Have You Not Read S3:E8 - The Conflict in Israel (Part 5)

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. My name is Chris Giesler and joining me are Michael Deere and David Kassin.

And today we are wrapping up our discussion of Israel. We've had several episodes and so today we'll kind of summarize some things and get to kind of more of a specific point.

David, did you want to kick us off? Sure. Yeah, we've done several episodes on this because it's not just a timely topic.

I mean, it is certainly in the news these days, but it's one of those issues that every couple of years something pops up into that corner of the world and we truly feel that the discussions that we've had have been based on the timeless truths that are in the

Scriptures and using the New Testament to interpret the Old. We want individual

Christians to know how to react and know how to address real -life issues that occur across the world.

As we have said before, we don't want our theology to change with the newspaper.

We want it to be based in the eternal Word of God. So a couple of questions that Christians usually ask when it comes to conflict in the

Middle East, especially as it comes to that piece of ground between the Sinai Peninsula up to Lebanon and borders the

Jordan, you know, what we know is the modern state of Israel and the people Israel, the Jews.

The history of the United States really in the last hundred hundred fifty years has been really involved with the creation and the support for the modern state of Israel.

And what do Christians, based upon what the Bible says to us, how should we address those issues?

And there's a couple of questions that keep popping up. I've had discussions, you know, offline with my own family members and just friends, and a couple of these questions keep coming up.

So are the Jews the chosen people of God? You hear that a lot, and say, we should support the modern state of Israel because aren't the

Jews the chosen people of God? Isn't that what we all have always taught? And I think over the last couple of episodes we've addressed that issue, and I throw it to you guys to summarize what we have said.

Who are the chosen people of God? I think that's the critical question of the

New Testament. I think in the way that Jesus tells his parables, he's often talking about how are his hearers to understand who the true people of God are in the kingdom that he brings.

And very often it's the unexpected group, and there are those who consider themselves to be the true people of God.

And Jesus would point out their unfaithfulness to the covenant and the judgment of God impending upon them.

And then he talked about the people of God being coming from the east and the west and sitting down with Abraham at the table.

And there's this kind of a surprise, oh look also the Gentiles are in too. And Peter in 1st

Peter chapter 2 speaking about all those who are in Christ, saying you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people.

That's Jews and Gentiles, that's not just ethnic Jews, but it's all those who are born again in Christ.

So I think that clearly when we get to the New Testament, the shadows of who are the people of God are answered in the substance of Christ.

All who were in Christ are God's people, Jew or Gentile. But that distinction does not matter. The distinction is whether or not we're in Christ.

Yeah, you have both positive and negative statements in the New Testament about who the people of God are.

And in the Old Covenant, Israel broke that covenant. And there's strong language in the

Old Testament and in the New Testament about what Israel is. Descriptions of being the harlot.

He's talking to the Pharisees and he says you're of your father the devil. In one place anyone that rejects

Jesus as God is antichrist. And there's several statements like that.

And then there's the positive statements, those that put their faith in Jesus Christ are God's children.

We're adopted through our unity with him. So you've got those. And in the

New Covenant, all those negative descriptions about Israel, in the New Covenant, there's now no

Jew or Greek. You're all one in Christ. The people of God are the people that submit and bow to Jesus Christ and are saved.

So your response to the person who says, so what you're saying is the church has replaced Israel.

What is your response to that? Well I think that we can often find places in the New Testament where that which was said about Israel is being said about the church.

And those are surprising passages. But often you find them in sermons preached by the

Jewish apostles, right, the disciples of Jesus. They preach it in the book of Acts.

And you see the description sometimes used in some of Paul's letters. However, more often than that we find the language of the

New Testament, whatever the New Testament says about Jesus Christ, the

Old Testament said about Israel or vice versa. And so it's not exactly that the church has replaced

Israel, even though we find that language sometimes. When you look at that language, the church's position being described in terms that Israel used to be described in, it's only because of the relationship with Jesus Christ.

He's always just very strong in the context. The focus is all on Him. Everything hinges on Him.

And who can argue with Jesus Christ being the the better son, the faithful servant, the fulfillment of all of God's plans for this people?

He's the king. He's the son of David. I mean, all of the faithful Israelites that we read about in the

New Testament, you know, all the very best examples from Zacharias to Simeon to,

I mean, Saul of Tarsus even, you know, all of these most faithful Israelites, what did they do but hang every single last hope they had as an

Israelite on the one Savior Jesus Christ? Right. And this is one of Paul's big arguments in Romans because the objection would be, well, has he failed

Israel? Has God failed to save Israel? And Paul is by no means, he has not failed.

I'm a Jew. And so, in order for God's faithfulness is He is faithful to His people.

And in the New Testament, those are the people of faith. And so, He has not failed

Israel. And the ethnic Jews, if they repent and believe, are included in that.

They're not excluded in that. And I think there's a lot of talk about anti -Semitism that comes up when talking about this.

Who is the people of God? And if you start talking the way the Bible talks and saying some of the things that the prophets, the apostles, or God says about Israel, well, then you just hate.

You just hate Israel. And I would say, no. We love the Jews. And because of that, we want them to repent and believe.

We want them to actually be the people of God. And the only way to do that is through Jesus Christ.

Because He is, rather than replacing Israel, He is the fulfillment of Israel. If you want to be a part of Israel, you have to be in Christ.

I think that right there, what you just said, is the crux of the matter. That the

Church hasn't replaced Israel. Christ is the fulfillment of Israel. And everyone who is in Christ is a part of an expanded

Israel. Israel is defined by who is in Christ. So I think you had said, you know, the people of God are those people who are of faith.

You could say it, I said it another way, is the true Jew or the one who is circumcised in heart.

You can read that in Romans 2, and then as a promises to Israel. Failed? No. Because Christ has come.

That's why it hasn't failed. Okay, so we know that the people of God are those who are in Christ.

So we just say that the people of God, those who are in Christ, are God's chosen people. Yes, yeah.

So if the people who are in Christ, whether they be Jew or Gentile, and both, you know, thank

God, both. There's no there's no racial division there. Those are the people of God. Then what right does ethnic

Israel, old Israel, have to that land? I think it's difficult to talk about it necessarily in those terms.

I think that we have to get a little bit more broad, more fundamental about who lives in the modern state of Israel.

A lot of ethnic Jews live there. A lot of people who identify as Jews live there. And also there are non -Jews who live there.

And there are a whole lot of nation -states or militia movements, sometimes very associated with various groups out of Islam, who have stated that it is their intention to wipe

Israel off the face of the map. To just utterly destroy the people who live there.

And I think as Christians we hear that and we say, well that's not right. That shouldn't happen.

So what right do the people have who live there to continue living there? And this is, again, a very strong protest of those who are opposed to the modern state of Israel.

You don't have a right to be there. Other people were there before you got there. It was taken away from them and given to you. Now it's interesting, isn't it, that we have heard similar protests from many other groups all over the place, right, even in our own nation.

There is a lot of controversy about lands that were once owned and cared for by Native American tribes.

And so there is something of a protest movement of, hey, you know, this is not fair for, you know, you to live there.

I've lived here for three generations and my grandfather gave me this farm. And somebody's saying, you're on ancient tribal lands and you deserve to lose everything.

But not a whole lot of consideration goes into who did those

Native Americans take that land from. Because they took it away from other tribes who took it away from others.

And well, of course, we've got to go all the way back to the beginning, don't we? God gave this earth to those made in his image.

He said, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. God gave the land to those he made in his image.

And those in his image fell into sin and all kinds of disaster, including conflict and death and deceit and war came out of that.

And the face of the earth has been covered by that. But there's hope because there is one who is in the image of the invisible

God and his name is Jesus Christ and all has been given to him. He inherits everything.

So he's the one in charge. So how do we understand, let's pick a Jewish family living in the state of Israel.

Let's call them a family of four. And they raise their children and when their children, son and daughter, get to a certain age, they go serve in the military for two years.

Mandatory military service in Israel. And they're in the armed forces and there's an attack.

You know, let's say Hamas has geared up. All of a sudden they're flush with cash. They've got all kinds of money.

You know, where'd all that money come from? But they've got all these weapons. Where'd all those weapons come from? And now they're attacking on the borders of the state of Israel and they're killing citizens of that country.

Now this family, mom and dad, are thinking about their son and daughter out there in the conflict on the front lines fighting.

And then how are they understanding it? They're wanting to defend their home, defend their homeland.

They have people who are basically conducting a criminal act upon the state of Israel, trying to kill its citizens, trying to destroy their security, their borders, and they're trying to defend their country.

How do we think of it as Christians? Well, obviously we should not be muddying the waters through poor interpretation and say that, well, any ethnic

Jew anywhere has a right to that piece of land out there in the

Middle East. Thus they can just kill whoever gets in their way. And that's not a careful reading of the of the scriptures.

But we do need a careful reading of the scriptures. And I think it goes back to God telling Noah in Genesis chapter 9 after he'd flooded the whole earth because of rampant violence.

He tells Noah, man is made in my image and nobody gets to kill man unless I say so.

And when people kill people, when man sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.

And the language in the text speaks of brothers. And we see this later on in the life of Israel.

The example is given about the axe, right? You're out chopping down a tree, your axe head comes off, flies and sinks into the neck of the guy next to you.

He's dead. Well, you just shed man's blood. You're guilty of manslaughter.

That would be called manslaughter on our books today. Well, back then what was supposed to happen? By man your blood must be shed.

Well, who's in charge of doing that? Who's authorized to do that? A kinsman redeemer. A kinsman redeemer.

He's got to make this injustice just. He's coming for your blood. Hey, it was an accident.

Well, then you better run to the city of refuge. Okay, just... And of course, but that city of refuge wasn't, you know, it wasn't for just cold -blooded murder.

Exactly. Yeah, you're dealing with, you know, what we call negligent homicide and that kinsman redeemer that was listed in the case law, was listed in the law.

So you have a legitimate use of the state saying, this is how we're going to resolve this issue.

And there are also laws on the books for those who just, you know, laid in wait and shed innocent blood.

Yes. And so that's just an example of nobody dies by somebody else's hand without there being some need for justice to be executed.

And that is the job of the state. Right. We have three forms, three basic forms of human society.

The family, the church, and the state. And they all have their own areas and they all kind of mingle a bit on the borders.

But the state's job is to punish evildoers. And in the context when we first discover this in the

Scriptures, it's the brethren who defend the fallen brother. Alright, what a reversal from what

Cain did to his brother. Right. But in this sense, when we think about a nation, a nation being a rather large and extended family of many, many clans and tribes that have something in common, a lot of things in common, in fact, then let's say there are some sort of criminal activity at writ large.

So you have not one burglar coming in and who gets confronted by someone and then and then murder somebody, breaking and entering with murder.

OK, not a single, but a thousand, a thousand of them at the same time comes into the border of a nation and begins to do that.

Well, blood has been shed. Now what must happen? God says the state is a minister, a deacon of the

Lord to execute righteousness and justice by wielding the sword against evildoers.

And so what happens is there are fallen brethren in your nation. The sanctity of your borders have been breached.

And now all the brothers of those who have been murdered and killed must rise up and they must go shed the blood of those who shed the blood of their brothers.

Right. That's just I'm trying to be as basic as we can using some biblical metaphors about what's supposed to happen.

So the state of Israel is there. It's a very interesting and messy history how they got there.

It's not as if they are a wonderfully righteous, perfect, holy nation.

Tel Aviv is the gay capital of the Middle East. Right. Israel is filled with sexual immorality.

They promote godlessness. They do not love Jesus Christ. Right. This is a pagan, godless, sexually immoral nation celebrating all manner of corrupt things.

Right. However, however, if there's a whole bunch of people all of a sudden trying to kill a bunch of their own people, what are they supposed to do?

They're supposed to rise up, band together, and defend their borders and using the appropriate sword from the state, punish those who are engaging in violence.

So even if Israel is not the or the Jews aren't necessarily chosen people of God, even if they're engaging in other immoral behaviors, and of course all you have to do is look out our own window.

We're certainly not guiltless in this. Let's not say that. But you have a group of people that have repeatedly invaded these borders, slaughtered innocents, engaged in horrible violence, and from what you're saying, based upon Genesis and all the way up through the

Mosaic Law, and then just what our true Western and biblical standards of justice, it would be appropriate for the government of the modern state of Israel to defend itself.

Yes. So you think you combine Genesis 9 with Romans 13 and kind of put those together, and then you think of Jesus saying, render unto

Caesar that which is Caesar's. And Paul says for this reason we pay taxes. Okay.

The state has been ordained by God as that servant who should punish the evildoers.

You think about in the days of Jesus Christ, you see the state being used, however, to do evil things such as crucifying our

Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, who was not an evildoer, and yet the sword of the state was was used for great evil and wrong.

It was being manipulated. There was kind of a political extortion going on, and yet Jesus was hung on the cross between two who?

Criminals. Criminals. Thieves is a light term for terrorists. These guys were basically terrorists that he was crucified between.

You know, there were guys running around during Jesus' time called the Sicarii, and they had long knives, and they liked to walk up next to a

Roman and just stab him in the middle of a crowd, and then walk off and leave him for dead. And these were passionate, zealous,

Jewish men. Now, was it right or wrong for the Romans to hunt those criminals down and then crucify them?

It was just. It was absolutely right. It's a very interesting thing to think about, but there are two guys dying on crosses on the other side of Jesus.

Who deserved to be there. Who deserved to be there, and Rome was doing their job. But they were the oppressors of the

Jews, and they were doing their job. These were evildoers, and they were crucifying them. That was their job, and they were doing it as a public example.

Probably a lot better ways to do it than crucifying, you know, the mode and all that. You can get all those hair -splitting debates, which are profitable.

Yeah, I'm not saying crucifixion is a, you know, cruel and unusual. Beheading probably would have been better, but that's not the issue.

It's that they deserved capital punishment for a capital crime. Yes. So the fact that they were

Jewish is irrelevant. They committed murder in Israel against a foreign invader, but it was still murder against a legitimate state.

Right. So, I mean, that's, I mean, why are we talking to them about, you know, being murderers or whatever? But we're connecting the dots, because the guy who was supposed to be hanging on the cross where Jesus was, was a guy named

Barabbas, right? Who they let go. Who they let go, and as we're told in the

Scriptures, they chose a murderer over Christ. And I think there's something else to be said.

Now, I think very often as believers, we hear about some sort of armed conflict going on in our world, and we will immediately sometimes, we will identify good guy, bad guy, and pick the good guy, envision that person or that country, you know, white hat, white horse, you know, we're gonna be on their team on this one.

Pick a side. You know, I support the current thing. And whether that's Ukraine or Israel or so on.

And I think that we need to be careful in how we parse this.

If you see that there's a big army or a whole bunch of insurgents or, you know, the aggressor, you know, advancing upon families, houses, hospitals, communities, and so on, and causing havoc, and they're the ones who who are attacking, you could say, that's not right, what you're doing.

Okay, that's a pretty simple way of explaining it. Well, they were incited to do it, or this was the only option they had left, or, you know, and we could talk about all of that.

But when you see a group of armed people advancing, and then the people who are trying to defend themselves shoot back,

Christians would say, well, that's what you're supposed to do, right? That's what the scriptures talk about in terms of and give us examples of, hey, this is a righteous defense of one's land, one's property, that's the proper thing to do.

State -sanctioned. And states should say to their citizens, if you have armed people advancing upon you, you should defend yourself, right?

This is a righteous thing to do. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean that those who are being attacked are wonderful, awesome, perfect, good people, that we should fly their flag and sing their praises simply because they're being attacked.

They may be awful, evil people, right? Yeah, and we can't know that from from here.

No. Even over there, it would be hard to tell. Yeah. Who's who.

It's like, you know, well, you know, they've been doing X, Y, and Z for 20 years and doing all these underhanded things that are inciting these people and so on and so forth.

And they say, yes, all that is wicked and cruel and bad and evil. But also, they have a right to defend their home.

Somebody comes marching on them. I'm not saying they're wonderful people, I'm just saying if you attack somebody, get ready to get shot at.

So, there's an interesting thing that happens in Daniel chapter 11 as Daniel is laying out how things are going to run in the next couple hundred years.

And he is telling the story prophetically about great battles that are going to occur during the conflicts between the

Seleucids and the Ptolemies, the remnants, the leftovers from the Greek Empire under Alexander the

Great. And I'm just gonna read an excerpt from Daniel 11. And even though you don't know the names, you can just kind of envision it in your head.

And it says, this is verse 25, "...and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army.

But he shall not stand, for they shall devise plans against him. Yes, those who eat of the portion of his delicacies shall destroy him, his army shall be swept away, and many shall fall down slain."

So, there's a king of the south and there's a king of the north. And apparently the king of the south just gets assassinated, right? But now, what about the king of the north and the king of the south?

What happens now in this turnover of power? Verse 27, "...both these kings' hearts shall be bent on evil."

Right? It's not good guy versus bad guy, it's evil guy versus evil guy. "...and they shall speak lies at the same table.

They sit down for a peace accords, and they sit there, and evil king and evil king sit there, and they lie to each other the whole time."

That sounds like politics, doesn't it? "...but it shall not prosper, for the end will still be at the appointed time."

This evil king and the other evil king are both arrogant, they say a bunch of lies to one another, but all of their plans go awry, because God has appointed the time when these things come to pass, because God is sovereign.

So, I thought that was just kind of an interesting insight into how these things actually come about.

Yeah, well, so we've got two warring groups that are pagan, they're not for Christ, and they're against, at some level, against each other.

They're fighting, that's why. I think there's a lot of discussion about, well, let's track this, but how did this start, and then if we can go back to where it started, then we can try to sort it out.

And so I was thinking about this, we had talked before, well, how did it start? And so in Acts 17, this is verse 26, "...and

he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their pre -appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling."

This is God's role, so God appoints these times and the dwellings and the boundaries.

Well, at one point, we had America and Britain and whoever else says, let's draw up some boundaries, and let's put these people here at this time to dwell in this place.

Okay, so I think here, like you said, we see some hubris. We think we're going to define, you guys stop fighting, this is what we've decided.

We're going to do this. So then, well, if we could just go back and fix that, but that's not how it works.

You can't just, we're going to fix it the same way that we started it. You're not going to get out of it.

But I'd like to continue that, because after it says that he's got these appointed times and appointed places, it says, "...he

has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their pre -appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the

Lord in their hope, that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."

That is the solution. It's not some governmental, let's dump money on it, let's pick a side and fund that side.

It's God establishes the boundaries. He's sovereign over it. You have these very different levels of principles.

If there's an invading army, the other people, they're going to defend themselves. Who knows what's going to happen.

It's hard for us to see over here, because we maybe have a media that's broken and doesn't report correctly. Who knows?

But the reason why God establishes the boundaries is so that they would grope for the Lord, and he is not far from us.

And that would be the answer that we would put forward as Christians, is they need the gospel.

Mm -hmm. Yeah, both groups do. And you can't even say both groups. You would say the three groups, the four groups, the five groups who are all kind of warring with each other.

And it's not a gospel that is simply, once you have Jesus, you'll be so happy that you'll stop fighting.

That's not what we're talking about. It's a full -fledged gospel. It's life, death, resurrection, and his return.

When I am as old as my dad is right now, we'll be right around the hundred -year anniversary of the modern state of Israel.

You know how many books are gonna be selling right then? Oh my goodness. There's gonna be a smorgasbord of books being written about the end of the world, because it'll be a hundred years.

And we were wrong. It wasn't 40 years a generation. It was a hundred years generation, and this is the end. Right? It's still gonna be going on then.

Lots of money is gonna be made off of Israel being around for a hundred years. But there's still gonna be conflict, and people are still gonna be angry, and they're still gonna be mad, and it's gonna be bitterness entrenched for two and a half generations and more.

And what keeps on happening between Hamas and Israel, or Palestinians and Israelis, or between indigenous tribes and the colonists, or any of those things, what keeps on happening is that people get into conflict and stir up all manner of fighting, and they bring up all of these awful things that were done.

Awful things that were done in the past, just generational stuff. We're talking generational, not just generational curses, but blood feuds.

I mean historic generational blood feuds. Things that did go back, not just to your granddaddies, but his and beyond.

Exactly. And so the conflicts of today, so many of them, are trying to kill the people who live today for the crimes and the failures of people who lived a long time ago.

And people are screaming out, the whole thing is unjust, the whole system is unjust, the whole system is corrupt, and the ones who have made it that way are not here.

So all we can do is tear down their statues and attack people who look like them.

Who's the only one who can solve this? Well we can't raise the dead and judge them, but there is someone who can, and his name is

Jesus Christ. And he is gonna raise the dead, and he is gonna settle all those accounts, which is why

Romans says, do not take your own vengeance. Leave room for wrath. Vengeance is mine,

I will repay, saith the Lord. And I think that's a very important piece to this complex puzzle in the

Middle East. That's not just a Christian saying. The quote is from the

Mosaic Law. Yes. It is. It has always been that way. There's always been the standard.

You mentioned Genesis. The state is the one that executes justice.

You don't take your own revenge, otherwise you end up with these generational blood feuds.

What you were describing in the current land, what we now know as the modern state of Israel, has been happening in Afghanistan.

You referenced what has happened here in North America. You can see the same things between the the

Hutus and the Tutsis in Africa and in South America. You see it everywhere.

These generational conflicts that can only be solved in the light of Christ and who he is.

So when we look at Israel and the conflict is happening in Israel, you're drawing an equivalence between that and all these other conflicts.

You're saying this isn't special. This isn't good versus evil or these surrounding pagan nations attacking the people of God.

You're saying that these are two people groups that have been fighting for a long time and they're going to keep fighting until they are saved both sides en masse and have the common body of Christ that is having

Christ in common. Yes, I mean the gospel of democracy hasn't solved it.

The gospel of the American dollar hasn't solved it. The gospel of nuclear deterrence hasn't solved it.

None of these so -called solutions work. So you guys are not not

Zionist then? You don't believe that ethnic Jews have a greater right to this land than really any anybody else?

No, I don't think that's correct to read it that way.

So who owns that land? Jesus Christ does. And he owns Afghanistan and Africa and North America and every other place.

So then you get Psalm 2, any nation that does not kiss the Son and repent is dashed to pieces.

Or if you bless the Son you'll be blessed. I think it would be a really cool story for a

Jew living in in the land to sit under his fig tree and have his heart full of joy in Jesus of Nazareth as the

Christ the Son of the Living God. Amen. I think that's a pretty cool story especially if he's sitting somewhere where he can have a nice view of all those historical mountains and and roads and terrain that Jesus himself saw.

I mean that that's a powerful thing to reflect on. Reminds us of the faithfulness of God. But we're also not to be enamored with shadows when the substance has come, right?

The moon is pretty impressive two o 'clock in the morning but the

Sun has risen and it's about 1145 in the morning and the moon's still up there but I'm not enraptured with the moon anymore.

That warm glow has my full attention. So the discussion or any kind of political discussion about the

Treaty of Balfour or the Palestinians who were in the land before 1947 or what borders were established by which particular war whether it be 67, 73 or 2023, those are all ultimately irrelevant because by what we have said here, the chosen people of God are those who are in Christ and the one who has the right to the land is the

King Jesus who is the fulfillment of Israel. So just as Romans says that Abraham is the heir of the world,

Jesus as his heir. The promises to him and his seed which is

Jesus. So he owns everything and that includes that small piece of ground which were in shadow type form of Eden or return to Eden.

It's God's promised land but it was really owned by Jesus. So as Christians we can say that God's chosen people are in Christ.

Jesus owns the land. So would we want to send taxpayer dollars to help a group of people defend their land?

Would we want to do that based upon what we just said? I would think in theory it would be possible for a

Christian to hold that perspective if the government that was receiving those taxes was responsible in a

Christian way. So this goes into a more broader discussion. Some of our money is going to fund not just Israel but the other side and so in principle

I could say they have the right to defend themselves, yes from foreign invaders, but the conflict seems to be escalated because of the amount of money that's coming in from different places and if you don't have confidence you know that your government is doing the right thing according to the

Bible, I would think prayers for our own country and discussion on that issue would be needed.

So you wouldn't necessarily support Israel any more than you would support Mexico or Japan.

If they were attacked you would say well I would support Japan, I would support Mexico, but I would support

Israel because their innocent lives being lost. So again in principle I'd say that they have the right to defend themselves and then depending on the place where your country is, if your country is in a state to do such things, we're going into debt to fund several different wars at the same time and the government has a responsibility to its own people.

If it's doing it at a detriment to its own people, that would be unwise I would think and not good stewardship.

So you've got several different principles working at the same time. If a flailing American Empire would like to have stable well -protected client states they've invested in and funded for a long time, we would not want to see those whom we constantly pay to be on our side to have terrible border security and be failing because they are helping us with force projection throughout the world to try to push the

American agenda, whatever that may be given whoever is running the circus currently.

However, as if we're so great that we want to push the American agenda on everyone. So you can see how it's in the interest of America as far as those who are actual stakeholders in terms of the globalism that goes on.

However, as a citizen of these United States, I think it would be far too preferable that our government, our federal government, would be far leaner, far more focused, far less war -mongering, and to be more humble and curtailed to the purpose of government given to us in the

Word of God. More robust concerning its own citizens, not in terms of funding their citizens livelihoods, but of adhering to the citizens and what they are demanding of their government in terms of protection and being responsible, being accountable, and those kinds of things.

The proper role of the state. You're talking punishing evildoers, protecting the innocent, but not running their economic lives, or telling them how to be a good husband or father, or raising their children for them.

But the proper role of the state is to defend the innocent, punish the guilty, and defend your borders from invaders.

That's a proper role of the state. Yes, and it is very hard, I would say, it would be very hard for me to say, oh yes,

I think it was a wonderful thing to send a bunch of American tax dollars, or American freshly invented dollars out of thin air, or magic dollars to Ukraine and Israel and so forth, when they're not doing their job in all these other more fundamental areas.

So we are just normal run -of -the -mill citizens looking at the complexities of an

American Empire in its weak and faltering state. Yeah, no, I would say maybe if the question was rephrased not using tax dollars, but if a

US citizen wanted to support Israel in some way privately, or found ways to get funds, humanitarian aid or Christian aid, the churches locally, if you could find direct routes, maybe pastors or people there, and you wanted to help in that way,

I think that would be a much wiser use of money, if someone was convicted to help in that way.

And I would say that a Christian organization that's doing that kind of stuff would help whoever was innocent.

I mean, it's be at peace with all men, you know, but especially do you go to the household of faith,

I mean, they would be helping, because there are Christians on both sides of this conflict, and they would be helping them, but a

Christian organization, I think, would be helping the innocent and the hurt, whether they were

Jew or Palestinian or fill -in -the -blank, because we would want to help alleviate human suffering.

I think this is good that we discuss things like this and try to work through it biblically and piece by piece, because we see how quickly people become controlled by other forces at large.

We get controlled by fear and by anger and so forth, and war is constantly a tool of statecraft for pushing forward different types of agendas and changes that somebody wants to see happen.

War is an engine to get that done. If we get a lot of people angry and upset or scared, then all sorts of things can be done that couldn't be done before.

And as Christians, we're not supposed to be slaves of fear, and we're not supposed to let the sun go down on our wrath, and we're to be angry and not sin, and we're supposed to fear the

Lord, and we're not supposed to be so easily swayed and controlled and our whole mind just taken over by these things.

We're to be learning Christ, having the mind of Christ about these things. So the charge that somebody's listening to this, they really couldn't charge us with anti -Semitism, being against Israel, because we have said that Christ is the fulfillment of Israel, and we are for Christ.

And if he owns the land, and he is the chosen seed, and we are in him, whether you be

Jew or Gentile, that is Israel. That is. So we're not anti -Israel, but we will acknowledge that the conflict is horribly complex, and we're not trying to, one, we're not necessarily picking a side, nor am

I trying to equate in the modern state of Israel with Hamas. Certainly not. No.

If the reports of what Hamas has done to children, women and children, are true,

I hope they're smashed into oblivion, never to return. But if history is any guide, they're not the only ones who do this, and somebody else will just fill that void.

But so there's no, we're not trying to do no false equivalence, you know, here. But there is a legitimate role of the state, punished as evil.

But if you want to support the alleviation of human suffering during this conflict, don't do so based upon an idea that one side is the chosen people of God, and you're being on the side of the

Bible, being on the side of God. You need to be for Jesus, because God's chosen people follow

Jesus. Yes. Well, I think that about wraps up for that discussion.

Let's move on to recommendations. Michael? I'm going to recommend a book called

Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams, and this is just introduction to New Thetic Counseling, which takes into account the

Bible's description of who we are in our sinfulness and our need for Christ.

And it's a refreshing approach, because this book is written for, you know, pastors, elders,

Christians who, you know, like fathers and so forth. I mean, hey, you are competent to counsel, taking up the

Word of God, understanding what the Word of God says about who we are. God knows us best.

And then using the scriptures to help understand what goes on in our lives and how to address it, and how we are healed and forgiven and cleansed and helped in every possible way through the truth of God.

So it's a great book. It's been out for a long time, and it was extremely encouraging to me as a pastor about the sufficiency of God's Word, no matter what the problem is.

You said New Thetic Counseling, is that sometimes called Biblical Counseling? Yeah, it's more technical in that when somebody says

Biblical Counseling, I'm not sure what they mean, because it may be when we say

Biblical Counseling, this means I get more business from Christians. Yeah, because I've heard

Christian Counseling, and then I've heard some people try to put Biblical Counseling kind of forward as an alternative to Christian, and it's that same type of thing, like, what are you getting at there?

New Thetic is just saying, let's start with, you know, whatever your problem is, let's start with what the

Bible would call it, and it's going to be some manifestation of sin. Even if, you know, you were jumped in an alley and robbed, and now you have, you know, all kinds of problems in your life now because of this horrible incident, we're not going to start with, you poor thing, you, what a victim you are, here's how you now live as a victim.

It's, that was wicked, that was sin, and you are responsible for how you respond to that, right?

And it's possible that you may be responding in unbelieving and sinful ways because sin begets sin.

You didn't ask for this, you didn't set this up, did you? But now you have to deal with it, and God has a good plan for it, right?

It's a whole different, it's a little bit different project. It takes into account more serious claims from the

Scripture about the condition of man. Very good. David? I listened to a lot of audio books on my various travels, and I came across a really, really neat book,

Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce, written by John Piper years ago.

I actually don't know the year for this particular edition, but if you're not familiar with the

English Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, he was instrumental in ending the slave trade in the

English Empire, and he did so based on a Christian worldview. Now, what, some of the things that he did could be described as social justice, but that's not necessarily a dirty word.

He was using the truths of Scripture, and he actually was discipled for a while by John Newton, who wrote

Amazing Grace, and that's where you get the title, where he applied the Scriptures to the social ills of his day, and then used the tools of the state to rectify a horrible injustice.

And it was a brilliant state craft. It was. Proper role of the state, as we had just talked about, protecting the innocent.

And he was an incredible guy, and if you have never read anything, it was a short book.

I mean, some audiobooks are like 18 hours long. This is like, you know, War and Peace. This wasn't. This was a short read, and Piper is pithy.

So it's not a long biography of William Wilberforce, but if you want a good introduction to a man who did something really great, a good politician, let's say, that would be my recommendation for this week.

Awesome. Very good. I would recommend a small book by A. Blake White, What is

New Covenant Theology? An Introduction. And it is an introduction. It's a smaller book.

Very easy read. And he goes through the tenets of New Covenant Theology, and I'm reading this coming out of Covenantalism.

I was becoming convinced that the only consistent Covenantalist is a

Presbyterian, but I was convinced by reading Scripture of Credo Baptism.

So I was like, well, something's going on here. So this seems to be kind of taking some of those things into consideration, examining

Covenantalism. And so they have some tenets there that I think bring clarity. What is

New Covenant Theology? An Introduction. Let's move on to what we are grateful for. Well, I am thankful for just many answers to prayer in just recent days, and the

Lord's provision in my family's life. I don't know if it's five or six, maybe five and a half deer being processed.

And of course, we didn't shoot them all. But you know, hey, with grocery prices the way they are, and you end up with some venison that came on the cheap, or sometimes for free, just praise the

Lord for that kind of provision. So I'm thankful for that. Also thankful for my wife, as we often have to sit down and figure out the the budget, and you know, how the groceries are going to go.

We got to feed, you know, six children, and they, boy, just keep eating, and keep on making food, and feeding them, and all that.

And I'm just thankful for her, and her industry, and her willingness to serve.

And thankful for, see, this coming Sunday will be 19 years of marriage.

Wow, fantastic. That's really great. Amy and I were at 19 and a half. I didn't realize we were so, so close.

Wow. Okay, very cool. We had a lot of the teens over to our house earlier this, this month, for just annual

Christmas party. And it's, it's, it's just a blast. We have, we have so much fun doing it. But I wanted to thank

Brother Joe for all that he did to help make that a really neat evening.

He has a gift with these kids, and the games, and his insight. And he and I chatted for a while, and I realized

I had stolen him away from the kids for a little too long, because he's fun to talk to. But he's, his heart for, for our teens, and of which my, my daughter is a member, is a blessing.

So I wanted to say, be thankful to him, and for the event that we got to have at our house.

I am thankful for my family that God has blessed me with. The dynamics of just having everyone, when we get together, the way that God has made families, a husband, a wife, and children.

And just getting to know their personalities, and working with them, and having a helper to do so.

And then his sanctifying work in leading the family, just all of those dynamics. I'm, I'm so grateful to, to have this, you know, this, this thing called a family, to be part of it.

And so I'm grateful that God has, in his wisdom, set things up in this way, and has blessed me with a family.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners, and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?