Last month I visited Israel with a group of amazing God chosen friends. This would be my first time returning to the land since the war broke out in October 2023. 

This time we visited a lot more places than I had been. From Herod’s palaces to Gideon’s spring and the Holocaust museum. I don’t know why, but this time the history in this place was even more enthralling. Unpacking each day would take several chapters of a book. My favorite on this visit was visiting tell Dan and hearing the history of what happened to the biblical tribe of Dan (I’ll save unpacking historical Dan for a post of its own). 

It was also fascinating to hear the story of Gideon and his 300 men retold in front of the spring. Often when we hear Gideon’s story, you think it’s the guys who were on alert that Gideon chose, but we learned this time that it was those with zero military training and no sense of self-reliance that God chose. 

We worshipped on the Kinneret (sea of Galilea), prayed at the wailing wall, and revisited Hezekiah’s tunnel. Visited the Pool of Siloam where Jesus sent a blind man to go wash his eyes, and the Pool at Bethesda where a crippled lay waiting for 38 years for an Angel to trouble the waters, till Jesus came and told him to pick his bed and walk if he wanted to be healed. At the pool at Bethesda i learnt that believing false narratives can be a sin (I’ll save the detail on this for another day). 

We also visited the ancient cities of Bethsean, and Engedi. At Engedi we saw what was potentially the cave were David encountered Saul in a cave and cut off the hem of his robe (1 Samuel 24: 1 – 5). I learned at Engedi that a shepherds job involves mostly waiting. I mean i learnt a lot but the most profound thing i heard here was how shepherds have to wait on their flock most of the time. We think of the Lord as our Shephard and i wondered how many times he’s had to wait on us while we try to figure things out. 

This time I ate and enjoyed more food than was healthy for me. 

All in all, things felt different this time. There was a somber, yet peaceful feeling. People went about their lives like things were normal. As always things were so different on the inside from what the west and the media would have you believe. 

I couldn’t help but remember all the hateful words I’ve heard from Christian and non-Christians alike over the last 2 years. I thought about Elijah and how he would have reacted if he lived in our day. Visiting the holocaust museum this time was heartbreaking. It reminded me how an ignorant church is a deadly tool for the enemy. 

Today we still have an ignorant church, however there’s nothing worse than a pacifist church. A church that has been called to preach the gospel of peace but has no inkling of what the peace of God means. 

Last Sunday, as our congregation continued through the book of Paul’s letter to the Romans, our pastor talked about the Peace and the wrath of God. What caught my attention was the “Wrath of God”. Paul says in Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness”. 

What is unrighteousness? Is it just the most atrocious things like the holocaust, rape, incest, child abuse, murder? what about the many ignorant things we do to suppress the truth and rebel against God? Like the lies and false narratives that deny God’s work? We come up with a righteousness of our own, label it what we like, and convince ourselves we’re still worshippers of God. 

When Jesus began his ministry his first phrase was “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand”. This phrase “The kingdom of God” what does it mean? Jesus wasn’t the first to use the phrase “The Kingdom of God”, and neither was John the Baptist. The first time this phrase is used is in 1 Chronicles 13 where King Abijah is about to go to war with the northern kingdom of Isreal and admonishes them calling Judah “The kingdom of the Lord” because God had given the Kingdom to David and his Sons Forever as a “covenant of salt”. In this Chapter Abijah describes what constitutes the Kingdom of God – Kingship under David and priesthood under his chosen priest”. 

As followers of Jesus (Yeshua) today, we call him our King and High Priest, but we forget he is a son of David from the tribe of Judah, and not a Palestinian (or Philistine), neither is he a muslim or returning as a muslim (even though he came to save them). We visited temple mount and saw what currently stands on the holist place in Judaism. the place where the temple of Solomon once stood. Same place where Young Jesus had left his family to listen and engage with teachers, while his parents searched frantically for him. He would respond to his mother when they found him “Didn’t you know i would be in my Father’s House”? (Luke 2: 46 – 48)

While most people think of the Dome of the rock as a muslim mosque, the lesser-known truth is the Dome of the rock is not a mosque but a shrine with an Arabic inscription that says “God has no son”. This is a denial of who Jesus is, and his claim to the throne of David. Yet many Christians will fight for an islamic state of palestine, not because they care or love the palestinians, but because they hate Israel and want nothing to do with it. If the pacifist church loved the palestinians they would battle for their soul to be free from the bondage that is islam.

I have a lot to say, but you cannot bear it now. So i’ll say this one thing, if indeed it is God who said what was said in Ezekiel 36:24, Isaiah 11: 11-12, Jeremiah 23: 3-8, Ezekiel 37: 21-25, and many more that i don’t have the space for. Then you will have to answer is God able to fulfil his promise or not. and if he is able and currently fulfilling his promise. Then the Kingdom of God my friend, has come upon you.

Paul tells us in his Letter to the Ephesians 6: 11- 18 to put on the full armor because our wrestling is not against flesh and blood. This is our defense. He then tells us in 2 Corinthians 10: 4-6 that our weapons are not canal but mighty in the Lord for the pulling down of strongholds. We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. – This is our offensive. No one plays a game with just the defense team. If the goal is to win, you must have an offensive team. If our goal is to tear down every false narrative that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, we have definitely missed the mark with this generation.