SALVATION IS OF THE JEW

The ancient nations all had their gods. They are the long forgotten gods, many known to us only because they are found in the Bible. There is Dagon, god of the Philistines; Chemosh, the god of Amon; Nisroch, the god Naaman’s master worshipped; Baal and Ashteroth of Caanan; and Diana, goddess of the Ephesians. Most of these are now found in dusty history books, as are the nations they ruled.
Then there were the gods of ancient Egypt. Among many others were Thoth, Usiris and Rah, the sun god, all resurrected for the benefit of the thousands of tourists and as quickly forgotten by them. The best known gods were those of Greece with it’s
multitude upon Olympia. Zeus was the father of all these. In Acts 14 we find Jupiter and Mercury.
The liberals and secular historians would place the god of the Israelites in the same category as the ancient, forgotten gods. They call Him Yahweh, one of the lesser gods. He does not measure up to the gods of Egypt and certainly not to the gods of Greece. He was the tribal god of a despised people. The learning and wisdom of Greece has always been held in high esteem. Israel has always been looked down on, from their days of slavery in Egypt. They were conquered by the Assyrians, taken captive by Babylon, held as a vassal state by Persia and later Greece. The Israelites were sold as slaves or scattered into almost every country on earth. Haman, Herod and Hitler tried to wipe them out, or kill their King. Today the Arabs are determined to destroy them, and every time the UN makes a pronouncement regarding Israel it is with the thinly veiled attempt to destroy them as a nation. The church has tried to destroy them and even today is doing it’s best to wipe out the nation of Israel.
With all that in mind, isn’t it strange that the despised tribal god of this enslaved people is now Universal Lord, recognized as God of Heaven in every nation on earth? Not the gods of esteemed Egypt or mighty Rome, but the God of Israel rules, unchallenged by the mighty gods of the past.
To whom did Jesus say, “Salvation is of the Jews”? To the Samaritans, who hated the Jews. God still says this to the UN, the Arabs, the anti-Semites and to most of the church which has long ago claimed that Israel was no longer God’s chosen people. That’s not very diplomatic ( today we would say, “not politically correct”), but He is Unbendable God. I once heard a woman preacher in Africa read from John 4. She came to verse 22 and openly and defiantly skipped that verse. (Jesus speaking, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews”.) The problem is that for her there was no salvation.