Spiritual Reflections on the War in Israel

By The Remnant Herald

The ancient territory of the Philistines (Gaza) and the biblical land of Israel are the focus of worldwide attention yet again following the slaughter and kidnapping of many hundreds of Israeli citizens by HAMAS terrorists on Sabbath, October 7, 2023, which frightened the world. Since then, military confrontation on the northern and southern flanks of Israel by opposing sides; global protests either supporting or condemning Israel and Palestine; money, personnel and prayers for the Jewish state and the Palestinian territories by devout adherents — all sides are using their resources in the quest for domination over that area once described by God as “the glory of all lands” (Ezekiel 20:6).

Underpinning most of the wars, uprisings and bloodshed seen in this narrow strip of land for millennia has been the desire for the control of Jerusalem. According to an American archeologist in 2004, Eric Cline, based on his research through the historical records:

“There have been at least 118 separate conflicts in and for Jerusalem during the past four millennia — conflicts that ranged from local religious struggles to strategic military campaigns and that embraced everything in between. Jerusalem has been destroyed completely at least twice, besieged twenty-three times, attacked an additional fifty-two times, and captured and recaptured forty-four times. It has been the scene of twenty revolts and innumerable riots, has had at least five separate periods of violent terrorist attacks during the past century, and has only changed hands completely peacefully twice in the past four thousand years.” Jerusalem Besieged — From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel, p. 2. The University of Michigan Press. Ann Arbor, Michigan. 2004

This extraordinary tally of upheaval and death is all the more astonishing when one reads of “what might have been” had the children of Israel always remained loyal and obedient to the principles of Jehovah:

“Had Israel as a nation preserved her allegiance to Heaven, Jerusalem would have stood forever, the elect metropolis of God.” The Great Controversy, p. 18. 1884 ed.

The city of Jerusalem — and by extension, that land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — could have been spared almost four thousand years of turmoil, ruin, catastrophe, and devastation, and the record of Middle Eastern history and the world would have been vastly different! But the rejection of Christ by the Jewish nation during His ministry — culminating in His trial and crucifixion, with the religious leaders and people crying out in unison, “Crucify Him, crucify Him” (Luke 23:21), “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matthew 27:25), “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15) — brought a dense spiritual shadow upon the city and land that remains until this day:

“How many there are who feel that it would be a good thing to tread the soil of old Jerusalem, and that their faith would be greatly strengthened by visiting the scenes of the Saviour’s life and death! But old Jerusalem will never be a sacred place until it is cleansed by the refining fire from heaven. The darkest blot of guilt rests upon the city that refused the light of Christ. Do we want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus? We need not seek out the paths in Nazareth, Bethany, and Jerusalem. We shall find the footprints of Jesus by the sick-bed, by the side of suffering humanity, in the hovels of the poverty-stricken and distressed. We may walk in these footsteps, comforting the suffering, speaking words of hope and comfort to the despondent. Doing as Jesus did when He was upon earth, we shall walk in His blessed steps. Jesus said, ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’ When the sin-cursed earth is purified from every stain of sin; when the Mount of Olives is rent asunder, and becomes an immense plain; when the holy city of God descends upon it, — the land that is now called the Holy Land will indeed become holy. But God’s cause and work will not be advanced by making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The curse of God is upon Jerusalem for the rejection and crucifixion of His only begotten Son. But God will cleanse away the vile blot.” Review and Herald, June 9, 1896

When our Saviour departed from Herod’s temple for the last time, with heart-rendering cries He uttered a sentence of judgment that could never be revoked.

“‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.’ This was the most solemn denunciation ever uttered against Jerusalem. After denouncing the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders, who, while they worshipped the temple, were working with a hatred inspired by Satan to destroy the only One who made the temple sacred, Christ bade adieu to the once hallowed courts. He quitted the temple forever, declaring, ‘Your house is left unto you desolate.’ Henceforth a cloud blacker than sackcloth hung over the once favored nation.” Review and Herald, December 13, 1898

In this same article from 1898, Sister White drew a parallel between the events that surrounded the fall of Jerusalem by the Romans and that which is to befall the world — the same assertion that the Jewish nation shall be delivered from the hands of her enemies is to be repeated in the very last days.

“Many false Messiahs will appear, claiming to work miracles, and declaring that the time for the deliverance of the Jewish nation has come. These will mislead many. “These words were fulfilled. Between the death of Christ and the siege of Jerusalem, many false Christs appeared. But this warning is given also to those who live in this age of the world. The same deceptions practiced prior to the destruction of Jerusalem will again be practiced. The same events that took place at the overthrow of Jerusalem will take place again. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.’ Prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, men wrestled for the supremacy. Emperors were murdered. Those standing next to the throne were slain. ‘All these things must come to pass but the end (of the Jewish nation as a nation) is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.’ As the rabbis see these signs, Christ said, they will declare that they are God’s judgments on the nations for holding His chosen people in bondage. They will say that these signs are the tokens of the advent of the Messiah. Be not deceived; they are the beginning of His judgments. The Jewish people have looked to themselves. They have not repented and been converted, that I should heal them. The signs they argue as tokens of their release from bondage are signs of their destruction.” Ibid.

The above lines are all the more telling in light of the current internal and external challenges Israel faces to its national existence. Since the creation of modern Israel in 1948, it has fought a number of military battles upon which its very survival hung in the balance (e,g.: the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The 1967 Six Day War was preempted by Israel, its borders were expanded, all of Jerusalem united under Jewish control). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the memory of the Amalekites this October in his goal to disassemble the military and governmental capabilities of HAMAS (Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement) that has taken control of the Gaza Strip. Many evangelical Christians — including certain Republican politicians in the United States — in keeping with their belief in Jerusalem as the city to which Christ will return to establish His earthly kingdom after “the seven-year tribulation,” have reiterated their support for the State of Israel. In December 2022, John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, stated:

“God is getting ready to defend Israel in such a supernatural way, it’s going to take the breath out of the lungs of the dictators on planet Earth but we are living on the cusp of the greatest most supernatural series of events the world has ever seen, ready or not.” Website of The Guardian (Australia): “This War is Prophetically Significant” — Why U.S. Evangelical Christians Support Israel. October 30, 2023

In this period, while many Jews and “rapture” Christians look forward to the time for the supernatural restoration of the former glory of Israel, a slogan is loudly heralded by countless millions of Arabs around the world, “From the River to the Sea” — a demand for an Islamic Palestine to be set up (eliminating the State of Israel), with Jerusalem as its capital. It is very true that not all Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims endorse terrorism to further their interests, especially for the creation of a Palestinian state. Nevertheless, terrorism has been used as a weapon by militants who claim the Islamic faith for religious, military, political, and strategic purposes, in the name of a holy war (“jihad”) against “infidels.” (Some readers may recall the “Black September Organization” — a small group of Palestinian guerillas who slew 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, West Germany.) A Roman Catholic teacher and journalist, in his research into the secret activities of the Vatican, wrote how militant Islamists have been used for broader international purposes:

“The war in Afghanistan [initiated by the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1979] delighted State Department officials, including Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski… Brzezinski and fellow members of his ‘over-world’ (the elite group that puppeteers events to bring about a ‘new world order’) realized that the concept of democracy and freedom could never galvanize the scattered tribes and peoples of Central Asia. The people could only be unified by the cause of Allah since they were overwhelmingly Islamic. The holy war in Afghanistan, in the view of American geo-strategists, offered many benefits, including the possible downfall of the Soviet Union and the possibility of gaining access and control over the vast natural gas and oil resources of Eurasia. Months before the Soviet invasion in 1979, the CIA launched Operation Cyclone — an attempt to destabilize the Soviet Union by spreading militant Islam throughout the central Asian republics [America’s Afghanistan War: The Success That Failed, pp. 68, 69. J. Meher. Gyan Books. New Delhi, India. 2004]. Eventually, this operation would serve to create hundreds of Islamic terror organizations, including al-Qaeda, al-Jihad, the Ulema Union of Afghanistan, the Sa-lafi Group for Proselytism and Combat, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Harkat ul-Ansar, Jamiat Ulema-e-Is-lam, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Lashkar e-Taiba, and the al-Jihad Group. It would also give rise to terror attacks that would kill and maim millions of people throughout the world and the dream of a New Islamic World Order, that would be espoused by Fethullah Gülen and his disciples.” Operation Gladio — The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, The CIA and The Mafia, p. 173. Paul Williams. Prometheus Books. Amherst, New York. 2015

The spirit of Ishmael still lives in the hearts of too many who claim to be his descendants:

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him: and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” Genesis 16:12

Despite innumerable attempts to secure peace in the Middle East — such as the 1978 Camp David Accords that led to the signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in March 1979, ending 30 years of a state of war between the two nations; the 1993-1995 Oslo Accords signed by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, that established the goal of a “two-state” co-existence between Israel and Palestine — the complexities of the problems and grievances that have bedeviled this region for so many years reveal that they cannot be resolved by human means alone. The areas of Israel and Palestine need the ministry of the gospel as it was proclaimed there in former times:

“Christ worked as He desired His disciples and all other laborers to work. The towns and cities of Palestine resounded with the truths that fell from His lips.

“Today the truth is to be proclaimed in the same way. The world is our field. Everywhere the light of truth is to shine forth, that hearts now in the sleep of ignorance may be awakened and converted. In all lands the gospel is to be proclaimed. God’s servants are to labor in places nigh and afar off, going to the regions beyond, ever preparing to embrace a wider circumference. They are to work while the day lasts; for the night cometh, in which no man can work. They are to point to a Saviour uplifted on the cross. From many voices are to be heard the words, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’” Pacific Union Recorder, Dec. 4, 1902

(Historical Note: The Jewish Christian “Missionary to the World,” Joseph Wolff [1795-1862], preached the tidings of the Second Coming of Christ in Palestine — to both Jews and Arabs, over several visits from 1821 to 1838. His ardor and zeal was typified by the number of instances in which he sat up all night to read and expound the Scriptures concerning Christ and His soon coming to the Jews living in Jerusalem [The Jewish Expositor, December 1823. London, United Kingdom]).

Public Christian evangelism is prohibited across the Middle East, including Israel. Arabs and Jews generally resist all efforts to win them over to the Christian faith. Islam denies the divinity of Christ, and claims that Jesus did not die on the cross and thus was not resurrected from the dead, but that God took Him to heaven — He was a human prophet, one of the greatest (The Christian Century, June 7, 2017. “Who Is Jesus For Muslims?” Chicago, Illinois). Rabbinical commentary placed in the Babylonian Talmud during the third and fourth centuries of the Christian Era has influenced millions of Jews over the years to not only deny the divinity of Christ but to consider our Redeemer and Saviour as born –

“…out of wedlock, the son of a whore and her lover; therefore He could not be the Messiah of Davidic descent, let alone the Son of God.” Jesus in the Talmud, p. 10. Peter Schafer. Princeton University Press. New Jersey. 2009

It was these and other offensive sayings in the Babylonian Talmud (including that Christ deserved to die as He did, as a blasphemer and idolater, that He is burning in hell right now with all His followers, never to be released from their doom — Jesus in the Talmud, p. 9) that prompted Martin Luther to call for the expulsion of all Jews from Germany, for all their dwellings to be demolished and synagogues to be burned (The Jewish Encyclopedia, volume 8, p. 214. Funk and Wagnalls Company. New York City, New York. 1906 ed.). History tells us that Nazi Germany took complete advantage of Luther’s deprecations (post-1536) against the Jews, as revealed in a poster from 1933 shown on this page — “Hitler’s War and Luther’s Teachings Are the Best Defense of the German People.”

“Kristallnacht” (“The Night of the Broken Glass”) — Wednesday, November 9, 1938 — when over fifteen hundred synagogues were destroyed by arson attacks across Germany — fulfilled Luther’s desire expressed almost 400 years previously. That night was emblematic of the evil forces that had total sway over the Nazi regime. The inexcusable, horrific, barbaric, vindictive, and satanic cruelty visited upon the Jews during the Holocaust tragically revealed how grievous was the sin of their forefathers in pronouncing the words — “His blood be upon us, and on our children.”

“Their prayer was heard. The blood of the Son of God was upon their children and their children’s children in a living, perpetual curse. The children of Israel who chose Barabbas instead of Christ will feel the cruelty of Barabbas as long as time shall last.” Website of EGW Writings: Manuscript 112, 1897

The series of edicts inflicted upon the Jews in Nazi Germany were wrought on a policy that was borrowed from the Roman Catholic Church. As Vice Chancellor of Germany, Franz von Papen announced in the official newspaper of the Nazi Party:

“The Third Reich is the first world power, which not only recognizes, but puts into practice the high principles of the papacy.” Der Voelkischer Beobachter, January 14, 1934. Munich, Germany

In remarks that have been verified as expressed by Adolf Hitler, on April 26, 1933, the German Chancellor stated to Bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabruck:

“I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognized. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church, and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.” The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, p. 26. J.S. Conway. Wiedenfeld & Nicholson. London, United Kingdom. 1968

It should be noted that the SS troops who herded millions of Jews to the death camps were a military force that was set up after the Jesuit Order:

“The SS organization had been constituted, by Himmler, according to the principles of the Jesuits’ Order… The ‘Reichfuhrer SS’ — Himmler’s title as Supreme Chief of the SS — was to be the equivalent of the Jesuits’ ‘General’ and the whole structure of the direction was a close imitation of the Catholic Church’s hierarchical order.” Le Chef Du Counter-Espionage Nazi Parle 1933-1945, pp. 23, 24. Walter Schellenberg (chief of counter-espionage for the Third Reich). Editions Julliard. Paris, France. 1957

Before we leave this history, we should never forget that the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland — as well as others — were run as production plants of the largest chemical cartel in the world, which forged business links with John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil from the 1920s up to the 1940s:

“When I.G. [Farben] took its place in the industrial labor complex of Auschwitz and accepted Himmler’s offer of concentration camp labor, it embarked on a road that led ultimately to participation in the most extraordinary crime in civilized history, what Winston Churchill called the crime, for which there is no name, ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question.’” The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben, p. 121. Joseph Borkin. The Free Press (Macmillan Publishing Company). New York City, New York. 1978

Both Jews and Arabs bear the marks of the papacy’s intervention in their affairs for its own personal advantage. Lingering questions over Rome’s past persecution of the Jews in the name of removing all “Judaizing” influences — notably the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath; the knowledge and conduct of the wartime pontiff, Pius XII, as documented in the book, Hitler’s Pope (John Cornwall. Penguin Books. London, United Kingdom. 1999); and the Crusades that were activated by a series of popes during the Middle Ages to seize control of Jerusalem for the Catholic Church, resulting in the massacre of many Arabs living in Palestine (even Ignatius de Loyola, eleven years before he founded the Jesuit Order, visited Jerusalem to perform his work [The Secret History of the Jesuits, p. 20. Edmond Paris. Chick Publications. Chino, Cali. 1981]) — these and many other examples that could be cited, remind us that only God can bring healing to the wounds of sin (Isaiah 53:5), and right the wrongs of the past (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

The following remarks by Sister White, while she applied them to the Islamic faith, also have relevance to the whole world who need to hear this message:

“Mohammedanism has its converts in many lands, and its advocates deny the divinity of Christ. Shall this faith be propagated, and the advocates of truth fail to manifest intense zeal to overthrow the error, and teach men of the pre-existence of the only Saviour of the world? O how we need men who will search and believe the word of God, who will present Jesus to the world in His divine and human nature, declaring with power and in demonstration of the Spirit, that ‘there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.’ O how we need believers who will now present Christ in life and character, who will hold Him up before the world as the brightness of the Father’s glory, proclaiming that God is love!” Home Missionary, September 1, 1892

That love is exemplified in the law of God — which is the foundation of His government, the transcript of His character, the royal charter of liberty! Obedience is the condition of salvation (John 14:15) — and it is free for all — Jew, Arab, and all Gentiles:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek…There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Romans 1:16; Galatians 3:28 (see vs. 29)

History teaches one irrefutable lesson — that disobedience to the law of God always brings heavy consequences — please consider Deuteronomy 28:15-68. When the Israelites wanted a king so that “we may be like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:20), the Lord told Samuel to grant their request, for “they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7).

“…they now insulted God to His face in throwing off His wise rule…Satan’s mind was imbuing the hearts of men that Israel should follow his satanic counsel.” Website of EGW Writings: Manuscript 40, 1890

In the period leading up to the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Romans, we are told that “Satan was at the head of the nation, and the highest civil and religious authorities were under his sway” (The Great Controversy, p. 30. 1884 edition). The “prince of this world” is intensifying the war-cry to ready the world for his masterpiece of deception. But our hope for the future is in the second coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven; to our home, the New Jerusalem. “Affliction shall not rise up the second time” (Nahum 1:9).

About: The Remnant Herald is an Australian publication produced by Remnant Ministries. The current editor and author is Elvis Placer, and we have reproduced this article with his permission. You can contact Elvis Placer through email at rh1844@pm.me or call the office clerk at +61 3 9706 2173 to request a FREE subscription to the Remnant Herald.