Will We Malign God’s Beloved or Will We Love Her? (A Message to the Church Concerning Israel)
This article was originally published by The Stream
By Bunni Pounds
This message is to all the Christians who seek truth, who do not want to be led astray by “deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1), and who call themselves bold and courageous.
This is our moment of decision on one of the most important issues of our generation. What will we do with Israel?
Our Clear Choice With Regard to Israel
As God’s “Beloved” and the “Apple of His Eye” (Zechariah 2:8) are being maligned around the globe by voices on the progressive left and in a growing segment on the right — we have a clear choice.
Will we, as the people of God, reject the deceiving spirits and the world systems that call Israel “occupiers,” accuse them of “genocide” and who are continually demonizing them, dehumanizing them, and treating them with more contempt than any other nation on the planet?
Ask yourself — when was the last time that a nation was attacked by brutal and murderous terrorists and then turned on by the world and told not to do anything in response? Some lost souls in their sick minds even push out the talking points that these actions by the terrorists were justified. Israel’s women, children and young and old adults were raped and killed to the tune of over 1,400 deaths including at least 31 Americans, and many were kidnapped and are even now being held captive.
This dark day on October 7th was the Israelis 9/11, but more than 10x over. This extremely small nation of just over 9 million people includes 20% Arab Israelis — many of whom live peacefully with their Jewish neighbors and just want to keep their families safe — were in mourning BUT loudly the indoctrinated voices around the world against Israel started.
Jew Hatred
What has been underneath the surface on our college campuses, even our “Christian” higher education facilities, in our media and journalism schools, in Hollywood and our entertainment cultures came rising to the surface — Jew hatred.
It has taken the form in some of our Christian communities as replacement theology — as talk grows about the Jews’ rejection of Jesus and a subtle justification of hatred rises to the surface.
It has taken the form of validating the horrific words of documented Holocaust deniers online and even some key political leaders hanging out and breaking bread with these people.
Then there are the subtle comments of how Jewish people behind the scenes are taking over the world — an age-old myth that continues to percolate on both sides of the aisle.
Accusations of Israeli actions and motives were put out all over the internet and even when incidents were found to not be the fault of Israel — like the hospital bombing in Gaza — retractions were slow in coming. (Thank God for the New York Times making it right.) These lies are still all over the internet not just on the side of the progressive left but on the right as well. Yes, even the Christian and conservative right. Have you been on X, formerly known as Twitter, lately?
Taking the form of more calls for a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel — these voices on college campuses and in corporate board rooms can try to hurt Israel but when Israeli innovations have changed our healthcare systems, our agricultural industries, and our technology and communications — they can try to hurt Israel, but they have already lost.
Stand With Israel
We must speak out and stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters. The government of Israel is not perfect. What government is? Look at ours.
But to demonize Israel and say they don’t have the right to exist or to defend their families as they are surrounded on every side by enemies is wrong.
Hamas is one huge problem for Israel and the one they face today, but the bigger fear for many Israelis is Hezbollah funded by Iran, and the Iranians themselves — acquiring a nuclear weapon and doing what the Iranian Leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said so many years ago — to wipe “Israel off the map”.
I want to remind all believers in Jesus Christ that Israel is a miracle nation — only becoming a nation in 1948 because the hand of God intervened in world history. After over six million Jews out of 21 nations went to their death at the hands of the Nazis — they went home to a little strip of land in the Middle East.
Many Jewish people have never left the land. They have been there throughout centuries — even in Jerusalem — despite the warfare against them by ruling powers and invading armies.
The United States was the first nation to recognize this little start up nation. After only 11 minutes after Israel’s creation, President Harry Truman started a journey on that fateful day with our friends who have become our closest democratic ally in the Middle East. We share the same values and beliefs on freedom and liberty. We cannot abandon them now when they most need us.
God’s Light to the Nations
God is a great storyteller, and His NAME will be famous in every nation on the planet. He picked Israel to be a light to all the nations. And they will be. I challenge you to read Genesis 12 — the Abrahamic covenant is unconditional. He loves them! He is after their hearts.
“‘I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’” (Genesis 12:3).
If you have never read Romans 9, 10, and 11, I urge you today to read and study these incredibly important passages for this moment. We, as believers in the Jewish Messiah, have been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel, and this eternal story is not over.
We must “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). We must not get weary in well doing (Galatians 6:9). This has just begun.
As Christians we mourn any loss of life, we know God loves the Arabs and the Jews, and we minister to all. We pray for breakthrough for the innocent Palestinians that are being used as human shields by Hamas terrorists or pawns in a strategic plan of corrupt leaders. As Palestinian refugees are not received by their Islamic neighbors — these poor women and men become wanderers, not wanted anywhere. The truth that every Christian should champion is that God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He loves them all and we should as well.
But having said that — there is an eternal destiny and place in the heart of God for the “remnant of Israel” (Isaiah 10:20).
Stand With God’s Beloved
I want to remind you of the Word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah. A reminder that these passages were not written to the Gentile church — but to the Beloved of the Lord — the Jewish people.
“The Lord appeared to me (Israel) from ages past, saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore, with lovingkindness I have drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.” (Jeremiah 31:3, amplified)
This God who is “zealous for Zion with great zeal” (Zechariah 8:2) is shouting to us the Gentile church in this moment in our generation.
Will we stand with His Beloved? She isn’t perfect. She needs a Redeemer just as much as we do; but He loves her forever and His story of revealing Himself to her is not over.
I want to remind the believers in Jesus Christ around the world that this Bible that we hold in our hands was not given to us first. His love story was first written to our Jewish brothers and sisters, and they kept these scriptures protected for thousands of years, so we have the opportunity to read them now. We have been grafted into their story.
Here is God’s heart and how this will eventually end from Joel 2:17-19.
Let the priests, who minister to the Lord,
Weep between the porch and the altar;
Let them say, “Spare Your people, O Lord,
And do not give Your heritage to reproach,
That the nations should rule over them.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’
Then the Lord will be zealous for His land,
And pity His people.
The Lord will answer and say to His people,
‘Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil,
And you will be satisfied by them;
I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.’
Will we be intercessors before the Lord who cry out for Israel in this moment?
Will we speak out against evil and antisemitism even within our own ranks?
This is our moment of decision, Church. Will we love God’s Beloved or reject her because of misplaced political ideologies? Will we be silent like many in the German church during Hitler’s rise or choose to be Righteous Gentiles like Oskar Schindler, the Ten Boom family, or even Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who famously said — “Silence in the face of evil is evil itself.”
He also said — “If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”
As for me and my family — we pledge to push back against Jewish hate and to be the ones who stand beside the Jewish people here in America, in Israel, and around the world.
**All scriptural references taken from the New King James Version unless otherwise noted.
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