African Pastor’s Mind-Blowing Revelation about Israel with Charles Ikutiminu!

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Antisemitism and a passive attitude towards Jews is rooted and in an illiteracy and an ignorance of Old Testament scriptures. The more you read the Old Testament, it is impossible to maintain a passivity about Jews. Not to imply that other people are not important, but the selection of grace is evident as you read the Old Testament. Yeah.
Well, welcome back to another episode. We have a special treat with us today is Charles Inu. He’s a pastor at Gateway Church in the global department. He serves as the overseer of all of our relationships in the continent of Africa. I can’t imagine how many people that represents and tribes and tongues, but he is an amazing friend to me, to us, to the Center for Israel, and I just want to thank you for coming on our podcast today.
Well, David, it’s truly an honor to be here. Just a pleasure to be a part of what God is doing all over the world, awakening a love for Israel and your team’s a special team, and we’re blessed to have you as a part of our
Church. Yeah, thank you so much. I want to hear for myself, and I want our audience to hear how this journey on the journey to love Israel and love the Jewish people, how that started, what seeds God planted in you and really just start like did you grow up with this understanding of God’s heart for Israel or is that something that came later in life? Just tell us about that kind of journey.
So a little context, born and raised, Nigerian and raised in Nigeria, especially in Christian circles, you understand the place of Israeli special, but I think
What does that mean? Israeli special
Israel is special.
Is special, got it.
Israel is special,
Okay.
Israel is important for you as a follower of Jesus Christ. You have that understanding. But I think largely I grew up with that sense theologically in Nigeria. Then moving here to the States about 25 years ago, really with a replacement theology mindset. I didn’t have language for it, that it was replacement theology, but without a shadow of a doubt. That’s what I grew up with. A lot of that I think was influenced with Bible school here. Just that sense that every time you read scripture in the New Testament and you see Israel, that the church that refers to the church both in the Old Testament and in the New
Testament. Yeah, we retroactively
Project that. So that was what I grew up with and never really felt the need to pray for Israel. But it was important in my thinking that Israel was special, but really we as the church, we’ve replaced Israel. That was largely my thinking really up until six years ago.
I think that’s most Christians thinking, is Israel special? God loves Israel, but there’s the kind of sense of, but he also loves America and he loves Brazil and he loves, they’re just another one of the special things that God has. Absolutely. Yeah,
Absolutely. That’s how I’ve come to see now. That’s how most people I pastored see Israel, and a lot of that comes from how I as a minister communicated that.
Yeah. So what happened six years ago,
So six years ago, I think the first thing that was a critical piece was we relocated as a family. We moved from Virginia here to Texas. We joined Gateway Church and I can’t remember the first time I came across Gateway Center for Israel.
But you weren’t even on staff at this time. No, absolutely. You’re just
Attending church member, a member of church here in Gateway, and there was just something about, I really think it was first in the Blessed Life series. It was something communicated about God’s love for Israel that was just unique in the way it was presented.
Yeah, the priority of
Israel, the priority of Israel, really. That was my first time of hearing awakened to that phrase in a scripture I’d quoted, I’d preached from in Romans chapter one, verse 16, that the gospel is the power of God to salvation to the Jews first. That concept I breeze through.
How many times have we read over that one
Reading that or preaching it, but the thoughts that to the Jews first then just in starting to pay attention to that, the realization that that was used not just once to the Jews first in the book of Romans, but I think it was really the Blessed Life series and that prioritization of Israel, that there was just something that I felt God say, start to pray for Israel, start to pray for Israel. I’ve told you a number of times, just my wife and I started first in our devotion that in the mornings as we would pray, worship God as an expression of our trust in him being the creator of the heavens and the earth, and I didn’t have language for this that out. It just mumbled over. We pray for Israel. But after a while it morphed into this sense of we honor you as the creator of the heavens and the earth and the one that sovereignly shows Israel. So the longer we prayed the Clara, the language came that the same God that sovereignly created the heavens and the earth, sovereignly chose one man and his family to bring redemption through. So I think it was for us, it was first in prayer and like I said to you initially, my wife was like, so where’s this going? But I will repeat it every time we prayed.
So at first you would just kind of sneaking it in there
Sneaking. That was the honest trick because it was something he started walking in my heart that you start to express in prayer,
But you didn’t want to say like, Hey, hey baby, we’re going to be praying for Israel at the start.
No.
So you just kind of snuck it in
With most things. It’s something you start to see in scripture then as an expression of faith in prayer, this compulsion of pray daily, pray daily, pray daily, and we continue to do that. If you have a family prayer time where you pray 15 minutes and lots of things you touch on, but that commitment that you take about a minute to just every time we pray for the nation of Israel, we bless the nation of Israel in obedience to your word,
Then
We bless all Jewish people in all places, specifically the land that you give to them in Israel. So I think it started really as an expression in prayer.
Yeah, that’s
So good. In obedience to God’s word. That’s how it started.
That is exactly what the Center for Israel has been telling people for years. Where do I start prayer? And sometimes that’s not enough for people. They feel like when they get this revelation, they see God’s priority for Israel and the Jewish people, they start realizing their replacement theology and start to go back to a little bit more of a healthy understanding of Jews and Gentiles. They’re like, what can I do? How can I give? How can I serve? How can I, and it’s like, wait, wait, wait. Let’s pray first because I think you’re the model which is let it be a heart thing first. Prayer changes our heart and then we’ll know what to do. But if we get the cart in front of the horse, you might get into some weird theology that you start as a gentile wearing a kipa or a prayer shawl speak in Hebrew. And not that any of those things are wrong, but it can start to get a little bit of a blurred line.
I think that’s human nature. We just want to do. We just want to do something. We want to do something. And what was interesting was it wasn’t that I’d actually realized that I viewed Israel wrong. It was just a sense that God was asking something and prayer was the place where he wanted that done first.
So good.
And I think the opportunity was as that act of obedience started in prayer, the change of heart started long before I became aware of it. It was something we did every morning for about one minute, but it wasn’t the mechanics. I think it was the hard attitude that started to change. Then of course, I came on staff about two and a half years ago, then had the privilege to room next to Nick, wasn’t far of. So the conversation started and as I heard the language, I started to understand what he had been doing in my heart
And take me back two years ago. I remember hearing about you reading scripture, rereading Romans, traveling to places in Africa where there is a Jewish community. Tell us how did that journey go from prayer to actually doing? What was that like?
So I had an amazing privilege gateway, prioritizing having its leaders and its pastors experience Israel. So I was barely on staff a few months and I was nominated to be on a trip to Israel.
That makes so much sense though. God saw you praying for Israel for so many years.
That was special. That was special. So it really was on that trip that for my wife, that’s where it came together. My wife is the person that she prays and is not an expressive person. I’m a natural extrovert on that trip. Seen places we’d talked about but had prayed for
Meeting
People we had prayed for. It just all came together and that was when she expressed to the team that this trip was life-changing for her because for the last year we had been praying for Israel, but being here just she could sense the purpose of God
In praying for Israel. I think for us, the journey of developing a heart for God’s priority for Israel is really an obedience thing, is a heart obedience thing. It’s not something you are trying to do externally to conform because a lot of that prayer was done early as on the morning. Nobody heard it. Our boys were empty nesters technically, so our boys were off in college. It all coincided in that same season. So what the praying did for us was the desire to actually start reading scripture. It also coincided at a time where though I’ve been a follower of Jesus Christ for more than three decades, something about four years ago, my heart just started feeling the need to read scripture through consistently, not just read scripture through consistently, but spend more time reading the Old Testament, what we as Christians call the old covenant. And it was that it all sort of came together. The more I read Jewish scriptures, the Old Testament, I realized there’s something missing of what and how I viewed the Old Testament. I was told in Bible school the New Testament is God’s letters to you. The New Testament is written to you.
The Old Testament is written for you. It was so subtle, but it was effective enough for me not to prioritize reading the Old Testament.
Yeah. Because at best it’s an allegory. Spiritual truths.
Yes. Shades,
Yeah. Just narrative. Just telling us about how we got to Jesus.
And I think really for us, that was a significant piece. I’ve come to believe, and I say this consistently, that antisemitism and a passive attitude towards Jews is rooted, rooted in an illiteracy and an ignorance of Old Testament scriptures. The more you read the Old Testament, it is impossible to maintain a passivity about Jews. Not to imply that other people are not important, but the selection of grace is evident as you read the Old Testament.
Yeah, totally. Well, and like you said, he chose Abraham and his family and have, if you have children, you have a family, and saying your first born is special does not mean that your second born is not.
What’s interesting about that
Tell
Me is that we have two sons. My wife has always said to our boys, my favorite firstborn son, our second born can get insecure and say, what does that mean? And she’ll say, my favorite firstborn son. Of course that’s a phrase you get from the Old Testament,
But it
Underscores the fact his firstborn and his favorite firstborn. It doesn’t mean the second born is not special. He’s
The favorite second born. He’s
The favorite second born. But there’s a reason God chose this as his firstborn and will use phrases like apple of his eye. So I think you start to read scripture in its entirety, you start to understand that everything of the New Testament assumes you read the Old Testament consistently, you will filter out a sense of God’s love for Israel
If you start in John, which is what we tell people for years.
I laugh because I said that as a discipleship pastor, both starting John here in the States starting in, where’s a good place to start In
John? John? Yeah. Start in book 40. That’s what we tell people.
That’s 43.
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Start in book 43 or would it be 44? Yeah, Matthew, mark, Luke, John 40, 0, 40. Yeah, 43 Math’s. Not my strong suit.
Well, we skip the importance of the Old Testament, and I think in a culture where you want people to get to it quick
Enough,
It is still important to emphasize in the discipleship process that reading the Old Testament is critical. The New Testament helps you see something of Jesus as your savior, but the whole of the 39 books of the Old Testament prepares you to seeing that.
Yeah. Well, and to your point, I was listening to this female speaker and I don’t remember her name, but she was talking about reading through the Bible, and I think she did it in a year and she was talking with her pastor about it. And basically what she said on this podcast was, I was mad at God. I didn’t like God. I didn’t like this story. I don’t know how she internalized it. What we would probably say is it was angry. She was angry because it wasn’t about her. Where do I fit in here? And her pastor, and God bless her pastor at the time said, you’ve read it for a year. I’ve walked with you through this and I think you’re frustrated. You’re trying to find yourself, start over, do it again with Genesis, but this time try and find God. And she said, I fell in love with him within the first couple pages. But it’s that shift in mentality.
Yeah. And I think that looking for ourself is something of a Western worldview. The understanding, and this was the same space of last two and a half years, the understanding that the Bible is primarily a Middle Eastern ancient literature, and if I view it as a Western document or even for me as an African contemporary document, they’re setting things I will miss off God’s person and God’s heart, yet relevant for all times. But it’s an ancient Middle Eastern document. And I think once you start to read that the Old Testament with the heart of God’s sovereign choice and the fact that he documents the history of his unfailing faithful love to this family that is not always right, I’m not always right, but over 500 years, he shows us consistently how he does not change before exile. Something starts to help me see that really is a picture all of all humanity. But he chooses to picture Israel for us for a reason.
So I want to pivot off of that because I want you to talk about how the understanding of God’s heart for Israel leads to the fear of the Lord. Because we talked about it briefly, and I think we all need to hear it. The fear of God is something we don’t want to talk about. I think we’ve oversimplified it to be, it just means like a respect. That’s what I’ve heard pastor say and try to make it make sense. So how does this understanding of Israel, how does that then coincide with fear of the Lord?
So I missed the thought that I was going to emphasize because you had asked about, for Kimmy and I, the transition after that Israel trip. One of the things, I also did a trip on behalf of Gateway to Ethiopia. In fact, it was the first trip after Israel to Ethiopia.
And that’s important for our listeners because there’s a huge Jewish community in Ethiopia,
A significant Jewish community in Ethiopia. Then a significant Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel that I wasn’t aware of. It was going to Ethiopia. And so a couple of things for our audience, just to get context with Ethiopia is a very, Ethiopia and Egypt are two countries that technically were not colonized. Africa has 54 countries. These two countries have a very unique history in the fact that it’s not only because it’s documented in scriptures, but their history is much older
Than
Anybody
Else. Ancient,
Actually, that’s the best way to describe
It.
Ancient. And one of the things that stood out for me in Ethiopia was that I got there and it was like
Time traveling.
What is wrong here? It took a while before it dawned on me that it’s the only African country I’ve been to where science was not written in an European language first everything was written in their native Ethiopian language, then translated to English. So that sense of ancient was just everywhere. Then I had the opportunity to meet six congregation that were Jewish, and what was unsettling about this, this guy started talking about them practicing being Jews for 2,500 years. So it was like, what’s wrong with that man? That is, oh, they said, oh, we’ve been Jews before Jesus came. And he was like, that’s not possible. But they had stories to back their communities that had practiced. So understand these are Messianic Jews, but they had been part of communities that have been Jews for 2,500 years,
And they draw their ancestry back from Queen of Sheba, right?
They drawn their ancestry back to the Queen of Sheba, and it had been authenticated their communities, their practice of Judaism, the practice of the Sabbath and their practice. Long, long, the organization we were working with had worked with the Messianic believers for 30 years. So to meet Africans that were Jews, it was like nobody told me they existed, but it was the depth of their fellowship with Christ and that they could trace that from their Jewish heritage. So that was an important piece for me. Something that happened on that trip. I felt awoken by God on I think maybe the second day to read Romans chapter nine. So I read Romans chapter nine, 10, and 11. It felt like, who just put this in here? I was like, it was almost as if I’d never read it before. The clarity with which I saw Paul communicate his love for Jews had never seen that before. And his commitment to what was clear Israel shall be saved. I was blind to that up until that point. And I think it just started to make me realize that if you are blind to that, how much more are you blind to
Of God’s love for Israel, not just in the Old Testament, but even what you refer to as the New Testament.
Yeah. Well, and so much of Romans, and we have to tell people all the time, the context of Romans is Paul writing to Jews and Gentiles in fellowship together not knowing how to do this. It’s almost like a new marriage. How do I live with the other gender? And he’s writing certain times to Jews, certain times of Gentiles, he’ll say, I’m speaking to you Gentiles. Now here’s what you have to do. And I feel like what you did in Ethiopia is you read as you were grounded in this context of as a gentile surrounded by the Jewish community, we’re all in fellowship together because of Jesus. How do we do this thing? And God opened your eyes to Romans in context,
Romans in context, which really I think is what the scriptures is supposed to do for us. There’s a danger to read the scriptures as just another literature, but there’s a place of reading scripture where you become not just a worldview, not just a lens for which, but it gets into my life. My life gets into it. It was out of that trip that the understanding that I am a gentle follower of Jesus that has been made one with the Jews in Christ. That’s where it was that trip, that understanding that I’m a gentle follower of Jesus that has been made one with Jews. So think that it’ll always go back to reading scripture with a different lens, but more importantly with a different heart. Of course, I came back from that trick, had an trip, had an opportunity to sit down with Nick, and that’s when he started this cohort of, for us as Gentile believers, how do we process our love for Jews together? And that group, that cohort of where mainly staff members, a few volunteers, was really I think the turning point where the language of replacement theology, the understanding and the clarity of what does it mean to be a gentle follower of Jesus Christ that understands that Jews are a priority for the one that created me.
So with that context, let’s talk a little bit of what I think of how the fear of God became central. The more you read the Old Testament, the subject of the fear of God is central in the Old Testament. Totally. You can’t get away from it.
Yeah.
Even a casual read of the book of Proverbs, it is just, is a recording thing,
Beginning of all wisdom,
Beginning of all wisdom,
Fear of the Lord.
Then you start to see this element of the fear of God attached to the covenant itself. In Niah, I remember, I think it’s chapter nine, where he talked about naiah choosing his brothers who had the fear of God more than most men. And I was like, so you almost can have a sense of the fear of God then really in the place of praying for Israel, the sense of understanding that this God that is so vast, this God, that in the Book of Job gives job a cinematic reality to of the universe that great God choosing to make himself relatable should never be confused with his greatness. And I think that once that Western casual, oh, he’s God, he’s the big man upstairs. Once you start to read scripture and see he’s the sovereign,
As Job said, I spoke about things that I knew
Nothing about. Think I had no business and no clue. I’m so sorry. The Clara, you become in seeing that of his greatness.
Yeah, his glory, his power,
His power, his wisdom yet relatable. You start to see almost things almost pop up everywhere in Leviticus, in Deter where he emphasizes, maintain the fear of God in dealing with your brothers. Don’t enslave your brothers because you keep the fear of God. The fear of God is that understanding that he chooses to be my father doesn’t change the fact that he’s the almighty, all powerful, the one from Trins proceed from his throne.
He
Sets the boundaries of where waters can flow from. I think that understanding of how great he is and how fearful he is, yet relatable starts to help me realize if he makes choices, I really should be able to respect that he chose that. And for me, it’s a privilege to believe what he asks of me. The sense of, I made Jacob and easel, but I chose Jacob. He should reserve that, right? If he controls thousands, maybe millions, maybe billions of galaxies, which each having trillions of stars in each galaxy, he should be able to make a decision and it should stick.
And it is okay if he didn’t ask us to weigh in.
It’s okay if there are 8 billion people plus on the planet and one hair from one of those beings, don’t fall without him knowing he should be able to make some decisions and I should be okay with it. And I think just that sense of how eternal he is, how all powerful he is. You read it in scripture, put context to it. And what for us really as followers of Jesus who must be declare, he talks about in the New Testament,
Oh yeah.
He talks about to fear him who can not just put your body eternally in damnation, but your soul. Hebrews talks about that,
The
Fear of the consuming fire that he is. Corinthians talks about having this awe for him. So it’s not blind in the New Testament? No. It’s just our heart gets casual about it.
Romans 11, I mean, it ends with, Hey, you Gentiles, you’re now a part of the family. Don’t boast against the Jewish people, don’t boast against the branches.
Guess what we do
100%
Twice. He warns us not to boast
In chapter 11, his fear,
And we boast
And notice the kindness and severity of God.
Yes, sir.
And we love to talk about the kindness,
But we live out conveniently,
The severity
Conveniently.
Yeah. I was talking to a friend, I told you the other day, a friend was helping us move and we were just talking about Israel and he was asking questions about Israel, Palestinian relationship, and it’s all things that are complicated and we’re holding those things in conflict and tension. I said, but at the end of the day, God chose Israel. He made that sovereign choice. That doesn’t mean that Israel as the political nation is beyond criticism.
Absolutely.
But we should walk lightly understanding the severity of God and the fear of the Lord. And the analogy I gave is someone could come to me, my daughter, my oldest daughter, my beloved firstborn, her name’s Kaya. Someone could come to me and say, Hey, I got to talk to you about Kayah. She’s really making some choices that are a little bit off. I could have that. Yeah. Trust me, I know how she can get. I get it. If they then went a step further and said, honestly, I don’t even like Kayah. I’d be like, careful.
You’re crossing the line.
Yeah, you’re getting a little close. You’re kind of flirting with something as her father. And if then that person went to the nth degree and started holding a sign shouting death to Kayah,
Oh,
Watch out. You definitely, you don’t say that. Cross the line. And I feel like that’s what I see when I hear or see things on the news of these anti-Israel, anti-Zionism, Jewish hatred comments or rallies. There’s yelling death to God’s beloved. I’m sorry. I fear God too much. Even if there is things that we can be critical of, we should walk very sensitively on something that God calls, as you said, the apple of my eye, my beloved, my special treasure, Isaiah 51, my wife,
My
Inheritance, my firstborn. Can he make enough different analogies to say how much he loves them and yet we boast or flippantly
Attack. I think that flippancy is how we have cheapened grace, the same attitude that shes grace and mixes. All you can just repent is the same attitude that will turn on the issue of Israel and be flippant about it.
Wow.
That’s not a knowledge of the sovereign God.
Yeah. That’s so good.
The depth of the sacrifice requires my reverence towards it. In the same way His choice of Israel in all its imperfection historically and contemporary, requires that I must not be flippant in talking about Israel, going back again and establishing just this element of reverence. You look at the book of Daniel and the fourth chapter, there’s a very interesting dynamic between Daniel, I think particularly and the first monarch. He said ne then the subsequent monarch in chapter four when he speaks to Za telling him about the judgment that was coming. And chapter four is very interesting because you see Za humbled by God, warned by God of the need to repent, refusing to repent. You see the act that led to him being chased out, how he took the thought of, wow, all this, I did this. Then the judgment comes. Then he repents. And this is interesting. The words that Daniel spoke to him, the sovereign God gave you all the kingdoms of the earth. How does God choose nipsa and allow nipsa? He invaded Israel at least twice. He destroyed the kingdom. But yet notice the way he almost treated carefully when he dealt with the articles. His son comes around and use that to drink. And that leads to judgment. That means that God chose sovereignly the tool that will discipline Israel in his foreknowledge.
Yet he had a line that you wouldn’t cross in dealing with his child after he told you to discipline him. So I think that flippancy is the same thing we see in grace. If you are flippant about grace in the sacrifice of the Messiah in redeeming Israel and redeeming the whole world, you most likely will be flippant in your judgment and in the carelessness, in the careless way you speak about Israel. That was one of the things that God emphasized too to us as we prayed for Israel. He says, the reason I’m asking you to pray for Israel regularly in the mornings is that listening to the words you are hearing said about Israel all around you, most people are cussing Israel. You are called as a New Testament believer, as a priest of a new covenant to bless Israel because everyone you is causing it. So blessing Israel for us as followers of Jesus Christ that are gen, I think is critical blessing the people of Israel, blessing them as they read the Torah, blessing them that the light of Messiah will be unveiled today. I think that’s a critical piece.
Yeah. Well, and I think too, I’ve heard Christians when talking about Israel critically, oftentimes they’ll use, well, look at God judged them. God, God put him into diaspora or the Romans were in the temple. God allowed that to have God. And it’s like, yeah, that’s their Father. He can discipline Israel. I can discipline my children. You come into my house and you try to discipline my children, you are in trouble.
But even the context of that for us, I think that same lens, you look at it and don’t read it right? Because if you read it right, you find out that in deter, he told them what will happen in his all knowingness, that you will continue to disobey and I will send you in exile,
But I’ll also bring you back,
But I’ll also bring you back. It wasn’t, I think the danger, I carelessly thought this, oh, he disciplined them. He sent them in diaspora. But he clearly expressed that after the exile, he will bring them back. And in bringing them back, he will reveal them messiah to them
And restore them
And restore them. So I think it’s an incomplete narrative, which really that’s where error flows from, is truth stretched out of proportion or restricted from is true
Context. That’s so good.
So I think God is renewing in all of us, especially for us as Gentiles, the commitment to pray for Israel and to more importantly, develop the right heart attitude towards the Jewish people.
So here’s how I’d love to end. I would love for you to pray for Israel like you do every morning, and we’ll be praying with you. But I think it’d be important for us to hear what that sounds like to bless Israel as a gentile follower of Jesus, knowing your identity and having some clarity in how God views his people.
That will be an honor. It’ll be let’s pray. Heavenly Father, creator of the heavens and the earth, we honor you for who you are, the Almighty, the all wise, the sovereign God. Thank you for your great plan of salvation that ransom dust from a life of sin and shame. We acknowledge you as the God who chose for yourself, Abraham, his family, and the nation of Israel. Thank you to reveal your salvation to all the humanity this morning. We bless the nation of Israel. We bless Jewish people in all the places that you’ve allowed them to go. We bless particularly the nation and the land of Israel, that which you gave by sovereign
Choice
To the people of Israel. Thank you, father. We pray today that as all the festivals and Jewish culture is observed, as the Torah is red, let the light of Messiah let it shine forth in every Jewish heart today that has elements of their culture in their eating, in their drinking, in their music, in their history is observed today. Let the light of the promised Messiah let it break and reveal Jesus to every heart we pray. Father, we pray for your supernatural protection over 16 million plus Jews all over the earth. Preserve them from the lashing tongue. Preserve them from the voice of the accuser. We ask that your blessings will rest on every Jew, in every place, in every land, and through them today. Let the knowledge of their messiah that is now the Messiah of all the earth spread into all the earth. We bless you, father and honor you. In Jesus matchless name we pray. Amen.
Amen. I got to go. Repent and get saved again. That was good. Thank you for coming. Glory to God, truly a joy. We’ll do a part two. I got more questions. We just ran out of time. Love you. Thank you.