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Praying for Israel's Peace - Understanding Our Spiritual Duty with Jonathan Feldstein
Discover how a commitment to praying for Israel can transform your understanding of global events and spiritual fulfillment as we welcome Jonathan Feldstein on the WallBuilders Show. Together we dissect the impact of American foreign policy on Israel and confront the unsettling rise of Marxist thought within academia, which sows division and distorts public perception. Learn why the biblical charge to support Israel is more critical now than ever, as we navigate through the administration's mixed messages and examine the troubling trend of on-campus agitators fueling anti-Israel sentiment.
This episode isn't just a political discourse; it's an invitation to explore the profound spiritual connection between Christians and the Holy Land. Unpacking Romans chapter 11, we illuminate the theological concept of believers being grafted into the Jewish covenant, emphasizing the scriptural mandate to pray for Jerusalem's peace. Join us on a journey through personal stories of church involvement and support for Israel, igniting a conversation on the indispensable role of believers in advocating for this nation amid today's geopolitical challenges.
Education, truth, and prayer are at the heart of our discussion in this episode. We express gratitude for initiatives that foster educational innovation. Highlighting an upcoming global prayer event, we invite you to join hands in unified supplication for Israel. By aligning prayer with action and informed advocacy, we can ensure governmental policies reflect divine intentions for peace and prosperity in the Middle East.
Rick Green
Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builders Show. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. Tim Barton is a national speaker, pastor and president of Wall Builders. David Barton, America's premier historian. We're thankful that you're listening, but we also want to encourage you to go to our website, wallbuilders.com today for all kinds of great resources and then, if you want to catch up on archives of the program if you missed any shows last week, be sure to go to wallbuilders.show. All right, guys, we got Jonathan Feldstein back with us. We're going to be talking about a really cool Wednesday prayer day six hours of prayer, people all over the nation and our listeners get to be a part of it.
It's going to be great.
David Barton
Yeah, it's really a prayer time from all over the world as well. There are nations around the world that are joining in and will be joining in to pray for Israel, as it makes sense. I mean, that is a biblical mandate, biblical command. You pray for the peace of Jerusalem, you also pray for Israel, and when it goes well with Israel, it goes well with us, as promises of the scriptures. So there's a lot that will be joining in and they need to join in. Every time it looks like America is about to get behind Israel again, they suddenly wake up. We can't do that. The Biden administration has had a severe case of schizophrenia since back in October. They will come out really strong and then the next statement they make repudiates what they said, and it's just crazy. So Israel needs some friends, Israel needs some allies, Israel needs some God help, for sure. But it's a good time to pray for Israel.
Tim Barton
Well, I don't know that. I would say the Biden administration has schizophrenia as much as they do stick a wet finger in the area and determine where's the wind blowing. And we know now right a lot of the protests we've seen on some of these college campuses. There were paid agitators and some of the major donors to Democrat Party, democrat funders, to the Biden administration. They've been helping fund and underwrite some of this activity that's been going on these college campuses. They've been helping fund and underwrite some of this activity that's been going on these college campuses. So these are paid agitators, not a natural protest from college students, even though certainly there's many college students participating in this, which is not surprising, because if you've been in college over the last several decades, you've largely been getting a steady diet and I'm saying college, I mean really even middle school, high school, probably even now elementary school there's a steady diet of a Marxist ideology.
And in Marxism, where you're learning, there's only two options and categories for people either they have been oppressed or they are the oppressor and Israel has been described in academia now for decades as having been the oppressor.
And if they are the oppressor, this is why you see people that have been out protesting against Israel, defending what Hamas did, defending the brutality, the evil that was done against Israel. And the reason they defended it is, they said look right, the Palestinians, the people of Gaza, they've been oppressed and it is the right of the oppressed to do anything that needs to be done to stop the oppressors. And if you've been oppressed then it's okay to murder, to rape, to behead, to whatever they have done, right At this point, taking hostages and have hostages for however many months now. And you know, I think there's a lot of questions. If part of the reason that they still have not released some of these hostages is because maybe some of those bodies no longer remain. Right and maybe at this point these, this, whatever the number of hostages 100, whatever hostages is still remain Right, I'm not sure those hostages are still alive and that's partly why.
Rick Green
Including Tim, including five Americans.
Tim Barton
Correct. Americans. When, just I think, was it yesterday, day before the weekend, where Joe Biden says hey, in America we don't leave anybody behind, right, and of course people are like unless you're in Afghanistan or Israel or everywhere else, we are.
Currently, right now, there are people that were left behind over in Israel that you're not, that. The Biden administration has spoke out very strongly against what Israel is doing to fight against these Hamas terrorists saying whoa, but brutality, innocent civilians. And I have yet to hear the Obama. Well, excuse me, Biden administration, I've conflated the two. Same thing, right? The Biden administration come back and say, hey, what Hamas has done is evil, they must be stopped, they must pay a price, they need to release these hostages. That's not the conversation you hear from the Biden administration.
And again, it's because part of this narrative that's been around now for the last several decades very prominent in the last five or 10 years is this Marxist ideology that Israel has been an oppressor and therefore they are the bad ones, regardless of what was done to them. And so much nonsense we've seen on college campuses. It's just from a very faulty ideology, a very I mean the philosophy of Marxism is considered responsible for more than a hundred million deaths in the 20th century alone, right? So so much evil has come from this ideology. And now it's permeating not just on college campuses, not just in academia, but even the Biden administration, where the Biden administration says we're not sure we can even send any kind of weapons where we can't help Israel restock and have bombs to fight against these terrorists, because you're really kind of the bad guy.
So, dad, going back to where you said, they're kind of schizophrenic. Again, I'm not sure they're schizophrenic as much as whatever's popular they want to do, because they're down in the polls and they need to garner support, they want to do what they think is accepted. And now I think the only reason they would stay with something that probably is not very popular, with what's happening on college campuses, that's not popular with most Americans but it is popular with the top Democrat donors from all outward appearances, which is the only reason they'd stay with it, because that's where the money is. But this is certainly something that the Biden administration should not be doing what they're doing.
David Barton
And let me also address the thought that in an increasingly secular America, whether we have an increasingly progressive influence, Marxist influence in our education, media, politics and thinking, let's just reestablish why it's important to have a day of prayer for Israel. I mean, why do we get this more than a day of prayer for, I don't know, Bulgaria or New Zealand or the Northwest Territory of Canada or wherever? That's because the Bible specifically chooses the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, as the apple of his eye, and he makes it real clear that if you bless them, he's going to bless you. He doesn't make that promise for any other nation, for any other people, for any other group. This is the group that he chose.
Don't know why. That's up to him. He did it. But he also made it really clear that you have to support that group if you expect to be blessed by Him, and so that's why it's really important to join in with the day of prayer. And if you've been to a secular university, I encourage you to go into the Bible. Look what the Bible says about Israel and how God wants those people treated. It's very clear. Old and New Testament, both.
Tim Barton
And to follow up Dad. Just to add to that thought real quick, because I know we want to get on to the interview and hear some of these details. But for those out there that might be saying, ok, now that's fine Old Testament, but Christians we now. We are the fulfillment of God's covenant and this kind of idea of replacement theology I would encourage people to go read Romans, Chapter 11. Exactly when the apostle Paul says that Israel was the tree that God planted and that as Christians we've been grafted into that tree. But we don't replace the tree, we become part of the tree.
Jesus came as fulfillment of a promise of a covenant right and tree we become part of the tree. Jesus came as fulfillment of a promise, of a covenant right. And you can go through some of the covenants God made with people. This covenant goes all the way back to Abraham reaffirmed multiple different areas where God continues to give this assurance and promise that God is going to fulfill.
And when Jesus came, the Bible tells us in the gospels. The Bible tells us salvation came first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. It's not because God decided that Jews are necessarily His favorite, the best, the prettiest. No, that's not what it was. God said that because it was fulfillment of the promise God made. The promise was made first to the Jews, but it was expanded to all believers the Gentiles that whosoever would call upon the name of the Lord would be saved. It's now for all of us.
But again, this is not something that, if you read the Bible and think well, that's Old Testament, we're New Testament. Now. We don't replace the Jews. We join in covenant with what God has committed to the Jews, as outlined in Romans, Chapter 11. I don't want to derail in that, but I do want to highlight that as we go into this. Why does it matter that we pray? The Bible tells us pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Dad, you mentioned that they're the apple of God's eye. There's a lot of things you find in scripture about this that reaffirms, as Christians, that this should be part of our heart and really we can pray for every nation of the world and we're called to pray for leaders all around the world, for leaders of our own nation, but certainly what is clearly outlined in scriptures we should be praying for the peace of Israel, the peace of Jerusalem.
Rick Green
All right, guys, we're going to take a quick break and, by the way, I think people are starting to get this. Like, I've heard multiple people say they've changed churches over this because their church would not pray for Israel. Pastor wouldn't talk about it. You know, it's not an issue for them and so, like you're saying, it's so important for us to pay attention to this and be involved in this. I was so. You know, last probably, I don't know maybe four of the last five times I've been to church, my pastor's prayed for Israel in the middle of the service, or we've taken time even out of the middle of his sermon and said, hey, guys, we need to do this again. So I think people are beginning to realize how important this is. That's a really, really good sign, at least on the ground, certainly not being reflected out of the White House right now. Quick break, we'll be right back, Jonathan Feldstein, our guest, when we return on WallBuilders.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on Wall Builders. Jonathan Feldstein back with us and we've got a big date coming up just in a couple of days, folks, so you want to participate in this. We're going to give you links and tell you where to go, but, Jonathan, thanks for coming on again.
Jonathan Feldstein
Always a pleasure, Rick. I'm grateful for the opportunity. Thank you.
Rick Green
Hey. So why May 15th? Why is this the big day? To get everybody together, supporting Israel, praying for Israel.
Jonathan Feldstein
Yeah, so for the day that's important on the calendar. Technically, we're speaking on the eve of how Israel celebrates its Independence Day according to the biblical calendar, the day on which Israel declared independence 76 years ago. But the day Israel achieved independence in 1948 corresponded to May 15th, which is the day that the British mandate, or I like to call it the British occupation, expired. So at midnight between the 14th and 15th of May, Israel became a state, and our neighbors and there's a great, fantastic Jewish reason why we did that, but that's a separate piece. Our neighbors, our enemies all over the world, refer to it as the Nakba Day. Nakba meaning catastrophe in Arabic, and they're commemorating not what happened to them for making a bad decision and not accepting living side by side as two states, and not what happened to them by being hijacked by all the terrorists all the decades. The Nakba, their catastrophe, is Israel's very existence, and so, as we see, and literally just as we began this conversation, the app on my phone started going off again, with rockets coming in from Gaza complementing the rockets and drones coming in from Lebanon. They're still at it. They believe that they've experienced an aqua and the solution is to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people. So we, as Jews and Christians, thousands. That's so inspiring.
We haven't even done the event yet, but thousands of people from all over the world have signed up and are going to be praying. I think we're at 40 countries now, on every continent except Antarctica, and I'm appealing to good Jews and Christians in Antarctica to come and join us as well. And we are going to be praying for six hours, beginning at noon Eastern time, going on to 6 pm. We're going to be praying that the terrorists will release the hostages and they will come home safe and healthy, physically and emotionally, and for their families.
We're going to be praying for the IDF and for its safety and success and for the families. And on Memorial Day, we've just now commemorated almost 800 additional soldiers who've been killed since October 7th. And we're going to be praying that God changes the hearts of our enemies, because God can do whatever He wants, and we just want to remind Him it doesn't have to be through war. He can just wave his wand and change his heart, like he did with Pharaoh.
Rick Green
Genesis 123 Foundation is hosting the day, but a lot of organizations are involved and a part of it. I'm just Jonathan, I'm stuck on the whole idea that they would. Just the fact that you have a nation and you have the right to exist is a catastrophe. That's literally how they see it and that's why they are so devoted to your destruction. I cannot believe that our nation, that our president, is beginning to turn on Israel and actually support this kind of nonsense. It's just. I'm sorry, man, I'm not usually speechless, but I didn't know that Nakba catastrophe and that's just literally speaking of your existence, and they mark it on the calendar every year.
This is the day and mark my word, this year on May 15th. As much as we've seen American campuses hijacked, you're going to see that, all the more so because it's Nakba Day. You know how else do you—Independence Day. We know how we celebrate fireworks and barbecues. How do you celebrate Nakba Day? Interfere with others, disrupt protests, violence, spew, anti-semitism.
Rick Green
Fire more rockets into Israel.
Jonathan Feldstein
Well, I'm honestly really afraid. I'm really afraid. There have been a lot of rockets today, and when we do Independence Day and on Nakba Day and I hate calling it that, I'm saying it in quotes I actually have this fear that we're going to be seeing even a more massive wave of rockets. They want to goad us in on Independence Day to even greater combat.
Rick Green
Let's see for folks to sign up and participate in the prayer. You can be a part of that entire day and, like you said it's going to be for I think you said it on the website. It says for six hours. Solid prayer man from all over the world. That's amazing. Yeah, best place to go. Sign up for that.
Jonathan Feldstein
Yeah, the best place, easiest place, is at our website, genesis123.co. There's a link there for Global Prayer for Israel. Just go click through. We're using the platform that Zoom provides, called Zoom Events, which is new and it's kind of neat. It's like having a big conference in a hotel where then you have breakout sessions in different hotels and in different rooms. So that's like there's a lobby and you come in. It's going to be really amazing and you can come in for one hour. You can pop around between the different sessions. You can stay for all six. We've got people staying up late in Japan and China to participate in the first hours and we've got people waking up in New Zealand early to participate in the last hour. So we've given the US a nice big gift because it's daytime and no one has to stay up crazy hours like I will Just be part of eat crazy hours like I will.
Rick Green
How thoughtful of you, how thoughtful of you All right. Genesis123.co, not .com Genesis123.co, and so it's the 15th, but it's going to be pretty much, you know, 20. I mean the hours that it would be for us in the US. What is that? What will it be?
Jonathan Feldstein
12 to 6 pm Eastern 11 to 5 Central. It's also going to be if anyone doesn't want to sign up. If someone hates giving their information, that's fine. It's being streamed to the Genesis123 Foundation YouTube channel as well.
Rick Green
But like with any other Zoom, if you register you get a reminder, all that good stuff.
Jonathan Feldstein
You get a reminder, and then you go on our mailing list and you'll hear from me once in a while, but you know that should be our biggest problem in life.
Rick Green
No kidding. And, by the way, folks, of course you've got to get Israel the Miracle. There's some incredible book. We had Jonathan on, what was it last fall, I guess about that, and got it from my dad. Everybody loves it. So, anyway, another good reason to go to Genesis123.co.
Jonathan Feldstein
We're going to be giving away some copies during the course of the prayer as well.
Rick Green
Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, genesis123.co. While I got you, Jonathan, anything else you want to tell the folks about or just update us on? Actually, let me do this For those who don't register how should we be praying for Israel right now? I mean this, the again, I, I am a little bit, um, I'm what's the right word flummoxed, I don't know. I was trying to think of a better word. I don't use big words. Jonathan I, I am, um, I'm in shock. That, not in shock.
I said the day after October 7th, when we had a rally in Dallas, uh, I said, don't be fooled by Blinken and Biden. They're going to talk a good game right now, they're going to help for a little while and they're going to be undercutting Israel behind the scenes the whole time, but now it's public. I mean, they're literally saying, you know, demanding that Israel stop and basically support Hamas in doing so. So, man, we need to be praying for American leaders to see the light. We need to be praying for Congress to push. We need to be praying specifically for your soldiers that are in the campaign right now. What else, and how should we be praying
Jonathan Feldstein
For the hostages? It breaks my heart.
We've done, people who join us. We have two hours that we're going to be praying for the hostages and I've interviewed family members of two different hostages and those are heartbreaking. Really hard to have conversations with these people and we need to pray that all the hostages will come home soon, physically well and emotionally well. It's now 220 days. I think that they've been kidnapped and I can't even imagine what's going on. Most of them probably aren't alive, but we don't know. But we need them home. There needs to be closure. We need to be praying for their families. They need strength and Israel does something interesting, and I in fact talked to David about years ago.
We do Memorial Day immediately preceding Independence Day because we recognize that without the sacrifices of Memorial Day we wouldn't have our Independence Day, and on that.
So today, today being Memorial Day, we are commemorating an additional 1,500 people who were killed since last Memorial Day, and it's not just remembering them, it's their families, it's all of the suffering.
There are hundreds of new widows, there's over a thousand orphans who lost a parent, and we as Genesis123, not just prayers, prayers that's God's currency and God will use it and I'm great with that, but we also do our Israel Emergency Campaign, so we're supporting these people and helping make the biggest impact with the greatest integrity that we can. And you said it before, whether it's on the campus of Emory University, which just had its graduation it's my alma mater and had to move graduation because they allowed terrorists to come on campus and threaten students campus and threatened students and they were afraid of the consequences of having it on campus or whether it's, sadly, in the administration or amongst our neighbors and enemies here in the Middle East, we need to be praying that God could just waive His want and change their hearts, because he can, he can and he doesn't need us, but I believe God is looking for us to be His partner.
Rick Green
Yeah, so good, all right, brother, thank you, thank you.
Thank you, thank you for organizing this, thank you, thank you for giving me oh yeah, absolutely Come back anytime.
And folks, you definitely want to be a part of this on Wednesday and you can pick a time to join if you can't do all day. But you want to get signed up. I think it's better to get signed up for the Zoom so you get the notice and get reminded and plus, Jonathan, it's not going to overload your inbox. You're going to get good information there. So, appreciate you, man. Have a great one. Thank you, and we'll get the word out. Thank you, red.
Jonathan Feldstein
God bless you.
Rick Green
Stay with us folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us on Wall Build. It is Wednesday the 15th, that's tomorrow. Folks, you got to get signed up right now at the website if you want to be able to join in on the zoom. Um, frankly, an encouraging time, I think, for Christians and jews to come together. And uh, and obviously, David, Tim, you guys pointed it out so well to begin the program. This is really not an optional thing.
David Barton
We're called to do this yeah, we're called to do it, and I think it's really good to understand as you were clearly understanding when Rabbi was talking about it that they consider the existence of Israel a catastrophe all by itself. Just Israel existing is the day of catastrophe. So as Israel celebrates something on that day, their enemies celebrate the opposite, and it is striking to me that they will launch an attack on Israel. Israel will respond and put an attack back and they claim Israel's attacking us unprovoked attack, and media picks that up and too many college campuses carry that, too many students believe that and they're just not aware of what happens. But it's not a day of catastrophe. This is a day for God's people to stand alongside God's people and do exactly what God told us to do, which will result in blessing for them and for the world and for all of those that stand beside them.
Tim Barton
Well, it's also worth noting in the midst of what the media is believing and reporting. The media also reported on the incorrect peace agreement that Hamas released. There was no peace agreement and they said oh yeah, we've reached an agreement, here's our terms. Well, Israel never agreed to that. And yet the media in America right? Liberals, democrats in America just touted how great Biden was for getting this peace deal done and it never happened.
And not that we need a special section of our radio program to highlight the unreliability, the untrustworthy nature of the media, the inconsistency on reporting truth, how much false narrative they promote. But it's a reality that what we are seeing is coming from an ideology that I think a lot of Americans don't fully appreciate and understand. We've seen things happen over in the Middle East and for many Americans it's kind of left them a bit aghast, not knowing how to process what they're seeing. And it's because we haven't dealt with somebody whose very motivation is that we should not live and should not exist anymore, and especially for Israel, when they're surrounded by that, when they have so many nations around them that believe that it's just very different for them to be in that kind of situation.
David Barton
And this is why it is so important for every one of us to take time to pray on May 15th. If you can't be on the Zoom call and I love the concept of having different kind of rotating or six different areas there where you can get into and learn about and pray about different things, which is great but you need to pray for Israel. We're commanded to do that anywhere. We're commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. There's not peace over there right now because their enemies won't allow peace. They keep starting all these attacks and terrorists et cetera. But every one of us have a biblical responsibility to do that. If you can be part of the group on the 15th, that's going to be really, really terrific. That's tomorrow and so if you can sign up for that, be part of it. And again, if you sign up and you get on Jonathan Rabbi Feldstein's email list, you will not get many emails.
I am on that. I like what I get. I like the updates out of Israel. I I like what I get. I like the updates out of Israel. I like what he's saying hey, here's what just happened, here's what's going on now. It's insight that I do not get from the major media here in America, so it's a really good piece. So if you sign up, you're not going to get inundated, but it will be very helpful. But tomorrow is a great time to join people around the world in praying for Israel.
Rick Green
Genesis123.co. That's the website, folks. Genesis123.co, you can sign up right there and there's the six different hours if you want to pick a particular hour that you want to participate in. But definitely sign up for the Zoom, because then you'll get the notice and the reminder email of when things are starting and how to log in and I don't know about you, but I always forget where the URL is or where the link is, so it's nice to get that email reminder. Genesis123.co, participate in everything we've talked about today. I mean, this is what God commands us to do and there's so much going on and it's just a critical, critical time, and do remember to pray for our government as well that we won't get in the way, but instead be a supporter of Israel. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to The WallBuilder Show.