Come Up Here!
For 20 years, I advocated for Israel, though networking, publishing, research, and writing. I was very committed to what I called helping protect Israelis physically. I considered that trying to keep fiendish forces—including Westerners in suits—helped this endeavor.
For many of those years, I harbored a dream of really having an impact in the church, particularly the American Church. I had studied history and knew how corrupted our seminaries and large churches were by the turn of the 21st century. The “average” conservative Christian in this country has no idea the evil that infiltrated our institutions by the end of the 19th century. With the efforts of Soviet agents infiltrating some of those institutions, and other spheres of society, it’s a miracle we lasted this long.
The Church was always a major target.
Waves of important turning points aided their efforts. Gradually making churches dependent on tax-exempt status was a dagger in our hearts. Eventually, celebrity pastors became fearful of speaking out on controversial topics (including Israel!) and they settled into what amount to State-approved “sermon series” and other nonsense masquerading as Bible teaching. Can you imagine Spurgeon coming back today to an Andy Stanley service? Can you imagine other giants of the faith enduring a “message” on repairing relationships or getting your finances in order?
In all this, the wonderful teaching about the Jews’ role in history has been so watered down that it is like a blob of jelly on a table. There’s nothing there.
With the home-going of those pastors that did keep the faith, our public face to the world has become so embarrassingly lacking that I tremble when I think of judgment. It seems we are now in it.
This week, Joe Biden finally called Bibi Netanyahu, after weeks of speculation about the snub. People are trying to figure out what that means for the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Several thoughts.
First, Netanyahu has known Biden for decades. He knows exactly what he’s dealing with. A combat veteran, I doubt Bibi was apoplectic over the snub from the criminal Biden. He knows who Biden is. He knows that the Obama-Biden Administration tried to kill him politically through foreign intervention in Israeli elections. I lose no sleep in Israel’s ability to survive the illegitimate “presidency” of Biden.
Next, for those that are trying to figure out if Gog-Magog is next week, or tonight, please. We don’t affect God’s schedule. Yes, the Gog war is important. It’s a crucial end-times event. But you can’t read geopolitical tea leaves from the Media and try to figure these things out.
Israel is also concerned about the Biden pledge to rejoin the wholly insane Iran “nuclear deal.” According to the Jerusalem Post:
“Washington said on Thursday it was ready to talk to Iran about both nations returning to the nuclear accord that aimed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“’We have never sought nuclear weapons and this is not part of our defense doctrine,’ the official said. ‘Our message is very clear. Lift all the sanctions and give diplomacy a chance.’
“Tehran has set a February 23 deadline for Washington to begin reversing sanctions, otherwise, it says, it will take its biggest step yet to breach the deal – banning short-notice inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”
Criminals understand criminals and Biden knows Iran means Israel harm. He doesn’t believe their lies, any more than he believes his own.
Also this week, it’s been reported that Iraq is sending drones over Saudi Arabia, reviving fears that Iran and Iraq are becoming unmanageable in the Middle East. This can impact Israel in a big way, too.
But of late, I have slowly changed my views about my own ability to really aid Israel. It feels—feel free to disagree, I know many of you will—that we are entering a new phase. One in which the Lord God of Israel is stepping in front. Our own puny efforts are even less important now.
I do not mean we should stop doing positive things for our friends. In fact, in my own small way, I keep a hand in. But I no longer “live and die” with each news cycle or election. It’s time to turn our gaze to eternal things. I sleep well at night with the belief that God has things well in hand. Bibi knows how to protect Israel.
I came to accept the fact just a few years ago that the spiritual forces arrayed against us in Christian institutions in this country were far more powerful than I had given them credit for. That makes it necessary for me to admit it and stand aside as God advances His plan in these last days. When seminaries were teaching pastors to hide the fact that they’d been taught that the Exodus was myth (this was 70 and more years ago!), it was all over then. There is no real possibility that today’s Millennials trained at Wheaton and Fuller Seminary will ever be anything but advocates for the Palestinians and their totalitarian friends. They believe Israel is the villain.
This, incidentally, is what eventually destroyed Germany. Luther’s rants against the Jews poisoned the churches and by the time the Nazis came to power, the whole country had been marinating in Jew hate for 200 years. The so-called German “Higher Criticism” began teaching that the Old Testament is largely myth. I cannot emphasize enough how harmful this has been to Western society.
So I now do “small things” to teach here and there. I can’t help it: I am waiting now for that voice Carl F.H. Henry said he had longed for, especially in his old age. It was a voice from above saying, “Come up here!”