How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend - PART 1

How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend
By Timothy P. Weber, from Christianity Today 10/5/98


In its fiftieth anniversary year, the State of Israel has no better friends than American evangelicals. So it seemed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he addressed the Voices United for Israel Conference in Washington, D.C., in April 1998. Most of the 3,000 in attendance were evangelicals, including Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, Kay Arthur of Precept Ministries, Jane Hanson of Women's Aglow, and Brandt Gustavson of the National Religious Broadcasters. (Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson supported the conference but did not attend.)

On the day before he met with President Bill Clinton, who urged him to trade West Bank land for peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu told the conference: "We have no greater friends and allies than the people sitting in this room."

To many observers, the close relationship between Israel and many American evangelicals seems baffling. Many American evangelicals pledge their love for the State of Israel, support its claims against those of the Palestinians, and resist anything that might undercut Israel's security. But they also target Jews for evangelism and sometimes blame them for the mess the world is in. Israel eagerly accepts evangelicalism's public support and aggressively courts its leaders. But many Jews bitterly condemn Christian proselytism and do what they can to restrict the activities of missionaries in Israel. Nevertheless, both sides seem to be getting more than enough out of their relationship.

The close tie between evangelicals and Israel is important: It has shaped popular opinion in America and, to some extent, U.S. foreign policy. To understand how it developed, one must know something about how many evangelicals interpret Bible prophecy and what difference their beliefs have made in the world of politics.

Why do evangelicals care so much about Israel? How did this special relationship develop? What has it produced? On the most basic level, evangelicals love Israel because of the Bible. Many evangelicals have vivid memories of sitting in Sunday school rooms, staring at maps of Bible Lands and listening to Bible stories week after week. Through such experiences, evangelicals came to view the Bible's story as their own and the land of the Bible as a kind of home away from home. Israel is where the Lord Jesus was born, ministered, was crucified, and rose again. Every year thousands of evangelicals take what amounts to a religious pilgrimage to Israel to "walk where Jesus walked" and see for themselves places they have read about their whole lives.

Evangelicals' view of the Bible gives them a proprietary interest in Israel. It is the Holy Land, the site of God's mighty deeds. In a way, they think the Promised Land belongs to them as much as it does to Israelis.

Writing the end-times script
But there is much more to the evangelical-Israel connection: Most of those who gathered in Washington to show their support for Israel believe that the Holy Land will be ground zero for events surrounding the second coming of Jesus Christ. Such evangelicals read the Bible as though it were a huge jigsaw puzzle of prophecies, with Israel in the center. They believe that human history is following a predetermined divine script, and they and Israel are simply playing their assigned roles.

These beliefs come out of a complex system of biblical interpretation known as dispensationalism, which is a version of premillennialism (the belief that Christ will return before setting up his millennial kingdom). As the name implies, dispensationalism divides up the Bible and human history into various eras or dispensations, based on how God deals with humanity. Basic to the system was the way it detected two distinct divine plans, one for an "earthly" people (Israel) and the other for a "heavenly" people (the church). According to John Nelson Darby, the Englishman who shaped dispensationalism in the mid-1800s, biblical prophecies for one group do not apply to the other, and God deals with only one group at a time. Thus "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15) means keeping the two peoples and programs completely separate.

God's dealings with Israel are the key to the dispensational system. Through a series of covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David, God made Israel his chosen people and promised to establish Messiah on David's throne forever. In Daniel 7-9, nineeenth-century dispensationalists believed, God spelled out the divine plan: because of its sin, Israel will be subjugated by four successive Gentile powers until, finally, the "times of the Gentiles" are complete. On divine cue, one of the Gentile rulers will issue a decree to rebuild Jerusalem's fallen walls. Sixty-nine weeks later, Messiah will come to the Holy City but be rejected ("cut off") by his own people. During the Seventieth Week, an evil ruler will try to destroy the Jews, but at week's end Messiah will return to defeat him and re-establish David's throne.

These dispensationalists believed that much of Daniel's prophecy of the Seventy Weeks was literally fulfilled in the history of Israel and the first coming of Jesus Christ. But there was a major problem: why did Messiah not return to finish his work at the end of the Seventieth Week as predicted? To answer this question, those dispensationalists developed a "postponement theory." When Jews rejected Jesus, as the prophecy said they would, God unexpectedly postponed Jesus' return, started putting together a new people, the church, and unplugged the prophetic clock. Thus, for its entire history, the church has existed in a prophetic time warp, what dispensationalists call the "great parenthesis."

A second question then needed answering: When and how will God resume the prophetic countdown? Dispensationalists answer, "At the pretribulation rapture of the church." Since God had decided to work with only one group at a time, God must remove the church from the earth before focusing attention again on the Jews. After Jesus comes for his saints in the "Rapture" (1 Thess. 4:13-17), the prophetic clock starts ticking again. Once the church is gone, Daniel's Seventieth Week (the "great tribulation" of Matt. 24, 2 Thess. 2, and Rev.) can begin, after which Jesus will return with his already raptured saints to defeat Antichrist, the great persecutor, and establish his millennial reign.

During the 1870s, Darby made a number of trips to the United States, where his dispensationalism got mixed reviews. Most evangelicals at the time were either postmillennialists (Christ will return after the world is Christianized) or amillennialists (the millennium should be taken figuratively). In an age of optimism, dispensationalism seemed too pessimistic for most evangelicals, some of whom labeled it a "heresy."

Despite its minority status among evangelicals initially, dispensationalism gained a respectable following through prophetic conferences, Bible institutes, a plethora of magazines and popular books, and a committed clientele for whom it was the key to unlock biblical truth. Every major American revivalist since D. L. Moody has been a premillennialist of some kind; and Pentecostalism has more or less followed the dispensationalist line since its inception in the early twentieth century. The Scofield Reference Bible, whose notes explained biblical texts from a dispensational perspective, was published in 1909 and became an authoritative and effective recruiter for the movement.

By the twenties, many fundamentalists considered dispensationalism a nonnegotiable part of Christian orthodoxy. Since then, the system has been nurtured through an elaborate network of schools, publishing houses, mission agencies, radio and television programming, and the like. Channel surfers on cable tv know that dispensationalists are master communicators.

[end part one]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy Weber is professor of church history and dean at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lombard, Illinois.

October 5, 1998 Vol. 42, No. 11, Page 38

Read the full article
HERE

ISRAELI SOLDIERS BREAK THE SILENCE

Yitzchak Ben Mucha, Paratroopers Special Forces, Israeli Military

“My opinion about such things, then and today, hasn’t changed much. I thought it was wrong then and I still think so. But where I had a certain innocence, back then, that we’re in the territories to protect the country, and we’re doing it temporarily until there’s peace and such, and that other people are doing the lesser of the evils. That naivete was cracked during my military service. And what hit me mainly is the extent ...the extent to which the occupation creates this hatred. The little things that occur within the population – soldiers coming, entering your home, ruining (your) things while conducting a search, in such an extroverted manner. If you take people against their will, to enter their houses, in the line of fire, you create a new hatred. On the other hand, the ignorance of the soldiers to understand how wrong it is, how incorrect and wrong. This defense that we seem to think we are providing. All of these lead me to understand, today, how radical it is, and how much it has to be stopped...with actual action against it. (I’m) not just saying it’s bad and that’s it, (and) let’s continue serving the army until things get better, until there’s peace."

MAKE PLANS NOW TO JOIN US FOR PACIFIST FIGHT CLUB

PACIFIST FIGHT CLUB - Saturday, January 14th, 2012.
9am to 2:30pm at Fuller Seminary (Irvine)
ADMISSION IS FREE - MUST RSVP TO ATTEND

We will fight for peace, but we will do no violence

Join us for an open dialog on issues that matter.
Topics:
*Non-violence
*Solidarity with the poor
*Immigration reform
*Loving God
*Loving others

Our Fighters
*Brandt Russo
*Shane Crash
*Chase Andre
*Thomas Crisp
*Thomas Nixon
*Crissy Brooks
*Wendy Tarr
*Keith Giles

THE RULES
The first rule of Pacifist Fight Club is, you do not talk about Pacifist Fight Club.
The second rule is, you must move from talk to action.
The third rule is, you must love all people, at all times.
The fourth rule is, you must daily fight to the death in a struggle against your own apathy, selfishness, prejudice and pride.


Find out more at our Facebook page and RSVP
HERE

More Love, Less Politics

American Christians will always be frustrated by a desire to see our laws correspond with the Bible. The truth is, it never will. Why? Because our laws are built around a document called the Constitution, not the scriptures.

So, for example, if our courts have to determine whether or not it is legal to enforce a law that gives one set of rights to some people and a different set of rights to others, they will look at the Constitution and see that everyone is considered equal under the law and rule against that law.

Under the law of our land people have the right to enter into marriage with one another. Any law that gives this right to some people and takes it away for others will be considered unconstitutional.

Christians will always want those laws to be interpreted primarily by the Bible and secondarily by the Constitution, but since these two documents have different authors, and different purposes, they will not agree on most issues, including homosexual marriage.

When our nation was founded and our Constitution was written, they did not feel any need to write down laws which reinforced the morality and the common practice of society around them. It was a given. Therefore they wrote laws which, in tandem with their existing morality and observable societal norms, combined to create a harmonious nation of free people.

What has changed? Our Constitution is fundamentally the same, but the morality and practice of our society has changed. The laws we write cannot hope to touch our inner person. Laws do not change hearts.

If you hope to write and create laws to govern society you look to politicians and lawyers and presidents. However, if you hope to influence behaviors and change the heart of a person you, only Jesus can do that.

Our society has failed to live up to the ideals of our past because our churches have failed to pass on the morality and the practice of hospitality and brotherly love. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We have not been known for our love. Our laws have stayed the same, but our Churches have gotten off track and lost focus.

American Christians have become so disillusioned with the world around them, and yet they have no one to blame but themselves. For the last several decades the Church in America has been embracing a mentality of retreat. We have created a neat and comfortable little version of the world with a cross on top where our interaction with "those unbelievers out there" is minimized as much as possible.

Because we have refused to be salt and light as Jesus commanded us, the society around us has slowly become more and more "un-Christian" and really, what else should we expect it to become like? If we have reduced our interactions with others, focused all of our time and energy on ourselves, built larger and more expensive buildings to hide in, and invested millions of dollars building empires of entertainment, fashion and communication to occupy our time and tell us what we want to hear, how else should our world have developed in our absence?

In our frustration we have now turned to politics to create the change we have failed to create by avoiding contact with unbelievers. Now we hope to dominate these people politically and have our way, regardless of whether or not they agree.

In some ways, I wonder if it's too late for any of this. Too late for us to get back to our original calling to love and serve and live out the selfless beauty of the Gospel. Too late to attempt any sort of dialog with people we have avoided for so very long. Too late to be the Church that Jesus intended for us to be.

The solution to the problems facing American society is not found in changing our laws, and even if it were that would be a job for a lawyer or a politician, not a follower of Jesus.

Our only job is to love and to serve and to model a society where all people are equally important in the eyes of God.

Let's do our best to obey our Lord and Savior when he commands us to be known for our love.

If it's not too late....


-kg

OUR POOR

Poverty in our country may not be as severe as what we see in Africa or India or Mexico, but that does not mean that it is any less poverty.

For example, if you were to give air conditioning or color television to one of those families living in a cardboard box in the Sudan, would they cease being poor? Of course not. And families in America with color tvs and air conditioning are no less poor because of their level of comfort. They are still poor. And they are "Our Poor".

I belive that there is a Biblical difference between how we are called to serve the poor in other countries and "our poor". The poor in India, Mexico, Ethiopa, etc. are seriously, desperately poor. No one argues that. This is why I've served on the board for groups like Arms of Love (www.armsoflove.org), a ministry that builds orphanages in the poorest nations of the world to provide homes for street children who live in the city dumps and are forced into prostitution, etc.

So, please, let's be clear; I'm not saying don't help the poor who are "out there".

But the poor in your city, in my city, down the street from me, they are "our poor", and what we're called to do, Biblically, is something about it. Not to solve poverty. Not to cure it. Not to erase poverty forever, but to do what we can to help a few, in the name of Jesus and with the compassion of Jesus.

Actually, as I've said before, the point of serving the poor is not to "cure" or "solve" poverty, but to befriend people who are in need and to learn to love and serve them as we would serve and love Jesus. We are the one's who are most changed in that relationship, by the way.

The quote from Jesus in Matthew about "the poor you will always have with you" was Jesus referencing Deuteronomy 15:7-11. You should seriously read this passage. The point is that God, the Father, is commanding the Jews to not have a hard-heart or a closed fist towards the poor, the stranger, etc., but to give generously, freely to the poor among them. At the end of the passage, God say, "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land."

That's what Jesus means when he says what he does in Matthew.

Read Matthew 25. At the Judgment Seat of Christ the one criteria is whether or not those who call him "Lord" had any regard for the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the prisoner. The Sheep almost unconsciously care for these poor, not because they think it will get them into Heaven, but simply because they have genuinely been transformed into the people of God. The Goats, who also call Him "Lord", have the same unconscious attitude, but towards the existence of the poor or their needs.

The people of God, redeemed by the Blood, saved by Grace, seem to have an inability to walk past someone who is naked, poor, hungry, thirsty, lonely, etc. and do nothing. They cannot do that. It's not in their new nature.

We have a Biblical mandate (and it's alllll over the Scripture, both Old and New) to care for the poor..."our poor"...and that takes more than writing a check.

Again, this is my very biased conviction. I've been hammered by God on this issue and I cannot let it go because it won't let me go.

Do you know what the sin of Sodom is? Read Ezekiel 16: 49. It's not what you think. "Now this is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were proud and did detestable things before me. Therefore, I did away with them as you have seen."

Wow.

How about this one?

Galatians 2:10- "All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." (Paul being sent out as the first missionary by Peter, James and John).

or...

{God is speaking of King Josiah:}
"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" (Jeremiah 22:16)

Wow.

"Is that not what it means to know me?"

What does it mean to "Know" God? This verse suggests that it means to care for the poor and the needy.

and of course we could also look at, Isaiah 58:6-7, Amos 5:21-24, 1 John 3:17-18, James 2:14-17, etc., etc.

God has called us to care for the poor, not to justify their poverty or our lack of compassion by comparing them to the "real poor" in third world countries.

So..how are we doing with serving and loving and befriending "Our Poor"?

-Keith Giles

Non-Violence According to Jesus

Jesus said, "You have learnt how it was said to our ancestors: 'You must not kill; and anyone does kill he must answer for it before the court.' But I say this to you: anyone who is angry with his brother will answer for it before the court." Mt. 5:21-22

Jesus said, "You have learnt how it was said: 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.' But I say to you, Offer the wicked man no resistance. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; if a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him." Mt. 5:38-41

Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy; But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those whose persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Mt. 5:43-46

Jesus said, "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it." Mt. 16:24-25

Jesus said, "You must love your neighbor as yourself." Mt. 22:40

Jesus said, "It is from within, from men's hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean." Mk. 7:21-23

Jesus said, "You know the commandments: you must not kill..." Mk. 10:18

Jesus said, "When you stand in prayer, forgive whatever you have against anybody, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your failings too." Mk. 11:25

Jesus said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly." Lk. 6:27-28

Jesus said, "Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judge yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned." Lk. 6:27

Jesus said, "Why do you call me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?" Lk. 6:46

Jesus said, "What is written in the law? What do you read there? He replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." "You have answered right," said Jesus "do this and life is yours." Lk. 10:26-28

Jesus (from the cross) said, "Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing." Lk. 23:34

Jesus said, "If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Jn. 8:7

Jesus said, "I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples." Jn. 13:34-35

Jesus said, "Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me;" Jn. 14:21

Jesus said, "This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you." Jn. 14:22

Jesus said, "What I command you is to love one another." Jn. 14:27

Jesus said, "Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this kind." Jn. 18:36

JESUS IS TRYING TO KILL ME

For several years now I have made a conscious effort to follow Jesus in my actual life. In the process, I have discovered that following Jesus on a daily basis is impossible without dying to oneself.

This is what Jesus meant in Luke 9, verse 23 when he said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." He means, that following him is not possible if you have not first surrendered your life completely. In the same way that it would be impossible to work as a lifeguard without first knowing how to swim, we cannot follow Jesus if we are not engaged in the ongoing process of dying to ourselves.

Unfortunately, surrendering your life to Jesus isn't a one time event. I used to think that it was, but I've also learned that my decision to lay down my life and live for Jesus must be a daily activity in order to have any real significance. It's mainly because we are fickle creatures and we require constant, daily, reminders of the need to surrender or else we revert back to our old ways of life. I know I do, anyway.

For over a year now I have been undergoing a painful process of death to self. This has not been due to any effort on my part. Rather, it has been a process that I have endured at the hand of my Master.

We have an understanding, the Master and I, that death to self is vital to my spiritual development. I know that my heart is wicked, that my flesh is prideful, that my natural tendency is towards selfishness and vanity. So, I have surrendered to this process of being put to death - one day at a time.

As one might expect, the process is not easy. Nor is it an enjoyable one. However, the fruit of this death is life in the Spirit. As my flesh decays, the life of Christ is revealed in me over time.

A few days ago I was in prayer and I began to realize that much of the pain in my life at the moment was due to this process of dying to self. Over time I have lost friendships, endured suffering at work, in our church family, and in my personal life. As I enumerated these gradual losses it dawned on me that Jesus was trying to kill me. Specifically, he was doing the work I had conracted him to perform many years ago. He was putting to death my flesh in order to make room in my heart for his enduring, glorious life.

In short, Jesus - the son of God, the prince of peace, the lamb of God - was trying to kill me.

Fenelon, a 17th century christian writer, describes this process as "Circumcision of the Heart":

"Our own hands would never put the knife in the right place. We would cut away only a little of the fat and bring about a few superficial changes. We do not understand ourselves well enough to know where to cut. We could never find the sensitive spot, but God finds it easily. And even if we knew where the spot were located, self-love would hold back the knife and spare itself. It does not have the courage to wound itself. And even if the knife were plunged into the vital spot, the nerves would steel themselves against the pain, and the teeth would be gritted, in order to deaden some of the pain. But the hand of God strikes in unexpected places, finds the very place where the infection is fastened and does not hesitate to cut it away, regardless of the pain. And, oh, how self-love cries out! Well, let it cry, but do not let it interfere with the success of the operation." - (Let Go, page 86-87)

As I daily endure this slow process of being put to death, I also enjoy the sweet taste of the life of Christ in my spirit. My old self dies - Halleluiah - and the new self inhales the sweet breath of Jesus every single day.

The best I can do is to submit to this process of mortification and try my best to stay out of the surgeon's way.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." - Galatians 2:20

-kg