Focus on Israel

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: I'm Laurie Cardoso Moore, and this is Focus on Israel. Hello, and thank you for joining me today on Focus on Israel. My name is Laurie Cardoso Moore, a wife and proud mother of five wonderful children. Like most Americans, I began to ask a lot of questions about what happened to our country following 9/11. As I read and talked to experts, the issues of radical Islam and the attacks on America and Israel became extremely personal to me. In response, I founded Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and sharing the message of Christian biblical responsibility to the people and land of Israel against the rise of a new antisemitism.

In this series Focus on Israel, I wanted to share with you what I've learned through my research and meetings with experts in their respective fields. We'll present information you'll not see in the mainstream media. With your financial support, we can reach Christians around the world with our message to stand against the growing threat of antisemitism and anti-Israel propaganda. For this reason, we must learn and spread the truth. It is so very important that at this critical time in history, we must turn our focus on Israel. Now, if you've missed any of our past programs, you still have a chance to review our most recent ones on the PJTN website.

I also highly recommend that you purchase the DVDs of our past programs as most are no longer in the online archive. Every lesson covers a specific topic, and each contains a wealth of information. Plus, each makes a great group study source to share with your family, friends, home group, or church. So, please consider how you can make a difference and spread the word. Today, we're going to continue from last week where we discussed the Hebrew roots of Christianity and also how it leads to support and love for Israel and the Jewish people. The connection to the root makes one love it and grow toward it.

And that is the move of God we're seeing today. To give us a better perspective on this, we have three men who have experienced this move of God firsthand. First is Dr. Marv Wilson. He is the professor of biblical and theological studies at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. He currently teaches Old Testament, Hebrew, Jewish history and culture, and modern Judaism, and has his doctorate in the field of Semitic and ancient Near Eastern Studies. Dr. Wilson has authored or edited seven books and also penned more than 200 articles or reviews in both scholarly works and popular periodicals.

Four of his books deal with the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. He also served as an Old Testament translator and editor of the New International Version, currently the bestselling Bible in the English-speaking world. If you enjoy hearing from someone who has been there, then you'll love the wisdom of Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Marv Wilson / David Brog: I'm a Zionist as a Christian, but I don't base that so much on Bible prophecy. I read prophecy, but what I see in the prophets is the call to to justice, the call to compassion, the call to uh love one another. And I think these are the values that Christians need to look at in terms of why they should support the rights, the human rights of the Jewish people to live there like any other nation state, not having to defend their right to exist. They are human beings. They're not subhuman beings as we have gone through that painful chapter of history during the Holocaust years.

So, to support Israel is not to demonize the Palestinians. To support Israel is to make a statement. When you feel pain, I as a Christian feel pain because I am inextricably connected to you, my Jewish brothers and sisters. And though we don't have full agreement within the family anymore than we do in our human families where everyone agrees on everything. But this is an opportunity to express the fact that you truly care and you want to help write an ugly historic wrong. And that ugly historic wrong was basically perpetrated through those who said they love Jesus and hated Jews or permitted terrible actions to be perpetrated against the Jewish people.

And so this is the time I think in history to take a stand. Wherever Jews are found in the world, Christians now have an opportunity to forge new relationships, to build friendships, and to reach out, and to learn through the process. And there's a risk that has to be taken there. And there's a tentativeness sometimes that Jews have toward Christians because uh in the past, Jews have suspected hidden agendas in the part of Christians. And therefore, Christians have to earn their right to be heard with Jewish people. And that happens through actions, not through rhetoric.

You have to be willing to do and to act and to show that one cares for the Jewish community by helping to do things that are good for the Jewish flourishing. That's what Shalom means. It means to flourish. It means to be in harmony with others. It means to build health, welfare, friendship. All of those words are used in Scripture for Shalom. It means to bring a more perfect and complete relationship where things have been shattered and destroyed and sullied and marred and disconnected. And so we're in the process of building Shalom between our communities and see what God can do in that process.

When I teach Christianity, this is where I'm probably different from a lot of people. I teach that Christianity does not begin with Paul, or Christianity does not believe begin with Jesus. Christianity begins with Abraham. And I quote Galatians 3:29. If you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's seed. You enter the family of Abraham when you become a believer, when you enter the church. And because Abraham believed God, God credited that faith for righteousness. And so Christianity, as Paul says, does not begin in the first century. Paul in Romans 4:3 goes back to Genesis 15:6 in quoting Abraham believing God.

So, therefore, if we belong to Christ, we are Abraham's seed. If we are Abraham's seed, we cannot be indifferent to Abraham's people or Abraham's land. And so Christians have that connection with Abraham, which is built in to Christianity 101. If you really want to live a biblical life, you cannot make justice and compassion for other people optional. And one of the ways Christians now particularly can care at this point in history is to guarantee the best that we are able as human beings to guarantee that what happened to the Jewish community in Europe will not happen again.

And one of the ways in which we help to further that is to invest in that land because you see we have a stake in that land. It's the land in which David, it's the land in which Isaiah, it's the land in which Jesus lived and taught. It's the place where Jesus died and rose again. It's the place where the earliest teachings of Christianity went forth. And if you believe the Hebrew prophets literally, it is the place to which the world once again will return as Isaiah chapter 2 and Micah 4 says, the law of the Lord will go forth from Jerusalem, but not the law, the Torah just for the Jewish people.

It pictures people streaming from all the nations of the earth to Jerusalem to learn the law of the Lord when swords are beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, when the knowledge of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: Next, we'll hear from David Brog, the executive director of Christians United for Israel, an American pro-Israel Christian organization. He is the author of Indefensible Faith, The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity. As an American Jew, Brog is an active proponent of stronger Jewish-Christian relations, particularly with regard to support of Israel. He worked in the United States Senate for seven years as chief of staff to the late Senator Arlen Specter and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. As a Jew, he offers tremendous insight from the other side of this movement of Christians who are growing closer to their Hebrew roots.

Dr. Marv Wilson / David Brog: I I worked on Capitol Hill for seven and a half years. Uh I was chief of staff to Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania has a very large Christian population, especially in the center of the state. And I found something interesting happening. Every time there would be a terrorist attack in Israel, I would get calls from Christians in Pennsylvania worried about the terrorist attacks, wanting to know what Senator Specter could do to stop them. Very very upset. Forget Israel. When there would be a firebombing of a synagogue in Paris or an antisemitic incident in America, I wouldn't hear about that antisemitic incident from my Jewish friends in Philadelphia.

I'd hear about it from my Christian friends in the center of the state. And I found it fascinating that so many Christians seemed to care so deeply about Israel and the Jewish people. But as any Jew who's studied Jewish history knows, this is a new phenomenon. For 2,000 years, Christians have been or people claiming to be Christians have been our oppressors. The Crusades, the Inquisitions, the pogroms, all carried out by people professing to be Christians, people carrying a cross. So, my initial reaction to this outpouring of love and support was one of great skepticism. I said, you know what?

You're claiming to love us. I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a minute because I know Jewish history. But then something else occurred to me. I realized that for 2,000 years, Christians who didn't know anything about my faith claimed that they did. They would talk about the Jewish Talmud, our most sacred book, one of our most sacred books. And they would say, you know what it says in the Jews' Talmud? It says right there in the Talmud that Jews need the blood of a Gentile to make their matzah. Don't ask me. It's in black and white in the Jews' Talmud.

Or you know what else is in the Jews' Talmud the antisemites would say? They'd say, in the Talmud it says it's okay to kill a Gentile. The only prohibition on murder is against a fellow Jew. It's right there in the Jews' Talmud. Now, these antisemites had never seen a Talmud, let alone read one. But they thought they knew what my faith professed and because of that, we paid a price in blood century after century. I decided the last thing I or any Jew should do is to presume to know what another faith preaches until we've studied it for ourselves.

So, I decided uh to have some humility and to take some time to study evangelical Christianity in America and what evangelicals really believe about the Jews. And what I found profoundly changed me and my heart. I decided that Christian support for Israel is a profound epochal outpouring of Christian love and support for the Jewish people, extraordinarily sincere, extraordinarily real, and a sharp distinct break from a theology that led to so many centuries of antisemitism. And I was determined to share this message with my fellow Jews and to tell them you need to recognize these Christians are very different from the Christians who persecuted us for so many centuries.

And I wanted to say to Christians two words that they do not hear often enough from members of my community. And those words are thank you. Thank you for standing with this small and persecuted Jewish people. And thank you for standing with the small and battled state of Israel. Thank you for deciding to get it right this time and to stand with us and to fight with us. That why I wrote the book. And that's a an extremely important message that I I try at every opportunity to share. You know, I've had the privilege of growing up in America.

I've had the privilege of growing up in a country where I don't have to be ashamed of my Judaism. I don't have to fear for my life or my security because I'm a Jew. But I was raised by a grandparents who trembled when they told me stories of their youths in Europe and how antisemites treated them. And this has been passed on to me and almost every American Jew. And so even though we grew up in America, we understand what antisemitism can do. And to hear a Christian defend us, thank us, appreciate us with such vigor and such passion penetrates the roots of our soul and touches me profoundly.

And I knew immediately uh that these were brothers. These were people who I could work with and more than that, people I've grown to love. Something else I saw early on that convinced me that this Christian support for Israel was something very real and something very sincere was the fact that it is not just words. Christians who support Israel put their money where their mouths are. They have raised millions of dollars to support poor Jews not only in Israel, but around the world. And the stories are touching because, you know, in absolute numbers, the Jewish community still raises more money for Israel than the Christian community.

But when you look at the stories, you look at the the the poor individuals who give to support poor Jews in Europe instead of buying themselves a new dress or a night out on the town. When you look at Christians who actually take second jobs so they can afford to give money to the state of Israel and to support the poor in Israel, you understand that this is a real commitment. They take this seriously and they are putting actions with their words in a very powerful and righteous combination. And now we're seeing an additional element to this.

Not only are they praying for Israel, not only are they giving to Israel when they often cannot afford to, they are deciding to speak out and stand up for Israel politically. And this I think can be of profound significance because the Christians in America are a powerful political force. We're talking about evangelical Christians in America between 50 and 100 million. This is a powerful political block. When they stand up for something, people listen. And they are now standing up and speaking out for Israel at a juncture when Israel desperately needs friends desperately needs support beyond the tiny Jewish community in America.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: Our look at the Hebrew roots would not be complete without hearing from Pastor Steven Bliss. His artistic and ministry talents have helped him become not only a successful musician and songwriter, but an inspirational leader as well. Early in his walk, Steven discovered the roots of his faith and began to teach and preach it to others. He has pastored and led worship for churches in California and Tennessee and now gives us his testimony to why the Judeo-Christian connection is more than a political concept.

Steven Bliss: When I became a believer, one of the very first things God did was he grabbed a hold of me for the purpose of Israel and began to expose me to things that were um uh way beyond my comprehension at the time. It was like so far from anything that I was uh involved with. And um I had gone to uh another church out in Los Angeles where I met a guy was at Calvary Chapel. And uh over time, he and I had become really really good friends. And God used him to speak to me several different times.

Um first of all, he inspired me to investigate my own Jewish roots, which was uh something that I had really not spent very much time or concerned myself with. But because it was all happening simultaneously, it made a lot of sense that he would come and speak that to me because I was already sort of on this track about Israel. And Israel was um it was burning in me. I couldn't get away from it and the Jewish people and and um and I had remembered when I was a kid, my parents had taken me to see the movie Exodus.

I was about 7 years old and I was so impacted by the movie that when I came home, I played piano. And uh I went downstairs and my parents still tell the story about hearing um me or hearing the theme from the movie The Exodus coming from the basement. Uh and they were completely blown away by the fact that here was this kid who just had seen this movie and was so inspired that he went down. The theme was just it was coming exactly note for note. And uh so I God took me on this journey that um began almost instantaneous for me as a believer.

And I just started digging deeper and deeper and deeper and and that's when God really began to invest in me this whole idea of the Hebrew roots and returning to the Hebrew roots. And there was something way bigger and way more profound to it than what just meets the eye. And that was that was like um you know early mid '80s. And uh and I've been on that journey ever since. And uh I started teaching it and I started um investigating Christianity from from a Hebraic perspective. And and over time, that became sort of the um the fire that burned in me.

And and it's a personal dynamic. And it's this. God has a house, and he has a way of doing things. And that house is built upon a foundation. And the foundation of that house is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And as a son to a father and mother, um when I lived at my mom and dad's house, I lived under their rules. It was their house is their house. And I had to um respect and honor and obey their the way they lived. I couldn't just live my own way, my own style, my own thing. And when I left, I went off and did my own thing.

I went and figured out what was my life and what was my uh what I thought worked and what mattered to me. Um but every time I go back to my parents' house, every time, I come back into their rules. I respect their wishes. It's their dynamic. And what really hit me was is that over time, darkness had knew that a house divided could not stand. And by creating division within this this entity that was never meant to be separated from its house, from its heritage, um he was going to do something so dramatic by dividing it away that to recover that and to restore it and to return to the dynamic of that was so vital.

it meant life. The tree that Paul talks about in Romans uh whose roots are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it's the fruit on that tree that bears life. It's the It's the life bearer. And uh anything short of that is is uh not life. So, for me, that became the mission. That became the most important thing. I was convicted of the importance of returning to the Hebraic um perspective that the church was would had been severed from it and had gone off its own way. And And now it's there's this season. 30 years ago when I was exploring this and beginning to investigate it, nobody was doing it.

It was very very small amount of people and mostly it was like little Messianic things. Now, you have something that's taking place worldwide. I constantly run into people who are going, you know, Israel just I've just have this love for Israel and for the Jewish people. I don't even know why. And I just you know I mean I know why. And it's the same thing that happens when God puts that in the heart of a believer. And to me, if somebody has a heart for Israel like that and a heart for the Jewish people, to me, there's something more dramatic to that because of the significance of what it means to God.

And I believe it's something only God can do. I don't believe you get it on your own. I believe it's something that God has to do put in you. And And it changes you and it makes you sensitive to the dynamic of antisemitism. And it makes you sensitive to the to the importance of Israel and and its existence. And it makes it dramatically important for the purpose of uh ushering in the return of Yeshua and the end of all things.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: That's our show for today. And I want you to know we appreciate hearing from you. Please send your comments and questions to comments at pjtn.org. The time to stand up is now. Be a leader in your community and in your church. One person can make a difference. Get involved with and support pro-Israel organizations such as PJTN. Call your elected officials. Let your leaders hear from you. Visit our website to learn more. Sign up to receive free newsletters, action alerts, daily blogs, and order our films to share with family and friends. I want to thank you for watching our program today.

Be sure to join us next week as we'll be focusing on the settlements in Israel. Please encourage your family and friends to tune in and check the PJTN website for the program showings of Focus on Israel. God bless you and thank you for all you do on behalf of our Jewish brethren and all Israel. We'll see you next time on Focus on Israel.

Guest (Male): To support this program, send your tax-deductible gift to Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, P.O. Box 682711, Franklin, Tennessee 37068. You can also support PJTN online. Visit pjtn.org or call 1-877-873-9020.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore: Antisemitism has reached epic proportions, and Israel is now surrounded by nations who seek its destruction. For Israel to lose just one battle would mean losing everything. As Christians, it is our biblical responsibility to stand with our Jewish brethren and Israel. PJTN needs your help to reach more Christians with this urgent message. Please visit our website to become a member today and order our award-winning documentaries. You must decide that you won't be silent. Sign up now at pjtn.org. God bless you and thank you for your support and prayers.

Guest (Male): Focus on Israel is now available on DVD. Each program DVD contains a wealth of bonus materials, including the premiere program that started it all, Focus on Israel, program number one. Also, bonus interview cuts with experts in their respective fields, informational videos from PJTN documentaries, including Israel Indivisible, The Case for the Ancient Homeland. Lest we forget 9/11 and the rise of Islam. The Forgotten People, Christianity and the Holocaust. Disinformation, the secret strategy to destroy the West. Plus, the award-winning music video, The Forgotten People. Focus on Israel program DVDs, great educational tools to combat antisemitism. Arm yourself and order today.

Please go online to pjtn.org. To order, just click on the store tab. Thanks and blessings from Focus on Israel.