It’s time we learnt that Israel’s battle is also our battle
By Charles Gardner
The latest London terror attack is another wake-up call for a nation that has become far too complacent in the face of current threats to our Judeao-Christian civilization.
I am not referring to our police and security services, but to how we have jettisoned the biblical principles on which our once great nation was built. And it appears we haven’t got the moral backbone to successfully counter the death culture of fundamentalist Islam.
This is not surprising given that Parliament – the focus of Wednesday’s attack – is ‘celebrating’ 50 years since the passing of the Abortion Act, which has led to the killing of eight million unborn babies. This is the Parliament that was quite literally built on the Word of God in the form of the Latin text of Psalm 127, verse 1 inscribed onto the stone floor of its central lobby, which translates: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain.” And this is only the first part of the verse, which continues: “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”
Now we have witnessed a terrible tragedy, reminiscent of the 7/7 bombings in the capital which saw 52 killed and some 700 wounded, including my younger brother. He only survived thanks to medical expertise and the prayers of friends around the world, though the physical effects of that dreadful day continue as he struggles through a series of often ill-fitting prosthetic limbs.
The March 22 atrocity, which saw 52-year-old Khalid Masood murder four people as he ploughed through pedestrians on the famous Westminster Bridge before crashing outside Parliament and stabbing a policeman to death, bears stark similarities to the January attack in Jerusalem which saw a Palestinian terrorist run over four young Israeli soldiers (three of them women) before being shot at the wheel. His cause was ‘jihad’ (holy war) against the Jews; Muslim convert Masood’s fury was no doubt generally aimed at the infidel (unbelieving) West and those perceived as supporting Israel, whom Islamists claim to have stolen Arab land.
This latest act of barbarism was also reminiscent of last July’s bloodcurdling rampage in Nice which saw 80 innocent revellers mown down by another fanatic trying to rid the world of those who refuse to bow the knee to Allah.
Yet this kind of slaughter has been enacted in Israel for many years, and little notice is taken by the West as we sit in our relative comfort zones lamely imbibing the lies and propaganda that would have us believe Israel is getting its just desserts for its persecution of the Palestinians.
Now London, Paris, Antwerp and other European cities are getting a taste of the poisonous medicine Israelis are forced to swallow on an almost daily basis.
Displaying double standards both on a political and religious front, we do not see it as our problem when innocent Jews get stabbed and mown down by cars in the Middle East, but when evil monsters spread their tentacles to our doorstep, it’s a different matter of course.
Nationally, we have acted like the religious leaders in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in walking by on the other side of the road as a wounded man lies bleeding. (Luke 10.25-37)
It’s time we learnt that Israel’s battle – for democracy, civilization and truth – is also our battle. Their troubles, their wounds, and their worries should be our concern too. Without them we would never have had a modern democracy built on the principles taught by Jesus, the Jewish Messiah.
When we (the church, government and nation at large) start showing concern for their plight, perhaps then we will awake from our slumber.
When we acknowledge once more our debt to Jesus, the Jew, as our Lord and Saviour – how, in answer to prayer, he rescued us from the jaws of the Nazis, for example – then perhaps the storm will subside.
When the disciples were in the boat on the Sea of Galilee during a furious squall (Matthew 8.23-27, New Testament), it was Jesus who was sleeping – because he was perfectly at peace whereas his followers were understandably frightened.
Nevertheless, when they woke their Master, calling on his name, he calmed the storm with a word – and the true nature of who he was came home to them with renewed force: “Who is this whom even the winds and the waves obey?”
When, oh when, will the church in Britain acknowledge Jesus as Lord – and his chosen people as our special concern. For when we bless, encourage, help and pray for them, we will become a blessed nation once more (Genesis 12.3). But if we continue to curse them by ignoring the extreme danger they face, as many did during the Holocaust, we will keep inviting judgment on ourselves.
I plead with government and church: don’t wait until the streets are running with blood before acknowledging our great sin in defying the God of Israel by throwing out his precepts and betraying his people.
Perhaps we need to mobilise an army of Christian soldiers to take on the battle for the soul of the nation, insisting on a restoration of godly principles in our laws and institutions. The liberal left have had their way for too long. It’s time for a counter-revolution based on morality and righteousness.
Jesus paid with his own blood to bring us peace. He is the Lamb of God, and when, figuratively speaking, we apply his blood to our hearts as the Jews of old marked the doorposts of their homes on the eve of the Exodus, we will be rescued and spared from the worst that the enemy can do.
When the angel of death saw the blood, he passed over the Israelite houses and spared their first-born. But Egypt – that great civilization of ancient times – suffered a terrible calamity.
We too have to choose between a plague of trouble and freedom in Christ. I pray for revival in our land where, as I hope to see a Christian nation re-emerge, we will become the Good Samaritan who tends to the wounds of our Jewish friends and takes care of them.