HOW TO LOVE ISRAEL WELL
When I wrote “Rockets, Giants, and Booze (How to Not Get Drunk on Jerusalem)” last week, I identified two ditches running alongside the “narrow road”[1] of truth as it relates to Jerusalem—that is, how the eternal purposes of God[2] bound up in the everlasting covenant[3] relate to Jerusalem (literally, Jerusalem). These ditches might be succinctly referred to as anti-Zionism, or an unsanctified lack thereof.[4] Allow me to expound. First, we must reckon with the word of the LORD through the prophet Zechariah:
The burden of the word of the Lord against Israel. Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him: “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.”[5]
It is not uncommon for prophetic oracles to identify something about the nature, character, and strength of the Lord that seem unrelated (but are indeed very relevant) to the message being given. The LORD is referred to as the “One who inhabits eternity,”[6] who “sits above the circle of the earth,”[7] and “dwells in unapproachable light.”[8] And here, we are told the One orchestrating an international coalition launching an assault—the last in this age—against Jerusalem is the very One who “forms the spirit of man within him.”[9]
Sit on that for a moment.
Jesus takes responsibility for some things that really appall a level-headed, rational mind,[10] and His strategies for drawing forth Jerusalem’s prophetic destiny are no different. “I form the spirit of man within him,” says the LORD. “I raise up kings; I tear men down.[11] The hearts of kings are in My hand like water; I direct them where I wish.”[12] Meaning this: no one will ever attack Jerusalem without the permission—perhaps even causation—of the Sovereign. Yet any who exploit His disciplinary purposes to satisfy their own bloodlust will face an even worse fate.[13] So we want to be a people who agree with His purposes and partner with His ways and “good works”[14] strategically and effectively.[15] How can we, considering the drunken stupor that so easily intoxicates any who come close to the proverbial “one ring to rule all rings,” stay sober? Let us revisit Stuart Greaves’ words from Covenant and Controversy II: The City of the Great King:
The prophet warns us about touching Jerusalem in an inappropriate way. He said, “If you touch Jerusalem in an inappropriate way, you get hit with a sense of drunkenness; drunkenness meaning you lose all sobriety and all reality and all discernment.”[16] But the way that Jerusalem gets touched in an inappropriate way is in two ways; you touch Jerusalem in an inappropriate, antisemitic way, where we are anti-Jerusalem, seeking to annihilate the Jews, and so forth. But another way you touch Jerusalem in an inappropriate way is by being for Israel in a way that God is not for her. In other words, there’s a certain positivism in regards to the Land, that that could actually lead to a lack of sobriety as well, as much as antisemitism can lead to a lack of sobriety. Which is why we want to connect with Israel like Paul did by being in Christ,[17] by being in fellowship with Him, asking Him, "Lord, what are You thinking? Lord, what are You feeling? Lord, open my eyes to Your law that I might see wonderful things[18] because I want to be lined up with truth when it comes to Jerusalem, not sentiment.”[19]
We need to talk about a sentiment for Zion that is not in touch with the truth about Zion. “Sentiment” in this case can be synonymous with “carnality,” or “the flesh.” The limitations of this article do not allow me to expound in depth about this (i.e., you didn’t click this link so you could sit here and read a book), but let’s just acknowledge that Scripture concretely affirms God’s unwavering commitment to kill what Paul called “the flesh”—by crucifying it.[20] This is why we’re to “carry our cross daily.”[21] As I said last week, nothing of the flesh will survive eternity. Everything that is not born from and wrought of the righteousness of God will burn in the fire of His coming.[22] We won’t carry offenses or worldly sentiments to the table at the Wedding Feast; that Day will open our eyes to all kinds of things we do not yet see or know or understand.[23] But what has this to do with Jerusalem?
“The LORD is zealous for Zion with great zeal,”[24] and therefore there exists a Zionism that is not of the flesh. I ask you biblical, Christian Zionists: is your affection for Jerusalem an emotional expression of a desire to align with a victorious tribe? Or are you, like the prophets of old, broken under the burden for the city who “kills the prophets and stones those sent to her,”[25] who refused the embrace of her Maker,[26] got in bed with anyone in arm’s length at every opportunity,[27] and condemned the Son of Man to a criminal execution, explicitly taking proud responsibility for the blood that would spill from His frame?[28] Do you plead that same saving blood over a wayward Jacob? Does Jesus weep over Jerusalem through your eyes, as Adolph Saphir once remarked He wept yet through Paul’s?[29] Do you tremble under certain confidence that the surety of a “nation born in a Day”[30] must come on the heels of a “trouble like no other, not before nor since”?[31] What if we need to consider putting down our shofars and national flags and “Jew-ish” appropriations so that our hands are freed up to “rend our hearts”[32] in the grief of sackcloth and ashes[33] until and so that He “rend[s] the Heavens, and come[s] down”?[34]
Reggie Kelly often refers to a holy “mission impossible” that the Lord has bound Himself to, to bring a “stiff-necked people”[35] into an iron-clad righteousness that is irrevocable and everlasting.[36] This is the zeal of the LORD for Zion: that the One born in Bethlehem, who baptized her hills with His blood, would reign forever on the same hill Isaac was bound (and freed) upon, when the promise that “God would provide Himself a lamb”[37] was first whispered with confidence. The nations of the earth will stream to her,[38] and find healing.[39] “The law will go forth from Zion,”[40] and “the knowledge of the glory of the LORD will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.”[41]
As the waters cover the sea. What a promise.
But hear this: all His people—ethnic, national Israel within the territory of the Kingdom of Israel—will know Him and love Him. “No longer shall every man teach his neighbor, and grab his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least to the greatest.”[42] “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is one and His Name is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, soul, and strength.”[43] Indeed, she shall. And she shall sing.[44]
Herein lies the international implication of the everlasting covenant cut with Abram on the hills of Hebron and secured by the blood of Jesus at the Place of the Skull:[45] the Son promised to Eve[46] who would destroy the evil one and all his works[47] was promised to Abraham[48] and then to David,[49] and it is the Davidic Throne dignified with immutability.[50] The “Son of David” is the “Son of Man” foretold in Daniel’s vision, who was given “a kingdom and dominion, that all nations and people should serve Him.”[51] Indeed, He is the One seen by John the Beloved in the throne room; Heaven’s courts are singing hymns weaving Daniel’s prophecies and the historicity of the Cross together.[52] Thus “all nations of the earth will be blessed” through the Everlasting Covenant with Abraham,[53] and all nations will come under His rule and reign from Zion. Indeed, “the zeal of the Lord will perform this.”[54] This is the sanctified Zionism. As the prophet Isaiah put it:
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.[55]
Several chapters and songs after the aforementioned passage about the “Child” who would be (and has been) born, Isaiah further illuminates the Day the “controversy”[56] around Jerusalem is settled—finally, fully, and forever. He describes a moment when “the LORD shall go forth like a mighty Man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies.”[58] As he continues, Isaiah pivots from seeing the Lord as a victorious military commander to a mother giving birth: “I have held My peace a long time; I have been still and restrained Myself”[59]—restrained![60]—“now I will cry like a woman in labor; I will pant and gasp at once.”[61] Shall the LORD bring to the time of birth and not cause delivery?[62] Of course not. Shall a nation be born in a Day?[63] Defying all odds, absolutely. And Zion will sing, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD!”[64]
Weave this with the conclusion of Zechariah’s passage we opened with:
Then the Lord will go forth
And fight against those nations,
As He fights in the day of battle.
And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,
Which faces Jerusalem on the east.
And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two,
From east to west,
Making a very large valley;
Half of the mountain shall move toward the north
And half of it toward the south.
Then you shall flee through My mountain valley,
For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal.
Yes, you shall flee
As you fled from the earthquake
In the days of Uzziah king of Judah.
Thus the Lord my God will come,
And all the saints with You.
It shall come to pass in that day
That there will be no light;
The lights will diminish.
It shall be one day
Which is known to the Lord—
Neither day nor night.
But at evening time it shall happen
That it will be light.
And in that day it shall be
That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem,
Half of them toward the eastern sea
And half of them toward the western sea;
In both summer and winter it shall occur.
And the Lord shall be King over all the earth.
In that day it shall be—
“The Lord is one,”
And His name one.[65]
The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.
This is a good time for us to ask ourselves what the crowds of Shavuot, of Pentecost, asked Peter: “How then shall we live?”[66]
In light of the “controversy of Zion”[67] manifesting in our day and time as it has, with all the swirls of confusion surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian peoples and territories, the international advocacy for the reported dignity and plight of Hamas, how then shall we live?
We get into the Word. We fast, we pray, we search the Scriptures, and we beg God for understanding.[68] If we ask Him for wisdom in humility, He will give it to us.[69]
Consider this: just before Isaiah saw the Lord return to Jerusalem as a “Man of war,” just like Zechariah described, just before the national regeneration and new birth of Israel—no longer ‘Jacob’—in all his prophetic fullness, the prophet saw the “new song” (the maranatha cry of the Gospel of the Kingdom) traveling from the ends of the earth to the city of Jerusalem—specifically hitting the Arab and Muslim world before it hits Jerusalem. Why is this important? Because there is a time ordained for the “fullness of the Gentiles to come in.”[70] Once Jerusalem beckons Him to return, it’s game over for the Great Commission.[71] So how did the “new song” get to the ends of the earth to begin with?
Moments before Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father—going up precisely the way He will come down[72]—after forty days in which He taught on the Kingdom, the apostolic hope was firmly set on the restoration of said Kingdom:
And they said to Him, “Lord, will You now restore the Kingdom to Israel?”
“It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”[73]
“There’s more to the story yet, and you’ve got work to do. Bear witness of this Gospel of the Kingdom[74] to all men everywhere, but start with the City of the Great King[75] and make your way through what many now call the West Bank. Hit Ramallah on your way to Doha. Hit Beirut on your way to Baghdad. Hit Gaza on your way to Guatemala. Go as far as you can on this round globe you call home, and go far enough that if you took one more step, because it’s round, you’d start your journey home. Go to the ends of the earth.”
Again, Isaiah saw this coming. In chapter 24 of his texts—just before a beautiful chapter about restoration—the prophet saw the “Great Tribulation,”[76] or the “time of Jacob’s trouble.”[77] In the thick of this calamity, a people in the “ends of the earth”[77]—as far as you can literally go from Jerusalem—are worshipping the God of Israel in the crisis, unoffended and walking with a profound clarity.
We have to see and understand the heart He who walked down the aisle under the oak trees of Mamre has for the nations of the earth—not only for Isaac, but for Ishmael as well.[78] For all the rest of us bastard pagans adopted into the family and brought into the covenant of the Commonwealth of Israel.[79] This is what drove Paul to the nations, to “lay foundations for the Gospel where none existed,”[80] and to spend untold nights and days in foreign prisons, bound by foreign chains, making disciples of foreign peoples destined to love the King of the Jews: “for the hope of Israel.”[81] If you want to live like the prophets and the apostles did, you’ll bankrupt your lives and livelihoods to bring the fullness of the Gentiles in, and provoke a wayward Jacob to a holy jealousy.[82] Anything less is not sanctified, biblical Zionism. Anything less is not the zeal of the Great King of Jerusalem. Thus the testimony of the prophets and the apostles tells us this:
If your love for Israel is not producing love for her enemies, you’re doing it wrong.
If your Zionism does not produce a sanctified solidarity with Israel and zeal for the God of Israel to be known, loved, adored, and obeyed in the nations, you’re doing it wrong.
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For “who has known the mind of the LORD?” Or “who has been His counselor?” Or “who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?” For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.[83]
Maranatha.
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She lives in the Golan Heights and cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] Matthew 7:13-14
[2] Ephesians 3:9-13
[3] Genesis 15:1-21; 17:19; 1 Chronicles 16:17; Psalm 105:10; Isaiah 24:5; 55:3; 61:8; Jeremiah 32:40; Ezekiel 16:60; 37:26; Hebrews 13:20
[4] Quick, S. “Contention & Complexity: The Dangers of Anti-Zionism and Lack Thereof.” Covenant and Controversy, 21 September 2015. https://www.covenantandcontroversy.com/articles/contention-complexity-the-dangers-of-zionism-and-lack-thereof-by-stephanie-quick
[5] Zechariah 12:1-3
[6] Isaiah 57:15
[7] Isaiah 40:22
[8] 1 Timothy 6:16
[9] See also Genesis 2:7; Psalm 139:13-16
[10] 2 Chronicles 18:19-22; Isaiah 55:8-9; Luke 19:41-44
[11] Psalm 75:7; Daniel 2:21
[12] Proverbs 21:1
[13] Obadiah 1:10-14
[14] Ephesians 2:10
[15] John 15:2; Colossians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:12
[16] See Zechariah 12:1-4
[17] See Romans 9:1-5
[18] Psalm 119:18
[19] Or you can watch this segment here (starting at 1:32:05)
[20] Genesis 6:3; Romans 6:6; Galatians 5:24; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9
[21] Luke 9:23
[22] 1 Corinthians 3:11-15; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10
[23] 1 Corinthians 13:12
[24] Zechariah 8:2
[25] Matthew 23:37
[26] Jeremiah 2:1-13; Matthew 23:37
[27] Hosea 2:2-13
[28] Matthew 27:25
[29] Saphir, Adolph. Christ and Israel: Lectures and Addresses on the Jews, 1911. Morgan and Scott Ld: London, 99. (Charles Spurgeon admired Saphir for being remarkably “mighty in the Scriptures.)
[30] Isaiah 66:8
[31] Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 10:14; Joel 2:2; Matthew 24:21; see also Covenant and Controversy III: The Great Trouble at covenantandcontroversy.com/films or in the FAI App
[32] Joel 2:13
[33] Jeremiah 6:26
[34] Isaiah 64:1
[35] Exodus 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9; Deuteronomy 9:6, 13; 10:16; Acts 7:51
[36] Daniel 9:24
[37] Genesis 22:8
[38] Isaiah 2:2; Revelation 21:24
[39] Revelation 22:2
[40] Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2
[41] Isaiah 11:9; Habakkuk 2:14
[42] Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:11
[43] Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27
[44] Isaiah 54:1; Zephaniah 3:14-15
[45] See Genesis 15:1-21; 22:8, 13-14; Hebrews 13:20
[46] Genesis 3:15
[47] ibid.; 1 John 3:8
[48] Genesis 12:1-3; Galatians 3:16
[49] See the Davidic Covenant of 2 Samuel 7
[50] ibid.; see also Psalms 2; 72; 89; 110
[51] Daniel 7:13-14
[52] Revelation 5:9-13
[53] Genesis 12:3
[54] Isaiah 9:7
[55] Isaiah 9:6-7
[56] Isaiah 34:8
[57] Zechariah 14:3-9
[58] Isaiah 42:13
[59] Isaiah 42:14a
[60] See Acts 3:21
[61] Isaiah 42:14b
[62] Isaiah 66:9
[63] Isaiah 66:8
[64] Psalm 118:26; Matthew 23:39
[65] Zechariah 14:3-9
[66] Acts 2:37
[67] Isaiah 34:8
[68] Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14; see also Daniel 9-10 to see Daniel’s burden and plight for understanding
[69] James 1:5-6
[70] Romans 11:25
[71] Matthew 28:18-20
[72] Acts 1:11
[73] Acts 1:6-8
[74] Matthew 24:14; Galatians 1:6-9
[75] Psalm 48:2; Matthew 5:35
[76] Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:21
[77] Jeremiah 30:7
[78] Isaiah 24:14-16; 42:10
[79] Ephesians 2:12
[80] Romans 15:20
[81] Acts 28:20
[82] Romans 10:19; 11:11, 14
[83] Romans 11:33-36
