Lk. 13:1 Now on that very occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus responded and said to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans just because they have suffered this fate? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
October 12, 2023
This commentary is in response to the Israeli massacre by Hamas last weekend and the unfolding scenario there now rippling throughout the world.
Please notice in the above story Jesus’ response to the reported atrocity in Galilee. The report carried more this flavor,
“Jesus, did you hear about this horrific thing Pilate did...?”
Implied would have been a further idea in some:
“So what are you going to do about it? Shouldn’t you immediately take up Israel’s cause to deal with this? Is this not what we look to you for?”
Yet Jesus’ response by contrast seems cool and indifferent. Rather than buy into the drama, he immediately turns the issue back on the reporters:
“I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
A similar nonchalance appears in this word:
“And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.” Mt. 24:6
We remember yet another instance when peril immediately threatened Jesus and followers, eliciting this outburst from the disciples:
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Mk. 4:38
As God’s people, we still have very much to learn regarding the relationship of human crisis to the kingdom of God. But as crisis continues to mount in Israel and reaches out to touch the entire globe, we must learn of this, if we ourselves are to spiritually survive amidst the drama.
The unrealized truth behind Jesus’ response to Israel’s crisis is that Jesus lived within the protective bubble of a parallel universe called the kingdom of God. The domain of that kingdom fully inhabited Him from within. Within that inner kingdom reigned His indomitable quality of undisturbable peace in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), without respect to Israel’s human turmoil, regardless of either its immediacy or its severity. For within that Spirit-bubble, one becomes deaf and blind to any direct world impact:
Who is blind but My servant,
Or so deaf as My messenger whom I send?
Who is so blind as one who is at peace with Me,
Or so blind as the servant of the Lord? Isa. 42:19This is why throughout the entire gospel narrative, right up to the test at Gethsemane, Jesus is never moved to angst about a single thing happening to Him or around Him. Though oft touched with compassion, He is untouched by anxiety over any dramatic report of distress and evil in the land.
Nothing tests the state of our indwelling kingdom like the immediacy and severity of human crisis. Drama tests the state of our death to the world:
But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Gal. 6:14
Such test is upon us as a prophetic people like never before as the human tragedy intensifies around us. The true force of God’s indwelling kingdom is proven by how dead we are to the force of this life’s horrors. It is specifically proven by the severity and immediacy of naturally perceived crisis.
When we succumb to horrible news in Israel by spiritual flailing called prayer, we show that the kingdom is not sufficiently developed in us to reign in the earth as intended. Much of what we pray in soulish response to such news is actually counterproductive to our kingdom’s true advance there. God’s kingdom only advances in Israel as its righteousness, peace and joy take us over from within by our dying to the pandemic of Mideast conflict.
Jesus said, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear.” Rising calamity in Israel is a message to the church to stop and listen. Start hearing from within. Stop responding to the news. Stop the prophetic and intercessory flailing. Start dying to it instead. That is the only way the kingdom can come to Israel.We must learn the difference between reactive prayer and true Spirit-directed intercession, especially where it touches the people of Israel. We must let God prove and test the source of our praying. We must pray from discernment and obedience to what the Spirit of Christ is saying about Israel, not what we want to believe about Israel based in our childhood Sunday school lessons.
Again, we live in a parallel universe. The inner kingdom of God is untouched by the outer exigencies of the Israeli nation. We are a people who live from a position of death to this world. (Israel is part of this world steeped in sin—as said the Master.) We live from a position of death to this life. We must be a people prepared to die for our kingdom, even as they suffer under Hamas. We are living martyrs now, and physical martyrs if called upon.
The message of Christ to Israel and to all of us is now as it was before: “except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.” Regardless of how horribly or quietly it comes, every one of us is going to die, save those graced of God to ascend at the harvest. This means every baby will one day die as well as every old man. Every Israeli is going to die, and so is every Palestinian, and so is every Ukrainian and every Russian—and so is every American. It is only a matter of when and how.
The real issue then is what happens after that death where judgment lies, and did the saving eternal kingdom find its place in men in time? This is why we must be committed to living and spreading the kingdom of eternal life, not the preserving of any kingdom here and now.
Yet to be clear, satan wills to destroy all natural life, especially Israeli life—before its time to die. And God wills to limit that destruction for the sake of His eternally saving purpose toward the Jewish remnant (Rom. 11:1-5, 14). As God’s kingdom people, we stand with God to stave off that destruction until His saving purpose is accomplished.
But afterward, we too are to execute His destruction upon all whose only purpose is to destroy life. For all the wicked in both Israel and all the nations shall be exterminated to eternally perish. For God is no respecter of persons. So say the prophets.
Our takeaway then is this:
Let us not—in our alignment with God’s purpose for Israel’s natural saving—be moved at all from our eternal kingdom position of peace in the face of any and all threat against that nationhood, regardless of its immediacy or severity. For unless we repent, we shall all likewise perish.
We stand only and finally for the cause of eternal life, whether unto preserving Israel’s natural life for the eternal remnant’s sake, or unto sharing in wrath’s final removal of all the earth’s wicked.
That is the kingdom of God.
Chris Anderson
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org10/23
For further reading:
Reframing the True Intercessory Burden (for Israel)
Dealing with Intercessory Overload
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