This is the 36th day of this Swords of Iron war which began on Oct 7. We had sirens again today in Beer Sheva, with rockets coming over and into all the sectors of the city, plus into two Bedouin towns on the outskirts of the city, Tel Sheva and Segev Shalom. Hamas, at least, does not discriminate, as they seek to bring fear and death among Israeli citizenry.
It is very encouraging when our list recipients respond so clearly about their support for Israel at such a time when it is becoming more risky and threatening to do so. Like when Yeshua/Jesus says that we will be hated for identifying with Him. Thank-you! God bless you!
We hear many voices of good Christians who do not want “to take a side”. Well, what about what I just wrote: we have to identify with Jesus, or else we will be against Him. When Joshua asked “the Man with the sword” what side He was on, the Man said that He was not on Joshua and the Israelis’ side, nor on the side of their enemies; He came in the name of the Captain of YHVH of Armies/Hosts. When the religious leaders asked Yeshua from where He got His authority to do what He was doing and saying, He said that He would answer them only if they would give Him an answer about the baptism of John: was it from God, of of man? When they realized that whichever answer they would give would condemn them, He told them that He would not answer their question either. A similar question today, and for at least the last 76 years: is the reestablishment of this land by the Jewish people in their historic national homeland from God, or from man — just a humanistic Jewish colonial enterprise with Western powers behind it [at that time]?
If we waver with doubt, it is sin: the Apostle Paul writes that whatever is not of faith is sin. (Rom 14:23) Sometimes being even-handed is simply not having a conviction about something important and significant that requires faith. It does not require that one be a conscious believer in God, even, but in what is right, what is good. Humanistic reasoning to avoid taking a stand for truth or righteousness is not faith. It is self-serving, and often hypocritical. It is trying to please everyone, but without integrity, and to protect our “neutrality”. That being so, if any of us are “halting between two opinions” (1Kgs 18:21), straddling the fence, having a divided heart, then we will find it very difficult to take a clear and open declaration of condemning what Hamas did on Oct 7, and what Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, the PA/PLO, Hezbollah, Iran, etc, openly declare as their end-game: the destruction of the State of Israel, and of Jews and Christians anywhere. They do not care if everyone dies, including themselves. It is like suicide-homicide bombings, thinking that they will earn a reward from their god for glorifying vengeance, violence, and death. “Kill yourself, and take as many with you as you can.” “If we can’t have it (the inheritance of the land), neither will you or they.” This is murderous envy, and being a spiritual war reality, it is against YHVH God the Father for His sovereignty and choices.
If we are not certain that Yeshua/Jesus is the only way to the God who is the Father, then we will falter in our worship, in our evangelism, in our discipleship, in our witness and testimony for the truth of the gospel, and in our faith in the truth and authority of the whole Word of God — the whole counsel of God — given us in The Bible by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Faith believes what God says, not what man says that He says if there is discrepancy between His own testimony versus human’s argumentation. (Prov 21:30) Let God be found true, and every man a liar! (Rom 3:1-6)
If the US, the UN, France, and others were genuine about wanting to see fewer women and children killed because of Israel’s attacks (the heaviness of the bombing is because of the thick and deep tunnels under so much of Gaza, which requires such force to try to get down to them. The same would be so trying to get to Iran’s nuclear bomb plant. Also Israel’s.), then they would demand Hamas to cease immediately all rocket launches into Israel (which are all aimed at civilians and non-military locations and properties), and to release all of the hostages, including the four who have been held for up to nine years already. But, no, they are telling Israel to stop trying to defeat their enemy who cares little for the well-being of their women and children. As Psalm 2 tells us by the Spirit of the LORD: “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers conspire together, against YHVH and against His Anointed One/Messiah/Christ, saying: ‘Let us break their bonds in pieces, and cast away their cords from us!’ He who sits in Heaven shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure. ‘Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion!'”
The whole world lies under the sway of the evil one (i.e., the devil/Satan), and this war is making that clearer for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. (1Jn 5:19-21)
May God in His mercies help us to understand the times that we are living in, and the stakes involved for the sanctification of our heavenly Father’s name.
Thank-you for your prayers and support for God’s will to be done in order to get what He wants as a result of this war.
