Jentezen Franklin - Together We Stand With Israel
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We wanna welcome all of you this morning that are here. We’re so honored today to have a surprise. We were contacted by the Consul General of Israel, Mrs. Anat Sultan-Dadon. I hope I did justice to that name. Would you stand please? And your team. We’re so honored to have you back with us. She was with us recently and we really connected with these precious people in one of the darkest seasons and boy, it’s like a turnaround that began happening after the last time they were here. And hostage after hostage has been released. We’re still believing for the remainder and pray.
Thank you, Consul General, we’re honored. She was kind enough. The Ambassador of Israel is here and he’s on his last leg headed to the airport to fly home to Israel. And she told him about Free Chapel and said, «You should go by and tell these people how much you appreciate them, » and we are so honored today. Let me give him a formal introduction. But His Excellency the Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Yechiel Leiter, he is a distinguished diplomat with over 40 years of public service to the nation of Israel. He’s an author, a scholar, and a Rabbi. Would you give a warm welcome to Dr. Yechiel Leiter? You may be seated. We’re delighted again to have you, ambassador. Thank you for being with us.
— Well, it’s so wonderful to be with you, and to come and see so many people gather on a beautiful Sunday morning in faith. Drove into the parking lot and saw all the cars, all the people, and I said, «Wow. People could be out golfing and yet they come together in faith». And that’s just beautiful. And I wanna thank you so much.
— He’s preaching now. That’s a good sermon right there. Go ahead and hit that again if you want to. That’s excellent.
— Need to thank you, and your congregation, and all of your followers for all the wonderful support you give us. And it’s heartfelt. Comes straight from Jerusalem. And I cherish the opportunity that the Consul General presented to me to come here and just say thank you. You know, pastor, the first thing we say in the morning when we wake up is Mode ani Lefanecha «I give thanks to you, oh Lord, for breathing life back into me». The first thing we’re obligated to say is toda. Which means in Hebrew, «Thank you». If we don’t have an orientation of character, a thanks, then we give up on the image of God that we have within us.
— Well, let me ask you… Thank you for those beautiful words. But let me ask you how Israel is doing since October 7. We see and hear a lot of things in the news about what’s going on now, and where we are now, and… do you see hope? Do you see an end? A conclusion potentially to the war that’s still taking place in Gaza?
— Well, pastor, there’s gonna be an end. We have to be patient. Sometimes larger than life issues take time. We’re not just in a battle for our security, we’re in a battle for, really, I would say truth. Just this morning for about 8 hours, the major news organizations broadcast that one of our tanks shot at people lining up for humanitarian aid, and killed close to 50 people. It was a lie. Never happened. It was like last week we had a UN official say within 48 hours, 14,000 infants would die of hunger. After 48 hours went by and nobody died of starvation, nobody retracted it, nobody said, «I’m sorry». What they did was put a stain of Cain on our forehead and expect us to cower and succumb. And what the Jewish people are now saying is, «We’re not gonna succumb. We were attacked on October 7, they slaughtered 1,200 of our people. We cannot have jihadis living at our border. And if it’s gonna take some time…» Thank you. It may have to take some time because the world is in a state of confusion, and they do more criticism than they do support, but we’re gonna weather the storm. We’ve been doing that for a long time, pastor. We’re a people that has weathered the storm for a long time. We did it in exile, and now that we’ve come home, we’re not gonna cower either. We’re gonna weather the storm, we’re gonna come out on top.
— I heard that you had planned to retire. You’ve served your nation for many years and you received the call from the prime minister to ask you to be ambassador to Israel. Tell us a little bit about the decision you made there and why you made it.
— Wow, talking about my personal life decisions in front of such an auspicious gathering. I feel like we’re family already. I’ll tell you. I had faced an illness a few years ago, and it was a long process of healing, and I was quite tired. With the help of God, I graced humanity with eight children and many, many grandchildren. All I really wanted to do was write books and teach. And then, the war broke out. And my oldest son, Moshe, is the commander of forces that led our divisions in to Gaza. And the 15th day of the war, he fell. He was a father of six children, he was 39. After spending 15 years in special ops in the Airforce, our equivalent of your Delta force. He actually trained with your Delta force here at North Carolina. He left me six grandchildren and he was my best friend. He went to med school after spending 15 years in special ops because he wanted to commit himself for the rest of his life to saving lives. And you have to make a decision when you lose somebody so dear to you. You know, he was the first one to call me dad, and he was very, very smart. Very able. Beautiful kid. When the prime minister called me, he said, «I know you don’t wanna go into public life, but why don’t you ask Moshe what he would say»? And I had that 30 second conversation. And somewhere from the garden of Eden, he came down and said to me, «Dad, now you’ve gotta live for me too». So, he went into the battlefield, and I’m in the battlefield, right now, of diplomacy fighting for him as well.
— I think it’s so important that people understand the price that Israel is paying even now. We still have hostages that are being held and brutalized. We had some of those hostages here. It was an amazing experience and this congregation was so moved. These people, Mr. Ambassador, are some of the most loving, supporting Israel people. This and our other eight campuses. We love your nation and we love the Jewish people. We have hundreds of students in our college that have just got back this weekend. And they’re not being taught, like some universities in America, to hate Israel, and to resent Israel, and to despise and be anti-semitic the Jewish people. But they’re being taught that our faith, and what we believe, we only have because of the land of Israel and the Jewish people that have given us the Torah as we celebrate Pentecost together. It is an honor to have you here today, I mean that.
— It’s an honor to be here any time. But I guess fate brought us together just before the Festival of Pentecost, Festival of Weeks. And it’s the festival of the giving of the Torah. And we think about it, three millennia ago, Moses appeared there on Sinai, and he said, «Thou shall not murder». «And thou shall not steal». And our rabbis ask the question. It says elsewhere in Leviticus that we’re not allowed to steal. So, what does it mean in the Ten Commandments, «Thou shall not steal»? And the rabbi said, «In the Ten Commandments, 'Thou shall not steal, ' means thou shall not take hostages. Thou shall not steal people and use people in order to gain political goals». And here we are, three millennia later, and there are still people in the world who refuse to accept the Ten Commandments, refuse to accept the admonition against murder and against stealing human beings and holding them in dungeons underground in order to achieve, and what political goal? The political goal is the destruction of Israel. And we need to say, and you all say it with such clarity and we’re so indebted to you for that, that two millennia before the Romans called the land of Israel Palestine, there was a land called Israel, and a people called Israel, and a commonwealth called Israel, and temples that were the capital of Israel. And we didn’t allow years of exile to erase the bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel. And if Palestinians wanna live with us in peace, well we’re ready to do that. We’ve given up territory again, and again, and again, and all we’ve gotten in return is terrorism. And now, what we’ve gotta do is come back to the sources. The source that says, «Thou shall not murder, and thou shall not steal». And the source that says, Genesis 12, «Abraham, we’ve got a great message for the world. You gotta connect with the land of Israel. Ascend the land of Israel». Zionism didn’t begin in the 19th century, Zionism began with the birth of the Jewish people, when Abraham ascended the land. And we’ve ascended the land again, we’ve come home, and we’re not leaving again. We’re not leaving. We’re not gonna be defeated. We’ve come home. And part of that message, part of that message is the reconstitution of this Pentecostal holiday, of this Festival of Weeks, of a reconstitution of the values in our Bible. And we can’t be ashamed, or embarrassed, or be apologetic about saying there is a book that we carry under our arm when we walk through the Holy Land, that we’re not embarrassed by it.
— Wow. How special is this? And we have a live camera shot of Israel right now that I think they’re gonna throw up. But I want you to know while we see that, that’s actually a live shot. They’re praying at the western wall there. And it’s a special experience. I cannot wait…
— This special sitting here with you, pastor, with the Wailing Wall in the background. I mean, it’s almost like surreal. I mean, really.
— And this is technology. But, I want you to know, and I want people in Israel to know that we stand with you. That this congregation and our friends and partners in our television ministry, in the last five years, have given over 28 million dollars partnering, partnering with The Jewish National Fund. Our friend, Russell Robinson. I think you know him. We partnered together, and these people have given 28 million plus to build schools, play schools, to build bomb shelters, to build hospital wings. And here’s some of the things that they have, these amazing people.
— Amazing.
— And to God be the glory because we know we are fulfilling prophecy, and we know that our destinies are intertwined with our nations. Our nations are intertwined in history and in faith. And Genesis 12:3, «I will bless those that bless Israel. I will curse those that curse Israel and all the families of the earth shall be blessed». Not only are you a diplomat and an ambassador but you’re a rabbi. And I know you’ve gotta catch a flight and I wanna be very conscious of your time, but would you pray a prayer blessing. The Bible said, «Pray for the peace of Jerusalem». Can we all together unite for a moment and pray for the peace? If anyone’s paid a price, I cannot imagine the tears, the family, the brokenness… When you see those six grandkids, I’m a grandfather, I cannot imagine what you’ve walked through this year. And wouldn’t it be something if we could see God release those, see those terrorists defeated, and those hostages come home this year?
— Amen, amen.
— Peace come to the nation of Israel.
— Amen.
— Would you pray a prayer for us and for the nation of Israel?
— I come together with you, pastor, and your wonderful congregation in prayer with Jerusalem on our minds, the sanctity of the city, and the sanctity of the ideas that the eternal city of God represents. We seek truth. We say that there is objective truth, we battle for truth. We seek morality and ethical living. We come together understanding that history has meaning, and that the hidden hand that has guide the history will guide us into the future of common destiny. And I’m reminded of the last words that my son spoke before the explosion that was set off that killed him and his command team in Northern Gaza. He said, «We found the tunnel. Shabbat Shalom». It was a Friday afternoon and he wished all the soldiers listening to him Shabbat Shalom, a Sabbath of peace. And I take his last words with me, bring them to you and share them with you. It is the Sabbath of humanity that we all wait for. And together, we’ll strive in the belief that Sabbath of humanity will come when we’ll be united in peace. Nation will not raise sword against each other, the sheep will lie down with the lion and we’ll live in peace, which we have brought through our deeds, through our good works, and through our faith in the God of history. Thank you all so much for being family.
— Would you tell the ambassador how much we support, pray for, and appreciate he and his great, great nation. God bless you.