Some say that God has approved of their mob
Esteeming their purposes alone
Choosing sides with a definite pride
And taking their cause for His own
Everybody loves a holy war
Draw the line and claim divine assistance
Slay the ones who show the most resistance
Everybody loves a holy war
Oh yeah
Many’s the man with the iron hand
Supposing his own thoughts to be divine
He will break any bond ’cause the other man’s always wrong
It’s a handy excuse for his crimes
from “Everybody Loves a Holy War”
Mark Heard (1982)
There are two million more Evangelical Christians in the United States supporting Israel than there are Jews in the USA.
Whether folks support Israel or not, is not my point. Instead, I wish to dwell on the reasons why. The short version is these Christians are wanting the Jews to go to Israel so most of them can be killed! This is disgusting but true.
Many Jews know this but keep quiet about it because if they say something then they will be cancelled. Please note that such cancelling occurred before “Cancel Culture” was even a thing. Case in point:
At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Mark Alan Siegel, who served as the chairman of Florida’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party, told an interviewer the following about what he thought of Christian and Jewish relationships:
The Christians just want us to be there so we can be slaughtered and converted and bring on the second coming of Jesus Christ. The worst possible allies for the Jewish state are the fundamentalist Christians who want Jews to die and convert so they can bring on the second coming of their Lord. It is a false friendship. They are seeking their own ends and not ours. I don’t believe the fundamentalists urging a greater Israel are friends of the Jewish state.
It wasn’t too long before the video of the interview went viral and Mr. Siegel was forced out of his position. Where did Mr. Siegel get such crazy ideas? It’s a prevalent view among dispensational prophecy writers.
What’s Next for Israel (According to Popular Prophecy)
Gary DeMar does a good job ripping this strange brand of theology apart on his blogs and podcasts, but like a monster in a B-movie, this heresy just won’t die. In fact, people that promote it, and are constantly wrong in their predictions, make lots of money off promoting these views.
In part they base their nonsense on twisting verses like this passage in Zechariah.
And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.
And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.
Zechariah 13:8-9
Based on passages like the verses above, Evangelicals that believe this passage speaks of a future event want Jews to go to Israel so 2/3 will die and the remainder will believe in Jesus. Evangelicals believe this will usher in the Return of Christ and that Jesus will then reign on earth for a thousand years. This view of the Bible’s end times was first popularized in the 1820’s and ‘30s. On the basis of this teaching, Christians were calling for a Zionist movement long before the Jews ever did so.
(Zionism is related to Jewish people returning to the biblical lands of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and reconstituting a Jewish State.)
Since A.D. 70, only one guy got close to killing 2/3 of the Jews and setting up a thousand-year kingdom on earth. He was an obscure dude in 1930’s Germany. Funny that this never moved the needle on people rethinking this idea.
On a recent blog post, Gary DeMar, quoted Dwight Wilson’s Armageddon Now! (1977) when Wilson wrote on page 94:
Another comment regarding the general European anti-Semitism depicted these developments as part of the on-going plan of God for the nation; they were “Foregleams of Israel’s Tribulation.” Premillennialists were anticipating the Great Tribulation, “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” Therefore, they predicted, “The next scene in Israel’s history may be summed up in three words: purification through tribulation.” It was clear that although this purification was part of the curse, God did not intend that Christians should participate in it. Clear, also, was the implication that He did intend for the Germans to participate in it (in spite of the fact that it would bring them punishment) . . . and that any moral outcry against Germany would have been in opposition to God’s will. In such a fatalistic system, to oppose Hitler was to oppose God.
In the aftermath of World War II, a Jewish state was setup in Palestine. Yep, that was the name of the place prior to 1948. Evangelicals see the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment or potential fulfillment of biblical prophecy. In order to arrive at this conclusion, they just have to ignore about 2,600 years of history. Evangelicals skip the Babylonian Captivity, the return to the Land, the Roman Empire, the destruction of Jerusalem and a number of other events. This allows them to cherry pick passages that are fulfilled and recast them as future events. Instead of letting the Bible interpret the Bible, they end up with prophecies about Cobra helicopters, rocket launchers, nuclear weapons, Marks of the Beast, SkyNet, and other stuff that somehow can only exist in modern times.
It is a logical fallacy to equate of the modern nation calling itself Israel with the ancient one. This confusion muddies up the water. Modern Israel is a secular state, not one governed by the Law given to Moses.
Modern Jews are not governed by the Old Testament, they are governed by the traditions handed down from the Pharisees, the Talmud. You know, the rules created by the hypocrites that Jesus repeatedly savaged and called dens of vipers, whitewashed sepulchers, and the Synagogue of Satan.
Per the New Testament, the promises to Israel are found in the Christian Church. As Gary DeMar notes elsewhere, the original Christian Church was exclusively Jewish for at least a decade. It is only because of the unfruitful branches being cut from the vine that believing Gentiles could be grafted into the body of Christ.
Are we to believe that one last-days generation will be grafted into the olive tree mentioned by the Apostle Paul in Romans 11 after 2000 years, and that’s what Paul means when he wrote that “all Israel will be saved”? Is that what Paul was describing in Romans 11:26? Absolutely not.
Are We Witnessing the Final Prophetic Generation?
Israelites were being grafted into the body of Christ in Paul’s day, by the tens of thousands! It’s called “the remnant”: “There has also come to be AT THE PRESENT TIME [Paul’s time] a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.” Consider the TIMING and the CONTEXT:
I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? Far from it! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? “Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE.” But what is the divine response to him? “I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL.” In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, since otherwise grace is no longer grace.
Romans 11: 1-6 (NASB)
DeMar is not alone in his views of biblical prophecy being fulfilled as past events.
Concerning Zionism, I found an interesting article chronicling Zionism and the relationship between Evangelicals and the Jews. I highly recommend that you read it.
THE UNTOLD STORY OF CHRISTIAN ZIONISM’S RISE TO POWER IN THE UNITED STATES
Most Jews in America vote for Democrats so why do Republicans in such large numbers stand with Israel? This article will answer this question and many others. The article was written in 2019 but still holds up well in its presentation.
If we get involved in the current war in Israel, it will be because of bad theology.
