Israel is Israel. Trying to confuse the issue does not change the fact that this country is taking a very wrong stance against the Israel that Jesus Christ will set His feet down upon when He returns after the Tribulation period.
No it isn't and we should be mindful of the actual biblical story rather than the ambiguous one of fundamentalist pro-Israel propaganda.
Israel is the biblical term for unique Abrahamic people of God who are made distinct in the 12 tribes of the sons/descendents (it gets a bit messy) of Jacob. Two of the 12 tribes are no longer in existence and haven't been since the end of the OT when their apostasy removed them from covenantal grace and spiritual solidarity with their fellow Israelites. (Cf. Joshua 19:40-48; Judges 1:34ff; 1 Kings 12:20; Jeremiah 8:16.)
When one removes the dispensational premill lens from their interpretive goggles there is also the realization that no text in the NT speaks of a reformulated National Israel which is synomyous with OT Israel. Instead the overwhelming emphasis of the NT writers is on the tranference of spiritual promise from Israel to the world and when Israel is spoken of it is used to illustrate faithful believers in the Old and New Testaments.
Besides, even in the OT there are tests for faithfulness of Israelites. One was not simply born into salvation by being born an Israelite.
I didn't say that the Bible said Israel would be re-established in 1948.
Scripture says “‘Who has ever seen or heard of anything as strange as this? Has a nation ever been born in a single day? Has a country ever come forth in a mere moment? But by the time Jerusalem’s birth pains begin, the baby will be born; the nation will come forth. Would I ever bring this nation to the point of birth and then not deliver it?’ asks the Lord. ‘No! I would never keep this nation from being born,’ says your God.” Isaiah 66:8-9 (
I've told you what the word says.
How does this not refer to the Nehemiah rebuilding following the Persian captivity? When we read Isaiah completely we see that the tone of Isaiah 40-66 shifts to the anticipation of the reconstitution of Israel following the Babylonian captivity. It isn't a prophetic book speaking of something 3000+ years later. The plain text reading of the entire passage indicates that the fulfilment is soon...and it was soon.