see the very ones they persecuted in the past are the very ones standing in defense of Israel in political forums.  But in our times like never before they are going to see the one they are betrothed to kissing the gentile church like never before.  They are not only going to see the prosperity of the nations poured into the church, but also the manifest presence of  YHWH God in her midst. 

          I am the first to admit that most of what Israel has seen of the so called church world is maligned and indefensible.  For  centuries all Israel has seen is dead orthodoxy, a bride with no reproductive organs (thankfully so).  In the past Israel has saw nothing worth emulating from the church.  But a new day has come, the days of His presence.  First there came a messianic movement where fulfilled Jews seemed to be pressed to walk in powerless forms and rituals that neither served their fathers well nor themselves.  But now there seems to be a movement in Israel,  though small and in its infancy, where the presence of God is moving.  This is significant and noteworthy, but we will visit this again later.

Written by Rusty Owens

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