“A Minority Report”

March 23, 2019

While most of the USA is focused on what may be found in the Robert Mueller report, the more important news is what happened this week, when our President recognized Israel’s right to keep the Golan Heights.  What has been Syrian territory is now recognized by our President as part of Israel, despite the fact it is sovereign territory of Syria seized by Israel in war.  This is equivalent to the Russian government annexing Crimea in Ukraine.  A sovereign nation obtains land by an act of aggression and war and annexes the same.  Besides being in violation of commonly recognized conventions among nations, this President’s statement compromises our ability to criticize Russia for their action towards Ukraine.  It recognizes an act of an aggressor nation seeking to take over another nation’s land.  As I recall the first George W. Bush called us to war against Iraq for something like this.  This sets a most dangerous precedent for us all!

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also announced that his faith as a Christian in the White House has helped him realize President’s Trumps divine role as protector of Israel from Iran.  I don’t recall such a bizarre statement ever being said before by a United States Secretary of State, invoking religious faith to justify the action of a President in relation to Israel.  Normally these kind of statements come from ministers and rabbis, not from our Secretary of State!  This is another ominous development in the White House.  It is well known that conservative Christian groups regularly endorse the actions of the Israeli government, as many feel the reborn Israel in the land of the Palestinians is the fulfillment of long awaited prophecy of “the end times.”  Since 1947, when Israel became a nation, according to this belief, the clock is now ticking on the fulfillment of God’s plan which will usher in Armageddon and the end of the world as we know it.

We have a secular state (of Israel) with religious components of government being endorsed and supported by conservative and very religious Christians who see in the actions of the secular government of Israel the restoration of the “true Israel of God.”  Having confused the secular state of Israel with the spiritual “Israel of God”, which is made up of Jews and Gentiles born anew in the Spirit of Jesus Christ and is the “church of the Redeemer”, the “bride of Christ”, “the gathering of the redeemed from every nation, people, tribe and tongue,” there is no discernment between the “ true Israel of God” and the secular state of Israel.  The wedding together of religion and politics is no different than what Ayatollah Khomeini did in Iran in the 1970s.  We know what oppression of the Iranian people this has caused.  Only God knows the result of the wedding of conservative Christianity and their endorsement of the secular state of Israel.  We can be assured it will be equally as bizarre!

It is when the President of the United States and his new Secretary of State use the religious right’s theology to endorse the secular state of Israel and to change US governmental policy toward the right wing conservative government of Benjamin Netanyahu that we have reason to be concerned!  Our neophyte President who knows nothing of world politics save what he is being fed by his conservative advisors, in his lust to keep power to himself, is being mired now into the geopolitical swamp of the Middle East.  The United States will no longer be viewed as a fair broker for the Peace Process between the Palestinians and the Jews.  Instead, we will be viewed by the whole world as favoring the Israelis and no one will trust us to broker any deal for peace in this troubled region.

The Israeli agenda is to jettison the swap of “land for peace” which has been the framework of the Middle East Peace Agreement for the past 40 years.  We can be sure when they begin to annex the West Bank and other Palestinian territories, we will have gone far down this troubled road.  The rights of the Palestinians will be lost forever, the Israel dominance of Jerusalem as capital city is assured and no one will have the power to go back and prevent the Israeli over reach of power and land.  The secular state of Israel has no intention of giving back their settlements in Palestinian land, nor do they plan to ever cede any part of Jerusalem as a capital for the Palestinians.  Indeed, Trump has been “God’s gift” to Israel to deliver what they could not achieve under any other US President.  Remember how antagonistic Netanyahu was towards President Obama.  Obama kept insisting that Israel give up their settlements in the occupied territories of the Palestinians.  Now in President Trump they have a naïve President and a Christian Secretary of State Pompeo who actually believes that by endorsing the policies of secular Israel they are helping to do the will of God!

I present this minority opinion as a Christian minister and a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ simply to let it be known that not all Christians endorse what our President is doing, nor are we in any hurry for Armageddon to come more quickly!  In fact, we stand in horror, praying before God that someone somewhere will wake this president from his ignorant stupor!  In his lust to keep himself in power as President, he is embarking on new and dangerous road for our world.  I stand watching in horror and in amazement!  What I never believed could happen is now happening!  My worst nightmare for the world as I know it (or thought I knew it) is now evolving right before my eyes.  If I did not believe that our God is sovereign Ruler and Lord of all that is and ever shall be, I should be quite afraid of all of this.  Yet, I am willing and ready to admit and to proclaim on any day past, present or future, Our God in Jesus Christ does know what He as God is doing!

Perhaps the Lord Jesus Christ did raise up President Trump to do what is imminently unreasonable and terribly stupid as to geo-politics.  Perhaps we really do need another world war to cause us to earnestly desire the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ our Lord!   When we embrace madness it make take a desperate time to give us our sanity once again!  I, for one, am ready to embrace Jesus Christ however he may choose to come to us!  I would earnestly hope and pray however that God saves both the Palestinians and the Jews, just as I pray for God to save the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhist, the Chinese and those with and without any kind of religion.  The world is a much better place if we can somehow come to Paradise together!  Jesus Christ is the only way for this to ever occur, as only Jesus Christ, and not the President nor our Secretary of State has been divinely appointed to do this!  Jesus Christ is our Living and Holy Lord!  He is our only Supreme Redeemer!  Jesus Christ alone deserves our worship and our praise!

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!  The whole earth, the realms of all things seen and unseen bow before Thee!  The whole earth is full of Your Glory!  Only You, Lord Jesus are worthy of our worship and our praise, world without end, Amen and Amen!

Bill Wilson, servant of God by God’s gracious mercies in Jesus Christ my Lord and my Redeemer!

Let all of God’s people say, “Amen!”

“Amen!  We praise you, Lord Jesus Christ!”