The Israel Test: A Revealing And Dividing Line In The Modern Church

I don't know about you, but the more time progresses, the more things, persons & newsfeeds get deleted or blocked. The circle I trust gets smaller & smaller. (This includes pastors, politicians, "experts" & medical doctors) This trend started during the COVID mandates: at the workplace, in churches & everywhere else, I interacted with people or (social) media. Now the ones in media & politics that were talking sense previously against these insane COVID mandates, Abortion & Immigration are now falling one after the other, probably following & believing Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens & Megyn Kelly etc, that Israel is the cause & fault of everything. Well I have a red line: I as a pastor & we as a church will stand for & with Israel unreservedly, not because the Jewish people are better, no God often actually says often the opposite in the Scriptures. But because of the covenant He has made with the descendants of Abraham. And yes most of the people living in Israel today are of Jewish descent, contrary to all sort of weird theories floating around.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and yet the media portrays her as the villain of the world. I believe this is a supernatural hatred that comes from the pit of hell—spiritual warfare against the plan of God and the Jewish people. Questions from some in the church, about the position of Israel as the elected people of God and the return of the Jewish people to their homeland as acts of God, are rooted in Biblical illiteracy.

Just as the church has been tested throughout the ages as to whether or not it would obey God’s Word, so today the church is undergoing a time of purification and separation, not unlike what Jesus prophesied would happen as we enter deeper into the Last Days prior to His appearing.

We all watched as believers, churches and denominations dealt with the COVID pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, the movement to redefine gender and sexuality, and then the DEI movement. And yet, we’re seeing an even bigger test today—what I would call The Israel Test—to reveal what we really believe about what I regard as clear Biblical teaching. I am, of course, talking about the replacement theology movement that has surfaced yet again.

If Israel has been replaced by the church and there is no future for the Jewish nation, how do we explain the unexplainable, supernatural, Biblical survival of the Jewish people over the past 2,000 years, despite constant attempts by their enemies to destroy them? How do we explain Israel’s reappearance as a nation after being driven to the four corners of the Earth after A.D. 70?

Let’s look at a few examples of what God says about Israel and its future:

“And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7-8).

“But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me. Your sons shall make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you” (Isaiah 49:14-17).

“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24).

And then there are the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 11:1-2: “I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. …”

And in Matthew 24:15, Jesus clearly teaches that Israel, and the temple in Jerusalem, will exist at the time of the Great Tribulation. How can this be if there is no Israel?

I believe we are living in the daze of deception, and only God’s Word will bring clarity. That is why I believe it is time for us to take a bold stand.