October 7, 2023, was a wake-up call for many Christians unfamiliar with Israel’s role in God’s plan of redemption. Those who think God has replaced Israel with the church, a belief called Replacement Theology, have trouble explaining Hamas’s inhumane massacre of innocent Israeli families. What could drive one group of people to treat another so abhorrently?
Replacement Theology lacks a spiritual explanation for the historical hatred of Jewish people, and it misleads Christians to make false moral equivalencies between Hamas and Israel. Many Replacement theologians believe Israel is responsible for all Middle East conflict. They feel if Israel didn’t exist, we would have peace.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began, Christians must understand the spiritual dimension to Hamas’s brutal attack and hatred of the Jews. This war is more than a political conflict. It’s a spiritual battle between God and Satan that takes shape in the human realm.
When the apostle Paul exhorted us to put on the whole armor of God, he reminded us, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
Hamas terrorists want to eliminate Israel because they are carrying out the will of their father, Satan. He knows the Son of Israel, Jesus the Messiah, will come to rescue Israel and destroy him and his forces with the sword of His tongue (Zech. 12—14; Rev. 19). Then, Jesus will ascend to the throne of His ancestor David and restore God’s Kingdom on Earth.
To prevent his own destruction, Satan seeks to eliminate the conduit through which his downfall will come. The spiritual battle Satan wages with God spills over in the affairs of men, which explains more than 3,000 years of antisemitism stretching from generation to generation.
This hatred manifests itself in the book of Esther, where wicked Haman endeavors to eliminate the Jewish people in one day. It plays out in Psalm 83, as God’s enemies plot to rise up against Israel, “that the name of Israel will be remembered no more” (v. 4). Nazi Germany tried to eradicate the Jewish people from the earth. And had Hamas been able, it would have continued killing until every Israeli was dead.
God promised that unless the sun, moon, and stars cease to exist, Israel will endure (Jer. 31:35–36). Historically, those who sought to annihilate Israel have disappeared; but the Jewish people remain to this day. God preserves them because He loves them and because His plan to redeem the world flows through Israel.
Wake up, Christians! We must choose a side in this spiritual war. We either stand with Israel or Satan. There is no middle ground. To oppose Israel is to side with God’s adversary.
When God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham, He promised to bless those who bless Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 12:3; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14). God did not tell Abraham He would bless him only if Abraham blessed others. We must first bless Israel, then God will bless us.
When Jesus returns to Earth, He will judge the nations based on how they treated Israel (Mt. 25:31–46). Those who bless Israel, helping the Jewish people in their hour of need, are righteous and will enter the Kingdom of God. Those who fail to bless Israel will be cast into the Lake of Fire. Though this judgment concerns those who [are alive at the end of the tribulation], it also guides us today.
Each of us must choose what to do with Israel. We either bless Israel or fail to do so, and God will judge us accordingly. Choose wisely.
Jim Showers is the executive director and president of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.
