I’ll never forget the first time I visited Israel. After spending several days touring Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Galilee, it was finally time to go up to Jerusalem.

And up we went! I did not realize how high Jerusalem sat until our tour bus climbed the winding highway. We rounded a corner, and as the color of the buildings began to change to a golden stone, I heard crying. A precious Jewish woman seated behind me was seeing the holy city for the first time. I was humbled as I quietly listened to her tell her husband how her father and uncle died before setting their eyes on the city they longed for. She said, “‘Next year in Jerusalem’ is what we said every year at Passover. And here I am—how do I deserve this?”

Through the Jewish people’s hard work and God’s blessings, swamps and barren land were transformed into life, just as Scripture foretold.

I visited Israel for the same reason most Christians do: to walk where my Savior walked and to see where the Bible stories I had heard my entire life happened. I wanted to experience the modern State of Israel. Through the Jewish people’s hard work and God’s blessings, swamps and barren land were transformed into life, just as Scripture foretold (Isaiah 35:1).

However, the Jewish people’s desire for Israel is special. Their hearts are forever knit to this land because of God’s everlasting covenant with them.

A Time to Remember

Every spring, as we prepare to celebrate Easter, the Jewish people prepare for Passover. As Christians rejoice in hope and celebrate Jesus the Messiah, who came and died for man’s sins, rose on the third day, and promised to return one day, the Jewish people gather to remember and celebrate God delivering them from Egypt and leading them to the Promised Land. Both Christians and Jewish people are waiting for the Messiah to come for His own. 

If you ever had the privilege of attending a Passover Seder, you know it is a richly symbolic meal. Participants journey through the Israelites’ Exodus with four cups that symbolize the four “I wills” God promised them in Exodus 6:6–7:

1. The cup of sanctification: “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

2. The cup of praise: “I will rescue you from their bondage.”

3. The cup of redemption: “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.”

4. The cup of acceptance: “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.”

God makes one more, two-pronged “I will” statement: “I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord.” (v. 8). Some call this last cup the cup of hope, or the cup of Elijah, as the prophet Malachi wrote, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5–6). Jewish tradition teaches that the prophet Elijah will signal the Messiah’s coming. The Passover table reserves an empty place setting and cup in hope that Elijah will appear and the Messiah will come for His people.

A Cry of Hope

God commanded the Israelites to observe Passover as a time of remembrance: “So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance” (Exodus 12:17). It is also a time of hopeful anticipation. At the end of the Seder meal, it is customary to say together, “Next year in Jerusalem!”, or in Hebrew, “L’shana ha-ba’a bi-Yerushala’yim!” 

This cry may seem strange to us living in a post-1948 world. Before the establishment of the modern State of Israel, the Jewish people could only dream of returning home to their Promised Land. Today, millions of Jewish people proclaim, “L’shana ha-ba’a bi-Yerushala’yim!”, while sitting in the actual city! So does that mean the cries of their hearts are satisfied? Not quite

The Jewish people long for the day the Prince of Peace will set His feet upon the Mount of Olives and bring shalom: true, lasting peace.

If you walk down Jerusalem’s streets and ask what “L’shana ha-ba’a bi-Yerushala’yim!” means, you might receive as many different answers as people. Many, like the precious woman I heard on my tour bus, are visiting the land they have read about, prayed over, and longed for. The more religious may explain that the Temple, not Jerusalem itself, has yet to be rebuilt. Scripture says a future Temple is coming where the glory of God will return (Ezekiel 40—48). However, a more secular Jewish person would probably say the phrase is a “state of mind” and a message of future peace. Whatever their answer, “next year in Jerusalem” is a cry of hope and anticipation. God is calling the Jewish people back to their land, just as Scripture promised.

As the Jewish people sit together in the coming weeks to celebrate and remember the Passover all over the world, they will end their time together reading this Psalm of Ascent (126):

When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad. Bring back our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the South. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continuously goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

What was once a dream to return to the land is now a reality. 

A Bright Future

The Jewish people long for the day the Prince of Peace will set His feet upon the Mount of Olives and bring shalom: true, lasting peace (Zechariah 14:4, 9). Scripture says the time leading to this day will not be easy for those left on Earth during the Tribulation, but believers in Jesus know God has ordained every plan and act of man to carry out His amazing plan of redemption. So, this Passover, as the Jewish people around the world cry out, “Next year in Jerusalem!”, let us pray with great hope and anticipation for the peace of Jerusalem and for God to work mightily in their hearts.

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

About the Author

Sarah Fern

Sarah is the Media Content Strategist for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. She lives in the Knoxville, TN area with her husband, Martin, and their son.

“Dad, are we dispensationalists? Because it seems like this is how anyone would read the Bible!”

I was in my first year of Bible college at Word of Life Bible Institute in upstate New York when I called my father (who was also my pastor) to ask about Dispensationalism, a term I had never heard before. As a young college student, I had no idea people approached the reading and studying of God’s Word in such different ways. 

There Really Is a Difference

Dispensational Theology and Covenant Theology are the two major systems of theology in the evangelical world. Thousands of works have been published about each, and attempting to define each thoroughly in this article would be futile.

For summary, in his book There Really Is a Difference! A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational Theology, Dr. Renald Showers defined Dispensational Theology as “a system of theology which attempts to develop the Bible’s philosophy of history on the basis of the sovereign rule of God. It represents the whole of Scripture and history as being covered by several dispensations of God’s rule” (p. 27). The seven dispensations are Innocency, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Mosaic Law, Grace, and The Millennium.

Dr. Showers defines Covenant Theology as “a system of theology which attempts to de­velop the Bible’s philosophy of history on the basis of … covenants” (p. 7). These covenants are Redemption, Works, and Grace. The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry holds to Dispensational Theology.

Do We Owe It All to Darby?

I have friends who are not dispensationalists. They read and interpret Scripture very differently than I do, and we have lively discussions about those differences. I believe God has a future for Israel; they believe God is finished with Israel. I believe the church and Israel have unique places in God’s plan; they believe the church replaced Israel when Jesus presented Himself as Messiah and the Jewish people rejected Him. I believe in the Rapture of the church and a 1,000-year reign of Christ on Earth; they believe the Bible is not clear on end-times events. 

One common statement I have heard and read from Covenant theologians is that Dispensationalism is a new system of thought invented by Plymouth Brethren founder and Bible teacher John Nelson Darby (1800–1882). J.N. Darby was quite the character, and his gravestone describes him well: “As unknown and well known.”

God used a flawed man to further the gospel. I can certainly relate to that!

Many talk, assume, and generalize about him, but most do not truly know him. Some say God would not use a man like Darby because of controversies they have heard about him. Yet Dr. James Fazio of Southern California Seminary has studied the life and writings of Darby and hails his work of interpreting Greek and Hebrew Scriptures into multiple languages. Regardless of one’s personal feelings about Darby, God used a flawed man to further the gospel. I can certainly relate to that!

History shows the thread of dispensational thought—the interpretation of God’s Word based on a literal, grammatical, and historical approach. Tones of Dispensationalism have been around since the 1st century, even though these beliefs were not organized into a system until the 1600s. In his Israel My Glory magazine article “A Presentation of Dispensational Theology,” Dr. Renald Showers explained,

Early church leaders did recognize some of the biblical principles which are basic to Dispensational Theology. For example, Clement of Alexandria (150-220 A.D.) recognized four dispensations of God’s rule. Augustine (354-430 A.D.) noted the fact that God has employed several distinct ways of working in the world as He executes His plan for history. Augustine used the term “dispensation” when referring to these different ways. It must be said, however, that these church leaders did not develop these recognized principles into a system of thought. They were not Dispensational Theologians.

Darby did not invent Dispensationalism. Instead, he was one of many who played a very important role in systematizing and spreading Dispensational Theology during his lifetime.

Darby did not invent Dispensationalism. Instead, he was one of many who played a very important role in systematizing and spreading Dispensational Theology during his lifetime.

Are You Accurately Handling His Word?

As a Bible college student, I learned how Scripture is interpreted. Although I was raised under dispensational teaching, it wasn’t until years later that I truly understood and agreed Dispensational Theology was the most natural way to read Scripture. Seeing God’s orderly plan throughout the ages from Genesis to Revelation simply made sense.

Christians need to remember that Scripture can be understood. Paul told Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17, NASB).

We should study all Scripture—even the difficult-to-understand passages—knowing they are all profitable for us and part of the story of God’s sovereign plan for His glory.

We must work to study and understand, but this is the beautiful truth: Because of the bond of the gospel in our churches, young and old, rich and poor, educated and uneducated believers are studying God’s Word together with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. We should study all Scripture—even the difficult-to-understand passages—knowing they are all profitable for us and part of the story of God’s sovereign plan for His glory. 

Paul also told Timothy, 

Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene (2:14–17, NASB).

All believers in Jesus should strive together to be “accurately handling the word of truth.” I am grateful for men like J.N. Darby who placed structures for Dispensational Theology. 

Are you accurately handling the Word? I encourage you to seek how to study Scripture. There are many resources both at The Friends of Israel and elsewhere that can help you better understand God’s Word. Here is a brief list of resources that will help you better understand Dispensational Theology:

1. Israel My Glory magazine (An online subscription provides access to each issue of our bimonthly magazine all the way back to 1980)

2. There Really Is a Difference! A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational Theology

3. What on Earth Is God Doing? Satan’s Conflict With God

4. Pre-Trib Research Center 

Share with us how God has taught you how to accurately handle the Word!

About the Author

Sarah Fern

Sarah is the Media Content Strategist for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. She lives in the Knoxville, TN area with her husband, Martin, and their son.

As I watched the barbaric, evil GoPro videos Hamas released on October 7, 2023, I told my husband that Israel’s response needed to be swift and deadly. Watching people dance and throw rocks at terrified Israeli hostages being paraded through Gaza’s streets is something I will never forget.

Thankfully, Israel didn’t do what I desired. I knew it had the capability to bomb Gaza beyond recognition. But that’s not how Israel conducts war. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) follow a code of ethics stating soldiers cannot use force to harm innocent civilians or unarmed prisoners. Contrarily, Hamas terrorists mingle among Gazan civilians, using them as human shields.

Israel’s Difficult Dilemma

Israel has a highly complex situation on its hands. Hamas has built more than 220 miles of tunnels under Gaza. On October 7, these terrorists took Israel’s children, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers hostage into those tunnels. Hamas’s provocation to war that day certainly would justify a dramatic response from Israel.

Yet, Israel’s war protocol would seem almost too humane to believe except that the United Nations (UN) has confirmed the nation’s virtuous tactics. And if you’re familiar with the UN, you know it is not Israel’s friend, and it never shows the Jewish nation much sympathy nor any favoritism. Despite Israel’s upright, democratic actions, the UN has charged the Jewish state with more violations than any other country in the world. 

Also confirmed by the UN, Hamas intentionally builds its tunnel entrances under its own schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings.

But the UN acknowledges that before Israel attacks an area or building, the IDF texts, calls, drops notes, and sends drones that repeat in Arabic a message to evacuate the area. Israel desires to kill terrorists and to allow civilians to flee. The nation strategically destroys buildings to gain access to terrorist tunnel systems to search for hostages, then destroy Hamas’s heartline by which terrorists move about Gaza undetected. Also confirmed by the UN, Hamas intentionally builds its tunnel entrances under its own schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings. No other group so blatantly uses its own people to protect its military and not the opposite. 

War is tragic. Civilians die when war breaks out in their land. The true number of casualties coming out of Gaza has changed throughout the war. Hamas continues to change its death tolls with no differentiation between combatant and civilian deaths. The IDF estimates it has killed around 13,000 Hamas terrorists, making the death ratio of Hamas terrorists to civilians roughly 1:1.5. The UN estimates that a typical death ratio of combatants to civilians in modern, urban warfare worldwide is 1:9. Israel’s actions are a far cry from the accusations of genocide spewed against it.

Iran’s Reach

It is hard to ignore Iran’s fingerprints throughout the war in Gaza and now the war in Lebanon. Soon after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran established Hezbollah in Lebanon. Much like Hamas did in Gaza, Hezbollah infiltrated Lebanon’s society, offering help to communities with affordable housing, healthcare, and education in exchange for loyalty. Now, more than 40 years later, parts of Lebanon are unrecognizable apart from Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy.

Hamas, unlike Hezbollah, is not Iran’s proxy but instead more of a partner, bound together with the shared mission of destroying Israel and the Jewish people. It has accepted millions of dollars from Iran to aid in their common genocidal goal. Iran lurks behind both Hamas and Hezbollah’s fronts against Israel.

Focusing on Hope

Why is everyone set on destroying Israel today? As one friend recently told me, “When I put Israel in its rightful place in God’s Word, everything else falls into place.” Israel and the Jewish people have a purpose today and in the future, according to God’s Word. And while those who hate God hate His Chosen People and the Jewish nation, God’s plan—from Genesis to Revelation—will not be thwarted. 

Israel and the Jewish people have a purpose today and in the future, according to God’s Word.

Our Jewish and Israeli friends feel alone. Christians need to stand for truth now. This war is not as complicated as some people pretend. Israel has a right to its homeland, where the Jewish people have lived for millennia. It also has the right to defend its land. To date, Hezbollah has fired more than 15,000 rockets, missiles, and bombs into Israel since October 8, 2023. Hamas promised that October 7 was only the beginning. These terrorists trained for the invasion for years.

So what should a country do? It must take precautions to never allow such a massacre to happen again. Israel could have carried out the entire operation by air and finished it by now. Instead, it sent its sons and daughters in by land to minimize civilian casualties and bring back its hostages. 

The words of Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel (1969–1974), still ring true: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” Please pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6).

Resources to learn more about Israel from The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry:
It Is No Dream by Elwood McQuaid
Five Facts You Should Know About Israel by Renald Showers
Israel Always by Chris Katulka
Israel: Who’s Land Is It Anyway? by Jennifer Miles
Israel My Glory May/June 2024

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

About the Author

Sarah Fern

Sarah is the Media Content Strategist for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. She lives in the Knoxville, TN area with her husband, Martin, and their son.

The tragic events in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the response in the following months have caused many—some for the first time—to take notice of the conflict Israel has long faced. It’s easy to sit in our safe homes and workplaces and discuss the war in Gaza and Lebanon. “It’s complicated,” many of my friends and family have told me in our conversations over the last year. But is it really?

Watching the world turn on Israel after the nation was invaded on that quiet October Saturday holiday morning, its people kidnapped, raped, burned, and murdered, lit a fire of justice under me that has yet to be extinguished. It has been hard to convince Israel’s detractors that the nation’s response to the war is justified. The truth almost completely contradicts what the legacy media feeds the West by covering the nightly news with innocent, lifeless Gazan babies. 

The small nation of Israel operates uniquely compared not only to the rest of the Middle East but to the world. (By the way, it cannot be said enough: Israel is small! It could fit inside my home state of Tennessee five times!) But what separates this nation from other Middle Eastern countries? 

Israel’s Desire for Peace

The State of Israel always has sought to live peacefully with its neighbors. At its inception in 1948, the last thing Jewish settlers and immigrants wanted was war. After all, many had just left war-torn countries in Europe, where they were enslaved in concentration camps, watching their loved ones tortured and murdered. (To learn more about how the modern State of Israel began, see the list of resources located in the links at the end of this article).

Israel gave this land, bought by Jewish settlers in 1946, to the people of Gaza, hoping to stop increased violence in the area.

In 2005, Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza, an approximately 140 square-mile strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea, bordering both Israel and Egypt. Israel gave this land, purchased by Jewish settlers in 1946, to the people of Gaza, hoping to stop increased violence in the area.

This was a heart-wrenching moment in Israel’s modern history. The Jewish people had cultivated this formerly barren land, which many Arabs believed cursed, and transformed it into a place of agricultural beauty. The Israeli military forcefully removed its own citizens living in these communities. Israel built walls between itself and Gaza, stopping almost all suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli civilians in the area.

Once the wall was built, only a few Gazans were granted daily working papers, allowing them to enter Israel to work in the surrounding communities known as the Gaza Envelope. Many Israelis wanted Gazans to work in their communities. They paid these workers a better living wage than they would be paid in Gaza. Many of Israel’s communities along the Gaza border were home to peace activists who believed in achieving harmony with their neighbors in Gaza. Sadly, many of these activists were murdered or kidnapped on October 7, 2023.

Life Above All

Just like the Israeli settlers of Gaza in 1946, the entire State of Israel is full of those who bought and restored barren land. The prophet Ezekiel wrote “They will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited’” (Ezekiel 36:35). Land was purchased and cultivated, swamps were drained, streams rerouted, and cities renewed. Life was brought back to this forgotten land.

I once stood with a group at a kibbutz in northern Israel on the border of Lebanon and Syria. Our guide showed us the boundaries of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon by pointing out the brown, arid landscape on the Lebanese and Syrian side and the green, lush vegetation on the Israeli side. Israelis call the line separating the two sides the “Green Line,” crafted in 1949 as a line of demarcation that briefly served as Israel’s de facto international border. While it earned its name for the green ink diplomats used to mark the map, it’s also appropriately named because it delineates where Israel’s green land begins. Although God “sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), His blessing on the land of Israel is apparent. The difference between Gaza and southern Israel appears eerily similar.

Israel desires to bring life back to the once-fertile land. Yet their neighbors seem to focus only on the Jewish people’s destruction. 

Hamas hoped it could use Israelis’ hope for peace and love for life against them.

The day after October 7, 2023, Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official, said on national television, “The Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs.” Hamas hoped it could use Israelis’ hope for peace and love for life against them. The hate Hamas cultivated inside of Gaza manifested on October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 innocent Israelis and migrant workers from other countries. Why? Because it hates the Jewish people and believes the land they bought and cultivated for decades belongs to Palestinians. Stripping away deceptive media and emotion, we see Israel grow in love and Hamas in hate. 

In our next article, we’ll look at Israel’s unique approach to war, in particular, the war in Gaza.

Resources to learn more about Israel from The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry:
It Is No Dream by Elwood McQuaid
Five Facts You Should Know About Israel by Renald Showers
Israel Always by Chris Katulka
Israel: Who’s Land Is It Anyway? by Jennifer Miles
Israel My Glory May/June 2024

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

About the Author

Sarah Fern

Sarah is the Media Content Strategist for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. She lives in the Knoxville, TN area with her husband, Martin, and their son.

Have you ever heard people claim that the God of the Bible is two separate Gods—the Old Testament God and the New Testament God? These people say the Old Testament God is cruel and bloodthirsty, instructing the Israelites to destroy entire cities—women and children often included. Then the New Testament God—particularly God the Son, Jesus—is like a peace-loving hippie friend. How can God be full of both wrath (Nahum 1:2) and love (1 John 4:16)?

The answer is easier than many think. 

On October 8, 1918, American soldier Alvin C. York, later known simply as Sergeant York, and his unit were sent to capture the Decauville Railway in France during World War I. Using a map written in French, the American soldiers mistakenly found themselves behind enemy lines. York led his unit in fighting and killing many German soldiers and took 132 German prisoners back to the American side. His actions were so heroic and dramatic that Hollywood turned them into a movie.

Years later, my grandmother loved to tell a story of Sergeant York, that same brave soldier who faced evil in the midst of a war while fighting for America’s freedom. He sat at the York family reunion in Tennessee, where my father, then a young boy, picked him out of the crowd of relatives to climb in his lap. Sergeant York gently rocked him to sleep amid the sound of distant family conversations and the smell of casseroles. 

We have no problem accepting that one man can both kill evil men to protect our freedom and rock a little one to sleep so tenderly. How are we able to reconcile this? Both actions are rooted in love. Yet, many see a false dichotomy in God’s wrath and love. 

We cannot properly define God’s love without understanding His wrath. After all, how can you truly know and appreciate the good news unless you know the bad news first?

God’s Wrath: His Answer to Sin

Ask people on the street if someone like Hitler deserves God’s wrath, and they will most likely say “yes” confidently. Ask the same people if they deserve God’s wrath, and they will most likely explain to you why they do not.

God’s actions are always controlled and perfect.

We have lost the reality in our society that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The apostle Paul explained that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (1:18). God does not have temper tantrums, destroying everything in sight because He is not happy with man. That thinking filters an infinite God through man’s finite mind. A temper tantrum is uncontrolled anger and selfishness; just ask any parent of a toddler. God’s actions are always controlled and perfect. 

Paul described a slow, controlled wrath in Romans 1. A holy God’s wrath must be the answer to sin because if it is not, we do not worship El Elyon, the Most High God, but instead an immoral, powerless, grandfatherly god. When Adam chose to sin, God poured His wrath out (Genesis 3). His wrath has been manifested in the past as punishment for people’s sins against their Creator, sometimes at the hand of God’s Chosen People, Israel. His wrath is evident now in individual lives and collectively in society when God is rejected or suppressed. And His wrath will occur in the future after the Rapture and during the Tribulation. Wrath is an act of God’s holiness. 

God’s wrath is poured out on all the guilty, “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:18). Ungodliness and unrighteousness do not have the same meaning. Most Bible scholars distinguish them as an attitude and conduct against God. To be ungodly is to have an attitude opposing God: unthankful, unholy, and disobedient, as those “who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4). Unrighteous acts are the result of ungodliness. 

God’s Love: His Gift to Mankind

Jesus hung on the cross with all of humanity’s sins imputed on Him. God’s wrath was poured out on His own perfect Son on the cross to save us—what love! Jesus’ sacrifice satisfied the Father’s wrath. We will never fully understand the depth of this act, but those who put their faith in Jesus will spend eternity praising Him for it. 

God’s wrath was poured out on His own perfect Son on the cross to save us—what love!

God’s wrath is active today, just as it was during the Old Testament. We may not see it as clearly in Western society, but we see our society’s decay because of the suppression of the truth. We who believe in Jesus will not see God’s wrath personally in our lives, but we will (and already do) feel the effects of His wrath around us. Earthquakes, natural disasters, school shootings, and our society’s decline are all results of God’s wrath. But Christian, rest assured, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:8–9).

All of God’s actions are rooted in love. His wrath is justified. His love is given freely through His Son Jesus. The enemy wants us to believe God’s actions are not intentional or justified, but when we study and know the Word of God, we stand confidently, knowing that our God is the same yesterday, today, and forever!

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

About the Author

Sarah Fern

Sarah is the Media Content Strategist for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. She lives in the Knoxville, TN area with her husband, Martin, and their son.

I remember the first time I realized I was not confident I could be brave enough to hide the Jewish people like Corrie ten Boom and her family did during World War II. When I was a single college student, the choice seemed easy. Years later, as a wife and mother, I realized such courage would require risking not only my life but my family’s too. I remember praying that, if the time came, God would give me the strength to do the right thing.

Several weeks ago, I was invited on a trip to Israel. Although I wanted to go, I quickly dismissed the offer—after all, a war is going on, and I am a wife and mother. My husband thought otherwise. He knew the importance of this trip and assured me he and our son would be fine. And while going to Israel today is not nearly the same as hiding Jewish people during the Holocaust, the trip taught me why supporting the Jewish state with tangible actions matters so much.

Becoming a Witness

October 7, 2023, changed my life forever, even though I am neither Jewish nor an Israeli. I made myself watch the GoPro video footage Hamas released as they shot and mutilated people all over southern Israel. I saw women and children kidnapped. I watched little boys and girls ask the terrorists if their moms and dads, lying in pools of blood, were truly dead. I saw people dancing in the streets as dead Jewish bodies were paraded through Gaza.

Hamas proudly recorded all of these atrocities, and I watched them with angry tears. But going and seeing the actual sites of these evil acts? I wasn’t sure I could take it.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said, “I believe firmly and profoundly that whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness, so those who hear us, those who read us must continue to bear witness for us. Until now, they’re doing it with us. At a certain point in time, they will do it for all of us.” I became a witness to October 7.

Death and Destruction Up Close

I am still processing everything I witnessed on my trip. While in Israel, I walked through an open field at the Nova Music Festival memorial, where Hamas terrorists paraglided and drove armed trucks into a sea of young people, killing almost 400 souls indiscriminately. Now, the site is a memorial.

As I walked, I tried to look at the many pictures of faces and memorabilia with which families and friends decorated the site for their lost loved ones. I wept for those lives that were taken, many of whom were in their late teens and early 20s. I don’t know if any of them were believers in Jesus. I prayed for their families and friends, still mourning and processing their horrific losses.

Then, I heard something I had heard only in movies: A bomb dropped. It was the day Israel entered Rafah, and we were only a few miles from the Gaza border. The reality of Israel’s proximity to its neighbors who hate them and want them wiped from the earth could not be ignored. 

From the massacre site, we drove along the highway to a car cemetery. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. Black spots still lined the highway on both sides, where cars had been riddled with bullet holes and set on fire with a powerful accelerant, with no hope of anyone surviving. These cars were full of people fleeing their homes and the festival. Most cars were burned beyond recognition. I stopped in my tracks when I saw a charred ambulance in which 16 young people hid during the attack at the Nova Festival. Surely no one would attack an ambulance, I naturally thought. Yet, all 16 people were killed. 

In the wheat-field-turned-cemetery, people stopped us and thanked us for coming to be witnesses to the horror of October 7. All week long, Israelis stopped our small group of Americans to show us their appreciation.

The Heartbreak of Betrayal

In the midst of unimaginable sadness, we were taken to Kibbutz Erez on the Gaza border and told a story of triumph. This kibbutz (community) was not infiltrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7. We met the head of security and learned how his brave team living in the gated community saved hundreds of lives. For hours these men held off terrorists who shot and bombed the security fences, trying to gain access to the community. 

What the Jewish people saw as a means to achieve peace with their neighbors was actually a Hamas plot to infiltrate, gather information, and attack.

Many do not realize that these Hamas terrorists had specific assignments. They received instructions on how to enter the communities and where people would be hiding. They had detailed papers listing which houses had dogs, where guns and ammunition were hidden, if there were safe rooms inside the homes, and more. How did they obtain such intimate information?

Many of these communities allowed Gazans an opportunity to work inside their communities, where they were paid far more than the average wage in Gaza. What the Jewish people saw as a means to achieve peace with their neighbors was actually a Hamas plot to infiltrate, gather information, and attack. 

Standing With the Apple of God’s Eye

The world wants to diminish what Hamas did to Israel on October 7 or to equate it with the nation’s response in taking out the terrorist organization in Gaza. But the truth I witnessed in Israel contradicts ideas the mainstream media and social media has fed us these last seven months. Is the war truly justifiable? Are the Jewish people acting like victims but really the oppressors? Are they trying to take Gaza for a land grab? Stripping away everything at the surface, we see Israel striving for peace and being forced to eliminate its enemy because of Hamas’s open promise to perform the October 7 massacre again and again. 

Never would I have believed standing up for Israel and the Jewish people in my lifetime would require such bravery. Yet, here we are. Israel will always be the target of the enemy because it is through the Jewish people that God will pour out Satan’s eternal punishment. Now, we, believers in Jesus and supporters of Israel, need to speak out.

Never would I have believed standing up for Israel and the Jewish people in my lifetime would require such bravery. Yet, here we are.

I remember reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. I learned that Corrie, her sister Betsy, and her father all were caught and sent to concentration camps for protecting the Jewish people during World War II. Their care for the Jewish people didn’t begin only once the Nazis entered Holland. It came from an overflow of what they knew and believed in God’s Word.

Corrie’s words resonate with me now like never before. “‘Those poor people,’ Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the soldiers now forming into ranks to march away. ‘I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God’s eye.’”

May we stand up for and stand beside the Jewish people now because we are all witnesses.

About the Author

Sarah Fern

Sarah is the Media Content Strategist for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. She lives in the Knoxville, TN area with her husband, Martin, and their son.

Photo Credit: Sarah Fern