As my wife and I were walking and praying this morning about the situation at the UN I began to see how it is like a poker game.  (I haven’t played poker since my university days but I do know the basics.)

A game of poker is first of all gambling, often times having big stakes.  It is also a game of posturing, bluffing and intimidation, not just who has the best cards.  Some of the cards are in view and others are hidden.  You never quite know for sure what your opponent has and what he is going to do.  The game is all about winning the chips that are in the centre of the table, winner take all.

All of these descriptions are self-evident to anyone who is observing the game going on at the UN as the nations are posturing politically with cards that are not in full view — agendas, deception, half-truths, bribes, posturing, intimidation.

Here is the tragedy of the situation.  The pot they are all playing for is the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem.  Do they not know that God is involved in all this?  Do they not know that He IS alive and active in the affairs of men and nations!  Yet there is no fear of God.  This is why the situation this week is so critical.  If I read my bible right the nations of the world are playing with fire.  We must pray for them.  I don’t know what should be done, but I do know everyone with a stake in this should be calling out to God for His answer.

Psalm 24:1 says “The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.”  God is saying all the world is His by right of creation.  He then decided to give the land of Canaan to Abraham and his sons Isaac and Jacob.  We read in Psalm 105:7-11:  “He is the LORD our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever, The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, The covenant which He made with Abraham, And His oath to Isaac, And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel as an everlasting covenant, Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance,” NKJV.

Psalm 83 has severe warnings to those nations who would “…take crafty counsel against Your people (Israel), and consulted together against Your sheltered ones.  They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”

God calls Israel “My land” in Joel 3:2: “I will also gather all nations, And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there On account of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up My land.”

Again, I don’t know what the nations’ leaders should do but I do know they should be very very careful.  They are playing with fire because God is involved and He has made promises to Israel that stand today.   Our leaders need wisdom from above, as Abraham Lincoln called for.

Let us pray for the fear of God to descend upon the UN.  (“Fear God,” “fear of the Lord,” and “fear of God” appears 52 times in the Bible.)  Proverbs 9:10 sums it all up.  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

Lord we pray for wisdom for the nations of the world this week that comes from a reverential fear of You, Yahweh, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.