Why Israel Matters: Pray for God's Chosen People
- FAST FACTS:
- 1. On October 7, 2023, Hamas brutally attacked Israel murdering several hundred innocent people including children and the elderly. We also know 11 Americans were killed.
- 2. The attack intentionally happened during Shabbot, the Jewish day of rest.
- 3. Hamas is similar to ISIS; it is a radical Islamic terrorist group of Palestine that is backed by Iran.
- 4. This attack killed the most Jewish people in one day since the Holocaust. And it is still unclear how many have been taken hostage.
- 5. We must make note that at the end of September the Biden administration gave $6 billion to Iran. Now Hamas gives credit to this US money from Biden for assisting them in attacking Israel. That is an abomination! Words fail us.
- Our hearts are so heavy with grief. Please join us in praying for Israel!
- In response to this horrific attack and slaughter, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rightly declared war against Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “This war will take time. It will be difficult. Challenging days are ahead of us. However, I can promise one thing: With the help of God, the forces that we all have in common and our faith in the Eternal One of Israel, we will win.”
- The timing of this attack on Israel seems to be linked to the Biden White House funding Iran and the chaos in Congress. The U.S. House of Representatives must elect a conservative, pro-Israel, America-first Speaker immediately.
- Why is Israel so important? First, let’s review modern history of Israel. Israel became a nation shortly after WWII on May 14, 1948. This was a modern-day miracle and direct confirmation of a prophecy in Isaiah 66; this happened only three years after the Holocaust. God fulfilled His promise to regather the Jews in their land.
- The Jews experienced four hundred years of slavery, two destructions, multiple deportations, 2,000 years of dispersion and the Holocaust. And then God brought them back to their ancient homeland. Scripture included the prophecy regarding the formation of the modern-day Israel in the 20th century.
- Why is it important that Christians support Israel? And why should the USA support Israel?
- The answer is clear: It matters to God Himself. We can see that in God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3 which said, “The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 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 peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”"
- God’s plan is to bless the world through Israel. And with that promise comes hell driven opposition. It is so important to support and pray for Israel.
- We know Satan is the enemy who wants to kill and destroy. No nation has ever been as persecuted and hated as the Jewish people and Israel in an effort to destroy God’s plan. It will ultimately fail because God reigns supreme. But in the meantime, we are called to support Israel and the covenant that God made with the Jewish people.
- Israel holds great significance in the Bible. If you want to really know what's going on in the world, watch Israel. Where Israel goes, so goes the world. That is why it is important to be well informed about the meaning of Israel and what it means in Biblical prophecy. Please read on to learn more about Israel’s history in an article and video message by Dr. David Jeremiah. We are also pleased to share a lecture by Dr. Ed Hindson that details the importance of Israel in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
- Please pray persistently for Israel. Please pray for the United States as well. In the past, the USA has been a loyal, strong ally of Israel and we must fulfill that role again. God is sovereign and He reigns above all. Now is not the time to be fearful. Instead, now is the time to pray and trust in Yeshua: Jesus Christ Himself. He will lead the way.
- In this edition, we include more equipping information and inspiration through an educational article and videos on this topic. Please share this edition with a prayer for Israel and the USA.
- In God we still trust,
- Carrie Stoelting and Stacie Stoelting Hudzinski
David Jeremiah Explains God's Eternal Covenant with Abraham
Dr. David Jeremiah shares that God’s covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12 consists of an unconditional promise to bless Abraham “and that promise has been lavishly kept.” Dr. Jeremiah was among the speakers at a special session celebrating the 70th anniversary of the modern state of Israel March 1, 2018. Please watch his presentation here.
In Defense of Israel by Dr. Ed Hindson
If you want to really know what's going on in the world, watch Israel. So goes Israel, so goes the world. Here is Dr. Ed Hindson sharing about the Biblical meaning of Israel, why it has significant importance to us all, and how it takes the center stage of the end times.
Featured Bible Verse
Genesis 12:1-3: "The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“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 peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”"
“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 peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”"
Featured Quote
“All throughout the Old Testament … God made a covenant with the Jews, and the covenant is ongoing. In Jeremiah 33:3, God said if you can break the covenant that I’ve made with the sun and the moon, then you can break the covenant that I’ve made with Israel.”" -Pastor Skip Heitzig
Unite the USA's Featured Veteran of the Month: Charles Coolidge
Charles Coolidge, Medal of Honor, WWII
About the Author
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Dr. David Jeremiah is among the best known Christian leaders in the world. He serves as senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California and is the founder and host of Turning Point. Turning Point‘s 30-minute radio program is heard on more than 2,200 radio stations daily. A New York Times bestselling author and Gold Medallion winner, he has written more than 50 books.
America’s Future Depends on Our Relationship with Israel
Here is an article from 2022 that details why Israel is deeply important in the sight of God and why America's future depends on its relationship with Israel.
By Dr. David Jeremiah
Shadow Mountain Church Community is proudly a Zionist church that cherishes the Jews in our community, in Israel and around the world. This has generally been our history in the United States since the first 23 Jewish immigrants landed in New Amsterdam (later New York City) in 1654.
Space prevents me from retelling the entire story of the mutual affection expressed between a Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, and the newly elected president George Washington. But after a visit to Newport, the president wrote to the congregation, “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
What I’m about to say is a dramatic statement, but not an overstatement. I believe America’s future, and any nation’s future, depends in large part on one simple factor: Our relationship to the tiny nation of Israel.
You may be wondering whether my thinking is upside down. America is the world’s greatest superpower; Israel is a tiny sliver of land accommodating only a few million citizens. One would think that America is the key to Israel’s survival, not the other way around.
God has a perfect track record
But I’m an unapologetic believer in the promises God has laid out in Scripture. He tells us in Genesis 12:3, speaking to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you.”
And God has a perfect track record for keeping His promises.
The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has also gained a disturbing level of popularity in America from college campuses to Capitol Hill. Proponents claim to be holding Israel accountable for alleged human rights violations. Yet, in reality, we know the BDS movement is merely a cover for a deep-seated, centuries-long hatred of Israel and its right to exist in the first place. Many US politicians have publicly supported the BDS movement, or at least are too scared to criticize it. Fortunately, some have been courageous enough to confront members of their own party on this dangerous ideology.
We’re not the only nation in Western civilization to have politicians making poor choices regarding Israel and her descendants. We have watched in recent years as there has been a dramatic rise in antisemitism in Britain, including within the Labour Party which has been the traditional home for Jewish voters, and all of this on a continent that should mind some extra caution given its history with antisemitism.
We all know where intolerance can lead if left unchecked, and that oppression and opposition to Jews is nothing new.
That being said, whether or not our politicians, professors and pundits leave Israel alone, I’ve got a feeling that Israel is going to be just fine.
After originally reaching their promised homeland, the people of the young nation were continually attacked by hostile tribes and other nations. In 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered northern Israel and deported its people. In 586 BC, Babylon conquered southern Israel and exiled its citizens. The Jews returned to their homeland 70 years later, but the Romans finally crushed them in AD 70, leaving them without a country for 1,878 years.
Even in the countries of their exile, the Jews were oppressed, denied rights, isolated in ghettos and persecuted. In 1933, there were nine million Jews living throughout Europe, but by 1945, two out of three European Jews had been gassed, beaten, starved to death or died of disease in Nazi concentration camps. The Holocaust led to the elimination of one-third of the world’s Jewish population.
Since 1948 and the establishment of the modern state of Israel, despite being hemmed in on all sides by hostile nations, and against all odds or human logic, Israel has survived all-out war and constant threats of domestic terrorism. The nation has been forced to maintain a continual state of warfare throughout its sixty-eight years of existence. Yet increasingly, the international press portrays Israel as an aggressor nation, an occupying force, a brutal regime afflicting poor and disenfranchised Palestinians who have had their land stolen out from under them.
Indeed many among the Palestinians genuinely want a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. But a Palestinian nationalism continues to thrive with its singular fixation: the death of Israel. The Palestinian leaders pay stipends to terrorists and their families who kill Israelis, financed in part by the Israel-hating regime of Iran.
The story of the Jews is not over
Modern Israel has mainly been surrounded by enemies who do not recognize its right to exist and openly vow to annihilate it. These nations occupy a land mass of more than 5,000,000 square miles. Tiny Israel occupies a land mass of almost 9,000 square miles. In some sections of Israel, herding one’s family to a bomb shelter is an almost routine experience. But when Israelis take the tough but necessary measures to defend themselves, they are slammed by world censure by the likes of the United Nations.
The problem seems to be that many in the West won’t admit that Israel is in a fight for its very survival.
Yet the story of the Jews is not over yet.
In spite of overwhelming odds and seemingly insurmountable challenges, they have maintained their position as the only true democracy in the Middle East and the epicenter of progress in their region of the world.
As Professor Amnon Rubinstein noted, “[Israel] has turned itself from a poor, rural country to an industrial and post-industrial powerhouse. . . . It has reduced social, educational and health gaps . . . between Arabs and Jews. Some of its achievements are unprecedented: Israeli Arabs have a higher life expectancy than European whites.”My hope is that world leaders today will change their tune and will extend the same goodwill that George Washington sought for the Jewish people centuries ago.
By Dr. David Jeremiah
Shadow Mountain Church Community is proudly a Zionist church that cherishes the Jews in our community, in Israel and around the world. This has generally been our history in the United States since the first 23 Jewish immigrants landed in New Amsterdam (later New York City) in 1654.
Space prevents me from retelling the entire story of the mutual affection expressed between a Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, and the newly elected president George Washington. But after a visit to Newport, the president wrote to the congregation, “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
What I’m about to say is a dramatic statement, but not an overstatement. I believe America’s future, and any nation’s future, depends in large part on one simple factor: Our relationship to the tiny nation of Israel.
You may be wondering whether my thinking is upside down. America is the world’s greatest superpower; Israel is a tiny sliver of land accommodating only a few million citizens. One would think that America is the key to Israel’s survival, not the other way around.
God has a perfect track record
But I’m an unapologetic believer in the promises God has laid out in Scripture. He tells us in Genesis 12:3, speaking to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you.”
And God has a perfect track record for keeping His promises.
The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has also gained a disturbing level of popularity in America from college campuses to Capitol Hill. Proponents claim to be holding Israel accountable for alleged human rights violations. Yet, in reality, we know the BDS movement is merely a cover for a deep-seated, centuries-long hatred of Israel and its right to exist in the first place. Many US politicians have publicly supported the BDS movement, or at least are too scared to criticize it. Fortunately, some have been courageous enough to confront members of their own party on this dangerous ideology.
We’re not the only nation in Western civilization to have politicians making poor choices regarding Israel and her descendants. We have watched in recent years as there has been a dramatic rise in antisemitism in Britain, including within the Labour Party which has been the traditional home for Jewish voters, and all of this on a continent that should mind some extra caution given its history with antisemitism.
We all know where intolerance can lead if left unchecked, and that oppression and opposition to Jews is nothing new.
That being said, whether or not our politicians, professors and pundits leave Israel alone, I’ve got a feeling that Israel is going to be just fine.
After originally reaching their promised homeland, the people of the young nation were continually attacked by hostile tribes and other nations. In 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered northern Israel and deported its people. In 586 BC, Babylon conquered southern Israel and exiled its citizens. The Jews returned to their homeland 70 years later, but the Romans finally crushed them in AD 70, leaving them without a country for 1,878 years.
Even in the countries of their exile, the Jews were oppressed, denied rights, isolated in ghettos and persecuted. In 1933, there were nine million Jews living throughout Europe, but by 1945, two out of three European Jews had been gassed, beaten, starved to death or died of disease in Nazi concentration camps. The Holocaust led to the elimination of one-third of the world’s Jewish population.
Since 1948 and the establishment of the modern state of Israel, despite being hemmed in on all sides by hostile nations, and against all odds or human logic, Israel has survived all-out war and constant threats of domestic terrorism. The nation has been forced to maintain a continual state of warfare throughout its sixty-eight years of existence. Yet increasingly, the international press portrays Israel as an aggressor nation, an occupying force, a brutal regime afflicting poor and disenfranchised Palestinians who have had their land stolen out from under them.
Indeed many among the Palestinians genuinely want a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. But a Palestinian nationalism continues to thrive with its singular fixation: the death of Israel. The Palestinian leaders pay stipends to terrorists and their families who kill Israelis, financed in part by the Israel-hating regime of Iran.
The story of the Jews is not over
Modern Israel has mainly been surrounded by enemies who do not recognize its right to exist and openly vow to annihilate it. These nations occupy a land mass of more than 5,000,000 square miles. Tiny Israel occupies a land mass of almost 9,000 square miles. In some sections of Israel, herding one’s family to a bomb shelter is an almost routine experience. But when Israelis take the tough but necessary measures to defend themselves, they are slammed by world censure by the likes of the United Nations.
The problem seems to be that many in the West won’t admit that Israel is in a fight for its very survival.
Yet the story of the Jews is not over yet.
In spite of overwhelming odds and seemingly insurmountable challenges, they have maintained their position as the only true democracy in the Middle East and the epicenter of progress in their region of the world.
As Professor Amnon Rubinstein noted, “[Israel] has turned itself from a poor, rural country to an industrial and post-industrial powerhouse. . . . It has reduced social, educational and health gaps . . . between Arabs and Jews. Some of its achievements are unprecedented: Israeli Arabs have a higher life expectancy than European whites.”My hope is that world leaders today will change their tune and will extend the same goodwill that George Washington sought for the Jewish people centuries ago.