The world at large – including the Church – is for the most part ignorant of the real aims of ‘jihad’.
Only a supernatural change of heart will remove the striving for world domination
By Charles Gardner
The Middle East conflict is not about land or nationality. It’s theological.
Some of us know this, but the world at large – including the Church – is for the most part ignorant of this truth.
It’s so encouraging, therefore, to hear IDF Sgt-Major Chaim Malespin make this clear in his daily five-minute YouTube report from the frontline, ‘Swords of Iron’.
Defending his country in Gaza, away from his usual role in charge of the Aliyah Return Centre in Galilee that takes care of new immigrants, Chaim alerts listeners to the ‘double talk’ of radical groups like Hamas.
The terrorists are aware of the West’s susceptibility to calls for freedom for the supposedly oppressed Palestinians, but their message in Arabic is totally different, emphasising jihad (holy war). The aim of jihad is to bring the entire world under Islam through “first defeating the Saturday people, then the Sunday people”.
Peace agreements or ceasefires are only ever temporary, allowing their forces to regroup. “For too long, Israel and the West have tried to overlook this aspect,” Chaim said.
“Pray for Muslims to see that Jesus is the true Messiah” – IDF soldier
Instead, he urges viewers to pray for Muslims to see that Isa (Jesus), the true Messiah, is the only one capable of bringing real peace.
“The only way to help Gazans and radical groups is for them to have a change of heart and mind. Let’s pray these Muslims receive the lasting peace that only the God of Israel can offer.”
With Iran now openly entering the fray, it’s becoming ever clearer that we are living in apocalyptic times. But as the song goes, ‘Jesus is the answer for the world today; Above him there’s no other, Jesus is the way’.
The Book of Revelation at the end of the Bible speaks of the last days before Jesus returns as a world in greater turmoil than ever.
Besides, Jerusalem is the most fought over place on earth – the battlefield of over 100 conflicts to date. Why? Because it is the centre of God’s purposes and the city to which the Messiah will return.
In the UK, meanwhile, antisemitism has sky-rocketed in the wake of the Gaza war as weekly pro-Palestinian marches in London have fanned the flames of Jewish hatred. A staggering 60% of the UK’s four million Muslims now admit sympathy with Hamas.
From South Africa, I heard of the seemingly miraculous way a volatile and potentially divisive situation in a Cape Town church was defused when a mother and daughter challenged a pastor over plans to host a Palestinian group promoting anti-Israel propaganda. Shouldn’t he also host a speaker presenting the Israeli perspective?
He eventually agreed to a Passover presentation on Good Friday led by the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ), demonstrating how Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of Passover – the Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world who opens the door to peace and freedom.
With 220 attending, it was a roaring success. My Cape Town contact told me: “At the beginning of the evening, I shared my testimony, including how my family perceived not only the New Testament but Yeshua himself to be antisemitic, and how very foreign Jesus seemed to me in the way he was portrayed by the Church. We didn’t mention the Israel-Gaza situation, but instead focused on the Passover and the Jewishness of the Last Supper, as well as the Jewishness of Jesus himself.
“At the end of our presentation, we were bowled over when the pastor encouraged the church to support CMJ and showed a slide advertising a proposed tour of Israel. And many people told us it had been an amazing experience.”
The blood of a lamb daubed on the doors of their houses saved the Jewish first-born from death and set the nation free from slavery in Egypt.
Now the blood of Jesus, metaphorically marked on the doors of our hearts, is the way to peace and freedom, resurrection, and reconciliation.
Even the world’s top golfer, Scottie Scheffler, who in April won his second US Masters in three years, said “Victory was secured on the Cross”, explaining that whether he wins or loses tournaments, his future is safe with Jesus.
Jesus – the answer to Muslim dreams
Muslims are coming to faith in Christ through dreams at levels not seen for over 1,000 years, according to US missionaries.
James Bradford, lead pastor at Central Assembly in Springfield, Missouri, and missionary Dick Brogden have shared multiple first-hand testimonies given by former Muslims of how Jesus met with them in dreams and convinced them he is the Messiah.
Jesus met with them in dreams and convinced them he is the Messiah
“So many Muslims reject Islam but know that to follow Jesus will cost them everything,” Brogden told Assemblies of God News. “Dreams of Jesus encourage them along the way and give them the comfort that Jesus will be with them.”
In one account, a Saudi Arabian woman thought the devil was trying to trick her through the dream. So she prayed that, if Jesus was real, he would show himself to her. “Later, as she bent down to drink from a pool of water while tending her sheep in the desert, she saw the
reflection of a massive man standing behind her, holding a shepherd’s staff and smiling, but disappearing when she turned around.
Still doubting, she asked for one more proof. If Jesus was truly God, would he please heal her crippled mother? Her mother immediately stood up and began to walk, at which her daughter threw up her hands in surrender and shouted “‘Jesus, I believe, I believe!”
London police accused of taking sides
Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn has accused London’s Metropolitan Police of taking sides in the ongoing battle to monitor weekly pro-Palestinian marches through the capital.
Campaign Against Anti-Semitism CEO Gideon Falter was threatened with arrest for attempting to cross the road while a march was taking place.
Because he looked ‘openly Jewish’ (he was wearing a kippah), he was considered to be antagonising the protestors and causing a potential breach of the peace.
But as Littlejohn pointed out, placard-waving anti-Israel demonstrators were at the same time screaming ‘scum’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘Nazis’ at Falter and his Jewish friends.
The encounter, he said, had lifted the lid on the shocking policy of appeasing the left-wing mob which has been standard operating procedure at Scotland Yard ever since these anti-Israel marches kicked off in the immediate aftermath of October 7.
“As this column has pointed out from the off, the police have been going out of their way to find excuses for going soft on pro-Palestinian activists, no matter how menacing their behaviour”, Littlejohn wrote.
Terrorists threaten us all
Terrorists are a threat not only to UK Jews, but to British society as a whole, according to Christian Friends of Israel spokesman David Soakell.
A new poll finds there are over 2.5 million Hamas sympathisers in the country (4% of the population), Hamas being an antisemitic genocidal terrorist organisation proscribed under UK law whose charter stands for the massacre of Jews everywhere.
The polling also shows that over three million Britons (5%) want all Jewish presence in the Middle East eliminated through mass expulsion, and the same number say the October 7th atrocity – the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – was “justified”.
A sick society
The UK is a “permissive environment” for antisemitism and London has become a “no-go zone for Jews” during weekend pro-Palestinian marches, the Government’s Commissioner for Countering Extremism has said.
Robin Simcox said a good test of a society’s health was how it treated its Jews – and, by this metric, Britain was “very sick indeed”.
He urged ministers to “be bolder and be willing to accept higher legal risk” when tackling extremism.
Iranian attack backfires
As the Iranian missile attack on Israel left the country largely unscathed in what was widely seen as a Passover miracle, Iran was at the same time suffering an influx of crocodiles as a result of extreme flooding.
The crocs were displaced by flash floods in the south-east of the country where residents were warned about ‘short-nosed crocodiles’ forced out of their habitat.
Some Torah commentators have said that the plague of frogs that afflicted Egypt according to the Exodus story might be interpreted to have been crocodiles.
Iranian lawyer slams pro-Palestine protesters
British-born Iranian-American attorney Elicia Le Bon (pictured) has slammed pro-Palestine protesters for twerking on TikTok in support of Hamas, Houthis and Hezbollah.
Israel support not enough – Truss
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss, who was hounded out of office after just 44 days over her unacceptable economic policies, has revealed how she had to intervene on occasions during her time in Downing Street to ensure Britain supported Israel.
Also a one-time Foreign Secretary, Truss has said: “I would like to see more support for Israel,” adding that there is “a tendency to not support Israel as much as I would like in the Foreign Office”.
In my opinion, rumours that she was thinking of moving Tel Aviv’s British Embassy to Jerusalem quite possibly had more to do with the trouble she encountered than has been generally acknowledged.
In Brief
- Pro-Palestine protesters slashed an historic painting at the University of Cambridge in March. Footage shows Palestine Action spray-painting a 1914 piece depicting Lord Arthur Balfour, who was responsible for the Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising British government support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.
- After criticising Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu during a public address, US President Joe Biden was later caught by a ‘hot mic’ speaking about the Israeli Prime Minister as follows: “I told him, Bibi — and don’t repeat this — but you and I are going to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting.” Quite what he was referring to is a mystery. Answers on a postcard.
- After a protester carrying a swastika sign was arrested at a pro-Palestinian march in London, outrage was sparked by a video in which a police officer told a pro-Israel counter-protester that the swastika sign had to be taken in context.
Other recent articles by Charles Gardner, which can be found at www.heartpublications.co.uk, include:
The Lamb of God, Resisting the wolf, A costly love token, Worship in Whitehall, Redemption is near, and An upside-down world
Charles is a regular contributor to Israel Today at www.israeltoday.co.il and is author of ‘To the Jew First’, ‘King of the Jews’, ‘A Nation Reborn’, ‘Israel the Chosen’ and ‘Peace in Jerusalem’, variously available from Christian Publications International, Amazon and Eden Books (Eden.co.uk)