Last month, our nation paused to give remembrance to all the events of 9/11, either in a moment of silence or in a ceremony, remembering the nearly 3,000 Americans who lost their lives 25 years ago when Islamic terrorists turned four airplanes into bombs to attack our country and what we stand for as a Judeo-Christian nation.
America is familiar with national grief. America is familiar with pain. America is familiar with terrorism. But we must be reminded: as much as we understand a little bit about these things as Americans, the Israelis have experienced far more.
October 7th of 2023 was just a small sampling of the national terror that they have experienced. Proportionally speaking, when you look at the population comparison, what happened in Israel on October 7th was a death toll 13 times greater than what happened on 9/11.
I believe in America first, but I also believe, as Charlie Kirk once said, “America first does not mean America only.”
We must remember our friends and our allies around the world—particularly Israel and the Jewish people, the one distinct ethnic group of people about which God tells us in His Word to bless and to support. In Genesis 12:3, what did God say to Abraham? “I will bless those who bless you.”
Yet many people these days, including a lot of Christians, think that it is trendy, intellectual-sounding, or will garner clicks to oppose things all related to the Jews. Anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world. 2025 was designated by the Anti-Defamation League as the deadliest year of anti-Semitism. Three months after October 7th in 2023, anti-Semitism had risen 360%.
Can I remind you of the rest of Genesis 12:3, where God says, “…I will curse those who curse you”?
Some of this anti-Israel, anti-Semitic sentiment is being fueled by social media influencers. Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have influenced our culture in a way that I could not have imagined just a few years ago. It is not only people like Candace and Tucker on the supposed “right.” Obviously, on the left, you have Zorhan Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, Hassan Piker, and Bernie Sanders (despite being Jewish).
These individuals are driving the false claim that Israel is “committing genocide.”
Is it “genocide” by Israel when pallets of food and humanitarian aid are delivered to Gaza, but Hamas is the one that is keeping it from getting to the Palestinian people? Is it “genocide” by Israel when they warn people to move from one zone to another before they target Hamas? Is it really “genocide” by Israel when the IDF is dropping millions of leaflets from the air in Arabic telling Palestinians to move before they advance against Hamas?
Tragically, there are civilian deaths in every war. It’s unavoidable. But there is a double standard when it comes to Israel.
America has fought defensive wars in our own nation’s history.
There were roughly 2,300 American service members who were killed at Pearl Harbor. When we went after Japan, we killed 3.5 million Japanese—100,000 in one night. When we had to retaliate after 3,000 Americans lost their lives in the attacks on 9/11, we went into Afghanistan and Iraq and took 400,000.
Nobody is accusing America of “genocide.”
When Israel tries to fight a defensive war, suddenly they are guilty of committing “genocide.” Yet they have been fighting a war more humanely than we have historically. The ratio of civilian deaths in Gaza is lower than it was in Mosul, lower than it was in Japan, and lower than it was in Germany.
The Jews are only allowed to fight to a truce, unlike America or any other Western nation viciously attacked. They are not allowed to win a war. It is a brazen double standard.
You know what real genocide is? Genocide is these third-year freshmen on college campuses chanting, “from the river to the sea.” Most of them don’t even know what river and sea they’re talking about, nor what they are truly advocating for! When you say “from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea,” you are talking about completely wiping out Israel off the face of the map.
That is ethnic cleansing. That is genocide. And it is not just being whispered in dark rooms. Hamas has put it right out there in their formal charter.
The opening paragraph of the Hamas Covenant in 1988 declares: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Further in their document, Article 7 of the Hamas Covenant says, “the day of judgment would not come until the Muslims fight and kill the Jews.”
It’s not secretive. Hamas is bent on destroying the Jews and the nation of Israel.
Additionally, despite the narrative and buzzwords you have heard, the Jews are not “occupiers”; they are the indigenous people of the land. The Jews were living in Israel 2,100 years before there was anybody named “Palestinians,” and 2,600 years before anybody was called a Muslim.
Quick history lesson: In AD 135, Roman Emperor Hadrian put down an attempted Jewish revolt. As a way to malign the Jewish people, Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Israel to “Palestina,” the Latin term for the Philistines. He was deliberately disparaging the Jewish people by renaming the land after their perennial enemies.
Palestine became the official name of that land from AD 135 until 1948, when the Jewish people reclaimed their national homeland. Before 1948, everybody living in the land, both Arab and Jew, had Palestinian on their birth certificate.
The former prime minister Golda Meir had Palestinian listed on her birth certificate until 1948.
We must be reminded of Genesis 15:18, which says, “On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.”
God’s original title deed to Israel was from the great river in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Iraq. That’s roughly 300,000 square miles. You know how much territory Israel has today? Only about 8,100 square miles.
Israel is ceaselessly told, “Give up your land, and then we’ll have peace.”
In 2000, President Bill Clinton sat down with then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO leader Yasser Arafat to come up with terms that would pacify everybody on the land and a Palestinian state. When Bill Clinton took Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to Camp David, they spent two weeks dividing up the land. The final agreement between Israel and the United States was that they would give the Palestinians 97% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and have sovereignty over East Jerusalem as their capital city. Yasser Arafat said, “No, thank you.”
Why would he say no? Because if your intention is 100% of the land of Israel and to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, anything less than that is not satisfactory. That is the reality of the battle being faced.
The title deed to the land was given to the Jewish people, and that’s why they’re not occupiers. God gave them the land 4,000 years ago in Genesis 15. Yet people today will talk about how Israel is the bully, the occupier, and the colonialist.
Let me take a moment to address the younger generation constantly exposed to this false narrative.
They are inundated with information, and without knowing history, they have no way to see through the barrage of lies, and they are embracing the false notions against the Jews and their nation-state.
Gen Z and Gen Alpha have a real heart for the disadvantaged underdog—and they should be commended for that. That’s why they are engaged in humanitarian causes. They want to eradicate sex trafficking. They have grand global schemes like ending world hunger. I hope they never lose their heart for caring about the disadvantaged.
But here’s my challenge to the younger generation. Know your facts. This younger generation tends to jump on the bandwagon of the latest trendy thing, but if you can’t defend why you believe what you believe, you end up looking silly and ignorant.
Understand history. Don’t just believe the next emotional argument. It’s easy to get caught up in a cause that is emotionally driven but cannot be intellectually defended.
This is a spiritual war.
Hamas, like all anti-Semitic people or organizations, is incited by Satan to hate the Jews.
Revelation 12:4 says, “… the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.” The dragon is Satan. The woman is the big picture of Israel. The child is the Messiah who would eventually come forth among the Jewish people.
Satan hates Israel and the Jewish people because they represent God’s redemptive plan for mankind.
God birthed a nation out of nothing. He called one man, Abraham, to leave Ur of the Chaldees in modern Iraq and go to a land he had never been. Out of obedience, Abraham went. And God promised that a great nation and a great people group would be born from his seed. Not so they could be an exclusive people group unto themselves, but so that, eventually, through that people group, a Messiah would emerge for the sake of the whole world. His name is Jesus.
That is why Satan hates Israel and the Jewish people.
So if you’ve ever wondered, why all the animosity? Why all the vitriol? Why is it all directed toward this tiny little nation, smaller than the state of New Jersey? This is the reason. The enemy is at work to do everything he can to thwart the redemptive plan of God, and thus to come against Israel and the Jewish people.
As believers, what is our responsibility to the Jewish people and to the nation of Israel?
Number one, we must bless Israel (Genesis 12:3).
That doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everything the Israeli government or its leaders do. Lord knows we don’t agree with every American policy or leadership decision. There are a lot of things in America right now that are offensive to God: the legalization of same-sex marriage, abortion rights, transgender policies, etc. But we don’t abandon America. We still love her and pray for her. In the same way, we should keep loving and praying for Israel. We don’t cast her off.
In Romans 11:1-2, Paul writes, “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…”
In Numbers 24, King Balak of Moab paid Balaam a handsome sum of money to curse the nation of Israel.
Balaam went to curse the people; however, the Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and opened his mouth. Instead of cursing the people, he proclaimed: “‘[God] bows down, he lies down as a lion; and as a lion, who shall rouse him? Blessed is he who blesses you, and cursed is he who curses you.”
King Balak didn’t get his money’s worth that day, but God got the glory.
Number two, we must remember that God is not done with Israel.
In Romans 11:25-27, Paul writes, “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.”
I want to state this plainly. Every Jew and Gentile alike must trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. No one gets a pass. But this passage is teaching us that God is not done with the Jewish people, and that salvation is coming to the Jews—and coming swiftly.
Even now, many are turning to faith in Yeshua HaMashiach. They are trusting Jesus as Messiah.
The prophet Zechariah outlines that all Israel will be saved when they look upon the one whom they have pierced, and they weep bitterly. They will recognize their Messiah. God’s not done with them.
We should remember that God is not finished with them.
By the way, this also includes that God has not transferred His promises and blessings from Israel to the church. Replacement theology is a doctrine of the devil.
They want to call it “fulfillment theology” because that sounds classier than replacement theology. I don’t care what you call it. You haven’t read your Bibles if you believe that.
God is not done with the Jewish people. He is patient, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
Number three, we must pray for them.
Jesus was born in Israel, raised in Israel, died in Israel, rose again from the dead in Israel, ascended from Israel, and is coming again back to Israel.
Psalm 122:6-7 says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, prosperity within your palaces.”
I want to close by reading an excerpt from a book that my good friend Dr. Erwin Lutzer wrote many years ago called “When a Nation Forgets God — Seven Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany.”
In the book, Dr. Lutzer quotes a German eyewitness who reflected on the church’s apathy and indifference during World War II. This is what that German eyewitness said:
“I lived in Germany during the Nazi holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. I attended church since I was a small boy. We had heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews, but like most people today in this country, we tried to distance ourselves from the reality of what was really taking place. What could anyone do to stop it?
A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we would hear the whistle from a distance and then the clacking of the wheels moving over the track. We became disturbed when one Sunday we noticed cries coming from the train as it passed by. We grimly realized that the train was carrying Jews. They were like cattle in those cars!
Week after week that train whistle would blow. We would dread to hear the sound of those old wheels because we knew that the Jews would begin to cry out to us as they passed our church. It was so terribly disturbing! We could do nothing to help these poor miserable people, yet their screams tormented us. We knew exactly at what time that whistle would blow, and we decided the only way to keep from being so disturbed by the cries was to start singing our hymns. By the time that train came rumbling past the church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears, we’d just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more. Years have passed and no one talks about it much anymore, but I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. God forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians, yet did nothing to intervene.”
Friends, it is not time to sing more loudly.
It is time to speak up more clearly and support Israel and the Jewish people.
