October 13, 2025 • 63 mins
This week, Granger and AntMan take on one of the most complicated and emotional topics in the world today — Israel. With headlines filled with bombings, politics, and global tension, they slow down to ask a deeper question: how should Christians really think about what’s happening there?
Granger shares his experiences from two trips to Israel, including visits to the site of the 2023 music festival massacre near Gaza. He describes walking through memorials, seeing the bunkers, and talking with Israeli soldiers and families living in constant fear. But he also tells the stories of Palestinians he met in the West Bank — parents who just want to feed their children and live in peace.
The conversation moves from the human side of the conflict to the spiritual one. Granger and AntMan open Scripture to look at what the Bible says about Israel — the difference between the modern nation and the Israel of the Bible, and how Christians should view God’s promises today.
In the end, Granger reminds listeners that God doesn’t pick sides the way we do. He’s not for one nation or another; He’s for His own purpose and glory. It’s a hard but hopeful truth, pointing us back to Christ as the only source of real peace in a world that keeps breaking apart.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
As Christians? How should we feel about Israel? So much
in the news, we hear about Gaza, we hear about bombings,
we hear about terrorism, we hear about corrupt governments. With
that now and Yahoo, how do we think about this
as Christians? It's complicated when we're about.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
To get into Okay, this is an episode we've been
wanting to do for a while.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We've kind of had to put it off a little bit.
We could have We could have done it last year,
We could have done it two years ago. Because as
we sit here and record this today is October seventh,
twenty twenty five, and were.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Years ago you had you had a trip planned to Israel.
Then this happened, and the plan still happened, but it
turned into a missionary trip versus a tourist trip.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's right when and we went. We ended up going
in February of twenty four, and then and then I
want to get Intember of twenty four, all pushed back
because of what happened on this day two years ago,
the invasion of the terrorist into the music festival in
southern Israel. Since then, you and I both been to
(01:16):
that place or did you go to that place?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
No, you didn't. I didn't go to the place. You
went there in September.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We didn't, right it went to the festival. It is
a I record. I recorded a little episode for the
Smiths on that. But it is a very sobering place.
The festival site, they have trees planted, such an Israel
(01:42):
thing to plant trees. But they have a tree plant
for every one.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Lost and on the site.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
On the site, so one day years from now, if
it stands, there'll be a forest.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Then every tree has a tag with the person's name.
So in the place, this festival site in southern Israel,
it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, so it's quiet.
So when you walk through there, you just kind of
hear the wind and the birds and you walk in
between these small trees. Each tree is probably ten foot
(02:20):
tall and a couple of inches in diameter. Right now,
it's I saw it. I walked through there September of
twenty four, so I'm sure even now the trees are grown.
But when I saw it would it was cleaned. They
had they had planted all the trees. They had created
(02:42):
kind of a memorial that it is very much like
many memorials. I think I even said this when I
was there. It's like I've been to many memorials in
my life, everything from Gettysburg to Ground zero nine to eleven,
to some of the great Ormandy, some of the great
World War two battles. Pearl Harbor should have been a
(03:09):
bunch of I've been to a lot of these around
the world, and this one had a different feeling, partly
because it was so fresh, and partly because the war
was still going on a couple miles away. Yeah, we
were at that site. It's just a couple miles from Gaza,
(03:29):
So you're there just kind of remembering and seeing the memorial,
but you also can hear rumblings from Gaza two miles away.
Ay reminder that it's still going on, And to this
day it's still going on as we record this. There
were bunkers in all of Israel. You've seen it. There
(03:51):
are either if you have a house in Israel right now,
you have a bomb shelter in your house. If you
had a part of an apartment, there are there's always
signs to the bomb shelter in the apartment. If you're
at a grocery store, there are signs kind of like
we have in in in East Texas, there's signs to
the hurricane shelter. In Central Texas and Oklahoma there and
(04:14):
Kansas there's there's a tornado shelter. In Israel, there's the
bomb shelter. It's just a part of life.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Your vrb O more than likely has a bomb shelter
in it.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, so we you and I rented an airbnb in Galilee, right.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
On the sea Galilee, and it had a bomb shelter.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
And Amber and I, you know, went with this is
before I had kind of realized this was going on.
We were like, okay, it was just a house and
all of us were crashing in the same house, like okay,
you take this room, hit man, you take you canna
take this and this guy's gonna take this room. And
Amber are like, well, we'll take this room. Go in there.
I go to shut the door and it's it's like
eight inches thick concrete. I'm like, what in the And
(04:54):
it's got a latch on it, Like why did I
pick the the the bank safe to and that's what
it looked like. I was like, oh, I see what
this is. Yeah, and it slowly realized all the places
have these.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
And if that's not something like we don't think about that.
You know, Typically our shelters I think of tornado shelters
growing up in Oklahoma is that it's either in the
backyard and it's something you go to to get in,
or if it's part of your house, it's out in
the garage and it's a hole in the floor underneath
the which I always thought was weird. Underneath the car.
You have to back the car out in the middle
of the tornado to get in it. And that's usually.
(05:29):
But this was just a room, a room that you
operate out of every single day, has a bathroom in it,
has the bed, has the dresser, and then an eight
inch the door.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah. So back to the festival site, they had just
like this. They had the shelters and out there at
a festival there are concrete bunkers. I have seen very
similar ones in my time in music tour in Iraq.
Everywhere you went any rock Iraq or irock Iraq. Which
(06:01):
one should I say.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Depends on the sentence.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I think that's what you just did.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
The shelters are concrete bunkers that got They kind of
looked like like American construction barriers stacked on top of
each other, and let me pause for a second and
just say, what an amazing freedom that we don't comprehend
(06:27):
here in America. That we don't know what it's like
to have a concrete bunker in our neighborhood. Yeah, we
don't think about that. But anyway, these bunkers in southern Israel,
we win in them, and they have become memorials because
(06:47):
what happened was people ran just like you're supposed to do.
They ran to the protection bunkers, and the terrorists followed
them in there and mowed them down with machine guns.
These are pretty small, maybe ten I walked in on there,
like ten feet by eight feet, and they would put
(07:12):
fifty or sixty people. They would pile The people were
just trying to squeeze in there to get out of
the I mean, people are parachuting and coming in from
hang gliders or whatever those things were. They were just
trying to get away. They were squeezing in there, fifty
or sixty people in a eight x ten shelter, and
one man with a machine gun would just mow them
(07:33):
all down, all of them, just bodies piled in there.
And so now you walk in there and it's full
of bullet holes all in the concrete inside there, and
then the whole floor is maybe we could even put
a picture of that up here right here in this
if you're watching a video. But the whole floor is
(07:55):
little candles and pictures and notes and letters, and it's
just heartbreaking because of to be in such a small,
confined space with so many deaths, which is the it's
(08:15):
it's horrible that if you think about what does that
remind you of? When I say it that way, what
is when the last time in history we could think
of small spaces with lots of death in the space
the Holocaust. Yeah, so there were many of these bunkers
and we would stop at them and and it's just
it's you just feel you feel it. You you walk
(08:36):
in there and it's quiet, and you think of the
chaos you think. You hear stories I spent, I spent
I would say, a significant time speaking to soldiers. Do
you have soldiers? By the way, you're listening to the
podcast right now, you might think you know what the
(08:57):
direction of this podcast is. And I don't think you
know the direction I'm going with this, But I'm building
the story. I'm trying to build some credibility here you too,
and discussing a topic that's pretty heavy. But I've spent
a significant time with IDF soldiers both in and around Gaza,
going into Gaza and all the kibbutz around Gaza, and
(09:22):
then I also spend time with them up north where
Hesbial is on the Syrian border and in the mountains,
and then everywhere else in Israel, especially concentrated in Jerusalem.
There's just I mean, these kids, they're kids, man, they
are a lot of times you've got guys that are
(09:42):
being commissioned girls they're like seventeen years old putting on
those uniforms.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And it gets home when you have I mean, you
have a fourteen year old now, yeah, of a twenty
two year old. So any you know, any in that
age and that are close to you, and you go,
oh wow, these are the kids that are that are
putting on uniforms and not a fourteen year old, but
we're getting close right and putting on uniforms and grabbing
a gun and going out to to help defend against
(10:09):
stuff like this.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So we saw you, and I you, we saw you.
Remember that coffee shop we went to in Lower Galilee
where they it was what's the name of that awesome
coffee place that's everywhere there? Oh, man, aroma aroma?
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Is it aroma aroma?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
We're in an Aroma and there's those ladies there. It's
the Starbucks of Israel, but it's a lot better coffee. Agreed,
there were there were the ladies there, and Amber talked
to him. Remember this, Yeah, and their husbands were deployed
and they had been living in an apartment in a
hotel room, and they had their kids in their hotel room.
(10:54):
It's been like five months, six months or something crazy
like that, and you just don't you don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Yeah, four and a half five months by that time.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
The children, we're scared. Let me say first of all,
two that life in Israel is just rolling on it.
They're just it's just life is as usual there. They
haven't stopped. Uh. The stores aren't necessarily closed, necessarily closed
except for because of a lack of tourism.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I was gonna say that that would be the only thing.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
It's the only thing that's changed. It is a lack
of tourism.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
But you think about it a Disney World, so it
would be open, but not there'd be a few people
there that are from America, but there'd be nobody from
from outside of Florida visiting that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
It would be like this is odd, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Great, great example. So it's business as usual there but that,
But there are children. We've we've been told, we were
told multiple times that you know, and I've got children.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
You have.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
You have a young daughter that still lives with you.
You imagine those conversations at night when you're putting her
down and she says, Daddy, you think the men will
come through my window tonight and steal me like they
did our cousins. And what do you what do you say?
I mean you can't say, well, I mean you can't
(12:16):
say truthfully, no, You could say, Daddy's got you don't
worry about those things because as long as you're with me,
I will do everything to protect you.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
You could say things like that, but you.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Can't say it's not going to happen. Every everyone we
talked to also said they just want peace, just want peace.
We don't want we don't want war. But then they
would usually finish it by saying, but if they keep
bombing us, or if they if they send rockets into
our neighborhood, or if if they come and want to
(12:52):
steal our children, we will bomb them, and we will
back the we will back our government that wants to
bomb you know, it's like, how do you disagree with that?
You and I have talked, you know, many times. We've
talked so much about this. Very rarely have we put
it on the podcast. Maybe maybe never, but we've kind
of used the analogy of like San Antonio, Texas and Mexico,
(13:16):
you know, with within proximity of each other. Imagine living
in San Antonio and Mexico is shooting rockets into the
neighborhood and eventually you'd go, let's do something about this. Yeah,
you know, you find a breaking point eventually, and there's
prosperity in San Antonio and there's property in Mexico. So
(13:38):
it's you kind of kind of see the same and
guess what. There was a there was a working government
system in San Antonio and there's a corrupt government in Mexico.
This is very similar and eventually if this happened. It
is not happening obviously, but if it did, eventually the
United States goes, We're going to blow Mexico off the
(13:59):
map if they keep tormenting our our civilians with their terrorism.
So that's kind of kind of what's going on. And
then and then to further complicate it, it's like the
US retaliates and there's casualties, there's civilian casualties in Mexico,
and the world sees it. This was this, This started
(14:21):
in Vietnam. This whole kind of idea started in Vietnam.
When the North Vietnamese where I was just reading about
this last night, they would they would take the downed pilots,
American pilots, torture, torture, torture, brainwashed, brainwash, brainwash, and they
would get them when they're totally brainwashed and like depleted
(14:44):
of food and everything, and they would get them to
read these statements on TV saying we want to apologize
on behalf of America for our war crimes, for intentionally
killing villages of people, and and it would blast it
out into modern media. This is the first time this
has ever happened, so to.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Say, if you say this, all this torture will end. Yeah,
we just need you to do this.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And after six months of being tortured, these sometimes these
American pilots would say they would be so out of
their minds they would read a statement pre written by
the North Vietnamese that says Americans were intentionally targeting civilians.
So this is not a new technique that Moss and
Hesbelah or have been using. Sure, So then I could
(15:32):
go I don't want to keep going too long. I
have you assigned to give us some modern updates on this.
And then I also want to go back and I
want to dive into the Palestinian side, because I'm not
taking a one hundred percent Israeli government side, nineteen forty
eight Israeli government side. So we're going to distinguish what
(15:55):
is the nineteen forty eight Israel? What is a biblical Israel?
How should Christ think about Israel? And the experience I
had in North Carolina with the IDF just a few weeks?
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Okay, yeah, so where.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Are we do? What are we dealing with now?
Speaker 4 (16:09):
There?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
You know, we take this, you know, not taking this
lightly at all that we are as as we stand
today here on October seventh, when we're recording this, there
is we have a president who has said enough is enough,
It's time. His original was, you know what, We're going
to take care of this. The Gaza is going to
(16:32):
become part of the United States. We are going, we're
gonna go in there, We're gonna we're gonna wipe it
down to the to the studs and the foundation and
start all over.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Like, Okay, maybe we shouldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
What if we did something maybe in between what's currently
happening and what you're proposing, and that's currently where we are.
Immediate ceasefire and halt of military operations is what has
been proposed, and the plan calls for a suspension of
all Israel attacks and a freezing of front lines to
allow for negotiations, and that seems to be what is
(17:05):
currently happening. Happening a hostage prisoner exchange. Within seventy two
hours of Israel's public acceptance, all of israel hostages, alive
or deceased, would be returned, and Israel would release two
hundred and fifty prisoners serving life sentences and about seventeen
(17:25):
hundred Palestinians held after October seventh of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Pod real quick, because there's also as you travel through Israel,
almost everywhere there are pictures of these hostages that are
still there, that are in Gaza, in Gaza, and it
has their picture and their age and their name and
their name.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
And what I think is important to understand about what
you were just saying is these are not military guys
that were taken. This is Jim, your next door neighbor,
his kid and their best friends went to the festival.
And it's his son and their best friend that are
the pictures on these signs because they were taken to
(18:09):
Gaza and are being hill captive.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And sometimes sometimes it's like a homosexual son or so,
I mean there was, there was. There was a level
of debauchery, which is why extreme Islamic terrorism targeted the
debauchery here. So yeah, it washn it might have been
John's homosexual son, could have been, could could have been.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
So the important part themportant distinction is it wasn't. It
wasn't somebody serving in the military. Far from the far
from it, far from like hanging.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Out yhoo, you know, chest pounders, I mean, far from that.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
The best way to kind of explain it is if
we know here in America would be Stagecoach in the
country world or Coachella in the non country world. That
is the festival that is happening and you talked to
when you were explaining how it's just kind of in
the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
That's what this wor festivals are.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
They're in the middle of nowhere with the stage or stages, right,
you know, a cl a little different inso the middle
of downtown Austin, but everything else all the other festivals
are just in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, And so the point we're to these people were
the party innocent in the in the in the war crime.
That's right, realm. I mean it's far from h being
anti Gaza or anti Palestinian.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
That wasn't even what they were.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
As you can possibly get. Your heart just breaks as
you see these pictures.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Part of this peace proposal would be a demilitarizing, demilitarizing
gaza of Gaza and disarmament.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Of a mass.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
This is really where it starts to get, I mean,
even more tricky than than what we can It's trying
to separate root from dirt. When it comes here, it's like, man,
this is going to be forever, and not even sure
we can do it without ripping some things apart. Weapons
would be placed permanently beyond use under supervision, possibly via
(20:03):
via a buy back or reintegration program. The plan also
envisions dismantling military infrastructures, including tunnels and arsenals. I think
this is the biggest hurdle in all of this is that,
I mean, you think about it as Americans and and
just kind of think about it as our point of
view of you know, uh Second Amendment, you know, gun
toning Americans. Well, they're asking what they want to do
(20:26):
to end this is for us to give up our guns.
Think if that's what they're thinking of the same thing, like, Okay,
we're about peace, but you're not getting our guns. And
I think that's where the issue that we're really going
to see in some of this. And unfortunately that could
that could mean you know, more drastic measures hopefully right now.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
That this this stays peaceful.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
There some other things transitional of government, of governance and
security structures. So Gaza would be governed by a transitional authority,
a government that is neither Israeli nor Palestinian or have
anything to do with a moss anything like that. It
would be and I'm not I don't know how you
find that Swiss, I mean, did they come in and
(21:07):
and govern this at that time? So that could be
a challenge as well. But that's the one after taking
a Canadians, Canadians could go do.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Redevelopment of Gaza is down the line here though, too,
but it's part of the Gaza would be redeveloped to
benefit the local population, restoring infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
And I even heard of it. I don't have it
in these notes, but even heard that.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
You know, it's also providing a place for Palestinians, not
just giving it all back to Israel.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
That's not the idea of Gaza now. It would be to.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Let's get let's let's take the military out of this
whole thing with bombs and arsenal and and and guns
and tanks, and let's get it back to normal people
and industrial life happening there again. You know, streets, returning electricity,
returning water working in right now, that all that's just
(22:01):
been completely destroyed. And the idea is to get it
back to a normal population and have a place where
Palestinians can live.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
That's seen this process.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I've seen Gaza with my own eyes. Probably few things
in my life have I seen that felt so empty
as seeing Gaza. It looks like Terminator the nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yeah, you know, the rebar sticking in.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, like Terminator two after Judgment Day type images, and
in real life it looks like nineteen forty five Berlin.
It just it looked to see something. To see buildings
that are but still tall, tall Rebbele buildings.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Everything but the elevator shaft is gone.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
It's just an awful and then you realize, oh, people
are still living there.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
So to cap this part of it off real quick
is that there is some conditionality and fallback mechanisms here.
If a mosque completely rejects or delays the proposal, certain elements,
especially aid and redevelopment in controlled zones would still move forward,
still proceed anyway under US and international auspices. Regional actors
(23:37):
would guarantee compliance, and there would be oversight mechanisms. That's
a fancy way of saying. We would have boots on
the ground there saying look at me, I'm the captain.
Now that's what I got out of that. You know,
(23:58):
they wouldn't be what currently is going on. It would
be it would be boys speaking English and yelling.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It's what I envision, which is exactly what happened to
Berlin after nineteen forty five when they built the wall
and communist Russia occupied one side, and you know that.
I just that has never gone well, like occupying urban cities.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
And it doesn't seem like that's not what this piece
the peace proposal, Like I said, you know, it started
off of that.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go forward taking
control and we're starting over.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Right, this was the compromise, and it's getting down to
the end of going. If you don't want to do
our compromise, we can always go back to the original thought.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Just leveling it. Yeah, that's still not off the table
that that would happen. I mean, there is no there
is no clear cut path on this in a human perspective,
with a human plan. If you're trying to get a
(25:08):
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(25:28):
It's pretty cool. Go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith.
So I also want to I want to talk about
my time in the West Bank. You spend a little
time in the West Bank as well. Yeah, and I
(25:49):
had many many conversations with people in the West Bank
and Palestinians. First of all, on a side note, the
Arab countries of the world don't want the Palestinians. So
in Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and all these countries
start start complaining about what's happening in Gaza. We could say,
(26:13):
you want them, you want the Palestinians, Noe Jordan doesn't
want them, Syria doesn't want them, Pakistan doesn't want them,
Iran doesn't want them. They want to fight for them,
but they don't want them.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
They want to fight for them to have their own place,
not to be and because.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
They hate Israel, right, you know, that's they want to
fight for them to because they hate Israel and and
by default they hate the United States. They don't want them.
They don't really, they don't love those people. The Palestinians
are looked down upon by every other Arab country. Saudis
looked down on them, you know, So We have spent
(26:49):
a lot of time in the West Bank, a lot
of homes, a lot of people, a lot of families,
and have been harbor. Can buy what has happened if
you're in the West Bank. After October seventh, twenty twenty
three three, Yeah, they closed the gates, they closed the
(27:15):
doors to Israel. Israel has for a long long time
provided utilities and water and more important than any electricity,
but more important than anything, they've provided jobs. People from
the West Bank go into Jerusalem and they work. They
(27:36):
go into Tel Aviv and they they have jobs, and
they work in tourism, they work in all kinds of
job sectors. Well, after October seven, twenty twenty three, they
shut the gates and said no one leaves here. So
if you had a job in Israel, you lost it.
But there's no jobs in the West Bank either. And
(27:59):
there's very very little food. We saw. We saw a
lot of homes that the only food they ate was
cucumbers or anything else they can grow in their yard
with the little water that they had, saving the seeds
(28:20):
and eating cucumbers or we asked one family they had
they had a two children. One of them, the little
boy was Maverick's age, and I asked the father. They
are a very proud people. But I asked the father,
when's the last time you had meat? And because there
(28:41):
are proud people, he didn't he didn't immediately answer. He
just stared right through me, you know, eyes glazed. And
I said six six months, sugar Head, seven months, eight months,
sugar said ten months, shrugged to show there's like maybe
maybe we had meat in our mouths ten months ago.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Now this was in September twenty four. Yeah, I don't think.
I don't think it's situations changed.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It's a year, almost a year after.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
What do you want? You know, Alice asking the Palestinians,
what do you want peace? I just want to take
care of my family. I just want to provide for
my family and whatever whatever that might take. So a
few weeks ago I was in North Carolina speaking at
a conference and they had invited an IDF soldier. He
(29:41):
reaches out to me on Instagram. His name is NOI.
You know why, great guy, Great guy. He DMed me
and he said, Grangeer, my name is NOI. I'm an
IDF soldier in Israel. I would love to meet you.
When we're at the conference, I said, great, you know,
(30:01):
you know, I've spent a lot of time with the idea.
So we go to this conference. It's a lot of politicians,
a lot of like turning point people, and I'm just
there to preach the Gospel's that's why I came. Preach
the gospel, and and then whatever the gospel does, it
goes out and it the gospel will when the heart
has changed and the gospel takes root, meaning when you've
(30:22):
trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, believing
that He died on the cross, was resurrected on the
third day and commands everyone to turn from their sin
and look to him, and you will be forgiven. When
that starts to take root in your heart, then you
could start aligning yourself to different political opinions, like well,
(30:43):
if that's the case, then I got to be against abortion.
If that's the case, then I need to be for
this and that and this that. So instead of taking
instead of saying that the gospel comes alongside a political view,
the gospel takes root and then political views are offshoots
of the already established changed heart. You know, that's that's
(31:04):
a big difference. Yeah, but that's what this conference. I
think the conference was more so just a lot like Jesus.
Jesus believes these things too. You know, Jesus is a
great advocate for the Republican Party. Like hold on second, Now,
what I'm talking about right here could be its own podcast,
so I'll say.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And it is part of one we're working on.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, Jesus is the king. He doesn't he's not an advocate,
he's not a partner with a political party.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
He's what everything else falls up here.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Everything falls under him and his rule and his sovereignty.
We submit to him, which I say, I say many times,
I said it at this conference. Jesus is not someone
that you accept in your heart. He is someone you
submit to as a king. You know, there's a big
difference difference accepting and submitting. So I meet NOI idea soldier,
(32:03):
Like I said, great guy, I said, why are you here?
Like they literally flew you from Tel Aviv to here today? Today?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
We know how long that is.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, that's a long flight. Yeah, And he said I'm
here's here to tell the truth. And I was like, great,
I love the truth. What's the truth? And he said,
the truth that that the Palestinians are evil. Basically, he
didn't say these exact words, but what's happening in Gaza
is justified by the Israeli government, and the Palestinians are
(32:39):
doing everything they can to kill us. And I was like, yeah,
tell me an example, and he said, well, I've been
in many houses in the West Bank and I've seen
the pamphlets that they all have on how to kill Jews.
I said, tell me more. He says, they have books
that say, here's here's how the most efficient way to
kill one Jew, here's how you killed two at the
(33:01):
same time. Even better, here's how you kill three. And
that's that's what all the houses have in them in
the West Bank. And I said, I looked him right
in the eye and said, well, not all the houses.
Then he goes, yeah, all the houses in the West Bank.
I said, but not all of them, and he goes, no,
(33:22):
all of them Greater. I said, I've been in many
this is the first time i've heard this. I said,
I'm not denying that there's hate. Sure, I'm not denying
the animosity. Where you not denying that you've actually seen
it yourself with your own eyes. Maybe many many many,
But what I am saying is I haven't seen it,
and I've been in many myself. So there's something, there's
(33:45):
a disconnect somewhere here. And I realized, and this is
not to take it anyway anything away from Noise. Very
convicted about these things, and he has seen horrors that
I can't imagine.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
But it would definitely shape his view of things of
the world.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yes, yeah, But what I quickly realized was that what's
happening truly is that it all boils down to people
want to be re elected in the US, and so
they want to bring people they could help them kind
of tote a certain line and help help kind of
reinforce some like yeah, we should go get God, we
(34:24):
should just demolish Gaza, which you know could happen. Yeah,
And so it was interesting to me. It was very
interesting because I just thought, Wow, and this entire conference,
probably the only other person besides NOI that's seen Gaza.
(34:45):
Everyone else is like just pumping out money while watching
video here in stories. I'm the only one that's actually
been there, and I didn't see this happening. And once again,
and I'm not I'm not, I am I'm a Christian here,
I'm not. I'm neither Jew nor Arab. I'm a I'm
(35:08):
a Christian by identity, by nature, by a new nature,
a new heart, and I'm want to get into that
here with a Bible. But I have seen evil, evil
on both sides, and my goal both times in Israel
was to seek out the lost and the ones that
(35:31):
are searching for the Lord, and to tell them of
the good News of the Gospel.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Regardless of Jew, Palestinian, regardless Entile.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I don't have I shouldn't have partiality. If I have partiality,
that would be a sin in me. It'd be a
sin if I was picking and choosing a human tribe
or group or tongue that I that I would choose
to hear the good news that's supposed to go to
all nations, that would be a horrible sin. I would
(36:00):
want to answer to the Lord that why did you
pick this? Was this an easier route for you, Granger? No,
but I did see evil on both sides, and I
did see a complete misrepresentation of Israel when we came
back here. I remember coming back here and one of
the men that I met there in Israel said on
(36:21):
signal messenger he said, Hey, you're going to hear some
news of a convoy that was going into Gaza, And
I'll tell you I was on this convoy and we
went in two trucks with food supplies and medicine into
Gaza and we got overwhelmed by Hamas with guns, and
(36:45):
as we were stopped engaging Hamas, civilians from all over
Gaza rushed the trucks to get food. Hamas opened fire
and we had to get out fast, and some people
were injured as we were back our trucks out trying
to get out of the crowd as they were opening
up rocket fire on us. What did I hear in
(37:05):
the news? Literally the next day Israel has a mass killing,
opens fire, opens fire against civilians in Gaza that we're
just trying to get food.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Ran over those. But yeah, exactly, oh man, oh man.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Okay, should we to.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Wow as Christians, as Americans? What should we think?
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I really think about this? Yeah, it's a very complicated.
Well let me tell you, let me tell you what
I I'm sitting here with the Bible right now. What
are you having?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
We're like, what if we what if we just chatted
for like twenty minutes and good then we were forty
minutes in and I love it.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I mean, and I think, hey, man and I were like,
we should have a shorter podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
What if we just you know, jumped into this and no,
I think this is what you're about to read too,
is all Listen?
Speaker 4 (37:57):
We say this every time. Is that we don't ever
just leave.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
We could have hit stop and it would have been
a great podcast, right there been? Okay, wow, well great stories. Man,
I don't know what to think about this. Well, how
about this? The word talks about Israel and talks about
I mean, obviously it does, but it helps shape of
how what our view should be of what Israel is
(38:22):
today and what our role should be in support and
what have you.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So I'm going to say our view, and I'm talking
about you and me, Man, you and me, because there
are different views and evangelical Christianity about Israel, and these
are There are men and women that I have mad
(38:47):
respect for that will have a different view of Israel
and that does not have anything to do with salvation.
It doesn't have anything to do with them being a
brother or a sister of mine in Christ that I
will embrace an eternity in paradise with Christ that these
are second, third, fourth, fifth tier issues that just are
(39:10):
just it's not the Gospel. So to view Israel differently
as a Christian, maybe we should start the whole thing
with this, this idea, how do Christians think about Israel. Well, first, however,
you view Israel as a Christian as long as it's
secondary to the Gospel. This should this shouldn't bring disunity.
(39:31):
We should be able to have good discussions, uh and disagree,
but have good solid discussions based on the Bible. So
here's some major theories that the one major theory about
how Christians should view Israel, it's called the replacement theory.
And this is the idea that Israel does not exist anymore.
The Church is the new Israel. The Church has replaced Israel.
(39:55):
It's called the replacement theory.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
And when you when you you say that because we
interchange Israel a lot, is that not talking about the
government of Israel of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
It's all in it's still kind of bound up in
there because people sure it is. But there are certain
people that think that Israel the nineteen forty eight version
is the old Israel. And so in all all everything
that has to do with Israel. Yeah, And the replacement
theory says that the ethnic Jews, the Old Covenant promises,
(40:27):
all of them are now null. They are null and
void because the Church is the substitute. Is the replacement
of it.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Okay, being old Old Covenant and New Covenant.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, Old Covenant and New Covenant are separate.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Old Covenant has been fulfilled. New Covenant is with Christ,
and that is.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Are we are. In the replacement theory, we are Israel
because of our lineage of faith back to Abraham, and
those that have rejected Christ are now cut off from
that lineage and there is no more Israel.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Now.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
It is all the Church, right, and that's a uppercase
see church. That's the universal Church that all you know,
the all the evangelical denominations are lowercase see churches. The
opposite of this is called dispensationalism, or sometimes dispensational dualism.
(41:26):
This means that the church in Israel remain entirely separate
in people groups, very distinct destinies. One is earthly Israel
and the other is heavenly Church. That's a very crude
way to say it, but dispensationalism you'll see this a
lot in Pentecostals, Charismatics. You'll see it a lot in
(41:50):
Calvary Chapel, King James only people. There's a kind of
a consistency with dispensational dualism, which is why typically you
see more tours of Israel coming from churches that are
dispensational because they're going Israel. Is Israel matters. They are
(42:10):
still God's The Jews are God's chosen people, and God
will ultimately redeem them. He has a plan for them
separate from our plan as Christians. Once again, this is
a crude way of saying. These two, these two the
replacement theory and dispensationalism. I am going to say, you
and I fall in the middle.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
Yeah, and I completely agree. Yeah. And that's why I
want you to know.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
That's why I feel comfortable with Granger saying what we believe,
because We've had off these mics, had conversations, and I'm
like I kind of fall in the yeah, and so
do I And what but then also what about this?
And and we'll kind of talk through some of that,
but that is definitely the overarching is this and that
and this?
Speaker 1 (42:53):
So what what where we fall is that? And what
we believe the Bible says and teaches in our churches
as well, is that there is no old and new.
It's true Jesus is the true Israel, which is meaning
(43:14):
Christ himself, the Messiah, the son of God, is the
obedient son who succeeds in every place where the where
Israel failed as humans, flawed, sinful humans. And we see
the entire Old Testament, we see that that Israel is
(43:34):
referred to as I mean, Israel is a name. It
comes from Jacob, who was the first one that God
named Israel, and it's always looked upon as as God's son,
so God's son. And actually, actually, you know what Exodus.
(43:55):
If we go to Exodus for let make sure I've
got my bible marked her Exodus four twenty two says
that more specific Exodus. Here we are. So so then
(44:22):
then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord,
Israel is my first born son. And I say to you,
let my son go that he may serve me. If
you refuse this, this is God through Moses talking to Pharaoh.
If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will
(44:45):
kill your first born son. So this is the Exodus.
This is leading up to Passover where in this moment
God says Israel, and he's talking about the people is
Israel is my son. They they I love them, and
(45:05):
you will let them go, or I will kill your
firstborn son. And this leads into the past. So the
very first passover where the people of Israel were commanded
by the Lord through Moses to mark their dwelling places,
their houses with the blood of a spotless lamb. And
they needed to mark their doors on the side of
(45:27):
the doors and on the top the lintel on the top,
they needed to wipe it with the blood's lamb, and
they needed to eat the lamb in the house. This
is the first Passover. Eat the lamb and put the
blood on the door. If you if you are marked
by the blood of the spotless lamb, and you have
eaten this flesh, then the Destroyer, the Angel of the
(45:50):
Lord that's passing over that night, that that's coming that
night to destroy you and all the first born of Egypt.
If you're marked by this blood your household, not if
you're a good person, not if you do this and that,
if you're marked by the blood of a spotless lamb,
the Angel of the Lord, the Destroyer will pass over
your house and spare you because you're covered by the blood.
(46:15):
Now this is all pointing towards the Son of God, Jesus,
the Messiah, the Christ, the True Israel, the one who
did not fail, the one who as the Israelites. The
Sun comes through the red seas, the Sea's party, it
(46:36):
comes through the waters, and Jesus comes through the waters
of Baptism with John the Baptist and the Jordan River,
and he redeems the people, and he got where they
went for forty years into the wilderness. And Jesus goes
for forty days into the wilderness and fast without and
he's tempted by Satan, and he passes the test. Israel
(46:56):
is tempted in the forty years, and they fail to
test every step along the way where they the people
of Israel failed, And the true Son, the True Israel,
past even into the Book of Judges. We were just
talking about this in a men's retreat that we had
at our church. The Book of Judges got the Israel
(47:17):
continues to fail God and be disobedient, and so God
appoints judges among the people. And every time God appoints
a judge, that people are reconciled back to God. And
when I say judge, I'm not talking about like a judge, judy,
or someone sitting with a robe, you know, behind a desk.
We're talking about I'm basically a military leader. So the
(47:38):
judge that God would appoint is a military leader that
would bring the people, gather them back to the Lord,
and destroy their inner their enemies.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
And this.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Every time that the judge did this, the people were restored.
But then the judge would die because they're fragile and
they're human, or they would fail and sin, and the
people would just go right back.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
To their word ways.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Not until that happened, until the true judge was appointed
Christ who in Acts ten just read this morning. Peter
is speaking here and says that he has commanded us
to preach to the people and testify that he is
the one appointed by God to be the judge of
(48:25):
the living and the dead. To him, all the prophets
the Old Testament bear witness that everyone who believes in
him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So Jesus became.
He fulfilled everything in the Old Testament, including the judges.
He's now the perfect judge, the guy we were with
this weekend we were talking to he said, Jesus is
(48:48):
the Prince of peace. He ushers in perfect peace. But
not because he's a pacifist, but because he's the perfect
military leader, totally wiping out the enemy. Sure, so much
so that it ushers in perfect peace. There's no more
there's no more problems, there's no more sin, there's no
(49:09):
more there's no more enemy at all, so much so
that the Book of Revelation talks about heaven and talks
about the City of God. The gates are open because
there's no more enemy. Yeah, there's no need to close
the gates when you have a perfect judge. In the
Book of Judges in the Bible, God always told them
destroy the enemy, and they always missed it. They always
(49:32):
didn't fulfill it perfectly. Until Christ Christ becomes the perfect Israel,
the true Israel. And so what what does that mean
for us? Well, those that are united in Christ through
repentance and faith, acquired His identity. One number one, we
(49:54):
require we acquire righteousness given imputed to us, like credited
into our account. We are bankrupt. It takes righteousness to
get into Heaven. You must be righteous everywhere in the
Bible says, you must be righteous?
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Are you righteous through Him? Not on my own?
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Am I?
Speaker 4 (50:14):
No? No?
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Not on my own? Through Him. So we are credited
into our bankrupt account righteousness, and we're credited identity in
every way in Christ Paul calls it. We are. In
Galatians six sixteen, Paul says, we are the Israel of God.
We are the sons and daughters of the King. Not
(50:39):
because we've earned it, and not because of a bloodline,
but because through faith, by God's grace, we take on Christ,
the perfect, true Israel's identity. And so because of that
we belong as God's people. We are Israel because of
(50:59):
the identity we get from Christ, right the Messiah. So
this is not the Church doesn't replace Israel, and the
Church isn't separate from Israel. Christ is the true Israel.
And because He's the true Israel, we take on his identity.
Then that takes us to a very troubling place. If
you want to say what I just said, that takes
(51:20):
us to a mystery. You know where I'm going right now.
Speaker 4 (51:24):
In Romans Romans, chapter eleven, Romans.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Eleven, here it is in my Bible. The subheading and
verse twenty five of Romans eleven says, the mystery of
Israel's salvation. So there's the section in here. Let you
be what lest you be wise in your own sight.
I do not want you to be unaware of the mystery. Brothers.
(51:49):
A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness
of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way
all of Israel will be saved. This is I believe
it is what it is. It is a mystery, as
Paul says. And so this is why I kind of
stand in the middle of between replacement theory and dispensationalism dualism.
(52:11):
There is there is a component to this that we
can't possibly understand. But here's what we know. And then
I'm gonna shut up, Anthony. Here's what we know. No
one comes to the Father, but through Jesus, all who
have the Son have life. Whoever does not have the
Son does not have life, but the wrath of God
(52:34):
remains upon him. John three point thirty six. The entire
New Testament and the entire Old Testament points towards salvation
through the Anointed One, which is what Messiah means, the
anointed one of God. We know in the New Testament.
As we see this revealed back all the Old Testament
(52:56):
points to the New Testament and says here he is,
if you do not have the Son, you will not
be saved. You will not see the Father apart from
the Son. So whatever the mystery of the of the
salvation of Israel is, whatever, that grafting is the grafting
in whatever, they must go through Christ. They will not
(53:19):
make it in a back door or a side window.
They must go through the judge. That's any people, any people, including.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Jews, including Jews.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
That I talked to him. What are we at time with?
Speaker 4 (53:34):
No, that's fifty three. We're good.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Okay, this is great. Okay. I asked you before we
started recording. I said, well, you make sure that I
don't start talking over somebody.
Speaker 4 (53:47):
Yeah, and I don't think you have. I think I think.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
And that's what I've been listening for too, is do
we need explanation on any of this? You explained it
very well, and especially going back to the Old Testament,
going back to Exodus, going back to the Passover, going
back to like it's just if you want to know,
and we're talking about here in Romans, what is the
mystery the mystery is that is that it's fulfilled in him.
(54:16):
Everything that you wonder about, are concerned about, is fulfilled
in Christ. You just said it. I mean the whole
day is Israel is the first Son of God.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
We want you to let him go. And because you haven't,
I'm going to kill your first born.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
Yes, and he is?
Speaker 4 (54:37):
He is?
Speaker 3 (54:38):
He's who is Jesus, the Son of God. And you
want to know who Israel is and how to differentiate
between the Israel of the Bible and the Israel of
twenty twenty five or nineteen forty eight, And what I
mean by that is because that's when Israel was declared
a nation once again, was in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 4 (54:59):
What's the difference between them all?
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Well, Jesus, like you, you so diligently illustrated it, and
I'm butchering now. I apologize, but I feel that it
it makes sense that it is. The mystery is how
could one man be at all that? If there's any mystery,
that's it, but to know that it's all fulfilled in him.
(55:24):
Everything that you wonder about Israel is that the Israel
of Bible, ors of the Israel forty eight, or is
the Israel twenty twenty five. Benjamin Nett Yahoo is on
the thumbnail of this of this podcast.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
It's all him, Yeah, it's all in him.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
So thinking about that Passover incident in Exodus, when John
the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, behold the Lamb of God.
There is the lamb.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
Yep, that's it.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
There's the lamp the sin of the world, not of
the Jews, not of the Gentiles, not of the Palestinians,
not of the elite or the pool were.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Yeah, the world, the world. And there's so much depth
there too, because Jesus was born in Bethlehem. That's the
place where the lambs, the spotless lambs were taken from
those fields in Bethlehem for centuries, taken to Jerusalem and
(56:20):
put on the altar and sacrifice. Those spotless lambs that
were continuing the tradition of the Passover were brought from Bethlehem,
the same place where the Lamb of God capital l
was also born.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
And then Revelation five. We talked about it before, but
the big revelation of John with the lamb worthy to
be praised in Revelation. It's incredible.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I think that there might be some people that have
gotten this far, who made it all way to the
end and went, I don't know if you answered the question.
Rewatch it and listen again, because it will click and
it might not be today.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
You know, it might be you. Maybe you can.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Watch this again in a month or when something else
happens in Israel. Like I remember there was that podcast
with Granger about Israel and how we should feel about them,
what we should think about them, and what what was
that again? I remember that being something that spoke to me,
and I'm not really sure what it was.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Watch this again, great point, and I want to look
at something. I'm want to look at something else. I'm
trying to think. Sometimes I move so fast when where
in the world is it?
Speaker 4 (57:33):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (57:42):
I think it's in Yes, yeah, here it is, yes, yes, yes,
Joshua five. I love it when that happens. Yeah, Okay,
listen to this. I'm gonna highlight that or drop my pen.
Speaker 3 (57:53):
That's in your book, it's in your Bible. I just
have it as a marker right now.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
And Joshua five, and this will this will help wrap
up what you just said in an inter a question.
The people of Israel have now after all the forty
years that we talked about, they've now under the command
of Joshua. Moses is Dad. Under the command of Joshua,
they are taken over the Jordan River into their land
that they are given. It just happens to be the
(58:20):
same geographic land that the current Israel has now, yes,
which is very specific in its in its geographic borders.
They move in and the the they're moving into Jericho.
They're going to take Jericho, okay, And Jericho is a
mighty city with a mighty wall around it, and they're
(58:43):
gonna they're going to destroy these people, the people of Israel,
to take to take the promised land given to them.
Side note Reyhab the prostitute is in Jericho, and the
spies go in and they meet the prostitute and she says,
I know you men are from the Lord, the True God.
(59:06):
And they said, if you hide us from your people,
we will save you and all your.
Speaker 4 (59:12):
Household And she says, anybody inside.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
Anybody here, and she says, I believe I will hide you.
And so the tire they tie a ribbon on her
on the outside of her window, and Israel comes in
and they wipe out Jericho right but they save her
and her household, a prostitute, a non Jew, and she
(59:36):
ends up in the lineage of the Christ. She if
you look at Matthew in the first chapter, she's in
the She's a descendant. She's in the lineage of Jesus,
a non Jew, a gentile, a dog to them. So
that this has nothing to do with ethnicity. Here, there's
nothing to do with race. Race is a human construct.
(59:58):
But that's not my point. Oh, it's something else. My
point is Joshua chapter five, in the setting of this
whole going to take on Jericho thing. Look at verse thirteen.
When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold a man was standing before him
with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went
(01:00:21):
to him and said, are you for us or for
our adversaries? And he said no, but I am. I
am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now
I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to
the earth and worshiped and said to him, what does
(01:00:43):
the Lord say to his servant? So the point here
is what does God say about the Palestinians and the
nineteen forty eight government the net and Yahoo government of
Israel and all this fighting. And when we say, as Christians,
will we say what side are you on? God? Are
you on the side of the Palestinians or on the
(01:01:03):
side of Israel? God says, no, I'm on my side.
You know that is? That is this is the most
interesting thing right there. In verse it's a long chance.
It's a long verse. Thirteen are you for us or
for our adversaries? And fourteen he says no, neither, No, Yeah,
(01:01:29):
don't pick that side. Yeah, the Lord, the Lord has
his side and it's not yours. It's not what you think,
right right, oh man? And part of that you could
look and see what happens, and part of it is
Rahab's in there is God going to go, I'm for you,
(01:01:51):
I'm not for Jericho. What about Reeb and and all
of our family that end up being the in the
heritage of the I'm not don't.
Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I don't pick sides like you do. Man, Yep, Joshua,
not the same. I'm not. I don't. I don't pick
sides like you do. I have higher I have higher
thoughts than you.
Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
Yeah, so good, so good.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Maybe this has been fun, This is fun podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
Yeah, I agree, they always are.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Yeah, because they're not that we don't have them like itemized.
Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
Yeah, here's everything.
Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
We got to be sure and hit and then when
we hit that last one, we're done.
Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
God, where are you going to take it?
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Have fun of it, all right, appreciate your brother. Thank y'all. Gee,
thank you so much for hanging out with me on
this episode of the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate you being here.
If you're listening right now, go ahead and rate today's podcast.
It helps more folks find the show. And if you're
tuning in on the iHeartRadio app, you could actually set
this podcast as one of your presets, which is cool
(01:02:53):
that way. I'm just one tap away. If you're watching
on YouTube, don't forget to hit like and subscribe so
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a question you want answered right here on the show,
just email me podcast at grangersmith dot com. I'd love
to hear from you. Thanks again for being here. We'll
see you next time. Ye u
As Christians? How should we feel about Israel? So much
in the news, we hear about Gaza, we hear about bombings,
we hear about terrorism, we hear about corrupt governments. With
that now and Yahoo, how do we think about this
as Christians? It's complicated when we're about.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
To get into Okay, this is an episode we've been
wanting to do for a while.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We've kind of had to put it off a little bit.
We could have We could have done it last year,
We could have done it two years ago. Because as
we sit here and record this today is October seventh,
twenty twenty five, and were.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Years ago you had you had a trip planned to Israel.
Then this happened, and the plan still happened, but it
turned into a missionary trip versus a tourist trip.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's right when and we went. We ended up going
in February of twenty four, and then and then I
want to get Intember of twenty four, all pushed back
because of what happened on this day two years ago,
the invasion of the terrorist into the music festival in
southern Israel. Since then, you and I both been to
(01:16):
that place or did you go to that place?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
No, you didn't. I didn't go to the place. You
went there in September.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
We didn't, right it went to the festival. It is
a I record. I recorded a little episode for the
Smiths on that. But it is a very sobering place.
The festival site, they have trees planted, such an Israel
(01:42):
thing to plant trees. But they have a tree plant
for every one.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Lost and on the site.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
On the site, so one day years from now, if
it stands, there'll be a forest.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Then every tree has a tag with the person's name.
So in the place, this festival site in southern Israel,
it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, so it's quiet.
So when you walk through there, you just kind of
hear the wind and the birds and you walk in
between these small trees. Each tree is probably ten foot
(02:20):
tall and a couple of inches in diameter. Right now,
it's I saw it. I walked through there September of
twenty four, so I'm sure even now the trees are grown.
But when I saw it would it was cleaned. They
had they had planted all the trees. They had created
(02:42):
kind of a memorial that it is very much like
many memorials. I think I even said this when I
was there. It's like I've been to many memorials in
my life, everything from Gettysburg to Ground zero nine to eleven,
to some of the great Ormandy, some of the great
World War two battles. Pearl Harbor should have been a
(03:09):
bunch of I've been to a lot of these around
the world, and this one had a different feeling, partly
because it was so fresh, and partly because the war
was still going on a couple miles away. Yeah, we
were at that site. It's just a couple miles from Gaza,
(03:29):
So you're there just kind of remembering and seeing the memorial,
but you also can hear rumblings from Gaza two miles away.
Ay reminder that it's still going on, And to this
day it's still going on as we record this. There
were bunkers in all of Israel. You've seen it. There
(03:51):
are either if you have a house in Israel right now,
you have a bomb shelter in your house. If you
had a part of an apartment, there are there's always
signs to the bomb shelter in the apartment. If you're
at a grocery store, there are signs kind of like
we have in in in East Texas, there's signs to
the hurricane shelter. In Central Texas and Oklahoma there and
(04:14):
Kansas there's there's a tornado shelter. In Israel, there's the
bomb shelter. It's just a part of life.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Your vrb O more than likely has a bomb shelter
in it.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, so we you and I rented an airbnb in Galilee, right.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
On the sea Galilee, and it had a bomb shelter.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
And Amber and I, you know, went with this is
before I had kind of realized this was going on.
We were like, okay, it was just a house and
all of us were crashing in the same house, like okay,
you take this room, hit man, you take you canna
take this and this guy's gonna take this room. And
Amber are like, well, we'll take this room. Go in there.
I go to shut the door and it's it's like
eight inches thick concrete. I'm like, what in the And
(04:54):
it's got a latch on it, Like why did I
pick the the the bank safe to and that's what
it looked like. I was like, oh, I see what
this is. Yeah, and it slowly realized all the places
have these.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
And if that's not something like we don't think about that.
You know, Typically our shelters I think of tornado shelters
growing up in Oklahoma is that it's either in the
backyard and it's something you go to to get in,
or if it's part of your house, it's out in
the garage and it's a hole in the floor underneath
the which I always thought was weird. Underneath the car.
You have to back the car out in the middle
of the tornado to get in it. And that's usually.
(05:29):
But this was just a room, a room that you
operate out of every single day, has a bathroom in it,
has the bed, has the dresser, and then an eight
inch the door.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah. So back to the festival site, they had just
like this. They had the shelters and out there at
a festival there are concrete bunkers. I have seen very
similar ones in my time in music tour in Iraq.
Everywhere you went any rock Iraq or irock Iraq. Which
(06:01):
one should I say.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Depends on the sentence.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I think that's what you just did.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
The shelters are concrete bunkers that got They kind of
looked like like American construction barriers stacked on top of
each other, and let me pause for a second and
just say, what an amazing freedom that we don't comprehend
(06:27):
here in America. That we don't know what it's like
to have a concrete bunker in our neighborhood. Yeah, we
don't think about that. But anyway, these bunkers in southern Israel,
we win in them, and they have become memorials because
(06:47):
what happened was people ran just like you're supposed to do.
They ran to the protection bunkers, and the terrorists followed
them in there and mowed them down with machine guns.
These are pretty small, maybe ten I walked in on there,
like ten feet by eight feet, and they would put
(07:12):
fifty or sixty people. They would pile The people were
just trying to squeeze in there to get out of
the I mean, people are parachuting and coming in from
hang gliders or whatever those things were. They were just
trying to get away. They were squeezing in there, fifty
or sixty people in a eight x ten shelter, and
one man with a machine gun would just mow them
(07:33):
all down, all of them, just bodies piled in there.
And so now you walk in there and it's full
of bullet holes all in the concrete inside there, and
then the whole floor is maybe we could even put
a picture of that up here right here in this
if you're watching a video. But the whole floor is
(07:55):
little candles and pictures and notes and letters, and it's
just heartbreaking because of to be in such a small,
confined space with so many deaths, which is the it's
(08:15):
it's horrible that if you think about what does that
remind you of? When I say it that way, what
is when the last time in history we could think
of small spaces with lots of death in the space
the Holocaust. Yeah, so there were many of these bunkers
and we would stop at them and and it's just
it's you just feel you feel it. You you walk
(08:36):
in there and it's quiet, and you think of the
chaos you think. You hear stories I spent, I spent
I would say, a significant time speaking to soldiers. Do
you have soldiers? By the way, you're listening to the
podcast right now, you might think you know what the
(08:57):
direction of this podcast is. And I don't think you
know the direction I'm going with this, But I'm building
the story. I'm trying to build some credibility here you too,
and discussing a topic that's pretty heavy. But I've spent
a significant time with IDF soldiers both in and around Gaza,
going into Gaza and all the kibbutz around Gaza, and
(09:22):
then I also spend time with them up north where
Hesbial is on the Syrian border and in the mountains,
and then everywhere else in Israel, especially concentrated in Jerusalem.
There's just I mean, these kids, they're kids, man, they
are a lot of times you've got guys that are
(09:42):
being commissioned girls they're like seventeen years old putting on
those uniforms.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And it gets home when you have I mean, you
have a fourteen year old now, yeah, of a twenty
two year old. So any you know, any in that
age and that are close to you, and you go,
oh wow, these are the kids that are that are
putting on uniforms and not a fourteen year old, but
we're getting close right and putting on uniforms and grabbing
a gun and going out to to help defend against
(10:09):
stuff like this.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So we saw you, and I you, we saw you.
Remember that coffee shop we went to in Lower Galilee
where they it was what's the name of that awesome
coffee place that's everywhere there? Oh, man, aroma aroma?
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Is it aroma aroma?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
We're in an Aroma and there's those ladies there. It's
the Starbucks of Israel, but it's a lot better coffee. Agreed,
there were there were the ladies there, and Amber talked
to him. Remember this, Yeah, and their husbands were deployed
and they had been living in an apartment in a
hotel room, and they had their kids in their hotel room.
(10:54):
It's been like five months, six months or something crazy
like that, and you just don't you don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Yeah, four and a half five months by that time.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
The children, we're scared. Let me say first of all,
two that life in Israel is just rolling on it.
They're just it's just life is as usual there. They
haven't stopped. Uh. The stores aren't necessarily closed, necessarily closed
except for because of a lack of tourism.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I was gonna say that that would be the only thing.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
It's the only thing that's changed. It is a lack
of tourism.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
But you think about it a Disney World, so it
would be open, but not there'd be a few people
there that are from America, but there'd be nobody from
from outside of Florida visiting that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
It would be like this is odd, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Great, great example. So it's business as usual there but that,
But there are children. We've we've been told, we were
told multiple times that you know, and I've got children.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
You have.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
You have a young daughter that still lives with you.
You imagine those conversations at night when you're putting her
down and she says, Daddy, you think the men will
come through my window tonight and steal me like they
did our cousins. And what do you what do you say?
I mean you can't say, well, I mean you can't
(12:16):
say truthfully, no, You could say, Daddy's got you don't
worry about those things because as long as you're with me,
I will do everything to protect you.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
You could say things like that, but you.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Can't say it's not going to happen. Every everyone we
talked to also said they just want peace, just want peace.
We don't want we don't want war. But then they
would usually finish it by saying, but if they keep
bombing us, or if they if they send rockets into
our neighborhood, or if if they come and want to
(12:52):
steal our children, we will bomb them, and we will
back the we will back our government that wants to
bomb you know, it's like, how do you disagree with that?
You and I have talked, you know, many times. We've
talked so much about this. Very rarely have we put
it on the podcast. Maybe maybe never, but we've kind
of used the analogy of like San Antonio, Texas and Mexico,
(13:16):
you know, with within proximity of each other. Imagine living
in San Antonio and Mexico is shooting rockets into the
neighborhood and eventually you'd go, let's do something about this. Yeah,
you know, you find a breaking point eventually, and there's
prosperity in San Antonio and there's property in Mexico. So
(13:38):
it's you kind of kind of see the same and
guess what. There was a there was a working government
system in San Antonio and there's a corrupt government in Mexico.
This is very similar and eventually if this happened. It
is not happening obviously, but if it did, eventually the
United States goes, We're going to blow Mexico off the
(13:59):
map if they keep tormenting our our civilians with their terrorism.
So that's kind of kind of what's going on. And
then and then to further complicate it, it's like the
US retaliates and there's casualties, there's civilian casualties in Mexico,
and the world sees it. This was this, This started
(14:21):
in Vietnam. This whole kind of idea started in Vietnam.
When the North Vietnamese where I was just reading about
this last night, they would they would take the downed pilots,
American pilots, torture, torture, torture, brainwashed, brainwash, brainwash, and they
would get them when they're totally brainwashed and like depleted
(14:44):
of food and everything, and they would get them to
read these statements on TV saying we want to apologize
on behalf of America for our war crimes, for intentionally
killing villages of people, and and it would blast it
out into modern media. This is the first time this
has ever happened, so to.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Say, if you say this, all this torture will end. Yeah,
we just need you to do this.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And after six months of being tortured, these sometimes these
American pilots would say they would be so out of
their minds they would read a statement pre written by
the North Vietnamese that says Americans were intentionally targeting civilians.
So this is not a new technique that Moss and
Hesbelah or have been using. Sure, So then I could
(15:32):
go I don't want to keep going too long. I
have you assigned to give us some modern updates on this.
And then I also want to go back and I
want to dive into the Palestinian side, because I'm not
taking a one hundred percent Israeli government side, nineteen forty
eight Israeli government side. So we're going to distinguish what
(15:55):
is the nineteen forty eight Israel? What is a biblical Israel?
How should Christ think about Israel? And the experience I
had in North Carolina with the IDF just a few weeks?
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Okay, yeah, so where.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Are we do? What are we dealing with now?
Speaker 4 (16:09):
There?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
You know, we take this, you know, not taking this
lightly at all that we are as as we stand
today here on October seventh, when we're recording this, there
is we have a president who has said enough is enough,
It's time. His original was, you know what, We're going
to take care of this. The Gaza is going to
(16:32):
become part of the United States. We are going, we're
gonna go in there, We're gonna we're gonna wipe it
down to the to the studs and the foundation and
start all over.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Like, Okay, maybe we shouldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
What if we did something maybe in between what's currently
happening and what you're proposing, and that's currently where we are.
Immediate ceasefire and halt of military operations is what has
been proposed, and the plan calls for a suspension of
all Israel attacks and a freezing of front lines to
allow for negotiations, and that seems to be what is
(17:05):
currently happening. Happening a hostage prisoner exchange. Within seventy two
hours of Israel's public acceptance, all of israel hostages, alive
or deceased, would be returned, and Israel would release two
hundred and fifty prisoners serving life sentences and about seventeen
(17:25):
hundred Palestinians held after October seventh of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Pod real quick, because there's also as you travel through Israel,
almost everywhere there are pictures of these hostages that are
still there, that are in Gaza, in Gaza, and it
has their picture and their age and their name and
their name.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
And what I think is important to understand about what
you were just saying is these are not military guys
that were taken. This is Jim, your next door neighbor,
his kid and their best friends went to the festival.
And it's his son and their best friend that are
the pictures on these signs because they were taken to
(18:09):
Gaza and are being hill captive.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And sometimes sometimes it's like a homosexual son or so,
I mean there was, there was. There was a level
of debauchery, which is why extreme Islamic terrorism targeted the
debauchery here. So yeah, it washn it might have been
John's homosexual son, could have been, could could have been.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
So the important part themportant distinction is it wasn't. It
wasn't somebody serving in the military. Far from the far
from it, far from like hanging.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Out yhoo, you know, chest pounders, I mean, far from that.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
The best way to kind of explain it is if
we know here in America would be Stagecoach in the
country world or Coachella in the non country world. That
is the festival that is happening and you talked to
when you were explaining how it's just kind of in
the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
That's what this wor festivals are.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
They're in the middle of nowhere with the stage or stages, right,
you know, a cl a little different inso the middle
of downtown Austin, but everything else all the other festivals
are just in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, And so the point we're to these people were
the party innocent in the in the in the war crime.
That's right, realm. I mean it's far from h being
anti Gaza or anti Palestinian.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
That wasn't even what they were.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
As you can possibly get. Your heart just breaks as
you see these pictures.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Part of this peace proposal would be a demilitarizing, demilitarizing
gaza of Gaza and disarmament.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Of a mass.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
This is really where it starts to get, I mean,
even more tricky than than what we can It's trying
to separate root from dirt. When it comes here, it's like, man,
this is going to be forever, and not even sure
we can do it without ripping some things apart. Weapons
would be placed permanently beyond use under supervision, possibly via
(20:03):
via a buy back or reintegration program. The plan also
envisions dismantling military infrastructures, including tunnels and arsenals. I think
this is the biggest hurdle in all of this is that,
I mean, you think about it as Americans and and
just kind of think about it as our point of
view of you know, uh Second Amendment, you know, gun
toning Americans. Well, they're asking what they want to do
(20:26):
to end this is for us to give up our guns.
Think if that's what they're thinking of the same thing, like, Okay,
we're about peace, but you're not getting our guns. And
I think that's where the issue that we're really going
to see in some of this. And unfortunately that could
that could mean you know, more drastic measures hopefully right now.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
That this this stays peaceful.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
There some other things transitional of government, of governance and
security structures. So Gaza would be governed by a transitional authority,
a government that is neither Israeli nor Palestinian or have
anything to do with a moss anything like that. It
would be and I'm not I don't know how you
find that Swiss, I mean, did they come in and
(21:07):
and govern this at that time? So that could be
a challenge as well. But that's the one after taking
a Canadians, Canadians could go do.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Redevelopment of Gaza is down the line here though, too,
but it's part of the Gaza would be redeveloped to
benefit the local population, restoring infrastructure.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
And I even heard of it. I don't have it
in these notes, but even heard that.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
You know, it's also providing a place for Palestinians, not
just giving it all back to Israel.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
That's not the idea of Gaza now. It would be to.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Let's get let's let's take the military out of this
whole thing with bombs and arsenal and and and guns
and tanks, and let's get it back to normal people
and industrial life happening there again. You know, streets, returning electricity,
returning water working in right now, that all that's just
(22:01):
been completely destroyed. And the idea is to get it
back to a normal population and have a place where
Palestinians can live.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
That's seen this process.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I've seen Gaza with my own eyes. Probably few things
in my life have I seen that felt so empty
as seeing Gaza. It looks like Terminator the nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yeah, you know, the rebar sticking in.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, like Terminator two after Judgment Day type images, and
in real life it looks like nineteen forty five Berlin.
It just it looked to see something. To see buildings
that are but still tall, tall Rebbele buildings.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Everything but the elevator shaft is gone.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
It's just an awful and then you realize, oh, people
are still living there.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
So to cap this part of it off real quick
is that there is some conditionality and fallback mechanisms here.
If a mosque completely rejects or delays the proposal, certain elements,
especially aid and redevelopment in controlled zones would still move forward,
still proceed anyway under US and international auspices. Regional actors
(23:37):
would guarantee compliance, and there would be oversight mechanisms. That's
a fancy way of saying. We would have boots on
the ground there saying look at me, I'm the captain.
Now that's what I got out of that. You know,
(23:58):
they wouldn't be what currently is going on. It would
be it would be boys speaking English and yelling.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It's what I envision, which is exactly what happened to
Berlin after nineteen forty five when they built the wall
and communist Russia occupied one side, and you know that.
I just that has never gone well, like occupying urban cities.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
And it doesn't seem like that's not what this piece
the peace proposal, Like I said, you know, it started
off of that.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go forward taking
control and we're starting over.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Right, this was the compromise, and it's getting down to
the end of going. If you don't want to do
our compromise, we can always go back to the original thought.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Just leveling it. Yeah, that's still not off the table
that that would happen. I mean, there is no there
is no clear cut path on this in a human perspective,
with a human plan. If you're trying to get a
(25:08):
gift for someone that you think has everything, how about
a special video message from me. It's easy to do.
Go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith and you
put in the prompt what you want me to say.
I get that message on my phone. I'll say happy birthday,
happy anniversary, whatever personalized message you want me to say
to whoever you want me to say it to. I
send it to you and you give it to them.
(25:28):
It's pretty cool. Go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith.
So I also want to I want to talk about
my time in the West Bank. You spend a little
time in the West Bank as well. Yeah, and I
(25:49):
had many many conversations with people in the West Bank
and Palestinians. First of all, on a side note, the
Arab countries of the world don't want the Palestinians. So
in Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and all these countries
start start complaining about what's happening in Gaza. We could say,
(26:13):
you want them, you want the Palestinians, Noe Jordan doesn't
want them, Syria doesn't want them, Pakistan doesn't want them,
Iran doesn't want them. They want to fight for them,
but they don't want them.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
They want to fight for them to have their own place,
not to be and because.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
They hate Israel, right, you know, that's they want to
fight for them to because they hate Israel and and
by default they hate the United States. They don't want them.
They don't really, they don't love those people. The Palestinians
are looked down upon by every other Arab country. Saudis
looked down on them, you know, So We have spent
(26:49):
a lot of time in the West Bank, a lot
of homes, a lot of people, a lot of families,
and have been harbor. Can buy what has happened if
you're in the West Bank. After October seventh, twenty twenty
three three, Yeah, they closed the gates, they closed the
(27:15):
doors to Israel. Israel has for a long long time
provided utilities and water and more important than any electricity,
but more important than anything, they've provided jobs. People from
the West Bank go into Jerusalem and they work. They
(27:36):
go into Tel Aviv and they they have jobs, and
they work in tourism, they work in all kinds of
job sectors. Well, after October seven, twenty twenty three, they
shut the gates and said no one leaves here. So
if you had a job in Israel, you lost it.
But there's no jobs in the West Bank either. And
(27:59):
there's very very little food. We saw. We saw a
lot of homes that the only food they ate was
cucumbers or anything else they can grow in their yard
with the little water that they had, saving the seeds
(28:20):
and eating cucumbers or we asked one family they had
they had a two children. One of them, the little
boy was Maverick's age, and I asked the father. They
are a very proud people. But I asked the father,
when's the last time you had meat? And because there
(28:41):
are proud people, he didn't he didn't immediately answer. He
just stared right through me, you know, eyes glazed. And
I said six six months, sugar Head, seven months, eight months,
sugar said ten months, shrugged to show there's like maybe
maybe we had meat in our mouths ten months ago.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Now this was in September twenty four. Yeah, I don't think.
I don't think it's situations changed.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
It's a year, almost a year after.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
What do you want? You know, Alice asking the Palestinians,
what do you want peace? I just want to take
care of my family. I just want to provide for
my family and whatever whatever that might take. So a
few weeks ago I was in North Carolina speaking at
a conference and they had invited an IDF soldier. He
(29:41):
reaches out to me on Instagram. His name is NOI.
You know why, great guy, Great guy. He DMed me
and he said, Grangeer, my name is NOI. I'm an
IDF soldier in Israel. I would love to meet you.
When we're at the conference, I said, great, you know,
(30:01):
you know, I've spent a lot of time with the idea.
So we go to this conference. It's a lot of politicians,
a lot of like turning point people, and I'm just
there to preach the Gospel's that's why I came. Preach
the gospel, and and then whatever the gospel does, it
goes out and it the gospel will when the heart
has changed and the gospel takes root, meaning when you've
(30:22):
trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, believing
that He died on the cross, was resurrected on the
third day and commands everyone to turn from their sin
and look to him, and you will be forgiven. When
that starts to take root in your heart, then you
could start aligning yourself to different political opinions, like well,
(30:43):
if that's the case, then I got to be against abortion.
If that's the case, then I need to be for
this and that and this that. So instead of taking
instead of saying that the gospel comes alongside a political view,
the gospel takes root and then political views are offshoots
of the already established changed heart. You know, that's that's
(31:04):
a big difference. Yeah, but that's what this conference. I
think the conference was more so just a lot like Jesus.
Jesus believes these things too. You know, Jesus is a
great advocate for the Republican Party. Like hold on second, Now,
what I'm talking about right here could be its own podcast,
so I'll say.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And it is part of one we're working on.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, Jesus is the king. He doesn't he's not an advocate,
he's not a partner with a political party.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
He's what everything else falls up here.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Everything falls under him and his rule and his sovereignty.
We submit to him, which I say, I say many times,
I said it at this conference. Jesus is not someone
that you accept in your heart. He is someone you
submit to as a king. You know, there's a big
difference difference accepting and submitting. So I meet NOI idea soldier,
(32:03):
Like I said, great guy, I said, why are you here?
Like they literally flew you from Tel Aviv to here today? Today?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
We know how long that is.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, that's a long flight. Yeah, And he said I'm
here's here to tell the truth. And I was like, great,
I love the truth. What's the truth? And he said,
the truth that that the Palestinians are evil. Basically, he
didn't say these exact words, but what's happening in Gaza
is justified by the Israeli government, and the Palestinians are
(32:39):
doing everything they can to kill us. And I was like, yeah,
tell me an example, and he said, well, I've been
in many houses in the West Bank and I've seen
the pamphlets that they all have on how to kill Jews.
I said, tell me more. He says, they have books
that say, here's here's how the most efficient way to
kill one Jew, here's how you killed two at the
(33:01):
same time. Even better, here's how you kill three. And
that's that's what all the houses have in them in
the West Bank. And I said, I looked him right
in the eye and said, well, not all the houses.
Then he goes, yeah, all the houses in the West Bank.
I said, but not all of them, and he goes, no,
(33:22):
all of them Greater. I said, I've been in many
this is the first time i've heard this. I said,
I'm not denying that there's hate. Sure, I'm not denying
the animosity. Where you not denying that you've actually seen
it yourself with your own eyes. Maybe many many many,
But what I am saying is I haven't seen it,
and I've been in many myself. So there's something, there's
(33:45):
a disconnect somewhere here. And I realized, and this is
not to take it anyway anything away from Noise. Very
convicted about these things, and he has seen horrors that
I can't imagine.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
But it would definitely shape his view of things of
the world.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yes, yeah, But what I quickly realized was that what's
happening truly is that it all boils down to people
want to be re elected in the US, and so
they want to bring people they could help them kind
of tote a certain line and help help kind of
reinforce some like yeah, we should go get God, we
(34:24):
should just demolish Gaza, which you know could happen. Yeah,
And so it was interesting to me. It was very
interesting because I just thought, Wow, and this entire conference,
probably the only other person besides NOI that's seen Gaza.
(34:45):
Everyone else is like just pumping out money while watching
video here in stories. I'm the only one that's actually
been there, and I didn't see this happening. And once again,
and I'm not I'm not, I am I'm a Christian here,
I'm not. I'm neither Jew nor Arab. I'm a I'm
(35:08):
a Christian by identity, by nature, by a new nature,
a new heart, and I'm want to get into that
here with a Bible. But I have seen evil, evil
on both sides, and my goal both times in Israel
was to seek out the lost and the ones that
(35:31):
are searching for the Lord, and to tell them of
the good News of the Gospel.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Regardless of Jew, Palestinian, regardless Entile.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I don't have I shouldn't have partiality. If I have partiality,
that would be a sin in me. It'd be a
sin if I was picking and choosing a human tribe
or group or tongue that I that I would choose
to hear the good news that's supposed to go to
all nations, that would be a horrible sin. I would
(36:00):
want to answer to the Lord that why did you
pick this? Was this an easier route for you, Granger? No,
but I did see evil on both sides, and I
did see a complete misrepresentation of Israel when we came
back here. I remember coming back here and one of
the men that I met there in Israel said on
(36:21):
signal messenger he said, Hey, you're going to hear some
news of a convoy that was going into Gaza, And
I'll tell you I was on this convoy and we
went in two trucks with food supplies and medicine into
Gaza and we got overwhelmed by Hamas with guns, and
(36:45):
as we were stopped engaging Hamas, civilians from all over
Gaza rushed the trucks to get food. Hamas opened fire
and we had to get out fast, and some people
were injured as we were back our trucks out trying
to get out of the crowd as they were opening
up rocket fire on us. What did I hear in
(37:05):
the news? Literally the next day Israel has a mass killing,
opens fire, opens fire against civilians in Gaza that we're
just trying to get food.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Ran over those. But yeah, exactly, oh man, oh man.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Okay, should we to.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Wow as Christians, as Americans? What should we think?
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I really think about this? Yeah, it's a very complicated.
Well let me tell you, let me tell you what
I I'm sitting here with the Bible right now. What
are you having?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
We're like, what if we what if we just chatted
for like twenty minutes and good then we were forty
minutes in and I love it.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I mean, and I think, hey, man and I were like,
we should have a shorter podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
What if we just you know, jumped into this and no,
I think this is what you're about to read too,
is all Listen?
Speaker 4 (37:57):
We say this every time. Is that we don't ever
just leave.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
We could have hit stop and it would have been
a great podcast, right there been? Okay, wow, well great stories. Man,
I don't know what to think about this. Well, how
about this? The word talks about Israel and talks about
I mean, obviously it does, but it helps shape of
how what our view should be of what Israel is
(38:22):
today and what our role should be in support and
what have you.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So I'm going to say our view, and I'm talking
about you and me, Man, you and me, because there
are different views and evangelical Christianity about Israel, and these
are There are men and women that I have mad
(38:47):
respect for that will have a different view of Israel
and that does not have anything to do with salvation.
It doesn't have anything to do with them being a
brother or a sister of mine in Christ that I
will embrace an eternity in paradise with Christ that these
are second, third, fourth, fifth tier issues that just are
(39:10):
just it's not the Gospel. So to view Israel differently
as a Christian, maybe we should start the whole thing
with this, this idea, how do Christians think about Israel. Well, first, however,
you view Israel as a Christian as long as it's
secondary to the Gospel. This should this shouldn't bring disunity.
(39:31):
We should be able to have good discussions, uh and disagree,
but have good solid discussions based on the Bible. So
here's some major theories that the one major theory about
how Christians should view Israel, it's called the replacement theory.
And this is the idea that Israel does not exist anymore.
The Church is the new Israel. The Church has replaced Israel.
(39:55):
It's called the replacement theory.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
And when you when you you say that because we
interchange Israel a lot, is that not talking about the
government of Israel of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
It's all in it's still kind of bound up in
there because people sure it is. But there are certain
people that think that Israel the nineteen forty eight version
is the old Israel. And so in all all everything
that has to do with Israel. Yeah, And the replacement
theory says that the ethnic Jews, the Old Covenant promises,
(40:27):
all of them are now null. They are null and
void because the Church is the substitute. Is the replacement
of it.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Okay, being old Old Covenant and New Covenant.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, Old Covenant and New Covenant are separate.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Old Covenant has been fulfilled. New Covenant is with Christ,
and that is.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Are we are. In the replacement theory, we are Israel
because of our lineage of faith back to Abraham, and
those that have rejected Christ are now cut off from
that lineage and there is no more Israel.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Now.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
It is all the Church, right, and that's a uppercase
see church. That's the universal Church that all you know,
the all the evangelical denominations are lowercase see churches. The
opposite of this is called dispensationalism, or sometimes dispensational dualism.
(41:26):
This means that the church in Israel remain entirely separate
in people groups, very distinct destinies. One is earthly Israel
and the other is heavenly Church. That's a very crude
way to say it, but dispensationalism you'll see this a
lot in Pentecostals, Charismatics. You'll see it a lot in
(41:50):
Calvary Chapel, King James only people. There's a kind of
a consistency with dispensational dualism, which is why typically you
see more tours of Israel coming from churches that are
dispensational because they're going Israel. Is Israel matters. They are
(42:10):
still God's The Jews are God's chosen people, and God
will ultimately redeem them. He has a plan for them
separate from our plan as Christians. Once again, this is
a crude way of saying. These two, these two the
replacement theory and dispensationalism. I am going to say, you
and I fall in the middle.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
Yeah, and I completely agree. Yeah. And that's why I
want you to know.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
That's why I feel comfortable with Granger saying what we believe,
because We've had off these mics, had conversations, and I'm
like I kind of fall in the yeah, and so
do I And what but then also what about this?
And and we'll kind of talk through some of that,
but that is definitely the overarching is this and that
and this?
Speaker 1 (42:53):
So what what where we fall is that? And what
we believe the Bible says and teaches in our churches
as well, is that there is no old and new.
It's true Jesus is the true Israel, which is meaning
(43:14):
Christ himself, the Messiah, the son of God, is the
obedient son who succeeds in every place where the where
Israel failed as humans, flawed, sinful humans. And we see
the entire Old Testament, we see that that Israel is
(43:34):
referred to as I mean, Israel is a name. It
comes from Jacob, who was the first one that God
named Israel, and it's always looked upon as as God's son,
so God's son. And actually, actually, you know what Exodus.
(43:55):
If we go to Exodus for let make sure I've
got my bible marked her Exodus four twenty two says
that more specific Exodus. Here we are. So so then
(44:22):
then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord,
Israel is my first born son. And I say to you,
let my son go that he may serve me. If
you refuse this, this is God through Moses talking to Pharaoh.
If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will
(44:45):
kill your first born son. So this is the Exodus.
This is leading up to Passover where in this moment
God says Israel, and he's talking about the people is
Israel is my son. They they I love them, and
(45:05):
you will let them go, or I will kill your
firstborn son. And this leads into the past. So the
very first passover where the people of Israel were commanded
by the Lord through Moses to mark their dwelling places,
their houses with the blood of a spotless lamb. And
they needed to mark their doors on the side of
(45:27):
the doors and on the top the lintel on the top,
they needed to wipe it with the blood's lamb, and
they needed to eat the lamb in the house. This
is the first Passover. Eat the lamb and put the
blood on the door. If you if you are marked
by the blood of the spotless lamb, and you have
eaten this flesh, then the Destroyer, the Angel of the
(45:50):
Lord that's passing over that night, that that's coming that
night to destroy you and all the first born of Egypt.
If you're marked by this blood your household, not if
you're a good person, not if you do this and that,
if you're marked by the blood of a spotless lamb,
the Angel of the Lord, the Destroyer will pass over
your house and spare you because you're covered by the blood.
(46:15):
Now this is all pointing towards the Son of God, Jesus,
the Messiah, the Christ, the True Israel, the one who
did not fail, the one who as the Israelites. The
Sun comes through the red seas, the Sea's party, it
(46:36):
comes through the waters, and Jesus comes through the waters
of Baptism with John the Baptist and the Jordan River,
and he redeems the people, and he got where they
went for forty years into the wilderness. And Jesus goes
for forty days into the wilderness and fast without and
he's tempted by Satan, and he passes the test. Israel
(46:56):
is tempted in the forty years, and they fail to
test every step along the way where they the people
of Israel failed, And the true Son, the True Israel,
past even into the Book of Judges. We were just
talking about this in a men's retreat that we had
at our church. The Book of Judges got the Israel
(47:17):
continues to fail God and be disobedient, and so God
appoints judges among the people. And every time God appoints
a judge, that people are reconciled back to God. And
when I say judge, I'm not talking about like a judge, judy,
or someone sitting with a robe, you know, behind a desk.
We're talking about I'm basically a military leader. So the
(47:38):
judge that God would appoint is a military leader that
would bring the people, gather them back to the Lord,
and destroy their inner their enemies.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
And this.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Every time that the judge did this, the people were restored.
But then the judge would die because they're fragile and
they're human, or they would fail and sin, and the
people would just go right back.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
To their word ways.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Not until that happened, until the true judge was appointed
Christ who in Acts ten just read this morning. Peter
is speaking here and says that he has commanded us
to preach to the people and testify that he is
the one appointed by God to be the judge of
(48:25):
the living and the dead. To him, all the prophets
the Old Testament bear witness that everyone who believes in
him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So Jesus became.
He fulfilled everything in the Old Testament, including the judges.
He's now the perfect judge, the guy we were with
this weekend we were talking to he said, Jesus is
(48:48):
the Prince of peace. He ushers in perfect peace. But
not because he's a pacifist, but because he's the perfect
military leader, totally wiping out the enemy. Sure, so much
so that it ushers in perfect peace. There's no more
there's no more problems, there's no more sin, there's no
(49:09):
more there's no more enemy at all, so much so
that the Book of Revelation talks about heaven and talks
about the City of God. The gates are open because
there's no more enemy. Yeah, there's no need to close
the gates when you have a perfect judge. In the
Book of Judges in the Bible, God always told them
destroy the enemy, and they always missed it. They always
(49:32):
didn't fulfill it perfectly. Until Christ Christ becomes the perfect Israel,
the true Israel. And so what what does that mean
for us? Well, those that are united in Christ through
repentance and faith, acquired His identity. One number one, we
(49:54):
require we acquire righteousness given imputed to us, like credited
into our account. We are bankrupt. It takes righteousness to
get into Heaven. You must be righteous everywhere in the
Bible says, you must be righteous?
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Are you righteous through Him? Not on my own?
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Am I?
Speaker 4 (50:14):
No? No?
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Not on my own? Through Him. So we are credited
into our bankrupt account righteousness, and we're credited identity in
every way in Christ Paul calls it. We are. In
Galatians six sixteen, Paul says, we are the Israel of God.
We are the sons and daughters of the King. Not
(50:39):
because we've earned it, and not because of a bloodline,
but because through faith, by God's grace, we take on Christ,
the perfect, true Israel's identity. And so because of that
we belong as God's people. We are Israel because of
(50:59):
the identity we get from Christ, right the Messiah. So
this is not the Church doesn't replace Israel, and the
Church isn't separate from Israel. Christ is the true Israel.
And because He's the true Israel, we take on his identity.
Then that takes us to a very troubling place. If
you want to say what I just said, that takes
(51:20):
us to a mystery. You know where I'm going right now.
Speaker 4 (51:24):
In Romans Romans, chapter eleven, Romans.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Eleven, here it is in my Bible. The subheading and
verse twenty five of Romans eleven says, the mystery of
Israel's salvation. So there's the section in here. Let you
be what lest you be wise in your own sight.
I do not want you to be unaware of the mystery. Brothers.
(51:49):
A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness
of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way
all of Israel will be saved. This is I believe
it is what it is. It is a mystery, as
Paul says. And so this is why I kind of
stand in the middle of between replacement theory and dispensationalism dualism.
(52:11):
There is there is a component to this that we
can't possibly understand. But here's what we know. And then
I'm gonna shut up, Anthony. Here's what we know. No
one comes to the Father, but through Jesus, all who
have the Son have life. Whoever does not have the
Son does not have life, but the wrath of God
(52:34):
remains upon him. John three point thirty six. The entire
New Testament and the entire Old Testament points towards salvation
through the Anointed One, which is what Messiah means, the
anointed one of God. We know in the New Testament.
As we see this revealed back all the Old Testament
(52:56):
points to the New Testament and says here he is,
if you do not have the Son, you will not
be saved. You will not see the Father apart from
the Son. So whatever the mystery of the of the
salvation of Israel is, whatever, that grafting is the grafting
in whatever, they must go through Christ. They will not
(53:19):
make it in a back door or a side window.
They must go through the judge. That's any people, any people, including.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Jews, including Jews.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
That I talked to him. What are we at time with?
Speaker 4 (53:34):
No, that's fifty three. We're good.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Okay, this is great. Okay. I asked you before we
started recording. I said, well, you make sure that I
don't start talking over somebody.
Speaker 4 (53:47):
Yeah, and I don't think you have. I think I think.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
And that's what I've been listening for too, is do
we need explanation on any of this? You explained it
very well, and especially going back to the Old Testament,
going back to Exodus, going back to the Passover, going
back to like it's just if you want to know,
and we're talking about here in Romans, what is the
mystery the mystery is that is that it's fulfilled in him.
(54:16):
Everything that you wonder about, are concerned about, is fulfilled
in Christ. You just said it. I mean the whole
day is Israel is the first Son of God.
Speaker 4 (54:30):
We want you to let him go. And because you haven't,
I'm going to kill your first born.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
Yes, and he is?
Speaker 4 (54:37):
He is?
Speaker 3 (54:38):
He's who is Jesus, the Son of God. And you
want to know who Israel is and how to differentiate
between the Israel of the Bible and the Israel of
twenty twenty five or nineteen forty eight, And what I
mean by that is because that's when Israel was declared
a nation once again, was in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 4 (54:59):
What's the difference between them all?
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Well, Jesus, like you, you so diligently illustrated it, and
I'm butchering now. I apologize, but I feel that it
it makes sense that it is. The mystery is how
could one man be at all that? If there's any mystery,
that's it, but to know that it's all fulfilled in him.
(55:24):
Everything that you wonder about Israel is that the Israel
of Bible, ors of the Israel forty eight, or is
the Israel twenty twenty five. Benjamin Nett Yahoo is on
the thumbnail of this of this podcast.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
It's all him, Yeah, it's all in him.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
So thinking about that Passover incident in Exodus, when John
the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, behold the Lamb of God.
There is the lamb.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
Yep, that's it.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
There's the lamp the sin of the world, not of
the Jews, not of the Gentiles, not of the Palestinians,
not of the elite or the pool were.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Yeah, the world, the world. And there's so much depth
there too, because Jesus was born in Bethlehem. That's the
place where the lambs, the spotless lambs were taken from
those fields in Bethlehem for centuries, taken to Jerusalem and
(56:20):
put on the altar and sacrifice. Those spotless lambs that
were continuing the tradition of the Passover were brought from Bethlehem,
the same place where the Lamb of God capital l
was also born.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
And then Revelation five. We talked about it before, but
the big revelation of John with the lamb worthy to
be praised in Revelation. It's incredible.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I think that there might be some people that have
gotten this far, who made it all way to the
end and went, I don't know if you answered the question.
Rewatch it and listen again, because it will click and
it might not be today.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
You know, it might be you. Maybe you can.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Watch this again in a month or when something else
happens in Israel. Like I remember there was that podcast
with Granger about Israel and how we should feel about them,
what we should think about them, and what what was
that again? I remember that being something that spoke to me,
and I'm not really sure what it was.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Watch this again, great point, and I want to look
at something. I'm want to look at something else. I'm
trying to think. Sometimes I move so fast when where
in the world is it?
Speaker 4 (57:33):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (57:42):
I think it's in Yes, yeah, here it is, yes, yes, yes,
Joshua five. I love it when that happens. Yeah, Okay,
listen to this. I'm gonna highlight that or drop my pen.
Speaker 3 (57:53):
That's in your book, it's in your Bible. I just
have it as a marker right now.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
And Joshua five, and this will this will help wrap
up what you just said in an inter a question.
The people of Israel have now after all the forty
years that we talked about, they've now under the command
of Joshua. Moses is Dad. Under the command of Joshua,
they are taken over the Jordan River into their land
that they are given. It just happens to be the
(58:20):
same geographic land that the current Israel has now, yes,
which is very specific in its in its geographic borders.
They move in and the the they're moving into Jericho.
They're going to take Jericho, okay, And Jericho is a
mighty city with a mighty wall around it, and they're
(58:43):
gonna they're going to destroy these people, the people of Israel,
to take to take the promised land given to them.
Side note Reyhab the prostitute is in Jericho, and the
spies go in and they meet the prostitute and she says,
I know you men are from the Lord, the True God.
(59:06):
And they said, if you hide us from your people,
we will save you and all your.
Speaker 4 (59:12):
Household And she says, anybody inside.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
Anybody here, and she says, I believe I will hide you.
And so the tire they tie a ribbon on her
on the outside of her window, and Israel comes in
and they wipe out Jericho right but they save her
and her household, a prostitute, a non Jew, and she
(59:36):
ends up in the lineage of the Christ. She if
you look at Matthew in the first chapter, she's in
the She's a descendant. She's in the lineage of Jesus,
a non Jew, a gentile, a dog to them. So
that this has nothing to do with ethnicity. Here, there's
nothing to do with race. Race is a human construct.
(59:58):
But that's not my point. Oh, it's something else. My
point is Joshua chapter five, in the setting of this
whole going to take on Jericho thing. Look at verse thirteen.
When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold a man was standing before him
with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went
(01:00:21):
to him and said, are you for us or for
our adversaries? And he said no, but I am. I
am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now
I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to
the earth and worshiped and said to him, what does
(01:00:43):
the Lord say to his servant? So the point here
is what does God say about the Palestinians and the
nineteen forty eight government the net and Yahoo government of
Israel and all this fighting. And when we say, as Christians,
will we say what side are you on? God? Are
you on the side of the Palestinians or on the
(01:01:03):
side of Israel? God says, no, I'm on my side.
You know that is? That is this is the most
interesting thing right there. In verse it's a long chance.
It's a long verse. Thirteen are you for us or
for our adversaries? And fourteen he says no, neither, No, Yeah,
(01:01:29):
don't pick that side. Yeah, the Lord, the Lord has
his side and it's not yours. It's not what you think,
right right, oh man? And part of that you could
look and see what happens, and part of it is
Rahab's in there is God going to go, I'm for you,
(01:01:51):
I'm not for Jericho. What about Reeb and and all
of our family that end up being the in the
heritage of the I'm not don't.
Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I don't pick sides like you do. Man, Yep, Joshua,
not the same. I'm not. I don't. I don't pick
sides like you do. I have higher I have higher
thoughts than you.
Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
Yeah, so good, so good.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Maybe this has been fun, This is fun podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
Yeah, I agree, they always are.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Yeah, because they're not that we don't have them like itemized.
Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
Yeah, here's everything.
Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
We got to be sure and hit and then when
we hit that last one, we're done.
Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
God, where are you going to take it?
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Have fun of it, all right, appreciate your brother. Thank y'all. Gee,
thank you so much for hanging out with me on
this episode of the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate you being here.
If you're listening right now, go ahead and rate today's podcast.
It helps more folks find the show. And if you're
tuning in on the iHeartRadio app, you could actually set
this podcast as one of your presets, which is cool
(01:02:53):
that way. I'm just one tap away. If you're watching
on YouTube, don't forget to hit like and subscribe so
you don't miss any new episode. And if you've got
a question you want answered right here on the show,
just email me podcast at grangersmith dot com. I'd love
to hear from you. Thanks again for being here. We'll
see you next time. Ye u
Host
Granger Smith
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