I debated whether to post this. This should probably be its own post because it’s super long, but I think it belongs here because Biblical things have been mentioned regarding Israel, and I have some relevant thoughts to add. Besides, it’s Sunday, so what’s one more sermon going to hurt?

My opinions regarding Israel and the Jews have drastically changed from the opinions I acquired long ago in churches that preached a 20th century gospel of dispensationalism and parallel operating covenants. It was only when I stopped filtering the Bible through other people’s extra-Biblical doctrines that the scales began to fall from my eyes. When I compared scripture with scripture I found out that what I had been taught was a huge recently-invented lie. It wasn’t that hard to find because none of it is hidden information. It’s only hidden from people who trust what they have been taught to see.

I had to get really honest about the “Heroes of Faith” I admired in the Bible. Faith is the operative word. They weren’t “Heroes of Doing Everything Right.” They were flawed men and women, just like any of us, who made a lot of bad mistakes. That includes the people of Israel, Jacob’s descendants in Egypt, who were rebellious and unfaithful from the very moment they headed east out of the country. They were not chosen because they were better than other nations, as some of them today seem to believe. In fact, they were so odious and ornery that Moses, who made some pretty bad mistakes himself, had to intercede in prayer to keep God from angrily wiping them out. After they took over the land of Canaan, they violated God’s strict command again and again by sneaking off to burn their children alive in the honor of Canaanite gods, the same gods the elite of the world worship today with the very same kind of human sacrifice. Everything Moses said would happen to them if they consistently violated their covenant with God came to pass, word for word.

I’m not pointing the finger as if to say they were intrinsically bad people. Jacob’s descendants weren’t any worse than any ofter nation or group might have been under the same circumstances. They failed not because they were Jews, but because they were human, and we have to remember that. Nevertheless, there is a price to be paid for turning away from God, and there are consequences for dabbling in the occult. Consorting with demons not only destroys the soul of the one doing it, but it corrupts succeeding generations, as well, and being separated from God by rejecting the only way to God leaves only darkness and useless religion. I believe it’s the reason some modern Jews become ridiculously hyper-religious and others either drift into the radical fringes of leftism or the embrace things like Eastern religions and the occult. Most of them are pretty secular.

My new-found awareness never led me to hate Jews or think the nation of Israel shouldn’t exist, but it did lead me to become pragmatic and truthful. I concluded that criticizing Israel for its bad actions isn’t any more anti-semitic than saying wokism is stupid makes me a NAZI. Calm reasonable questions about policies and actions are not the vicious attacks some Zionist apologists characterize them to be, and it is utterly reasonable to wonder why so many of our American politicians (and governors, and mayors, and pastors) go on state-funded junkets to Israel. So is asking them to justify the substantial amounts of money many of them receive from wealthy Zionist donors with suspiciously intimate ties to the Israeli government. If asking “why?” is forbidden for no good reason, then asking “why?” is exactly what we should do. I don’t have to agree with everything Israel does to be a good American. Neither do I have to be silent because people loyal to a foreign nation tell me I mustn’t question certain things.

But the problem is that a religious doctrine invented by 19th century con men has affected the foreign policy of the United States. “Dispensational” Christians really have to start being honest about what they believe. Regardless of the current existence of the Israeli state, or the apparent fulfillment of certain prophecies, it’s more than evident from scripture and from history that the Jews’ national covenant with God is no longer in force (the Law of Moses). It hasn’t been for almost 2000 years, not because it was done away with but because it was fulfilled. The 70 weeks of Daniel 9 was completely fulfilled to the day when Jerusalem was destroyed 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. There is no weird prophetic gap, and none of it is talking about some future antichrist. That’s twisting scripture like a pretzel, and it doesn’t work because it’s completely wrong.

The generation of the people Jesus was talking to hadn’t completely passed away when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, just as he said it wouldn’t (in Matthew 24). His death did away with sacrifice and offering and brought an end to the covenant of the law (because it was no longer needed), just as the angel told Daniel. The whole world was leveled, and since that time the Jews have had no greater status in God’s economy than anyone else. The Mosaic covenant cannot save them, and neither can being “good.” They must come to God through Jesus Christ, their Messiah, the one Moses told them would come. There is no alternate arrangement for them.

As far as the goodness of Israel’s alliance with the United States, I would say that Israel doesn’t serve America’s interests. It looks after its own interests, so having a powerful friend makes a lot of sense. But somewhere along the way Americans were conned into thinking serving Israel is serving ourselves, and that was because God was dragged into the argument through our churches. We were told that for the sake of God’s promise to Abraham, He was holding a big stick with which to mightily whack anyone who even thought about not doing every single thing the Israeli government wanted the U.S. to do. I used to believe in that stick was always hovering. Now I think we can be a friend to the Israeli people without being motivation by threats, and at the same time condemn inhuman cruelty, no matter who is doing it.