Rev. Bryan Dunagan became the senior pastor of Highland Park Presbyterian Church (HPPC) in Dallas, Texas, in 2014. A gifted speaker and leader, Bryan combined a scholar’s mind and a pastor’s heart in serving one of the great congregations in America. I pastored for many years in the same Dallas community and know HPPC well. I watched his ministry with gratitude for his faithfulness and personal friendship.

Then came the shocking announcement from his church yesterday morning: “In the early hours of today, our beloved Senior Pastor, Bryan Dunagan, passed away in his sleep due to natural causes.” He was forty-four years old and leaves behind his wife Ali and three children. I am joining friends in Dallas and beyond who are grieving deeply today.

What if the nihilists are right?

A massive manhunt for the gunman in the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, continues this morning after residents kept to their homes for a second night. Hurricane Otis killed at least twenty-seven people in Acapulco and devastated the region. And Israel’s military is preparing for a wider ground incursion into Gaza in their hunt for Hamas terrorists. The civilian death toll will inexorably rise as Hamas hides its soldiers and munitions among the population.

Every Israeli and Palestinian who dies will be grieved by someone; given the young age of most of the soldiers, they will be grieved by parents and grandparents left behind. Such grief is unspeakably unnatural—we are supposed to bury our parents, not our children.

In yesterday’s Daily Article, I reported on an Israeli mother who told reporters after her girls were kidnapped by Hamas, “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe God exists. If he does, why are my daughters in Gaza?” Her struggle is the cry of parents across history who grieve a suffering or deceased child.

As a cultural apologist, I wanted to respond to those who reject God’s existence or relevance, so I pointed out the failure of secular alternatives to heal our fallen hearts. However, while it’s important to remind our post-Christian culture that secularism isn’t working, this line of thinking isn’t sufficient for the crises we face.

What if this means that nothing can heal the brokenness of our world? What if the nihilists are right?

“This is what God’s really like”

We can respond to grieving Christians by reminding them that

• Believers step from death instantly into life with God in paradise, where they are home and well (Romans 14:8).
• God grieves with and for those who grieve, feeling their pain and sharing their suffering (John 11:35; Isaiah 43:1–3).
• They will see those they love again in eternity, never to be parted (Revelation 21:4).
• God redeems all he allows, in this life and in the next (cf. Romans 8:28; 1 Corinthians 13:12).

And yet . . .

For a pastor’s wife and three young children left behind, for their extended family, and for a congregation grieving the shocking death of their young pastor, theological facts are not sufficient. For parents brokenhearted over the kidnapping or murder of their children and grandchildren in atrocities perpetrated by terrorists, the grief of these days must be unspeakable.

For those who have lost and will lose loved ones in Israel’s war with Hamas, this must be a nightmare without end. For those who suffer from the disasters of our fallen world and the depravities of fallen humanity, words are not enough.

If our God is insufficient for these days, we have an insufficient God.

He promises to “supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). He assures us that he has “plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). Jesus tells us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. . . . Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

What, then, do we do when God does not seem to supply our need? When we can find no future or hope? When we feel no peace and our hearts are deeply troubled?

“To sit with our grief and to pray with us”

When we feel life’s deepest pain, we can respond in two biblical ways.

First, ask our questions.

Our Father invites us: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lᴏʀᴅ” (Isaiah 1:18). The Hebrew is literally translated, “Let us argue it out.” Job’s soul-wrenching questions are recorded in Scripture so we can ask them as well. If God’s sinless Son could cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), so can we.

Second, seek God together.

We can allow our grief to drive us from God or to draw us to him. We can refuse to trust him unless we understand him, or we can understand how much we need to trust him. And we can claim the redeeming providence and compassionate presence of a Father who proved his love on the cross and offers himself to all who will “taste and see that the Lᴏʀᴅ is good” (Psalm 34:8).

After Highland Park Presbyterian Church announced the shocking death of their young pastor yesterday, they wrote: “When we don’t know what to do, we are taught to turn to God and pray.” So they held a vigil in their Sanctuary and invited all who could “to sit with our grief and to pray with us.” Today from 9–9:45 a.m. CST, the church is holding “a time of guided prayer in our Sanctuary . . . as we ask for God to give us wisdom as we grieve and to guide our church through our next steps.”

On a recent podcast with Dr. Mark Turman and myself, the Cuban pastor and my dear friend Carlos Alamino testified that, despite rising persecution and extreme deprivation, his people are seeing a spiritual awakening that is transforming their nation. He added, “The early church is still walking and running around the streets of my Cuba.”

How are they experiencing God so powerfully?

Carlos explained his ministry strategy: He introduces people to Jesus and Jesus to people. Then he trusts Jesus to do his transforming work in their lives.

Let’s trust our Savior to do the same in ours today.

Denison Forum

An intensive manhunt is underway at this hour for a gunman who opened fire at a bowling alley and a restaurant in Lewiston, Maine, last night. At least twenty-two people are dead and as many as fifty are injured in this mass shooting.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Otis became the strongest recorded hurricane to hit Mexico’s Pacific Coast when it made landfall yesterday, unleashing a “nightmare scenario” in Acapulco with massive flooding and devastation. Jakob Sauczak was staying at a beachfront hotel when Otis hit. “We laid down on the floor, and some between beds,” he said. “We prayed a lot.”

Prayer is not how some are responding to the tragedies of recent days, however.

“Imagine that there’s no heaven”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe God exists.” This is what Maayan Zin said after her daughters Dafna, age fifteen, and Ella, age eight, were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. She explained: “If he does, why are my daughters in Gaza? Why all this murder along the Gaza border? Why did they bring families there to fill kibbutzim, with innocent children now going through what they are?”

Innocent suffering is just one reason many may be doubting God’s existence and relevance today. Horrific atrocities committed in his name are another.

Violence is surging in the West Bank, fueled by weapons smuggled into the area by Iran and its allies. The leader of Hezbollah met yesterday in Beirut with senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) figures, each a proxy of Iran, which trained hundreds of Hamas and PIJ fighters in the weeks leading up to the October 7 atrocities. Militant-led violence in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen threatens to spark an even wider war in the region.

Religion is the common denominator here. As I have written, Iran is motivated by the belief that attacking Israel will hasten the return of the Mahdi (their version of a messiah). Hamas is similarly motivated and is also convinced that Allah intends them to return the land to its rightful Palestinian owners. Violence in the West Bank, especially if it involves the Temple Mount, could draw Hezbollah even further into the conflict to “protect” these holy sites for Islam.

A skeptic might easily agree with John Lennon’s famous anthem for secularism: “Imagine there’s no heaven . . . Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion, too.” In such a world, he claimed, “All the people [would be] livin’ life in peace . . . And the world will be as one.”

“A modern de facto alliance of tyrannies”

Such secularism is understandable in a world as broken as ours. Here’s the problem, however: we’re well along the road Lennon imagined more than fifty years ago.

Churches across Europe are being repurposed for nightclubs and hotels as worship attendance continues to decline. Historic church buildings in America are being turned into homes as well. Church membership in the US has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in American history, declining from 76 percent after World War II to 47 percent today.

How is this working for us?

“Polycrisis” is a term in use today to describe the constellation of issues we are facing. While fallen humanity has confronted death and despair from Abel’s time to ours, the acceleration and conflation of challenges we are facing magnifies and compounds individual problems.

All the while, a secularized worldview that denies objective truth and morality has no tools for truly understanding these issues. Here’s one shocking example: according to a recent survey, a majority of eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old Americans believe the killing of Israeli civilians “can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians.” But perhaps we should not be surprised, given the shameful endorsement of Hamas’s terrorists on college campuses across our land.

The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker writes: “A modern de facto alliance of tyrannies—we might call it an axis of evil opportunism—advances across the globe.” He lists China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as members of this “axis” and notes:

They see a weakened and declining West, an America at odds with itself over its identity and its leadership in the world, a nation enfeebled by deepening self-doubt, widening division, widespread mistrust, timid leadership, institutional paralysis, and soaring debt. They see, as we have seen this last week, a culture—in the media, educational institutions, public discourse—that increasingly does their work for them, willfully propagating falsehoods that advance their cause, always eager to attribute evil to us and not to our enemies.

“Finish then, Thy new creation”

While those suffering from the atrocities and brokenness of our world understandably wonder why religion is relevant to their pain, it is clear that secularism is insufficient to save us from ourselves and each other. Paul taught that those who have not experienced salvation in Christ are “slaves of sin” and asked, “What fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death” (Romans 6:20–21).

By contrast, he could say to his fellow believers, “Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (v. 22). The apostle famously concluded: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 23).

That our fallen culture might experience this “gift,” let us pray with Charles Wesley:

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us Thy humble dwelling;
All Thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.

Finish then, Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Amen.

Denison Forum

The United States is preparing evacuation plans for up to six hundred thousand Americans in Israel in the event of a full-scale ground war in the region. In addition, there are as many as six hundred Americans still trapped in Gaza.

Meanwhile, we are seeing reports today that two dozen American military personnel were wounded last week in a series of drone attacks on American bases in Syria and Iraq. US officials have learned that Iranian-backed militia groups are planning to ramp up attacks against US forces in the Middle East as Iran seeks to capitalize on regional backlash to America’s support for Israel. There are “red lights flashing everywhere,” one official said. Another added, “We see a prospect for much more significant escalation against US forces and personnel in the near term.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the United Nations Security Council yesterday, “If Iran or its proxies attack US personnel anywhere, make no mistake. We will defend our people, we will defend our security—swiftly and decisively.” As our military heightens surveillance operations in the region, it is also sending an aircraft carrier, air defense systems, and additional F-16 fighter jets to defend American troops.

Where is this leading?

“The world is mustering for war”

Robert Clark is a British military veteran with postgraduate degrees in defense studies and Arabic. He served in operational tours in the Middle East and Afghanistan and is currently director of defense and security at the think tank Civitas. His sobering recent article for the Telegraph is titled “The US stands on the brink of global war with the Middle East and Asia.”

He writes: “The world is mustering for war. Conflict is already raging in Europe, with Russian and Ukrainian forces locked in offensive and counteroffensive. The aftermath of the Hamas terror attack upon Israel could now see the Middle East ignited.”

Clark points to drone and missile attacks on American forces by Iran’s proxies in Iraq and Syria. He adds that three cruise missiles launched by Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen were potentially targeting Israel before they were shot down by a US warship. If successful, such an attack could have led to Israeli retaliation against Iran, potentially triggering a direct war—and US involvement.

Meanwhile, Clark writes, “Washington is engaged in frantically regearing its own military to face the threat posed by an increasingly belligerent Chinese communist regime, intent on reunification with Taiwan by force if necessary.” (Read more in “Why does China want to invade Taiwan?“) Between the war in Europe and our increasing involvement in the Middle East, “Beijing may see this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

And Clark notes that Iran could “decide to further provoke the US in its attempts to assert regional dominance, attempting to drive the Americans to disengage and leave Israel to stand on its own.” In short, he warns, “Within months, the US could be directly involved in two devastating wars on two continents [while] bankrolling a third in Ukraine.”

The ultimate answer to all human conflict

One way I am praying for God to redeem the escalating crises of our day is by using them to expose our need for help beyond human capacity.

Our astounding technological advances in recent years have made our world not safer but more dangerous. Our growing secularism has directed our innate passion for transcendent causes into partisan tribalism. Our rejection of objective truth has rendered many Americans unable to recognize and condemn even gross immorality such as the atrocities committed by Hamas’s terrorists against innocent Israelis.

These facts remind us that the ultimate answer to all human conflict lies not in human agency but in divine transformation.

This is why we each need Jesus: “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19a). And it is why believers need to share the gospel: “and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (v. 19b). With this result: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God” (v. 20).

Our message is clear and simple: “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21).

This is why Paul said of his fellow Jews, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). And it is why apostolic Christians paid such a high price to reach the larger Roman world so that “the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe” (Acts 15:7) They were willing to give their lives so the world could say, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

“The whole offer which Christianity makes”

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis described our need for personal intimacy with God: “There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made.” He explained: “If you want to get warm, you must stand near the fire; if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.”

He added: “They are not a sort of prize which God could, if he chose, just hand out to anyone.” Rather, “They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you; if you are not, you will remain dry.”

Then Lewis asked: “Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?”

And he noted, “The whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have his way, come to share in the life of Christ. . . . Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”

Will you “let God have his way” with your life?

Will you help those you know “share in the life of Christ” today?

Denison Forum

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of a founding Hamas leader. In response to the October 7 atrocities, he told a reporter: “I was born at the heart of Hamas leadership . . . and I know them very well. They don’t care for the Palestinian people. They do not regard the human life.”

He explained: “Hamas is not a national movement. Hamas is a religious movement with a goal to establish an Islamic state.” In his view, “Hamas does not serve the Palestinian people. Hamas serves Iran. . . . They are using Palestinian people as a human shield.”

Why, then, are so many “pro-Palestinian” advocates in the West supporting them? Why is such support likely to escalate as Israel escalates its response to Hamas’s atrocities?

A swastika alongside the Israeli flag

Yesterday, journalists were shown horrific footage from Hamas’s October 7 massacre, including scenes of murder, decapitation, and torture. Some of the two hundred in attendance burst into tears as they viewed the images. While Hamas released two more hostages yesterday, it is holding more than two hundred, one of them a seventeen-year-old girl in a wheelchair. Israel has found Hamas files with instructions for making a cyanide-based weapon.

Nonetheless, world opinion is inexorably turning against Israel and the Jewish people, blaming them for the atrocities committed against them.

A United Nations official likened Israel’s response to Nazi actions in the Holocaust. A doctor in the UK posted a picture of a swastika alongside the Israeli flag on her official Instagram page. Organizations funded by the European Union praised Hamas terrorists for acting with “courage and sacrifice.”

This while antisemitism continues to rise in Canada, Germany, across Europe, and in America, where Jews are rushing to buy guns to protect themselves. A rally supporting Israel planned for downtown Chicago had to be relocated after threats from a pro-Hamas group were reported.

A Wall Street Journal opinion writer noted that this pattern is tragically not unusual: “The worst demonization of the Jewish state has typically followed the worst atrocities against it.” He explains this pattern with an insight I found very valuable: “This behavior is an example of cognitive-dissonance reduction, the process by which people reconcile new information that contradicts their firmly held priors. The result is an ostensibly coherent system of thought.”

In other words, to continue supporting those who attack Israel, advocates must find ways to dehumanize and demonize the Jewish people and blame them for their sufferings. We can expect this to escalate as the war escalates.

The irony behind anti-Israel bigotry

What is the reasoning behind what one writer calls the “sickening” anti-Israel bias by so many in the West?

First, Israel is accused of being “colonizers” by those who claim that they stole their land from its rightful Palestinian owners. However, the Palestinians are descended from Arab Muslims who invaded the area in the seventh century, displacing many of the Jews and Christians who had been there for centuries. They were in turn displaced by the Crusaders, who were displaced by Egyptian Muslims, who were displaced by Ottoman Turks. And the Jews under Joshua conquered the land from the Canaanites, whose genealogical descendants now reside in Lebanon.

If the “colonizers” are supposed to return the land to its original owners, to whom should it be returned?

Second, Israel is seen by many critics through the prism of “critical theory.” In this view, they are the majority oppressors of the minority oppressed. However, Jews in Israel comprise less than half the population of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and the global Jewish population comprises 0.2 percent of the global population.

We should also note the ironic fact that many of Israel’s military enemies are the ideological enemies of their ideological supporters. Islamic jihadists subjugate women and persecute LGBTQ people, while Israel empowers women and welcomes people of all genders and sexual orientations.

Nonetheless, the ideological bigotry Israel is facing has enormous implications for the future of the Jewish people.

“Judgments that are true and make for peace”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, visited Israel after the October 7 invasion, where he met with families of hostages. He recalled his own family’s horrific experiences during the Holocaust and said, “If we don’t prevent the threat from Hamas from occurring, it’ll happen again, and again, and again.”

I am writing today to explain the rising hatred against Israel so we can use our personal and cultural influence to defend the Jewish people from their ideological enemies in our society. This is vital for the Palestinian people as well: as Mosab Hassan Yousef noted, Hamas uses them as “human shields” in its quest to eradicate the Jews. Support for Hamas only endangers their Palestinian victims in Gaza and elsewhere.

As we speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), let’s remember that this is a spiritual conflict with “the father of lies” (John 8:44). Then let’s ask God’s Spirit to empower us (Ephesians 5:18) to “speak the truth to one another” and thus “render in [our] gates judgments that are true and make for peace” (Zechariah 8:16).

Billy Graham was right: “Because truth is unpopular does not mean that it should not be proclaimed.” The more people reject it, the more they need it.

And let’s continue to pray for a spiritual awakening in the Middle East that would transform hatred into love and end millennia of conflict. Abraham Lincoln asked, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

How will you “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) and then help answer your prayer today?

Denison Forum

There was finally some good news in the war in Israel when Hamas released two US citizens it was holding hostage. However, the conflict is threatening to escalate as Israel engages terrorists in Gaza, clashes with Hezbollah in northern Israel, and responds to threats in Syria and the West Bank.

There have been multiple attacks on US forces as well; the US defense secretary announced over the weekend that American forces are increasing their presence in the area to “bolster regional deterrence efforts.”

As you follow the news, if you’re feeling anxious and even overwhelmed these days, you’re not alone.

Five threats that could fuse into one

Former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus is warning that there is a very real chance the Middle East conflict could escalate significantly. What’s more, the battle between Hamas and Israel is dividing world opinion, pitting nations against nations in ominous ways.

According to former US Defense Secretary Bob Gates, America is facing the most crises since World War II ended seventy-eight years ago. None can be solved; all could spiral into something much worse:

1. The war in the Middle East
2. China and Russia’s growing military and economic collaboration
3. A malicious Iran
4. The unhinged leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un
5. A massive spread of doctored or wholly fake videos to manipulate world news and opinion.

US officials are especially worried that all five threats could fuse into one. The State Department recently issued a rare “Worldwide Caution,” warning US travelers abroad of “increased tensions in various locations around the world” that raise “the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against US citizens and interests.” This at a time when the US House is without a speaker, a government shutdown may be looming, and another toxic presidential campaign with rising domestic unrest is on the horizon.

“I will not refuse to do something I can do”

Helen Keller was stricken deaf and blind after contracting a high fever at nineteen months of age. Nonetheless, she went on to graduate from college cum laude and later became the first woman to be awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. She wrote numerous books, became a tireless advocate for those with disabilities, met with twelve US presidents, and was awarded the highest American honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She explained her life’s passion this way: “I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.”

One practical way to respond to the rising anxiety and fear of our day is to adopt her motto. Like those who rebuilt the gates of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3, we each have a kingdom assignment, a thing we can uniquely do to serve God and others. Using our influence to share God’s love and grace is not only vital to our personal well-being—it is absolutely crucial for our broken world and every lost person we know.

Pastor and author Paul Powell once invited readers to imagine a graph of human progress with regard to technology, economics, standard of living, and so on. Such a graph would be easy to draw and largely positive. Then he asked them to graph moral progress.

That would be a different story, as Hamas’s recent brutality makes clear.

“The heart of the problem”

Max Lucado observed:

For all our medical and scientific advancements, for all our breakthroughs in technology and medicine, do we not battle the same inclinations as did our Bronze Age ancestors? Women are still objectified: almost one in three women worldwide is a victim of physical and/or sexual violence. How is it that the twentieth century was the most murderous in history? Wars and genocides took more than two hundred million victims in one hundred years.

According to Jesus, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander” (Matthew 15:19 NIV). The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.

Here’s the good news: God can “give you a new heart” (Ezekiel 36:26). When we turn to him by faith, he promises to “put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (v. 27).

Imagine a world in which every person truly made Christ their Lord and thus experienced such godly transformation. Crime and war would end as we follow the leading of the Prince of Peace who calls us to mutual love (John 13:34–35). Lust and adultery would be replaced with love and fidelity (cf. Matthew 22:39). Lies would cease as we speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

We would still struggle with temptation, of course, but when Christ is our Lord and his Spirit empowers and controls us (Ephesians 5:18), there is no temptation we cannot defeat in his strength (1 Corinthians 10:13).

This is why Oswald Chambers’ assertion is so vital for our souls and our broken world: “There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfill his purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.”

Will God “fulfill his purpose through your life” today?

Denison Forum

As the war in Israel continues and more of the surrounding Muslim-majority nations indicate they might escalate the situation further, one of the questions we have been asked most frequently at Denison Forum is if the fighting there is a sign of the end times.

It’s an understandable question and, from an eschatological perspective, “wars and rumors of wars” in Israel do feel different than the ongoing struggle in Ukraine or conflicts elsewhere in the world (Matthew 24:6).

But why is that the case? And why do so many Christians in particular seem to jump so quickly to the end times when conflicts in Israel arise?

While answers vary, one of the most prominent factors among evangelical Christians is the belief that the nation of Israel will play a central role in the apocalyptic conflicts that will ultimately result in Christ’s return.

Now, it must be said from the start that not all Christians agree with that assessment. As Dr. Jim Denison describes, there are seven primary approaches that people have taken to understanding the book of Revelation and, by extension, how the end times will play out. And people continue to argue about it because no approach is inarguably more biblical than the rest—though strong adherents to any one of them might disagree.

For our purposes today, however, one approach in particular stands out.

Today’s most popular end-times theology

Of the seven ways that Christians have historically viewed end-times theology, the most popular in evangelical circles today is premillennialism.

While a variety of perspectives are housed within that term, they share the basic belief that the world will never be made right until Christ returns. And a quick look at the news on any given day offers a helpful reminder of why that perspective makes sense to so many.

However, that wasn’t always the case.

In the wake of the Second Great Awakening, many Christians in the West believed that the church was on the path to ushering in the kingdom that Christ would one day return to rule. However, for many believers, the Civil War put cracks in that belief before the first World War ultimately shattered it.

In its wake, more and more Christians began to believe that Jesus was the only one who could fix this world, and the premillennial approach became more common as a result.

In typical Christian fashion, though, even when people agreed on the basics, the details proved divisive. And of the factions within that faction of belief, dispensationalism is the most important for understanding why Israel is so important to many Christians today.

God’s two plans?

Dispensationalism came to America through the writings and sermons of British pastor John Nelson Darby during the late 1800s, but it rose to prominence through the preaching of St. Louis pastor James Brookes and—to an extent—famed evangelist D. L. Moody. Then, in 1909, Cyrus Scofield published one of the first study Bibles and included notes throughout explaining how the various parts of Scripture fit within a dispensationalist model.

A host of Bible colleges, institutes, and seminaries—with Dallas Theological Seminary perhaps the most important—then trained generations of pastors to see Scripture through that lens as well. And while other forms of evangelicalism grew to prominence across the same period of time, some of the most influential leaders within the evangelical church have approached Scripture from the dispensationalist perspective.

I bring all of this up today because one of the most distinctive convictions within dispensationalism is the belief that, as Timothy Weber describes, “God had two completely different plans operating in history: one for an earthly people, Israel, and the other for a heavenly people, the church.”

And that plan would eventually culminate with a reestablished Israel at the center of the Lord’s work as he began to usher in his kingdom. Given that Darby began preaching about that eventuality nearly a century before the nation of Israel was rebirthed in 1949, it’s understandable that the latter event was seen by many to confirm the dispensationalist perspective on Israel’s role in the end times.

As Israel has continued to court evangelical support in the decades since, that relationship has only grown stronger, and a view that found its modern origins within the dispensationalist perspective has been adopted by many who hold to a different approach to the faith as well.

As a result, now when Israel goes to war, Christians pay attention and openly wonder if this conflict will kick off Scripture’s final conflict.

So how can we know?

Will you be ready?

Ultimately, the answer to that question is that we won’t know which conflict is the final conflict until Jesus comes back. We’ve been in the “last times” since Christ’s incarnation. For the better part of two millennia, there have been Christians who were convinced that his return was imminent.

I’m thirty-seven years old and, not to brag, but the latest conflict in Israel is about the fifth end of the world I’ve experienced so far. Yet, whether it’s the other wars in the Middle East, 9/11, Covid, or the host of other global conflicts and persecutions that meet many of the criteria described in Scripture, Christ still hasn’t returned.

But one day he will, and while we can continue to debate the degree to which present events should be seen as a sign of the end times, what Jesus was absolutely clear about is that the best way to live now is to be ready for his return.

So how can we do that?

Think back for a moment to your initial response when you thought about the question of if we are now living in the end times. Did it make you frightened? Excited? Skeptical? Did someone come to mind who doesn’t know Christ? If Christ did return today, would there be something you feel like you’d left unfinished?

Ultimately, Christ’s call is to live every day with the expectation that it might be your last, coupled with the reality that we often won’t know if it is until it’s too late to do much about it.

So what would such a life look like for you today? And is your answer to that question primarily the product of your own guesses and expectations or as a result of guidance from God?

Only the Lord knows when your last day will be, so he is the only one capable of helping you live well every day until that time comes.

Have you asked for his help yet today?

Denison Forum

“This war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will plunge the region into an unspeakable disaster.” This was the warning of Jordan’s King Abdullah II after an explosion Tuesday in the courtyard of Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital killed hundreds of people. It is made all the more ominous by his nation’s moderate political stance and longstanding peace agreement with Israel. After the blast, the king canceled a planned summit between President Joe Biden, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Hamas immediately blamed an Israeli airstrike for the tragedy. However, Israel, the US government, and independent security experts said yesterday that preliminary evidence shows the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were not responsible and points instead to a failed rocket launch from Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a local militant group.

Nonetheless, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Arabs and Muslims worldwide to protest against Israel and claimed the explosion will mark “a new turning point.” Early response across the Muslim world indicates that he may tragically be right:

• The Jordanian government announced three days of mourning after the hospital explosion, which it called the “Israeli massacre.”
• Hezbollah called for a “day of rage against the enemy” after the blast. Hundreds of demonstrators threw stones at the French and US embassies in Beirut, chanting “death to America” and “death to Israel.” The government closed schools yesterday.
• Iran, which has warned of “preemptive” attacks should Israel proceed with a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, condemned Israel for the “heinous attack.”
• Syria stated that it holds Western countries, especially the US, “responsible for this massacre.”
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the explosion “the latest example of Israel’s attacks devoid of fundamental human values.”
• Saudi Arabia stated that it “condemns in the strongest possible terms the heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces.”

Is Israel facing an “existential threat”?

Could the al-Ahli hospital bombing indeed be a “turning point” in this tragic conflict?

Palestinians are understandably shocked and grieved by the death and devastation so many are suffering from the explosion. As the atrocities of October 7 rallied Israelis against Hamas, could this rally Palestinians against Israel? Could we see another intifada (“uprising”) in the West Bank incited by Hamas and PIJ there?

Will this bring Hezbollah, with an estimated 130,000 rockets capable of striking all parts of Israel, more fully into the war? Iran’s foreign minister has warned that the group could destroy Tel Aviv “tower for tower” and identified Israel’s nuclear reactor as a potential target. According to the Jerusalem Post, there is a “growing concern” in Israel that “Hezbollah is waiting for the moment that most IDF ground forces are committed to Gaza to open a full front with the IDF in the north.”

Will Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas and has been warning of “new fronts” opening against Israel, mobilize its jihadist forces in Syria and Iraq? In other words, will we see the multi-front war against the Jewish state that a former Israeli security advisor called an “existential threat”?

“Israel was born in battle”

Israel has been here before.

In Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, retired Gen. David Petraeus and historian Andrew Roberts describe Israel’s 1948 War for Independence in fascinating detail. They note that the war began when the infant nation was invaded by “five armies comprising over twenty thousand well-equipped Arabs from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Transjordan (later Jordan), and Saudi Arabia.”

When the war was over, some six thousand Jews had died—1 percent of the entire population of the country—but they had gained 30 percent more territory than they had been allotted by the United Nations Partition Plan the Arabs had previously rejected. While “the whole country remained within Arab artillery range, and the state’s wasp-like waist was only nine miles to the sea at its narrowest,” the nation survived.

Petraeus and Roberts quote Chaim Herzog, the head of military intelligence for the IDF in their War for Independence and a future president of the nation: “Israel was born in battle.”

We can and must join them.

Seven biblical prayers

This is not just a military, cultural, and sociological conflict—it is a spiritual war. Those who committed unspeakable atrocities on October 7, and those who would join them to destroy the Jewish people and nation, are influenced by Satan, who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

So, let’s join this battle on our knees as we “wrestle against . . . the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). Specifically, I encourage you to offer seven biblical prayers in these days, asking God to:

• Give leaders on all sides wisdom leading to peace through righteousness (Proverbs 3:5; James 1:5; 3:18).
• Protect noncombatants and provide for their needs (Psalm 121:7–8; Zechariah 7:10).
• Protect and strengthen Christians and churches throughout the region as they share their faith and serve with compassion (1 Peter 4:10).
• Give victory to Israel over those who would annihilate her (Deuteronomy 20:4; Isaiah 54:17) while giving the Palestinians a new future with justice and peace (Amos 5:24).
• “Comfort all who mourn,” both Jews and Palestinians (Isaiah 61:2–3)
• Help all in the region to “repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations” (Isaiah 61:4)
• Reveal his Son to Muslims and Jews in miraculous ways that lead them to faith in him as Lord (cf. Acts 9:1–19; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).

What if this crisis is a “new turning point,” not for escalating conflict but for spiritual awakening? What if it shows those on all sides that they need the hope found only in Christ?

What if, as a consequence of this horrific war, the One who was born in this ancient land is born again in millions of hearts?

Let us pray fervently that it may be so, to the glory of God.

Denison Forum

President Joe Biden arrived in Israel this morning to show support for Israel. His trip comes less than a day after a horrific blast at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which was sheltering thousands of displaced people when it was bombed. More than five hundred people were killed.

Palestinian officials blamed Israeli airstrikes, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “categorically” denied any involvement in the attack, blaming a “failed rocket launch” by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a rival militant group in Gaza. President Biden likewise assigned blame to “the other team,” not Israel. Independent analysts who reviewed footage of the explosion also supported the IDF’s denial.

Meanwhile, a different kind of conflict is continuing in American society. Many critics of Israel have claimed for many years that they “colonized” their land from its rightful Palestinian owners and that the state continues to “oppress” the Palestinians. This explains the support voiced on many university campuses and in cultural centers for Hamas after their October 7 atrocities.

So let’s ask: Who are the Palestinians? Did Israel steal their land? Is their plight in Gaza Israel’s fault? How should Christians view them today?

Is this colonialism?

“Palestine” derives from “Philistia,” the name given by Greek writers to the land occupied by the biblical Philistines. The Romans called the area “Syria Palestina.” It was ruled successively by Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, and the Ottoman Empire.

After World War I, the area came under British control. In 1947, the United Nations approved a “Partition Plan” whereby the West Bank (so-named for its location on the west bank of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea) and the Gaza Strip would become the nation of Palestine. The remainder of the area would become the State of Israel.

Jewish authorities accepted the plan; Arab leaders rejected it, leading to Israel’s War for Independence in 1948 and the creation of their nation.

The people commonly called “Palestinians” today largely descend from Arabs who conquered the area in the seventh century during the first era of Muslim expansionism, as well as those who emigrated from Egypt, Algeria, Bosnia, and other Arab nations in the nineteenth century. The vast majority are Muslim, though there is a significant Christian minority. I have several Palestinian Christian friends in the West Bank.

This history gives the lie to the claim that Israelis are “colonizers.” They were present from the time of Joshua until the Roman Empire dispersed them, though many remained in the land afterward. There were eras when the land was dominated by Christians (AD 324–640; 1095–1291) as well as Muslims (AD 640–1095; 1291–1917).

If we wish to “return” the land to its rightful owners, to whom would we give it—Canaanites, Jews, Christians, or Arabs?

Is Israel an oppressor?

When Israel warned Gaza residents to flee from their homes for their own safety, Hamas told them to stay. Hamas would rather use Gaza residents as human shields and their potential deaths as propaganda fodder. Sen. Mitt Romney was right: “Do not forget the lives that you will see lost on TV. Israeli lives and Palestinian lives [lost] are all the result of Hamas.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board agreed. After describing Hamas’s strategy of hiding its soldiers and weapons behind civilians, it noted: “Blaming Israel for . . . civilian casualties amounts to denying the Jewish state its right to self-defense. It means that Hamas can launch attacks on Israel with the goal of slaughtering women and children, but Israel can’t attack Hamas in Gaza because civilians might be unintentional casualties. It means Hamas would retain a terrorist sanctuary from which it can attack Israel whenever it has the means and opportunity.”

In a recent New York Times article, David Brooks timelines opportunities for the Palestinians to create a two-state solution with Israel. He lists several major peace efforts: the Oslo process, the Cairo Agreement, Oslo II, the Hebron Protocol, and the Wye River Plantation meeting.

Late in the year 2000, for example, the Israeli cabinet accepted a plan that would have created a Palestinian state. However, Brooks writes, “Yasir Arafat [the Palestinian leader] did what he generally did. He never said no, but he never said yes.”

According to Forbes, Arafat died a billionaire. Mahmoud Abbas, his successor and the current leader of Fatah (which controls the West Bank), is worth an estimated $300 million. The leaders of Hamas, many of whom live in luxury in Qatar, are likewise estimated to be billionaires.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens cites a 2014 Wall Street Journal report that with the money Hamas could have spent to build a single tunnel to infiltrate into Israel, it could have purchased construction supplies “enough to build eighty-six homes, seven mosques, six schools, or nineteen medical clinics.” At the time, Israel had identified at least thirty-two such tunnels.

Stephens concludes: “The central cause of Gaza’s misery is Hamas. It alone bears the blame for the suffering it has inflicted on Israel and knowingly invited against Palestinians. The best way to end the misery is to remove the cause, not stay the hand of the remover.”

A thought experiment

Let’s close with a thought experiment: Why doesn’t Israel take Palestinian hostages?

Because Hamas would pay nothing to get them back since it has essentially taken the entire populace hostage and views the Palestinian people as a means to its jihadist ends.

Conversely, why does Hamas take Israeli hostages?

Because Israel, grounded in the biblical worldview, values every human life.

As should we.

God loves Palestinians just as much as he loves Jews (cf. Galatians 3:28). We are each made in his image (Genesis 1:27), someone for whom Jesus died (Romans 5:8).

Consequently, please join me in praying daily for protection for civilians on both sides of this conflict, Israeli and Palestinian. Pray for the “shalom” of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6), which is peace in the region based on justice and righteousness (cf. Isaiah 1:17). And pray that God would redeem this unfolding tragedy by leading many Jews and Muslims to Christ as their Messiah.

To that end, let’s make these words from the Book of Common Prayer our intercession today:

O God, you made us in your image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Denison Forum

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a twenty-three-year-old American-Israeli born in Berkeley, California, was at the Nova music festival last weekend when more than 260 attendees were massacred by Hamas terrorists. Hersh took cover in a bomb shelter, but a grenade blew off his arm from the elbow down. Since he could still walk, he was ordered by Hamas to leave the shelter. His phone soon pinged across the border in Gaza, where authorities say he is being held hostage.

His parents, who were born and raised in Chicago and moved to Israel fifteen years ago, have not heard from him since. His mother, Rachel Goldberg, said of him, “Hersh is my only son and he’s my first child. He’s what made me a mother. I feel like God could have given him to anyone and he gave me the perfect son for me.”

Now she is spending her days praying for his return, telling his story to media outlets, and appealing to US senators and Israeli politicians. “We need to know that we are doing every single thing that we can do,” she said.

She added: “I think when you’re in hell, if you stop, then you’re really stuck. So when you’re going through hell, keep walking—and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Not knowing where he was going”

From the beginning of their story, the Jews have needed such courage simply to exist as a people.

In Genesis 12, God called Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (v. 1). Hebrews 11 tells us that he then “went out, not knowing where he was going” (v. 8).

This is the epitome of courageous faith.

Moses did the same when he faced down Pharaoh, the most powerful man on earth, and led his people through the Red Sea and the desert wilderness. So did Joshua when he led them across the flooded Jordan River. So did the judges when they led their people into battle time and time again against their enemies. So did David against Goliath and the Philistines. So did Daniel when he trusted his God in the lions’ den. So did Jesus’ apostles when they left their homes and vocations to become his disciples, then preached the gospel in defiance of the religious authorities who arranged his murder (Acts 5:27–32).

In a brilliant 1973 article for Foreign Affairs, then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir wrote that her people “brought to fruition the labor of Jewish pioneers who, since the turn of the century, gave their lives to transform a barren and denuded land into fertile fields, flourishing settlements, and new patterns of society.” The land they rebuilt “had neither oil nor abundant natural resources. Its wastes offered no temptation except to Zionist pioneers animated by the twin ideals of a new Jewish society and a reconstructed land.”

Now that land is home to one of the most advanced economies and militaries in history. Their courageous faith is an invitation and example our nation urgently needs today.

“The most dangerous time the world has seen in decades”

Jamie Dimon is the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank; the New York Times calls him “as close as Wall Street has to a statesman.” He is in the news because of a statement he made accompanying his bank’s quarterly earnings last Friday: “This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.”

High inflation and rising interest rates are risks, to be sure. But Dimon told reporters that the conflict in Israel and Gaza is “the highest and most important thing for the Western world.” In his view, it could have “far-reaching impacts on energy and food markets, global trade, and geopolitical relationships.”

The Wall Street Journal offers evidence, reporting that the war is “affecting the global balance of power, stretching American and European resources while relieving pressure on Russia and providing new opportunities to China.” The article notes that both are positioning themselves to lead the global movement against the West’s “neocolonialism.” An escalation of the war could force many European nations into greater dependence on Russian oil and gas and carries the risk of renewed violence by Islamist militant groups across the Continent.

Walter Russell Mead is one of the most perceptive cultural commentators of our day. His Wall Street Journal response to Hamas’s atrocities, titled “A Middle East Wake-Up Call,” concludes with this paragraph:

Finally, there is the question of whether American and Western opinion will awaken to the new state of the world. In a horrible way, the descent of death-dealing paragliders into a peaceful music festival in Israel is an apt symbol of our times. The post-Cold War trance of the West, reaping peace dividends, celebrating flower power, and generally living as if utopia had already arrived, has left us mentally and morally disarmed. The revisionist powers that recognize no moral limits on their power as they seek to overturn the existing world system in an ocean of blood are descending onto our festival of folly like the hell-bound paragliders of Hamas. We cannot and should not respond with irrational panic and random outbursts of violence. We must soberly and deliberately address a mortal danger to everything we hold dear—and we must at long last wake up (my emphasis).

Forging a new future

If Dimon and Mead are right—and I believe they are—we are witnessing a hinge point in history. Our secularist path has indeed “left us mentally and morally disarmed” as the moral therapeutic deism that dominates our culture separates God from life, rejects moral absolutes, and celebrates self-centric self-reliance.

As a result, America can forge a new future only by turning to the source of Israel’s courage in the past.

Abraham and his heirs who built the biblical nation of Israel risked everything to follow God’s call. Now Jesus is calling you and me to do the same for the sake of our nation and her future.

Will we?

Denison Forum

Israel Ziv is a sixty-six-year-old decorated former paratrooper. On the morning of October 7, the retired Army general was taking a bike ride when news broke that a rocket barrage had been fired from Gaza and gunmen were pouring across the border. He raced to his home overlooking olive groves near Tel Aviv, put on his uniform, and grabbed his weapon, a nine-millimeter pistol.

He then drove to the battle zone around 10 a.m. with his close friend, Noam Tibon, a retired general whose son was trapped in the Nahal Oz kibbutz. He found disorganized groups of young Israeli soldiers, piled several of them into his Audi, and began attacking Hamas gunmen on the road. After a soldier in his car was wounded, he snatched his M16 and started firing out the window.

Gen. Tibon was eventually able to rescue his son while Gen. Israel Ziv raced to other hot spots. He spent nearly twenty-four hours around the kibbutzim and villages under attack, firing his own weapon, organizing evacuations of civilians, and coordinating with the military to dispatch backup units.

Why is Israel important to America?

At this juncture in the war, it’s worth asking why Israel is so important to America.

As Israel prepares for the next stage in this conflict, Americans remain solidly supportive of the Jewish state: 49 percent say the US is doing “about the right amount” to support Israel in the war, while 29 percent say the US is actually doing too little. Only 18 percent say the US is doing “too much” in the aftermath of the attacks.

However, the nation is tiny, ranking 149^th in the world in land size at approximately the size of New Jersey. It is not unusually significant to us economically, ranking only twenty-fifth among US trading partners. Of the sixteen million Jews in the world, less than half live in Israel.

But Israel Ziv, with his sacrificial and unselfish bravery on behalf of his people, answers our question in a way that is far more significant than it might first appear.

“Butchering people was the aim”

After a week, let’s ask ourselves what we have learned about Hamas and Israel in the context of their worldviews.

Regarding civilians:

• Hamas attacks noncombatants, intentionally targeting young children, elementary schools, and a youth center. Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote: “Butchering people was the aim. It was what they set out to do.” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Hamas “vividly reminds me of ISIS: bloodthirsty, fanatical, and hateful.”
• Israel has sought to protect civilians in past conflicts with Hamas and is doing the same now, warning Palestinians in Gaza ahead of military advances there. Israel Defense Forces seek to follow the law of armed conflict against targeting noncombatants, while Hamas uses civilians (and often disguises its soldiers like them) to shield its forces and weapons.

Regarding the future of the other state:

• Hamas is pledged to the annihilation of the Jewish people, which is why they staged the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Andrew Sullivan compared them to the Nazis’ quest to exterminate the Jewish race: “The same ethno-fascism; the same blood-and-soil ideology . . . the same internalization of an entire group of humans as subhuman, to be treated like dangerous vermin; the same hideous sadism; the same eliminationist ideology; the same glee.”
• Jewish leaders accepted the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan that would have created an independent state of Palestine (with more land than the West Bank and Gaza Strip today), but the Arab nations rejected it. Every Jew I know in Israel (I have been traveling there for nearly thirty years) believes the Palestinians deserve to have their own homeland.

Regarding their leaders:

• After Hamas came to power in Gaza in 2007, there have been no more elections. More than 65 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, but the party’s leaders are wealthy, some estimated to be billionaires. They are currently living in Qatar in what the Telegraph calls “five-star luxury.”
• Israel’s democracy is often divisive and chaotic, as recent months have shown, but its leaders are ultimately responsible to those who elect them.

“The rock-solid foundation of Western culture”

Two caveats: Hamas is not the Palestinian people (a subject I intend to address later this week), and Israelis are fallen like the rest of us (also a subject I intend to address soon).

But the way Israel lives out its worldview raises a crucial question for us in our secularized culture: Is it a coincidence that the only true democracy in the Middle East, the nation in this conflict most committed to just war and to the law of armed conflict, was birthed from a biblical worldview that values all humans as made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27)?

In “The Nihilism of Antisemitism,” Thomas Balazs and Yonatan Hambourger write: “It is precisely because the Jews advanced a moral system that doesn’t tolerate murder, theft, rape, or mistreatment of the weak, and demands we care for other human beings, that other peoples have tried to wipe them out. The spree of killing and rape committed by Hamas is, among other things, a cry for freedom from a Jewish moral system that forbids such things.” They call Judaism “the rock-solid moral foundation of Western culture” and note that Hitler was reported to have said, “Conscience is a Jewish invention.”

As post-Christian America continues its unconscionable march away from biblical truth and morality into self-centric immoral relativism, what is our future?

Shakespeare’s observation comes to mind: “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

Denison Forum

“Mom and Dad, they sacrificed their lives to save me,” sixteen-year-old Rotem Matias told CNN yesterday. When the Israeli-American teenager and his parents were attacked by Hamas terrorists last Saturday, his mother died trying to shield him. He was shot but survived and will keep the bullet removed surgically from his stomach “as a memory to never forget” his parents and the other victims.

Every Jew in Israel and around the world old enough to remember Hamas’s invasion will never forget it. After more than thirty trips to the Holy Land, I can tell you that this tiny country is interconnected in ways Americans cannot understand. Nearly everyone knows someone who was directly affected by the atrocities of October 7.

Now we are learning that Jews around the world could be victims of Hamas. The terror organization’s head is calling for a Global Day of Rage today in which Muslims across the globe would “fight against the Jews.” The former leader of Hamas is similarly urging Muslims around the world to protest today and is calling on Muslim nations in the Middle East to join the battle against Israel.

Hamas is also vowing to broadcast executions of its hostages on the internet if Israel strikes Gaza. The terrorists have already flooded social media with violent videos and graphic images of the kidnappings and murders it staged last weekend. We are now learning that a nine-month-old baby is among the hostages taken by Hamas.

What should Israel do next?

How should Israel respond to such horrific terrorism? Broadly speaking, they have four basic options.

One is to effect a prisoner swap, exchanging Palestinian prisoners for hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. This was done in 2011, when Israel exchanged a thousand such prisoners for a soldier named Gilad Shalit who had been held in Gaza for five years.

A second is to continue the aerial bombing campaign they began earlier this week, seeking to kill Hamas’s leaders and degrade the group’s ability to launch weapons against Israel. This has been Israel’s response numerous times in the past.

A third is to tighten the blockade that already exists around Gaza. For example, Israel’s energy minister announced earlier this week that no electricity or water would be supplied to the area until those abducted are returned home.

A fourth is to stage a ground offensive in which Israeli troops enter Gaza to find and destroy Hamas’s leaders, fighters, and weapons.

Is a ground offensive coming?

The first three approaches have not deterred Hamas in the past from the continued aggression against Israel to which its charter pledges the terrorist organization. Any or all of them would be perceived as a major victory for Hamas and could be used to help the group gain power in the West Bank. If this occurred, the threat posed to Israel from Gaza (some forty miles from Jerusalem) would be magnified exponentially from the West Bank (which includes East Jerusalem).

Israeli military leaders have not announced their decision at this writing, but this morning they directed the evacuation of northern Gaza within twenty-four hours, which could signal an impending ground offensive. They have also amassed more than three hundred thousand reservists close to Gaza. A military spokesman said, “There’s not a family that does not have somebody that’s been called up.”

If Israel chooses this fourth option, its soldiers will face “brutal urban warfare” in the coming days. We should also note that Hamas is in the West Bank and Lebanon, as well as in Gaza. As a Gaza-based political analyst noted, it would be difficult for Israel to truly uproot Hamas. “The US stayed in Afghanistan for twenty years, did it end the Taliban?” he asked.

And urban warfare in an area as densely populated as the Gaza Strip would undoubtedly lead to many civilian casualties among the Palestinian population. Would this damage the prospects for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors? Would it kindle a wider war, sparking uprisings in the West Bank and bringing Hezbollah into the conflict? Is this Iran’s larger strategy?

At the same time, how can Israel allow Hamas to continue to exist in anything like its present state and capacity? If they do, will the October 7 atrocities only continue? Can there ever be peace with a terrorist group pledged to their destruction? Does Israel have an obligation to its people to destroy this enemy that threatens its very future?

“The line separating good and evil”

My purpose today is twofold.

First, to help us understand the truly difficult choices Israel is being forced to face and thus to encourage us to pray fervently for her leaders and people in this unprecedented time in their nation’s history.

Second, to illustrate the biblical fact that “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15). Death to the sinner and, all too often, to their innocent victims as well.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed in The Gulag Archipelago, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”

This is why the gospel is so urgently needed. Only Jesus can change terrorists like Saul of Tarsus into missionaries like Paul the Apostle. Only he can forgive the deepest depravities of the human heart. Only he can bring lasting peace to the human condition.

We are told to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). However, true peace is a “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) and thus can come only from the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:7; cf. John 14:27; 16:33).

The old aphorism is still true: “Know God, know peace. No God, no peace.”

Will you join me in praying for the truest and deepest “peace of Jerusalem” today?

Denison Forum

J. J. Kimche is a doctoral student in Jewish history at Harvard University and author of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal I hope you’ll read in its entirety. It begins: “Hamas’s attack on Israel was a small-scale Holocaust, a moment no Jew alive with the tiniest speck of communal feeling will ever forget. As a Jewish student, I was similarly chilled by the reactions at Harvard.”

He then describes the now-infamous response by more than thirty Harvard student groups to Hamas’s invasion of Israel, a statement that supported the terrorists while blaming their actions entirely on Israel. Kimche asks, “How can we share dormitories, classrooms, and ideas with students who would make excuses or even celebrate if we and our families were hacked to death by a Hamas terrorist tomorrow?”

He closes: “As a grandson of an Auschwitz survivor and a student of German-Jewish history, I was always incredulous that highly cultured Germans, the people of Goethe and Beethoven, could have displayed sympathy and even enthusiasm for the Nazi slaughter of the Jews. Now I believe it. I have seen it happen here.”

“Using their civilians to protect their missiles”

I understand that Palestinians and Israelis have a fundamental conflict over who should own the same land. I believe strongly that both Israelis and Palestinians have a right to live in peace and autonomy. I have dear and trusted friends of many years—both Jews and Arabs—who live in the Holy Land, some in Israel and others in Bethlehem and other areas of the West Bank. And I know beyond question that God loves Israelis and Palestinians equally (Galatians 3:28) and that he is grieving for the victims on both sides of this conflict.

However, I am writing today to voice my vehement opposition to a sentiment I am seeing after Hamas’s horrific invasion last Saturday: the claim that the two sides are morally equivalent to each other and that both commit similar atrocities against each other.

It is a tragic fact that some Israeli settlers have acted with indefensible violence against some Palestinians in the West Bank. And it is a fact that when Israel targets Hamas’s military installations in Gaza, since Hamas hides them behind human shields in schools, homes, and hospitals, Palestinian civilians are sometimes injured or killed.

But consider:

Hamas terrorists decapitated babies and slaughtered children when they raided Israel last Saturday morning. According to Israeli soldiers who discovered one massacre, “They have butchered women and children in worse ways than ISIS.” They kidnapped and killed elderly civilians as well, some of them Holocaust survivors, leaving what the New York Times calls a “trail of terror.”

By contrast, when Israel last had to go into Gaza to stop Hamas, it first warned residents by cellphone and leaflets. It also used small “warning rockets,” usually sent from drones, to identify buildings it was targeting so people had time to evacuate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summarized the difference between the two this way: “We are using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”

How Hamas dehumanizes the Jews

History records a long strategy of dehumanizing the Jews as the first step toward their genocidal eradication. The Egyptians of Moses’ day did this by enslaving them and treating them “ruthlessly” (Exodus 1:14). The Qur’an does this by describing them as “apes and swine” (5:60; 2:65; 7:166). Hitler did this by calling them a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples.”

Hamas does this when it claims that Jews control “the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others.” They blame Jews for “the French Revolution, the Communist revolution, and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about.” And they claim that the Jews were behind World War I And World War II. In short, they state, “There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.”

The plague of antisemitism has grown in the US and especially on college campuses in recent years. As I noted yesterday, many are deluded by Critical Theory that sees the state of Israel as the majority persecutor and Palestinians as its minority victims who must then oppress their oppressor. In so doing, these antisemites take a significant step toward dehumanizing the people of Israel as oppressors worthy of oppression.

Such defamation threatens Jews not just in Israel but around the world. Violent antisemitism surged in the US during the last Israel–Hamas war in 2014. Now we’re seeing:

• A local kosher restaurant in London was vandalized on Monday; graffiti that read “Free Palestine” appeared on a bridge.
• Antisemitic incidents tripled in Britain after the invasion.
• Police in France have opened forty-four investigations into antisemitic hate speech and glorification of terrorism.
• A synagogue in Spain was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine.”
• Security for synagogues and other Jewish institutions has been heightened across Europe.
• Anti-Israel rallies have been held this week across the US, some displaying swastikas.

As Israel heightens its military response in Gaza, we should expect such antagonism against Jews to escalate.

“The foundation for the whole American political experiment”

Our nation was founded on the declaration that “all men are created equal.” Ronald Reagan was right: “Faith in the dignity of the individual under God is the foundation for the whole American political experiment.” Dehumanizing others threatens this foundation and our very future.

What is the solution? Mr. Reagan also warned: “When men try to live in a world without God, it’s only too easy for them to forget the rights that God bestows.”

Please join me in rejecting the rising antisemitism of our secularized culture. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” with fervency (Psalm 122:6). Tell your Jewish friends and the leaders of your local synagogue that you are standing with and praying for them. Use your personal and social media influence to support the Jewish people in this hour of great crisis. Pray for God to redeem this tragedy in ways that bring peace to the Middle East and many to himself.

And pray for a moral and spiritual awakening in our land that restores the “foundation for the whole American political experiment” before it is too late.

Denison Forum

One of my dearest friends was born in a kibbutz two miles from Gaza. His village was able to evacuate when Hamas launched its murderous assault last Saturday. However, a neighboring kibbutz called Kfar Aza was targeted by the terrorists.

Yesterday, my friend forwarded to me a survivor’s description of what happened:

A thriving community of one thousand people, men and women, was brutally crushed within forty-eight hours. Whole families, parents, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, and grandmothers were murdered in cold blood. Their houses were turned into piles of earth and ashes, and their lives as they knew them—destroyed. They lost their homes, their livelihoods, and all their property. They lost neighbors, both relatives and beloved friends, in one of the greatest terrorist attacks in history. Those saved from the slaughter were trapped for two days under fire until they were rescued with only the clothes on their backs.

An Associated Press reporter quotes an Israeli army general who stood amid the wreckage of the village: “You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers in their bedrooms and how the terrorists killed. It’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre.”

Harvard students blame Israel

The Israeli death toll has passed 1,100 at this writing. President Biden confirmed yesterday in his address to the nation that fourteen US citizens were killed in the conflict and that Americans are known to be among the hostages held by Hamas.

And yet . . .

• A coalition of thirty-four Harvard University student organizations signed a statement that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” and added that “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame.” A Columbia University student group also celebrated Hamas’s “historic” massacre of Israeli civilians.
• A pro-Hamas rally held Sunday in Manhattan’s Times Square praised the slaughter of Israeli civilians.
• Demonstrators in London launched fireworks in the direction of the Israeli embassy and British student groups praised the attacks as mobs around the UK cheered One demonstrator called the attacks “beautiful and inspiring.”
• Crowds in Germany celebrated the terrorist raids.
• The United Nations Human Rights Council held a moment of silence for the “loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere,” nowhere mentioning the Israeli victims who were slaughtered.
• Horrifically, a group gathered in Sydney, Australia, to celebrate the attacks chanted, “Gas the Jews.”

From Egypt’s genocide in the time of Moses to the devastation by ancient Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, to Hitler’s “Final Solution” and its slaughter of six million Jews, the scourge of antisemitism has persisted for millennia.

Why do so many people hate the Jews today?

“Bad ideas have victims”

With regard to Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, three explanations are relevant.

First, as I explained in my book, Radical Islam: What You Need to Know and in my latest website paper, Hamas and their fellow jihadists would answer by claiming that the State of Israel stole its land from the rightful Palestinian owners and that its citizens are complicit in this “theft” by participating in their democracy. They believe they are required by the Qur’an (2:190, 192) to defend Islam by attacking Israelis and destroying Israel. Many have become convinced that Jews are in fact hostis humani generis, the enemies of mankind itself.

Second, those influenced by Critical Theory (which includes the Harvard and Columbia students and many of the West’s intellectual, academic, and cultural elites) would answer that Israel is a majority oppressor of the Palestinian persecuted minority. They claim that the only answer is for the oppressed to reverse the equation by oppressing their oppressor.

Third, many of Iran’s leaders believe the existence of Israel constitutes the “greatest barrier” to the reappearance of the Mahdi (a messiah-like figure). They therefore seek the eradication of the Jewish nation to hasten his arrival.

These are three tragic examples of a statement by my friend John Stonestreet that I quote often: “Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims.” In this case, the victim is Israel.

“There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness”

In this battle for the future of Israel, we are called by Scripture to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) and to “seek [her] good” (v. 9).

This means that we repudiate the sin of antisemitism, a plague that is rising in the US and Europe today. It means that we pray for Israel’s leaders and people to be safe from their enemies and resolute in defending their country. It means that we seek practical ways to support those in Israel and around the world devastated by these atrocities, knowing that our God “comforts the downcast” (2 Corinthians 7:6) and calls us to do the same (2 Corinthians 1:3–4).

And it means that we do all we can to lead everyone we can to the only One who can truly heal our broken world.

When Christ is our Lord, we serve only one master. We serve him and not ourselves, whatever the cost to ourselves. We serve him by serving others whether they serve us or not. And we serve out of love for the One who first loved us (1 John 4:19).

John Piper was right: “Faith in Jesus Christ frees you from the slavery of sin for the sacrifices of love.”

How strong is your “faith in Jesus Christ” today?

Denison Forum

“Babies, women, the elderly were dragged outside of their homes, were taken hostage. Civilians were shot and most were massacred in cold blood walking on the streets. This is something that, I mean, is truly unprecedented.” This is how Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan described the surprise attack Hamas launched on Israel by air, land, and sea early Saturday morning.

“This is our 9/11,” he added.

At this writing, more than 700 Israelis and about 413 Palestinians have died in the conflict; more than 2,200 have been injured. After declaring war for the first time since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel launched retaliatory strikes against military compounds and locations connected to Hamas’s leadership in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) announced this morning that it has retaken control of all communities around the Gaza Strip.

I have led more than thirty study tours to Israel, taught world religions at several graduate schools, and written books and numerous articles on Israel and Islam. In this context, I will view this tragedy with you today through the prism of geopolitical and religious narratives. Let’s ask why this is happening, then close with a practical and urgent way we must respond today.

Why did Hamas attack Israel?

Hamas called its attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge” and claimed it was acting in retaliation for Israel’s “desecration” of the Temple Mount, but we should look beyond its words to its foundational beliefs.

“Hamas” is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement.” The terrorist group is part of a movement of radical jihadists who claim that the State of Israel stole its land from its rightful Muslim owners. They believe the Qur’an requires them to defend Islam by attacking Israel and anyone who supports the Jewish people (cf. Qur’an 2:190; 9:5). Since Israel is a democracy, they view its Jewish citizens, whom they consider “apes and swine” (Qur’an 5:60; see 2:65; 7:166), to be complicit in this “attack” on Islam.

Hamas has therefore been in conflict with Israel since seizing control of Gaza in 2007. Its goal is more than aggression against Jews, however.

Hamas published its official charter in 1988, calling for the destruction of Israel and raising “the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” Its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, stated that “reconciliation with the Jews is a crime” and claimed that Israel “must disappear from the map.”

To accomplish this goal, Hamas would need to do three things.

One: Prevent Muslim nations from supporting Israel.

The Abraham Accords brought the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain into normalized relations with Israel in 2020. More recently, Saudi Arabia has been considering steps to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a defense pact with the US.

Saturday’s attacks were clearly intended to sabotage such talks. They apparently achieved their goal, at least in the short term, when the Saudi government issued a statement blaming the conflict on “the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights.”

Two: Provoke a response that draws other Muslims into the conflict.

Hamas says its attacks are only the beginning and stated, “It is possible that the battle would involve regional parties.” How could this happen?

By committing horrific atrocities, including taking dozens of hostages, Hamas is inciting a response it can characterize as an attack on all Palestinians and Muslims. Since the Qur’an requires Muslims to defend Muslims (4:75; 22:39), Hamas apparently hopes other Muslims in the region will then join its war on Israel.

This could include Hezbollah, a heavily armed militant group controlling southern Lebanon that briefly exchanged artillery and missile fire with Israel after the attacks began. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank are other jihadist groups that could join the conflict.

A former Israeli security advisor warned that Israel will face an “existential threat” if Hezbollah, Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria, and Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank join the fighting. It will be crucial to see if the conflict with Israel expands beyond Hamas in the coming days.

Three: Engage other nations in the widening conflict.

Senior Hamas and Hezbollah members said Iranian security officials helped plan the attack on Israel and gave it the green light last Monday. According to the Wall Street Journal, these officials described their broader plan to create the multi-front threat I described above.

Many Iranian leaders believe the Mahdi (the Twelfth Imam, their version of a Messiah) will appear to govern the world for Islam after the Muslim world destroys the Jewish state. Some believe that this war with Israel will occur after a world war, viewing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as this necessary prelude.

However, Iran does not stand alone: its military and economic ties with Russia have strengthened significantly since the latter invaded Ukraine. How could the war with Israel benefit Russia? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted: “If Israel is about to invade Gaza and embark on a long war, Ukraine will have to worry about competition from Tel Aviv for Patriot missiles as well as 155-millimeter artillery shells and other basic armaments that Ukraine desperately needs more of and Israel surely will, too.”

Friedman quoted Vladimir Putin’s statement last Thursday that Ukraine was being propped up “thanks to multi-billion donations that come each month.” Putin added, “Just imagine the aid stops tomorrow.” In that case, Ukraine “will live for only a week when they run out of ammo.”

Last, there is China, whose relations with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine are now at a “historic high.” China clearly seeks to take Taiwan and its high-tech manufacturing so essential to the global economy. According to Atlantic writer Graeme Wood, “If war breaks out generally around Israel, and questions arise about Israel’s very survival, the United States will have to start counting its ammunition. How much is left for Israel, after Ukraine has taken its share? And what about Taiwan, now third in line?

“These are hard questions, and Iran, Russia, and China would be thrilled, collectively and separately, to force them on the United States.”

“A Pearl Harbor and a 9/11 all together”

We will obviously continue this conversation tomorrow. For today, I will close by asking you to join me in praying urgently for the innocent victims of this horrific war.

I have very dear friends of many years living in Israel; one of them has a grandson who began his military service just a week ago. A pastor friend and a group of university colleagues were also in the country when the attacks began; I am praying for their safety and safe return.

They are just a few of the multitudes of people who are affected by this war. Hundreds are dead, thousands are wounded, and the atrocities by Hamas now being reported are horrifying. A spokesman for the IDF said, “We have had the worst day in Israeli history when it comes to casualties. . . . In American terms, this is a Pearl Harbor and a 9/11 all together.”

God’s call to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) has never been more urgent than it is today.

Denison Forum

Did Taylor Swift join Travis Kelce for his birthday yesterday? Will she attend his game this weekend? Heinz has created a custom sauce in response to a viral photo of her at a recent Chiefs game. Their friends say she is “really enjoying getting to know Travis” and that he is “completely smitten” with her.

Now you know everything I know and don’t know about this “pop cultural moment,” as the NFL describes the couple and its coverage of their reported romance.

Now consider these headlines on this morning’s Wall Street Journal website: “Violent Crime Is Surging in DC”; “US Jet Shoots Down Turkish Drone Over Syria”; “GM Has at Least 20 Million Vehicles With Potentially Dangerous Air-Bag Parts”; “Army Plans Major Cuts to Special-Operations Forces”; “China Is Becoming a No-Go Zone for Executives.”

Which story would you rather think about today?

A world that is all about us

In Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, the American writer and educator Neil Postman warned that television was transforming our engagement with the world from one in which we process information actively to one in which we experience entertainment passively. He argued that a particular medium can only communicate a particular kind of idea. Print is essential for rational inquiry and argument, in his view, while televised images are most useful for evoking emotions and entertaining viewers.

He pointed to television news as an example, with its use of theme music, journalistic actors, and highly produced images and videos. The result for viewers is less that they are informed than that they are entertained and thus susceptible to consuming what is being advertised, which is the real goal of such programming.

Postman issued his critique in 1985. What would he say of a culture dominated by social media and TikTok videos?

Now add the influence of consumption-driven capitalism: consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the entire US economy, which means our financial system depends on convincing us that we need to buy what advertisers are selling. From morning to night, we live in a culture that centers on us as the customer. We get to choose the news we consume, the entertainment we experience, the products we buy and use.

Paradoxically, however, we feel more anxious, depressed, and lonely than ever. In a world that’s all about us, why is this?

“Until the nation pays homage again to God”

Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) was Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. Previously, he served as a newspaper editor and Parliament member before founding the Free University of Amsterdam, which took the Bible as its foundation for every area of study and knowledge.

His famous declaration answers our question: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” In his book To Be Near Unto God, he explained:

The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality, in the full and vigorous prosecution of our life. It must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perception, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence.

Consequently, Kuyper described the ruling passion of his life:

That in spite of all worldly opposition, God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school, and in the State, for the good of the people, to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God.

“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes”

The Bible resoundingly proclaims that our God is the Lord and ruler of every dimension of every part of the universe in every moment of every day. You and I were created by our Creator for a holistic relationship with him. The splitting apart of soul and body, spiritual and secular, religion and the “real world” that so dominates Western life originated with pagan Greek philosophers, not biblical truth.

Consequently, when we make the world about us rather than our Maker and segregate him to the merely “religious” moments of our week, we take up a weight we cannot bear. We become our own Atlas, the Greek god whose task of holding the sky on his shoulders was a punishment rather than a privilege.

Is it any wonder that we choose the distractions of pop culture over the hard work of responding thoughtfully and redemptively to the critical issues we face?

What we need is a holistic, unifying life mission, a purpose that gives meaning to every moment and dimension of our lives. God has such a calling for us, one that unites body and soul, mind and spirit, and infuses us with joy-filled abundance no matter the challenges we face.

Consider William Tyndale, the man more responsible than any other for the English Bible you and I read today. Condemned for his efforts to give his people a version of God’s word they could read for themselves, he was strangled on this day in 1536, then his dead body was burned at the stake. His last prayer was “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

And God did: three years later, Henry VIII required every parish church in England to make a copy of the English Bible available to its parishioners.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, in a sense he is not fit to live.”

Are you “fit to live” today?

Denison Forum

The Forbes 400 is out, listing the wealthiest Americans in 2023, and unless you’re worth $2.9 billion, you’re not on it. Here’s another reason to feel excluded: according to a recent Barna survey, only a third of young adults are more likely to support a nonprofit organization with Christian values. Nearly the same percentage said having Christian values would make them less interested in supporting a nonprofit.

This after a Texas LGBTQ advocacy group claimed a federal judge cannot be “fair and impartial” because of his Christian beliefs. And 47 percent of adults in an Associated Press survey said liberals have “a lot” of freedom to express their views on college campuses, while just 20 percent said the same of conservatives.

Yesterday we discussed the urgency of declaring and defending biblical sexual morality, not just because it is biblical but because our Creator’s principles are best for every person he creates. The more our culture rejects biblical beliefs, the more urgently we need to share them. The sicker the patient, the more urgent the treatment.

Here’s the problem: it is human nature when facing opposition and rejection to oppose and reject those we face. The “fight or flight” response is our automatic physiological reaction to events that are perceived as stressful or frightening. Psychologists say this response increases our chances of survival in threatening situations. But it is precisely the wrong way for Christians to respond to our cultural opponents.

And it is precisely the way our spiritual enemy wants us to react to them.

Ronald Reagan had no enemies

When Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, knowing that its people would reject him and the city would be destroyed as a consequence, “he wept over it” (Luke 19:41). When Paul addressed the Ephesian elders, he told them that he had served the Lord “with all humility and with tears” (Acts 20:19).

When Nehemiah learned that his hometown of Jerusalem was “broken down” and “its gates [were] destroyed by fire,” here was his response: “As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:3–4).

Foreseeing the judgment of his nation, Jeremiah wrote: “My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick within me” (Jeremiah 8:18). He added: “For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded” (v. 21).

President Ronald Reagan reminded his staff that they did not have political enemies, only opponents. Our true enemy is the one who has deceived our spiritual and cultural opponents (2 Corinthians 4:4) and seeks their death and destruction (John 10:10).

Is your “heart wounded” for them today?

Paul’s pointed question

Our first practical step in responding to our broken culture is to grieve for it, praying for the “gift of tears” so that what breaks our Father’s heart breaks our heart as well.

Our second is to be godly so we can call others to be godly.

Paul asked pointedly: “You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?” (Romans 2:22). For example, heterosexuals who oppose homosexual sin must not commit heterosexual sin. We need to be the change we wish to see, or our sin normalizes and encourages sin for others: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (v. 24).

Our third step is to build relational bridges of grace. Jesus wants to make us “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19), which requires us to go to those we are to “catch” for Christ. What is your strategy for reaching those God has entrusted to your influence? How are you investing your time and compassion? With whom are you sharing God’s love and truth these days?

Our fourth step is to pray for the Spirit to change the hearts of those we know. Human words cannot save human souls. But the Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8), including the lost people you know. For whom are you praying by name?

“This is the identity you have to accept”

St. Augustine testified: “I shall recall the straying; I shall seek the lost. Whether they wish it or not, I shall do it. And should the brambles of the forests tear at me when I seek them, I shall force myself through all straits; I shall put down all hedges. So far as the God who I fear grants me the strength, I shall search everywhere. I shall recall the straying; I shall seek after those on the verge of being lost.”

To share God’s love with those who reject his word, it helps to remember that our personal worth is not determined by their response. Henri Nouwen reminds us: “Your true identity is as a child of God. This is the identity you have to accept. Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain. You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you as an opportunity for strengthening your base identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame.

“You belong to God, and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world.”

Where in the world has God sent you today?

Denison Forum

House lawmakers voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker yesterday afternoon, the first time in US history that a speaker has been voted out. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R–NC) was then named the new temporary leader of the House. He closed the chamber and set a goal of voting on the next speaker next Wednesday. House business has been put on hold until then.

This while Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial continues in Manhattan, the first time a former US president has ever faced such charges.

Meanwhile, another unprecedented event is unfolding away from the headlines with ramifications that are even more foundational for biblical Christians in a secularizing culture.

Pope signals support for blessing same-sex unions

After five conservative cardinals challenged Pope Francis to affirm current Catholic teaching on homosexuality ahead of an upcoming major synod, he issued a response which the Washington Post described this way: “Francis wrote that there are ‘situations’ that may not be ‘morally acceptable’ but where a priest can assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether blessings may be given—as long as such blessings are kept separate from the sacrament of marriage.”

The pope’s statement contradicts a 2021 Vatican statement confirming a ban on blessing same-sex couples because “God cannot bless sin.” It was welcomed by an LGBTQ+ advocate: “The allowance for pastoral ministers to bless same-gender couples implies that the church does indeed recognize that holy love can exist between same-gender couples, and the love of these couples mirrors the love of God.”

In other words, so long as we continue to teach the biblical doctrine that marriage is between one man and one woman, we can “bless” marriages that violate this doctrine, or so the pope seems to believe. This is the first time in church history that a pope has taken such a position on sexuality and marriage.

This on the heels of the Unconditional Conference held last weekend at Andy Stanley’s megachurch in suburban Atlanta, an event that generated such controversy that Rev. Stanley addressed it in his Sunday sermon. As Dr. Ryan Denison reported yesterday, the pastor stated clearly that “biblical marriage is between a man and a woman.” However, he noted, many same-sex couples “choose a same-sex marriage,” and now the church must decide “how we respond to their decision.”

His position is to uphold biblical marriage while welcoming into the congregation those who do not: “We don’t draw lines—we draw big circles. . . . We aren’t condoning sin, we are restoring relationships and we are literally saving lives.”

“If the trumpet does not sound a clear call”

One of my life texts is the exhortation to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The ESV Study Bible notes: “By the time that Jude wrote his letter, ‘the faith’ had already been fixed and established in the apostolic teaching of the early church, and therefore could not be changed, but was under attack and in need of defense.”

This apostolic teaching clearly addressed sexual sins: “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:24–25).

Consequently, “Their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (vv. 26–27). (For more on the Bible and homosexuality, please see my website article here.)

In light of such clear truth, we must “contend” for biblical faith even—and especially—when it is unpopular. We must not blur the truth for the sake of tolerance or inclusion. While Andy Stanley wants to “draw big circles,” there are some biblical lines we must not cross: “If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” (1 Corinthians 14:8 NIV).

This is not just to “make a defense” of our faith (1 Peter 3:15)—it is also for the benefit of those who disagree. If “God is love” (1 John 4:8), his instructions are for our good, serving as guardrails that keep us from veering off the road to our own destruction.

Therefore, we are not being gracious when we “encircle” and condone what he forbids.

“Its power will wrong desires destroy”

Tomorrow I plan to discuss practical ways we can respond. For today, let’s embrace the hope of Christ that can forgive any sin and transform any heart.

Jesus “loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood” (Revelation 1:5). Now we can “die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24) since “in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). However, like any other gift, forgiveness must be sought and received to be experienced.

Here’s a succinct way to make my point today: Our Father loves us as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us there.

The British hymn writer J. R. Peacey captured well the hope we offer the world:

Let in the light; all sin expose
To Christ, whose life no darkness knows.
Before the cross expectant kneel;
That Christ may judge, and judging heal.

Awake, and rise up from the dead,
And Christ his light on you will shed.
Its power will wrong desires destroy,
And your whole nature fill with joy.

Why do you need such power?

With whom will you share it today?

Denison Forum

The Unconditional Conference hosted by Andy Stanley and North Point Community Church concluded last Friday, and details are beginning to emerge about what was taught across the two-day event.

The conference was billed as a chance “for parents of LGBTQ+ children and for ministry leaders looking to discover ways to support parents and LGBTQ+ children in their churches.” It appears fulfilling that promise was the focus as, in Stanley’s words, the event was more “pastoral” than theological in nature.

Yet, as someone who attended the conference described, underlying that guidance was a consistent assumption that the best response to those who identify as LGBTQ+ is “affirming them for who they are, in order to retain ‘influence’ and a relationship with them.”

And while it is difficult to speak to specifics since video and audio recordings were strictly prohibited, Stanley spent Sunday’s sermon explaining the church’s stance and speaking to the controversy that surrounded the event.

“We don’t draw lines—we draw big circles”

While the sermon, like the conference, was not broadcast, recordings were made by some in attendance. North Point has said they will release the full recording this week—until then, it can be found in the link below—and it’s worth listening to when made available. While there is much with which I disagree regarding the implications of Stanley’s message, hearing the heart with which he said it is helpful for responding to it in a way that is fair and honors God.

In the sermon, Stanley stated, “Every instruction in the Bible regarding marriage references or assumes a husband and a wife, a man or a woman. So biblical marriage, biblical marriage is between a man and a woman. We’ve never shied away from that.”

However, he went on to say that while many LGBTQ+ attendees of their church “pray that God would change them so they can experience that” kind of biblical marriage, “for many, that is not sustainable. So they choose a same-sex marriage. Not because they’re convinced it’s biblical . . . [but] for the same reason many of us do. Love, companionship, and family.”

To his credit, Stanley described well the practical difficulties many LGBTQ+ individuals face in following Christ and adhering to the biblical view of marriage. Giving credence to those struggles is an area where many of us could do better.

However, he didn’t stop there.

Stanley went on to declare, “This is the important thing I want you to hear me say—it’s their decision. Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision. . . . And we decided 28 years ago: we draw circles; we don’t draw lines—we draw big circles. . . . We aren’t condoning sin, we are restoring relationships and we are literally saving lives.”

Ultimately, saving lives and restoring relationships sounds good. And much of what he discussed on Sunday is biblical. The problem is that if you take his stance of affirming a biblical view of marriage as the ideal while minimizing the practical significance of diverging from that path—even if the goal is to help people accept Jesus—then you end up in a dangerous place.

Holding each other accountable

Eight years ago, I wrote this:

I want to affirm homosexuality. I really do. I want to tell people that have struggled their entire lives with the feeling that they were attracted to someone of the same gender that it’s alright to embrace those emotions. That it’s alright to live the life that feels most right to you. I want to say the same to the people that feel like they were born into the wrong bodies. I want to tell them that the surgeries and the hormone therapies will make their lives better and allow them to find the peace and sense of belonging that they want so badly. I want to say all of those things and I think every Christian should. But I can’t. We can’t. At least, not unless someone can show us how our understanding of God’s word is wrong.

I still feel that way. And I’m still just as confident today as I was then—if not more so—that God’s prohibitions against any kind of sexual activity except that between a husband and wife are clear and remain just as relevant today as when they were first given.

And it is crucial that we hold not only ourselves to that standard but other believers as well.

You see, there should be a difference in how we speak about issues like biblical sexuality with non-Christians and the way we speak about them with other followers of Christ.

When Christians choose to speak about biblical sexuality without regard for the degree to which the other person accepts the Bible as a source of authority, we’re likely to do more harm than good. However, when that fear causes us to either ignore the conversation altogether or move outside of a biblical view of sexuality to the place of affirming what the Bible condemns, the results can be just as problematic.

Biblical relevance isn’t dependent on cultural acceptance

What we see in the example of Jesus—the “big circles” approach as Stanley calls it—is someone who meets people where they are and does not expect the lost to act like a person who is saved. However, what Stanley either ignores or does not give enough credence to is the way that Jesus also held those who should know better accountable for that knowledge.

In describing the religious leaders of his day, Christ quoted the prophet Isaiah, saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:8–9).

I want to believe that Andy Stanley and those who agree with his teachings on this subject have hearts that are not far from the Lord’s. And I do think Stanley genuinely believes that he’s helping people get closer to Christ by lowering the standards of the faith to something more easily embraced by those who struggle to accept a biblical view of sexuality. But it doesn’t change the fact that his teachings on this subject are still far closer to the commandments of men than the commandments of God.

Biblical relevance isn’t dependent upon cultural acceptance, and Jesus was clear that we don’t get to pick and choose the parts of God’s word that we will follow.

That’s true for megachurch pastors like Andy Stanley, but it’s equally true for you and me as well. So while we should not be afraid to point out when other believers stray from the truth of God’s word, we must be sure not to make the same mistake in our own lives.

It may not be in the context of biblical sexuality, but all of us have some area where we tend to stumble. And when we do—which is inevitable this side of heaven—let’s embrace the accountability meant to draw us back into a right relationship with the Lord.

Will you?

Denison Forum

Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce caught six passes as his Chiefs defeated the New York Jets last night in a game that was closer than many expected. However, all eyes were on one particular fan in the stands.

Taylor Swift has been generating headlines for years, but now that she and Kelce are dating (or so it seems) and she is attending his games, public attention is riveted on her in a whole new way. She’s apparently not interested in him for his money; his annual salary is $12.3 million, but her US Eras Tour brought in $13 million per night from ticket sales.

Such numbers are unfathomable for most of us. Many are just glad the government averted a shutdown that could have harmed the economy further. Americans continue to be frustrated by inflation and slow economic growth and worry about rising crime and illegal immigration. As historian George H. Nash notes, we yearn for freedom, virtue, and safety. Fully two-thirds of us believe the nation is “off on the wrong track.”

But there’s a deeper story at work here.

Why we seek “a new, optimistic future”

Richard Haass, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes that “the global outlook appears bleak and is about to get bleaker.” For example, “the UN’s most important component, the Security Council, is sidelined and will remain so, given that one of its veto-holding members is waging a war that violates the UN Charter’s most fundamental principle.”

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large of the Wall Street Journal, observes that the “new moral order” built on “globalism, climate-change alarmism, and cultural self-annihilation” is “already crumbling.” British Home Secretary Suella Braverman recently warned against the “failed dogma of multiculturalism” and predicted that British culture will “disappear” without migration controls.

Closer to home, Americans blame both political parties for the current situation. In the view of the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel, voters want to be “inspired by a new, optimistic future.”

Here’s a fact you won’t find in the secular media: this “future” begins not with secular culture but with spiritual rebirth. And that cannot begin in our culture if you and I do not take two vital steps today.

Golfing advice from a bad golfer

The God who made us loves us passionately. He “waits to be gracious to you” (Isaiah 30:18) and sent his Son so we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Here’s the problem: people judge Christ by Christians. They will not follow our faith unless we follow it. In Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, Russell Moore writes: “We see now young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.”

I would not accept golfing advice from a bad golfer or dental care from a person with bad teeth. Would you hire a financial advisor who is bankrupt or an attorney who is in jail?

Here’s the point: If we speak against the sins of our culture, we must take heed lest we commit similar sins ourselves. After describing in detail the sins of the decadent Roman culture (Romans 1:24–32), Paul asked his fellow Christians, “Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:3).

For example, we should stand against homosexual sin (cf. Romans 1:26–27), but heterosexual sin is just as sinful (cf. Matthew 5:28). “It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17). We earn the right to warn against the failures of our day by living in a way that demonstrates the difference our faith makes in our lives.

However, my purpose today is not to exhort you simply to try harder to do better.

The myth of the self-made hero

The self-made hero is one of the enduring myths of Western culture. Indeed, God calls us to exercise “self-control in all things” (1 Corinthians 9:25) and to “live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12).

However, “self-control” is a “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23). Therefore, here’s the first key to the spiritual renewal our culture needs so desperately: “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Here’s the second key: we “walk in the Spirit” most effectively when we do so in accountable community.

A coal taken from the fire goes out. We are told to love our Lord and our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39) because each empowers the other.

If we want our “manner of life” to be “worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27a), we must “[stand] firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (vv. 27b). Stated differently: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24–25).

For the sake of our spiritual and national future, let me ask you: Who is encouraging you to “walk in the Spirit”?

Whom will you encourage today?

Denison Forum

Rex Colubra is a Wisconsin diver who has developed a unique relationship with a wild, smallmouth bass he named Elvis. Colubra was exploring a lake in 2021 when “all these fish were coming up to me,” he explains. “I noticed one was sticking closer than the rest.” When he returned to the lake a few weeks later, he brought crawfish snacks for his new friend.

Since then, he has visited Elvis about a dozen times, documenting their reunions for his 174,000 TikTok followers. “He’s completely obsessed with me,” Colubra states. “He follows me around and just stares me in the eyes.” Skeptics might wonder how the diver knows Elvis from the other fish, but he says the fish has a “unique mouth disfigurement,” likely from a fishing hook.

Colubra refers to Elvis as “my underwater lover,” “aqua puppy,” and “buddy beneath the waves.” In a November 2022 Instagram post, he states, “My closest friend is a fish.”

Loneliness is as dangerous as cigarettes

New York Times columnist David French reports that between 1990 and 2021, the percentage of Americans reporting that they had no close friends quadrupled. Almost half of all Americans surveyed reported having three close friends or fewer.

The Wall Street Journal notes that 27 percent of respondents to a recent survey reported symptoms of an anxiety disorder, up from 8 percent in 2019. Half of eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds report anxiety or depression symptoms.

What is the source of our discontent?

Our political divisiveness is one factor: 65 percent of us say we always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics. Rising crime and violence are another: Target has closed nine stores in four states because of rampant crime, for example. Financial fears are another contributor: the markets have been falling in September, as they often do; on this day in 2008, the Dow suffered the largest single-day drop to that point in its history.

As a reflection of culture, our music is getting sadder. Gen Z loneliness is so bad that some young adults are spending thousands of dollars trying to make friends through social clubs and gym memberships. Research shows that people who are socially disconnected have a 29 percent higher risk of heart disease, a 32 percent greater risk of stroke, and a 50 percent increased risk of dementia for older adults.

According to a recent advisory from the US Surgeon General’s office, loneliness can increase the risk of premature death as much as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.

“When men choose not to believe in God”

Here’s what I think is going on: our secularized worldview is victimizing us.

Gerard Baker said it well in the Wall Street Journal this week: “Over the past thirty years, the values of Judeo-Christian belief that had inspired and sustained Western civilization and culture for centuries have been steadily replaced in a moral, cultural, and political revolution of the postmodern ascendancy. But the contradictions and implausibilities inherent in this successor creed have been increasingly exposed.”

He points to the rejection of national borders, a “quasi-biblical belief in climate catastrophism,” and a “wholesale cultural self-cancellation in which the virtues, values, and historic achievements of traditional civilization are rejected.” There’s more to his profound article than I have space to report, but I want to elaborate theologically on his third sociological factor.

We were made for relationship with God and each other. This is why St. Augustine’s famous prayer—“Our heart is restless until it rests in you”—strikes such an evocative chord in our souls. And it is why Satan does all he can to lead us into sin, knowing that it will drive us away from God (Genesis 3:8) and each other (v. 12).

Now that we are living in a culture that rejects the very notion of “sin,” our enemy must be very pleased. When there are no speed limits, lane markers, or guardrails, crashes are inevitable. The Belgian author and poet Émile Cammaerts was right: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. Then they become capable of believing in anything.”

“Consequences have compound interest”

Commenting on the prophetic warning, “They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7), Max Lucado writes: “Consequences have compound interest. You determine the quality of tomorrow by the seeds you sow today.”

No matter how far our secularized society drifts from God, it is still true that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). It is the only power of God for salvation. It is the only spiritual chemotherapy for the spiritual malignancy that afflicts every human being.

Therefore, as spiritual oncologists, it would be malpractice for us to offer any other therapy but this. Our job is to show people they have cancer, point to the only therapy that can save them, and teach them how to receive and share it.

If you and I were medical oncologists, we would know that our work is urgent for saving lives. As spiritual oncologists, we can know that our work is even more urgent for saving eternal souls before they perish into eternal separation from God in hell.

To recast Robin Williams’ observation in biblical terms: The greatest gift is eternal life, and the greatest sin is to return it unopened.

With whom will you share it today?

Denison Forum