We have about nine minutes for this answer. Then we’re going to take a break. So I’m going to kind of put it together. One, what does it mean when we say stand for Israel? Because you’ll see that people (Christians) say, “Hey, stand for Israel” or whatever. There is the whole statement of “From the river to the sea, we stand for Israel.” But is there any takeout? The terrorist groups, just Palestinians (There are Palestinian Christians. I have friends that are Palestinian Christians.) Is there any validity to – Are they in bondage? When someone says they need to be free, are they being contained? What’s the validity of that? So stand with Israel, the validity of do they need freedom, and then three: How do we love both? We’re standing for Israel, but Jesus died for them. And we have Palestinian Arab brothers and sisters.
Those are difficult, and this is where the tension enters in. And I think that the Lord wants us to live in the tension because we love all people. We really do, right? If we’re followers of Jesus. God loves all people. Now, God is not a Democrat and he’s not democratic, and he decided to make a choice, and he decided to make some moves that might not even logically make sense to us. Why did he choose? He even told the Jewish people, I’m not choosing you because you’re better or greater or the largest number. I’m choosing you because I love you. So I think at the end of the day, we all have to get really comfortable with the fact that if we believe in the validity of scripture and we align ourselves to the authority of the God of Israel and the God of the Bible, Jesus, his son, we are going to be marginal and we are going to be on the side of some things that to most people, it makes no sense.
It doesn’t make sense: Why would God choose them and not me? That’s why it’s called the scandal of particularity, because it feels scandalous that God isn’t sort of this democratic being. He doesn’t do things based on merit. But thank God! All of us in our own lives, God chose us and we have done a lot to not deserve that. But it’s weird. When we extrapolate it out to more of a universal picture, it offends us a little bit and we have to live with that tension. Ask God to sift it out of your heart. But you do have the ability to love both people.
By loving the Jewish people, I’m not lowering the value of Arab people, and you shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t communicate in a way, you shouldn’t talk about them in a way, that lowers their value just so you can elevate the value of the Jewish people. That’s not godly, that’s not biblical. The biblical is just saying, I love both people, but God made a choice and it’s controversial. I get it. But this was his choice and I love him, and I love the things he loves. So we have to be compassionate and we have to sort through the tension of it all because there are intertwined in all of this real spiritual forces at work – anti-Christ forces. The spirit that is channeling through Hamas and Hezbollah and these other militant Islamic groups is anti-Messiah. It’s anti-Christ. It is anti-life. It’s anti-democracy. It’s anti-freedom.
So when people say they stand with Israel, what are they saying? They’re saying, I stand with the group of people who should have the freedom to live their lives peacefully in a democratic way that serves them and their civilians with safety. That’s what I stand with Israel means. It doesn’t mean that you don’t stand with Arab people. It just means I stand with the Jewish people to have the right to defend themselves and not die. And the former prime minister of Israel, Golden Maier, said that we will have peace when the Arabs love peace, when they love their children more than they hate us. That’s what she said. And that is what Hamas is seeding into the minds of Palestinians and seeding into the minds of the Arab world is a hatred for the Jewish people and for the God of Israel and for his ways on earth. And so it’s affecting everybody. So we do pray that they would be liberated from it because the kingdom can’t come in the Arab world until that’s broken, that spiritual bondage is broken.
I’ll say something that Nick taught me, I’m going to stand. So when you say stand for Israel, what does that mean? Well, first thing is we have to stand on a solid foundation. If it’s muddy, if it’s quicksand, we’re not standing anymore. We’re not strong. So what are we standing on? We stand on God’s word. So what does God say about – that should be the first thing we do. If there’s an issue that comes up, what does God’s word say about that? The second thing that we do is we stand balanced, right? I don’t stand on one foot because I can be easily thrown off balance. I stand on both feet, which means I can see that there’s a tension here. As Nick said, we have to learn live in the tension. I’m reminded Israel means to wrestle, and our culture wants us to go to one extreme, either pro-Palestine or pro-Israel.
And we do this in a lot of different frictions. I think of the LGBTQ argument. You have some people that are like, no, no, we just need to fully love and don’t only talk about what God’s word says. We just need to love, love, love, love, love. And you’re like, but where’s the truth? And then you have other people that are like, no, no, no. We just need to tell ’em the truth and just tell ’em God’s word. And you’re like, wait, where’s the love? And it’s hard to live in the tension, but we’re called to live there, and so we have to stand balanced knowing, okay, yes, God chose Israel, but that doesn’t mean everything Israel does is right. You can see that very clearly in the Hebrew scriptures. Very often the Israelites are not doing the right thing, and we also have a call to live in justice. And if the Israelis are doing something that is causing injustice of the Palestinians, then we as believers need to say, that’s wrong. I stand with Israel, but that’s wrong. That’s the balance. That’s the tension. Then last thing is we need to be able to stand firm, which they teach you this one. Not like this, but like this, right? Because I’m firm knowing that culture is going to try to drag me to one side, but I’m not going to drag. I’m not going to be dragged to one side. I’m going to live right here on God’s Word firm and balanced.
