Israel

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.

So are you a supporter of Israel? Do you support Israel? Or do you think they're evil? I mean, I'm hearing a lot of people nowadays talking about Israel being the synagogue of Satan. Psalm 122 verse 6 tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

They shall prosper that love thee. And Robbie, you just took a trip to Israel. Oh yeah, yeah, it was amazing. The Friends of Zion. Actually, I paid for the trip with the state of Israel to bring a thousand pastors.

And Christian leaders and some educators, Christian educators and Christian schools, all made a trip over there right at the beginning of December. For a week, and it was no tourist trip, believe me. It was a trip. Um eyewitness stories Um places that You would never forget Videos, unfortunately, I can never unsee of what actually happened on October 7th, 2023, in that war and sort of You know, so that the truth could be told at least from their side of it. And Yeah, it was something that none of us, I'm sure, that were on that trip will ever forget and never unsee a lot of it because it's just The way people are deceived is just unbelievable.

And, you know, we just Mike and I just did this video on gossip, right? And so I don't want anybody to get me wrong. The Palestinians or Hamas or Hezbollah or any of those folks. are not the enemy. Yeah.

And if you listen closely to the Jewish people, they don't consider them the enemy. They love them. I mean, you know, that day on October 7th, their ambulances were carrying Hezbollah fighters as well. They love life. Like any You know, godly person would love life and realize that there's lots of ways that I'm deceived.

And so, you know, I think it's important that what I'm talking about is the horrific things that happened in a war. But I don't consider that these other people are anything more than greatly deceived. And undoubtedly, I'm greatly deceived in a lot of areas too, Mike.

So, you know, but essentially, you know, they took us out the first day. And we went to the Nova Festival site. And through the Nova Festival site, they felt like we could get an idea of kind of the layout of how the war happened and and You know, why Israel became so infuriated, et cetera, et cetera, was you know, 6,000 terrorists that morning of oct you know, and they they They were celebrating the end of the feast of Sukkah, the. Which is the happiest festival of all the Jewish festivals. And the morning of the eighth day.

is a big, huge deal.

Well, at sunrise that morning at the Nova Festival, which is a music festival, you know, it's kind of like, you know, Woodstock or something, man. You've munched bunches of young people and like unfortunately I've seen all the pictures of all and you've seen the picture I've shown. Of every one of them that fell in that in the terrorist attack that morning, um they They put up a marker with that person's face and their family would come and bring their stuffed animals because they were mostly young people. They were mostly in their late teens, early twenties. And to see all these beautiful people memorialized this way it's a difficult thing.

That morning, 6,000. Hezbollah troops crossed the border after firing 700, I believe, missiles into Israel that morning just to distract him. Not that they thought any would get through the Iron Dome, but they just thought, well, if they get the people to look it up, they won't be thinking about looking across the field, which is where the people were coming. And so. What they did, unfortunately, they they appeared to Target The most Atrocious type of murder that you could possibly imagine in order to elicit an extreme response from Israel.

And so the taking of those hostages Was just a small, small part of it. They not only killed people, they killed people to make them suffer as much as they possibly could in the process. Because I know, because I saw videos of how they literally did it, and there was a whole lot of cars, like there were 1,500 cars that were in this lot. that had burned burned. And in many cases, they literally would shoot the people that were in the cars, not kill them, but just shoot them, and then set the car on fire so that they would literally burn to death to give them an idea that this would be the first time Jews would be burnt alive since the Holocaust.

in mass numbers, right? There were twelve hundred and forty Jews that were killed this morning. That morning, they they lined the highways as people tried to flee. They would shoot into their cars and they would set their cars on fire. And so here's this whole lot of And there would be ambulances that Yeah, one ambulance you know, nine people were burned to death in.

It was just, you know, then that's just what happened, you know, at the Hezbollah site to give us an idea of. um what actually happened. And that night We had a meeting with several of the Israeli officials, and one of the most. influential ones I'll never forget as long as I live was Mike Huckabee himself. Right, that our ambassador to Israel spoke.

And he said You know, a lot of people think that there were a lot of casualties in this war, but honestly, he said there were less casualties in this war than any of the other major Israeli conflicts. And he said But in spite of that, he said Hezbollah knew that if they had released the hostages, that the war would have been over. They told him that the war would be over. And in fact, when they finally did release the hostages, is when the war was over. And so on day two or day three, the war could have been over.

He said, but if you had seen the videos of how they were. murdering in some cases children and older people You know, if you had seen that with your own eyes and you had had one of your children kidnapped and taken down into those tunnels, to what extreme would you go to try to get your children back, to get your family back? And this is my cuckabee speaking. I'll never forget those words because it made perfect sense to me. Like, oh my goodness, they had a reason.

To invade Gaza, to take care of it, to see that this kind of thing never happened again because. You know, what they did, unfortunately, was not just a war. They said, you know, these were. Not. I mean, in some cases, yeah, there was a military response, and there were some military people on the Israel side that were murdered.

I mean, that were killed that day in combat. But. you know A good 80% of the Israelis, they were women and children and young men and people that were nowhere close to fighters. Yeah. Yeah, and it's and it's It's being spun the exact opposite way.

I mean, you know, people, I see it all over the place about how Israel is committing genocide. And I think the problem is, and I talked to Joel Richardson when I had him on Truth Talk Live this past Friday. But one of the problems is that now there was a time where if you wanted to get your news, you had ABC, CBS, or NBC, and maybe CNN. And so what I think people realized is that you were only really getting one side of the news. And so, I think one of the really good things that has happened is that anybody with a camera can turn around their camera and share something that they want to share.

Like, we just saw Nick Shirley. Are you familiar with him? The guy from Minnesota who went to the daycares. And exposed what was going on, all of the corruption, the fraud, the billions of dollars that was being, you know, fraudulently stolen from the taxpayers of Minnesota. And now, what do they do?

They're attacking this guy who went out and just exposed the corruption. And so, there are some good things that can come from that. But, Robbie, I think one of the bad things that can come from that as well is that now anybody with a camera and anybody who has a lot of followers can immediately post something. And if you have a lot of followers, then people are going to listen to you. And you may not be right.

You may not be educated. You may not have the credentials that somebody else does, but if you have the followers, then people are going to listen to you. And you may not be right. And I do believe that there are a lot of people these days who are being led astray. Yeah, and you know, it's an opportunity, you know, for us.

Because we know What is where's God in this? You know? And and no doubt that You know, I'd be the first person to say that the Israeli people are being, you know, certainly deceived in lots of different ways, as are many, many Christians.

So I get that. And they're absolutely not. You know, completely right by anybody's stretching the imagination, however. You know, when you really look at it from a standpoint of where is God in this, and what is God wanting to do, and what's our role in this? And it was so clear.

What his instruction is: if you bless them, you will be blessed.

Now, blessing comes by love. And sometimes that's love to tell them, I don't think you're handling this right, or I don't think you're doing this right, or that isn't the way you would do it. But however, it's done. It it's done with their good in mind. Right?

And it's the same thing for the Palestinians or Hezbollah or whoever else. You know, what can we do to love on these people to help them not be deceived and to keep them from hurting themselves or hurting each other? You know, it's kind of. Where we are as the body of Christ is, you know, where does God fall down in this? And how can we, you know, be his intimate ally in as much as we can telling the truth of what we see and love?

Yeah, and that's one of the things that I talked about with Joel Richardson on the last video or the last interview is where he said, you know, I said, how do you love people? How do you love these people who are saying, F Israel, who were attacking you personally? And all of this other stuff, because it's very clear that, you know, Jesus said, he said, you have heard that it hath been said in Matthew 5, 38, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He says, but I say unto you that you resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee, at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

Now, do you know the story behind that about why Jesus said, Whoever tells you to go one mile, go with him two? I do, but I would love for you to tell it because I'm sure every listener hasn't heard it. No, no, no. Go ahead. No.

Go ahead. I want to hear what you say. Go ahead. Okay.

Well, the Roman military at the time, they were, you know, they. had occupied Israel. Mm-hmm. You know, unfortunately, not unlike you would hear stories of the Englishmen that were doing the same thing, interestingly, to the Americans, you know, when they came in into America. But er essentially, they considered all the public their slave.

And so if they were Had some burden they wanted to carry, and they saw some Jew, no matter what, man, woman, or child, here, you got to take this burden and you got to carry it. And what he's saying is. It's one thing to carry it that first mile, but while you're carrying it to that second mile, then that Roman is going to be thinking. There's a person under there rather than a burden carrier, right? And there's like.

You know, you're getting their attention. Out of love. And therein lies the reason why you turn the other cheek. You don't turn the other cheek to take a beating, you turn the other cheek in hopes. to help them see themselves In a light that would help them to repent.

Yeah. Because the idea, again, is repentance for them. Is it as much, you know, in our case, however that would work. And, you know, it's a great thing that Jesus shared there. Very challenging, however, if you've been smitten.

Yeah. I can assure you.

Well, because the natural part for us is to want to expose what the other side is doing wrong and what everybody else is doing wrong. And I do believe there's a time where we have to say, hey, look, there are some people out there who are, you know, who were formerly conservatives and now they're out there. They have the biggest platforms. And I believe that they're leading people astray. And I've mentioned their names.

I'm sure you know who they are without me even saying their names. But and we have to say, look, what they're saying is what they're doing is dangerous. But I think more so. What we have to do is we have to share the truth. And so, yes, there are times where we have, but there are some people, Robbie.

I think their whole job and everything that they find to do. is to find fault in what everybody else is doing. And eventually I think people kind of get to the point, they say, okay, I understand you're finding the fault in what everybody else and where everybody else is doing, but what is your message? What is your message? What is the message that you're trying to convey?

And I think that the message that you're trying to convey here is that you've been to Israel, you've seen what it's like firsthand. And for me, when we're supposed to support Israel, when it tells us in the Bible, I mean, it's pretty plain and clear. Yeah, and I have, you know, God's really blessed me. There's no doubt He has. That for years, you know, I've gone to the NRB, you've been there, the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, and I have interviewed so many people from Magandava Adam, which is the Red Cross of Israel.

And I've interviewed so many rabbis, and I've interviewed all these people to understand. Um How loving these people are. and how much they really do love their enemies. And they take that part of the Bible, you know, their own verses. They don't have Jesus, but they have their verses and they live that stuff out.

And it's really a thing of beauty to me to have seen them. preach it and then what happened on October twenty third was oh my goodness. When you really looked at it, Hezbollah targeted ambulances on purpose. Because again, they were trying to elicit a horrible response because they're deceived, right?

Well, if they're targeting ambulances, you know what happened? The most amazing thing, Franklin Graham. Right, you know, Samaritans First Ministries bought them. Right after October 7th. Samaritan Spurs bought them eight ambulances, one of which or two of which were armored ambulances, in order to help them do that.

It made such an impact. It made such an impact. Um On the Jewish people, that they felt like, oh my goodness, these people are loving us. We actually have people that care. We have people that see that we have a desperate need right now to be able to take care of our people that are hurting.

And those were opportunities that literally I've watched. Hardened attitudes towards Christians because they've had a bad time with Christians through the Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition. It's not been so good for them. But here was an opportunity for them to see Christians actually love on them. And as we did, Then we we We started to be able to build this bridge that I know God wants to build, right?

Between the nations, because we're all ended up in Jerusalem. Read the Bible, it's there. Yeah, yeah.

Well, and what I heard you say that Franklin Graham did reminded me of Matthew 5, verses 14, where Jesus said, You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. And I think a lot of times we think.

That you know, we want to get people to listen to us because we want them to listen to our logic. And well, we've got all the answers in the Bible and we can out-debate you and stuff like that. A lot of times, people become Christians or even other religions, which are not true, because people were nice to them. And Franklin Graham did a good deed for Israel. He bought them eight ambulances that were armored.

And that I wonder, and I hope, if there were some people over in Israel who were not Christians who said, You know what? If this is what Christianity is about, Maybe I want to give this a chance or maybe I want to give this a look. You know, and I I've experienced that very thing. That it it used to be for me, if I would even begin to mention a New Testament passage to a rabbi or something, I would be, you know, felt like I'd stomped all over the world and they would look down on me. It was something.

However, that's not the attitude I experience anymore. In fact, I've heard more than one Jewish rabbi say to me, Robbie. You would never convince me. And by the way, I would never convince them that Jesus is the Christ, he is the Messiah. That would be the Holy Spirit that's going to do that.

But anyway, they said, you would never convince me that Jesus would be the Messiah. He said, however, If he is the Messiah, come on. In other words, they are very, very, very much looking for the Messiah as we are, looking for Jesus to come. And it's kind of neat to think they are at the point where What kind of bridges can we build? Um As they know that the prophecy of all the Bible speaks to what's going to happen at the end in Jerusalem, and that all the nations are going to worship in Jerusalem.

And so, as we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, as we bless Israel, and blessing Israel also has to do with my, from my perspective, loving on Palestine, loving on Hezbollah, loving on all their enemies, because however we can do that, you know, and figuring out. You know, sometimes you got to put restraints in, sometimes you got to go to war. There's a peace that only comes on the other side of the war. I hate that, but it's true. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and it's kind of like the last show when I was talking to you about conflict. I hate having to deal with conflict. But there are times where, unless you deal with the situation head on, it's never gonna get better.

Now, there have been times where I have sometimes I've noticed. Or have you just let things sit for a little while? God will work it out. I see that. But there are times where you have to deal with conflict.

And so. I've got a friend of mine named Sharon, Sharon Hungerford. You know Sharon. Of course. And one of the things that she did is she spent maybe a week or two just trying to answer the questions of people.

Who did not support Israel? Maybe Christian. There's a lot of Christians out there nowadays. It used to be: if you were an evangelical Christian in the United States, you supported Israel for the most part. You know, there were exceptions.

But nowadays, there's a lot of evangelical Christians who are looking at the stuff online, the junk online, the people, the conspiracy theorists who are throwing out all these theories and claims, unfounded, I believe. And they're just taking it. And like I said, because they have a lot of followers and they're saying, okay.

Well, our question is, is okay, when you meet somebody like that. Are you able to share the truth with them? In a loving way to where they may be able to listen to you. And I dealt with this with a guy probably in the last few days of where this guy was completely on the other end of the. On the other end of the stage where I was.

But what I did, Robbie, is I sat there and I listened to him. Right. And I listened to his side. and it's funny. It's like when I was finished listening to him and listening to his side, It's almost as if He was able to take a deep breath and and then he was ready to listen to me.

And even if he wouldn't have. He would have said, Hey, you know what? Maybe I disagree with this mite guy. But this Mike Guy was nice enough and humble enough to sit here and listen to me and hear me out. He's pretty cool.

You have no idea. I did not know the power of it. And I was reading a book. I wish I could tell you what the book was. It was about this missionary who was working in some horrific part of Africa.

And he came upon these villages where the the famine had been so great that they just needed body bags for all the people that were that were laying around dead and that kind of thing. And the people were starving to death and they were dying of thirst and they came into the village and they thought the first thing they needed to do was give them food and water. Mm-hmm. It wasn't the first thing they needed to do. What they discovered is the people would, before they would take a bite, before they would take a drink of water, they wanted to tell their story.

Mm. They wanted to be heard. Mm. So powerful. And so that's what I that when we were in Israel, what I, you know, they brought widows.

That their husbands had been killed in the war. But they brought. parents that their daughter had been killed. Are they brought Mm-hmm. Like, I bet there were seven different people that were one of the hostages and talked about what went through there.

And what I realized, and is they kept saying that we're so grateful that you're willing to listen. Because they just wanted to tell their story. They'd been hurt. You know, they'd been traumatized. You can imagine.

What most people don't realize how small Israel is. For those who live in the Triad, if you happen to know where Winston-Salem, High Point and Greensboro are, Do you realize that essentially The Israel, if you were at the bottom of Randolph County, if you were right around the zoo, okay. You could go all the way to Galilee and you would not Get out of um Wake C um, what's the county of Greensboro? It's um Guilford. Yeah, you could go from the bottom of Randolph to the top of Guilford, and that is the size of Israel.

And so. From Jerusalem to Gaza isn't but about 35 or 40 miles. And so, what they are here happening, if you happen to live in Winston, that stuff was happening in Greensboro. That's right. That's right.

That's how far away it was. And if that stuff, these people are coming across murdering and raping and doing all that stuff to children, and is that close to your house? I mean, what's your response going to be to that? It's trauma. And you want to tell people, like, for them, I can assure you, October 7th, 2023 was like for us, 9-11.

Every one of them can tell you where they were that day, what they heard on the radio, because it happened. On a Sabbath. It was a Shabbat, and it was the last day of that festival. And so most of the time. And that probably was not on accident.

No, it was completely on purpose. They knew they wouldn't have their radios on because he realized that when they celebrate Shabbat, they. They were totally out of communication. A lot of the Army people that would have normally responded, they didn't have. You know, immediate access to the information.

So I wonder what that looks like going forward. You know what I mean?

Now that that happened, I wonder if they would make some adjustments. I don't know what you think. Oh, they have, right? I mean, they have all sorts of different emergency things that they realize based on what happened back then. But all I'm saying is.

That for all of us, every single day, just what you just described. You have somebody that's way on the opposite side of the poll of you on whatever it is, abortion or politics, whatever.

Somebody's a Democrat. How are you going to talk to them? Are you going to, you know, whatever it is. If you just listen, I can't tell you, and you know as well, if you will just take the time to actually love that person and try to hear them out, and you don't have to argue with them, you just got to hear it. And then after you hear it, You know, think about Gee, God, what would you have me say next?

Where would you want me to go with this? Because I can assure you, God loves them every bit as much as He loves them. He died for them. He does, yeah. He does.

And we were, you know, I was once a Democrat when I was younger. I went to college. Yeah, I mean, I was the vice president of the college Democrats my freshman year before I became a Christian. And then, as I became a Christian and as I got out into the workforce, I ended up changing and I ended up, you know, becoming more conservative. But.

I probably don't listen enough and I probably, you know, it's so easy. Just to throw up a meme that's hostile. because it gets all the attention. You know, but to sit down and actually have dialogue with somebody else who disagrees with you. Charlie Kirk did so well.

He did, and we all need to learn that as well. Oh If not for God. If not for God. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty's wick Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell.

Um So you'll be alerted when we have our next video. This is the Truth Network. Yeah.