What do we do with Israel? part 4 (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

Now I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.

It wasn't the type of people. I got to make a confession to you.

I was just a little bit over optimistic in being able to finish up this series on Israel.

I got to confess to you. I wanted to go to the Olivet Discourse, a .k

.a. Matthew chapter 24 today. But man, I can't get past 1972.

And I'm just being honest with you. I'm going to have to kick Matthew 24 to a later date.

I don't know... Where's Pastor? I don't know whether... Am I preaching next Sunday? We don't know yet.

We don't know yet. But anyways, I will get to the future of Israel. But man, there was just so much to go over here today.

You know, when we praise God, we praise

God for things that He does in healing. Most of you probably don't know this, but a week ago, my third child got a report from a

CT scan that there was an abnormality in the occipital part, the right part of his brain.

29 years old. And it was looking pretty ominous.

We prayed as a family, as individuals. We fasted.

God, please. I remember Pastor Josiah and I went and picked him up.

And we were running errands with him. And he just broke down crying.

And this is what he said. He said, If God will save someone through my death, then glory be to His name.

But what about his wife and daughter, Javian and Skylar?

And he was just broken hearted. And I at that point said, Son, if you do die, can

I have your car? No, I didn't say that. Sorry, I had to break the tension there.

I said, Son, you know that there's no way on God's green earth that we would allow anything to happen.

Your family is my family. He finally got an MRI. And for all you medical people,

I want to appreciate your steadfast work and always being able to help us in the immediate need that we need five weeks after getting a report like that.

But anyways, he went and had his MRI done Friday. And we got the results

Friday night. And it was just a bunch of gobbledygook. But basically it said we found nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Now that's probably a coincidence.

It probably is. It's probably one of those things that because you have never had an intimate life that relies on nothing but faith, the skepticism of your doubts that aren't healthy.

It's okay to have doubts. But when you never matriculate after years of being a

Christian and putting your faith in Christ, when you go through the emotionalism and hoping that that brings you a sense of foundational strength that it never does, you never grow up.

And after going through that over and over again, you keep finding plausible deniability and you trust more in the power of this world than you do in the sovereignty of God.

Well, today's sermon is just that. I challenge, I dare,

I bet, I will ask anyone to explain to me, and you can gather all the intellectuals that you can find, explain to me the existence today of a little sliver of land the size of not even

New Jersey sitting surrounded by enemies how it exists today as a nation when it hasn't existed for 2 ,500 years.

I say, because the Word of God says it will, and God in His sovereignty, and apparently from the

Wednesday night Bible study, we need to go over that definition again, sovereignty is

God does what He wants, when He wants, with whom He wants, whenever He wants, without anybody's advice or permission.

Because He's God and He owns this place. He is the owner of the universe.

What heights of arrogance must your mind reach to to question God? I remember in the book of Job, Job sits there and after everything he goes through, he says,

God, this isn't fair. You know what God's answer was? Where were you when

I was making the whales, buddy? You have nothing to do but to play the actor upon a stage which is already set by God's sovereignty.

So Israel, I ask you, what is the reality of Israel?

Well, something you need to understand is this. Why are we talking about this? There we go.

Oh, my bad. I am not a computer nerd.

Why are we talking about this? Read Zechariah 2 verse 8 with me. For this is what the

Lord Almighty says. Now remember, this was written before Jesus was born.

This is what the Lord God Almighty says. Lord Almighty, sovereignty. After the

Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you, for whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye.

Why are we talking about Israel this morning? Well, I'm going to be real honest with you. This is why. Because God said, these people are my chosen.

And I'm going to tell you the other reason why. They are an anomaly in human history that cannot ever be explained by any military, political, or economic power.

Their existence, just like a blank MRI, is a strengthening of faith to the born -again believer.

To the child of God who really sees God's words not as a

Bible story or sermon or a religious creed, but as the overwhelming evidence of the truth of God's Word and His sovereignty, it is massively important that you understand this.

As we look at this, I want to just share with you a couple of things. Last week, we talked about the birth of Israel in May of 1948.

We talked about that. How it was just absolutely out of the blue and in one day, as Isaiah 66 .10

says, in one day, a nation was born. That has never happened in human history.

Ever. But yet, in one day, a nation was born. We know that they fought that little nine -month war.

I always think that's cute. Israel was reborn again in the war.

It was declared in one day, but they had to fight for nine months. And they won everything.

They defeated every army that came against them. And I know some of y 'all say, Pastor Jeff, please don't review too much.

Well, I'm sorry, guys. This isn't a story. This is history, so there has to be just a little bit of review.

So just sit back, relax, take an Adderall. It'll be okay. So, here we go. Israel was born in 1948, and you had several things happen after that.

You had the Suez Canal crisis, and you can read that on your own. But in 1959, please remember this date, 1959, an organization was founded 10, 11 years after Israel was re -founded.

It was called the PLO. There was this cat named Yasser Arafat who became the chairman of the

Palestinian Liberation Organization. Please keep that in mind, especially if you want to talk to an

Internet sensation millennial who might not know history. Israel had won.

It had won all that territory, but Jerusalem was still divided.

In Zechariah chapter 14, God tells the people that there's going to be a time when the nation of Israel will exist with the city of Jerusalem still divided in half.

Let me say that to you again. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, all the way to 1948, yeah, you're going to be a nation again, but Israel will be split in two.

In reality, that's exactly what had happened. After Israel won its independence, the western side of Jerusalem was controlled by Israel, but the eastern side was controlled by the

PLO, by the Arab League. And that eastern side is where the

Temple Mount was. It was where the Wailing Wall was. It was where the most important, holiest sites in Israel were.

Israel said, okay, we're cool. We can wait. Because, see, they trusted in something other than just simple, silly man's words.

Fast forward a few years, 19 years later to be exact, and we enter 1967.

In 1967, here was the political situation going on. By the way, that's two years before I was born.

Who was born in 1967 or before? Okay, yes,

Kerry, we know. I said 1967, not 1949. 1967, right? A few.

We're kind of a young church, but a few of us. Okay, a few of us. So this is how everything was going.

Nineteen years had passed since that War of Independence, and everybody was still very angry.

Everyone hated Israel with a flaming passion. In fact, they kept talking about, well, when we're ready, we're going to wipe you guys off the face of the earth.

In fact, at that point, in May and June of 1967, Israel stood alone against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon with support from Algeria, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Tunisia, and the

Soviet Union. You see, it wasn't just a bunch of Arabs on camels, okay?

It was, at that time, they were funded, and they were supplied by the

Soviet Union. So all these nations gathered around Israel had the most advanced equipment available to them.

Now, I know some of you are immediately saying, well, yeah, the U .S. was supplying Israel. Eh, eh, yeah, we were, with the stuff left over from World War II.

All the stuff that they had had, yeah, but the real person who was really supporting Israel at that time, y 'all are going to be shocked by this, was

France. France was really the one giving them a lot of gear, but it was still not enough.

In May of 1967, Israel was surrounded by enemies, and they were outnumbered 80 to 1.

80 to 1. Hmm, let's just look for a second. This was the plan of the

Arab League. In 1967, this was their plan. They decided, they came up, they all met together, they didn't do it in secret, they were actually a guy named

Nasser who was the head of Egypt and the head of the Arab League, United Arab Army, was just basically go around talking smack, saying, look, we're going to kill all of you.

We're going to walk in, we're going to butcher all of y 'all. Y 'all have been here long enough.

In fact, in May of 67, he broadcast on the radio, Radio Cairo, and he said this, and I quote,

He said, The existence of Israel has continued too long, 19 years.

The battle has come in which we will destroy him. The president of Iraq mimicked or mirrored those comments when he said this,

The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified.

Our goal is clear. We will wipe Israel off the map.

The next day, the next day after this, in the first part of June, Egypt said to all the

U .N. forces in the Sinai Desert, Y 'all need to get up out of here because we're fitting to kick butt and take names.

And the U .N., who, boy, they do so much good work. The U .N.

that were there, now watch it, their name were peacekeepers When Egypt said,

Y 'all need to go, they said, Deuces, we're out. They loaded up on ships and they were gone.

Israel literally was alone. There were no U .S. troops. There were nothing there.

Outnumbered 80 to one, this was the plan that would happen.

Hmm, sorry. This is what actually did happen. So on June 5th, 1967,

Israel sat there. They sat down and they said, Okay, here's where we're at.

We are surrounded and outnumbered in tanks, men, artillery, and airplanes. We are going to die.

So here's what we can do. We can wait until they attack or we can strike first.

Hmm, that's a good idea. Who do we attack? Israel was facing a 5 to 1 superiority with Egypt alone in airplanes.

And if any of y 'all know anything about military strategy, if you have tanks running across open ground, airplanes, air cover is a very important thing.

Okay? So Israel said this. Here's what we're going to do. Tomorrow, we're going to fly into Egypt and we're going to blow up all their planes while they're still on the ground.

We're not going to wait for them to attack us. Now remember, the day before, Egypt had said,

We're fixing to attack. They had moved all their troops right up to the borders. Jordan and Syria and Iraq and Lebanon, all of them had moved troops.

They were closing in. And Israel said, Nah, man, this ain't going to happen. If we're going to go down, we're going to go down swinging.

And Israel launched an airstrike on Egypt and Syria at the same time.

452 planes were destroyed in one hour. 452 planes.

Here's some things that are cool. And you can go look this up for yourself. The Jordanians, one of the things they were going to do, and Jordan, some of y 'all said you can't see my pointer thingamajigger, but I hope you can.

This is Jordan right here. One of the things Jordan was giving into this battle is they had set up all along here radar, and their job was if Israel did anything in the air, they were going to tell everybody else, and that was going to be the signal to go ahead and attack.

Well, Israel launched planes, and these are the actual routes, both in Syria and down here.

These are the actual routes the Israeli airplanes took. Well, when they took off from here in Tel Aviv, all of these radars, the radar systems failed.

Now, they did get them back online, and when they got them back online, they sent a message to Nasser saying, hey,

Israel's coming to attack you. But when the Egyptians got that message, they had had their radar transponders turned off to try to reset them.

I mean, their communications, because their communication system had blacked out as well.

So by the time Jordan got the radars on, they went to call Egypt to get them on the line to say, hey, you better do something.

They weren't answering the phone. The first bombs started dropping, and they were like just tearing these airfields up.

Israel would literally, one pilot sits there, was running through, and he was like going, ba -da -da -da -dat, da -da -da -da -tat.

And he was going to drop bombs, but he didn't have to because Egypt had stacked all their airplanes real close together to protect them.

And so he would shoot one, and he would light up on the second one, but the explosion in the first one had already destroyed the second one, and he was saying,

I kept pulling up to realign, and they were going boom, boom, boom, boom, faster. He said, I went back to rearm, and I still almost had three quarters of a load of ammunition.

I mean, things that are coincidences, right? Let's look at a couple other things.

I'm sorry. This was the air attack. This was the plan of the

Arabs. This is what happened. All those blue lines are

Israel. As soon as Israel's air force attacked, their land forces said, let's rock and roll.

Now remember, they're outnumbered 80 to 1. 80 to 1.

And they attacked. Exodus, I want to read this verse to you. Exodus 23, 27.

I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people who shall come against you, and I will make all of your enemies turn their backs to you.

2 Kings 7, 15. So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the

Syrians had thrown away in their haste, and the messengers returned and told the king. Now let me give you a caveat here real quick.

These two verses that I just read to you, in Exodus and in 2 Kings, are two different time frames separated by hundreds of years, but the thing that they have in common was when

Israel was attacking, they were always outnumbered, and God's strategy was to always confuse the enemy.

And so when the enemy got confused, you see this time and time again in the Old Testament.

The enemy would actually start shooting each other, right? Well, let me just give you a couple of quotes.

And I wrote these on the board this time because I think it was Marty last week goes, man,

I've never heard of that. And he asked me, I just want to write these. These are some of the quotes, and you can look these up, from people who were actually there.

Pilot and IDF Major General Wiseman was asked to explain how for three hours the

Israeli Air Force planes destroyed aircraft one airstrip after another.

His answer was, the finger of God. I have no idea why they didn't launch the plane.

I have no idea where their AA was. There is no explanation other than the finger of God.

Older airplanes. Now remember, Israel had basically... Where's Ben?

Is Ben Bowen here? Oh, he's doing security. Who else is... Jerry.

Where's Jerry? Where's Jarhead? Hey, Jarhead. How's your truck doing? What year is it?

99. Yeah. What do you mean, eh? It comes and goes.

Yeah. It gets you there. It gets you there. Praise God. Jerry's truck's a 1999, and sometimes it don't work too good.

You know what I mean? Israel had all old planes. They had all

Jerry trucks. Okay? All their planes were Jerry trucks. They were keeping this stuff put together with duct tape.

On that morning that they attacked, every one of them worked flawlessly all week long.

Not one of them failed. On one Israel infantry encounter...

Now this is when those little blue lines that went through the Sinai Desert. A truck loaded with 18 well -armed soldiers was running through, and there were two

Israeli soldiers. They didn't have great equipment. They were still using

Mosin -Nagant rifles or Mauser rifles, bolt -action rifles, okay?

And they were going through, and they see this truck with 18 Egyptian soldiers on it, and they're like,

Hands up! And the sergeant sat there and went, Ah!

And they all surrendered, all 18 of them, to two guys. The Israeli soldier asked him later,

Man, I just got to know. Why did you give up? He said, Man, I raised my arms to raise my rifle, and I was paralyzed.

Every single guy, Egyptian, in that detachment said the exact same thing.

Now wait a minute. Now in your brain right now, Dope Smoker, listen to me, okay?

Because some of you in your room right now, this is what you just did. Aw, man, come on. That lack of faith thing?

Where the only reality you have is what you experience in your world with your mind and your facts?

That's what's causing you to go to hell in a handbasket. See, because in your world, you are the absolute bastion of truth.

There is no reality outside of your brain. But Spunky, let me tell you something.

The world's just a little bit bigger than Bartlett. Okay? It's just a little bit bigger than your experience at 29 years old.

Skippy, you're an idiot. You're arrogant, and that pride is what's going to destroy your life and your family.

Okay? Come on with me. Let's just walk a little bit more. One tank commander, now in all honesty, let me make clear about this.

This was in the Jeb Desert. This is up in Syria. One tank commander explained, now once again, this is the enemy of Israel.

This is not an Israeli soldier, said this. They were coming through the north.

Syria attacked from the north, and they were just barreling down, man. After that air attack, it was like all gloves are off, we're fitting to take names and what but.

And they started coming down through the north. When they started coming down, he sat there, and he looked out, and there was like one or two tanks.

Actually, what had happened was Israel had gotten up on this hill. I wish I had time to go through this, because it's awesome.

But they had gotten up on this hill, and they were looking down like this into the valley.

Well, the problem was the Israeli tanks couldn't get their gun. They had set up. They were like, we're going to wear them out.

But then someone realized almost too late as they were coming that because the

Syrian tanks were down here and the Israeli tanks were up here, you know, Bucky decided, hey, let's pull a trigger.

Oh, wait a minute. I can't get my gun on the tank to go down low enough. It's called depression. He couldn't get his gun to depress far enough to shoot down.

And all the Israeli guys were like, oh, we're in trouble. Syria, they were coming through, and as he looked up, he said he saw not just on the hill, but all in front of him hundreds of Israeli tanks.

You know what he did? I quit. Didn't even fire a shot. Didn't even actuate the coaxial machine gun.

Just literally put that bad boy in park, got out, and said, we surrender. Well, this is what everyone said.

Well, it was a mirage. Obviously, they saw a mirage and got freaked out. Okay, Bucky.

It was just a mirage. By the way, how does mirage's light refraction work when the object that they're seeing is higher than that?

I mean, you could see it if it was reflected. You see what I'm saying? Some of y 'all will get that later.

Hmm. Hmm. Secular newspaper. For those of you that don't know what that means, non -believer.

Secular newspaper. Haaretz carried this comment by one of its military correspondents.

In other words, there were people embedded in the military said even a non -religious person must admit this war was fought with help from heaven.

Now, I know you sitting here in 2023 with your iPhone, your bank account, your plans of grandeur and all that other stuff, your plausible liability of why you live in rebellion towards a holy and righteous

God. I get all that that you can explain away the miracles of the past.

Unfortunately for you, the people that were there can't. They can't explain it.

And if you actually get educated enough, if you really study military history and tactics and you study the geopolitical situation, no one,

I have not yet read a book yet and I've read hundreds of them on this particular war,

I have not found anyone military or otherwise that can explain this war.

Just a couple more things. This was Israel before the war.

See, there he is, right there. You have to remember, keep this in perspective. This isn't necessarily a great map.

You've got to remember, here's the whole world. Here's Israel right here. It's like Nova compared to all of us.

This is Israel before the war and this is Israel after the war.

They quadrupled in size. So they were outnumbered 80 to 1. It wasn't like a valiant

Alamo -type moment. It wasn't like, we're going to hunker down here and we hope we can survive until help comes.

They were like, forget that noise. We're going that way. And every time they moved, they won.

This are two famous pictures. Two famous pictures. This picture,

I'm sorry, wrong one. Man, I wish this thing, there it is. This one is very famous.

But these are paratroopers of the Israeli Defense Forces for the first time in 2 ,500 years.

The nation of Israel is standing by the wailing wall. Standing right there.

These young boys who were probably some of them born after 1948 or the

War of Independence, who were definitely born after Jesus, born after Zachariah, born after Isaiah, but God said one day

Israel would be united again. The Holy Land will be under Israel rule.

They're sitting there. They're rejoicing. I want to just probably put this in perspective real quick for you.

Israel was surrounded by hostile nations. Outnumbered 80 to one.

And God said, all those who come against you, I will stand up and fight because you people are the apple of my eye.

You're the heart of my hearts. I will save you. I will defend you. They all attacked

Israel. Israel fought back. And in six days quadrupled the size of their nation.

I want you to think about this just for a second. Just take all of your doubts and if you need to, pull up Wikipedia.

Put the pacifier in your brain. I want you to answer just one question.

How outnumbered 80 to one? How did little Israel without help from anyone defeat all those nations in six days?

And on the seventh day, they rested. Your doubts about who

God is and who Christ is in your life are based upon your concepts of your understanding.

No one blames you for that. That's how we all think. But here's what you've got to do if you actually want to embrace the maturity of a

Christian life. You're going to have to get outside of your feelings, your thoughts, your ideas, and your perspectives.

Okay? Because all of those are subjective to your experience.

But see, there's a great big world with seven billion people in it. There's been a hundred billion people who have existed since Adam and Eve.

A hundred billion and you're one. A hundred billion and you're one.

Do you know what heights of arrogance you have to reach to where your experience alone explains reality?

Do you know what heights you have to reach to? It's funny how people always say church people are so arrogant.

Really? Because Jeff Shipley ain't involved in any of this. Jeff Shipley has not.

I'm just recounting to you facts. Now you're sitting in here today and you're sitting here going, what's this have to do with me?

Everything. Or maybe nothing. And that's the question you've got to ask.

Psalms 122 says this, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

May they be secure who love you. I'm American. I'm American.

I'm not American. I'm American. I'm a southern boy from Tennessee and I love

America. Every time I watch boxing or anything, this is how I do it.

Which one's a Christian? Because if I don't know who's fighting or I don't know which one's a Christian, like the

Olympics, I don't care who they are. I'm pulling for the guy with the big American flag on them. That's who

I'm pulling for. I'm sorry. I'm one of those guys. I want to pull for the guy that's a

Christian. I used to like John Jones because he had Philippians 4 .13 but then he ruined his testimony. I don't really care about him anymore.

But I pull for Americans. Then if they're both Americans, I want to know who's from the

South. Right? Because the war ain't over, y 'all. It's real. The pain's real. Them Yankees are going to get thrown out of here one day.

Just kidding. But anyways, that's the next thing I do. And then after that, you know,

I don't really care. I just really don't care. Guys, I'm American. Man, I love

America. I love Wynton Baptist Church. I love all of that. But you know my identity when

I come to the Word of God isn't about Jeff Shipley. It's not about being American. It's not about any of that garbage because all that's going to burn up and go away.

You know the only thing that's going to last forever is the kingdom of the living God. That's where I want my loyalty to ultimately lie.

Some of us in this room, you say all this doesn't matter. But it does, people.

Because Jerusalem is going to be the capital of the eternal kingdom of God. That's where Jesus is coming back.

Zechariah 14 again. I tell you, the Bible says that it's the same place Jesus left, it's the same place

He's coming back. By the way, question, 400 years earlier, how did they know Jesus would leave from Mount of Olives?

I'll wait for a second. Because God's sovereign.

Just shout it out once you know the answer. It's okay. Guys, the Bible is a lot bigger than a little white kid with curly hair killing a big cartoon -looking giant with a rock.

It's just a bit bigger than the blue -eyed blonde -haired Jesus smiling, going,

I love you so much. It's just a little bit bigger than that. It's bigger than a stupid pastor's sermon or a church building.

It is history that's coming. You know what prophecy is? It ain't nothing more than pre -written history that's already happened in the mind of God.

Which means it's going to happen again. I ask you, where are you this morning?

I'm going to ask the music peoples to come up. Where are you this morning? Where are you with Jesus?

You see, there is going to be peace on earth. You know when there's going to be peace on earth? When there's peace in Jerusalem.

You know when there's going to be peace in Jerusalem? Not when the Oslo Accords or the Abrahamic Accords or Bill Clinton or whoever else says there will be.

It's when Jesus Christ comes down and steps foot on Mount Zion and says this, I have had enough.

And you're going to hear a leather belt coming out of a pair of Wrangler jeans. And Jesus is going to go to whooping butt.

He ain't coming as a little milk toast, skinny, pale -faced, little sissy boy.

He's coming as the lion of the tribe of Judah, the bright morning star, the righteous one. He is coming as the alpha of the omega.

And if you are not His child, you are going to be on the wrong side of history.

In 1967, historical facts, this is what happened.

Now if you want to do what your heart and mind are telling you to do because you're looking at your watch wondering if this is going to be over, this really has no relevance for you.

And for you I say, good luck, man. But for those of you that are looking to feed your faith in your life, ask yourself this one question again.

All the nations of the earth and thousands of years of human history are continually bowing to what

God said that would happen before any of those nations even existed. God said,

He took a guy in a goat skin and on a piece of papyrus said, write this down.

And dude wrote it down. He didn't have no doctorate. He didn't have no fancy church. He wrote down, one day

Israel will be surrounded by its enemies, they will attack, but the Lord God will defend them.

And what made that so weird to the dude writing it down is there was no nation of Israel at that time for 2 ,500 years.

And all of a sudden, within our lifetimes, here it is.

Here's the question you've got to ask. What does this have to do with you? It's not just for those of you that need your faith strengthened.

It's for those of you who are skeptical and need a reassurance of your doubt. If God can orchestrate the plans of mankind and make nations like puppets on a string, how big really are your problems that are insurmountable to a holy and righteous

God? How hard are they? Well, pastor, you don't understand.

My marriage is in toil. Okay. You don't understand. God literally said, let there be light.

That's it. Well, pastor, you don't understand. I'm in addiction and it's got me.

Well, I'm in Christ and it no longer has me. You know?

See, there is a power outside of religion and a church that struggle and screw up to serve

God. We all admit that. But there really is a God and He really wants to save you.

And He really does love you in spite of your nastiness. That's called grace. I'm going to ask you this morning, if you don't know the real

Jesus, I'm going to ask you to come down here and let somebody show you through Scripture, not

Baptist teaching, through Scripture, where to find peace. If you're in this room and your problems are so big there's no way you can get out from under them, cool, because that's the exact moment when

God wants you to understand what true faith really is. It's not in the good times.

It's in the sucky times. God shows out then. If you're in this room today and you're just a pseudo -intellectual skeptic that just wants to argue about God, cool.

I think, Carrie, I'm off at 5 .30 today. I have appointments all day.

Come up to my office at 5 .30. Please. Bring a notepad and a pen and we'll talk about it.

Pastor Josiah, would you be willing? Pastor Jeremiah? Pastor Christian? Pastor John?

Forget pastors. I guarantee you can find some dumb rednecks in here that can do it for you. Mikey.

Right? You know why? Because it doesn't take the name pastor.

All it takes is trusting the Word of God. I'm going to ask you to stand with me and if God has spoken to you today, there are people down here at the front wanting to help you.