Reject Replacement Theology & Embrace Revival with David Blease & Joakim Lundquvist

Pastor Joakim (00:00:00):
Because we got this thing called replacement theology. We have the understanding that, yeah, I agree that Israel was important and they set the whole thing up, but then they’re rejected and now they’re outcasts and

David (00:00:14):
That’s the church.

Pastor Joakim (00:00:14):
They’ve been replaced by the church, so the modern day Israel will be the church. That’s such a horrible way of interpreting the Bible because all of those in the upper room, when the spirit was poured out in day Pentecost were Jewish, they then started to preach to other Jews about Jesus being the Messiah. Now the first time the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Gentiles is 10 years later, 10 years after they are Pentecost, the first Gentiles are filled with the Holy Spirit and the first church, the early church has to have a church meeting discussing if this is really okay.

David (00:00:57):
Yeah, what do we do with these Gentiles? Yeah.

David (00:01:10):
Well, welcome back to another episode of the Covenant and Conflict Podcast where we take ancient truths, modern issues, and we see them come in tension together. We have a very, very special guest today, pastor Yoki Lundquist is with us. Thank you for being here.

Pastor Joakim (00:01:26):
Thanks for having me.

David (00:01:27):
If you don’t know who Pastor Yoki is, he is our family here at Gateway. When we went through what you’ve often called the Valley of Tears, which is translation really, really hard times at Gateway Church, pastor Yoki was the first person from the outside as a Pastor Shepherd friend, father to come in and love on our congregation, love on our staff. Ended up staying for a little over a year now pastoring us, helping our staff and team really figure out what do we do now, something similar that you walked through in your church back in Sweden, you kind of had this history of walking through Valleys of tears and so you’ve been such a great friend to Gateway, so thank you for all that you’ve done for us. First and foremost,

Pastor Joakim (00:02:17):
Well, I just want to take the opportunity to say thank you back because seeing how God can turn, what was your pain into someone else’s gain when we go through and we all going to go through it on some level crisis and hardships in life,

Speaker 5 (00:02:34):
I

Pastor Joakim (00:02:34):
Think the way God will have his revenge on the enemy is that we get to use the experiences that we gained to help minister to someone else.

Speaker 6 (00:02:45):
And

Pastor Joakim (00:02:45):
I 1% loved my time here, gateway. I’ve fallen in love with y’all, with the church and everything, so a lot of people say thank you and I always say thank you back for having us.

David (00:02:55):
That’s good

Pastor Joakim (00:02:56):
Because it’s been a beautiful, beautiful season,

David (00:02:58):
Even threw a y’all in there, so we’ve rubbed off on you.

Pastor Joakim (00:03:01):
I worked hard on that,

David (00:03:02):
David. That’s great. Well, I want you to share with us and our listeners a little bit about yourself and you, your family, your God story coming into ministry, and then what we’ll end up kind of getting into is really your heart for Israel and the Jewish people, which you carried at your last church, carried into this church and as we’ve now been with you for a little over a year, it’s something that you and I talked about beforehand saying I want to share this piece. There’s so many things you’ve shared with us over the past couple months, but this is such an important one and it’s so dear in your heart and there’s things that you’ve done in Israel, so we’re going to get to all those places. But let’s start with just who is Yo Kim Lindquist. Tell us a little bit about you, your upbringing, your family.

Pastor Joakim (00:03:50):
Yeah, well the accent is Swedish, born and raised in Swed and I’m also born and raised a Lutheran. You see there are so many elements that are very different from Sweden and the US when it comes to spirituality and the church landscape, if you will. In Sweden there is a state church has been, it used to be the Catholic church. Then we had the Reformation in 1532. I turned the Catholic church basically into the Protestant church but into a very liturgical and very strict, more or less a Protestant version of the Catholic church. And I was born into that church environment. My father was a priest. All my four uncles are priests. Both my grandfathers are priests, so this is as Lutheran as they come basically. So I was born and raised in these cathedrals, a lot of organ music and hymns, a very high strung language that I never understood and I don’t want to speak, I don’t want to point my finger at the Lutheran church because I have so many friends that love the Lord and they’re in the Lutheran church, but they’re more like martyrs in their own church because the Lutheran church in Sweden is sadly degenerated to more of a cultural institution

(00:05:06):
Than a church in the sense that we would interpret it.

David (00:05:10):
It’s so much ingrained in the culture that you go to church, but it’s not a spiritual revival. Is that what

Pastor Joakim (00:05:15):
Saying? I mean, I grew up there. I never heard the gospel and many of the priests in the Lutheran church don’t even believe in God. It’s more of an institution. And so when I was only 14 years old, I rebelled against the whole thing and that was when I felt brave enough to actually address my parents and say, I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in this. This is doing nothing to me. I don’t see nothing that relates to me, nothing that speaks to me, and I’m going to run away from this.

David (00:05:43):
Were your parents similar to what you’re describing as part of the institution or did they have a true faith in God at the time?

Pastor Joakim (00:05:50):
They were really struggling at the time because they wanted to find God, but they hadn’t yet. So their marriage was falling apart and it was all down to their spiritual crisis. But my father and my mother honestly wanted to find Jesus, but they didn’t know because we had never seen anything like a modern day church. We never heard anything worship ever in our lives. So how do we approach this if there is a life with God that is more genuine, what’s the pathway?

David (00:06:23):
What does it look like? Yeah,

Pastor Joakim (00:06:24):
Exactly. We didn’t have anything to look at, anything to even imagine. So basically the two of them were starting out in two different walking two different ways. I was running away from the whole thing through our three part family was going in three different directions and I ran away from God and I tried as hard as I could to run away from him for two years, try to be the worst sinner I could be. But when you have the hand of God and the call of God on your life, you’re going to be the most pathetic sinner. Even if you try, you’re not going to fit into that mold because you are always going to live with the awareness that I’m made for something greater than this. This is not the life that I was put on this earth to live.

David (00:07:06):
I’m going to pray that over my kids that they’re just the worst. If they ever tried, they’re the worst sinners in the world.

Pastor Joakim (00:07:11):
Great. They’ll be the most miserable people. And so about two years after that, I was partying with a friend of mine and he was also, we call ourselves grandkids of God because obviously God doesn’t have grandchildren, but we were like the lost ones. We both run away from a Lutheran church environment. Both run away from our parents’ faith. And when you’re going to S sin, it’s always going to feel better to sing with someone else. If you’re going to hell, at least you’re not going alone.

David (00:07:40):
Misery loves company.

Pastor Joakim (00:07:42):
So we were getting drunk together when we were partying together, doing drugs together and everything.

David (00:07:46):
How old are you at this point?

Pastor Joakim (00:07:47):
16.

David (00:07:48):
Okay.

Pastor Joakim (00:07:49):
And then for some reason he started to get a little bit more serious with God. Somehow he started secretly read the Bible and I had no idea, but just wanted to find his way.

(00:08:04):
Then somebody told him if there’s a youth, Christian youth conference in Sala, which is like three hours drive away from the town where I grew up. So he actually lied to me in Jesus’ name and said, Yoakum, there’s a huge New Year’s party in Sala. Why don’t we go there and just kind completely get drunk, get high for three days, there’s going to be a lot of girls there and et cetera, and oh yes, okay, you got me at girls. So we got in the car, we drove down there and not until we enter into the room did I understand what was going on.

David (00:08:40):
You’ve been duped.

Pastor Joakim (00:08:42):
I’ve been lied to big time because in this room there were about a hundred teenagers, which was like half of the world’s population to me. I come from a small community and I was basically one out of three in my youth group in the Lutheran church, a hundred young people and a guy playing the guitar. You have to understand, I’ve never heard anything like this. This is the first time I experienced worship. These young people were lifting their hands. They were singing from the bottom of their hearts. There were tears, there were people on their knees, and I was standing in the back just observing and obviously from an intellectual point of view it looked like madness.

(00:09:24):
What’s going on? I can’t relate to this. But at the same time, I felt the presence, that presence that I’ve experienced a few times in my life when I was out in the nature on a mountaintop, when I was kneeling at five years old in the cathedral and feeling somehow of the greatness of God and I felt the presence and I started crying and I was so annoyed with myself for crying because I’m 16 years old, I’m way too cool to cry. What’s going on with me? And then a guy stepped up and he shared a Bible study. He was brief. It was maybe 15, 18 minutes speaking about First John one, five got his light and there was no darkness in him. And there was a first time I ever heard a message that made

Speaker 5 (00:10:11):
Sense.

Pastor Joakim (00:10:13):
It felt like all my questions were answered in 15 minutes. I was standing right at the back and my initial reaction was to punch my friend in the face. But now it was just like my heart was just asking, what do I do with this? How do I approach this? How do I embrace? I had no idea. But this guy, he was like in his early twenties, he said, if you want Jesus in your heart, you can come to the front right now. I was the first one up

David (00:10:40):
And

Pastor Joakim (00:10:40):
I gave my heart to Jesus and I was filled with the Holy Spirit that night and my friend did too. So we had been drinking buddies now we were Jesus buddies.

David (00:10:49):
Yeah, filled with one thing now, filled with another.

Pastor Joakim (00:10:51):
It’s good. Yeah, exactly. Then I went back to my little community. There were maybe a total of 200 teenagers living there. After one year, 45 of them had accepted Christ.

Speaker 6 (00:11:03):
Wow.

Pastor Joakim (00:11:03):
Just seeing this massive revival. I started a church at 17, not recommended, but still there was no church. You have to understand, this is a completely different environment. We have 45 new believers in Jesus, hungry for the presence of God. Absolutely. No way to take them.

David (00:11:22):
Who’s going to disciple them?

Pastor Joakim (00:11:23):
Exactly. So I was like two weeks older, spiritually follow me than the oldest one. So by the grace of God, it was beautiful and my little church kind of partnered up with a church that had arranged the youth conference where I gave my heart to Christ. That church was just for me, it was called World of Life, and we affiliated our church for that one. And then long story short, I grew that my church for 10 years, met my wife Maria. We had our daughters. Eventually I moved down to up to this church where I’ve given my heart

David (00:12:00):
Myself

Pastor Joakim (00:12:01):
And I became the youth pastor. At the time we had like 500 young people on a Friday night and for Sweden, I mean crazy. An average church in Sweden would be like 30 people. An average youth group would be like three young people or something. By the grace of God, it grew from there. I was pastoring that church for 26 years,

David (00:12:24):
Does the youth pastor, county youth pastor,

Pastor Joakim (00:12:27):
And then youth pastor. Then I moved into associate pastor and then finally senior pastor. And yeah, by the grace of God, just seeing that whole movement grow again, I always quote Romans say we’re sin abound to grace would abound even more. And by that grace, we’ve now become the launch pat of about 950 churches, primarily Europe, central Asia, middle East, India, Southeast Asia, Russia, Ukraine. Basically we always say wherever there is a problem in the world, it’s going to be a world of life church there. Hopefully we didn’t cause it, but we’re trying to help out for sure. So our churches are, I always joke my church back home and say, we’re probably never going to have a church in Hawaii or Bahamas or anywhere nice. All our church is like Afghanistan and Syria and North India and stuff. But it’s been a beautiful, beautiful journey for sure. That’s

David (00:13:25):
Amazing. So when people come to Gateway, at least in America, to the Jew first principle is most times shocking to churches that you have a Shabbat service. You give the first of all of your increase, first of all of the money that comes in the first goes to Israel and the Jewish people, you pray for Israel and the Jewish people, you make the priority of that. That can seem a little odd. I’m assuming it’s even more odd in Europe. I don’t know about Sweden specifically. So what’s the landscape of maybe just the nondenominational church in Sweden, in Europe? When did that come into word of life? Was it from the foundation? Was there a revelation? And what do other churches feel about that?

Pastor Joakim (00:14:18):
That’s a great question. Like you said, it’s very rare, not only the element of Israel, but actually things like I’m getting to know the US landscape more and more. For example, just to give you an idea, the pro-life perspective, I think our movement is the only one with a clear pro-life agenda in Sweden. And so by

David (00:14:46):
Your movement, do you mean your church?

Pastor Joakim (00:14:48):
Yes. Wow. The word of life family.

David (00:14:50):
Wow.

Pastor Joakim (00:14:51):
And even though other churches might have a vague pro-life positioning, they would not really declare it because it’s controversial

David (00:15:00):
And blow back and Yeah.

Pastor Joakim (00:15:01):
Yeah. Same with Israel. There is a very, in the established historical churches, there is a very strong anti-Israel movement. And even in the newer non-denominational churches, there is a hesitancy. I think that it’s a need for scriptural boldness in Sweden. That’s a huge need because the pressure from the secularized society so strong, Sweden is the second most secularized nation in the world, second only to Japan. So we know there’s always going to be a price to pay when you stand up for anything. But

David (00:15:39):
What do they measure when they’re measuring secular?

Pastor Joakim (00:15:42):
How foreign a nation has slipped away from former religious values value. So obviously Japan and Sweden would be different values, but we’re like Japan is slipped away farthest and Sweden will be from a Christian perspective with the number one more secularized nation.

David (00:16:03):
Got it. That used to have this kind of builtin Christian morality system church. It’s gone the

Pastor Joakim (00:16:09):
Opposite. Completely gone. Yes. Which honestly, and actually it’s not all bad. There’s

David (00:16:17):
Pros

Pastor Joakim (00:16:17):
Too. Try to comfort my us friends sometimes because I know there’s a big anxiousness and that I completely understand about us going in that direction, moving in a secular direction. So just to point out that obviously secularism is bad in itself. We prefer a nation where everybody believes in Jesus, but secularism is not all bad because for example, we don’t have to deal with misconceived ideas about Christianity, negative experience from church because people don’t have an experience of church.

David (00:16:53):
People are more of a blank slate.

Pastor Joakim (00:16:54):
It’s a blank slate, especially with a young generation

David (00:16:57):
Who

Pastor Joakim (00:16:57):
Has absolutely no idea. But that also means they don’t have preconceived ideas. So that gives us a great

David (00:17:04):
Advantage. You’re not having to unteach theology than teach.

Pastor Joakim (00:17:08):
We’re starting from scratch. Yeah. What are we talking about here? But just to give you an idea, David, for about the Israel perspective of our church. First of all, you asked when did that start? I would say about 30 years ago, we started to see the biblical perspective regarding the nation of Israel and the Jewish people in a brand new light. We started doing trips to Israel annually. We established an office in Jerusalem and we started to teach about Israel. And I think every single time we talk about Israel teaching, the understanding the revelation of the Israel, of the nation of Israel and the Jewish people is so relevant. If you go to our church now, our whole backdrop is Jerusalem stone. It’s a 40 feet replica of the Western wall.

David (00:18:02):
Yeah, I’ve seen It’s amazing.

Pastor Joakim (00:18:04):
And it was really beautiful. We got the stone from Jerusalem and we thought we would have, what is it? Masons like people that work with stone,

David (00:18:13):
Like people that do masonry,

Pastor Joakim (00:18:15):
Masonry, that people in Sweden would be able to put it up. They couldn’t. So we have to have people come in from Israel to actually just put it up,

David (00:18:24):
Make it. It’s even more authentic then.

Pastor Joakim (00:18:25):
It is. It is. But just to give you an idea again, for example, we have an annual conference full last week of July. We always have a big Israel celebration service. Every time we do that service, we notify the police. We don’t have our own security department. So we’ll notify the police that we’re going to have an Israel service. It’s a very peaceful thing. We’re just going to teach the Bible regarding what it says about Israel. We’re going to have Jewish musicians, we’re going to have the Israeli ambassador to Sweden as a guest or someone like that. And then they overlook it and they sent the amount of policemen that they think is appropriate for that. Last time we did that, they sent 70 policemen, 70, 77, 0.

David (00:19:22):
Wow.

Pastor Joakim (00:19:22):
We had 70 policemen. I actually addressed that situation. I said, we’re very happy that you all are here, but it’s a sign of sickness on a democratic society that you should have to be, because it’s only when we speak about Israel that this risk comes, but we’re going to keep doing it for sure. We see the blessing of it. And I believe from the bottom of my heart that this is not optional. This is not scripturally optional, and I think that’s the number one revelation that Christians need. We are commanded to bless whatever God blesses when the entry point into Christianity is a three word confession. Jesus is Lord. That also means that I am not Lord, I do not make the choices of what I will live for and not live for what I will believe and not believe what I will bless and not bless. So founding point here is that God blesses Israel, and if I claim to be his child, then I bless Israel too. And that’s actually the bottom line. And some people get annoyed with that because they don’t want anyone tell them what to do and what not to do.

(00:20:40):
And every time I say that, I try to say it very respectfully, very lovingly, if that’s your position, maybe becoming a Christian was not the greatest idea because the whole baseline, bottom line of being a child of God is that he’s in command.

David (00:20:57):
And you’re submitting to that.

Pastor Joakim (00:20:58):
I’m submitting to that. That doesn’t mean I have to do that reluctantly, but my point is that it’s not optional. Whatever God blesses, we are called to bless. And when we do, there is a blessing that comes with that.

David (00:21:12):
So I think one of the big tensions that people have, there was an interview where they’re talking about that and one person says, the Bible tells us to bless Israel. And they’re using Genesis 12 where God tells Abraham and people say, well, that’s not Israel, that’s Abraham. And even if it was Israel, does that mean the modern state of Israel? Are we jumping from Abraham to BB Netanyahu, the prime minister? Are we sure that’s a leap that we should take as Christians just because I call myself a Christian or because I live in America, I have to support a secular nation that doesn’t believe in Jesus. So what would you say to that?

Pastor Joakim (00:22:00):
I would actually say that, you know what? I do believe that blessing Israel does not necessarily mean agreeing with every single political decision that Israel makes, but it’s the same with you and me. We call ourselves children of God still sometimes we fail. But the beauty of it is when we do fail, when we do make the wrong decisions, that doesn’t mean we’re not children of God anymore. That doesn’t shake our identity. And I’m really, I thank God for the promise that God cannot regret his calling and his choosing. Thank God if he would regret it as I make mistakes that I felt I would’ve lost it a long time ago. So I mean, it’s a bit weird to me because we thank God for his grace and his mercy upon our lives that we can actually fail. Sometimes we can make mistakes that doesn’t make me not a child of God anymore.

David (00:23:00):
Same

Pastor Joakim (00:23:00):
Thing with Israel. I’m not saying that you necessarily need to support every single decision, political decision made by the nation, but I am making the claim that you are called to bless Israel to acknowledge their calling. They’re being uniquely called by God forever with a calling that will never ever cease according to what God spoke to Abraham and his seed forevermore. And also I think not just scripturally, but you’ve seen that historically how attitude of blessing toward Israel and Jewish people have led to a blessing and prosperity upon whoever blesses Israel. And I would say the US is a great example. Nobody will be able to argue that this nation has been blessed. And the development of the US in the past 250 years have been incredible. And a lot of it, I do believe from the bottom of my heart has to do with the way that you have related to Israel. I’m a European, I’ve seen both the good and the bad perspective from even from European history. For example, Spain used to have a strong huge Jewish

Speaker 5 (00:24:30):
Population.

Pastor Joakim (00:24:31):
When they did, they became a superpower. Spain colonized, and Spain and Portugal, together, they were the size of Spain is not even the size of Texas, the size of Portugal. It’s not even the size of Maine.

David (00:24:49):
And they’re superpowers. Yeah,

Pastor Joakim (00:24:50):
Superpowers. You had vasco sailing all the way from Europe to India. You have Malan crossing the Pacific Ocean. You have Christopher Columbus. I mean all these people from these two tiny nations making conquests and everything and bringing their nations to such a level of prosperity. But then in 1492, Spain expelled the Jewish population, and a few years later, Portugal did too. And it was just a few years or decades until it all started to go sideways. And the Spanish armada, the big fleet that was legendary in its time, had a dramatic defeat against the English. Against all odds, Spain went bankrupt and never rose again to the same glory. Now, the only country at that time who would accept the Jews in Europe was the Netherlands. So all the Jews from Spain and Portugal basically moved to the Netherlands. That was their only refuge. And what happens to the Netherlands, all of a sudden they start to rise as a nation science art. You have Rembrandt, you have Vermeer, you have the most prosperous nation in Europe after a couple of decades. And you might not agree with me, but I’m the one with the mic right now. So I just see kind of the hand of God

(00:26:16):
When nations bless Israel, there will be a blessing. When nations curse Israel, there will be a curse. And I do believe that goes for individuals,

Speaker 7 (00:26:24):
It

Pastor Joakim (00:26:25):
Goes for churches, it goes for

Speaker 7 (00:26:28):
Businesses

Pastor Joakim (00:26:30):
Because we simply obeying what God has instituted.

David (00:26:35):
That’s so good. Well, and I see it as I always try to look through everything through the lens of a father’s heart because theology can get really heady. And it’s like sometimes we have to start in theology. God calls Israel his firstborn, my special treasure, the apple of my eye. So we have to take those into considerations just intellectually. We could try to argue. Well, he doesn’t think that anymore. Even though in Romans 11 when he is talking about the ones that are antigo, he says, they are my beloved for the sake of their ancestors, even in their disobedience. So again, it’s kind of hard to make that claim. So he calls them all these things, firstborn special treasure. And then you look at the covenant that is constantly, we talk about Genesis 12, well that’s Abraham, but then he reaffirms it with Isaac, then he reaffirms it with Jacob,

Speaker 5 (00:27:26):
And

David (00:27:27):
Then he calls back to, it changes Jacob’s name to Israel and says, and now Israel are my people, and I’m going to have an everlasting covenant with Israel, the people of Israel from Jacob’s descendants onward. And he used the term everlasting, which I always joke. It means lasts forever, everlasting.

Pastor Joakim (00:27:47):
Right, right.

David (00:27:48):
And so that’s all head. But when we understand that and you then change the perspective to the father’s heart, what your analogy, or not even analogy, your history kind of points to, I thought of if you had a daughter and she went to go live in this apartment complex with these roommates and you are financially resourced, you are cattle on a thousand hills, and that apartment needs some fixing. Well, you sent a check and they get a new stove and a new microwave, and it starts flourishing that apartment complex. Well, when she moves to another apartment complex, you’re not necessarily just, it wasn’t just about the apartment complex, but you were blessing your

Speaker 6 (00:28:33):
Firstborn. Yes,

David (00:28:34):
She moves to this apartment complex and then, oh, new oven, and someone’s putting this together. I think Yo Kim’s blessing this girl. Oh, that’s his firstborn. And again, we also really struggle with what about all of the people, and we struggle with this idea of first means better. First means I won the race and the Gentiles are second. And so I think there’s this kind of orphan mentality that we have as Gentiles. Why do they first?

Speaker 5 (00:29:03):
Yeah.

David (00:29:04):
Does that mean they’re more importantly? I mean, what would you say to that? So are you saying they’re more important, God’s blessing them wherever they go? I thought Jesus died for all of us. What would your answer to that be?

Pastor Joakim (00:29:14):
Now? I mean even when Jesus is born, what we celebrate at Christmas, he’s born in Bethlehem. And just looking at the two groups of people who were the first ones to worship, the first group was the shepherds from Be Bethlehem. The second group was the Wiseman, the Magi from the

David (00:29:32):
East.

Pastor Joakim (00:29:33):
I don’t think anything in the life of Jesus happens by accident. The first two groups of people bowing down to worship this child that will be the king of kings and the Lord of Lords that will defeat death and rise again. On the third A, the two groups were first of all representing the low and the poor and the high and the

Speaker 7 (00:29:51):
Mighty

Pastor Joakim (00:29:52):
Because this child would be the king of all of them. Any social group of people, like any level, however we define levels in society,

David (00:30:02):
Totally

Pastor Joakim (00:30:03):
Both of them bowed out. But even more important that the shepherds were Jews, the Magi, the wise men were Gentiles. So the first two groups who bowed out, actually the first group that bows down are the Jewish shepherds. And then we have the wise men.

Speaker 7 (00:30:21):
So

Pastor Joakim (00:30:22):
Initially from the very start of Jesus’ life, the Jews and the Gentiles are bowing down to worship. And then we see that throughout the life of Jesus, it’s not only the Jews anymore, but it’s not only the Gentiles, it’s both of them hand in hand. And we see that so clearly in the life and the ministry of Jesus. And even I think it’s an interesting thought when the church starts on the day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit is poured out, we got this thing called replacement theology. We have the understanding that, yeah, I agree that Israel was important and they set the whole thing up, but then they’re rejected and now they’re outcasts, and now

David (00:31:09):
It’s the church.

Pastor Joakim (00:31:10):
They’ve been replaced by the church. So the modern day Israel will be the church. That’s such a horrible way of interpreting the Bible because all of those in the upper room, when the spirit was poured out and their Pentecost were Jewish, they then started to preach to other Jews about Jesus being the Messiah. Now the first time the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Gentiles is 10 years later, 10 years after they are

Speaker 5 (00:31:41):
Pentecost,

Pastor Joakim (00:31:42):
The first Gentiles are filled with the Holy Spirit and the first church, the early church has to have a church meeting discussing if this is really okay.

David (00:31:53):
Yeah, what do we do with these Gentiles? Yeah,

Pastor Joakim (00:31:55):
That’s right. So they’re discussing and finally after some arguing, they accept the fact that the Gentiles are also included in the covenant, in the promises. And now we’ve turned 360

David (00:32:10):
Totally.

Pastor Joakim (00:32:11):
And we are discussing, do the Jews still have any place? What whatsoever? I said, man, 2000 years and complete 360 turn on this.

David (00:32:22):
And we talk about Acts 15 all the time. And it’s interesting when you look at the reason they’re gathering all these Jewish followers of Yeshua asking, do the Gentiles need to be circumcised, which is really shorthand for be Jewish, and that comes with everything, the kosher, the Torah law, all this stuff fully be integrated and become Jewish, or can they stay Gentile? And of course the conclusion they come to through the power of the Holy Spirit as James whose real name is Jacob later says, it is good to the Holy Spirit and me, right to the Gentiles. They don’t have to be circumcised, blah, blah, blah. And so many people look at that and say, see, the church doesn’t have to be in this old way anymore. They don’t have to be under Torah. They don’t have to be circumcised. It’s no longer Jewish. But the whole reason they’re having this conversation is because they knew they were still called to be Jewish. Exactly. The only question was, do the Gentiles have to? And so it’s like we’ve forgotten because it’s not openly disclosed, Hey, by the way, I know we’re all Jewish and have to stay Jewish. We’re asking about the Gentiles.

(00:33:40):
But if their thought was nobody has to be circumcised, be Jewish, follow Torah, why even have the discussion? There’s no need to have the discussion of no one’s going to follow this.

Pastor Joakim (00:33:52):
Right? That’s

David (00:33:52):
Right. It’s the distinction of Jew and Gentile and that we’re not called to be Jewish. We are grafted in, as Paul says, Romans 11, into that tree as I

Pastor Joakim (00:34:02):
Takers. So it’s so clear. It’s two different callings and we can’t push them into the same mold and we might not be able to fully understand them, but we just have to accept there’s so much in the Bible that we just have to accept. And even if we don’t understand the details of it,

Speaker 7 (00:34:19):
If

Pastor Joakim (00:34:19):
We just accept and surrender, God, you know what you’re doing. And you are obviously working with two different callings

Speaker 7 (00:34:24):
Here

Pastor Joakim (00:34:25):
Who are similar, but not exactly the same. And I love so much, David. Just last week I taught a class on the life and ministry of Jesus. I got, see now it’s an 18 session class where basically go through the whole life of Jesus in the four gospels. The first two sessions are all about the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. Basically Jesus in the Old Testament. And I spent some time on the story of Joseph Genesis 39 to Genesis 45. That’s an amazing story.

Speaker 7 (00:35:02):
Oh yeah, totally.

Pastor Joakim (00:35:03):
And there’s so many points of references, obviously to Christ being given the robe of his father, speaking about the anointing being thrown into the pit. He descended into hell being elevated into a high position in a gentile nation before the Jewish nation. But then there’s that story in Genesis 45, and it always brings a tear to my eye because that’s the chapter that we still haven’t seen fulfilled yet when it comes to Messianic prophecy, the previous one we’ve seen. But then there’s that moment where Joseph’s Jewish brothers comes to visit him in Egypt and they don’t recognize him because he’s got a gentile outfit on. So many times we’ve, we’ve put a Gentile outfit on Christ totally. We made him completely impossible to recognize. I mean, calling him Christ is Greek for sure, for sure. But then he turns to his Egyptian servants and he says, would you please leave the room? I want to be alone with this group of people. And then he takes off the gentile outfit and he reveals himself and he says, I am Joseph. And then he says, don’t worry, it was for you that this happened for the salvation of many.

Speaker 7 (00:36:34):
And

Pastor Joakim (00:36:34):
That day will still come when Jesus will look at us. His gentile servants say, would you please step back a little? And he will reveal himself to his Jewish brothers and sisters, and he will say, I am Yeshua. I am one of you,

David (00:36:54):
Your brother.

Pastor Joakim (00:36:55):
And that just goes straight to my heart. Every time I read this

David (00:36:58):
As you’re talking, another kind of piece of the puzzle that I never really connected is falling into place where Romans 11, Paul says, many of the Jews were cut off of this tree because of unbelief. Gentiles were grafted in so that they would provoke Israel to jealousy to come back. And so I’ve taught this to so many churches and predominantly gentile churches saying The reason that you’re here and in the family, a part of the tree is to provoke Israel to jealousy. And that offends many gentiles. You’re telling me that’s the only reason. No, he loves you, of course, but why did he choose Abraham to bless the nations? So if you look at the Jewish calling and the Gentile calling, it’s not about themselves.

Speaker 5 (00:37:50):
He

David (00:37:50):
Says, Abraham, I’m choosing you and your family just because I love the nations, the Gentiles. And then when the Gentiles finally come into that fulfillment, he goes, Hey, Gentiles, the only reason you’re here is because I love the Jews. Right. So that’s right. He’s trying for us. He’s trying to get us to the point where we don’t make the gospel about ourselves. It’s about serving the other. And I was literally just reading the story of Joseph. I do a Bible study once a week with some younger people, and we were in the story of Joseph. We talked about that whole thing of Joseph taking off his Gentile garb just like Jesus. You ask most Israelis right now, who’s Jesus? They’ll say He’s the Catholic God. He’s the Gentile God, he’s the Christian God. They don’t see him as Jewish as the fulfillment of the Torah. No. He’s this gentile character. And when you read Genesis 45, Joseph says, I know we’ve often put in worship songs, God will take what was meant for evil and turn it to good. But what I didn’t see was he said it was for your good for

Pastor Joakim (00:39:00):
You, yes.

David (00:39:01):
Because he wanted to save you. The famine was coming and you guys would’ve died. But he sent me ahead of you to save you. And that’s exactly what Yeshu is going to say is, Hey, the reason that we let the Gentiles come is for you.

Pastor Joakim (00:39:15):
And again, that was elevated among the Gentiles

David (00:39:18):
For you, for you. It’s amazing. There’s an interesting story that I know you have at the word of life, and I’m interested to see how it maybe wrestles with this Israel theology that you guys had. Because a few years back, I remember you came to Gateway and you talked to us about this mass immigration from somewhere in the Middle East that came to Sweden, came to Word of Life. And all of a sudden, your streets are filled with Muslims, which would scare the bejesus out of any American, and you guys are welcoming them. And you saw all these miracles. So I want you to tell the story about how that happened and then I’d love to see, because I’m sure you had some conversations, if they ever saw an Israel flag or something, or a shofar, anything Jewish, the Israel Conference. So tell us about that story and then tell us about how you had to have those conversations.

Pastor Joakim (00:40:17):
Oh, that was a special season. Sometimes you look back on a year or a couple of years and you realize, man, that was so prophetic. That was so profound. We couldn’t see this coming at all. But it was special. Just to give you a perspective, a few months prior to this thing happening, we received a prophetic word. Now we’re not the kind of church, we just take any prophetic word and proclaim it and run with it. But this prophetic word came about in a very special way. I’m the pastors. I took my pastors away for a pastor’s retreat and we spent time in prayer. One of our pastors, a great, great guy, just had this prophetic word. There will be a new wave of missions, and we are super, super mission oriented church. So our natural gut reaction was, okay, where are we going next? We’re taking

David (00:41:09):
Trips,

Pastor Joakim (00:41:10):
So what nation are we going to flood into? And so on and so forth. We actually told the church, we’ve had this new prophetic word, please pray with us to see what will happen. But in our minds, it was all going out to somewhere else. The way will come from us and hit another nation three months later because of the threat. We’re in 2016 now, and this was the time of the ISIS in the Middle East,

Speaker 5 (00:41:40):
Horrible

Pastor Joakim (00:41:40):
Persecutions, murders, rapes, pillaging. It was insane. So much fear, so much terror. And tens of thousands of people are escaping from basically the Isis, like

David (00:41:55):
Syria.

Pastor Joakim (00:41:56):
Yes, Syria. Lebanon.

David (00:41:58):
Lebanon, yeah,

Pastor Joakim (00:41:59):
Iran, yes. Jordan, even Iraq, even Afghanistan coming down from the north. And many of them are at the level of desperation where they were going to inflatable boats into the Mediterranean Sea with their families and small children and just hope to find a better life somewhere out there. And to me, being a father of daughters, what kind of state of mind would I have to be in to get in an inflatable boat realizing maybe half of us will drown in the process, but this is better than the alternative of staying. And we were caught off guard. The whole Sweden was shook by a photo of the dead body of a 3-year-old child washed up on a shore in Turkey. And that kind of became the poster image of what was happening right now. And we understood immediately what would happen. These refugees would aim for Athens, which is the capital of Greece, which is the southern tip of Europe by the Mediterranean Sea. And if they got there, they would start to walk north and head for Sweden or Germany, which at the time had the most liberal immigration laws. Just to give perspective that walk from Greece to Sweden would be equal to walking from Dallas, Texas to Miami, Florida, carrying your babies if you had

David (00:43:29):
Goodness.

Pastor Joakim (00:43:30):
And so we had just a few weeks now to realize that tens of thousands of people

David (00:43:36):
Are coming, are going

Pastor Joakim (00:43:36):
To come into our country. And we’re a small country sw. It’s just 10 million. And I just took our pastors aside again and we started praying and asking God, how do we position ourselves in this situation? Because there was a lot of fear in our nation. And even among Christians, there was a lot of voices saying, oh, the Muslims are coming. They’re going to take us, take over our nation, and so forth. And don’t get me wrong, I was not in favor of liberal immigration laws of the time, but I couldn’t change them.

Speaker 5 (00:44:08):
These

Pastor Joakim (00:44:08):
People were coming regardless. So basically our choice was either to step out of the situation and distance ourselves from it and complain about it on Facebook or to step into the situation and dare to believe that somewhere inside this humanitarian disaster, there might be a cedar revival. So distinctly remember when we prayed about that, prayed for the wisdom of God, God challenged me and spoke to my heart saying, because he can pronounce my name. And he said, do you want to build a church of fear or a church of faith?

Speaker 7 (00:44:44):
Wow.

Pastor Joakim (00:44:46):
And I said, I want to build a church of faith. And then he said, faith focus is not on the problem, but on the potential inside the problem.

Speaker 7 (00:44:56):
Wow.

Pastor Joakim (00:44:56):
Faith focuses is not on the obstacle, but on the opportunity inside the obstacle. So that was it. We started a welcome to Europe station in Athens, Greece. And so that kind of pointing the refugees in the right way, the long journey. And then when they arrived in Sala, Sweden, our city, we put huge banners on our church saying refugees welcome. And we started throwing Welcome to Sweden parties.

Speaker 7 (00:45:24):
I

Pastor Joakim (00:45:25):
Remember the first time we did one of those. Our faith goal was to have a hundred Muslims come, and even for one Muslim to come into a church, that’s a big deal. So we didn’t get the a hundred. We got 471 for that first.

David (00:45:39):
Gosh.

Pastor Joakim (00:45:40):
And all of a sudden our church is full of Muslims and we give them food. We have middle and music, entertainment, we provide healthcare. They can sign up for classes to learn the Swedish language if they’re business people. Our business people started to adopt them and help them how to establish, get integrated in our new nation. But more than anything, we shared that God loved the world so much that he gave is one and only son. And especially the story of Jesus and Joseph and Mary having to seek refuge in Egypt during the terror.

David (00:46:20):
Yeah.

Pastor Joakim (00:46:21):
So basically saying to them that our Lord knows exactly what you’re going through, he had to flee his nation too because of the bloodshed, and so he can relate to you. Yeah. Long story short, David, by the grace of God, throughout that first year of this huge project, when we realized the wave of missions was not us going out, but the wave of people coming in, we prayed for about 900 Muslims to accept Jesus as their savior.

David (00:46:51):
You did do, that wasn’t your prayer. That’s what you did

Pastor Joakim (00:46:54):
In our local church alone. Wow. So all of a sudden now my church is full of people called Muhammad and Ahmed, and I didn’t see this coming a year or two ago. That was like, what? So God just shocked us. And I still praise God today because I realized we could have missed this completely. We could have lost this

Speaker 5 (00:47:17):
By

Pastor Joakim (00:47:18):
Simply taking a different approach to what was happening. And we started a Bible school for former Muslims, a one year Bible school, and we’ve now graduated 450 former Muslims from that Bible school. Many of them were Afghan Muslims. And even now, the other year when the west pulled out of Afghanistan and the Taliban regime rose again, so many Afghans fled to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the neighboring nations and are still there in huge refugee camps, tens of thousands of people. All of a sudden we in Sweden now have so many Jesus loving on fire for God, former Muslim Afghanis

Speaker 7 (00:48:03):
That

Pastor Joakim (00:48:03):
We could send into the refugee camps to preach in their own language to their own people about the gospel of Jesus. So you just have to pinch yourself basically.

David (00:48:13):
Yeah, totally.

Pastor Joakim (00:48:14):
But back to your original question, we had long talks. So we had many people with strong opinions about whether or not now with all these people, all these Arabs, all these former Muslims, whether we should tone down Israel, the element of Israel, because that could backfire really, really bad. But we just came to the conclusion that us blessing Israel is the reason for God blessing us. We don’t have a right of choice. We don’t have

David (00:48:47):
A choice, but there’s a consequence.

Pastor Joakim (00:48:49):
Exactly. Exactly. So say we can’t cut off the source of blessing. That’s been, I believe, one of the main sources of blessing upon our church throughout the decades. If we were cut that off now, God might take his hand away. I dunno. So instead we saw that these former Muslims came to us, they had no problem. I don’t think we ever had a serious issue with us standing for Israel. And I mean we pray, we bless Israel every single Sunday service. We have a prayer for our nation, for our city, for Israel, for the unborn. We name a few issues and Israel is always there. And that we thought it would be a greater problem.

Speaker 7 (00:49:40):
But

Pastor Joakim (00:49:41):
It was just like when the spirit of God moved into all these hearts, that was not an issue or not the kind of issue we thought it would be.

David (00:49:50):
Yeah, I’ve heard it said before that when Yeshua, Jesus comes into the heart of a Muslim, there’s two miracles that happen. The first is that they receive Jesus in understanding who God is. The second miracle is they get this love for Israel, which is completely a 180 from what their flesh had lived in for

Speaker 5 (00:50:15):
Years.

David (00:50:16):
Why do I care about them? Why do I have this love for them? And some people can’t explain it, or some people I think I’m sure you’ve experienced, see dreams of Jesus and he’s Jewish and he’s so Jewish and he’ll say Jewish things or he’ll ask them to pray for his people. Stories like that.

Pastor Joakim (00:50:38):
We’ve heard so many of those testimonies from the Middle East about Jesus appearing in dreams and visions, but then when all these Muslims came to Sweden, it happened to them in our old neighborhood. It kept happening to

David (00:50:52):
Them.

Pastor Joakim (00:50:52):
And I just think this is the love of God for the sons and daughter of Ishmael that he would send his son. I mean, we had Jesus appearing to people

Speaker 7 (00:51:03):
In

Pastor Joakim (00:51:03):
Dreams, ambitions. We had Jesus healing people who didn’t even believe in him yet. And just this incredible manifestations. And I had people being slightly annoyed because I’ve never heard about Jesus appearing to a Swede and all of a sudden he appears to all these Muslims. And yeah, it was just like being on a Holy Spirit rollercoaster because I think we canceled most of our outreaches just to focus on this thing that happened. Yeah,

David (00:51:35):
The need.

Pastor Joakim (00:51:37):
But I just thank God today that we did and the result and yeah, it’s been special.

David (00:51:45):
Well, thank you for sharing because that’s such a unique story of really God just showing up like you said for Ishmael. And when I read that passage, what stuck out to me last time I read that story is when Hagar puts Ishmael a bow shot away, she doesn’t want to hear her baby die. God says, I’ve heard the cry of Ishmael. I’ve heard his cry. So he still hears the cry of Ishmael today, whether it’s in escaping or fleeing a nation or whether it’s just the prayers for God, you need to show me who you are. I’m not getting answers. I’m not feeling connected to you. So as we leave here, I know you also have a huge burden for the next generation, and that is the generation right now. It’s the under thirties generation, which is the most anti-Israel population in America.

Speaker 5 (00:52:39):
Right.

David (00:52:40):
So what would you say is just a kind of parting thought to them? We are here at Gateway, I work at the Center for Israel, but I totally understand the tension. You’re looking at pictures of Gaza, you’re looking at pictures of children and the horrific imbalance, it can look these tanks and soldiers and these people that are just in these villages with nothing. So I mean, what do we do? What am I supposed to do as a believer across the ocean? Is there really anything I can do? You’ve talked about, we don’t need to just blindly support every political decision, but what do I actually do?

Pastor Joakim (00:53:22):
If I could give one advice, anyone, especially young people, just go there, just get yourself to Israel as soon as it’s safe enough.

David (00:53:36):
We’re actually building a young adult trip for this coming November.

Pastor Joakim (00:53:40):
That’s incredible because my perspective of Israel changed completely. First time I got to see Israel, and I always tell, especially young people going to Israel is reading the Bible in color. It’s going to change your perspective. It’s going to change your perspective on the word of God, change your perspective on life and ministry of Jesus. But it’s also going to change your perspective on the country itself and their history and their situation of being surrounded by all these nations that wouldn’t want anything more than to see them dead and gone from the face of the

Speaker 7 (00:54:24):
Earth.

Pastor Joakim (00:54:26):
And even though my heart aches and it really does by seeing the civilian casualties and the suffering of this war right now in Israel back on October 7th and in Gaza now, and I’m not belittling that in any way, but you also have to step back a little bit and understand the reality that Israel has been in for all these decades. I have an app on my phone that sends warnings as soon as there’s rockets launched into Israel. And just to imagine living in a country that is constantly under physical fire from enemies, from Hamas, from Hezbollah, from all these different nations, that it is not like a war just

Speaker 7 (00:55:19):
Started.

Pastor Joakim (00:55:20):
The war has been going on for decades, and the claim is from the river to the sea. It’s all about Israel’s. It’s completely

David (00:55:29):
Done.

Pastor Joakim (00:55:31):
And when you come to Israel, you get another reality regarding that. But I’m not primarily calling you to go to Israel for political reasons, but there’s a TV show called Who Do You Think You Are? I love that show. There’s a US version, but in the UK it’s super popular. So really it’s about genealogy. So they take all these celebrities who might know their father and their grandfather, but don’t know anything beyond that, and they help them to go on a journey

Speaker 5 (00:56:04):
Of

Pastor Joakim (00:56:04):
Their ancestors and find out who they were and so on and so forth. But I love the title of it. Who do you think you are?

David (00:56:11):
Yeah, totally. It’s

Pastor Joakim (00:56:12):
Great because really you could ask a lot of Christians that,

David (00:56:16):
Who

Pastor Joakim (00:56:16):
Do you think you are? Basically the title implies that if you don’t understand your roots, if you don’t understand where you come from, that will mess up your identity, that will give you a life more shallow.

David (00:56:28):
And you might think you are something that you’re

Pastor Joakim (00:56:30):
Not. Exactly who do you think you are? But only when we get in touch with our roots, with Israel, with the Jewish people, will our lives fully come into perspective, into balance. So I’ve taken it upon myself. I did back home in my church to try to constantly bring down the average age of every single Israel trip we did. We used to do one a few years back. We used to do an annual Israel trip, but also annual Israel services in our church or repeated Israel service. But I just noted that every single time we were doing something about Israel, the average age of the participants went up slightly tend to be an older crowd. Then what we normally did, and that bothered me, I want to introduce the young generation to Israel. So the last trip we did now from World of Life to Israel, actually, we had 500 young people and it was the best one we’d ever done. And it was so great. It was amazing. We did a whole lot of stuff to kind of make this trip attractive. So for example, well where Gideon’s army was reduced from 3000 to 300,

(00:57:52):
That well is still there. The water comes out of the

David (00:57:54):
Mountain.

Pastor Joakim (00:57:55):
And so National Park now. So we rented that and we had our light and sound guys rig the whole area for like 24 hours. And then we had a nighttime illustrated message of the life of Gideon.

Speaker 7 (00:58:09):
And

Pastor Joakim (00:58:09):
I was waiting around in the water and we had narrated voices and lights and effects and everything, and 500 young people heard the story of Gideon at the place where this actually happened.

David (00:58:19):
Yeah, it’s crazy.

Pastor Joakim (00:58:20):
So we did a lot of that. But my heart really, and my burden is just to, God spoke to me once. He said, just get them to Israel and I will do the rest. And that’s really my motto. Just go there. Just see it with your own eyes. Don’t believe everything the media will tell you, but just go there and God will meet you

Speaker 7 (00:58:45):
There.

Pastor Joakim (00:58:46):
It’s the most fascinating place on earth. And I mean we’re going to go there sooner or later, so you might as well go

David (00:58:54):
Get used

Pastor Joakim (00:58:55):
To it before Jesus comes. So you’ll find your way around.

David (00:58:57):
Yeah. Want to be the new guy asking for directions.

Pastor Joakim (00:59:01):
But I mean, normally we will go to one site, right? We will go to somewhere famous and then we’ll see the site and then we’ll go from there. But Israel is like, oh man, to say a museum would be to belittle it. But it’s like,

David (00:59:20):
Yes, Bible coming to

Pastor Joakim (00:59:21):
Life the most amazing tiny little spot in the world, and it’s so full of the presence of God. You know what? You can have all kinds of opinions about whether or not there are holy places in New Testament Christianity. We know there were back in the Old Testament.

David (00:59:44):
Yeah, totally.

Pastor Joakim (00:59:44):
Now you could say that we are the holy places, spirit lives in us. But still, Peter in his letter, referred to Mount Tabor as the Holy Mountain where we saw him. I do think that spiritually there are places that are saturated by the presence of God, maybe sometimes honoring sacrifices that were made, martyrs that gave their lives. And I felt that presence. I went to John Wesley’s house in London and I walked into his little prayer room and I felt the presence of God just honoring the man of God who went up every morning at 4:00 AM to pray for three hours and met with God inside that room. But when I go to Israel, I feel that all over the country, God’s blessing, God’s hand, God’s calling that we need to connect to. That’s so good.

David (01:00:39):
Well, thank you for sharing your story, your passion, your burden, and giving us some things that we can do. And what I would say is the first step is pray

Speaker 5 (01:00:49):
Because

David (01:00:50):
We’re going to say trips. We’re going to take trips. But like you said, it’s understanding the heart too. And I would just love for you to pray as we close and maybe take us through when you pray, like you said at your church, for the unborn and for the nation, but always for Israel. Just pray a prayer that we can kind emulate. What do we pray when we’re saying Pray for Israel? Bless Israel. What does that mean? So I’d love for you as we close, just to say a prayer and we’ll just pray with you and learn from you as someone who’s like when you started your church two weeks ahead, now you’re further ahead and we That’s right. We can follow in your footsteps.

Pastor Joakim (01:01:32):
Sure, sure. I’d love to. Father, we come before you and we acknowledge that you are the God of Israel

(01:01:40):
And you are also the God of this world. Father, we thank you so much for your love that is never ending, and your covenant that is never ending. Thank you for not having let go of Israel. You have called them with an eternal calling just as you have us, but a different calling. And Lord, we just pray that we will see clearly that we don’t have to understand everything, but we can just attach our hearts to your great plan of salvation. And Father, we just want to take this opportunity to bless Israel and bless the Jewish people. We pray for their calling. We pray for everything you planned for them to come into fulfillment in your time, Lord. At the same time, we pray for the Arabs, we pray for the Muslims we pray for mighty awakenings and revivals. Lord, we pray for visitations of Jesus Christ in visions and dreams that is already happening all Middle East.

(01:02:41):
We pray for an end to this war. Father, we pray that your hand will be upon the present situation and all the humans suffering and we pray you will be done and your kingdom come. Father, especially, I want to pray for every young person who might be listening right now. I pray that you will just enlight their hearts and give them a revelation that does not necessarily mean they have to understand everything in detail, but they will just understand and accept that you are the God of Israel and your calling and your covenant is eternal and that there is a great reward with blessing. Whatever you bless. So Father, we want to bless Israel. We want to bless Jerusalem. We’ll bless the Jewish people and we pray your kingdom come, you will be done and we pray that the name of Jesus will shine brightly all over the Middle East. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen. Amen.

David (01:03:39):
That’s all we have for this episode, but make sure to check out some of our other teachings or other episodes. If you have questions, you can reach out to us. We’d love to help you understand Israel and the Jewish people, and we’ll see you next time.