Should We Side with Israel or Palestine?
00:00:00.000 | A podcast listener named Melinda writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, what is the proper
00:00:09.920 | response of the Christian to all that's going on in Israel and Gaza?
00:00:13.600 | I have Christian friends praising Israel because they are God's people defeating their longtime
00:00:18.020 | enemies saying that all their offensives are justified and sanctioned by God because they
00:00:22.240 | are defending the land that He gave them.
00:00:24.720 | I have other Christian friends who are outraged over Israel's slaughter of innocent civilians
00:00:28.960 | and children in Gaza and the support they receive from the United States.
00:00:33.680 | Which is the right response?"
00:00:36.400 | Let's start with an overarching position on the conflict, and then I'll try to put some
00:00:42.600 | Bible underneath it and explain.
00:00:45.560 | And when I say conflict, I mean between the Jewish people, Israel, the state, and Jews
00:00:51.520 | as a body, and the Palestinians.
00:00:54.720 | There are Jewish Christians and there are Palestinian Christians, and these Christians
00:01:00.280 | are the meek who will inherit the earth, including the land of Israel someday.
00:01:05.080 | Jesus died to make peace between Jews and the nations.
00:01:11.000 | That's the point of Ephesians 2, 11 following.
00:01:13.480 | And therefore, our prayers and our labors should be devoted especially to heralding
00:01:21.000 | the gospel of Messiah Jesus as the only hope for long-term peace and justice among Jews
00:01:28.320 | and Palestinians.
00:01:29.920 | That's the most important thing to say, I believe.
00:01:33.800 | And then I would say, the Bible does not teach that we should be partial to Israel or to
00:01:42.800 | the Palestinians in the present Christ-rejecting rebellion that both of them have against God.
00:01:50.880 | As if either of them had a divine right to the land of Israel in spite of their rebellion
00:02:00.720 | and unbelief against their maker and their covenant God, which carries this implication.
00:02:09.920 | Both sides, Palestinians and Israel, should be treated with compassionate public justice
00:02:17.920 | in the same way that disputes are settled between nations generally, with a wise mingling
00:02:24.840 | of justice and mercy.
00:02:27.200 | So that's my overarching position.
00:02:30.680 | Neither Jews nor Palestinians can justify anything they do or be treated any particular
00:02:39.160 | way by virtue of claiming a present-day divine right to the land while they are living in
00:02:47.200 | rebellion against the one who made the land a gift of covenant keeping.
00:02:52.520 | Now here's some biblical foundations for that.
00:02:56.400 | Israel was chosen by God from all the peoples of the world to be the focus of his blessing
00:03:02.520 | in history of redemption.
00:03:04.320 | Amen to that.
00:03:06.320 | This history climaxed in the coming and the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah.
00:03:11.480 | The Lord, your God, has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of
00:03:16.440 | all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, Deuteronomy 7, 6.
00:03:20.320 | Amen.
00:03:21.320 | Israel is God's chosen people.
00:03:24.800 | And not only that, God promised to Israel the present disputed land from the time of
00:03:30.960 | Abraham onward.
00:03:32.040 | God said, Deuteronomy 34, 4, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac,
00:03:38.200 | and to Jacob.
00:03:39.200 | I will give it to your offspring."
00:03:41.920 | And it's repeated many times to that effect.
00:03:45.880 | But neither of those two facts, Israel's election and God's covenant promise of the
00:03:52.040 | land, neither of those two facts means that Israel today has a present day divine right
00:04:02.240 | to the land.
00:04:03.240 | Now, why do I say that?
00:04:06.040 | Because a non-covenant keeping people does not have a divine right to hold the land of
00:04:13.280 | promise which was given by covenant.
00:04:16.320 | Covenant breaking forfeits covenant privileges.
00:04:21.700 | God said to Israel, "If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be
00:04:28.260 | my treasured possession among all the peoples."
00:04:31.880 | Today, Israel is a covenant breaking people.
00:04:36.680 | There are thousands, I know, there are thousands of Messiah trusting Jews.
00:04:42.340 | They are not covenant breaking.
00:04:43.760 | They enjoy God's saving favor.
00:04:47.200 | But as a whole, as an ethnic unity, as a state, they are defined by rejecting Messiah Jesus.
00:04:56.440 | They are, because if they'd be Christian and they don't want to define themselves as Christian,
00:05:00.880 | that would make them Christian.
00:05:01.880 | If they embraced Messiah Jesus as Messiah and Savior, they'd be Christian.
00:05:05.840 | They are self-consciously not Christian.
00:05:09.020 | They are in a state of treason against their king who sent his son to save them.
00:05:16.280 | A people in treason against her king cannot lay legitimate claim on the king's promises
00:05:24.640 | to a covenant keeping people.
00:05:27.280 | For example, when Israel was driven from the land of promise under God's judgment with
00:05:34.240 | the Babylonians, Daniel prayed like this, "Oh Lord, we have sinned and done wrong.
00:05:41.680 | To you, oh Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame.
00:05:47.400 | To all Israel, in all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery
00:05:53.000 | that they have committed against you."
00:05:55.840 | In other words, that's Daniel 9, 4-7.
00:05:59.000 | In other words, God is righteous.
00:06:02.160 | He says righteous to deny Israel her divine right to the land when she is a treasonous
00:06:09.760 | people against God.
00:06:11.840 | Jesus stood with tears, looking out over Jerusalem and said, "Would that you had known the day
00:06:19.400 | of peace, but now they are hidden.
00:06:22.080 | These things are hidden from your eyes.
00:06:24.000 | You did not know the time of your visitation."
00:06:27.840 | So they had rejected the cornerstone.
00:06:30.480 | They still do.
00:06:31.640 | And when they did that, Jesus said, "The kingdom will be taken away from you and given to a
00:06:37.520 | people producing its fruits."
00:06:39.520 | Matthew 21-43.
00:06:42.080 | And then he explained like this, Matthew 8-11, "Many will come from east and west and recline
00:06:47.400 | at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the
00:06:51.240 | kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness."
00:06:56.440 | For now a hardening has come upon Israel.
00:07:00.440 | These are the times of the Gentiles, the times of the nations, Luke 21-24.
00:07:06.080 | But this hardening of Israel is not God's last word.
00:07:12.200 | He has a saving purpose for Israel.
00:07:14.960 | All Israel will someday turn to the Lord Christ as a group.
00:07:20.120 | This is my deep understanding and belief of Romans 11.
00:07:23.960 | The broken off branches will be grafted in one day to the people of God, the bride of
00:07:29.880 | Christ, his church.
00:07:32.040 | I think we should pray for that day.
00:07:35.080 | I do.
00:07:36.080 | I pray, "Lord, bring the day when the hardening will be lifted from Israel.
00:07:41.640 | Grant, oh God, that their eyes would be opened.
00:07:44.440 | They would see Jesus as their Messiah and join the church of Jesus Christ.
00:07:49.440 | And in one great tree of covenant love, may they be grafted into salvation."
00:07:58.120 | And we must be careful.
00:07:59.120 | This may be a closing qualification here.
00:08:04.040 | Careful not to draw false and unbiblical inferences from anything I've said, like, "Well, Israel's
00:08:12.080 | present rebellion against God means that the other nations have the right to molest her."
00:08:18.000 | No, they don't.
00:08:19.880 | She still has human rights among nations when she has no rights before God, just like all
00:08:27.560 | the nations do.
00:08:30.000 | We don't think any nation, because it's a pagan and unbelieving nation, should be treated
00:08:35.000 | unjustly.
00:08:36.000 | Neither should Israel.
00:08:37.640 | In the Old Testament, the nations that gloated over her divine discipline were punished by
00:08:44.640 | God, Isaiah 10.
00:08:47.040 | So our plea as Christians to Palestinians and Jews is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus and
00:08:54.380 | you will be saved."
00:08:56.120 | And until that day, when both Jewish and Gentile followers of King Jesus inherit the earth,
00:09:03.920 | not just the land, until that day when we together inherit the earth, without lifting
00:09:09.680 | a sword or without lifting a gun, the rights of nations should be decided by principles
00:09:16.520 | of compassionate public justice, not claims to divine right or divine status.
00:09:24.320 | Excellent.
00:09:25.320 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:27.440 | And for an even fuller biblical and theological exploration of these themes, see Pastor John's
00:09:31.600 | sermon "Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East," which he preached on March 7th of 2004.
00:09:36.880 | You can find that sermon and 1,200 others in the archive at DesiringGod.org.
00:09:43.120 | On this podcast, we talk a lot about sexual temptation and sexual sin, but what exactly
00:09:47.440 | is lust?
00:09:48.440 | Tomorrow on the podcast, Pastor John will give us a foundational definition to help
00:09:52.240 | us understand the sin and what's underneath it.
00:09:55.080 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:56.320 | We'll see you tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:09:58.560 | [END]
00:09:59.560 | 1
00:09:59.560 | Pastor John's Sermon on the "Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East" (Pastor John's Sermon)
00:10:06.560 | This concludes the meeting.