David Jeremiah - Proclaiming Truth and Grace (04/29/2017)
In this discussion on immigration, the pastor shares his thoughts on the challenges like rising costs from undocumented births, but sees it as God's way of bringing people to us since we've failed to spread the gospel abroad. Drawing from the Old Testament, he explains that Israel was commanded to accept, assist, and assimilate strangers, while reminding them they were once strangers too, and stresses that immigrants today should integrate into American society rather than form separate anti-American communities. Ultimately, his passion is evangelizing these newcomers through churches in their languages, warning that failing to assimilate will lead to problems.
Challenges in the Immigration Discussion
There are many, many issues in the immigration discussion that I don’t have a tremendous amount of knowledge about except I see what’s going on. For instance, here in Dallas/Fort Worth at Parkland hospital the largest number of babies born in that hospital, and in just about any place in America, and so many of them are here illegally and it’s driving the cost of everything up. That’s one part of it.
The other part is that God has brought these people here. Here’s kind of how I respond to that. I can’t stop immigration. Who am I? I can’t stand at the border and vet everybody who comes in. So what am I supposed to do as a pastor? Here’s what I think. I think, James that God said, «Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature» and we’ve done such a sorry job, he’s dumping them at our own doorstep. He’s saying, «If you won’t go where they are I’ll bring them where you are.»
A Pastoral Response to Immigration
So my main passion for immigration is to win them to Christ. We have a Spanish church, we have an Arabic church. We’re trying to win these people that God has brought to us. Then I go to the Old Testament and I realize that God has given us some insight into this because in the Old Testament, immigrants were called «strangers.» And three things, strangers, how they related to Israel were number one they were to accept them, they were to assist them, and they were to assimilate them.
One of the most amazing things in that language is that whenever God spoke to Israel after that time he would always say to Israel «and you’re strangers also.» Everything he said to Israel he would add — you can look it up. It’s in Deuteronomy over and over again, «And you’re strangers also.» God laid upon the immigrants, the strangers the same responsibility that he placed upon Israel. That’s where we’re missing it in America because we’re allowing people to come in here and not become a part of America but become their own people, start their own communities; sometimes even anti-American in their — and that’s not going to ever work and we’re going to pay the penalty for that.