Elisha Vision – Commentary

John 3:16 is arguably the most famous verse in the New Testament. But why don’t we hear about the next verse? Both reveal God’s desire to save us (and the whole world) from our self-willed selves, from the devil, and from hell. His love is the amazing root of His grace, yet we overlook the profound statement in verse 17.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:17

If the doctor diagnoses you with terminal cancer, is he condemning you to death or is the cancer responsible? Likewise, when God offers His Son to die in our place, He is not condemning us to hell. The cancer of our own sin and rebellion condemn us. Jesus came to save us, to give us life. He is the Messiah, the Lamb of God, sent to bear our sin that we could live. He is not the cancer, He is the cure!

In my recent book, Blessing Israel, I made a similar declaration about Israel. Yehovah God did not choose Israel as a means of rejecting the rest of the world, but as His means of saving the Gentiles. From the beginning, His promise has been that those who bless Israel will be blessed. That salvation offer was first spoken in Genesis.

“I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:3

All the families of the earth! But the nations rejected God and His promised Messiah, and therefore rejected Israel. They became jealous of God’s chosen ones and began a long history of trying to kill the chosen people. Yet, the very reason they were chosen was to bless the nations. How ironic that this was misunderstood and rejected.

Now in this last generation, Yehovah God is restoring Israel to favor and great blessing. Once again Gentile nations have a choice to embrace God’s blessing or reject Him again. It is the dividing of the sheep and goat nations.

All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. Matthew 25:32

Yeshua is the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the nations. One cannot accept Jesus and reject Israel or accept Israel and reject Yeshua. The merger has begun.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Les Lawrence, Voice of Christian Zionists