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This has been an intense time. Since October 7th, it feels like Israel’s been on an incredible rollercoaster emotionally as a people. There has been much unity in the very beginning, unity around the cause of basically our national trauma.
I would say Israel is now experiencing a national PTSD, but the way that Israel responds to trauma is not by shrinking back. They respond to trauma by unifying, by working on these things, by saying, “We’re going to continue despite everything going on.”
We are getting prepared for it, but we are not going to let it influence our daily lives. We are going to get up and go to work. We are going to get up and go on with regular life.
Even on the day that Iran sent the missiles on April 14th, Israelis went out and did their everyday life. They came home and prepared. They did not say, okay, Iran’s sending missiles, therefore we are going to stay home the entire day, and it is the end of the world.
But at the same time, there was a concern, it is serious, but Israelis are so used to trauma, they’re so used to, I’ve lived here in Israel since 2002, so I’ve lived here through the second Intifada, through the second Lebanon war, through the various Gaza wars that we’ve had, the ones with Iron Dome and the ones without Iron Dome, and then the ninth Intifada, we’ve had several different security issues. It seems like we go on a roller coaster of security issues, then calm, then security issues and then calm.
Right now, we are in the most intense time I have been in since living in Israel. Even compared to the second Intifada, which was really intense, I remember living here during the second Intifada, when buses blew up every day. This is more intense than that.
There seems to be a national cry of unity, that sometimes that unity is challenged between people who want a peace deal with Hamas and are willing to have it at all costs. Israel has a mentality of no man left behind at all costs. This is a national mentality.
If one soldier is kidnapped, they are willing to go to war, like they did in the second Lebanon war. When you had three soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, they went into an entire war for an entire summer to get those three hostages back. Gilad Shalit, it was a national holiday when Gilad Shalit came back from Gaza.
That tends to be on one side in Israel, this national feeling of, we need to get the hostages home. We need to get them home at all costs. That is on one side.
On another side, I would say probably more right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu wing, is yes, we need to get the hostages back, but not at all costs. Because we do not need to let it cost future hostages. We cannot bow to all of Hamas’s demands for the hostage deal.
There tends to be, this unity, a little bit is stressed right now, I would say in Israel. And with the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, I have seen this stress it more, the camps are divided more in Israel. There are people that are incredibly happy that Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Israel.
And then there’s people that are terribly upset because they see it as Benjamin Netanyahu or the government of Israel making strides to stop the hostage deal. The same sentiment is not about the assassination in Lebanon. That tends to have more of a national unity around it.
Right now, all over Tel Aviv, there are people upset in Tel Aviv about this assassination. And they are saying, you just ruined our chances to get our hostages back. And they are protesting all over Tel Aviv today. Then there’s also people that say, “no, this is great. This is a step in national security. We are assassinating people we should have assassinated a long time ago.”
As far as the atmosphere goes, there is confusion. And this is what is being reported by the Israeli media. Israelis tend to believe the Israeli media. When Israeli media express concern, Israelis tend to believe them. When they do not express concern, or they say it is complex right now, or when the home front command says you do not have to prepare, which is what they are saying right now, it is not time to prepare yet.
I do not think that there is a national, “oh my gosh, the world is ending right now.” The Israeli government is saying there is something looming. There is something on the horizon that we can expect. It is not immediate, but it is true. And that’s kind of the national sentiment.
There was reports today about them expecting something on the ninth of Av, that that is a day that they are planning in cooperation with the National Day of Jewish Tragedy, the historical National Day of Jewish Tragedy, which is coming up on the 12th and the 13th of August. Right now, there is a little bit of calm, but there’s tension in the air and everybody knows it.
The covenant promises of God to the Jewish people are irrevocable. And that is a non-starter for believers. Believers need to understand that there is going to be a day of reckoning for how we support Israel and the Jewish people and stand for their covenant promises. I am starting with that because I am also going to get into the heart of God for the Arab world, for the Palestinians, for what God is doing in the hearts of the people of the nation of Israel, we need to understand that God’s covenant promises to the Jewish people are non-negotiable.
He will judge us, the church. It says so in the parable of the sheep and the goats. He will judge us, the church, on how we deal with God’s covenant promises to the nation of Israel and the Jewish people.
Now, on an eschatological scale, you know, how that happens, God has a sovereign plan of how that is happening. And there are going to be difficulties. God is going to bring judgment on Israel.
And he will shake Israel. The fact that he has covenant promises for Israel does not mean he is not going to shake Israel. And it does not mean it is not going to be hard for Israel.
In fact, there is a time coming called the time of Jacob’s Trouble. I do not believe we are there yet, but it is coming. When we are looking at the heart of God, what is the purpose of all of this?
And that is the question. The purpose of all of this is the salvation of Israel is God’s heart for the Jewish people. There is God’s heart for the Jewish people, and then there’s God’s heart for the nations and how they operate in God’s plan with the Jewish people.
And those are two different things. God’s heart for the nations and the believer in the nations is that we stand for God’s covenant promises for Israel no matter what. But within that, God’s heart for Israel is he needs to shake them.
There is a place where they cannot rely on the arm of the flesh anymore. There is a place that there is LGBTQ movements here. There are movements of sin in Israel.
And God needs to shake the heart of the nation because he loves them, not because he wants to judge them, but because he desires them to come back to him. He desires them. And that is what we see now.
We are seeing shaking. Some of these shakings is for the nations, and some of these shakings are for the Jewish people. But ultimately, it comes back to God’s plan to reconcile the Jewish people to himself and the nations to himself through the nation of Israel, through his dealings with the nation of Israel, so he can have the one new man and the body that he loves.
When we are looking at everything, at what is happening right now on one hand, the Bible specifically tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. It specifically tells us to pray for protection for the Jewish people and for the nation of Israel. At the same time, those prayers do not contradict that sometimes God must shake our nation.
And I say this as an Israeli. I am an Israeli citizen. I live here. I have an Israeli passport. And as an Israeli that loves my people, I do believe that sometimes in love, God must remove his protection. Sometimes in love, God must shake people’s hearts.
When I was here in the second intifada, in 2002. I remember everything happening here. Did you know that there are more Israelis that came to faith during the second intifada? I am talking about native-born Israelis, then any time in Israel’s history up until that point. It is like God shook the hearts of the Jewish people through a national tragedy to open and soften their hearts towards him. And sometimes, even amid our prayers for protection, we must understand that God wants their hearts even more than their protection.
God wants them to return to him. And he will. Right now, it is a remnant.
And it will continue to be a remnant until he returns. But he wants that remnant. That remnant must be a witness to the nations. And he will build his remnant here. And this remnant will be a light to the nations. This remnant will be a light to the Palestinian people.
I also want to address the issue with the Palestinian people because God has a heart for the Palestinians. God loves the Palestinians. I work in disciple-making on both sides of the fence with the view of God’s covenant promises for Israel. That is an incredibly challenging thing to do. Most people who work with Palestinian Muslims do not have a heart for God’s covenant promises to the Jewish people.
To work both sides of the fence and have that heart and not just work in reconciliation between Christian evangelicals on the Palestinian side and Messianic Jews on the Israeli side but work in making disciples on both sides. I go into dangerous places with other Israelis to reach and find persons of peace among Palestinians. I know Gazans that have worked with me in the past. God loves the people of Gaza. They are made in His image. Yes, they have sinned gravely to God’s covenant promises to the Jewish people.
But my heart for them is not judgment and wrath. The Bible says, remember when Moses was on the mountain, and they made the golden calf? God basically said, I want to destroy all these people. Judgment is coming. Moses interceded on behalf of people that were in complete idolatry and said, in wrath, remember mercy.
In wrath, remember mercy. In English, it says God repented. In the Hebrew, it says God was comforted. It comes from the same word. It can mean repent, but it can also mean comforted.
The heart of God is comforted with intercessors who stand on behalf of the people who deserve wrath and cry out for mercy, even though they know they deserve wrath. And so that is my heart for the Palestinians. The Palestinians, yes, they are standing in the way of God’s covenant promises to the Jewish people.
I am believing for their destiny, which I believe their destiny because God has a destiny for every people group on the earth, including the Palestinians. I believe that they were meant to be custodians, hospitable custodians, to welcome the Jewish people back and encourage them in their destiny for the return of the Lord, for the remnant, for the Gentiles that provoke the Jewish people to jealousy. They are the best Gentiles who provoke the Jewish people to jealousy.
I have seen this repeatedly. When Muslims come to faith in the Palestinian territories, and I have many stories, and their hearts are turned away from hating Israel to absolutely loving Israel, it is a better witness than an American Christian evangelical coming over here and sharing the gospel. And they do share the gospel.
I have Palestinian friends who came to the Lord that I helped baptize that used to pray. They were from the northern part of the West Bank. They used to pray that soldiers would stop them at checkpoints.
Impromptu checkpoints in order that they could love on the Israeli soldiers and on Israelis who they did not have everyday contact with. Well, they pray, please let us be stopped. Most Palestinians say, please do not let us be stopped.
They pray, please let us be stopped because we want a chance to love our enemies. And this is the destiny, I believe, that could be the Palestinian people. And this is what I am contending for while standing on God’s covenant promises for the Jewish people.
A group of Muslims who have found Yeshua, who found Isa. And they speak fluent Hebrew. And we do Discovery Bible Studies with them in Hebrew.
Now I finally brought an Arabic speaker in. It has been going on for over a decade, this group of Discovery Bible Studies, and they have multiplied to 100 people that are in Discovery Bible Studies. And they are Muslims, and they have zero contact and zero understanding of the Evangelical Church. Their only experience with the Gospel is through Discovery Bible Studies. There are no Christian witnesses in their area.
And when they started reading verses like love your enemies in the Discovery Bible Study, one of our leaders is the local village leader of his village, and there are settlements nearby. And he took the opportunity to meet the leadership of the settlements nearby to say, how can we bless this West Bank area together because of what the Lord had done in his heart? And how can we work together?
And he is working together with Jewish settlers. (They are sworn enemies that are not believers yet.) Jewish people that live in Judea and Samaria, because of what the Lord has done in his heart, and he is being a witness to them as a Muslim-Background-Believer and as the local village leader of his village. And so that is another incredible story.
I believe we are going to get to a point, he is not there yet, where he is even going to start, I am believing and praying, he is praying to start Discovery Bible Studies among them, (the Jewish settlers).
A Muslim background believer that was in a hospital, he had to go to the hospital for a certain reason. And next to his hospital bed, he was an East Jerusalem Palestinian, and next to his hospital bed were some Jewish people. And he was able to share from Isaiah 53 to the Jewish people. And the Jewish people told him, I would not listen to anybody else, not even a Messianic Jew about this.
But because I know you are a Muslim and hated me and now you love me, I want to read this with you together. Because I see what it is done in your heart.
Those types of stories, I believe, are going to be multiplied.
I also believe it should cause the Western church to look at the Palestinians differently, especially those of us who support Israel. Especially those of us who are like me and like you, believe that Zionism is a move of God on some level. Not the full move of God, but a move of God in some levels.
Literally brought the Jewish people back to the land of Israel, in part. And so, for those of us who believe that we should also believe God’s heart for Palestinians. And what now brings stress, I always love it when we think about tension points between people, not as a struggle, not as a barrier. But as an opportunity. And I believe we can start looking at these areas as opportunities.
There was a Bedouin village that was protesting. You know, Israel often destroys Bedouin villages, just for context. Mostly because of bureaucracy, because they do not apply to building codes, and they do not get permits. And the Bedouins have a challenging time because they have a certain living standard. They are extremely poor, and it is hard for them to do that. And so, there was a tent that was protesting Israel’s destruction of Bedouin tents.
Okay. And me and another Jewish believer, a friend of mine, saw these Bedouin tents at protest. As an Israeli and as somebody who has my heart more towards Zionism, I used to think when I looked at these protest tents, “oh my gosh, they are anti-Israel.”
You know, “how dare,” you know, like this offense that comes up. And I remember the Lord speaking to me one day and my friend, my Jewish Israeli friend, and he said, I love these people. Look above the problem and look at what I am doing.
We decided to go into the tent and love people. We went into the tent and said, you know what, we do not understand your entire struggle, explain it to us. We do not know if we will agree, but we want to be here and say, we hear you, we love you.
We stayed there and we went a couple of times, and we made friends with the Bedouin mayor of that entire area. And then we asked people if they needed prayer.
There was a couple Bedouin Muslims that wanted deliverance from demons. Animism is huge in the Bedouin culture and the demonic realm, they call it the djinn, is a very predominant part of their culture. It influences their entire life.
When they found out we have authority over the djinn, they got excited. We started casting out demons and their protest became a deliverance tent where we would go on a regular basis, and they would bring people who needed deliverance. Then we would get calls from everywhere from people who needed deliverance.
Now, what if I would have let my political offense or my views of Zionism or the situation keep me from loving these people, keep my friend from loving these people?
That is a good question. I think, first, GCM (Global Catalytic Ministries) is great—get in contact with GCM. Ask them what is going on.
You can be in touch with the disciple makers, the coaches through GCM, and I would read the stories, and then let that inform your intercession, number one. Let that inform your giving.
The believers here, we are about to go to war. We are going to need supplies.
Yes. And at GCM, when you give supplies, I just want to encourage you. We see these as access ministries. Yes, we give supplies because we love people, and God commands us to love people, but we also always look for persons of peace, and we see these as access ministries. Oftentimes, persons of peace are people that want to get involved with you. They are the people who see what you are doing and say, “hey, I see what you are doing. How can I help you?” And then you know you have found persons of peace.
I would say, as far as giving, contact GCM. We will need the funds. There are many ministries that will need your funds, but GCM as well.
I remember God spoke to me in 2020 during the George Floyd riots. During the George Floyd riots, there was many people rioting on the streets, and the Lord asked me a question. He goes, “what do you see?” And I was amid the riots trying to love people, and the Lord said, together with teens in America, and the Lord said, “”What do you see?” And I said, “I see people that are going towards Yeshua, but they are broken people that need love.”
And the Lord told me, “You’ve seen well, but do you know what I see?” I am like, it was the Lord asking me a question. He said, “do you know what I see?” I said, what do you see, God? He said, “I see a people crying out for Maranatha, and they do not know it yet. And they do not know how it looks yet.”
I want you to stop looking in the second heavens. I want you to start looking in the Third Heavens. Second heaven, there is a second heaven level of discernment that believers need to have. The Bible says not to be unaware of the plans of the enemy. It commands us not to be unaware. And so, looking in the second heavens is looking at what the enemy is doing.
So, we are aware of his strategy. But we do not stay there. We let the second heaven inform third heaven. The third heaven is what is God doing? What is God doing? Not only what the enemy is doing, which we often stay there, but what is God doing?
What is God’s plan? What is happening like in Daniel in the heavenly realms? Whenever they saw the Antichrist, and he said, but Daniel, look again. And he looked again, and he went higher. And when he went higher, he saw the Lord of hosts making a decree on behalf of the saints. And so, I just want to encourage our audience when we are looking at this Israel situation, look higher.
As you see, what is happening in Gaza. You can even see what is happening in Israel. And we can pray against the plans of the enemy. This is biblical. But say, what is God doing? Is God shaking the heart of the Gazans to cause them to come to repentance?
Maybe if we are protesting for justice there, we are protesting God’s best will against the Gazans, because he wants their heart more than he wants their safety and their security. Maybe God wants Israel’s heart more than he wants their safety and security. And maybe he’s leading up to a cry for Maranatha, where he is shaking the very ground that people are on.
Our opportunity there is to make disciples. I just want to encourage people, look into the third heaven and not into the second heaven. Look into what God is doing and not just what the enemy is doing.
Endurance and boldness. Us as Israeli believers would not look at the storm clouds around us but look up and cry for the return of the Lord and respond with boldness, endurance, making disciples, lifting our eyes, and seeing the harvest field amid the tragedies.
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