Why I Stand by Israel and the Jewish People
By Greg Laurie
Pull the camera back on what is happening in Israel. This is not about Palestine or the Palestinian people. This is even bigger than Hamas and Israel.
Plain and simple, this is about the hatred of the Jewish people.
Jewish Hate and God’s Intervention Throughout History
This goes back centuries. Egypt wanted to destroy the Jews when Pharaoh gave the order to murder the Jewish baby boys (Exodus 1). Ancient Persia (modern Iran) wanted to eradicate the Jews through the wicked plot of Haman (Esther 3). Fast forward: Adolf Hitler had his “Final Solution” to destroy the Jewish people and ultimately murdered over 6 million of them in the Holocaust. But God intervened.
Now we have Hamas committing murders and unthinkable atrocities toward Jewish women, children, and even babies in Israel. It is pure evil. But God always intervenes—He raised up Moses to deliver the Jews from Pharaoh and Egypt. He raised up Queen Esther to use her influence to save her fellow Jews from the plot to destroy them.
After the Holocaust, God raised up the Jews themselves to return to their homeland and become a nation again on May 14, 1948.
But why this hatred for the Jewish people? Answer: Satan hates what God loves. God loves and chose the Jews as His very own people. Why? God Himself gives the answer: “The Lord did not set his heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations! Rather, it was simply that the Lord loves you, and he was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors. That is why the Lord rescued you with such a strong hand from your slavery and from the oppressive hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:7–8 NLT).
Antisemitism is from the pit of Hell. I am not Jewish, but as a Gentile and believer in Jesus Christ, I have been “grafted in” to the promises given to the Jewish people by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
From the Jews came our Bible. From the Jews came our Messiah. We owe them a great debt, and now we must pray for them as a nation and a people.
Again, God gave them this homeland that they returned to as a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. They have every right and responsibility to defend themselves from this evil that has come upon them like a violent storm from Hell itself.
Scripture tells us to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). Let’s do that together. I also pray that a great spiritual awakening will sweep the Holy Land and that many—both Jews and Palestinians caught up in this conflict—will turn to God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
I stand by Israel and the Jewish people. You should too.
The above article was originally published at Greg’s Blog and published with permission at Think Eternity.
Greg Laurie is the senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship with campuses in California and Hawaii. He began his pastoral ministry at the age of 19 by leading a Bible study of 30 people…
…In 2020 and in partnership with Kingdom Story Company, Laurie premiered his first-ever cinematic crusade, A Rush of Hope, viewed by over 2 million people in its opening weekend…
…In February 2023, Kingdom Story Company and Lionsgate released Jesus Revolution, which is the story of Greg and Cathe’s life and the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and ’70s. It stars Kelsey Grammer and Jonathan Roumie and is based on Greg’s book of the same title…
Read Laurie’s complete bio on the Harvest website here: About Greg Laurie (harvest.org)