College Campus Anti-Israel Protests - A Burdensome Stone

Blessings to Israel presents Discerning the Times, a program committed to encouraging you to view current events through the lens of the Bible.

Now, in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, please join us for today's program. We've been working through a series under the general theme that God is moving, and I believe that is an accurate statement, that God is moving in the earth, not because God always moves in the earth and God's always up to something, but I believe in a unique sense. In a sense of the fulfillment of portions of scripture, we can see God moving in the earth.

I'm not adding to that some apocalyptic or eschatological perspective. I'm simply saying we're living in a season when, without question, the Spirit of God is moving in unique and profound ways. I believe he is the initiator of the changes that we see around us. I believe he's preparing a people for himself, a church without spot or blemish. Then I also believe he's establishing the Jewish people in their historic homeland that he promised to Abraham way back in the book of Genesis, and he will do it in spite of the consternation of the United Nations or the academic elites in this nation. Welcome to Discerning the Times.

My name is Brian Thomas. Such a blessing to be with you once again this week, and that is the voice of Pastor Alan Jackson, speaking on the fact that God is moving in the world. God is establishing the Jewish people in the homeland that he promised to Abraham way back in the Old Testament, and as a result of that, there are many things that are happening throughout the world. We witnessed the Iranian attack on Israel on April the 14th in which they sent hundreds of cruise missiles and drones, and that ties back to Israel's response to the Hamas attack in October of 2023. So as a result of these things, what we see is that there is just this explosion of anti-Israel protests on college campuses throughout our nation. This is what was playing on the local news when I turned on my television this past Tuesday morning. 603 right now, and things are happening as UNC administrators say a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus has to start dispersing, and WRAL's Kelsey Coffey is live on campus this morning.

A lot going on there behind you. Kelsey, this school just issued the announcement in the last 10 minutes. Jeff, police have just arrived now, so they're trying to vacate the area. They've been moving tents out of the way, ripping them now as students have been refusing to leave. We've seen them protesting chanting free Palestine for the past 10 or 15 minutes or so. We just had a statement come in from UNC administration saying that they had to leave by 6 a.m.

So at this point now, the police are here. Students are banning together. They're holding hands. They're linking arms at this point. Right now, I see a police officer dragging a student, just dragging them by their hair. Another student is down.

One student has a helmet that just fell off. All right, so all of that chaos is because of what Pastor Alan Jackson said. God is establishing the Jewish people in their land that he promised to them thousands of years ago.

So we will talk about that this week. But before we do, I want to remind you that your eternal state is far more important than your current state. If you have never received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I encourage you to do so today. Otherwise, if you leave this out of life without having received him, you will spend eternity in the lake of fire.

So will you please give your heart to Jesus Christ on today? So once again, that report was from the UNC Chapel Hill campus in which again, the chaos there of anti-Israel protests where the police were brought in to remove an encampment of protesting against the nation of Israel. And they are protesting Israel's response to the Hamas terrorist attack. And we have to remember, folks, that Hamas raped women.

They beheaded and burned babies. And there are still hostages there today in Gaza being held by Hamas. And they are protesting Israel's right to the land. But Israel is simply defending itself against what was done to them. But they are viewing Israel as being in the wrong. So they are calling for a Gaza ceasefire. And I've spoken at length in previous weeks of how the Bible tells us that Israel has the right to the land.

So I won't go through all of that today. But what I will share with you through scripture is that the book of Zechariah prophesies what we see taking place today. In Zechariah chapter 12 verse 2, it says, Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. Zechariah goes on to say in the next verse, And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone. The King James version says, Burdensome for all peoples, all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all the nations of the earth are gathered against it. Now, we're going to see the total fulfillment of this in the seven year tribulation, but we see it already beginning folks, we are there today. When you see this cup of drunkenness, notice in verse two, it says to all the surrounding peoples, that means those nations that are in that vicinity of the nation of Israel.

But in verse three, it says he will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples. That means the entire world, all the nations are gathered against it. And that is what we see happening in our nation, in many of the areas throughout the world in which people are protesting against the nation of Israel. So we're going to return now to pastor Alan Jackson, as he is addressing what is taking place in the land of Israel from the attack by Iran on April 14th.

I think in the shaking, something's being exposed. The degree to which the spirit of antichrist has flourished in American academia. And I believe we're going to have to prayerfully and intentionally begin to see that there's another world view that flourishes in our educational systems.

We cannot abandon our young people to the ideas that they're being subjected to. I'm a church, I'll stay polite. But in spite of that, the Lord is doing the most remarkable things. And I hope you're watching for those and listening for those and aware of those. I assure you, what God is doing is more profound than anything evil is about. What God is doing doesn't get as many clicks or sell as many papers. So most of the headlines and most of the click bait leads you towards expressions of darkness or evil or perversion. But I assure you, God is moving. A week ago today, about the time we finished church, I went home and turned on the television. We just returned from Jerusalem on Friday and I saw the missiles from Iran headed towards Jerusalem in the land of Israel.

Looked like a fireworks display. It was really, it's the first time in modern history we have seen the nation of Iran launch a direct attack on the state of Israel. Heretofore they have used their proxies like Hamas or Hezbollah or others.

The names change, but Iran stays behind them as the funding and the motivation. But someone shared a report with me this week. There was a testimony about what God is doing and I thought it was good enough. I want to share it with you. It's not firsthand experience.

I didn't talk to the scientists. Someone shared it with me. So you're the third person in the loop. But it seems credible with what I know of what happened a week ago tonight. It was a message that a physics professor wrote to his rabbi in Israel. He said, I wanted to share with the rabbi something that is much more than a feeling that on Shabbat, Shabbat in Israel begins at sundown on Friday and continues until sundown on Saturday. So on Shabbat night, something happened here on the scale of the splitting of the Red Sea. I'm a doctor of physics and I worked for several years in the defense industry in Israel in projects that are still cutting edge for the state of Israel. When I look at what happened on Saturday night on a scientific level, it simply cannot happen. Everyone and I mean everyone acted as one person in overall unity. He continued in the letter, the likelihood that everything works out just as it should does not exist in complex systems like the defense systems that were operating.

They have never and I mean never, even beyond the state of Israel, been tried in real time. So I took a pencil and dove into the calculations to check the likelihood that such a result would materialize. The large number of events that had to be handled at precisely the right time doubles the chance of making a mistake. With all the high technologies, the expectation was for a breach in the defense of the skies of the state of Israel.

Even if we got 90 percent protection, it would be a miracle. What happened though is that everyone and again he said, I mean everyone, the pilots, the system operators, the technology operators, they acted as one person at one moment in total unity. He said, if this isn't an act of God, then I no longer know what a miracle is. If you know anything of Israeli history, what he says next is pretty remarkable. He said, this is sharper than the victory on the six day war or the war of independence.

There it could be explained according to nature. The rescue that took place for the people of Israel on Shabbat night is simply impossible naturally. I believe that this miracle saved the lives of many people from the land of Israel. If the descent defense system had failed to intercept a number of cruise missiles, the result would have dragged us into a very complex campaign. I wouldn't bet that the next time it will work like this without divine supervision.

The simple proof of what I said is that the managers of the security industries who develop and manufacture the systems will guarantee no more than a 90% success. And then he quotes the scripture. Since the days that you came out of the land of Egypt, you have shown your wonder. We have been shown your wonderful things. So God is moving even in places where the scientists tell us God is moving.

And I assure you he's moving in middle Tennessee or wherever your home is. Just as certainly as he was standing over the skies of Jerusalem in the land of Israel last Saturday. So again, that was Alan Jackson, pastor of world outreach church.

And I totally agree with the pastor because what we see right now is that the spirit of Antichrist, it is flourishing in America in academia. And what do we saw when Iran attack Israel on April 14th as they launched hundreds of cruise missiles and drones into the land of Israel, 99% of the missiles were intercepted. And pastor Jackson is saying it is an act of God because the Bible tells us that God protects Israel. Daniel chapter 12, verse one states that the Archangel Michael stands watch over the nation of Israel. If you will look in Daniel chapter 10, verse 13, it tells us, but the Prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me. And so that same nation of Persia is the same nation of Iran today.

The name changed from Persia to Iran in 1935. So that same spirit that was against the nation of Israel way back in those days of the Bible in the, in the book of Daniel, that same spirit is against the nation of Israel on today. So I want you to hear more because again, we see this explosion of anti Israel protests that are going on throughout campuses throughout our nation. Pro Palestine protests continue unabated at Columbia university ahead of the start of the Jewish holiday Passover. The school's president Manoush Shafik announced early Monday that classes will be virtual as reports of antisemitic and offensive statements and actions on and near the campus escalate. Someone just got arrested.

Things have definitely got a lot more tense. With many Jewish students reporting that they feel unsafe according to reports, demonstrators yelled at pro Israel passerby buyers. One protester repeatedly chanted, we are Hamas arguments rage in a battle for free speech. I don't have faith that you'll do this.

You guys are all horrible human beings and Jesus probably would have killed you himself. You were part of the protesters now. Do you think free speech is being attacked?

Absolutely. Has this been something which has only started happening in the last few weeks or something which has started happening for years, happening since 1948 Palestinians have been speaking out for 75 years and they have been violently repressed. A lot of us are members of minority communities who have experienced similar oppression, similar repression when we try to fight back.

I remind you that these holidays that we practice that other people in the global south practice believe in violent revolution against their oppressors. There are these like two narratives that are being presented that like you can either be a Zionist or pro Palestinian and that's it. And now we're seeing a media class, frankly a very pro Israel biased media class emphasizing what any rogue actor does to try to delegitimize the movement. So regardless of whether you elect people into office, they'll backstab you, they'll let you die. And for that reason, you guys want to criminalize us with metal detectors.

We'll see you at your house. These protesters are out there. They're gaining momentum and now we're seeing it become violent where they're actually targeting Jewish students and keeping them from going to class and they're actually physically assaulting them. So this is ramping up like unfortunately we thought it would.

Yeah, absolutely. We are going into the spring. It's riot season and we have to expect this.

Unfortunately this is going to be the theme throughout the rest of the spring and into the summer. People are going to be rioting. People are going to be really doing lawless things in the name of hatred of the Jews and hatred of any oppressors.

Yeah. And if you hear the rhetoric now, they were just protesting before, but now these protesters are comparing it to racism and oppression that they've experienced. We're yelling not just pro Palestinian, but pro Hamas and Hamas are known terrorists. So they're yelling things like a revolution into Fada.

I mean those are all slogans to eliminate Jews, to persecute Jews. And we saw it in the 1930s with Germany and it's like history is repeating itself all over again. This week we've got protests at Columbia University, Yale University, MIT, NYU, the University of Michigan, and now also the University of Sydney in Australia. This is growing and that's what normally happens, right? As college campuses start to protest, as things start to move, it's going to only grow from one campus to the next, to the next, to the next. And that's what they want. Yeah. We're going to see this spread like wildfire, unfortunately.

And you're right. These protests are planned, they're well funded, and unfortunately our own government is helping to fund some of these, these NGOs that we have out there also, as we've been finding out that are bringing in the invasion immigrants that are coming to the country. We are funding them. This is planned.

This is organized. It's to create a crisis so that the government has to step in and then say, don't worry, we'll manage this. So this, I mean the violence like we're seeing is going to be out of control. And we just saw what last week, a school in New York, a Jewish school, was just completely set afire. It burned to the ground. Thankfully, no one was killed. But I mean, this is to the point where it's going to, I don't think there's going to be a slowdown.

I think we're going to see similar things that happened during the George Floyd riots, where it's just going to keep escalating and escalating. And unfortunately, it's the Jewish people that are being blamed for it. Right. And this is the oldest hatred, right? The anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred. And we know that John tells us in 1 John chapter 3 that everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

Why? Because sin is lawlessness. And we can turn it on the other way. Lawlessness is sin. So that was Ken Michael and Josh Schwartz of Understanding Our Times. And as you heard him say there, the spirit of lawlessness. And we see that sweeping the world right now. And that is the spirit of Antichrist. The Bible tells us that. And God told Satan in Genesis chapter 3, when he convinced Adam and Eve to take of the fruit, he said he would put enmity between him and the woman and that her seed would bruise his head, referring to Jesus Christ. And then in Revelation chapter 12, verses 4 through 5, it says the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born.

She bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And so, folks, this is spiritual warfare that we have going on here. It is Satan's attempt to overthrow God. And we see the spiritual warfare being manifested in the natural. And what we see happening throughout the world and throughout our nation, this is part of the great reset.

It is part of Marxism, which pits the oppressed versus the oppressor. And what we have is that they are portraying Israel as the oppressor. This is Satan's narrative, but it's all a lie because God, again, promised the land to the nation of Israel. Israel has a right to the land and Israel has a right to defend itself. Let's listen to another report that sheds light on what we see taking place in the world today.

This is exactly how, I mean, and let's just be honest here. This is not a surprise or a secret that the proxy status is dissolving in front of us and that the Middle East is becoming something new and something terrible. This is a result of foreign policy. This is Joe Biden's foreign policy. He went away from the Abraham Accords.

He re-engaged with Iran, coddled Iran. You condemn the anti-Semitic protests on college campuses. I condemn the anti-Semitic protests.

That's why I've set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians. So the Abraham Accords was brokered by Donald Trump, President Trump, and it brought peace between the Middle Eastern nations. But what we see is that the current administration has came along and it's unraveling it.

It is doing things like funding Iran and that is bolstering them to carry out these attacks against the nation of Israel. And that is why who you vote for and why you should vote is so important because it has a direct impact on the world. And the way you vote should be determined by your biblical worldview as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we see here today is setting the stage for what the Bible prophesies in Ezekiel 38 and 39, where a coalition of nations attack Israel from the north. Now I believe that could be before or after the rapture. So don't look at it and say, well, that must happen before Jesus Christ can come back for his church.

No, the rapture can take place at any moment, but we see the stage is being set for Ezekiel 38 and 39. So again, there are just these explosion of protests on college campuses throughout our nation. Here's another report that speaks to what is taking place.

From New York to California and Illinois to DC. Demonstrations over the violence in the Middle East are spreading across more college campuses just ahead of graduation as tensions flare and arrests soar into the hundreds. At Emory University, heavily armed officers deployed pepper balls to break up protesters who police say threw bottles, even tasing one person resisting arrest. Faculty members joining the protests. Can you call the philosophy department office and tell them I've been arrested and more confrontations between protesters and police at Ohio State. After chaotic clashes at the University of Southern California, the school canceling its main commencement ceremony just two weeks away.

I don't understand specifically why are we afraid? The university says it won't have time to process the estimated 65,000 guests with its new safety measures in place. The unprecedented move comes after USC already nixed the graduation speech of its pro Palestinian valedictorian due to safety concerns.

Even if they have to cancel every single commencement, that's up to them. But what protesters are defending as free speech, some Jewish students call hate speech. Freedom of speech is very important and I'm very for that, but I think there is a point where the university itself has a duty to protect all of its students, including the Jewish ones. Remember folks that Hamas still has Israeli hostages. Remember that, as I said earlier, Hamas raped women before killing many, they beheaded babies and burned babies, and yet Israel is being painted as the perpetrator for simply defending itself, for simply saying we are going to take out this terrorist group so they cannot come in and do these things to us once again. And these students are calling for school administrators to divest any business with the nation of Israel.

It brings to mind Psalm 83 verse four. They have said, come, let us cut them all from being a nation that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. And the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 stated that Israel should be, quote, wiped off the face of the earth, end quote.

And we see the same sentiment on college campuses throughout our nation. And the prophet Jeremiah called it the time of Jacob's trouble, that time in which Israel would face the worst period that we have, that it has ever seen or ever would see. And we are fast approaching that time because the return of our Lord to Israel is fast approaching. Before we close, I want to return to one more clip from the report out of UNC Chapel Hill, because I want it in our minds as to what is taking place when we see this vitriol toward Israel on college campuses so far. And Jeff, our crews have been covering these protesters over the past few days, talking to them about what they are protesting, what they're demanding, not just a ceasefire in Gaza, but also they want the university to divest funding to stop essentially stop doing business with Israeli companies and businesses that may profit from the war in Gaza. So right now, officers are screaming, time to go, leave now. And these students are refusing to leave, still protesting.

Dozens of students are still here in the area. So once again, that was the chaos that we saw on the campus of the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill just this past Tuesday, in which this spirit of antichrist is stirring up all of these students to go against the nation of Israel. Remember that I said earlier, Zachariah chapter 12, verse three says that in that day, God will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples. And he says, all the nations of the earth are gathered against it. And we see folks that taken place right before our eyes. May we be in prayer for the nation of Israel, but we need not worry for them because God will protect.

God will save the nation of Israel. But these are interesting times that we are living in. And the Bible tells us that we could know the signs. No, we cannot know the day of the Lord's return, but it said, we can know the time. We can know the season.

And that is why we should be discerning of these very interesting times that we are living in. So we're out of time for this week. I want to thank you for tuning in.

Please come back and join us next time. As we close, we remember what Psalm 122 verse six says to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper who love you bless God's great nation of Israel until the only wise to be glory through Jesus Christ forever.

Amen. Thank you for tuning into discerning the times. Please come back and join us next week as we continue to encourage you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Until next time, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God. Discerning the times is presented by blessings to Israel.