Antisemitism is Rising. How Should Christians Respond?

Featured Speakers: Julie Roys, Ron Cantor

Julie: Hanukkah is historically one of the most joyous times of the Jewish calendar, but this year the celebration has been marred by a horrific act of antisemitism. 15 people, including a rabbi, a Holocaust survivor, and a child are among the dead from the mass shooting at Bondy Beach in Australia on Sunday.

But the massacre at Bondy Beach is not an isolated event, though certainly unique in its severity and horror globally. Antisemitism is up dramatically since the October, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel from 2021. To now, antisemitic incidents in the US have risen from around 2,700 in 2021 to more than 9,300 last year.

Less dramatic increases were reported in other countries, but still, the rise in antisemitism has been significant just about everywhere. And according to my guest today, even among Christians whose savior came to this earth as a Jew, hostility toward the Jewish people is on the rise. My guest is Ron Cantor, a Jewish believer in Jesus, and the president of Shinu tv, a Hebrew language TV channel based in Tel Aviv that’s reaching Israelis with the gospel.

Why are Jews so consistently hated by other people? And how should Christians respond to this evil around them? Stay tuned. My live discussion with Ron Cantor is next.

I am so glad you’ve joined us for what I believe is an extremely important discussion. Many of you, I know were horrified by the bloodshed in Australia over the weekend. It’s hard to even put into words how horrific that was. 15 innocent people mowed down simply because they were Jewish. This violent hatred is epidemic right now, and I believe it’s our responsibility as Christians to oppose it as strongly as possible.

And so I’m gl so glad to have my friend Ron Cantor with me tonight. Ron lives in Israel though tonight, I believe he’s in the United States. So Ron, welcome and thanks so much for joining me.

Ron: Thank you, Julie. It’s great to be with you. I appreciate you addressing this issue. It really means a lot.

Julie: Well, it’s a very important issue.

And you know, one of the things we’re gonna be addressing tonight is even rising hostility among Christians towards the Jewish people, which to me is just unconscionable. Like, I can’t even wrap my head around that. I mean, of all people, Christians should love and appreciate the Jewish people. Um, but even, even tonight, I, I actually, this is a first for me.

We, we put out an email of course and announced to people that we were going to be going live and talking about antisemitism tonight. And I received an email for a monthly donor who said, I can’t support you if you are in league with this guy. The Israeli government is committing serious crimes against our fellow Christians in Palatine.

I wasn’t aware you were in league with the Israeli government. Um, this is the conflation between everything that Israel does and the Jewish people has been really. I mean, a, a little bit stunning to me. I don’t feel like as an American, everything Donald Trump does is something that I support or should be associated with me.

And yet I’m, I’m seeing this conflation of what’s happening again with the Israeli government, with the Jewish people. And I know you don’t wanna get into politics per se. Well, I, I, this dynamic would something I want you to address.

Ron: I would certainly address the idea that Israel is at war with Christians and Palestine.

That that is absurd. There’s absolutely no proof of that. In Gaza where there is 2.1 or 2.2 million Muslims, there’s about 800 Christians. So if, if Israel was at war with the Christians there, it would be very misguided since there are so few. So, um, you know, one can argue. As to whether or not the Israeli government is doing a, a, a perfect job in their war against Hamas and Gaza.

And, you know, even in Israel we have freedom of speech. We speak out against our government. Um, but at the, at the end of the day at Israel, has wanted to survive in peace in the Middle East. And whether it was on October 7th or 1948 or 1967, we are constantly a target. Um, we would love to, and I, I think I can speak on behalf of most Jewish people who live in Israel, is that we would love nothing more than to live at peace with our neighbors.

Julie: Hmm. And this is something that has just been, I, I mean, stunning to me that, and we mentioned this in our open, that since the October 7th attack, which was one of the, just a horrific violence, which should have engendered. Sympathy for the Jewish people. And I get that the response has been very controversial, but I’ve never seen something like this where something that horrific, that awful spurs hatred from the people that were the target of that.

I mean, that to me. I, I, I mean, I’m just stunned by it and I’m stunned by how it’s almost socially acceptable in some places right now. And I would say in the United States, it’s almost socially acceptable to be anti-Semitic. And it’s like it’s racism is wrong everywhere else, but for some reason targeted that the Jews, it’s okay.

Ron: Well, if you go back to October 7th, 2023, I remember exactly where I was. Our city. I wasn’t in our city at the time, but we were ground zero for the rocket diversion where I think about 2000 rockets were sent at our city, unprovoked. And, um, people were literally just hiding all day long in their safe rooms or in their stairwells or in basements, uh, not knowing that in addition to the rocket fire, uh, three thou, three to 5,000 terrorists were entering into the country by foot and going into, into kibbutzim and murdering, raping.

I mean, the stories are horrendous. I, as a journalist, I was able to see the, the footage from the Hamas cameras and, and not only was it gruesome, but the level of joy that they were expressing as they killed people. So I remember one, uh, one terrorist taking the phone and calling a, uh, calling his parents back in Gaza and rejoicing saying that I took this phone from a woman that I killed with my bare hands and I killed 10 more Jews.

And he was, and his mother said, I wish I was there with you. So, but if you go back to that day. In Australia, interestingly enough, at the Opera House, I believe in Sydney, that there was a gathering there. This is before Israel responded. This is, so this was not in response to anything that we would do later in Gaza.

Mm-hmm. This was in response to 1200 Israelis being murdered. Uh uh, uh, 250 being kidnapped. And they were saying, uh, gas the Jews. Gas the Jews. This is a, in a Western country, you have a group of demonstrators. Gas. The, on Harvard University. On Columbia University. Before, again, before Israel did anything in response, they were already protesting against Israel.

Julie: Hmm. And how do you

Ron: explain that? Um, wow. I don’t, it’s, it’s hard to explain unless you believe in, uh, the spirit world unless you believe that there is a God and there is a demonic force that hates God, that knows that Jesus, the Jew is returning to Jerusalem and according to biblical prophecy, he is returning to a remnant of Jewish people that cry out to him, that believe in Him, that say, which comes from Matthew 20, uh, 23 verse 39.

Jesus says, you, the Jews of Jerusalem will not see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, which is, most folks would know that, but that is how you welcome somebody. If somebody comes to my home, I would say, Baba, welcome. Come in. Blessed is he who comes. And so Jesus is saying, until you welcome me, I’m not coming back.

So he comes back to Jerusalem, which. Would have to be a Jewish country at the time. And he comes back to a, an awakened Jewish community. So, uh, the, the enemy, Satan, really, ever since God called Abraham, has had it in his heart to, to kill the Jewish people. We became slaves in Egypt. God brought us out of Egypt in Persia, there was a plan by Haman, the prime Minister of Persia, to kill every single Jew in the Persian empire.

And the Persian empire was not small. It was, it was the world empire of the time. So it would’ve been mass genocide all over the world. There have been 52, well now 53 attempted genocides against the Jewish people, and somehow we’re still here. Somehow we became a nation again. And so you would have to believe in the spirit world because there’s no other explanation why always, you know, there are other.

Persecuted people all over the world. Mm-hmm. But nobody has been so consistently persecuted throughout history like the Jewish people.

Julie: Hmm. And I remember growing up, and I, I would watch, in fact, my mother made sure that all of us children, when there was a documentary about the Holocaust, or even, I remember watching a mini series on the Holocaust, she would make sure that we sat down and watched it.

And she said, you have to be aware of this evil that has happened in our time. And, and so to me, I remember thinking as a kid when this was happening, you know, pre-World War II when everything was, was ramping up. Like, why didn’t people flee Germany? And it wasn’t until I studied more that I realized, my goodness, the violence against the Jews in, in Europe had been going on the pilgrims in Russia, the, you know, I mean all over Europe had been going on for years and years and years before.

That had happened, you know? And, and I always thought, well, that would never happen here. That would never happen here. And that’s why when I see this antisemitism rising, I mean, I’m so glad that a Australia spoke out the way that they did. It took a little while, but they did finally say, you know, that this was antisemitism and they named it and they called it evil.

But when I see this happening and I, and more acceptance for these really just abhorrent attitudes, it makes me think, could it happen again here? And so that’s one of the reasons why, you know, I’m just so glad we’re having that this discussion because I think as Christians, as believers in Yeshua, we have to, we have to stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters.

And so, um, this is very near and dear to my heart. And I, I wanna talk. About, you know, from your perspective, you know, as a Jewish believer in Jesus, how did, what happened on Sunday? I mean, how does that impact you? It’s not just happening to them, is it, I mean, it’s happening to you when you watch something like that.

Ron: Yeah, well, I was, I was horrified when I woke up on Sunday morning. I was actually in Philadelphia. I was preaching that morning, um, on the shepherd’s response to the Angels, uh, 2000 years ago. And, uh, you know, Jewish people were persecuted back then. Jesus was persecuted as a, as a Jewish wouldbe, Messiah. He had to flee to Egypt.

And, um, last night, my daughter has a restaurant, uh, here and, uh, everyone knows that she’s Jewish and she had a public, uh, candle lighting for the third night of Hanukkah. And I, I remember thinking, oh my goodness. Does she want to do that? Do we want to do people, are people even gonna come? Because what happened in Australia, it wasn’t just a random act of terrorism.

It, and, and it wasn’t connected to Gaza. And it wa these are Australian Jews. These are, they don’t live next door to me. In, in, in Chelon Israel. They live down under, and they were simply celebrating a beautiful Jewish holiday. And these two Muslim men came and, and just started shooting at them because they’re j In fact, I heard someone say, is it really terrorism?

Again? I, I need to stop going on Twitter because it’s just so bad.

Julie: It can be so toxic. I know, I know. But

Ron: this person is saying, is it really terrorism when these people that they shot have. Think that genocides, okay, well number one, let’s just suppose everyone there that was shot and it was like a thousand people there.

Let’s suppose all of those people think that genocide is okay. Now we know that’s ridiculous and they don’t think that, but no, you don’t kill people for what they think. You don’t kill people for what they believe. I don’t go out and kill Muslims simply because they don’t like Jews. You know, obviously terror.

Somebody who’s an actual terrorist is something else. So no, you do not kill people for what they believe, but we don’t know what they believe. Let me tell you something. I live in Israel and you can’t say Israelis believe X because you know, there’s an old saying, you know, uh, two Jews, three opinions, and that really is the truth.

You go to every single Saturday night, there is anywhere between 50 to a hundred thousand Jewish. Israelis protesting our government. So the idea that Israelis believe this, or Jews believe you don’t know what they believe, these were just Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah and they were murdered. And if these guys could have killed all of them, they would.

And that’s genocide. Genocide is if, if, and what would’ve happened in Israel on October 7th, if Hamas had had the means to kill every Jew in Israel, they would’ve done it in a heartbeat. And what is interesting is that Israel, actually, the Israeli army, the IDF, we do have the means. We could take out Gaza in a matter of hours and kill every innocent person, but we don’t do that.

We don’t use the means we have because we don’t want to kill innocent people. It’s very diff difficult when you’re in a war with people who hide behind women and children. And again, I’m not here as a spokesman for the Israeli government. I am Israeli and, and I’m, I’m not ashamed of that. But I don’t love seeing innocent people dying.

It, it breaks my heart. I, I can tell you of times I can hear from my house the, the fighting, whether it’s their bombs or our bombs, and it’s not something that I was used to growing up in Virginia. I never heard one county over, you know, bombs going off. So it, it is heartbreaking that innocent people, whether they’re Jewish or Arab, that are dying.

But this is a word that we didn’t want. And, um, so, but getting back to the, the terrorist attack, these people were mowed down for only one reason, that they were celebrating a Jewish holiday. And, and if we say that that’s acceptable in any way, what, what, what is next? And that’s what we have to be now. And I have to say, uh, Ahmed Ahmed, the, the, uh, Muslim.

Who risked his life got shot several times. Yeah. Just watching the video him, of him taking down one of the terrorists was beautiful. And I, I would, that, that type of Muslim person, that, that ideology would win out over, uh, the terrorist form that we’re seeing so often.

Julie: It’s so hard to wrap your head around a belief system that doesn’t believe that we’re all connected, you know, that we’re all human, that we’re like, that totally devalues a human being based on their ethnicity.

It’s, it’s just, it’s hard to really understand. And like you said, the celebrating of actual murder is, is shocking too, because I mean, that’s, that’s just a loss of humanity to do something like that.

Ron: Well, well it’s interesting that you, you bring up ethnicity because traditional Christian hatred of Jewish people and it really started.

In about the year one 50, you can read the writings of Justin Martyr, who wrote beautifully on many different subjects. Uh, but he began to really push the idea that the church was the new Israel. God hates Israel. God is against Israel. Uh, Sabbath and circumcision were given to the Jewish people. This is not what I’m saying.

This what Justin Martyr taught so that the enemies of the Jews would be able to recognize them and persecute them. In other words, God wanted them persecuted. So he gave us Sabbath and circumcision. And so, you know, but, but Christian hatred of Jewish people was primarily connected to the religion of Judaism, which you could change by converting to Christianity.

That’s why there was a lot of, uh, mm-hmm uh, effort from the Catholic church trying to force Jewish people to convert to Christianity. The inquisitions were about Jews becoming Catholic in, in Spain. But what happened in the late 18 hundreds, there was a guy named Wilhelm. Uh, Mar Wilmar and he coined, he was the first person to use the word antisemitic.

And the reason he, he did not, in other words, hating people because they were of the Jewish religion, wasn’t enough for him. He said, we have to hate them because of who they are, because of their blood, their genetics. In other words, if we hate them for being Jewish, there is nothing they can ever do to get rid of it.

And that was the type of Jew hatred that Hitler embraced. Mm-hmm. Now, you might remember that Hitler was, he believed that his grandfather might be Jewish, and he, they was big investigations done. His, his, it was his, uh, it was an illegitimate pre pregnancy, and they weren’t sure who the father was. And he was very worried that he might have Jewish blood because you can’t get rid of that by converting to not that, not that Hitler was a Christian.

He wasn’t at all, he was a, a pagan, uh, lunatic. Uh, and he actually hated Jesus because he thought Jesus was weak. Talking about love and forgiveness. Nevertheless, uh, uh, this guy, Wilham Mar, he invented or coined the phrase antisemitic to describe a, a specific evil type of Jew hatred that Jewish people weren’t technically human.

In fact, if you go even throughout the Middle Ages and you see some of the architecture and the artwork in churches, you will see Jewish rabbis sucking at the, the Tet of swine and doing other obscene things in church artwork. And the whole idea was to say, Jews are of the devil. Jews are not even human.

Julie: Hmm. Well, I will say over Thanksgiving I was, I was with some, some folks and, and somebody brought up one of these tropes. I, you know, I recognize as, oh, this is just an antisemitic trope. I can’t believe you you’re saying that, but about Jews, for example, owning all the banks and robbing from, from the rest of the people.

And, and they were like, serious. I couldn’t believe they were serious. I was like, what, what are you saying? Where, where did you get this? And they actually heard it, I believe, unlike TikTok with some Christian talkers saying this, which I’m just like, I was absolutely shocked. And, and I know that you and I have talked a lot about, um, Michael Brown and, you know, what’s happened with him who’s, you know, a Jewish believer who had been a brilliant apologist, still a brilliant apologist, but is really disqualified from ministry, I would say, for some of the things he’s done.

But I did get out his book that I had on my shelf. Our hands are stained with blood, right? And I said, you need to read this book. This book will inform you about how these have been used down through the ages to spur really myths about Jewish people. But talk a little bit about that and about the revival that some of these are seeing, especially in the Christian community.

Ron: Yeah, and, and that book is a classic, and I read it when it was a manuscript, uh, back in the early nineties. And I was shaken to the core, even as a Jewish believer. There was so much that I did not know about, about the persecution of the church against the Jewish people. Um, it is shocking today and, and really it’s all been in the past two years.

Um, I think what has happened is that, um. In an effort to reach a certain part of the, see, the most antisemitism we’ve, we’ve really seen on the left, or I should say it’s mostly anti-Israel, uh, versus antisemitism. We see off often in the left in America. What happened in the right in America is that there was a voting block that wasn’t voting.

And so what happened is that that right wing Christian groups began to realize that we need these people to vote. And so they tolerate, but in their outreach to those people, they gave them platforms. So you got a guy like Nick Fuentes, who is a blatant antisemite, a racist, and people listen to him and it’s because, I mean, he, I mean, before the last election he was at Mar-a-Lago with the president.

I mean, that’s just nuts talking. Now, I’m not saying that he knew who he was, but I wouldn’t let anybody in my mansion. To come eat dinner with me if I didn’t know who they were. And he’s a white supremacist and he’s a Jew hater. And, uh, but he is now super popular. He’s got a massive following. Mm. And so we’ve seen this happen within Christianity where we have tolerated some of these voices.

And the, and here is the horrible thing about that is that maybe those people who have tolerated those voices are smart enough to ignore those voices. But not everybody is, some people are hearing these things for the first time. You know, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m just thinking back to the Middle Ages. These are the types of things.

Even before they had the internet, uh, before they had Facebook or TikTok, uh, you know, there was, there was blood libels in the Mi Middle Ages. There was a young man by the name of William of Trent who was kidnapped and murdered, and they never fi f found out who did it, but they blamed the Jews. Jews were killed, falsely, falsely, accused, and killed for killing him.

There was a guy by the name, young man, by the name of Simon, of Trent, and again, he was, he was murdered. And uh, this led to the arrest and the torture of Jewish men who were then kicked out of their community without any evidence. Then you have something called host desecration. Sounds very. You know, nice except Host Desecration is taking a communion wafer that has been blessed by the priest and then torturing it because it’s now, you know, back in the Catholic church, they believed in transubstantiation, which is the idea that after that wafer is blessed, it is the body of Jesus.

In Jewish people, whole Jewish communities were, were gathered together and murdered for the false claim that they were stealing communion wafers and torturing them. And then we have the Black Plague. The Black Plague, which we know scientifically came out of Mongolia and came into Europe. Jews were blamed for that, again, without any evidence, and they were, it was said that they were poisoning the wells.

And on February 14th, 1349, 2000 Jews were burned, alive or killed. Effectively destroying that Jewish community for causing the Black plague, which of course they did not cause. And so what we’re seeing now here today, Julie, in our lifetime, is people like Candace o Owen, and now Tucker Carlson, who already had a massive platform, but his, his anti-Semitic view views were held in check.

By the way, I don’t believe this is new with Tucker Carlson. It’s just that you can’t say these things when you are the, the star of Fox News. Fox News at, at eight 8:00 PM mm-hmm. And so now we are seeing what he really believes about the Jewish people. And um, I believe that comment at the beginning where the idea that Christians in Palestine, I know many Christians in Palestine, I know Palestinian Arab Christians, and I’ve never heard one of them say we are being persecuted by the Jewish people.

Uh, I have heard them say we are persecuted by Hamas. We are persecuted by the Palestinian authority. I know Christians who have been shot at by the Palestinian Authority, but Christians in Palestine and Christian Arab Israelis, 20% of Israelis are Arabs, and most of those are Muslim, but some of them are Christians, and they, they have more freedom inside of Israel than in any other Arab state in the Middle East.

Israel is the most free state for them, which is why they stay. 20% of our country, as I said, is Arab. They could leave and go to an Arab nation, but they have freedom of speech. Something you won’t get in Syria, you won’t get in Saudi Arabia, and you’re not gonna have in Egypt.

Julie: Hmm. You say that antisemitism mutates like a virus.

You, you’ve talked about some of the, the ways that, that it’s, you know. Going back centuries, what it was, but how today it’s taking on a new form, this, this hatred, you know, seems to me like it’s completely irrational. I, I mean, I, I mean, I, I’m, I’m trying to say like, how on earth can intelligent people participate?

Like Tucker Carlson, for example, is a very intelligent man, right? Um, how he can believe this. But I guess hatred is not bound by intelligence. It’s just, uh, a disease of the heart.

Ron: Uh, yeah, I would have to say, say so. And, uh, there is tremendous blindness. Uh, but I can’t really explain. It’s just so bizarre to me because I live, I live in a world, you know, and I live my life based on facts, things that I know to be true, even if it goes against my ideology.

Something I tried to do, I remember back in the nineties when I was just a young man and, um, I, I, I remember there was some issue, and it was a Clarence Thomas, uh, uh, inauguration, not inauguration, when he was gonna be appointed to the Supreme Court, and there were allegations against him. And I could see, look, if you were a Democrat, you believed X, but if you were a Republican, you believed Y.

And it was just so bizarre that there was no, nobody, it doesn’t matter who was right or wrong, obviously it does to Clarence Thomas, but, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. My point is that so often we simply believe what those like us believe. What I’ve tried to do is to look at every issue, honestly.

And it’s not easy to do because I’m, I’m a conservative Republican and I, you know, I, I, I believe like most Republicans, but I try and look at every issue from every point of view. And so when it comes to this, you know, the, the idea about the Jewish people o owning the banks or controlling the world, l listen, if we controlled the world, do you think the whole world would be antisemitic right now if we controlled the banks, wouldn’t we keep antisemites from getting money?

We could defund Hamas. If we controlled the banks. We could defund car Tucker Carlson. We could have him off of Twitter. We could have him. You know, obviously we don’t control the world because there’s quite a bit of antisemitism out there. You know, Candace Owens has said that she’s become a target, but as far as I can see, that she is freely speaking every day, making a lot of money on the fact that she’s claiming to be a target, while not actually, at least in my opinion, being a target.

Uh, the idea that we, you know, I saw somebody, well, she was the one who said that the Israeli government was behind the death of Charlie Kirk. Now, I mean, just think about that rationally. If you think about that emotionally, you can make an argument, but think about that rationally, Amer America is the most important ally to Israel.

Donald Trump has been a very strong ally to Israel in, in our war right now. Do Charlie Kirk was very important to getting Donald Trump elected. Do you think we’re gonna send our people on to America, American soil? And, and commit murder and risk losing something that is so important to us. That’s just crazy.

Julie: Hmm. So, I don’t know if I should throw this question to you or not, but somebody, somebody asked it. Um, and it seems like they’re getting at some sort of rational reason for hating Jews, but it says, what group of people wa uh, was Jesus’ greatest enemy during his time that he was on earth?

Ron: I don’t know. Um, I was it the Romans?

I think they’re the ones who killed him. Um, but I know what, what that person is getting at, and that is a misguided view. I would encourage that person, go back and read the, the New Testament because Jesus preached to multitudes. He healed multitudes. He fed 4,000. He fed 5,000. Were Who were those people that he was feeding who were those throngs of people where he couldn’t even, he, he was going down the street and a woman touches him and, and power goes out and is, and he says, who, who touched me?

And the disciples like, Lord, there’s a great throng around you. Who were all of those people? Not one of them was from America or Russia or, or Africa. They were all Jewish because the Jewish people loved him. Nicodemus was part of the religious elite, and he comes to him secretly because it, it, it’s very normal for the religious elite to be, uh, intimidated by somebody like Jesus.

But he was worshiped and loved by tens of thousands of Jewish people. This idea that the Jews were his great, he only ministered to Jews. So if he was gonna have enemies, they would have to be Jewish people because he did not minister in Egypt. He did not minister in in Greece. He ministered only in Israel.

But if you want to do percentages, if again, read the New Testament with open eyes and just ask, look at all the different passage passages that talk about the multitudes loving him, thronging after him, following him throughout the Galilee. Um. You know, he had to go incognito. He had to pray early in the morning, you know, go off by himself because he was a known figure and he was beloved by the people.

When Paul comes to Jerusalem 20 years later, this is Acts chapter 21, verse 20, James, whose actual name was Jacob. Jacob comes to Jesus, to, uh, Paul, and he says, look, brother Paul, at how many tens of thousands of Jews have believed and are zealous for the Torah. So there was a massive Jewish revival. The person who wrote you that is focusing on a small group of Jewish people that gathered around, uh, Caiaphas in order to arrest Jesus, who then stirred up a mob, which is easy to do in the Middle East, who then yelled, crucified, crucified him.

But there was over a million Jewish people living in Israel at that time, and the ones who knew about Jesus. 99% loved him. And why wouldn’t you love him? He healed your, you know, Peter healed his mother-in-law. He’s healing people of Le leprosy. Cripples are, why would people be against him? It was only the Jewish leadership.

And when, when John, and I’m glad you asked me this question ’cause you gave me an opportunity to assess it. Um, because you know, John, when he uses the term the Jews, it’s often, uh, uh, and it sounds derogatory. Keep in mind John was Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. Everyone in that story is Jewish. So when John says the Jews, he’s talking about the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem.

Uh, and if you look at John 12 and John 18, it’s very clear that he uses that same term terminology to refer to, uh, uh, when he says the Jews, he’s clearly referring to the Jewish leadership around Caiaphas, not to every Jewish person. Well, so I hope that answers your question

Julie: and, and also how did Jesus feel about the Jewish people?

Right. I mean, I think of him looking and saying Jerusalem, Jerusalem and acknowledging that they killed the prophets and that they, you know, mistreated. I mean, what people wouldn’t, because we’re evil and we’re, we’re fallen people. But then he cried for them. You know, he, he said how he longed to gather them, like a hen gathers its chicks under its wings.

Like if, if you don’t read scripture and hear the love of God for the Jewish people, then you’re not, you’re not reading with your eyes open. Like, I, I, how can you read it and not see that? So, to hate the people that God loves,

Ron: we can look at is ridiculous. The old covenant. And, and I could show you, you know, Jeremiah.

Uh, chapter, uh, 31 verse 35 through 37, where God says, only if the sun stops shining and the moon stopped shining, and the stars stop giving, only then will I reject Israel for all she’s done. I can give you dozens of promises, but let’s go to the New Testament. You know, if somebody says, well, God is done with the Jewish people, and we’re, we’re into the New Testament, now look at Romans 11.

Paul says, has God rejected his people? He says, God forbid, literally in Greek, it’s no, may it never be. And he says in verse 11, salvation has come to the nations to provoke Israel to jealousy. And then he goes on in that chapter and he warns the Romans. I would encourage everybody to read Romans seven, Romans 11, 17 to 23 because he says, if you Roman believers non-Jews, the Jews, by the way, Paul wrote Romans because the Jewish believers and Jews in general had been kicked out of Rome in the year 49.

In Nero when he became emperor, let the Jews come back into Rome. And when the Jewish believers came back in the Roman church, they were rejected. That’s why Paul is writing the Roman Gentile saying, don’t reject Israel. God has not rejected Israel. In chapter nine, he says, I could wish myself a cursed and cut off from the Messiah, you know, for the sake of my people, Israel.

So he’s willing to trade his salvation for the salvation of Israel. And he’s writing to the Romans that to say, you guys need to get God’s heart for the people who brought you the gospel. And so in Romans 11, verse 1723, he says, don’t be arrogant, but be afraid. And he says, if God broke off the natural branches talking about other Jewish people, he can break you off too.

And, and, and, and Paul’s whole point in Romans 11 is that in the end times there will be a a with the, uh. With Jewish, if, I’m sorry. If Jewish rejection of the gospel brought salvation to the nations, how much greater riches will Jewish acceptance bring? So he’s encouraging the Romans to pray for Israel, to bless Israel, to, to understand God’s end time plan so they don’t end up becoming antisemitic, which is what, well, we’ve seen it throughout church history, but we’re seeing it again today.

Julie: Hmm. And truly, I think some people forget that as Christians we have inherited our, our faith. We have been grafted in. But there was a vine that existed initially, and that was the Jewish people. And really, uh, it’s interesting to me that, that in the New Testament. Salvation is individual, but it’s also corporate in the sense that we are grafted into this vine.

Like almost we are a part of the community that’s being saved. Mm-hmm. And so we, we join and become part of the promise, but to, to jettison the understanding of Christianity as a Jewish faith seems to me to miss our entire heritage and, and where we come from. And to forget that, I mean, is to forget who we are, isn’t it?

Ron: Yeah. And, and, and I think that really is what Paul was trying to say is don’t for, in fact, he talks about the root of the olive tree being Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don’t forget the root that you’re, that that where you’re getting the life-giving sap. And uh, and he’s warning them, he’s, it’s a trap. That he does not want them to fall into.

In fact, he says in verse 25, he says, my dear brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery. So the whole idea of the church and the Jewish people is a mystery. Paul only uses that word a few times and and he uses it a lot. In Ephesians chapter three, again talking about the church and the Jewish people, he says, I don’t want you to be ignorant of this mystery.

Israel has lest you become conceited. In other words, if you are ignorant of this mis mystery, you’ll become proud against the natural branches of the Jewish people. And then he goes on to say, Israel has experienced a hardening in part until, in other words, it’s gonna end eventually until the fullness of the nations, which I believe is the gospel going to every nation of the world.

And he says, and then. All Israel will be saved. In other words, a revival is coming as the gospel prospers amongst the nation. So God’s plan was always that the church would be this womb of intercession to rebirth Israel as, as the people of God. Instead, what has happened is, is is the opposite. But if Gentile believers could remember Anna and Simeon, they’re in the temple.

They’re praying, they, they’re praying for the Messiah to come. And then, you know, I love Luke chapter two, where Simeon takes the baby Yeshua and he begins to prophesy and he says he is the, the hope of Israel and a light to the nations. He’s not one or the other. He is both. Mm-hmm The hope of Israel and a light for the nations.

Mm-hmm. And one, and speaking of light, you know, one of the things that has just been so disturbing to me over the past few days is the animosity against Hanukah. I mean, as long as I’ve been a believer, Christians that I know have always appreciated Hanukkah. I saw a, I saw that on

Julie: Facebook when we posted this.

There was some, I mean several, all negative comments about Hanukkah. I was like, my goodness, that, that’s shocking. I mean, this is a, a historic event where the Jews were saved for annihilation. I mean, or, or this, this group was, you know, I mean it’s, I it’s again, surprising to me that when, when did that come about?

That now we’re anti Hanukkah?

Ron: I, I saw on Twitter the other day a video put out by a reform pastor, and it was, I mean, quite, I’m not gonna mention his name ’cause I don’t want people to follow him, but, but he was telling Christians that you should look at Hanukkah like you do. Any like Muslim holiday or, or, or some from some other false religion.

And I, I, I wanted to know if he even understands what, what Hanukkah is about, because he seemed to think it was all about the temple. Now I know why he, he would assume that because the name is called the Feast of Dedication. It’s about the rededication of the temple. And his whole point was, we are now the temple.

Jesus is the temple. Boo. God hates the temple. But you have to understand Jewish, um, liter, liter literary methods and constructs is when, when the Bible speaks positively about one thing, it’s not necessarily speaking negatively about something else. So for instance, in Galatians, in Romans chapter two, Paul talks about circumcision of the heart being, uh, being the real circumcision.

And, and if you, if you stop at the end of chapter two, you’ll think, oh, he’s against. Circumcision. God is again, circumcision. But then he says right at the beginning of chapter three, is there any value in circumcision? Yes, much in every way for Jewish people because the covenant with Abraham. And so when you hear the, the New Testament emphasized the fact that we are the temple of God, that Jesus speaks of himself as a temple of God.

You don’t throw away the entire Old Testament. You don’t throw away the entire book of Leviticus. You don’t throw away the whole idea of the sacrificial system. And, and Hello, Ezekiel, chapter 47 speaks about a temple being built in the millennial kingdom. When Jesus comes back, there’ll be another temple built where the water from that temple will go from Jerusalem because he returns to Jerusalem down to the Dead Sea, giving it life.

Fishermen will fish in the dead sea and it’s gonna be a beautiful thing. God is not anti-TPO, but that’s not really what the holiday is about. It’s about why they had to rededicate the temple. They had to rededicate the temple because about 160 years before Jesus, uh, there was a Greco-Roman Greco Syrian dictator named and t epiphanies, and he demanded that all the Jewish people sacrifice to Greek and Roman gods.

And so there was a guy named Matteas who was a priest, and he says, we’re not gonna do that. And so that begins a war between the Jews who were called the Maccabees and against the, the Greek Syrian idol. And this, again, the, the, the pastor who posted this, he’s against false religions. They were Jews under the Old Covenant, under the Torah, fighting against the leader of a false religion that was demanding that they sacrifice to a pagan god.

And they said no. They did exactly what he would want them to do is they said, no, we will not be part of that. And they end up winning the war, and they have to go into the temple and rededicate it because he sacrificed a pig there. It’s a beautiful story of God’s mercy. He saved those people. But not just that, my dear friend, pastor, um, Jesus recognized Hanukkah.

The Bible says in John chapter 10, verses 22 and 23, that in the wintertime, and I’m para uh, paraphrasing, I don’t have it open. Jesus is in Jerusalem during the Feast of Dedication, that is Hanukkah. Now, I’ve heard people say, well, that just says he was there. I I, I, somebody said the other day, well, he was in Jerusalem all the time.

No, he wasn’t. Read your Bibles. He was in the Galilee all the time, and he would only come down to Jerusalem. To commemorate Feast Days because he was an observant Jew, just like most of the Jewish population at that time. He celebrated all the holidays that are in the Bible, but now here he is for in Jerusalem during Hanukkah, which is not a biblical holiday, but it’s, it’s a beautiful story of, of, of God’s, uh, uh, coming and rescuing the Jewish people.

And again, John doesn’t waste words. John doesn’t just say, you know, Jesus was in Jerusalem and it was the Feast of Dedication and he was wearing his new Levi’s and had, and his new hat, that polo that he got from Ralph Lauren. No, he doesn’t mention things that aren’t important. He mentions things that are important.

In fact, John is the one who says, we don’t have enough room in my 21 chapters to list all the miracles that Jesus did because there’s so many. So obviously when John writes that he was in Jerusalem during the Feast of Hanukkah, what he’s saying is he’s in Jerusalem for the Feast of Hanukkah. And just one more thing, Julie, if you know anything about Hanukkah and the Jewish tradition, we, we light these things called hanuk, which are, they’re menorahs, you know?

Mm-hmm. The menorah in the temple, the seven branch can candle abra. Well, this one has nine branches and it has nine branches, eight for the eight days of Hanukkah, and then the one in the middle. It’s interesting, we call that the ish, A ish is a servant. Now we’re getting ready all over the world. They’re gonna celebrate Christmas.

And what is Christmas about the incarnation where a king became a servant? Mm-hmm. Well, in Hanukkah, that one candle, the ish candle is, is higher than all the other candles. But you take it, you light that one, and then you take that one down to light all the other candles, one for each day of Hanukkah. So I don’t know if.

I mean, it almost seems like it’s a messianic tradition from the first Jewish believers, but it’s a beautiful picture of Jesus coming from heaven to earth and giving, uh, what does he say? I am the light of the world. Mm. So if you are a pastor and you’re anti Hanukkah, you know, I’m just concerned, you know that.

Please just read, you know, the Bible, read history about the holiday because, um, either you have allowed in some sort of evil ideology or maybe you just misinformed. But I bless you and I pray for you, and I pray that you would love the Jewish people, the way Jesus loved the Jewish people and the way Paul did.

And, uh, that we would one day see revival in Jew Gentile rejoicing in Messiah together.

Julie: Hmm. And just as you’re speaking now, it reminds me we have very good friends who are Jewish. In fact, we’re gonna go celebrate Shabbat with them on Friday night. And every time that I’m with them, I learn something about my faith.

Because of their rich heritage, the way that they understand Judaism. And there’s so much symbolism, so much meaning. There’s just so much there that I feel like we miss out on as gentile believers because we don’t integrate more with Jewish believers because we don’t listen more and honor more. And I, I just, I see it as, as a real shame.

Um, I, I do think there’s, and even to ask this question, it’s probably gonna get at a, at a pretty controversial, because this is the controversy today, isn’t it? I mean, is there spiritual significance to the modern state of Israel? Is what we’re seeing, you know, in Israel now, is that Biblical Israel? I think there’s a lot of confusion about that.

And even as you answer this question, you’re gonna probably answer it in a way that some Christians would disagree with. Um. But at the same time, you know, you’re my guest. So, uh, I want you to describe how you understand the modern state of Israel, uh, today and, and what it should mean to us as believers.

Ron: If Israel is not a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, then it is the greatest non miracle miracle that we’ve ever seen. Mm-hmm. Because the idea that a people could be exiled from their land wander for 2000 years without a homeland and remain an identifiable people group proven by DNA, that they, these are the same people that lived in the Middle East two, 2000 years ago, and that they would come back into their own land and be a nation again.

That is a miracle, and I’m defining miracle as something that has never happened before and, or, or let’s call it impossible. There is no other example in history. Of a people that was taken away from their homeland. You know, we know how ancient empires worked, that you don’t meet Philistines today. You don’t meet Hittites.

You don’t meet Jebusites, because they were conquered by empires and then they were absorbed. Often what would happen, and, and this is what happened to the northern tribes of Israel mm-hmm. Is they were literally exported or, or exiled into other countries. And so, uh, you say, well, how do we know that we have Jews from all the 12 tribes?

Because even during that time, there were Jews from all the tribes living in Judah, uh, just as, as minorities. But the point is, is that empires come, they would conquer, and then they would, their goal was to destroy that ethnicity. So you would not be loyal to your former country or your former language, but you would be part of the Roman Empire.

The Persian Empire. Mm-hmm. Or the, or the Greek Empire. So the fact is this. And it’s, it’s an amazing coincidence if it’s not from God because the prophets virtually all of the prophets, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, uh, Amos, you know, all of the prophets speak about the Jewish people being scattered, being punished because we, we weren’t perfect by any means, and then regathered into our own homeland in the end times.

So the fact that now, again, if you had, if we were having this conversation on, on, uh, YouTube a hundred years ago, I, I might ask you what is YouTube? But I also might say, I might say, you have a point here, Julie, because look, we’re, we’re, we’re, we are persecuted. We don’t have our own. It looks like we’re cursed.

I mean, throughout these 2000 years, it sure looked like God had chosen a new people and really wasn’t into us anymore. And you might’ve been able to convince me that the church was the new Israel and God didn’t like the Jews, but. We actually became a nation again. And so you have to, if you look at all those prophecies and the fact that there’s no other example in world history of this happening, and then it happens, and Israel is not just a nation, but has become a prosperous, strong nation in the Middle East, um, you, you almost have to, um, uh, defy your own intellectual ability to not see God’s hand in all of this.

Now someone say, yeah, but, but Israel’s not perfect. Well, is America? Is, is Russia? Certainly not, you know, there are no nations that are perfect and ancient Israel wasn’t perfect, but they were still God’s people. You know? Did God discipline them? Did God punish them? Yes. But they were still God people, still God’s people.

And God always said that he would be faithful to the Jewish people and even in punishing them. So. You know, when I look at the things that are happening in Israel, the Bible says that, you know, when it talks about the restored Israel, you will blossom like a rose. I can go into the negative desert and show you rose bushes.

We figured out how to grow roses, not just grow them in the desert, but we export them all over Europe. You can go down to the, uh, deep into the negative, near a lot. I mean, desert, desert, desert. And there are, uh, um, dairy farms and, and why there dairy farms is because they needed milk in those areas and by the time the milk would get from Tel Aviv to them it was, it was spoiled.

And so they had to figure. Nobody had ever done this in world history, learned how to raise cows in the desert. We grow potatoes in the desert. Can’t really do that. So I see, you know, living in Israel, I see the miracle. Day in and day out. And again, that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything my government does.

I have been critical of many things that my government as does, and I’m not afraid to do that. Just like as an American, I can go outside right now, I’m, I’m going home tomorrow. But I could go outside on Main Street right in front of my house and I could say that I disagree with the left or the right or whoever.

I have that same freedom in Israel. So I have to, um, come down on the side that Israel is a fulfillment of prophecy. That, uh, if you’re gonna say that Israel can’t be a fulfillment of prophecy, they can’t be connected to the, uh, the other Israel because they do X, Y, and Z. Well go back and read the story of Manasses or Ahab or other kings of Israel who were certainly, certainly not righteous.

Julie: Hmm. Well, and I, one of my favorite stories in scripture or you know, prophetic visions is the valley of dry bones. And we see, you know, we see that looking at the bones and, and they’re lifeless, but then they come together and they get flesh on them, but they’re still lifeless. There’s no breath in them.

And it makes me think of Israel today where we’ve got a state, right? I mean, you have the regathering, but there still is not belief in Yeshua yet, there still is not an embracing of him. Do you see, do you see that, I mean, you’re living right there. Do you see that changing or shifting? Um, I mean, how is the gospel being received?

How is the church growing there? Um, are, is it making any, any progress or, you know, I mean, staying about the same growth wise. I know we’re, we’re here in the States, we’re actually. We’re actually decreasing as Christians, the number of Christians.

Ron: Well, I would, let me go back to Ezekiel chapter 37. Yeah.

Because I’m glad you brought that up. That is a two stage prophecy, as you said. Mm-hmm. So I have, I hear people all the time say, well, Israel can’t be the same Israel because there’s not enough Christians there, there’s not enough believers there. Um, there’s such a small, yeah. ’cause we’re in a spiritual war, and the Bible talks about it happening in two stages.

The first thing that happens is that life comes back into the bodies, uh, uh, rather first, the first thing that happens is the bones come together and they become bodies. That in itself is a miracle. When you look at bones that have no flesh, no tendons, no joints, and suddenly you actually see them become human bodies, just that is a pretty crazy miracle.

Then God says to Ezekiel, prophesy a second time. And the second time I want you to call to the four winds of the earth and for the breath of God to come into them. And I believe that is symbolizing the, the, the, the gospel prospering amongst the Jewish people. In fact, if you go back just, um, one chapter to chapter 36, verse 24, uh, God says to through Ezekiel, I’m gonna bring you back from talking about the Jews.

I’m gonna bring you back from all the nations where I’ve scattered you and put you in your homeland. And then he says, and I’m then gonna take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I’m gonna put my spirit in you. I’m gonna move you to keep my laws. So again, you see this two stage thing coming back into the land and then our eyes opening up.

So in 1948, when Israel became a nation, there was, there was about 500,000 Jews living in Israel at the time. And there was only, there was less than 30. Identifiable Jewish believers in the entire country at the time. Mm-hmm. Now, today there’s about 30,000. So have we seen it, the revival that I wanna see?

No, but it is significant. When you go from 30 to 30,000, that’s a pretty big jump. What we do is, you know, we have our, our network, SHEO tv, and if people wanna learn more about that, you can go to ron cantor.com, you can go to sheo tv.com. Uh, but SHEO TV is a Hebrew language online television station that shares the good news of issue with testimonies, with music, with messages from different congregations.

And, um, so we are, there’s roughly about 300 Messianic congregations in Israel. But we’re still very small. Three 30,000. That’s out of 7 million Jews who live in Israel now. Uh, we need God to move we, and if you’re out there praying and you don’t, no matter what you believe about Israel, you can pray that the eyes of the Jewish people would be open.

The Bible says that, that, that there has been a hardness in of heart, in part, until the fullness of the Gentiles. Instead of spending all your time hating the Jewish people, believing ungodly tropes about the Jewish people, give yourself to prayer and fasting. That God, because whether one thing is for sure, these are God’s ancient people, and it is not God’s will.

It is God’s will that all men be saved, and that none perish. So give yourself to prayer for these people. Pray for revival in Israel. That would be a much better use of your time than being on TikTok or Twitter, spreading hate. But, uh, the, the, the, the Messianic movement is growing in Israel. I want it to grow faster.

Julie: So somebody asked the question about Supersessionism, also known as Replacement Theology, which basically says that, that Israel, you know, God’s rejected Israel. Um, and that now, now Israel is the church, and so it has replaced. Um, and somebody asked, you know, is this rise in antisemitism? Is it tied to this theology of, you know, that.

The, the Jews are, you know, have, have no place anymore that they’ve been replaced by the Gentiles.

Ron: Well, certainly within Christianity, that, that is the root of it. I mean, Tucker Carlson, you know, his view of Christianity, I don’t know if he’s an actual believer or not, I don’t know him. Um, but, you know, you know, he uses language like that other, you know, reform pastors are constantly using religion, you know, language like the churches, the New Israel.

I would ask people to do this, and I’ll debate anybody on this subject. I’m more than happy to in a very kind, godly way. Uh, because, and I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but, but I have truth. I have the Bible, I have scripture. And if you’re gonna believe replacement theology, you’ve, you’ve gotta get a really big eraser and go into the entire old covenant, because there are just so many promises that speak about the restoration of Israel and speak about everything that happened in the first century.

So this idea that. When he talks to Abraham, he says, Abraham, I’m gonna make you into a great nation and I’m gonna make you the father of many nations. Which is, you see the church in Israel together, the, the, the great nation of Israel, the father of many nations is the church. Mm-hmm. So when to believe that, when God, I mean, he spends a lot of effort.

He calls Abraham, he has a son named I a lot of confusion there with Ishmael, but it’s Isaac. And, and then you get Jacob, not Esau. And it’s, and then, and then, you know, hundreds of years later, the Jews go into eat Egypt. And, and Moses has this revelation and in the bush, and he goes back and he brings him out.

And, and then in Persia, Esther, and there’s, there’s a lot of emphasis about God’s nation and, and the Messiah coming from this nation and a messianic age that will one day come and then suddenly God is gonna say. You know what? That was just a joke. That was a joke. What I really meant, what I really meant when I talked about Abraham Seed as I meant the church, and that’s another ones where people don’t understand Jewish literary, uh, uh, constructs.

When Paul writes in Galatians and he, and he talks about the word seed being singular, singular, and people make doctrines about you. See, God didn’t mean the Jewish people. He just meant one seed, Jesus. And that’s a Jewish literary or uh, uh, um, construct where he is emphasizing the more important, again, go back, going back to Romans where he emphasizes that circumcision of the heart is far more important than circumcision of the flesh, but that doesn’t nullify circumcision of the flesh.

For Abraham Seed. Just read Romans three verses one through four. So in Galatians three, he’s not saying. That Abraham’s seed, physical seed, the Jewish people aren’t important. He is amplifying the more important fulfillment. Obviously it is much more important to be born again than it is to be of the physical seed of Abraham.

And that’s what Paul is say, saying, Paul himself says in Romans, God is not finished with the Jewish people. So again, you, you really have to fight hard to believe replacement theology. And then what do you do? I mean, replacement theology was developed, uh, uh, really, uh, I, I mentioned 150, uh, ad with, with, uh, Justin Martyr.

And then it was picked up by, you know, all of the church fathers and, and Augustine and Jerome. What do you do with what’s happening in our lifetime? Israel was restored in 1948. Suddenly there are thousands of Jewish believer, really hundreds of thousands worldwide. So you see this, the, the, these prophetic things that people have said, well, it’s not prophetic.

It’s already been fulfilled 2000 years ago, but they’re happening in our day. So replacement theology, I think you just have to turn off your brain. And I don’t mean that with disrespect. You just have to really, you know, I asked somebody once, a scholar, a PhD friend of mine, I said, what, what do you do with Zechariah 14 that speaks of Jesus coming, or the, it speaks of Yahweh, his feet landing on the Mount of Olives, and he comes as, as the Jewish people are being attacked, and he fights for Israel as he fights in the day of battle, and, and he sets up his millennial kingdom.

I said, what do you do with that passage? He says, well, it was fulfilled in Christ on the cross. I was like, that makes no sense that that was al that is going to be fulfilled. So I don’t believe in supersessionism or replacement theology. And here’s the, the thing, and I, I’m sorry for going so long, is that people, they have repackaged it and renamed it.

You have people like N NT Wright, who is a brilliant scholar, but mm-hmm. I, I don’t agree with him on this. Or Gary Burge used to be with Wheaton College, who, who they’ve now call it fulfillment theology. And they’re very, it’s very, uh, important for them to say We’re not anti-Semitic. And they even some of them will say, we believe in a future for the Jewish people, even if Israel is not a fulfillment of, of, of prophecy.

Here’s the problem. They’ve tried to dress it up and to make it nice, but look where we’re at today. It’s, it’s now Supersessionism replacement Theology is just leading back to old fashioned Jew hatred. So I would, I would warn anyone to go back and read Romans 11. And just hear Paul’s heart for the Jewish people and his warning to the gentile believers not to fall into that trap.

Julie: Hmm. Well, I’ll tip my hand and I, I, I may regret doing this because I don’t normally get into this anymore. I used to, I used to be on Moody Radio and I would talk quite a bit about views of, of scripture, but I haven’t done a lot of that because most of what I focus on is not orthodoxy, but orthopraxy and the church actually acting according to its beliefs.

But I will say that my grandparents, uh, prior to 1948, used to teach, they were on the, the campus of Houghton College. And my, my grandmother was a dean of women, but she also taught a, a bible survey class. And they would teach that the Jews were going to reestablish a, a state of Israel, that they were gonna be gathered back.

And prior to 1948, that was. Crazy talk, you know, I mean, absolute crazy talk. And they got, they got maligned for it, but they saw it happen. And I will never forget as a child, my grandfather would sit me down and he would say, Julie, let me tell you about the miracle that I’ve seen in my own day. And he would talk about how Israel came and was gathered, just like scripture said, A nation born in a day.

And even now, I get kind of choked up because I see my grandfather saying that story with such passion and such belief in what he had seen before his very eyes, and that as believers today, that we’ve forgotten this, that God has done this miraculous thing in front of our eyes and we’re denying that it’s happened.

You know, I, and, and I’m not saying that I agree with everything in the Zionist movement or that I, you know, agree with everything Israel is doing, but at the same time. This rejection of Israel, like you say, in so much of the antisemitism within the church has been tied. Two of you that jettisons Israel from having any significance whatsoever and again, we’re grafted into the vine.

Branches were cut off. Yes, but we were still grafted in. And so I have a real tough time, you know, reconciling that. And you know, I continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I continue to pray that God would bless the Jewish people and I pray that he would bless the Arab people and I amen. Pray that they would come to faith in Yeshua as well.

I pray that that all might come to know him because Jesus is not a respecter of persons and he blessed on our board. I mean, he blessed Israel to bless the nations, which is radical. Like how many, there’s no other, you know, tribal belief system where a God blesses a people to bless the world. It’s always blesses them for their sake.

But that’s not what we see, because God’s heart is for the nations. And so it’s, um, I mean, I, I just, I believe that passionately, although I will say it’s, it’s been, and I, and I’d love to hear what you have to say about this, because some of the, the church groups and movements in the US that were strongest in their support for Israel have been, you know, exposed.

It’s very corrupt. For example, the International House of Prayer, Mike Bickell was very pro-Israel, right? Robert Morris, gateway Church was very pro-Israel. And you know, I, I sit there and I’m like, wow. I mean. They got this thing right. But they were so wrong on so many other things that it makes me, I I, I mean I, it makes me question like, what’s going on with that?

And, and I don’t have an answer. Maybe, maybe you have some suggestions, but it’s, it’s been, I don’t puzzling

Ron: I have thought about that myself and with the other gentleman that you mentioned earlier, three of the most significant voices, uh, you know, Robert Morris, uh, Jewish giving, you know, uh, Mike Bickel prayer for Israel and the other gentleman, you know, Messian apologist.

Mm-hmm. So it, it, it, it just shows that, you know, to, to much is given, much is required. Uh, but I want to go back to your grandfather. That’s, that is a beautiful story. And I, I think of, uh, Casper 10, boom, Corey 10 boom’s father who, uh, got into line with the Jews that were being persecuted in Amsterdam to get the Jewish dar, the yellow Jewish star, and.

I just have to wonder where, where those people, you know, there will be, you know, if scripture’s true, there will be more persecution and death and murder against the Jewish people. If anybody would stand up for Israel, it would be the younger brother, the, the Christian Church that came into the kingdom through the gospel of Jesus, the Jew that was spread from the Jewish apostles all over the world.

And, uh, which shows me why the enemy is fighting so hard to blind Christians. Again, it’s not about political support for the nation of Israel. It’s about reading the Bible, understanding that God hasn’t rejected Israel and, and contending for her salvation. So, uh, I just, you know, would ask tho those folks who are espousing hatred towards Israel as Christians is, would, would you stand up for a Jew who’s being persecuted?

Who might be murdered. It’s very easy to look at strong Israel right now, but that’s not history, you know, for the last 2000 years, we, we have not been the strong one. We’ve been the persecuted one. And, uh, but anyways.

Julie: Hmm. Ron, thank you so much. I so appreciate your heart, uh, for God, and for God’s people and for Israel.

And I think this is really enlightening and I hope to have you on again before too long. But happy Hanukkah to you and Merry Christmas and uh, amen. You’re my brother and, and I do love you.

Ron: God bless you. Thank you so much, Julie. We appreciate everything that you do. You are an important voice, uh, in, in our era.

And I pray that the Lord continues to use you.

Julie: Oh, thank you so much. Well, and thanks so much to all of you listening for joining this live stream of the Roys report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and just a reminder that this month is huge for us here at the Roys report.

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Again, thanks so much for joining us. Hope you were blessed and encouraged you.