Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: All right, y'all. I'm going to bring up our first speaker. You can start making your way up, Paul. First speaker is Dr. Paul Wilkinson, who I think God has raised up in these last days to talk about the issue of Israel. You know, as the world is turning its back on Israel within Christendom, you guys know that, right? There's something called Christian Palestinianism floating around.

Paul is one of the experts on this. He has a PhD in historical theology, I think it is. He knows more about John Nelson Darby probably than Darby himself knew when he was alive. And so he's a tremendous speaker, as you're going to see. And he's engaged to be married. Is that okay?

Yeah, he's marrying Marin. And the whole family is here, the Martin family. Why don't you guys stand up? Do you guys mind if I embarrass you a little bit? So we have Dr. Joe Martin, who's been a leader in the young earth creationist movement for years. And then his two daughters both have PhDs. Paul is marrying one of those daughters, Marin. So that will be another PhD added to the family. Could you imagine the family discussions they get into? Wow, I'd like to be a fly on the wall for some of that. So we're going to welcome Dr. Paul Wilkinson.

Dr. Paul Wilkinson: There we go. All right. And you have to interpret those numbers literally because you're a dispensationalist. All right. Well, good morning to you all, and thank you, Andy, for that lovely introduction. I'm probably as red as the digits on my timer right now hearing that.

But yeah, Paul Wilkinson, I'm from the Manchester area of England. I belong to an evangelical Gypsy church in North Wales. Light and Life Missions is the movement, and God's doing an amazing work amongst the Gypsy people, and some of them will be tuning in to the livestream.

I need to pray right now. I need the Lord's help. And if I don't look over to the left or to the right, it's simply because the lights over there are super bright. So you're going to be my exclusive focus, I think.

Well, Heavenly Father, it is a joy to be here with my brothers and sisters, most of whom I've never met before and I may never see again until You call us in the Rapture. So it is a joy that we can just be together for this time You've set aside. We pray for Your protection. Most of all, Lord, we just pray that Your voice will be heard throughout the ProfCon, that we will hear, Lord Jesus, Your heart, that You will communicate to each one by Your Spirit, even to those tuning in many, many miles away, Lord, what You want them to hear. We love You, Lord, and we just commit this time together in Your precious, unmatchable, and glorious name. Amen. The Golden Gate of Prophecy.

Guest (Female): We begin today's show in the occupied West Bank, in the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. City and church leaders canceled all Christmas festivities in the Holy Land this year to mourn the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. The landmark Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem created a nativity scene with the figure of baby Jesus in a kaffiyeh surrounded by rubble. Later in the show, we'll be joined by the church's pastor, the Reverend Munther Isaac, but we begin by airing his Christmas sermon, which he delivered on Saturday.

Munther Isaac: Christ under the rubble. We are angry. We are broken. This should have been a time of joy. Instead, we are mourning. We are fearful. More than 20,000 killed. Thousands are still under the rubble. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways day after day. 1.9 million displaced. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide.

Dr. Paul Wilkinson: And this was two months after October the 7th. What was he angry about? Was he angry at Hamas for their appalling atrocity? Was he mourning the loss of 1,200 Jewish lives and all those taken captive? Evangelical Lutheran Pastor Munther Isaac. He said if Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza. A year later, he preached another sermon, "Christ is Still in the Rubble," and his message and everything associated with that message was published last year in this book.

"I was traumatized," he said. "I was in tears. I was angry at God. In fact, writing the book is in itself an act of protest, not only against those who enabled this war actively or through their silence but also against the God of justice and mercy." Angry at God because Israel retaliated.

Let's go to the Golden Gate. Let's go to Jerusalem, also the Eastern Gate, also the Shushan Gate according to the Mishnah. Shushan, Susa, the ancient capital of Elam, the citadel of the Persian Empire that you read about in Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. You may know that the name in Hebrew for the gate, that Eastern Gate that's today closed, is Sha'ar HaRachamim, Gate of Mercy, the very mercy that Munther Isaac is angry against, the God of mercy. Gate of Mercy, Gate of Compassion, but strictly speaking, that's the name for the left-hand portal. The right-hand portal is called Sha'ar HaTeshuva, Gate of Repentance.

They're both closed, and I'm using this as a metaphor, as a symbol for what's going on with Israel in relation to God but also what is going on in the hearts of many professing Christians. It's walled up. It's stony. It's closed. Let me just say, without God's mercy, without God's compassion, there can be no repentance, and without repentance, there can be no mercy. Both those portals are either closed or they're open. To much of the Christian world, if we think about those gates and we think about Israel's place before God, those gates will always be closed because God has finished with or God has replaced or God has continued Israel with the church.

But is that what the God of mercy that Munther Isaac was so angry against, is that what He says in His word? Well, He says a lot in His word, our Lord. Ezekiel 8:6: Ezekiel is caught up in visions of the Lord. He's taken from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem. At first, he's taken to the north gate. God says to him, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here to make me go far away from my sanctuary?" What a tragic statement from our Lord concerning Israel.

Two chapters earlier, oh, the language, the heartbreaking language of God concerning His people. He says in Ezekiel 6:8, "I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols." Or in the New King James, God says, "I was crushed by their adulterous heart." We don't exonerate Israel. We don't make excuses for Israel's sin and Israel's rebellion. But as the church, we're called to faithfully represent God and the entire word of God, the whole counsel of God. God did not finish there.

But yes, we must go there. "I was crushed." This is God expressing His heart. He used a Hebrew word *shavar*. You read it in Exodus 32. It's used of the breaking of the tablets when Moses came down the mountain and saw the people of Israel reveling, partying. It's used in Jeremiah 19 when Jeremiah is told to take an earthenware flask and break it, crush it, in the presence of the elders of Israel, saying God has broken you, Israel, because Israel had broken God's heart.

Strong words. Ezekiel 11: "But then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the East Gate, the Golden Gate, the Shushan Gate of the Lord's house, which faces eastward. So the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was high above them, and the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city." What comes to mind when you read or you hear Ezekiel 11, the Shekinah glory, the presence of God moving from the threshold of the temple through the East Gate up the Mount of Olives and over to the east? What comes to mind? May I put it slightly differently: Who comes to mind?

Didn't somebody very, very special enter the Temple of God 2,000 years ago and depart from that temple brokenhearted and didn't He ultimately ascend that mountain and depart from this earth, the very one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell? Paul says in Colossians 2, our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, the son of the living God.

The mystery of the gate. In AD 810, it was sealed by the Muslims. In 1102, it was reopened by the Crusaders, the Roman Catholic Crusaders. In 1187, it was sealed by the Saracen King Saladin. In 1535, it was rebuilt by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. And in 1541, hearing that the Jewish people believe that the Messiah would return and enter this gate, he builds a Muslim cemetery and he closes the gate, and it's remained closed ever since.

Let's go to June 1967. According to an article by Dr. David Reagan, who stood on this platform or in this conference, the leader of a Jewish commando force, when his men were planning to blow up the gate to surprise the occupying Jordanians, said this: "The Eastern Gate can be opened only when the Messiah comes."

Well, Dr. Reagan, some years ago, you may have seen this, interviewed an archaeologist by the name of James Fleming, who in 1969, two years later, was visiting Jerusalem, visiting the Eastern Gate to take photographs, and it had rained heavily the night before. And suddenly, he finds himself in the ground. The earth gives way and he's in the ground depicted by that diagram. He's underneath the Eastern Gate, and he's in that tomb where he sees the bones of over 40 Muslim people.

That's a photograph he took in 1969. And notice the configuration of the stones, see the archway, because there's a lot of debate about, well, is the Eastern Gate the original gate that Ezekiel would have seen in the days of the exile when God caught him up? Well, that gate was built by Suleiman. That's not the original gate. That's not the gate the Lord Jesus would have seen and gone through. But that might have been the original gate. Certainly, we're in the right area, the right vicinity, where the Lord Jesus was and where Ezekiel was taken.

I love this chapter because it tells me this gate is going to be opened. Ezekiel 43: "Afterward he brought me to the gate, the gate that faces toward the east, and behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east." The glory of God is returning. Munther Isaac, the Christian Palestinianists, don't want to quote this prophecy. If they do, they're going to spiritualize it in some strange way.

"His voice was like the sound of many waters." That sound familiar? "And the earth shone with his glory, and the glory of the Lord came into the temple by the way of the gate which faces toward the east. Then I heard him speaking to me from the temple while a man stood beside me, and he said to me, 'Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever.'"

Hallelujah. The entire church of our Lord Jesus should be saying hallelujah at these scriptures. This is the word of God, the word of One whose voice was like the sound of many waters. Who comes to mind? John had that incredible revelation of the Lord Jesus, didn't he, and heard the Lord's voice like the sound of rushing waters.

The compassionate heart of God is the Golden Gate of prophecy. To understand God's prophetic word, you've got to understand the heart of God in that word. What did God reveal about Himself to Moses in the cleft of the rock? Exodus 34: "The Lord passed before him and proclaimed: The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation."

Merciful and gracious. The word God uses there is *rachum*. Forgive me if I am not pronouncing these Hebrew words correctly: *rachum*, mercy, compassion. Abounding in goodness, *chesed*, another beautifully rich word that God has used to express His heart towards His people.

Deuteronomy 4:24: The Israelites are about to cross the Jordan with Joshua. These are Moses' final words: "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. When you are in distress, Israel, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey his voice"—repentance, *teshuva*—"for the Lord your God is a merciful God," *rachum*, compassion. Remember the two portals. "He will not forsake you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them."

*Rachum*. That particular Hebrew word is only used 15 times in the Old Testament, only used of God Himself. As one commentator said in 1748, Robert Jamieson, "It signifies such tenderness as parents have toward their children when their bowels yearn within them." *Rachum*, the compassion of God. It means you don't just feel sorry, you don't just feel pity, you're moved to do something with that compassion and with that pity. You have to act to correct what's wrong—the heartache, the pain, the suffering. Only used of God.

The psalmist refers to it in Psalm 78: "Their heart," heart of Israel, "was not steadfast with him, nor were they faithful in his covenant. But he, being full of compassion," *rachum*, "forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time he turned his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again." Charles Spurgeon put it like this: "We see the fullness of God's compassion, but we never see all his wrath." And aren't we thankful? But that doesn't just apply to us, the church, the body, the bride of Messiah. It applies to Israel too.

Daniel in his great prayer, Daniel chapter 9: He's in Babylon. He knows the 70 years of exile is coming to an end, and he cries out to the Lord. What does he say? "O Lord, to us belong shame of face, to our kings, our princes, our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness." *Chesed* this time. The English translations fit interchangeably with this word mercy and compassion. "To the Lord our God belong *chesed*, mercy, steadfast love, loving-kindness"—probably the best translation—"and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him. O my God, incline your ear and hear; open your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by your name; for we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteous deeds"—Daniel speaking on behalf of Israel, and this applies right now in 2026—"but because of your great *racham*." There's the noun, *racham*.

That's the basis of the plea of Daniel. It was the basis of the plea of Nehemiah when he heard the walls were broken down. It's got to be the basis of the plea of anyone who's praying for Israel. Lord, not because of who Israel is, but because of who You are and what You have said. You are the God of *racham*. You are *rachum*. You're compassionate. You're merciful. Remember the two portals.

Does the church mirror God's compassionate heart? Well, here's another glorious scripture. Isaiah 60: "The sons of foreigners shall build up your walls, their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have had *rachum* on you. I've been compassionate. Therefore your gates shall be open continually. They shall not be shut day or night."

What gates is the Lord referring to, some spiritual gates? No, the gates of Jerusalem, presently shut, but God saying through Isaiah, they're going to be open continually, "that men may bring to you the wealth of the Gentiles and their kings in procession. For the nation and kingdom which will not serve you, Israel, shall perish, and those nations shall be utterly ruined."

Well, let's hear from another Palestinian Christian. I don't know where he stands before God. I've got serious, serious doubts. Naim Ateek, founder, head of Sabeel, the Palestinian Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center based in Jerusalem, who says we need to de-Zionize the Old Testament, take Zion, take Israel, the Jewish people, out of those prophecies because it's all been redefined in Jesus. Rip the compassionate heart of God out of God. That's what he's saying.

Hank Hanegraaff: Is it really true that those who bless Israel will be blessed of the Lord, those who curse Israel will be cursed of the Lord, or maybe put another way, what do we mean biblically when we talk about Israel?

Gary Burge: That's exactly the great first question.

Dr. Paul Wilkinson: A great first question. Well, these were the voices you heard: Hank Hanegraaff, Christian Research Institute, so-called Bible Answer Man; Gary Burge, Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, Illinois. I hope you heard a different voice, a voice that you hear in Genesis chapter 3: "Did God really say?" "Is it really true those who bless Israel are blessed, and even what do we mean by Israel?"

Well, listen to Balaam. God said to Balaam, "You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people"—this is when Balak, King of Moab, hires him, wants to pay him an exorbitant amount of money just to curse the Israelites—God says, "You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed. They are blessed."

Read Numbers 6, the Aaronic blessing: "The Lord bless you and keep you." And God says, "And in doing that, they will put my name upon the children of Israel." God's saying I'm going to put My holy name upon the people of Israel, and in that way, they will forever be blessed, even if I have to discipline, even if I have to judge, even if I have to vent My wrath, which He has done and which He will yet do in the Tribulation period. They are a people blessed because God has put His holy name upon them.

Balaam's oracle: "God is not man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it?" Hanegraaff and Burge are questioning this. "Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Behold, I received a command to bless," which the church has received. "He has blessed; I cannot revoke it." "How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?"

"Blessed be everyone who blesses you, and cursed be everyone who curses you," because in cursing Israel, you're cursing the God of Israel. In denouncing Israel, you're denouncing the God of Israel. You want to rip Israel out of the prophetic word like Naim Ateek does? Well, you're answerable.

Christ in the Rubble. This was his first book. This was his doctorate thesis, Munther Isaac. He's the academic dean at Bethlehem Bible College, by the way, which is an evangelical Palestinian college. "This radical new fulfillment brought about by the Jesus event dramatically changed the meaning of the land of Israel and nullified the old promises in their old articulation." We've been reading some of those promises, nullified by Jesus.

"The land of Israel has been universalized in Christ." This is one of the catchwords: "universalized in Christ." It's not just about one land and one people; it's about the whole earth. It was always about the whole earth. But to reach the whole earth, God chose one nation, and through that nation came the Messiah, came the Lord Jesus Christ.

So in his book, he says, "Jesus has become Israel. The land promises have been transferred from Israel to Jesus." This is not replacement theology—they all want to just get away from that label—this is incorporation theology. Everybody's involved, everybody's included, inclusive theology, expansionist theology. There's all kinds of labels: fulfillment theology.

It is replacement theology at its core. Here's one of his colleagues. I've written about him many times. Evangelical Anglican, former vicar in England, Stephen Sizer, who said when Jesus died on the cross, He was the sole remnant, the sole faithful remnant of Israel. Get your mind around that. What on earth are they talking about? Well, he's still going strong, given that courage award by a university in Turkey. Sizer says, "Zionism is indeed a threat not only to Palestine but to world peace."

Well, Bishop J.C. Ryle, thinking of what Isaac and Sizer have just said—Jesus is Israel, all the promises are transferred to Israel, and so on—very godly Bishop of Liverpool in England, J.C. Ryle, said this: "I believe the habit of allegorizing scripture," which is what these men are doing, "to be unwarranted by anything in scripture and to draw after it a long train of evil consequences." You tamper, you distort God's word like these men are doing, there are evil consequences. And a lot of those consequences are being manifest against the people of Israel.

Where are they getting their teaching from? How are they interpreting God's word in that way? Well, they're getting it from the church fathers, the so-called church fathers, the men in the church that after the apostles started to define theology and started studying at schools like Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, and were being taught there's a higher, deeper meaning to the word of God. Don't look at the words on the page in black and white; dig deeper. There's something deeper God wants to reveal.

The Protestant Reformers just came on the back of the church fathers. Between them, they brought into the church allegorical antisemitism. One man in particular, Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, late 4th, early 5th century, put the nail, the final nail, in the coffin of premillennialism, which was the predominant teaching of those so-called church fathers, the belief that the Lord Jesus will return to this earth and reign for a thousand years. Amillennialism came in and held sway for a thousand years in the foundation of the Catholic Church, in the foundation of the Protestant Church, and is prominent to this day.

Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk. What did Luther say with this theological hermeneutic behind him plus stuff that was going on in his heart that is known only to the Lord? "What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? First, set fire to their synagogues." Oh, who was listening to those words 80 years ago?

John Calvin: "Now the Jews are cut off like rotten limbs; we have taken their place." He went on: "Their rotten and unbending stiff-neckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end, and that they die in their misery without the pity, the compassion, the *rachum* of anyone." He's speaking to the church. Treat them without mercy, without pity, without compassion. Why do brothers and sisters insist on following the teachings of men like this? And I am not saying God didn't raise them up. I am praising God for the Reformation. But oh, there's a horrible legacy that came with it.

Men in the church, some no longer with us, that just propagated through their books and their websites and the pulpits this same, same teaching, knocking Israel out of the theological ballpark. The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, 2024. This was their headline: "High Priest of Antisemitic Christianity comes to Pittsburgh, meets with local politicians," referring to Munther Isaac, an Evangelical Lutheran priest. What a witness, what a testimony, that that is how the Jewish people would see him. He's supposed to be representing our Lord Jesus as each one of us is called to do.

Tucker Carlson interviewed him, April 2024, giving him a platform, giving him a voice on his horrible program. Harvard Divinity School, standing ovation, March last year. And he did an interview—I'm not going to play it, you can look it up online—an interview with Omar Suleiman last year, Professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University, founder president of Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research.

This was a love-in between a devout Muslim and this Evangelical Lutheran priest. Munther Isaac has nothing but loving things to say to his Muslim brothers, as he refers to them. He has nothing loving to say to the Jewish people and to you and I at this conference.

Christ at the Checkpoint. Their next conference is in May this year. Munther Isaac is the coordinator of that. I was there in 2012 in Bethlehem at the second Christ at the Checkpoint conference. And they draw in evangelicals, especially from the United States, to front their campaign, their Palestinian crusade against the nation of Israel and against Christians who stand with Israel based on the word of the God of Israel. And I've written some books available on the book table, written about all of this over the years.

As we head towards the finish line, let me just say, let me make it very, very clear. This is all about Jesus. This isn't about Israel. It's not about Christian Zionist support of Israel. It's about the Lord Jesus. Matthew 9:36: "When he," the Lord Jesus, "saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion." Oh, where is that compassion coming from? The very heart of God that is in Him, who is God incarnate.

"Because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd." He knows they're in a terrible spiritual state. He knows His own are far away from God, being led away from God by the Pharisees and the scribes and the chief priests and the Sadducees. But He's moved with compassion.

And here's a Greek word. This is a fabulous word if you've never come across it before. Get your tongue around it. Even with my English accent, I can't make it sound pretty. The word used there for compassion is *splagchnizomai*. There you go. Be practicing that, and I'm going to test you when we do our panel Q&A tomorrow. *Splagchnizomai*. It's the same as *rachum*, to be moved in the bowels, to do something about those you see are in a desperate place.

We need *splagchnizomai*. We don't need just emotion concerning Israel. We need to be moved by the Spirit of God, by our Lord Jesus, to stand however He would lead us to do that. Matthew 15: Jesus called His disciples to Himself, said, "I have compassion," *splagchnizomai*, "on the multitude. They've been with me three days, nothing to eat." Jesus had compassion, *splagchnizomai*, and touched their eyes and immediately they received their sight.

Jesus, moved with *splagchnizomai*, stretched out His hand, touched him and said, "I am willing; be cleansed." When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said, "Do not weep." He had compassion.

Parable of the Good Samaritan: The priest, the Levite, those who should have had the *rachum* of God, walked on by. I want you to see this picture, and I want you to imagine that that man who was left for dead is Israel, and many in the church are walking on by. But a certain Samaritan came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had *splagchnizomai*, compassion.

Parable of the Prodigal Son: Oh, the father had every right to say, "Son, away from me forever. Son, I am not receiving you back." But when he was still a great way off, what did the father do when he saw his prodigal return, his youngest son? He had compassion, *splagchnizomai*, and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. It's beautiful, isn't it? That's beautiful.

But the elder son was not happy. The elder son did not like the demonstration of his father's compassion. The firstborn had anger. He was angry with the father of compassion. Remember Munther Isaac at the beginning: "I am angry with the God of mercy." That's why I'm writing this book for what He's allowing the people of Israel to do to the Palestinians.

His book is appalling. In it is his published sermon, what he preached right after October the 7th. It is appalling. He doesn't represent the heart of God. All he is thinking about is what happened to the so-called Palestinians when Israel retaliated.

Church fathers, very little *splagchnizomai*. Augustine, look at the damage that he did with his amillennial theology. The great men of the Reformation—there is no such thing as a great man except for one, the Lord Jesus—Luther and Calvin at their head. That Reformation time that gave us confessions and creeds and catechisms that are in the foundation of so many churches, Protestant churches, with their reformed covenant theology that has no place for the ethnic nation of Israel. That is a theology according to man, not according to God. It is based in allegorism.

It has no place for the compassionate heart of God. It has no place in the church of God, and yet it is a plague that continues to infect so many. Sabeel: When men like Stephen Sizer—I was there in 2004, I saw this scene and there's a whole testimony about what God did to take me out of that dangerous situation. I was supposed to have my photograph taken with Arafat along with all the other so-called Christians that were there on that occasion.

Arafat was delighted. All these Christians had come over to support the peace of the brave, as he called it, to support the Palestinians. Oh, now we've got BDS, and we've got the Presbyterian Church USA voting to divest from Israel bonds. Christ at the Checkpoint I've mentioned, and the people that have stood on that podium in Bethlehem denouncing Israel like Gary Burge, like Lynne Hybels, like Hank Hanegraaff, like Tony Campolo, the late Tony Campolo, and so many more.

Christ in the Rubble, this is where we are today with part of the church. And then we've got men like Tucker Carlson interviewing this Holocaust denier, this white supremacist, Nick Fuentes. A horrible heart in that man. I have to say, a horrible heart in both men because Tucker Carlson said in October, "I despise Christian Zionists more than anyone else on earth. Christian Zionism is a brain virus." Did you know you've got a brain virus today simply because you take the word of God literally, you believe what God says, because you've got something of the compassionate heart of God in your heart? He despises you and says you have a brain virus. That's awful.

And then there's Candace Owens to Piers Morgan just a couple of months ago. I don't know a great deal about her; all I do know is she's an angry lady who is on a collision course with God. She needs Jesus. Doesn't matter what she claims, she needs the Lord Jesus desperately. Tucker Carlson needs the Lord Jesus. Piers Morgan needs the Lord Jesus. Candace Owens says, "I want to use my platform"—God has not given her a platform; the enemy has given her a platform—"I want to use my platform to say that I believe that they, Israel, are intentionally executing a Holocaust in Gaza." How dare she say such a thing? But she does dare. That's what they're about.

I'm not one who follows a lot of podcasts, but there's good men in this room that have good podcasts like Dr. Andy Woods, Jonathan Smith, and Olivier Melnick, and there'll be others. We need to pray that people's eyes, even in the church, will be open to this. Straight from the heart of Satan himself, not from the heart of God. And I am not saying where she stands before God. I'm just saying she doesn't represent the Lord Jesus.

What did the psalmist say at the end of Psalm 83 concerning those that want to wipe the name of Israel out? "Fill their faces with shame." Only God knows where all those I've just put on the screen, only God knows where they stand, but I can say with absolute conviction, not with anger, not with hatred, not one of them is a Christian. I'll qualify that: They might be saved, some of them, many of them. We might be with them in heaven. Hallelujah. But they're not Christians because a Christian is someone who's connected to Jesus. A Christian is someone who follows the Lord Jesus. A Christian is someone who has the heart of the Lord Jesus, and that is not on display in those podcasts, in those covenant theological books, in the teachings of those church fathers as far as Israel was concerned.

"Fill their faces with shame." The psalmist didn't stop there. "That they may seek your name, O Lord." So we don't just get angry and indignant towards them. We need to pray. I need to pray, Lord, fill their faces with shame. Show them that what they're doing, what they're saying, is contrary not only to Your word but to Your heart.

Paul said to the Corinthians at one point in his second letter, "You are restricted, straitened by your own affections." His heart was open to them. The Corinthians are now listening to these false apostles, these super-apostles that have come in in his absence, and he says, "Open your hearts, Corinthians." You're straitened, *stenochoreo*, meaning to be in a strait place, to be narrow, to straighten, cramp, or compress. Think of the Bering Straits between Russia and Alaska, 50 miles wide at its shortest point. A narrow place.

And this is where so much of the church is today. The heart is straightened. Those spiritual arteries are straightened, they've been narrowed, and that spiritual circulation is being stopped. That compassionate heart of God is not being allowed to flow through much of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Antisemitism is in the bloodstream of the church.

What happened? Well, the arteries were good at the very beginning when the Lord established His church. Biblical Christian Zionism, where Israel is concerned, biblical Christian Zionism, understanding Israel according to God's word. It's not about putting millions of dollars into the state of Israel. It's not about waving flags of Israel. It's not about canceling Sunday meeting on Saturday and saying Shabbat Shalom in the name of Yeshua. There's a lot of emotion among Gentiles—I'm not talking about Jewish believers, but among Gentiles—that just gets caught up in the emotion. Let us stay solidly grounded, sober-minded, rooted in God's word.

Initial fatty deposits develop: The church fathers bringing in allegorical interpretation. The plaque obstructed the blood flow: The Protestant Reformers with their covenant theology. And now in parts of the church, near-complete blockage: Christian Palestinianism. The heart of the church is sick, and this is what the Jewish people are seeing by this part of the church that has this heart disease. This is what they're hearing from the pulpits, in the podcasts.

That Israel has constructed an apartheid wall, is guilty of ethnic cleansing, occupation. That Palestinians are being crucified. A genocide, even a Holocaust is being committed. We've got a new understanding of chosenness: The church is the new Israel. The Old Testament must be de-Zionized. Zionism is racism. And Jesus was a Palestinian. How can evangelicals say such things? No surprise that at Christmas, Times Square, this sort of thing was on the billboards: "Merry Christmas, Jesus is the Palestinian," with a quote from the Quran. Well, we know what has happened in New York with the mayor and, oh, what an abominable thing that was.

So, got to conclude. Munther Isaac was speaking last year at Wheaton College, Illinois, on the theology of *sumud*, an Arabic word which means steadfastness. Well, what about the Jewish word that we read about in Lamentations chapter 3, coming from the heart of Jeremiah? "This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, through his *chesed*, because his compassions fail not, his *racham*. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. For the Lord will not cast off forever, though he causes grief, yet he will show compassion according to the multitude of his mercies." He'll show *racham* according to the multitude of his *chesed*. These two words are beautifully linked in the heart of God and in the word of God.

Or as another translation puts it, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases." That's the theology of steadfastness that Munther Isaac should be talking about, not the steadfastness of the Palestinian Arab people in resisting Israel. "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? As often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy upon him."

Well, let me just tie this together. Last two slides. Back to the Golden Gate. Jesus said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers." He says again, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture." He's the door. Israel as a nation rejected Him when He came the first time, and symbolically, spiritually, the door is closed to Israel right now.

But it's going to be opened. Zechariah 12:10: "When they look unto the one they have pierced and they mourn for him as for an only son." And then, what do we read in Zechariah 13? "A fountain will be opened up to wash away the sins of Israel, and the feet of the Lord will stand on the Mount of Olives, and he will be king over all the earth," including Jerusalem.

In closing, another famous conference in many ways began the whole dispensationalist movement: the Niagara Bible Conference from 1883 to 1897. Men like Adoniram Judson Gordon, William Blackstone, Hudson Taylor met there. And James Hall Brookes, who was the chairman of that conference, wrote a letter from Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1885 to a man by the name of John Wilkinson. I don't know if I'm related—had a wonderful heart for the Lord.

And this is what Brookes said: "It will give you pleasure to know that in America, a deeper concern than formerly is felt for the children of Abraham according to the flesh. Of course, this is largely confined to those who are looking for that blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, for as a rule, only they have a clear view." If you've got your eyes on Jesus and the any-moment Rapture of the church, you're going to have a clearer view of God's purposes for Israel. "But few who have been taught by the Holy Spirit to wait for God's Son from heaven fail to find their heart stirred to quickened delight in anticipation of the wondrous blessings in store for the everlasting nation because of the *racham*, the compassion of God."

And my final slide: One person who attended an early Niagara conference remarked how the Lord Jesus Christ was exalted, how the Holy Spirit was honored, how the Bible was expounded: "The bread of life broken and distributed at the Niagara Bible Conference is feeding the children of God in this land to this day." And when we finish, by the time we finish ProfCon, may we be able to say those words, that Jesus was exalted, the Holy Spirit honored, the Bible expounded in this conference, and the bread of life distributed at ProfCon that is feeding the children of God in this land to this day. Amen.