As my friend Aaron Eime put it in a recent television interview, we are not fighting against flesh and blood.
He was, of course, quoting from the well-known verse (Ephesians 6:12) describing the spiritual warfare in which all believers in Messiah are engaged.
By ‘we’ he was referring to the ongoing work of encouraging Jewish people to see that Yeshua is their Messiah and at the same time standing with Israel for such a terrible time as this.
Aaron is the UK director of CMJ, the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people, and with his IDF soldier son Micah, was explaining how this spiritual warfare also extends to the current Middle East conflict in which Israel is battling with the spirit of Amalek, which seeks the destruction of God’s chosen people.
As I see it, by being grafted onto the olive tree that is Israel through our faith in a Jewish Jesus, the Son of God and of Abraham (Romans 11:17), Gentile Christians have also signed up for this army.
Yes, Jesus is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). But on the other hand, he came not to bring peace on earth, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). Families and communities would be divided over loyalty to Christ. So yes, we have peace with God but have become enemies of those who hate God. Believers are permanent reminders of God’s existence, as is the nation of Israel after surviving centuries of attempted genocides through war, terrorism, pogroms and the Holocaust.
As Christians should know, the God of Israel has promised never to forsake them (Isaiah 42:17). When the nation was re-born in 1948 with a population of just 600,000, they were attacked from all sides by Arab countries determined to strangle them at birth, just as foretold in Revelation 12:4, which also refers to Messiah’s coming.
Whether we like it or not, we Christians are completely wrapped up with Israel in all this upheaval. Surely Zechariah has these times in mind when he wrote how the nations who oppose Israel – like Britain, France, Canada and others preparing to recognise a Palestinian state – will be destroyed (see Zechariah 12:2-9).
Meanwhile, Israelis will have a growing sense that, despite the ‘hatred without a cause’ meted out against them by the rest of the world, their God has not abandoned them.
So, should we not be praying for them more specifically than through general petitions for peace? That Israel’s generals would be guided by God in their strategies, for example.
If Israel’s enemies are our enemies, should we not be praying for victory in battle, for the defeat of the antisemitic Goliath spirit? If God has committed to one day destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem, why are we insisting on a ceasefire between Israel and those who blatantly seek to destroy her?
As has been stated, this is not a battle against flesh and blood, in the same way that waging spiritual warfare through prayer and proclamation is not.
How confused Christians must be that with Israel a key focus of the Bible and now of world attention, pastors remain strangely silent. The whole world is up in arms about the people who gave us the Bible, and our Saviour. Yet we are dumbfounded. We could even be using the present scenario to draw people to the God of Israel.
Bible teacher Chuck Cohen also has Zechariah in mind when he writes: “God is making Jerusalem a point of confrontation between himself and the world. It is not Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It is not the religious settlers. It is not Christian Zionists. It is not even the Islamists. It is God, creator of heaven and earth, who is using his city to challenge the world.”1
I have written much about how I believe the Lord is rebuking Gentile Christians for not recognising the days of Jewish restoration in the same way he scolded the Jews of his day for not acknowledging their Messiah.
Cohen writes: “Does Yeshua have any cause today to confront many Christian pastors, professors and lay people with the exact same charge? If these people really believed what Moses and the prophets said, there would be no question that before Yeshua’s return, Israel must be restored to the land God promised over 200 times to give them.”
With the faith and courage of David, it’s time to join battle against the monstrous antisemitic figure of Goliath.
Charles Gardner is author of Israel the Chosen, available from Amazon; Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com; To the Jew First, A Nation Reborn, and King of the Jews, all available from Christian Publications International.
