Allen Jackson - Prophesy Being Fulfilled - Part 1
But I wanna take this session and talk a bit about Israel and a vantage point. My habit, when I've returned from Israel for the last few years, has been to try to give you a bit of an update or some perspectives from what we gleaned. So I've been visiting the land of Israel since I was a boy, which now has been well over 20 years; don't heckle. I've seen amazing changes in that nation since then, and I don't think it can be understood apart from the supernatural involvement of God. About 9 million citizens in Israel, a million and a half Arabs, the majority of the remainder are Jewish, but they're surrounded by a couple of hundred million people who were sworn to their annihilation. And yet tiny Israel flourishes. And there really is not an adequate explanation from that apart from God.
So I'll start in Matthew 24 with just a portion. I've done something that I wouldn't recommend that technically isn't the best. You know, usually a text without a context is easily manipulated, and I'm gonna take a bit of liberty with that. We do a lot of life together, so, it's not a great pattern, but, in Matthew 24, it's Jesus's most lengthy prophetic discourse. And he said, "You'll be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you'll be hated by all nations because of me". And the question that had been put to him that elicited this lengthy response from Jesus, it's his longest prophecy, was, "What would be the sign of the end of the age and the destruction of Jerusalem"?
Well, Jerusalem was destroyed about 40 years after Jesus made that presentation, and what he said came true in some very literal, very specific ways. If I could visit Jerusalem today, you can still see what remains of the Roman siege ramp built against some ancient portions of the temple. And what Jesus said there wasn't directly applied uniquely to the Jews, but it is certainly, at the moment, being expressed towards the Jewish people. They are being handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and they are most certainly hated by all nations. And it's because of their affiliation with God. They are very clearly known to be the people out of the book. And they are hated because of it, and they have been hated because of that generationally.
And it is on display today. We visited, we were the only, we were the largest tour group in the country. We were the only tour group of any of the... there were some groups of a handful of people, but, apart from that, it looked like we had rented Disneyland for ourselves. We would go to locations where it wouldn't be unusual to see 50 buses, and we were the only bus. And we visited place after place that had been closed for months, and they said, "We opened it because we heard you were coming". By the time we'd been there three days, the street vendors, when we would arrive at a new location, they said, "Are you the 80? We know where you're from".
We would approach some places, and they would have their cameras out FaceTiming us. And there were vendors that, we'd been there enough, they would know us, and they would be waiting to give us messages on FaceTime. We went into place after place, and the owners would stand, and tears would run down their faces, and say, "Why are you here? Why is no one else here? Why are they saying the things about us they are on the college campuses in the United States? Don't they care about our people"? And I couldn't help but think of what Jesus said, "You'll be hated by all people because of me". It's hard for us to imagine; it's very difficult for us to imagine, it's so far removed from us.
You know, we have categorized hate in very different ways. We search through our histories and review things to find expressions of hate and microaggressions and reasons to be offended. And we hold on to those because we imagine there's opportunity, no matter what the Bible says about forgiveness and forgiving and being forgiven. And we hold those things because we imagine there's some opportunity that we can gain from it. When you visit a place where the hatred is real and present and overwhelming and stifling, it's a completely different perspective.
I wanna add to that one other verse; it's in Romans chapter 2, verses 9 and 10. Paul is writing to the church in Rome; he said, "There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile; but glory, and honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile". I believe that pattern holds true. I've heard it said, it's not original with me, but I think history would support it, that, when God wants to discipline the Jewish people, he does it through the Gentiles. And, when God wants to bless the Gentile nations, he does it through the Jewish people.
And so it captures my attention, and it holds a place of focus in my thoughts and in my systems of evaluation, that often time we can anticipate what is before us by witnessing what is happening to the Jewish people. I believe that the force behind the irrational hatred of the Jewish people is the spirit of antichrist. And I believe what will drive the hatred of all the people of God in the season that is before us is the spirit of antichrist. It will be irrational, it will be disproportionate, it will be overwhelming, and it will be shouted with great emotion. I don't say that for you to be frightened or to feel threatened. I want you to be prepared.
You have a decision to make, whether you're willing to be identified publicly and boldly and clearly with Jesus of Nazareth, or whether you have the imagination that you can somehow diminish that and maintain your faith. I'm of the personal opinion that you cannot. And so I wouldn't encourage you to cultivate that opinion for yourself. I believe that, in spite of great persecution and in spite of great hatred and in spite of great opposition, because of the presence of God, you can flourish. I believe tiny Israel shows us that, that, in the midst of a sea of hatred and a a globe filled with people shouting for their destruction, that God can cause you to flourish.
So I brought you a handful of just some simple observations; they're my lessons from this visit. I'm sure I could have made more, or perhaps refined them more clearly, but it is what it is. I can tell you, right now in Israel, there's a tremendous sense of isolation, but also, in equal proportion with that, is a recognition on their part of the great value of friendship. As I said, I've been visiting the land for quite a while. So I have generations of friends there, and sometimes we take that a bit for granted. We just imagine there'll be another visit or another opportunity or we'll see one another here or there. And this time was different. There's a recognition of being tremendously isolated in the midst of the global community. And with that comes a great appreciation for friendships. There were many expressions of gratitude wherever we went.
As I said, within just hours of us being in the country, the street vendors knew. It was a remark unlike anything I've ever seen there. We'd go to a restaurant to eat, and the owner of the restaurant would come out and find a microphone and talk to us, and with tears streaming down their faces. No sense of trying to maintain dignity. It's been months and months and months. The second leading industry in the nation is tourism, and it is, it's completely closed. I mean, it's just a shadow of the.. I visited an agency that we worked with frequently when I was there last summer, and they had about 150 employees.
When we stopped by this time, there were six, and that's industry wide. It is having an enormous impact upon them, and the the media is able to drive enough fear and anxiety and hatred and whatever else. So there's a great sense of isolation. Secondly, there is a grief that is settled on the hearts of the people that I've never seen, over the great cost of freedom. After October the 7th, Israel's military is built overwhelmingly from reserves. The young people serve in the military when they graduate high school, universally, both men and women, a three-year term. And, after that, they serve in the reserves.
And, after October the 7th, they began to mobilize the reserves, and 350,000 young Israelis came from all over the world. There was story after story after story of business people standing in the airport, Jewish business people, and said they'd buy a ticket for any Israeli that walked up and said they wanted to go home. They understand that their freedom and their survival is not something that can be presumed upon. It's intriguing to sit in the midst of and watch. The third observation I gave you is a link to that. There's a very clear expression of generational leadership.
I sat with the friends that are my age, many of whom I've been interacting with for decades now, and they said to me, "We were surprised". We've talked about the younger generations, and how they were spoiled and they were brats and they were undisciplined and whatever. And they said, when the mobilization orders were issued, he said, "Normally, historically, about an 80% response is what's anticipated, and that's the supplies that are ready, and the response exceeded 100%". I don't know how they do that, but that's the report they gave. They said, "We didn't have enough supplies; we weren't prepared for that".
And then my friends looked at me with tears in their eyes, and they said, "The truth is, they're better than we were". He said, "We didn't expect it". They said, "We believe we have a future because the young people are better than we were". You see, my generation, they're the children of the Holocaust survivors. So they were the ones that came back and had built a nation really from a, from a start up place to one of the most celebrated economies in the world and one of the most technically sophisticated places in the world. And they weren't sure what the next generation would do because freedom barely survives multiple generations.
So that was exciting. But, at the other end of the spectrum, I was shocked to hear that, because of the duration of this and the terrible toll it's taken on them, they're putting together a regiment of soldiers that have aged out of the army. They'll take anybody. And a friend of mine who's older than I am, so well into his 30s, had already filled out his paperwork. That's a sobering thought if you pause for a moment and think that they're mobilizing a group of people in their 60s. That's not a casual response. They've taken the best and brightest young men, one of the a known attorney in the city of Jerusalem. He's brilliant, very successful businessman, works with the most influential business people in the nation, and I was visiting with him for a moment, and he said, "Yeah, I'm going back for another term in the army in just a couple of weeks".
They're all focused. They have generational leadership in a way that's challenging to us. There was a fourth observation I took away, and it has to do with the presence of hate and evil. You know, we use those words very casually here. We have hate speech, and we get all heated up about it, and I'm not saying it doesn't happen, and words have a great value, and they can wound deeply; I understand all of that. But evil is something else. Evil has no boundaries. Evil has no regard for human life. Evil, it cares nothing about dignity or respect or fair play. Evil exists in our world. And evil gives rise to true hate, hate that brings destruction.
And, if you live pretending that it does not exist, or you call things evil that are not, or if you blur the lines about what these are and you allow your definitions to be manipulated, then you become a sponsor of those things. And, being in the midst of that place, walking through neighborhoods where women were brutalized and children were murdered and parents watched their children be brutalized, there's really no question that evil exists in our world. I'm not talking about the evil of when there's not enough parking on the square, and it's raining; I know that's uncomfortable and awkward and maybe not the planning you would prefer. But evil exists, and the assignment we've been given is to overcome it.
I give you a verse on that; it's Romans chapter 12, in verse 21. It's a very simple direct direction; it says, "Do not be overcome by evil". That's an assignment. Don't allow evil to overcome you. But then it gives us an instruction, proactive; it's not a defensive assignment. It says we have to "overcome evil with good". And I thought about that a good bit. How do you overcome evil with good? Well, first of all, it suggests that good is more powerful than evil. So it's about, how do you give expression to goodness? We know what evil looks like; we recognize it when we see it. And I would submit to you that, in the simplest, for me, the the simplest way to understand that, the way I overcome evil is I'm gonna live through it. I will not give it the high ground. I won't yield to it.
I'll tell you what I've observed in my Israeli friends in the, during the Intifada a few years ago. The tactics were different than they are these days. Right now, we have these proxy groups that are funded by Iran and Qatar, or, if you grew up in Middle Tennessee, from Kaytar. I don't care how you say it; they sponsor evil. They use proxies to wreak destruction and evil upon people. But, during the Intifada, the tactics were different. They were using homicide bombers, terrorists; they would recruit people who didn't have emotional stability and strap sophisticated bombs to them. And then their instructions were to walk on public transportation, buses, or public restaurants or to public markets.
And they do it at the busiest times of day or the holidays at the peak seasons, and hundreds of Israelis were being blown apart in the midst of their daily lives. When I visited Israel during the Intifada, and that my friends there, the wisest ones, I said, "What do you do"? And they said, "We're gonna go ride the buses, we're gonna go to the markets, we're gonna go eat in the restaurants. We can't allow them to take away the dignity of our lives".
Now, they had the wisdom to build a fence. You know, some of you, have you ever had a problem in your life, and, you know, maybe it was just something simple that's been annoying to you, and you visited a friend or you saw somebody, and they had a solution? And, when you saw it, it was so simple, you were embarrassed you had the problem? You know, like, you couldn't forget how to organize your Tupperware lids, and you visited some ADD person, and they had six solutions, and you thought, "I'm an idiot". Well, the longest border Israel has is with Jordan, and we spent a day, or part of the day, driving down that border from the northern part of Israel to the south. And, I'm just reporting the news; I'm not making it. They have a fence.
And, right next to the fence is a patrol road, and there is a message that's been very clearly communicated, that, if you were to approach the fence, you will forfeit your life. No, I'm...and it wasn't like it was littered with bodies because apparently, if that's enforced, like, once, the message travels pretty quickly. And I'm thinking, "We have enough chain link. What we don't have is the intent". We have no intent, no will. Oh, we have words, and we want a committee and a debate and six elections, and we wanna point fingers, and we want to redefine compassion, and... stop! It's not really that difficult. They have understood; you have to live through it. They are selling children at our borders because we allow it. They are pumping destructive drugs into our nation. The cartels are more powerful than our own border agencies. We're not overcoming evil.
You see, we don't overcome evil by being good to evil. And that's, unfortunately, the message that has been more predominant. We should be kind to evil; we should be more understanding of evil; we should study evil; we should perhaps have a conference with evil. I mean, we've taken every imaginable approach, other than overcoming it, and drawing a boundary and say, "You cannot transgress beyond this point or we will meet you with a force greater than that which you're threatening us with". We overcome evil by doing what is good in the face of evil. And I would submit to you, the greatest good is protecting the sovereignty of our nation. I promise you, biblically, theologically, and historically, God is not going to be good to evil.
If you're practicing evil, I would give you my strongest encouragement to stop. Israelis today are living through the expressions of hatred and anti-Semitism and the promises of Iran to destroy them, and it's remarkable to watch. My fifth observation was that the children pay a disproportionate price for our tolerance of evil. The weight that falls on the children is disproportionate to their numbers. We visited the Holocaust Museum. More than a million children died in the Holocaust, not because of some failure of theirs in combat, honestly, because the values of the Christian West collapsed in Europe, and the Jewish people were hunted and rounded up and annihilated. But that's not just about the Holocaust.
That happens in our culture when we redefine marriage, when we promote immorality, when we fill our libraries with pornographic material, and we call it open mindedness. We are allowing our children to become prey for predators. And the destruction that comes to their lives will take years for them to sort through and overcome. And I believe we'll be accountable for that; children pay a disproportionate price. We had lunch one day last week in the Jewish quarter; the old city of Jerusalem is divided into quarters, and, in the Jewish quarter, we were there having lunch. We had lunch in some of the other quarters, too, but that day was there, and the whole area, the public spaces, were filled with children playing, riding their bikes, young children, teenagers.
There were young families; there were mothers with strollers and strollers and strollers. I think it's the National Transportation of Israel, the stroller. But we were about, oh, 75 miles maybe, from the border, a hot border where we wouldn't visit, couldn't visit, shouldn't visit. And there's a war about to come, and it was completely lost on the faces of the people. They were having a great time, eating ice cream, celebrating, playing, laughing. The parents were... there was no impending sense of tremendous anxiety. There wasn't great fear. They weren't lined up in the grocery store, buying milk and toilet paper.
Oh, seriously, I mean, the reports, I mean, I'm reading the reports from our country, saying, you know, "The rockets are coming". And they're having the time of their lives. And I thought, they've learned something that we haven't learned, which leads me to the next one. It's, they have an understanding of peace that we have missed. Look at John 14; Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I don't give to you as the world gives. Don't let your hearts be troubled and don't be afraid".
This verse we've talked about before. Jesus didn't lead a life free of conflict. His life was filled with conflict, from his, the circumstances when he was born in Bethlehem and the murder of the babies until they killed him on a cross, and everything in between. Conflict is one of the characteristics of Jesus's journey through time. Satan himself tempting him, demons harassing him. I mean it's an endless... So Jesus wasn't free of conflict, and he says, "My peace I give to you". So we've got to define this a little differently. Jesus's understanding of peace is more about this calm assurance of God's abiding presence. Yes, there are enemies. Yes, there are adversaries. Yes, there are forces who would wreak destruction. But God is watching over me.
Jesus was frequently in trouble because he wouldn't keep ungodly rules. I don't intend to yield to ungodliness. I want the Lord to be pleased with us. Let's pray:
Father, we want your approval more than we want the approval of any person or any organization. May you be pleased with us, in Jesus's name, amen.