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Proof of Purchase
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Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Wendy Wippel

Physicist Victor Stenger (Huff Post’s go-to guy for ridiculing believers) wrote that Christianity is based “on a foundation that was erected by desert tribesmen thousands of years ago” and that, incredibly “billions” take it seriously. Even worse, we claim proof of scriptural accuracy. Who needs the whole Bible? We can name that tune in one verse.

Quote :: What really gets Victor’s shorts in a wad is that we dare to claim that science backs up what the Bible says about nature. (When it unerringly does, if you take the time to look, and which God said it would.)

But that’s way too many verses to expect someone as important as Victor Stenger (well, he’s self-important) to actually read.

Fortunately, there are other ways that God said that we would prove Himself, and one of them is by prophecy.

Quote :: “Recall to mind, O you transgressors.9 Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me,10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure.

Translation: I, the Creator God, (because I am outside of time) am the only one who can tell you what is going to happen before it happens. And oh, by the way, anything that does happen, happens because I make it happen.

And, as it happens, God did a lot of telling Israel what would happen to them before it happened, in Deuteronomy 28.

(Deuteronomy, as you may remember, was kind of a covenant between God and His chosen people, outlining their responsibilities, the benefits of the covenant, and the penalties in the eventuality that they ended up breaking that contract.
Which, as we all know, they did.

Here’s what God said:

Quote :: Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:

Quote :: 3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

Quote :: 4 “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways….9 “The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. 10 Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow…. 13 And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. 14 So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Quote :: 15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you…:

Quote :: 20 “The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. … 25 “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth….

Quote :: 64 “Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. 65 And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. (Deuteronomy 28:1-64)

These were the repercussions for breaking the covenant. They would be persecuted and driven out of everywhere they tried to settle.

And that was the best they could hope for. The worst, as the NIV describes it?

They would,

Quote :: “cling to life…fearful by both night and day, with no assurance of survival.” (Deuteronomy 28:66)

Here in the year 2015, most of us know that the repercussions for disobedience described in Deuteronomy 28 do, in fact, present an incredibly accurate overall narrative of Israel’s history. In advance.

But I said we could prove biblical accuracy in just one verse, didn’t I?

I kind of lied. It’s actually about 1 ½. And with one caveat. To prove accuracy, you need data. Details. Not grandiose Trumpesque pronouncements.

So here’s my one- 1 ½ verse proof, Deuteronomy 64,65:

Quote :: "Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. 65 And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place.”

Just so His chosen people wouldn’t misunderstand that He was serious, God had previously provided them, through the mouth of Balaam, with His own temperament analysis:

Quote :: “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Numbers 23:19.

And when God became man and walked among His created beings, and His people rejected God in the flesh, His Son, God made good on meaning what He said.

The passage in Deuteronomy implies an extended time for which Israel would be out of the land, and it was. The nation was ruled by Rome in when Christ walked among them, but its population was largely driven out by the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. Hadrian made it official in forbidding Jews to live in Israel in 135. Hadrian’s edict served as the starting gun for 2000+ years of prophecy they the chosen people would rather have not seen fulfilled.

But fulfilled it was. And in detail. Tracking of genetic signals shows AD, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the bulk of the population fled the city through one of two possible migration routes. One out of Israel going west, then north into Spain and Portugal, and one headed east, then north into Eastern Europe.

With a smaller number emigrating into Israel’s neighboring countries and settling there.

Egypt: (actually church father St. Cyril himself), banned Jews from Alexandria in 415. Whereupon most of them joined their brethren elsewhere in Europe.
The group in western Europe (particularly Portugal and Spain) became known as the Sephardim. Those in Eastern Europe, the Ashkenazim.

Spain expelled its Jews in 612. Then again in 642. And then again (the famous one) in 1492. Most of the Spanish Jews moved to Portugal.

Portugal issued an edict of expulsion in 496, requiring all Jewish citizens to leave the country out of the port in Lisbon. King Manuel, however, didn’t want to face the economic repercussions of ousting the Jews that Spain had incurred. So when children of Israel arrived, they were imprisoned, then led out in groups and forcibly baptized.

That solved the problem. Manuel announced that he no more Jews in Portugal. Because he baptized them.

France threw its Jews out in 554. Then again in 561. And 1182. And 1290. And 1306. And 1322 And… you get the idea
Italy 855, 1485, 1492, and 1496.

Russia 1619, 1654, 1727, 1186. And, induced by a national policy of pogroms (as captured in Fiddler on the Roof) about 40 years starting at the end of the 19th century.

England issued its Edict of Expulsion in 1290. Hungary expelled its Jews in 1349 and 1360. Austria in 1421. The Netherlands, 1439.

Germany, of course made Jewish persecution the national pastime, repeatedly ousting their Jewish citizens, beginning in 1182 and ending in with World W II.
Twenty nine times, in fact, the Jews were expelled from areas that were part of Nazi Germany in 1939.

Which sheds some light on why Hitler called his campaign to eradicate the Jews the “Final Solution". Doesn’t it?

And we’ve only looked at Europe.

Throughout history, God’s chosen have been persecuted everywhere subjected to isolation, degradation, subjugation, and ongoing attempts at eradication. A Muslim potentate first required Jewish men to wear a yellow star in 815. And for the next 1200 years (and counting), the rest of humanity has invented ways to torment. the sons of Jacob, acting out a demonically inspired hatred of what God loves and a futile attempt to stop what God said will happen from happening.

Even Ulysses S. Grant, in fact, is guilty, issuing General Order No. 11, which ordered Jews out of the military in Western Tennessee, in 1863.

Jewish history is one giant black blotch on humanity from Jacob on.

But God made it happen. What we need to remember is that.

His reason was love;

Quote :: "In their affliction they will earnestly seek me"

And His promise of redemption is just as sure as was His promise of retribution:

Quote :: "In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for the sin and for the uncleaness". (Zechariah 13:25)

Quote :: "I do not desire, brethern, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

Quote :: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion. And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins" (Romans 11:25-27)