So it's not necessarily anything that I have a misunderstanding of, but I just wanted to hear your answer. So considering everything going on in Israel right now, between Israel and Palestine, obviously in scripture we're instructed to love life, if you will, to stand for life, to protect life, just like the midwives Exodus did with Moses, but the nation of Israel is seemingly I don't know all the details I don't watch the news, but I know that Christians especially a lot of the world, but especially Christians are divided Some stand with Israel some sound Palestine now I recognize that scripture tells us to pray for Israel and that those who bless Israel will be blessed by the Lord So I'm not questioning that however considering the circumstances over there, how would you say that Christians should respond? Because especially now, and I've heard it thrown around a lot lately, the fact that religious Israel, quote unquote, much of religious Israel doesn't follow the teachings of Judaism anymore. From what I understand, there's a large number that identify as atheists. So with that in mind, how do we reconcile these two? Yeah, that's a great question right there. So there's a lot to consider with that. Israel today, I think, in one sense, does represent the fulfillment of promises of God upon the ethnic people of the Jews, because they have been preserved to this point. Now, what does that mean for them? Unfortunately, right now, most of them, not all, but most, do not believe in God, or they do not believe in his Christ. So for those who are atheistic, obviously they're not following God. Those who are following Judaism, well Judaism today is not even the Judaism of Christ's day, and even the Judaism of Christ's day was a rejection of some of the truth that God had previously revealed. Judaism today is that plus a trained rejection of the Messiah until this point. And so we do have to recognize that and recognize that there is going to be tension there. There are lots of Jewish Christians. There are Jewish Christians that live in Israel. And there have always been Jewish Christians who have lived there. But they have always been a minority and they do live in tension with the Orthodox and even with the Reformed and different kinds of Jewish groups that are there. And so when we look at the state of Israel, we are not looking at Israel necessarily that we find in the Bible, where it's this theocratic state that's receiving revelations from God, and perhaps even obeying what God has said. But of course, Israel's never been perfect, just like none of us have been perfectly following God. When we look at Israel today also, we are looking at a people who can err because they are sinners and some of their actions may not be good actions. And when those actions are not good actions, like maybe they bomb a church or they bomb a hospital, those are things to be condemned, sure. And those are things that Israel should own as a nation and say, yeah, we should not have done that. And I think in both those cases, if I'm not mistaken, there have been statements from Jewish leadership, from Israeli leadership, where they have said, yes, we should not have done that. What should Christians do as we think about this? Well, just as we also are thinking about protection of life in this war, we also have to think about what has brought about this current conflict, and that's October 7th. And we also have to think about how that conflict rests in a history of conflicts in the modern state of Israel. And so we have seen the Palestinian organizations, whether PLO or Hamas or something else, rising up against Israel and doing egregious acts, terroristic acts, in the name of Israel. Wanting a second state solution or something else really what it is and they have been very clear about saying it they want to To genocide. This is what they really want to do. They want to commit genocide against the Jews They they are saying from the river to the sea that is not oh we want justice That is we want the whole land clear plowed of Jewish people And they've said that very clearly. That's in the mandate of the PLO, I think, if I'm not mistaken. And that is something that has been stated and repeated over and over and over again. That's why there have been bus bombings. That's why there have been schools that have been targeted. That's why there have been these things that have happened. And that's why, on October 7th, a music festival was And they were attacked where people were taken prisoner, men, women, and children. And there were horrific acts that were done against them. And there are still prisoners right now in Gaza. And so when we say, yes, we need to respect life, we also have to recognize that There's one state there that has been operating as a nation should on the whole, maybe with some mistakes that we can point out and say, okay, you shouldn't have done that. But on the whole, they are operating as a nation should. And then we have this group, this terroristic group that has been attacking and that has been teaching hate and teaching propaganda to its children for generations now. And when we look at that, we are seeing two unequal people. And we have to, if we're gonna condemn Israel for some of the things it's done, we need to doubly condemn the Palestinians, especially Hamas, for everything that it's done. because it is singularly hurting its people. It is not only hurting the Jewish people, but it is also controlling the Palestinian people as well, keeping them under an iron fist as well. And so they can't choose to do anything. A lot of the deaths, a lot of the suffering you see are a result of the Palestinians. They also run, or it's a result of Hamas in Palestine, in the Gaza Strip there. We also see within that a very active propaganda arm. And so a lot of things that you see about children who are starving, Could that be happening? Sure, it could be happening. But what we are typically seeing happen is a mother who looks very well-fed standing beside a child who looks very well-fed. And then there's another child who does not look very well-fed. And when you consider that image, Is it really that this mother is feeding herself and this other child and ignoring this other child? Or is it more likely that this other child has some kind of illness that is then being broadcast out to the world as evidence of some kind of malnutrition that is brought on by Israelis starving the people in Gaza. That's the kind of ridiculous propaganda that we see. We see all these dead bodies where the people kind of like are giggling as they're laying there. They're obviously not dead bodies. We're seeing lots of propaganda like that. I do believe that the people in Gaza need some kind of help. I think the best help for them is for the Palestinian, or excuse me, for the Hamas leaders to lay down their arms and abdicate their rulership of that. And I think what needs to happen from there is that there needs to be control of the Gaza Strip by some other party that can come in and direct the people until they can rebuild. and do it in the right way. All the propaganda campaigns come to a stop, and this is going to take years. It's not going to be something that's going to be fast, because they have been lied to all their lives. They've been told that they were living in an open-air prison, which is the most ridiculous thing. They've had modern conveniences there. They've had high-rise buildings. They've had all of these things. Hamas has come in. They've ripped up a lot of the infrastructure there. water pipes that were giving fresh water to people in the Gaza Strip. They'd rip them up and turn them into rocket launchers to attack Israel. They are hurting their own people over there. And so if we're gonna care about people, we have to also say, okay, Hamas needs to be doubly condemned here. They need to release the prisoners that they still have, or at least if those prisoners have died, show that and say, okay, they have died. We confess to that, we're turning ourselves in for justice. That's what needs to happen there. So I guess a follow-up question to that. So for those of us who do stand with Israel and pray for Israel, not just for Israel, obviously, but both parties involved, war is war, war is nasty. Would we be wrong in viewing this as simply another outpouring of God's judgment on the quote-unquote pagan nations? I mean, when we consider the way that God instructed the nation of Israel to rid the land of men, women, children, even cattle, right? But could this be viewed as, I guess, a correction of a past disobedience? Because we also read that some of the pagan nations were allowed to remain with the nation of Israel as woodcutters, as water carriers, basically as slaves. And instead of ridding the earth of these pagan nations, the Israelites allowed some of them to stay. Would this be rightly considered an outpouring of God's wrath on pagan nations and a correction of a past disobedience? Um, possibly. I wouldn't be able to say that. I don't think anyone would be able to say that definitively until after we see the end results of it. I don't think that, because what's being presented typically in Gaza is that there is a genocide that's happening in Gaza. I don't think the data supports that. There are still a lot of Gazan people there. There have been a lot who have died, that's true. And that's something to be lamented. but there also have been a lot of people who've been born. There's still a lot of activity that's happening over there. So I don't think that it's necessarily like God's judgment where he's wiping out people. And I don't think that the modern state of Israel would have that right if it tried to claim it if it tried to say Yeah, we just need to wipe them out like we should have wiped out the Philistines No, no, Israel does not have that right just like the the so-called Palestinian people doesn't have the right to Try to wipe out the Jewish people That's just not something that God's called them to do either. There is a judgment that's happening on them They that the Palestinians need to repent and trust in Christ But so do the Jews the Jews need to repent and trust in Christ to Israel is very much like a Western nation. They have a lot of the same vices that we do they have pride parades like we do they there are things happening over there and That would make you say okay How are they different than us as we look at them And part of that is because of our own corruption that we have shared to them But the other part of that is that they want to embrace them. And so they need to repent too Really when we pray we need to pray for revival and we need to pray that both Jew and Gentile over there come to Christ. They need to come to Christ. I think we can support Israel in its right to exist and its right to defend itself. We can pray for peace in Jerusalem, but ultimately that peace is going to come through them turning to Christ. Yeah, so that would definitely be the way to pray. And there are people over there who are sharing that gospel right now and who are active in that, which is pretty neat to watch.