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by Aaron Felty

Let me explain how I see Israel as the 5th gospel. Recently my wife and I spent 2 weeks in Israel. A group of 45 of us embarked on a Biblical studies tour of the Holy Land. On our first day, the group was in the dining area of our hotel doing introductions. The leader of our group, Larry Erhlich, made a statement that stayed with me the entire trip. Initially it kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but by the end of the trip I began to embrace it as well. He said, “Israel is like a 5th Gospel.” HERESY! First of all, there is only one Gospel and that is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, but I get what he meant. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are 4 writers of the Gospel message and Larry’s assertion and mine is that Israel is something of a 5th gospel. In short, a visit to Israel communicates God’s message of salvation to all who will listen. 

Obviously land cannot save anyone, so I am not saying that a requirement to get into heaven is the land of Israel. After all, that does not even make sense. However, what I am saying is that the land teaches us a couple of very important lessons that parallel our salvation. 

First of all, God is a promise keeper. If God makes a promise, He will certainly keep it, but what if He establishes a covenant? A covenant is even stronger than a promise. In Genesis 12, God entered a covenant relationship with Abram. Often, we Christians forget all that is included in that covenant. Yes, we remember the phrase, “blessed to be a blessing,” but we often fail to remember that the covenant included Genesis 12:7: “To your offspring I will give this land.” If God entered a covenant with Abram some 4500 years ago and it has come to pass (in 1948 Israel became a country, and a few weeks ago I was in the very room where it all went down), then all the promises He has made in Scripture will come to pass. The Bible says it is impossible for God to lie. So the very fact that Israel is a nation is good news, what God says in His word will come to pass. 

Secondly, the message of salvation is the story of the human experience, which is also demonstrated by the land of Israel. Before anyone comes to faith in Jesus Christ, two things must be present: 1) an awareness of sinfulness, our enslavement, and 2) faith that God has provided the only solution for that problem. The Bible says we are slaves to sin before entering a relationship with Jesus. The Israelites were slaves in the land of Egypt and God led them out, into the promised land as free people.

Our team spent 4 days in the wilderness looking at the place where Moses struck the rock to make water come out. We also saw the place where Solomon mined for copper, the place where the Israelites began to grumble about how difficult the wilderness was and bronze serpents came up and killed many so Moses had to lift up a serpent on a pole and those who looked at it were healed. We saw the caves of the En Gedi (pictured at right) where David hid from Saul, and so much more. However, the most profound thing was how bleak, desolate, difficult, barren, dry, harsh, and deadly the wilderness is and most certainly was. That place is HORRENDOUS - rocks and dirt as far as the eyes can see for hours! (See photo below.) I completely understand why the Israelites grumbled to Moses and wanted to go back to Egypt. I will not chastise them ever again for grumbling.

God led them out of slavery into a land flowing with milk and honey. The only problem was, there literally was no milk and honey and the people grumbled. Deuteronomy 8 says that during their time in the wilderness, the Israelites’ shoes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. For 40 years?? I was there 4 days and my feet swelled up! I bought expensive shoes for this trip and in 4 days they were wearing out. We had 45 people in our group; Moses had anywhere from 50,000 to 1.5 million people in his group (depending on who you ask).

Here is my profound revelation: without God, you will die in the wilderness, and that is the human experience. There is no way they survived that “other worldly” place without divine intervention. There is no water, no wildlife, and no plant life, only rocks and dirt! I cannot even hypothesize how God could keep 45 people, let alone 1.5 million people, alive in that place for 40 years. It is beyond comprehension, and mind you we went in the winter season, not during the time where the temperature is 40 degrees hotter. The land of Israel showed me that without God’s direct and regular action I will die. That is the message of the Gospel. There is nothing I can do to save myself; God has done all the initiating!

If we place our trust in the words of God we will never be let down. Our response to God’s word should be obedience inspired by love, that is, we love God because He first loved us. In Deuteronomy 8 (referenced above), Moses warned the people to not disobey when things are good. If I reword those sentiments positively it would be: “When things are good, obey all the more as a sign of gratitude.” 

The only sensible response to the Gospel message is a desire to obey inspired by love. Going to Israel has given me a much deeper appreciation for the covenant that God has entered with us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I want to love Him more because I have seen the literal ongoing fulfillment of His covenant with Abraham and Moses in the promised land. Our only hope for living in the wilderness is trusting what God has done through Jesus Christ on our behalf. Will you trust Him?

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