How Should We View Israel in the Present Day? Various Texts

Two weeks ago, I told you that we were going to be in 1 Peter today but in light of Trevor's message last week on the salvation of Israel from Romans 11,

I have decided to preach a related message on how Christians should view Israel. How Christians should view

Israel in general and how Christians should view the nation state of Israel. This is always a hot button issue in the news.

And a lot of Christians, frankly, I think have really dropped the ball on this and so that's why it's important to discuss this as a church.

What is interesting about the present day nation of Israel is that it is the size of New Jersey.

New Jersey is a very small state and yet there is arguably more conversation about this nation and region of the world than any other place.

Truly, this region is the epicenter of the world and God made it this way.

So we should not be surprised to see constant news coverage in this portion of the Middle East.

A few years back, Israel was the top story in the news because of the United States moving their embassy to Jerusalem and back then

President Trump made the declaration that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel and so too,

Israel boldly declared that Jerusalem was the capital. But when

America and Israel made this proclamation, the Palestinian peoples who live in and around Israel have protested since they believed that East Jerusalem belongs to them.

Now you might be wondering who are the Palestinians? The Palestinians are Arabs that descend from Ishmael.

Genesis 14 describes the account where Abraham had relations with Hagar and the child

Ishmael was born. Then after this miraculous birth, Isaac, I should say that one was not miraculous, but then there was a miraculous birth,

Isaac was born through Sarah and it was through him that the promised line of offspring would come.

For millennia, ongoing conflict has existed between these two groups.

In recent years, we have seen this ongoing conflict continue between Israel and Palestine that was already intense, but has heated up even more in our day.

The question that we need to address in this sermon is do the people of God in the Old Testament still hold a special place in God's plan or should we not think of them as the in a special way anymore?

Last week's sermon from Trevor answered this question, but I thought digging into this even more would be helpful.

The nation of Israel started about 4 ,000 years ago when in Genesis 12 .1,

God called Abraham to leave his homeland and travel to the land of Canaan.

The Lord promised him that he would give him that land and establish a nation through him. That's Genesis 12 .2,

which says, I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

The Lord would fulfill this promise to Abraham's descendants. The land would stretch from the river in Egypt to the

Euphrates River in present day Iraq. As Genesis 15 .18

says, after the Lord delivered the Israelites from Egyptian oppression through Moses, the

Lord raised up Joshua to lead the Israelites into the promised land. In the days of Joshua, Israel finally attained the land that was promised centuries before.

Later on around the 10th century BC, a thousand years since the nation started, a monarchy was established in Israel.

The most notable king was, you can finish this, King David.

The Lord promised to establish his throne forever in 2 Samuel 7 verses 12 -13, there the

Lord said, when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. This monarchy would come to an end because of Israel's disobedience, but once again, this is a forever throne, so this throne culminates in the

Messiah who would reign forever. Israel's monarchy in the northern kingdom came to an end in 722

BC when the Assyrians came in and took over and took them into exile, and the same thing happened in 605

BC when the southern kingdom, the Babylonians came in and took them into exile, and when these two events happened, this obviously ended the monarchy temporarily as their power and land was taken from them.

Israel would not return to the land again for several hundred years when the

Lord allowed their captors, now Persia, to let them rebuild their temple and return to their land.

Israel was in their land for a while, but it was not under their control, and over the centuries, the people of Israel scattered away from their homeland and inhabited places all over the world, but before this big scattering happened, which the

New Testament calls the Diaspora, they lived under the authority of the

Persian, Greco -Macedonian, and Roman empires. But while Jews had a transient and unstable existence, the

Lord miraculously kept Israelites to be distinct from other nations, which means that they kept their identity.

There was once a Prussian king in the 18th century by the name of Frederick the Great who wondered if the

Bible was true, so he actually asked a Catholic priest, how do we know that this book is true?

And the priest told him one word, Israel. So what did he mean by that?

What he meant was they're still around, and they have not been morphed into a different national identity like every other people group has.

Trevor made an interesting point last week that there's only one people group that has been displaced from their land and then brought back to their land, and it happened twice to the same people,

Israel. It happened when they were taken captive by Egypt, and then it happened, of course, in 1948 when

Israel was brought back to the homeland. The present existence of the nation of Israel is strong evidence to the truth of Scripture.

All of these other people groups in the Bible, such as the Philistines, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and others are no longer around, but the nation of Israel has survived to the present day, showing that God has a strong interest in this people that the

Bible describes. God governs history. He's in control. He wills this to happen. In ancient times, as the

Lord kept the people of Israel alive, as they lived under one empire to the next, the

Jews longed for the day when their Messiah would come and deliver them from their enemies.

Many prophecies said he would come. Their Messiah did come in the first century, the man

Jesus Christ, but even though Jesus perfectly fit the description of whom the

Messiah was going to be, most of the nation rejected him. This is where Jesus said in Matthew 23, 37,

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned those sent to you, how long

I have longed to gather your children together as a chicken gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

He's weeping over their rejection of the prophets and of him, the greatest prophet.

As I explained a couple of weeks ago, the Jews focus was not on the Old Testament passages that described the

Messiah's suffering. They focused on the passages in the Old Testament that described his power.

When Israel rejected Jesus, this is when God's relationship with Israel shifted. For 2 ,000 years,

Israel were God's people, going back to Abraham. The Lord accomplished his plans for the world through them.

They were his vehicle. But now things had changed because for the most part, they rejected their

Messiah. But to say that God has done with Israel would be a grave mistake.

He is not. To this day, the Jews still are the people of God, but they are his people at arm's length.

The Apostle Paul explained that most Jews over the last 2 ,000 years have rejected Jesus because a hardening has come over them, and Trevor explained this hardening one week ago.

As Romans 11 .25 says, a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the

Gentiles has come in. The reason this happened was for God to start a new people of God known as the church.

The focus would go away from Israel to the nations. When Jesus was talking to his disciples, he said in the future tense,

I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, Matthew 16 .18.

The church would be a people mostly made up of Gentiles, that is, the nations. God's plan has always been to save a remnant from every nation that would be his people.

As Genesis 12 .3 says, in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

And Revelation 5 .9 says, you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Israel was God's vehicle to reach the world, and then that vehicle became the church.

Eureka Baptist is a local expression of the universal church, and it is our responsibility to be a beacon of light of God's truth to the world.

The church truly is the hope of the world, and 2 ,000 years ago, Israel's Messiah became the head of this body known as the church, as Colossians 1 .18

says. When Christ came, he started the church, and from that point, everyone who believed in him would enter the people of God known as the church.

So ever since Christ ascended to heaven after his resurrection, God has accomplished his purposes in the world through the church.

However, the church does not replace Israel. The Lord has preserved the

Jews over the last 2 ,000 years because he has big plans for them in the future.

To this day, there are about 14 million Jews in the world, a vast majority of whom are not believers, and God is not done with them, as Trevor explained one week ago.

What's interesting, though, is that they are converting. He mentioned that, especially in America.

There's 7 million Jews in America, and he said about 1 million of them identify as Christians, as those who believe in Jesus as the

Messiah. So it makes you think, well, how much time do we have left if they are coming to faith?

Because this is biblical prophecy coming to pass before our eyes. Romans 11 .26

says, in this way, all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion.

He will banish ungodliness from Jacob. At that time,

Jews will receive Jesus as their Messiah, their sins will be forgiven, and they will reign with him. And I shared this prophecy about the

Jews receiving their Messiah in Zechariah 12 .10. Trevor quoted this one week ago.

I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that when they look on me whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for me as one who mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over me as one weeps over a firstborn.

And Zechariah also tells us how many Jews will be saved. Two -thirds of Israel will reject the

Messiah. One -third will believe. And that one -third is the all

Israel described in Romans 11 .26. All Israel will be saved.

So God has a plan to save Israel. He is not done, not even close.

So the Lord takes very seriously how the world treats his ancient covenant people.

God told Abraham in Genesis 12 .3 that he would bless those who blessed him, and that he would curse those who dishonor him.

And the him here is not only Abraham, but his descendants. The history of Israel shows this.

Persecution. Look at what happened to Egypt. The Lord sent many plagues in order to deliver his people from their oppression, as Exodus 7 through 11 describes.

Down through history, the Lord has always judged the nations who mistreated

Israel. In the present day, a hardening has indeed come upon Israel, but they are still

God's people. The promise the Lord made to Abraham still holds true. There are

Jews scattered all over the world, and of course, Christians should treat everyone well, but there should be a deep love for the people of Israel.

A love similar to the love that we have for the church, for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. And I say this because our

God was their God, and in their future, our God will be their God. To dishonor the

Jews today makes God very angry. As Genesis 12, 3 says, he honors those who bless

Israel and curses those who don't. And there's a question that comes from all of this.

The question is, should Christians honor the nation state of Israel, present day

Israel? The nation of Israel is a Jewish state with mostly Jews living in it.

Like I said at the beginning, it's the size of New Jersey. There are 8 .5 million people who live there.

6 .5 million of them are ethnic Jews. After World War II and the

Holocaust, many Jews began to return to their homeland. Around this time,

President Harry Truman and other world leaders were pushing to make Israel an official nation, and this happened in 1948.

In 1948, the UN officially declared Israel as a nation. What's interesting about this is that typically, nations become nations because they win a war.

They fight over a piece of land and they win. In Israel's case, in one day, they're told, this is your land.

You're a nation. Israel did not fight to become a nation, but they have fought to remain a nation.

Their whole existence since 1948 has been one conflict after another where people are trying to wipe them off the face of the earth.

So what happened in 1948 was remarkable. Nothing in this world has ever happened quite like that.

This was the first time that Israel had their own sovereign nation in over 2 ,500 years.

From the Babylonian exile to 1948, that's how long it was. So you can see how significant this event was.

What happened in 1948, some see this as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Ezekiel 36 verses 1 through 15 describes the people of Israel scattered all over the earth, returning to their homeland in the last days.

Now at the very least, Christians should see the significant event in 1948 as setting the table for God's future plans for the

Jews. When Jesus returns to the earth and a large number of Jews believe in him, the

Lord is going to establish this people in their land for 1 ,000 years.

Some say that the millennium described in Revelation 20 is figurative, but it cannot be figurative.

There needs to be a 1 ,000 years because this is the time in history when

God fulfills his promises to Israel. When God makes a promise, he fulfills that promise exactly how he said he was going to fulfill it.

The Old Testament promises of receiving the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates was never fully attained.

And scripture also teaches that the Messiah will reign over the nations, fulfilling the

Davidic covenant. Israel historically has never had the land from the

Euphrates River to the river of Egypt. And of course, they were kicked out for over 2 ,000 years.

But when God fulfills his promises to Israel in the future, they will have the full land and no foreign kingdom will ever remove them from it.

This hasn't happened historically, but it must happen because God said it is going to happen.

Daniel 2 .44 says in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end and it shall stand forever. So these grand future promises in Israel's future are indeed what the

Lord has planned and it is going to happen. And this is why 1948 was so significant.

That's the year my mom was born. The nation of Israel becomes an official nation.

But even though all this is happening, even though all this is happening for the church to see, there is much opposition to God's work through the nation of Israel.

I'm talking about the church here in a little bit, but let me first start with Palestine. Ever since Israel became a nation in 1948,

Palestinians, remember these Arabs that descend from Ishmael, have claimed that Israel's land is their land.

But how should Christians think about this? The answer is easy, far easier than some make it out to be.

The Lord has always said that this land belongs to Abraham and his descendants and it always will.

Genesis 17, 8 says, I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their

God. So as we consider the constant land disputes between Israel and the Palestinians, Christians should side with Israel.

During President Trump's presidency, the United States moved their embassy to Jerusalem, as I said, and the

U .S. leadership along with Israel proclaimed that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

And this is something we should support. Jerusalem has belonged to Israel ever since the

Lord promised this land to Abraham and the Lord promised that this land would be theirs forever.

That being said, some Christians can go overboard in their support for Israel, believing that Israel can do no wrong.

Some of their leaders have been better than others and some have made better decisions than others. And as we think about Palestinian Christians, those who believe in Jesus as their

Messiah and their Savior, a Palestinian Christian is a true brother or sister in the

Lord, while an unbelieving Jew is not, at least for now, in that place.

In that case, one's relationship with a Palestinian Christian is deeper than an unbelieving Jew. That's true.

But we must understand that there is a great tension between Palestinians and Israel. If you know a

Palestinian Christian, their temptation will be to hate Israel. The Palestinians' hatred for Jews goes all the way back to Isaac and Ishmael.

Once again, Isaac was the promised child born through Sarah, while Ishmael was born through the servant woman,

Hagar, and therefore not a part of God's blessed line. The scripture says that Ishmael's offspring shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.

That's Genesis 16 verse 12 and Genesis 25 verse 18. The last 4 ,000 years has been a nonstop conflict between Israel and the

Ishmaelites. Abraham and Sarah's sin has consequences and we see that playing out to this day.

Remember Abraham and Sarah? They had to wait and wait and wait. You know, God promised that this line would come through their offspring and they took it into their own hands.

And so they're like, well, let's go through Hagar. And we can see the consequences of that to this day.

All Christians all over the world have certain sins that they are susceptible to because of their culture.

And we saw this in the Seven Churches of Revelation. The culture makes its way into the church.

In America, it's materialism, it's social justice, it's worldliness, different ways.

We need to realize that we live in a wealthy country and there's lots of issues in America that can seep its way into the church.

But a temptation for a Palestinian Christian will be to hate Israel because they have for millennia.

And this is where it is wise for non -Palestinian Christians to step in and show this brother or sister in the

Lord the promises of God. Genesis 12, three, if you honor them, they will be honored, you will be honored.

If you curse them, you will be cursed. And what's interesting is that we live in a world full of propaganda.

We see this every day. We see it every day on the news, if you still watch the news. And when we look at this propaganda, there is a propaganda directed toward the nation of Israel.

By the way, what is the propaganda out there? There's propaganda in COVID -19. Darwinian evolution is just automatically believed as fact without even looking at the fact that it's non -scientific.

There's propaganda with social justice, as I mentioned. There's propaganda against Christians.

We're called all kinds of names as we follow the Lord faithfully. But the false narrative against Israel is that they are the oppressor.

They are the aggressor. But what you see is Palestinian terrorists and other

Muslim nations proclaiming publicly that they want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

And Israel needs to defend itself, and they do. I once heard a

Jew say that if the Palestinians put down their weapons, the fighting would stop. If Israel put down their weapons, they would be destroyed.

And this is the basic law of self -defense. So there's an attack on self -defense, not only in our country, but all around the world.

Palestinians want the land that was promised to Israel forever. Palestinians do not have a nation themselves, but they desire to have a nation.

These Palestinians live in what is called the West Bank in the eastern part of Israel. This area is controlled by Israel, but Palestinians rule some of the cities, like Jericho.

Jerusalem is also on the west point of the West Bank. Israel controls this also.

Jerusalem gained these territories in 1967 in what is known as the Six Days War. This was a war where Israel was outnumbered, but they miraculously won and expanded the land that they were given in 1948.

The Palestinians want half of Jerusalem, the eastern part, as their own possession.

And they want all of the West Bank so that they can have their own Palestinian state. But as I already mentioned, we as Christians should not support this because this is

Israel's land. Okay, that's very controversial to say that. But again, based on what scripture says, we need to hold true to that.

We want the people to live at peace with one another, but the people of Palestine need to realize that this belongs to Israel because of God's promises to Abraham, 4 ,000 years ago.

And one day they will have the full land from the Euphrates River, which is in present -day Iraq, all the way to the

River of Egypt. Now, there are other Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip who are more radical than those in the

West Bank. They are called, the terrorist group is called Hamas. They want to wipe

Israel out. This is their mission in life. And you see animosity toward Israel by the radicals and the moderates who believe the lies.

Trevor Rubinstein shared something very interesting with me, Mark, and Keith, when we first met him.

By the way, that was horrible grammar, Mark, Keith, and I. What he told us is that the average

Palestinian is a victim of the propaganda spread by the Palestinian leadership.

Does this sound familiar with what happens in America? What do you do? You demonize the other side. Those are the bad guys.

And all this propaganda is spread. Corrupt leadership desires power, and so they demonize their opposition.

And those who are deceived by this leadership have an irrational hatred toward those they are told to hate.

Palestinians are told that Israel is the oppressor, and they have the land that the Palestinians should have.

But as we look at this as outside observers who are Christians and care what the Bible says, this land the

Lord promised to Abraham belongs to Israel. It always has, and it always will. And so we as Christians should support their occupation of this land.

The Lord would not have brought 6 .5 million Jews back to the land and enabled them to establish a

Jewish state for the first time in millennia to have them all kicked out and to have their land taken away from them.

No, the table is being set for a day when Christ will reign in this land for 1 ,000 years as Revelation 20 describes.

This is also important to you because one day you will reign in this land also. Before the 1 ,000 year reign of Christ is established, you will be raised from the dead, and you will reign in Christ's kingdom.

Once the millennial kingdom ends, that is when the eternal kingdom will be ushered in. The eternal kingdom is described in the last two chapters of the

Bible in Revelation 21 and 22. With this in mind, we should honor not only the

Jews that you come across in your life, but also the nation state, which is made up of mostly

Jews. And it is a partial recovering of the ancient Israel that was once there and will be theirs in full in the future.

Genesis 12 .3 once again says, those who honor Abraham will be blessed and those who dishonor Abraham will be cursed.

With all this information though, sadly, there have been many Christians in history and even

Christians today who speak poorly of the Jews. Some of the worst offenders were

Martin Luther and John Calvin. In many regards, we should be grateful for Luther and Calvin.

They fought against the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church and recovered the gospel. And for that, we are grateful.

So we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. But at the same time, they also said some very bad things because Luther and Calvin, like even those before them in church history, believed that Israel had their chance.

They rejected Jesus as the Messiah. So therefore God is done with them. They believed the church replaced

Israel and therefore God was done. Even in the present day, churches and Christian institutions push out beliefs that do not recognize the special place that Israel holds in God's plan.

Even if they do not go as far as the reformers, they are still being influenced by their major heirs about which scripture speaks so clearly.

Within the broader society, the treatment of the Jews is even worse and it is irrational. What you learn is how much

Satan hates God's ancient covenant people. There's a reason there's a term to describe the persecution of the

Jews. It's called anti -Semitism. The promise of Genesis 12 -3 holds true.

The promise says that those who dishonor Abraham will be cursed. The one who dies in his or her sins and cursed

Abraham will pay for those sins in eternity. But Christians who have dishonored Jews past and present will not go to hell because Jesus faced

God's curse for believers. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3 .13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Every sin of mistreatment of Jews was paid for at the cross of Jesus Christ if you belong to Christ.

But we do not want to be those who dishonor Jews. And that includes present day Israel that is a

Jewish state. We should be people who honor them. To honor them does not mean we should agree with everything they do.

They will do wrong some of the time. But we should support their occupation of the land.

We should support their right to defend against those who hate them and desire to take their land. We should honor them even when they do wrong because they are still

God's people. Right now at arm's length, but one day they will be brought close.

And as we wrap up this sermon, I want to close by asking the question, how can we honor

Jews and specifically the present day Jewish state of Israel? Here are some of the ways you can honor them.

You can pray for them. Pray that they would believe in their Messiah. Pray for their safety.

Pray for their... They are demonized in so many ways. Pray for their protection. Stick up for them.

When someone says something bad about Jews, in general, in the nation of Israel, defend them. Especially if it is irrational hatred directed at them.

What's interesting is that I preached this sermon in a different form five years ago.

And what inspired me to preach it was that I saw a post from a Christian where he said all these horrible things about Israel.

And I'm thinking, he's been lied to. He's believed lies.

And frankly, what's interesting is that as we look at the treatment by the church of the nation of Israel, and not just the nation of Israel, but just Jews in general.

If I were to write a chapter about the decline of the American church, one chapter would be about Israel.

Just a disregard for Israel. Not understanding God's great plans for them. Seeing that the church replaces

Israel. You know, we talked about just the different areas of decline.

We saw how the church operated during COVID. Just the double standard that the government had towards churches, and they did not fight back.

I mean, that would be a sign of compromise. And really, what is compromise? It's compromising with the world. It's linking arms with the world because you don't fear

God, you fear man. And so we see the church pushing all these different initiatives.

The same churches pushing social justice, kind of this Marxist ideology, are the same churches pushing freedom of Palestine.

I mean, there's a link here. There's a link between these. The same churches that closed down for 18 months during COVID are the same churches who think that Israel is an oppressor.

The same churches that think Darwinian evolution, God used to create the world, are the same churches.

I mean, you can just see there's a link. This is compromise. So at the root of all this is a fear of God.

It's a fear of, okay, Lord, we believe what your word says. We trust what your word says.

And we're going to take unpopular positions because we trust you.

And we don't care what the world thinks. I mean, so just understand, this is a deeper issue than people even realize.

And we need to understand how important that is. Okay, so we pray for their salvation. We stick up for them.

We praise the Lord for their bright future. If you see them doing something sinful, remember that the

Lord will one day soften their hearts and bring them to himself. Recognize Satan's designs and focus on the text of scripture that these are

God's covenant people. Satan hates Jews. He does.

The religion of Islam, they have a deep hatred of the Jews. And it's a false religion that Satan invented.

He hates all people, of course, but he has a special hatred for God's people. This would be the church and Israel.

And Satan succeeded in putting an irrational hatred toward Jews in Hitler and the

Nazi party's hearts. Hitler led the slaughter of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust in the 1940s.

If you are tempted to dislike Jews for some reason, turn from that. That's something that Satan plants in people's hearts.

Again, this does not mean to support everything that Jews do. We should feel sorrow over their sin and their rejection of Jesus as the

Messiah. But when we realize that God still has a deep love for these people and that he is not done with them, we should rejoice over Israel, God's ancient covenant people.

As Christians, we should be a people who thank God for them. And I think about the recent development over the last year.

Mark, in one of our elder meetings, said, what are we doing to bless Israel? And so we thought, well, maybe we should get a missionary to the

Jews in Israel. That would be a way that we would show our support to them as a church and do what we can to bless these people.

And so I reached out to my good friend Carl Johnson. Carl has preached here before. And Carl has been to Israel a dozen times.

And he's led tours over there. So he's really an expert on Israel. He loves Israel. His church, in fact, had one night a month specifically devoted to Israel.

Just a night of just focusing on God's ancient covenant people. So I asked

Carl this. He's like, I don't know a missionary to Israel, but I do know of a Jewish missionary.

And that's how we got connected with Trevor Rubinstein. And he, of course, preached here last week. And Trevor himself is a

Jew. He grew up in the Jewish community. And he is devoting his life to reaching the

Jews in the Twin Cities. There's about 70 ,000 Jews who live in the Twin Cities. And so his goal is to evangelize them.

And he's seen them come to faith in Christ. So we as a church are coming alongside him to bless

Israel. And I just think what a neat thing that God brought across our path in Trevor.

So Genesis 12 .3 says that we are to bless Israel. And so I hope that this morning was helpful in thinking through this.

Just did one sermon on this today. And now next Sunday, we'll be back in First Peter again. We'll be looking at verses 13 through 19 of First Peter 1, where Peter describes how

Christians are to live as spiritual exiles in this world. But I hope that the message is clear from what

Scripture says about these people that right now are at arm's length, largely speaking, but one day he will restore.

He will save and restore to the land that he promised them. And it's not because there's something special inherently about these people.

It's just that this is God's plan. He just decided to do it this way, right? And because it's

God's plan, because it's God's promises on the line, we should care about this. So at this time, let's bow our heads in prayer.

Father in heaven, thank you, Lord, for the clarity of your word. I think about all the passages in the

Old Testament that talk about the future salvation of Israel and the restoration into the land that you promised them.

I love John MacArthur's quote where he says, you get biblical interpretation right, you get

Israel right. You get Israel right, you get the end times right. I love that quote, and it's so true that this is biblical eschatology right before our eyes, and we see it playing out in our day.

We see the work you've done going back to 1948. We see your future plans in Scripture.

We see that right now, Jews are coming to faith in large numbers, and we rejoice over that.

And so help us as a church, Lord, to be a church that loves Israel. And blesses them in different ways, prays for them.

And that we do pray for a blessing upon Trevor as he ministers to them in the Twin Cities as well. And we thank you so much for bringing him across our path.