Why Should Christians Pray for the Salvation of Israelis?
June 8th, Pentecost Sunday, is the Global Day of Prayer for the Jewish world. Believers around the world will be joining in 10 Days of Prayer (May 29-June 8), culminating in a Global Day of Prayer for the spiritual salvation of unbelieving Jews and Israelis based on Scriptural promises. Past expressions (2023, 2024) have engaged tens of millions of believers globally and we are expecting perhaps an even larger response this year.
Presence Pioneers invites you to join in this day of prayer, either online or on your own.
God’s Unfolding Plan for Israel and all Nations
In Genesis 11, God confuses and scatters the nations in judgement.
Immediately after God divides the nations in Genesis 11, we begin to see God’s reunification plan in action in Genesis 12:1-3.
“Now the LORD said to Abram: Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. 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.”
God’s plan to reunite all the families of the earth post-Babel begins with the claiming of one family and one nation as His own, the line of Abram and the nation of Israel. Incredibly, for the next 2,000 years, His plan and purpose will focus on this one small nation.
God gives the other nations of the world over to their own evil ways, to worship idols, demons, and false gods. In essence, the Creator says to the dark spiritual powers: “For now, you can have the rest of the nations. I’ll just take this one family, barely even a nation, as my own.”[1]
And yet, His promise remains: to bless every nation through one nation.
Starting with Abram, God pours Himself into Israel, establishing His covenant with the patriarchs, bringing deliverance from slavery, revealing His Law through Moses, giving them the promised land under Joshua, and uniting them as a kingdom under David and Solomon. While Israel often suffered judgement for their unfaithfulness, God never turned away from the apple of His eye.
Even when He punished them and scattered them among the nations, He used them as a prophetic people. Scattered Israel established synagogues and schools, creating outposts throughout the ancient world where the one true God was worshipped and known. Many people from the nations began to worship the God of Israel.
However, the culmination of God’s work in Israel came when the Son of God Himself, Jesus Christ, took on flesh. The Messiah, the desire of all nations, came forth from the first nation that God chose for Himself. God’s plan to bless all the nations through Abraham was coming to a culmination—the promised one had come!
Natural Israel in the New Covenant
However, something incredibly strange and unexpected happened when the Israeli Messiah, the King of the Jews, appeared on the scene. Most of the nation God had prepared 2,000 years for this very moment, including their entire ruling class, rejected their Messiah. And instead, the pagan nations surrounding Israel received and accepted the Jewish King as their own. Within 300 years of the birth of the church, even the mighty Roman Empire would bow the knee to King Jesus while the vast majority of Israel continued in unbelief.
Imagine how strange it would be if Muhammed were acknowledged as a prophet by every nation, except the Arabs. Or if Hinduism were practiced around the world but despised in India. Imagine if Bach were celebrated as a great musician in Japan, China, and Nigeria, but reviled in Austria and Germany. Or if DaVinci was considered a genius around the globe, but a hack and a fraud by Italians.
And yet, this is exactly what has happened with Jesus. Only a very small number of ethnic Jews and Israelis worship the Jewish Messiah who is believed on by more than a third of the peoples of the earth from all over the globe. Still to this day, the world’s most famous Jew is an outcast among His own people. We would be excused for thinking that God was finished with His first nation, the nation of Israel. After all, even at the beginning of that nation, we saw the goal—to bless and reunite all the nations of the earth. It might seem as though Israel has already served its purpose.
Romans 9-11
In Romans chapters 9-11, the Apostle Paul gives us a deeper vision into what has happened.
While the majority of natural Israel has rejected their Messiah, God has preserved a remnant of believers from His first nation. The mystery that was hidden from past generations, the upside-down plan of God, is for the gospel to go to all the nations, and then to return to Israel, the first nation, last of all—so that the first nation will be the last nation to say “yes” to God’s reunification plan of all nations under His chosen ruler[2].
Because the gospel was readily adopted by many other nations, and rejected by most Jews, Paul knew there would be a tendency to think that God was finished with his first nation. After all, in one sense, in the New Covenant it no longer matters what our nation of origin is—we are all equal in Christ.
However, the truth of the matter is more complicated and more incredible. The Father’s plan is to somehow open the eyes of the unbelieving Jewish people, His first nation, to their own national Messiah at a moment very close to the return of the Lord Jesus. As Romans 11:15 says, “if their [natural Israel’s] being cast away is the reconciling of the world [the nations], what will their acceptance be but life from the dead [the resurrection]?”
The Father is not finished with His first nation. He is using Gentile nations to stir Israel to jealousy. Someday soon, the blinders will fall from their eyes and “they will look upon the one whom they have pierced and mourn as for an only son and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.[3]”
Israel and the Nations
In the final week before His crucifixion, Jesus wept over Jerusalem, seeing the destruction that was coming to the beloved city. He prophesied the destruction of the city and the temple[4], a righteous judgement for the sins of that generation and the sins of Israel for generations[5]. He told the rulers of the city that they would not see Him again until they declared, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD[6].”
In A.D. 70, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the Jewish people scattered.
Somehow, in spite of not having a homeland for almost 1900 years, they retained a distinct culture, worship, and language. In 1948, after nearly being wiped out by a demonic ruler, this wandering nation returned to its historic homeland. In 1967, Jerusalem came back into Israeli control.
The nation of Israel is somehow back on the national scene after a 1900-year absence. This is truly remarkable. No other nation has lost its homeland for almost two millennia and still maintained a national identity. And yet, even more remarkable is that spiritually, the Israel of today is nearly identical to what Paul describes in the first century. There is a small remnant of Jews who have believed in their Messiah[7], and yet the vast majority reject the Jewish Messiah who is worshipped by one-third of the human race.
We find ourselves in a very similar situation to the first century, except with this one change. The journey of the gospel to every tribe, language, and nation is nearly complete. Just as Jesus predicted, the gospel has gone out from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria into the utter ends of the earth. Now, from the ends of the earth, the gospel is making its way back to Jerusalem.
Remove the Veil, God!
The drama is incredibly intense. After almost 2,000 years, Jesus is beloved and worshipped by more than 2 billion people from the nations. Jewish prophecies that Israel’s God would be worshipped by every nation are fulfilled before our eyes. And yet, the majority of his own countrymen, his own flesh and blood, remain blind to their own Messianic King.
God is calling on those two-billion followers of the Jewish Messiah from the nations to agree with His plan for the salvation of Israel. It is our job to stir them to jealousy, and that process starts in the place of prayer. How can we be willing participants in God’s plan to save Israel?
Let’s ask God to give us a broken heart for the Jewish people:
“…I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites…and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” Romans 9:1-5
Paul’s love for his unbelieving countrymen is so intense, His heart is so broken that he would willingly be separated from Christ for all eternity if it would allow them to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray for the strengthening and encouragement of Jewish believers:
Romans 11:1-5 makes it clear that while Israel as a whole has rejected their Messiah, there is a remnant from the nation, including Paul himself, who have been chosen by grace.
As we consider God’s unfolding plan, let’s take special care to thank God for contemporary Jewish disciples and to pray for movements of Jewish believers in the land of Israel and in the diaspora to be strengthened, stay faithful, grow, and flourish.
Finally, let’s ask the Lord to remove the hardening from the hearts of the Jewish people:
Romans 11:25 is very clear that God’s plan for natural Israel has not come to an end with the advent of the New Covenant. However, this plan is a mystery—a hidden thing of God, something that would be easy to overlook!
“I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the [other nations] has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved.”
And again in Romans 11:15,
“If [natural Israel’s] rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”
Israel has experienced a partial hardening for the past 1,992 years. And yet, the plan of God is to show mercy to them and to save them as a nation once the full measure of the other nations of the earth have come to know the Jewish Messiah. As we look at the progress of the gospel in the earth, we can see that we are getting very close to the “full measure of the nations” as modern technology and transportation open doors for the gospel into the most remote corners of the earth.
It would be easy for us to miss this mystery, but instead, let’s participate in it by agreeing with God’s plan for the nation of Israel to welcome him back with shouts of “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”
[1] See Deut. 32:8-9 and Acts 17:26-31
[2] Romans 11:1-15
[3] Zech. 12:10
[4] Matthew 23-24
[5] Luke 11:49-51
[6] Matt. 23:39
[7] See Romans 11:5-6