God’s Secret Promised Land?
2 Nephi 10:20; “And now, my beloved brethren, seeing that our merciful God has given us so great knowledge concerning these things, let us remember him, and lay aside our sins, and not hang down our heads, for we are not cast off; nevertheless, we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea.”
Genesis 12:7; “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.”
Genesis 13:15; “For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.”
Genesis 15:18; “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”
Genesis 17:8; “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
So did God lie by telling Abraham He’d give the land of Canaan to him as an inheritance? Or did this Mormon god change his mind again and decide that America might be a better place for his people and none of the Jews in Israel today are aware of it?
Jews cannot fathom calling anything but Israel their promised land. It was promised to them repeatedly by God! Anything less is considered living in exile. Israel, not America is central to not only the Bible but the whole nation of Israel as well. America is but another nation of Gentiles as far as the Jews are concerned and while considered a friend today it is under no circumstances looked upon as their “promised land”.
For the Jew to not think they didn’t sin and weren’t exiled out of Israel during the Babylonian takeover is incomprehensible.
One more thing about this verse…how do you go about “laying aside your sins”? The Israelites were told by God to repent, stay in Jerusalem, and not leave!
To repent in biblical days meant that you wore sackcloth and would sit upon a heap of ashes to show how remorseful you are for your sin. It was a time of fasting and mourning or anguish.
Also read Jeremiah 42:1-22 where God tells the Israelites to stay put. He warned them if they left they’d die by sword, famine or pestilence.
It doesn’t matter that the Jews see only the land of Israel as their promised land. It is theirs. But the Jews are only one tribe of Israel (the descendants of Judah). They are not all Israel, and Abraham had far too many descendants for them all to live in the land of Caanan, or Israel.
The America’s is the promised land of the descendants of Joseph and his two sons (the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. It was given to them and not the Jews. Even Jacob saw this when he said that “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall” (Genesis 49: 22) showing that Joseph’s descendants would not all remain in the land of Caanan, but would grow over the wall, and thus dwell in a land that was not part of this promise.
Let the Jews hold onto their promised land, for it is theirs. I will hold onto mine, for it is mine.
I will be worshipping the Lord in the New Jerusalem… in Israel.
If you want to worship in Israel, go right ahead. I don’t mind. But it won’t be the New Jerusalem. It will be the old one. The New Jerusalem will be here in America.
America isn’t even mentioned in the end times/Millineum scriptures. Why would God all of a sudden change His focus from the Middle East, and establish His kingdom on the other side of the world?
I hope you and your family are having a blessed Thanksgiving.
Who says America isn’t mentioned? Of course the name does not appear, as it was unknown to the people of the Bible, but that doesn’t mean that it is not mentioned in end time prophecy.
The Focus of God has never been solely on one place. To say this is to say he is a partial God. His focus is on the world and all his children. Even while the Israelites were coming out of Egypt he had a righteous people that worshiped him, lead by Jethro, a descendant of Abraham through Midian. We also read of Balaam, a prophet of God.
Then there is the account of the wisemen who came to see the infant Christ; men of obvious faith and righteousness as they saw the star and were given visions to guide them.
While the covenant has been with Israel, the righteous in all lands and in all times have enjoyed the focus of God and have been lead by his spirit and his appointed ministers.