Shalom from Zion

While Chuck was teaching a seminar in the UK on the Church's relationship and responsibility toward Israel, a young man paced restlessly in the rear of the room. After the first session he told Chuck that he was a new believer and though wanting to hear what was being taught, he was feeling furious at both the teaching and the teacher!

After asking a few questions and then getting his permission, Chuck took authority over the spirit of anti-Semitism imparted through his parents. Later, he told Chuck that he enjoyed sitting through the rest of the seminar, and was in agreement with most of the teaching.

The battle over Israel in today's Church,

is not against flesh and blood, but against Satan's spiritual hordes (Eph. 6:12). This does not excuse believers who resist what God is doing with His people and His land. The Adversary deceives, entices, tempts, and we either fall into the trap or fight against his tactics (2 Cor. 2:11; 10:3-5).

Intense demonic pressure comes against believers who stand with Israel and the Jews. Satan uses false argument, humanism, propaganda and scripture twisting that fail only in the light of God's Word. For example, we are given false choices: either 'social justice' or 'prophetic fulfillment' - as if the Judge of all the earth (Gen. 18:25) fulfilling His promises to Israel will not do justly. Outcomes may not line up with man's superficial view - but who is man to determine what is truly just (Rom. 9:13-24)?

Another false choice is that we either stand with the Palestinians or Israel. Yet if we are concerned for Palestinians and their salvation, we must stand with, and pray for, Israel to possess her possessions (Obad. 1:17). Since Israel's rebirth in 1948, multitudes in Islam have come to know the true God through Yeshua. God's prophetic will for Israel continues to be His means to reach the nations (Gen. 12:3b; Gal. 3:8).

Many in the Church are blind to this. Middle East [ME] church-sponsored 'peace initiatives' preach to those already convinced that immoral Israel is the greatest threat to world peace… These activities have not swayed Israel's supporters. But in March, in Bethlehem, the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference [CATC], differed from previous conferences. CATC aims to influence Israel's single largest and most reliable supporter: tens of millions of evangelical Christians who have stood with the Jewish state since day one. CATC speakers, including influential evangelicals, argue that Christian Zionism is a perversion of Christian belief. With the arrival of Jesus, Jews and their descendants lost all claim to the Biblical covenants - replaced by the New Jews, or Christians. Classic Christian heresy.

Christians who believe Israel's biblical everlasting covenant for the Land face CATC's shameless rewriting of history. Jews are depicted as recent usurpers while Palestinians are presented as the true descendants of the Biblical Jews!

Who are some of these anti-Zionist evangelicals? Anglican Rev. Stephen Sizer, who keeps company with people like Sheikh Kaouk, deputy chairman of Hezbollah's executive council. He and Holocaust denier Frederick Toben participated in the Voice of Palestine's Nakba Conference in Jakarta, where Sizer stated, The church in Palestine was telling me… that Palestine needed to be liberated from the Jews!

Gary Burge, an influential theologian and an anti-Israel activist, author of Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel & the Palestinians, said, The people of Israel cannot claim to be planted as vines in the land… Branches that attempt living in the land… which refuse to be attached to Jesus will be cast out and burned. Scripture twisting, anyone?

Then there is Porter Speakman, Jr., who produced the horridly biased… film, With God On Our Side, that urges Christians not to assist Israeli brutalizing of Palestinians… He openly endorses replacement theology.

Also, UK anti-Israel activist Ben White, who has said, I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can understand why some are. Why? Because of Israel's ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians. Lies.

So what solution do these Christians offer to bring 'peace' between Israelis and Palestinians? The two-state solution? Those Bethlehem conference organizers who still speak of two states have refused to acknowledge that one of them is Jewish. ("This Bethlehem conference is no Purimshpiel," Rabbis Abraham Cooper & Yitzchok Alderstein, JP Op-ed, 29 Feb. 2012)

The Palestinian Authority [PA] was so encouraged by CATC that they brazenly made illegal Bethlehem's First Baptist Church, because it stands with Israel! It will no longer receive rights as a religious institution… This decision comes a week after their Prime Minister [PM] S. Fayyad told, CATC attendees, his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities.

This church has experienced persecution from Muslims already. Senior Pastor Naim Khoury said hostility towards Christians in PA areas, including rape and forced conversions, is getting worse.

Fact: After Judea and Samaria were restored to Israel in the Six-Day War, the Israeli government opened up churches and holy sites, reversing the policy of Jordan, which had closed all Jewish and Christian holy sites during its [19 year] occupation after the War for Independence in 1948. ("PA Declares Church in Bethlehem to be Unlawful," Arutz 7, 14 Mar. 2012)