Should Christians Support Israel?
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With a lot of turmoil occurring in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine, many Christians have found themselves wondering how to interpret everything. In this episode, Harrison and Pastor Tim share their insights on the Christian response to this conflict, as well as how we should view Israel and the Jewish people from a spiritual perspective.
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- Yeah, I think there's a demonic agenda that is present that is you know wanting to You know take
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- Islam, you know This wild donkey of a man whose hand is against everyone kind of thing and and insistently praise them to our doom, right?
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- So I think I think there's obviously agendas on that side too on the side of left but then on the right we combat that with hey, like well
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- Israel is just like You know, they're just like us They're just Christians like us and we're all on the same side and we're on the side of the
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- Saints and God and then you know, they're on the side of the devil and it's like but what's actually happening is the
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- Jews are on the side of the devil right now and The Muslims are on the side of it devil right now Morning, the following message may be offensive to some audiences
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- Welcome to Bible Bash where we aim to equip the Saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.
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- We're your hosts Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett and today we'll answer the age -old question, should
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- Christians support Israel? Now, you know, obviously I think everyone who's listening to this has probably seen the news that's been going on in the
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- Middle East and you know, it's certainly not, as far as I can remember, it's certainly not a new phenomenon to see violence in the
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- Middle East, right? Tim, has that been your experience throughout your life? Tim Larkin I mean, it seems to be a constant, you know, immutable.
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- Yeah, it seems to be like, I mean, they're just, everyone over there is constantly fighting with each other in a way that, you know, it just doesn't seem to be the case in a lot of other places around the world.
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- You know, the Middle East seems to be probably like one of the most, if not the most violent places to live.
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- And unfortunately, right now you're seeing a lot of, you know, videos and pictures and stuff coming out of Israel right now, where you see, you know, civilians being, you know, captured, being tortured, being murdered, and other worse things even.
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- And so there's been a lot of spirited debate, we'll call it, over how people should respond to this.
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- And, you know, I've got to admit, Tim, that I myself have been a little confused in terms of what exactly
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- I think, just because I feel like I can see, personally,
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- I can see no, you know, distinguishable sort of like groups being formed over this.
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- It just kind of feels like, you know, some of the people that I normally disagree with take this position, and some of the people that I normally disagree with take this other position.
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- And then the same thing for the people that I normally do agree with. I feel like I've seen people that I normally do agree with on both sides of this issue when it comes to Israel and Palestine.
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- And so, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of Christians out there who are looking at all of this and they're saying, hey,
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- I don't really know what to think about all this. I don't know, I don't have any sort of theological implication either way.
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- Maybe a lot of them have some kind of like, hey, I don't want innocents to be murdered, right?
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- So I would like that to stop. But then beyond that, you know,
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- I'm sure there's a lot of people who just don't have a whole lot to go off of here. And so,
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- Tim, you know, when it comes to this question, should Christians support Israel, is there a biblical case one way or the other?
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- You know, is there a right or a wrong answer? I'm sure there is, but, you know, what would you say to answer that question?
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- I guess, you know, at the start, you probably need to define what it means to, you know, support Israel. And I mean, that's…
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- At least $6 billion in aid, I'd say, as a starting point, as a starting point.
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- Yeah, when people, I think we've probably already given them that much at this point.
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- But yeah, no, I think in general, when people say that phrase, it really, it's kind of like a meaningless phrase in general.
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- So, I mean, it was the kind of thing that people said as it relates to Ukraine and Russia.
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- So you could see people on social media basically posting their, I stand with Ukraine kind of thing or putting the
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- Ukrainian flag in their profile picture or whatever. And that helps win the war, man. I know you don't think it does, but that,
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- I mean, that's scaring Russia off when you put that bi -colored flag in your name, in your bio on Twitter.
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- It is very intimidating, for sure, to the Russians. I think when normal people are using this kind of language, it essentially amounts to something along the lines of I'm rooting for them, like they're my college football team or something like that.
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- Yeah. To say I stand with Ukraine, I think it's about that significant of a statement to say that you're treating -
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- I stand with Alabama and they stand with Ukraine. Yeah, they do. It's about the same kind of thing.
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- It's like, hey, you're watching the game and then you're rooting for, you've picked a side. And the decision that you made at that point is about as meaningful as all that.
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- It's basically saying, yeah, I'm going for them, man. I hope they win. And I think it doesn't really mean much more than that when people are saying that.
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- Now, when you're saying it, like should the United States stand with Ukraine, and that may mean like send them aid in that way, like send them tanks, send them weapons, possibly boots on the ground, that kind of thing.
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- So I guess these words are being used in different ways.
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- But then I think when the standard Christian is using it, they're probably just using it in about as trivial way of that.
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- And then when the pagan is using it, I mean, it may mean something along the lines of thoughts in,
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- I'm sending them thoughts or something like that. You're sending good vibes. Good vibes and thoughts, which is like the secular, materialistic version of prayer to where they're sending their material thoughts out into the void.
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- We're vibing for Israel. Vibing for Israel. So I'm getting myself all emotionally worked up for you and invested in your outcome, but it's about as meaningless as that.
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- So I mean, when you're talking about should Christians stand with Ukraine, I think a lot of what you see happening on social media basically reduces to that.
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- I mean, it basically reduces to whose side are you going for in the competition. And related to that, then
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- I mean, if you're thinking about it along those lines, then it really is an interesting question because it really is the kind of thing that Christians have unthinkingly viewed the
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- Jews, viewed Israel as quasi -Christians.
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- I don't know how to put it, this whole idea of there being this Judeo -Christian worldview where Jews are basically just the same as us because we both believe in the
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- Old Testament or something along those lines, and then we basically share the same values and the same convictions.
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- And then I think for many people, like, Christians kind of unthinkingly view the
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- Jews in that kind of way as if they're almost quasi -Christians or almost there or something, you know?
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- So then there's like this special sense in which we should be for them over and against for, you know, any other country in particular.
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- Any enemy of Israel or something like that. Jared Yeah, and a lot of that is based on a dispensational reading of the
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- Abrahamic Covenant. So the idea of the Abrahamic Covenant is that God made a covenant with Israel, and the conditions of those covenants are that He would bless those who bless them, and to those who dishonor them,
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- He would curse. So under the terms of the Old Covenant, if you were for Israel, you supported
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- Israel under the Old Covenant, there were blessings that came from that. So if you were Israel's ally, you would receive blessings.
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- If you became their enemy, there were curses that God would enact upon you over and against that kind of decision.
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- And a lot of that, I think, has influenced American foreign policy over the past 60, 70 years, post -World
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- War II. I mean, a lot of Americans just think that way. They're, you know, step one, they're God's chosen people, and then in the back of their mind, there's this idea that there's this
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- Abrahamic Covenant, and so you need to be nice to the Jews. And then a lot of America's prosperity as a nation has been reduced to that, in the minds of many people, particularly if they're dispensational -minded.
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- Meaning, God has blessed America because we have been pro -Israel, and we've helped
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- Israel, we've been Israel's ally, and we've supported them. And so they're thinking about it along those terms, in terms of the
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- Abrahamic Covenant in that way. But then part of the problem is that Israel broke the Abrahamic Covenant, and God's made a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Jacob.
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- Not like the old covenant, which they broke, right? So God made a new covenant, and now this new covenant has been enacted in Jesus' blood, and the
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- Jews have been broken off of the olive tree, right? They've been broken off the tree, and Gentiles, like the unbelieving
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- Jews, have been broken off, and Gentiles have been grafted in, and now the Gentiles are heirs according to the promises made to Abraham.
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- So under the terms of the new covenant, Christians, whoever they happen to be,
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- Christ -followers, whether they're a Jewish Christ -follower or a Gentile Christ -follower, at that point, they're the recipients of the promises made to Abraham.
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- And God will bless those who bless Christians, and He will curse those who curse Him. And America's success is not founded in their, basically, support and good vibes and happy feelings towards the ethnic nation
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- Israel at this point. I mean, God's blessed America because it had a Christian foundation and because of their relationship to the new covenant and to Christ in that way.
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- So the issue is the covenantal issues are no longer the same anymore, and you have a lot of people who are basically looking at Israel and saying, hey, we better be nice to Him so that God will do us a favor or something.
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- And that whole structure is wrong, the whole structure is off. Now, but then that,
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- I guess that structure is causing Christians to just give this unthinking kind of allegiance and loyalty to Israel in the hopes of, for the common man, the hope is that you'll get some kind of kickbacks from doing that or something along those lines.
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- But then you have to realize that as you read through Romans 11, I mean, there's a lot that's said as it relates to this topic.
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- And obviously, like Israel, like the Jews, they put Jesus to death and they put as many
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- Christians to death as they could during the early years in that way. Pete Yeah, Paul was like one of the,
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- Paul murdered Christians before he became one. Like, I mean, they were going after the church.
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- That's a big deal that we shouldn't just sweep under the rug, right? Jared Right, right. And so now like the
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- Jews have become our enemies for the sake of the gospel, right? But then related to the covenant, there's still the sense in which they're beloved, in terms of the promises made in the old covenant and everything else.
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- But I mean, as it relates to the new covenant, they're enemies, right? So they're not only our enemies, they're enemies of Christ.
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- And what's really weird is this is one of those subjects where the ADL will come after you real quick if you don't just basically praise
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- Israel and pretend as if we're basically fundamentally the same in certain ways. And so if you say, hey, unbelieving
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- Jews right now, they're under a curse. They're not under God's blessing. They're under a curse. And then they're our enemies, according to the truth, right?
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- If you say that, then instantaneously, people just get really nervous and they get really weird and they feel like you're saying something anti -Semitic in that way.
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- Because anti -Semitic basically means not incessantly praising
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- Jews today and excusing anything that they do that way.
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- But then part of the problem is, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot of problems. Like they're not related to Christ in any way.
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- They've rejected their Messiah. Their form of Judaism right now is unrecognizable in terms of what
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- God commanded in the old covenant even. Like it's a totally different thing. And so then right now they're hostile to God, they're hostile to gospel, they're hostile to truth, they're hostile to Christians.
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- And, you know, I don't know that we should just unthinkingly say, I'm going to take their side in any conflict that happens as if it isn't possible that unbelieving people can do unbelieving things, okay?
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- Pete Right, yeah. You know, it's funny you mentioned that too, because I didn't think about, something you said made me think about this.
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- There, a while back, I remember I, you know, online, I had people who
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- I'd never met before calling me anti -Semitic just because I think
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- I was talking about the Pharisees in the New Testament and, you know, how
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- Jesus constantly called them out, how Jesus treated the Pharisees, how he interacted with them.
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- You know, essentially boiling down to like, hey, the Pharisees oftentimes in the
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- Gospels are the bad guys, right? And these are Jews.
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- They're the bad guys. They're the ones opposing Jesus. They're the ones who are, you know, lusting for as much power as possible, putting all of the burdens on the weak and on the poor instead of on themselves, seeking all the glory for themselves.
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- In every way, they're presented as the bad guys, you know, in the Gospel, or at least, you know,
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- I mean, one of the bad guys. I guess you could consider Satan the bad guy in the
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- Gospels, but, you know, and I had, I'd never heard of these people before, but I had the trans -Jewish community coming after me for saying that the
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- Pharisees were the bad guys in the Gospel. They were doing terrible things, and they're accusing me of being a
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- Jew -hater because I said what the Gospels already plainly teach us, you know, about the way the
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- Jews treated Jesus, and I just thought, like, this is so weird. I can't even say something that is plainly obvious in the scriptures because without fear of being called, you know, a
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- Jew -hater. Anti -Semite, yeah. Well, I mean, it is bizarre. Yeah, it is bizarre. I mean, there's a lot of, like, um…
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- Pete And it was trans -Jewish people, too. Like, I don't even know,
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- I was trying, in my head, I was trying to give some sort of think the best of Jewish people by assuming that this must be an incredibly vocal minority in the
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- Jewish community. Hopefully, this is not, like, a good representation of Jews in general, you know, the transvestite
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- Jews. I'd never even heard of that group before, honestly. Jared I mean, I think the issue is, like, one of the things that's happening at this point is that there's a weird game that's being played.
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- I mean, and you can see accounts like this online. You can see accounts that are just anti -Jews, like, just almost portraying
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- Jews as paragons of wickedness or something like that over everything else. And then you have all the predictable voices who are the respectable evangelical types who are coming along and basically just saying anti -Semitism is a problem and, you know, we need to be on Israel's side.
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- Then part of the issue is, I don't think that Jews are uniquely sinful as a class of people or something like that, but the error on the other side is to almost pretend, like, because this idea of, you know, this
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- Judeo -Christian worldview or something like that, pretend as if that they're morally neutral and everyone else is uniquely sinful.
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- But then part of the problem is that, yeah, I mean, Jews, apart from Christ, like, unbelieving
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- Jews, they're totally depraved just like unbelieving, you know, Hamas is totally depraved, just like every single, you know, ethnic group that doesn't embrace
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- God as a whole is totally depraved, okay? And they're actually uniquely hostile to God too as a group, right?
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- There's obviously Messianic Jews today too, but as a group, they're still hostile to God.
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- They're enemies of Christians for the sake of the gospel. So, they're not, I mean, you can't just look at them and say, hey, they're somehow free from sin nature and they share our values and they're just like us and everything else.
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- I mean, you look at the festival and the things like that, like, the degeneracy that you see, like, they're, you know, there's obviously a lot of Jews that are in Hollywood putting out the filth that they're putting out.
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- They're not on Christ's team. They're not on our team. We're not on the same side, you know? Well, it's like, it's like, take that, take the same, you know, take the same thought process.
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- Hey, we need to support Israel almost no matter what. And then, you know, read through the
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- Old Testament and try to apply that same logic, you know? Like, hey,
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- David, you know, he tries to take Uriah's wife as his own. Well, I don't want to be in support of that.
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- That's adultery. Oh, do you hate Jews? Yeah, like, just apply that over and over again, you know?
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- And I'm not saying that the Israelites never did anything right in the Old Testament. I'm just saying they did a lot of really wrong stuff and that you shouldn't support.
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- Yeah, I mean, they killed the prophets. They killed Jesus, like, and they're hostile to him. Now, a good example of how, like, a good example of someone, like a person that we respect who seems to get caught up in this thing that we're talking about would be
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- Justin Peters here. So, like, he's linking to a video of 100
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- Israelis killed in a Hamas attack or whatever. And this is what he says. He says, this is not normal human animosity.
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- The hatred Hamas and his supporters and enablers, a few of whom are in the U .S. Congress, have towards the
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- Jewish people is a demonic hatred. This level of barbarism and degeneracy is nothing short of demonic.
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- Satan and his fellow angels know the scriptures. They know God has a plan for Israel, and they hate it. They know they're doomed, sure, and it is.
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- But then, see, the problem with that kind of thing is it's like there's no, like, no one occupies the moral high ground at this point here, you know?
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- Now, I'm not trying to say that the Jews necessarily are a terrorist organization like Hamas or something like that.
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- I'm not trying to adopt a moral equivalency. But then I don't want to paint the Jews as if they're innocent victims, free from a sin nature who, like, it couldn't be possible that they're doing anything wrong, right?
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- And then, like, they're– So you don't want to put them in the same category as Christians currently, meaning, like, they're currently enemies of God.
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- They're not currently under God's blessing. They're under God's curse. And they've been experiencing the curse of God for the past 2 ,000 years.
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- That's what they've been experiencing. So they've been experiencing the curse of God. And, like, not all of that is just, like, they're just being persecuted unjustly.
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- Just like Peter says, like, you're, you know, let no one suffer, essentially, like, as an unjust person, right?
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- So, like, the issue here is just to say that it's not as if this is just like, okay, there are allies.
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- They're God's people, you know, period, the end. All of the persecution that they're experiencing is totally unjust or something like that.
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- A lot of it's self -inflicted. A lot of it's the result of them rejecting their Messiah. And a lot of what they're doing is evil currently and bad currently.
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- And it's not just that, like, anyone who's against Israel was just demonic. God actually is judging them actually right now in all the ways that he's judging them.
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- It's not, like, as if God has a plan right now to bless them. But then if you read that Justin Peters tweet, you would think that God's plan right now, currently in the moment, is, like, they're his people that he's blessing right now, right?
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- They're his people right now that he's blessing, that he has a plan for, and that anyone who is doing anything bad to them is demonic and hateful.
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- And I mean, you know, even, like, Owen, you know, Strand or whatever his name is, however you pronounce that, you know, amen,
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- JP, good moral clarity here, appreciate your voice very much. And so, I mean, it's just like, hey, I think this is a little more complicated than that, but I don't know that you're allowed to say it because people are so primed to just unthinkingly take any kind of, hey,
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- I don't know that we should just be enthusiastically in favor of everything that Israel does because they're doing a lot of bad stuff, too, because they're unbelievers, because they're hostile to Christ, and they've been doing a lot of bad stuff for past 2 ,000 years.
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- I don't know that we can just unquestioningly support them and look the other way with everything that they're doing and keep on giving them resources and money and, you know, favor and kindness and call them our allies.
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- I mean, in a certain sense, I mean, they hate the gospel just as much as they hate as any unbeliever does, you know?
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- They're not on our team right now, okay? They can become on our team if they return to Christ, and you know, you can read through Romans 11 and it seems like there's some indication at the end of the age that they probably will in mass come to Christ, but until then, they're enemies for the sake of the gospel.
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- That's literally what Romans 11 says. And so, that doesn't mean that we have to have a unique kind of prejudice against them, but then that doesn't mean that we need to have just this unthinking kind of,
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- I'm on your side and anything you do is right and, you know, I'm going to look the other way and look at everything you do in the best possible light.
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- That's just not the way it works. I mean, they're anti -God. I mean, they're some of the most aggressive pushers of all this homosexual agenda, all this sodomy, all the sexual confusion, all the sexual immorality out there.
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- I mean, they're, in a lot of sense, the individuals, you know, who are at the least, at the very least, you know, actively involved in those kind of agendas.
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- So, I don't know that we're on the, we operate the moral high ground just saying I'm on their team no matter what they do and anytime anyone is acting against them, those are demonic forces coming against, you know,
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- God's purposes and God's plans. It's like, no, he has a plan right now to judge them. They're under his judgment. They've been under his judgment for the past 2 ,000 years and they'll continue to be until they come to Christ and maybe our message to them should be repent and come to Christ, the
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- Messiah you've rejected. Maybe that should be the thrust of our message and maybe there's a way to say that it doesn't feel like it's filled with personal animus or something like that, which,
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- I mean, I don't, we've never even said anything about this on the podcast. I don't know that anyone could accuse us of having, you know, a deep -seated personal animus against them or something along those lines, but they probably will.
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- Petey Right. Yeah, I mean, if you can just, you know, say what the Bible plainly says in the
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- Gospels about the Pharisees and be called a Jew hater, you know, an anti -Semite, then pretty much,
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- I think pretty much anything that you say, if it can even be perceived as against Israel, people are going to come out and just call you something like that just because it's like a,
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- I mean, it's just a low -hanging fruit basically, you know, to call someone that, but I was going to ask, that was one thing
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- I was going to ask you is, you know, because we're saying, hey, maybe we should slow down here and not just immediately jump to Israel's defense every time no matter what they do and blindly support them no matter what they do, you know, does that mean that we,
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- I mean, this is going to feel like a silly question for you to have to answer probably, but does that mean that we should actively be supporting, you know,
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- Hamas attacks and, you know, praising them endlessly for their ruthless bloodlust?
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- Jared I mean, there certainly is an agenda on the other side and I mean, that seems like, you think about the
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- Obama administration and the agenda they've had for the past, I mean, you know, the
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- Obama -Biden agenda which is probably Obama behind the scenes or whatever, because Biden's out of it, you know, so,
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- I mean, I think that there's, I mean, there's obviously like a pretty big agenda on this other side to where,
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- I mean, it seems like Biden just gave like, you know, billions of dollars in military equipment that is now being used against Israel at this very moment in his, you know, withdrawal from the
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- Middle East and so, I mean, I don't, I don't pretend like there aren't on the other side, so what's happening is this is like, you know, polarized politically, so on the left side you have this like mindless, insane kind of support of terrorists, you know, to where,
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- I mean, you have like terrorist attacks in America post 9 -11 or whatever where the guy is shouting
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- Alu Akbar or whatever and holding the severed beheaded head of, you know, the person that they've beheaded in America, you know, in the middle of, in the middle of the sidewalk or whatever and, you know, they're not, they don't even say it's a terrorist, you know, at that point because they don't want to be accused of Islamophobia or whatever, right?
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- So, I mean, there's obviously this just, I mean, I would, yeah, I think there's a demonic agenda that is present that is, you know, wanting to, you know, take
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- Islam, you know, this wild donkey of a man whose hand is against everyone kind of thing and insistently praise them to our doom, right?
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- So, I think there's obviously agendas on that side too, on the side of left, but then on the right we combat that with, hey, like, well,
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- Israel is just like, you know, they're just like us, they're just Christians like us and we're all on the same side and we're on the side of the saints and God and then, you know, they're on the side of the devil and it's like, but what's actually happening is the
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- Jews are on the side of the devil right now and the Muslims are on the side of the devil right now and, I mean, I think that the, in different ways they're both doing harm, you know?
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- So, I mean, I don't see a lot of videos of, you know, Jews doing the same kind of thing as the terrorists are, but then,
- 29:36
- I mean, they're doing, I mean, you can, you can look up, you can see, like, they're doing evil things.
- 29:43
- Just look at social media and they're doing pretty evil things to their prisoners and stuff like that that are not really good to mention, you know?
- 29:52
- So, I mean, I, I, I, but, but they're obviously not an active terrorist group who, in the same kind of way, but,
- 29:57
- I mean, I do think that they're exercising, the Jews are exercising, say, botanic influence over the world systems to a disproportionate degree comparison to their size, meaning, like, they do have a lot of influence in the banking system and they have a lot of influence in media and entertainment, and they're running
- 30:15
- Satan's playbook that way right now because they're enemies of God, and then, you know, you have, like, you know, these terrorist organizations like Hamas who are running his agenda in other ways, and so, you know,
- 30:26
- I mean, I think you have to think, like, if you're not a Christian, you're, you're on Satan's team, you're sons of the devil, right?
- 30:33
- Right. I think that's just Bible 101, right? They are of their father devil, like, so, the Jews are of their father devil right now,
- 30:39
- Muslims are of their father devil right now, you know, I think - You just got two brothers fighting. You got two, yeah, and they're, you know, they're spreading their pollution in different ways, both of them, and I mean, certainly,
- 30:51
- I think, you know, a lot of the stuff that Hamas is doing and, you know, the
- 30:58
- Muslim world is doing is, I mean, just, you know, think about some of the videos and stuff that have been coming out and everything else,
- 31:05
- I mean, it's just awful, it's just terrible, the kind of stuff they're doing, and I mean, they're an enemy that must be stopped to, you know, so,
- 31:12
- I mean, but then at the same - so, I don't, you know, the issue is on my end, I don't, I don't know enough about, you know, politics in the
- 31:19
- Middle East to know even what to say about this fight, so to speak, other than, you know, obviously,
- 31:26
- Hamas is an evil that needs to be stopped, you know, and, you know, they're a difficult evil to fight, they're obviously an evil that needs to be stopped, and I don't want them, you know,
- 31:42
- I don't want a bunch of them, you know, living in my neighborhood with me. So, there's obviously that, you know, and I mean, just thinking about the, you know,
- 31:53
- I think the terrorist attacks that are being initiated in Palestine, where they're sending missiles over into Israel and everything else, and the way that they're doing it,
- 32:02
- I don't blame Israel for, you know, responding to that with equal, you know, threats of, you know, military force or whatever else, and so, but I don't actually know enough about the situation to helpfully comment on whose side we should be on, other than I just want to register that it is a little bit weird how
- 32:18
- Christians interact with this kind of subject and the limits of what you're allowed to say, and I think a lot of the kind of things that we have said right now would put us in like a lot of hot water with a lot of people, even though I don't know that we've said anything shocking, you know,
- 32:34
- I don't think I've said, I don't think we've said anything that's just remarkably anti -Semitic or anything else.
- 32:45
- Like, I mean, I think anti -Semitic right now is just this buzzword that basically means you have to unthinkingly praise
- 32:50
- Israel and give them whatever they want, support them, and view them as basically saints or something.
- 32:56
- Pete Well, it's used the same way, like racist and, you know, homophobic, transphobic, bigot, you know, all of these,
- 33:05
- I mean, basically just words that essentially - Jared Have no meaning. Every day they have less and less meaning, you know, overall, and it's certainly one of those words.
- 33:19
- It's probably one of the, it's probably not as common as the other ones are just in terms of, at least in my personal experience, it's probably one, it's not as common as the other ones, but then it is still like a,
- 33:34
- I mean, you get called that for anything, you know, like if you don't blindly support them, it's just like, you must hate
- 33:41
- Jews, you know? It's like, I feel like there's, I feel like there's gotta be a middle ground somewhere in between like endlessly praising them blindly and just totally hating them in every way possible.
- 33:54
- Might as well be Hitler, send them to the camps right now. Jim I think my posture is just, I don't know enough about, am
- 33:59
- I allowed to say I don't know enough about the situation to helpfully comment other than - Pete No, Jim, you're not allowed to say that.
- 34:05
- I don't know enough about the situation to helpfully comment, I don't know to what extent they deserve what they're getting or they're being unjustly treated as far as that's concerned, but then at the same time, it's weird that you're not allowed to say
- 34:19
- I don't know. So, I want to register that it feels very weird. Jim It's weird that you're not even allowed to say, like, it's possible that they could be, you know, facing consequences that are understandable.
- 34:34
- Right. Jared But then they're obviously under the judge, so I want to say I don't know enough about politics in the
- 34:39
- Middle East to know what to think at this point other than I know
- 34:46
- Hamas is bad. Hamas is bad.
- 34:51
- Jared Hamas is bad. I also know that Jews, you know, they hate God, they hate Christ, you know, they're our enemies for the sake of the gospel.
- 35:00
- I also know they're of their father, the devil, currently, and their will is to do his will. So, I know that.
- 35:06
- So, I know that there's no such thing as an unbeliever who, because he happens to be an ethnic
- 35:12
- Jew, has somehow escaped the stain of total depravity and is not hostile to God, not hostile to the purposes.
- 35:20
- So, I know the Jews are hostile to God. Unbelieving Jews, which are most of them, they're hostile to God's purposes right now.
- 35:27
- I don't, you know, I know that Christians shouldn't hold any animosity towards them, right? So, as Romans 11 says, don't get haughty, right, because they were broken off so that we'd be grafted in in their place.
- 35:39
- So, we shouldn't be arrogant or hostile or haughty and think to ourselves that we're special and they're not.
- 35:45
- I'm an undeserving sinner just like everyone else is. So, we're all undeserving sinners, but then those who are not in Christ right now are objects of His wrath, and the
- 35:54
- Jews are experiencing significant judgment of God, and they've experienced it for 2 ,000 years. Our message to them should be repent and believe the gospel in order that you may escape the wrath of God.
- 36:04
- So, there has to be some way for me to say, you're an enemy of Christ, you need to repent and believe the gospel.
- 36:11
- I don't know enough about this politics to even say whatever we should say. Probably we should just let them all sort it out, you know, and let them sort it out on their own, you know, kind of thing.
- 36:21
- I don't know that we should be involving ourself in every dispute that's happened over the world in general, but then,
- 36:29
- I don't know, if there's a way to say that that doesn't make us
- 36:35
- Hitler, then, you know, can we say it? Pete Well, and I think it's helpful to what you said earlier when you were talking about Romans 11, you mentioned that it seems like the passage is saying that, you know, eventually one day they will return to Christ, right?
- 36:56
- They'll recognize that He was the Messiah, but then, until they do that, they're not brothers.
- 37:03
- Jared We're not on the same team, we're not. Pete Yeah, like, they are enemies of Christ.
- 37:08
- Until they come back to Christ, they are enemies of Christ. That's how it works. That's how it works for us, that's how it works for them.
- 37:15
- In regards to the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, okay? Right? So, we have to be able to say that.
- 37:22
- Pete Right. Jared So, all day long as they killed the prophets, they're hostile to us. I mean, I've seen Christians post like, you know,
- 37:28
- Jews need to repent and believe the gospel and being told they're anti -Semitic and, you know, hate the Jews and being reported to ADL and getting fired and everything else.
- 37:36
- So, we're not on the same team here, you know, like, definitely not.
- 37:41
- Pete And in fact, it's unloving, you know, to try and keep people from sharing the gospel with them and trying, you know, trying to plead with them to actually come back to Christ.
- 37:50
- Like, I can't imagine a more unloving thing than purposefully ushering someone into hell. Jared Who's that girl, like,
- 37:55
- Lizzie Marbeck or whatever who said that Jesus was the only way or whatever and, I mean, didn't she have the
- 38:02
- ADL going after her? Pete Oh, I don't know. Jared But anyways, yeah. Pete Yeah, so -
- 38:08
- Jared Because it's the most stupid anti -Semitic thing that someone's ever heard or something, I can't remember. Pete I would believe it.
- 38:15
- If that actually happened, it wouldn't surprise me at this point. But I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation on.
- 38:23
- And, you know, hopefully, I mean, hopefully people can hear this and not just light their hair on fire, you know, because we're not jumping at the opportunity to blindly defend
- 38:37
- Israel no matter what they do. I mean, I wouldn't even do that for Israel in the
- 38:43
- Old Testament, let alone now, like now that Christ has come and they've rejected
- 38:48
- Him. Even before they rejected the Messiah, I wouldn't recommend anyone blindly support
- 38:55
- Israel no matter what they do. Just go read the Old Testament and you'll realize very quickly why you should not blindly support
- 39:03
- Israel no matter what, you know. And hopefully the people on the other side, I doubt they will, you know, just having interacted with them for long enough to know how they think, you know.
- 39:15
- I think that's sometimes a little bit generous of a word for them, but, you know, hopefully they'll hear what we're saying and recognize that we are not saying, you know, because we don't blindly support
- 39:33
- Israel, that must mean that we blindly support Islamic Muslims, right, terrorist organizations who are nothing but bloodthirsty, right, and killing in the name of a false god and killing so that they can satisfy their own evil, dark, fleshly, worldly desires.
- 39:56
- You know, there actually is a middle ground between these things. It is possible. We're here, you know, so enough of that.
- 40:05
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- 40:16
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- 40:23
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- 40:36
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- 40:41
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- 40:50
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- 41:02
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- 41:22
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