A Christian’s High Regard for the Jews
My esteem for the Jewish people is unshakeable and a lifetime commitment.
This does not mean I disregard the Arab people. I treasure them also. As children of Abraham and half-brothers of the Jewish people, Arabs are an integral part of the Mideast mosaic. It has been my joy and answered prayer every time to see an Arab nation reconciled with Israel in a peace agreement or normalization of relations.
My greatest mentors in my lifelong association with the Jews were my own father, of blessed memory, and Jesus himself.
From my youth, my father, a conservative Presbyterian minister and denominational leader, taught me to reverence the Jewish people as our patriarchs in the faith. I am very much my father’s daughter in this regard. He taught me our debt to the Jews for both the Scriptures and the Saviour.
Although Jesus is still the source of contention between Jews and Christians, it was also from Jesus that I learned to honor his people from my earliest childhood memories. When I was a toddler, suffering from rheumatic fever, Jesus healed me in an open vision. He was not a blonde blue-eyed Gentile Jesus, but a native-born Israeli sabra, the King of the Jews. One of the most important New Testament verses that negates antisemitism is Jesus’s own words in John 4: 22, “Salvation proceeds through the Jews.”
Later in life (in my 20s) the Lord commissioned me “to stand with Israel when all the nations turn against Israel.” Yes, it is tragic but true that Bible prophecy predicted the antisemitism of the end times, but the Bible also prophesied the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Whether or not the United Nations approves, the restoration of the Davidic kingdom to Israel is affirmed in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.
Born-again Christians are collectively called the Bride of Christ in New Testament theology, and as a member of the Bride of Christ, I was introduced to Jesus’s physical family. He invited me to Israel more than 300 times to meet his people, and I have also lived in the Land.
I learned from walking the Land with Jesus that he holds zero grudges against Israel, and antisemitism’s stain on church history is painful to him. Even after his death and resurrection, in the Book of Revelation 5: 5, he still identifies as a Jew, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
Holy Scripture also teaches that the Arabs are no longer outcasts from Abraham’s tent. In God’s divine scheme, a grand reconciliation is planned. When God looks down from his throne on the Mideast region, he sees three nations, and he purposes to bless them when the kingdom is restored to Israel:
In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance. (Isaiah 19: 23-25)
It would be my great joy to see Isaiah 19 come to pass.
Meanwhile, anti-Zionism is the new Jew-hatred. I greatly pity the blindness of left-wing individuals such as the so-called “squad” of Israel-hating lawmakers in the U.S. Congress. Furthermore, a new report by the Anti-Defamation League delves into the rise of left-wing antisemitism in four Western European nations, finding that “its penetration into the political mainstream is cause for concern and has in some cases alienated Jews and other supporters of Israel.”
After the Jewish people were forced during the Holocaust to wear yellow stars and were murdered on European soil, they must never be discriminated against with labeling of their goods. Recently we celebrated Jerusalem Day in the Senate of the capital of the Czech Republic, with legislators and Christian leaders from the Israel Allies Caucus (IAC) network across Europe. We also attended the European Policy Summit in the Senate, where the Prague Declaration was released, denouncing anti-semitism and urging nations to move their embassies to Jerusalem. More than 10 European countries participated.
We are bold to proclaim Psalm 129: 5, “May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame.”
Amen and amen!
Christine Darg can be reached at her website www.JerusalemChannel.tv
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