On June 13, 2025, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an attack against key military facilities in Iran and targeted high ranking military commanders who were confirmed to have been killed. Preliminary attacks disabled Iran’s air defense systems while other attacks destroyed structures that were presumably part of Iran’s atomic weapons program. For the next 10 days, Israel carried out additional strikes against Iran with both sides engaged in a back-and-forth campaign to inflict casualties and structural damage upon the other nation. The stated purpose for the attacks was to cripple Iran’s nuclear weapons program because, we were told, Iran was on the threshold of being able to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon against Israel or even the United States. Despite the overall success of Israel’s attacks, several of Iran’s nuclear sites were said to be located deep underground and Israel does not have the weaponry capable of destroying these structures. Therefore, Israel sought help from the United States who does possess such military capability.
On June 22, 2025, the United States was predictably drawn into the Israel-Iran conflict under code name Operation Midnight Hammer. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been meeting with President Donald Trump since February, 2025 informing the president that Iran had plans to assassinate the president. Netanyahu also insisted that Iran also was in violation of international treaty by attempting to enrich uranium to weapons grade and was stockpiling huge amounts of this enriched uranium - enough to potentially develop several atomic bombs. Despite misgivings from high-ranking government officials in the United States regarding the constitutionality of direct military engagement, the United States entered into the conflict and bombed key nuclear facilities in Iran using B-2 stealth bombers to drop 30,000-pound bombs on the Fordow nuclear facility and two other facilities.
Prior to US involvement, large numbers of Christians took to social media to express their support for the nation of Israel. Many expressed their joy that God was continuing to support Israel and that the nation will always be victorious over its enemies. Radio talk show hosts and commentators everywhere urged us to pray for Israel because “God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse Israel”. This became a rallying cry for many Christians in their desire to unite support for Israel. However, once the United States bombed Iran, this presented a problem. Just what does it mean to bless Israel? Does blessing a people or a nation include bombing their enemies? Many Christians tried to work through this dilemma. Some insisted that our spiritual commitment is limited to prayer and should not include military action. Others were adamant in their suggesting that the United States had both a moral and religious obligation to attack Iran.
Talk show host Glenn Beck believes that Christians in the United States have a religious obligation to support Israel. This is especially so because, according to Mr. Beck, we are living in the “end times” and Israel needs our help more than ever. But like so many others, he seems confused as to how, exactly, we should support Israel. Like other conservative talk show hosts, he has stated that we should pray for Israel but that our support doesn’t necessarily include military action. United States Senator Ted Cruz is not so conflicted and wants nothing less than for our government to overthrow the existing government of Iran. He told Tucker Carlson recently during an interview: “Growing up in Sunday school I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed”. It might be quite unsettling for some to know that our foreign policy is being dictated in part by a passage from the Old Testament that was written 4000 years ago and that is taken out of context. But Mr. Cruz’s conviction is probably shared by the majority of Christians in the United States. Countless Christians are of the opinion that not supporting Israel might just be equivalent to cursing Israel, and therefore, we should err on the side of unconditional support for that nation. After all, we don’t want to be cursed, do we?
What obligation do Christians have to the Jewish nation? Are we even required to bless Israel? Should the United States always take sides against the enemies of Israel? There is a lot of confusion over a passage in the Old Testament that so many believe mandates unconditional support for Israel including military intervention. So that we can better understand what the Bible does teach, let us now look at the verse that so many believers quote as the basis for their unconditional support of Israel.
Most people assume that Semitic means Jewish, or at least they use those terms synonymously. But that is inaccurate. For clarification, let us look into the genealogy of the patriarchs of the Jewish nation. After the Great Flood, Noah came out of the ark with his three sons, Shem, Japheth, and Ham. Shem became the father of the Semitic nations. Japheth is the father of the Gentile nations. And Ham is the father of Canaan (Genesis 9:18). Shem is the father of many nations besides the nation of Israel. In fact, there are eleven generations following Shem before we even come to the nation of Israel. Therefore, many Semitic nations arose in the hundreds of years following the life of Shem. For example, The sons of Shem include Elam, the father of the Persians, and Aram, the father of the ancient Syrians. The genealogy of the nation of Israel is as follows: Shem fathered Arphaxad, who fathered Shelah, who fathered Eber, who fathered Peleg, who fathered Reu, who fathered Serug, who fathered Nahor, who fathered Terah, who fathered Abraham, who fathered Isaac, who fathered Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are referred to as the patriarchs of Israel. They lived around 2000 BC. Abraham’s name was originally Abram and he lived in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans in southern Mesopotamia. God instructed Abram to leave behind his family and to travel to Canaan where he would become the father of many nations. Abram was 75 years old when he left his home and traveled to the land that would one day become the homeland for the Israelites. God made this promise to Abram:
--I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:2-3 NIV).--
We note several things in this promise to Abram. First, the promise was to a person and not to a nation. Second, God was not just blessing Abram, but all of the nations on earth through Abram. This is a consistent theme throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament. One of God’s purposes in calling out a person or nation is so that people from all nations would learn of the living God through the examples and witness of the ones who were called out. In this way, the God of Abram would be glorified. Therefore, to bless Abram was to bless the living God. To curse Abram was to curse the God of Abram.
Some time after this, God established his covenant with Abram. God commanded Abram to look to the heavens and count the stars — if indeed he could — and promised that Abram’s descendants would be numerous like these. Though Abram was old and childless, he believed God and the Bible tells us that because Abram believed, the Lord credited his faith as righteousness. The Lord then promised to Abram that he would receive all of the land described in Genesis 15:18-21 as an inheritance.
When Abram was 99 years old, God confirmed his promises to Abram and established the covenant of circumcision. The Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of many”. The new covenant reads as follows:
--As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their god (Genesis 17:4-8 NIV).--
This covenant affirms that the land of Canaan would be an everlasting inheritance to Abraham’s descendants. God then gave this command to Abraham:
--As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and our descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised (Genesis 17:9-10 NIV).--
A covenant is a legally binding contract between two parties that stipulates how one party grants rights or privileges to the other party based on the conditions of that covenant. In other words, even though the covenant between God and Abraham is eternal, the blessings therein are guaranteed only as long as Abraham and his descendants were faithful to the requirements of the covenant. We see this clearly some time later in this passage where God was about to destroy Sodom for the sins of that nation:
--Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him (Genesis 18:18-19 NIV).--
From this passage, it could not be more clear that the promises to Abraham were conditional upon his obedience and the obedience of his children. This should not be surprising. Abraham was called out to be a blessing to all the nations on earth. If either Abraham, or his descendants who followed him, walked in disobedience, then how would the nations know and obey the Lord?
When Abraham was 100 years old, he fathered a son, Isaac. God again spoke to Abraham and promised that He would establish his covenant through Isaac, his offspring. It was through Isaac that the promise of the blessings were to be fulfilled. To test Abraham’s faith, He told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, who was the son of the promise. Abraham obeyed God, and though he was prepared to sacrifice his son, God provided a ram as a substitutionary sacrifice in place of Isaac. Because of Abraham’s obedience, the Lord stated that “all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me” (Genesis 22:18 NIV). Once again, it is clear that the blessings upon all the nations came through the obedience of Abraham.
Abraham’s son Isaac fathered two sons, Jacob and Esau. The promise would continue through Isaac’s son Jacob. The Lord appeared to Isaac and He reaffirmed the covenant made to Abraham:
--I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all the lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws (Genesis 26:4-5 NIV).--
Hopefully, it is becoming clear that there is no guarantee of blessings apart from obedience.
When Jacob was grown, the Lord appeared to him and reaffirmed the covenant He made to Jacob's father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham:
--I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring (Genesis 28:13-14 NIV).--
The promise of blessings continued to remain conditional upon Jacob’s obeying the decrees and requirements of the laws. From the previous passages, we readily observe a consistent theme that the blessings upon the nations of the earth are connected with the obedience of Abraham and his descendants. Therefore, those who believe we will be blessed by blessing modern Israel might consider whether or not the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob continue to walk in obedience. But the question itself becomes meaningless once we understand who are the true descendants of Abraham, as we shall now see.
Jacob fathered 12 sons. These are, in order of birth, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, and Joseph. After these first 11, the Lord changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which means “to struggle with God". And then a 12th son, Benjamin, was born to Jacob from his wife Rachel, who died in childbirth. The descendants of these children are the 12 tribes of Israel.
Jacob moved his entire family from Canaan to Egypt during a time of great famine, and for four centuries, the nation of Israel grew very large. Over time, Israel was reduced to slavery by the Egyptians and the people called out to the Lord. It was God’s servant Moses who led the people out of Egypt. After the Exodus from Egypt, the Lord led Moses up to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, which still serves as a guide to all nations who would obey Him. The Lord also gave many other commandments to Moses to give to the people. He then established his covenant with the nation of Israel, and the people promised to obey all the commandments (Exodus 24). In Leviticus 26, we read of the rewards or blessings that Israel would receive for obedience. There would be rainfall on the land, peace in the land, the people would multiply, and there would be an abundance of food. The punishments for disobedience were many, and they increase in severity as the nation continued to walk in disobedience and refused to repent. For example, the land would not produce crops and wild animals would ravage the people and cattle. If the people did not repent, then many would die by the sword or by plague. If after that, the people still did not repent, then they would be scattered among the nations.
This scattering among the nations occurred three times in Israel’s history. In 931 BC, the nation of Israel was divided into the norther nation of Israel and the southern nation of Judah. The northern nation was comprised of 10 of the tribes of the original nation. Due to the sins of the people, these 10 tribes would be exiled by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Many died by the sword, and those left alive were made to live in other nations. The southern kingdom of Judah continued for another 136 years. But over time, that nation too became corrupted. As punishment, the Lord used Babylon to destroy Judah in 586 BC. Jerusalem was destroyed, along with the temple, and the people of Judah were made to live in exile throughout the Babylon Empire. After the Persian Empire defeated Babylon, Cyrus the Great issued his famous decree in 537 BC that allowed all the Jewish exiles in Assyria and Babylon to return to their nation in fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies. The third time the Jews were exiled occurred in AD 70 when the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and the Jews were subsequently scattered throughout the nations of the world until 1948.
The prophet Jeremiah had been the Lord’s voice to the people of Judah during the Babylonian assault prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Jeremiah told the people that they had broken the covenant given to the people at Mount Sinai and because of that, they were receiving the curses that God had promised for disobedience (Jeremiah 11:8). But even then, God was already preparing a new covenant with the people, and this covenant would not be like the first covenant that He had established with the forefathers of Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-37). In the new covenant, the Lord would put his law into the minds of the people and write it upon their hearts. But before this covenant could be put into effect, the old covenant would have to be revoked. We have a picture of this in Zechariah 11:4-17, which was written during the intertestamental period of Jewish history. In the vision of this passage, the Lord breaks a staff called Favor, which represents the vertical relationship between God and the people. He then breaks another staff called Union, which represents the horizontal relationship among the people.
The breaking of the vertical and horizontal relationships between the people and with God is most vividly displayed in the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple by the Romans in AD 70. During the seven-year war with Rome from AD 66-73, certain Jewish men incited a rebellion against the Roman Empire and turned the city of Jerusalem and the temple into a military stronghold. Roman legions under the command of Titus besieged the city in AD 70. Prior to the fall of the city, hundreds of thousands of Jews from neighboring countries traveled to the Holy City to celebrate the Passover. But once inside the city, they were forced to join the rebellion against Rome and many were murdered if they did not. The leaders of the rebellion quickly exhausted the food supplies and an unknown number of Jews died of starvation. The Jewish military leaders also formed factions that went about the city murdering those of the opposing factions or even murdering innocent people. The Roman army eventually broke through the defenses and burned the temple and the city completely to the ground.
In Matthew 24, Jesus warned his disciples ahead of time of the great tribulation and of the destruction of the temple that was going to occur within that generation. The Church historian Eusebius records that many Christian Jews did escape the bloodshed because they heeded certain prophetic warnings and fled to a town called Pella, which is located in the mountains about 30 miles north of Jerusalem. The war with Rome resulted in the deaths of about one million Jews, with many of those killed by fellow Jews. The destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple in AD 70 should properly be viewed as God’s judgement against the Jewish nation and the end of the old covenant. Jesus specifically referred to the Jewish leaders as hypocrites, false teachers, and wicked men who had murdered the prophets. Jesus concludes his condemnation by declaring that “your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38). There has not been a temple since AD 70 and there is no biblical reason for the Jews to build a new temple and to return to the old covenant.
But I thought the covenant between God and his people was irrevocable and everlasting, some of you might be saying. There are several points to be made here. First, we have already seen that God’s promises are always conditional based upon obedience. Secondly, it was the people of Israel, not God, who broke the covenant, as recorded by Jeremiah. Once the people broke that covenant, God had every right to completely reject the people. However, in his grace, He established a new covenant that was actually better than the old covenant. So, when was this new covenant put into effect?
On the night of the last supper with his twelve disciples, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, proclaiming that the bread is his body. He also took the cup of the fruit of the vine and proclaimed it to be the blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins of many (Matthew 26:26-28, Luke 22:17-20). Why did Jesus proclaim the wine to be his blood? The reason is that when God established covenants with people or nations, a sacrifice of blood was always required. The blood is the life of a living being. And there is nothing greater by which to swear an oath than the life of a living being. Recall God’s covenant with Abram. To fulfill his part of the covenant, Abram brought to the Lord a heifer, a goat and a ram as a living sacrifice. When the Lord established his covenant with the nation of Israel, the Israelite men brought young bulls as a living sacrifice. Moses sprinkled the blood of these bulls on the people and proclaimed it to be the blood of the covenant. Likewise, Jesus freely offered his human body as a living sacrifice. The wine he shared with his disciples became symbolically the blood of the new covenant between himself and the Jewish people.
During Jesus’ three-year ministry, countless Jews became followers of Christ. Later in the book of Acts there are several instances where thousands of Jews became followers of Christ. Though these Christian Jews hadn’t departed from the traditions, feasts, and holy days of the Old Testament, they nevertheless understood that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus inaugurated a new covenant with the Jewish people that no longer required a temple and sacrifices offered through human hands. This became even clearer during the seven-year Roman-Jewish war when Jerusalem and the temple were completely destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, bringing an end to the sacrificial system forever. Throughout the first century, the Jewish followers of Christ were not waiting for their salvation on the basis of their ethnicity. They did not look back to the old covenant, which required a temple and sacrifices. They understood that salvation comes to all mankind through faith in Christ.
So are the old covenants still in effect? Let’s first consider the Abrahamic covenant. God promised to Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars of heaven and that he would receive the land of Israel as an inheritance forever. In the new covenant, the seed of Abraham continues, but in a different way. We saw earlier that Abraham was counted as righteous because of his faith. In the new covenant, all who place their faith in Jesus are counted as children of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile. The apostle Paul makes this clear in the following passage:
--Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith (Galatians 3:7-9 NIV).--
Therefore, it is not the modern nation of Israel who inherits the blessings of Abraham. Rather, the blessings are for those who, by faith, become children of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile. Paul goes even further, warning the Jews of his day that they were not automatically counted as children of Abraham simply because they were ethnic Jews.
--It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring (Romans 9:6-8).--
We must make a distinction here between physical Israel and spiritual Israel. Physical Israel consists in the earthly descendants of Abraham beginning with Isaac and Jacob. Spiritual Israel consists in all those who, by faith, acknowledge Jesus as lord and savior. In the Abrahamic Covenant, Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. This continues today as more and more people from all nations accept Jesus as their lord and savior and become part of spiritual Israel, which is the Church. And as for the promise of the land, again, the new covenant is superior to the old. Abraham and his descendants were promised an earthly allotment of land as an inheritance — if they were obedient. In Christ, we have the promise of a home in heaven that is perfect and eternal.
This same reasoning applies to the covenant between God and the nation of Israel given at Mount Sinai. The books of Romans and Hebrews in the New Testament both describe the inadequacy of the old covenant with Israel, which relied on perpetual sacrifices. It wasn’t as though God had failed. Rather, the blood sacrifice of animals could never completely remove the stain of sin from the nation. Year after year the nation of Israel had to offer sacrifices to God as an atonement for their sins. The author of Hebrews describes the animal sacrifices as being but a shadow of the good things that were to come — that is, eternal forgiveness in Christ. The Jews of the Old Testament could never be completely free from the guilt of their sins “because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4 NIV). The old covenant is no longer in effect. Today, the only way to be saved is through faith in Christ. It makes no difference whether one is a Jew or Gentile.
This is all well, you say, but isn’t God going to restore the nation of Israel as we get closer to the “end times”? It might not be obvious, but what you’re really asking is if the Lord has both a bride and a mistress. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the bridegroom and the Church is his bride. He does not have a second lover. If you are one of those who believe that God is going to restore the nation of Israel in the end times, then you have been influenced by a doctrine called dispensationalism, which crept into the Church in the early 19th century. In 1830, the year Joseph Smith wrote The Book of Mormon, a man by the name of John Nelson Darby, who lived in England, began preaching about the imminent return of Christ. Like many others of his day, Darby saw what he believed to be a moral collapse of society and believed that this spiritual falling away was surely a sign that he was living in the end times and that the people should expect Jesus’ return very soon. Darby ignited a fascination with Old Testament Bible prophecy as he and his followers searched the prophets for signs that they believe predicted the return of Christ.
To build a foundation for his system, Darby relied upon progressive revelation, where God gives to certain individuals special insight to interpret Bible prophecy as world events unfold. Darby believed that much of Old Testament prophecy would be illuminated by current events, an interpretive approach followed by many Christians today. More importantly, Darby separated the Church from the nation of Israel, insisting that the Church was merely a temporary institution created by God to deal with the disobedience of the Jewish nation in rejecting their Messiah. Darby separated the different ages of the Bible into dispensations, each having its own economy of forgiveness and salvation. I have addressed dispensationalism in my book and in other papers, so I will not go into it in any great depth here. However, it is vital to understand at least some of the basic teachings of dispensational theology.
In the dispensational model, God essentially put the nation of Israel on hold and turned his attention, for a time, to the Church. Darby believed that the covenant with the Jewish nation, referred to by dispensationalists as the Dispensation of the Mosaic Law, was temporarily halted due to Israel’s disobedience. During the Church Age, or the Dispensation of Grace, God saves all of mankind through faith in Christ. But at the end of the Church Age, God will once again turn his attention toward the nation of Israel. Darby and his followers believed that the nation of Israel would have to go through a time of tribulation before they would turn their hearts to Christ. But as they searched the scriptures, they found no passages that suggested that the Church would also go through this great tribulation. And so, in 1830, the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture was invented to harmonize the beliefs of their framework. The pre-tribulation rapture was initially referred to as the secret rapture.
Dispensationalism is the foundation of the modern end-times system. And many people follow this teaching without realizing that it wasn’t taught by the Church prior to 1830. Unfortunately, dispensationalism is based upon a number of errors and misinterpretations of the Bible. For example, dispensationalists separate the Church from the faithful remnant of Israel, as I mentioned. They insist that the Jews are still awaiting their Messiah because they rejected him when he first appeared 2000 years ago. This is an incorrect analysis. A great many Jews did follow Jesus as their Messiah, both from the preaching of Jesus, and later, through the evangelism of the apostles. Another fallacy claimed by many today is that the Jews killed Jesus. But is this really true? Before his death, Jesus explained to his disciples that he was about to suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law (Matthew 16: 21). It was the Jewish leaders who handed Jesus over to the Roman officials to be killed. The entire nation of Israel did not reject their Messiah. People need to stop saying this.
If you are still not convinced, consider this passage in Romans by the Apostle Paul: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved” (Romans 9:27 NIV). The original passage, quoted from Isaiah, was written prior to the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities to indicate that only a remnant of Israel would be saved following the judgement of the nation. In fact, the concept of only a remnant of Israel being saved runs throughout the Bible. After Moses led the people out of Egypt, they quickly turned away from God so that an entire generation was made to wander in the wilderness before the nation would enter into the promised land. The fact that not all Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah does not suggest any failing on the part of God or that the new covenant failed to go into effect. It simply speaks to the propensity of man to go his own way.
Another consideration is that for dispensationalism to be valid, then there must be more than two classes of people with regard to salvation. But there are only two classes: those who have placed their faith in Christ and those who have not. There is not a special, third category for Jews who have not accepted Jesus as lord and savior but who are still waiting for their salvation as a nation on the basis of their ethnicity. The Apostle Paul makes this point through his illustration of the olive tree. Each branch represents a person who has been saved in Christ. Initially, the olive tree contained only Jews. But as salvation was later offered to all nations, Gentiles were grafted into the olive tree (Romans 11:17-21). There is only one olive tree whose branches represent those who have been saved in Christ according to the new covenant. There is not a separate olive tree for Jews who are living under the old covenant.
Do you see? The faithful remnant of Israel is not separate from the Christian Church, as proponents of the modern end-times view insist. Rather, the Jews who were faithful to God as the sacrificial era was coming to a close and followed Jesus as their Messiah became the Church! There is no longer a special purpose for the modern nation of Israel. All who placed their faith in Christ have become spiritual Israel. We become the children of Abraham through faith, whether Jew or Gentile, as the Bible states in no uncertain terms. If we would like to receive the blessings of Abraham then we should be blessing the Church.
Many people believe that the formal recognition of the state of Israel by the United Nations in 1948 was foretold by Bible prophecy. But it was not. Nevertheless, many Christians have been trained by teachers and pastors to believe an incorrect interpretation of Bible prophecy that assumes this. For example, in the 1970’s and 1980’s, there was much hype about the imminent return of Jesus. Proponents of the modern end-times system insisted that Jesus would return within one generation from the time Israel was recognized by the United Nations. That would put the timeframe of his second coming no later than the year 1988, according to their interpretation of Bible prophecy. Since that time, numerous books have been written about the end times, the rapture, and the tribulation that suggest that current political events are somehow foretold by ancient Bible prophecy. Obviously, Jesus didn’t return within a generation of 1948. But this has not dissuaded millions of Christians from trying to connect current political events with Bible prophecy. Even more alarming is the fact that the religious and political world views of millions of Christians have been shaped by a modern end-times system that has no biblical basis.
The road toward statehood for the Jewish nation began in the early 1800’s, and even has traces of its origin prior to that. Let us begin by going all the way back to the Reformation. During the Reformation, the dominant view of the millennium, or the thousand-year kingdom described in Revelation 20, was that of postmillennialism. This view, still held by many today, teaches that after a thousand-year kingdom, Christ will return. One of the key beliefs of those who historically held this view is that the moral condition of the world would continue to improve as the millennium came to an end. They looked forward to great spiritual awakenings that would also include the Jewish people. This view waned in popularity in part due to the wars that followed the Reformation, especially those of the revolutionary era of the 18th century. Nevertheless, postmillennialism stirred up an interest in the Jewish people.
In the early 1800’s, men such as John Nelson Darby created a new interpretation of the millennium called dispensational premillennialism. This view had never been taught by the Church before Darby’s time and it has grown to become the dominant view held by most Christians today. Dispensational premillennialism is similar to historical premillennialism only in that both share the belief that Christ will return before the millennium. Darby deviated from the earlier view because he believed that the Church was completely separate from the nation of Israel, that it was merely a temporary institution, and that it would continue only until God restored Israel. Dispensationalists believe that most of Bible prophecy has yet to be fulfilled. Dispensationalism also teaches that the Jewish people will be saved as a nation on the basis of their ethnicity. Darby and his followers believed that before Christ would return and establish his millennial kingdom, there must first be be a spiritual awakening among the Jews and that they would have to return to their homeland. And so, there arose a concerted effort among Christians both to evangelize the Jews and to return them to Israel. In other words, the origins of Zionism as a political and religious movement really began with the Christian Zionists. It must be pointed out that this effort to bring the Jews to Christ had little to do with a concern for their spiritual condition. Rather, it was about hastening the second coming.
Over time, many Christians gave up the effort of making disciples of the Jews. Some suggested that it wasn’t necessary for Jews to accept Christ at all. They merely had to return to their ancient homeland before Christ would return. This was indeed a driving factor for many men in the early 1900’s like Balfour, who was a dispensationalist, and who was the Christian most responsible for laying the groundwork for the modern Jewish homeland. As dispensationalism continued to grow, so did the separation between faithful Israel and the Church. Christians leaders began teaching that the restoration of Israel would involve a return to temple worship, with some even suggesting a return to animal sacrifices. So in order for their to be a restoration of Israel and of the Jewish people, there needed to be a new temple in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, today the site of the original temple lays in an area of Jerusalem occupied by Muslims.
Can you see where this is all heading? Many Christians believe that before Christ can return, the Jews must first build a third temple. But the area for that temple is currently controlled by Muslims. So what must be done? Many refer to these Muslims as “invaders” or “occupiers” who need to be wiped out. Today, countless Christians believe that the Church age is coming to an end. Our time is short and we will soon be raptured. God will restore Israel according to Bible prophecy. And so they believe that our primary responsibility as Christians is not to Jesus or to the Great Commission, but to the secular nation of Israel. If we as Christians can help to eliminate the enemies of the Jewish people, then that’s what we should do. After all, we want the blessings of Abraham, right?
This isn’t the first time that Christians have been deceive by religious leaders on a very large scale.
In the year 1095, Pope Urban II thought it would be a really good idea if the Christians invaded the Holy Land and took possession of Jerusalem. Pope Urban’s motives were more political and economic than they were religious. Alexius Comnenus, emperor of the Byzantine Empire, which was based in Constantinople, was watching his empire weaken due to the growing influence of the Seljuk Turks. Alexius believed that without assistance from the Catholic Church, the future of Byzantium was uncertain. Alexius appealed to Urban and stated that his assistance was urgently needed because the Turks had taken possession of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site for the burial of Jesus. Urban saw in this request an opportunity to take possession of the Holy Land for himself and to bring Byzantium under his authority, thereby expanding the power of the Catholic Church. And so, in 1095 Urban prepared for an invasion of the Holy Land.
Convincing the nobility and feudal lords of Europe was not so difficult. They knew that the Turks threatened trade routes, which could have a negative economic impact. These men were also promised vast fortunes in a new land that awaited them. And convincing the commoner was not entirely difficult, either. These were promised forgiveness for sins and salvation for taking up the sword against the “invaders” of the Holy Land. Besides this, the church hierarchy kept the peasants in a constant state of readiness to do their biddings. In the century leading up to the invasion, the peasants heard constant preachings about how Antichrist was on the move and that the end of the world was near. With judgement day and a fiery torment possibly awaiting them, it was an easy task to convince peasants and commoners from all across Europe to leave their homelands behind them and to venture, sword in hand, to liberate Jerusalem from the heathen.
Thus, in the year 1096, a vast multitude of Christians left Europe to make the long trip to the Holy Land to fight against the saracen, a name originally used to refer to the Arabs, but later expanded to include Muslims. This marked the beginning of the first of many crusades to the Holy Land. The First Crusade, and most that followed over the next century, were doomed from the start due to poor planning, politics, and mistrust between the various factions. It is not known how many people died during the Crusades, but the number is easily in the hundreds of thousands, and probably in the millions. A lasting effect of the Crusades is a mistrust that the Christians created among both Muslims and Jews, who were both subject to the sword of the crusaders.
In fairness to the commoners who took up the sword, these men of little or no education merely believed what their church leaders told them. Antichrist was readying his kingdom and Christians everywhere must take up the sword to prove themselves worthy defenders of the faith. Fear was certainly a powerful motivator for most. Then too, living in the feudalistic nations of 11th century Europe meant that anyone outside of the elite ruling classes was doomed to a life of poverty. The Crusades promised an escape from eternal damnation, a chance to fight Antichrist, liberation of Jerusalem from the Arabs, and obtaining untold riches. Also, these men lived in a time before the printing press, when the Bible was written in Latin, and the common man could not read it for himself. A person could not search the Bible in his native language to see if God really did command his people to kill those outside of the Christian faith. Today, we have no such excuse.
Let us not make the same mistake. Influential leaders, both inside and outside the Church, have been insisting for decades that we must subdue all enemies in the Middle East in what amounts to a modern Crusade. While the circumstances today are not identical to those of AD 1095, many believe that our highest obligation is to fight the enemies of Israel. Whether the motive of these men is geopolitical or financial, the end result is to subordinate the Church to the nation of Israel. But Christians have not been called to this. We have one simple mission. We are to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit according to the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19. To whom did Jesus first give this commandment? He gave it to his disciples, who were Jewish. As the gospel spreads to people of all nations and languages, Abraham will indeed become the father of many nations and all peoples on earth will be blessed according to the promise. This will continue as long as Christians remain obedient to Christ. This is our mission until Jesus returns.