Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Why the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Impacts You [Featuring Yael Eckstein]

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

How can Christians support Israel during times of crisis? As tensions continue to rise in the Middle East, standing with Israel and its mission to achieve peace and security for its people is essential. In this podcast, Pastor Allen and Yael Eckstein discuss the urgent challenges facing Israel today. Eckstein is the president and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and she warns that the very threats Israel faces can come to America. Leaders in the Middle East have been heard chanting, "Death to Israel, death to America!" The same spirit that hates the Jews hates Christians. "I think what's being lost across the world is the recognition of how small Israel is. We are surrounded by enemies," Eckstein stated. "In the past 20 days, we've killed more terrorists on America's "Most Wanted" list than America has done in the past 20 years. We are doing everything we can so America will be safe." Eckstein shares stories of the incredible work her organization is doing to provide life-saving aid to those in need, and she offers practical ways you can help.More Information:International Fellowship of Christians and Jews: https://www.ifcj.org/who-we-are__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

I mean, if you could imagine less than a mile away having ISIS on your border with California, shooting rockets all the way through the country to New York, that's what Israel is facing. And so it's important to recognize, I think, that Israel's tiny, that this is the success story of the oppressed, getting strong and being inclusive in order to spread freedom. It's the story of Tiny Israel standing up for these American values in the Middle East so that America doesn't have to have boots on the ground but that their interests can still be protected. This is culture and Christianity. There seems to be some confusion within the Christian community whether or not we should talk about current events.

Folks, if we don't talk about them, we have a theoretical faith and we don't worship a theoretical God. So I believe we have a responsibility to engage our culture. and that's really the point of this podcast. I'm really excited about our guest today. She is Yael Eckstein, the president and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. If you're not familiar with them, you need to be. And we're going to learn a little bit about the organization,

Yael, and what she's doing in Israel and really around the world on behalf of the Jewish and Christian communities. We need one another, and there's not enough voices telling us that. So Yael, welcome. to the podcast. Thank you so much, Pastor Allen. I'm honored to be here. Well, the last time we sat down, we were in Jerusalem. So I'm a little sad we're not in Jerusalem, but I'm really excited that you're in Nashville. It is such a great honor. Yeah, and hopefully you'll be back in Jerusalem soon. I look forward to that opportunity. You are the president and CEO of the largest philanthropic

organization in the nation of Israel. Wow. Tell us a little bit of your story and how you arrived in such a, because it is an important place? It's a calling, and when you put it like that, it's a little bit terrifying. Sometimes I wake up and remember, oh, right, Lord, you have very, very big, you've big hopes in me. I hope I live up to them. But I'm honored and privileged and blessed and humbled to be able to represent millions of Christians around the world in Israel in the form of life-saving aid, of feeding the hungry,

clothing, the naked, sheltering the poor. And so this is something my life, honestly, Pastor Allen, all parts of it, living in Israel, having the most incredible husband and four children, being the president of this ministry, it's everything I never dreamed of. That kind of at each step, like, okay, Lord, if this is what you want of me, okay, Lord, if this is what you want of me. And I think of it as a huge, not burden, but responsibility that God entrusted me with this ministry with this huge, wow, weight on my shoulders that God believes in me. You know, every time I think about how much work there is to do and what a huge calling I have, I mean, little me, as my mom and my dad of blessed memory would say, you know, just the baby,

that God has called me to represent hundreds of millions of Christians around the world in Israel, to be their voice, to tell every single person in Israel, from the prime minister to the orphaned a child to the mourning mother who lost her soldier, son or daughter, to go and tell them Christians love you and stand with you. Christians love you and stand with you. So it is a huge calling, a huge blessing and something that I just pray I live up to. I don't have any doubts about that. But you know, I find there's real comfort for me. If God gives us an assignment, it really isn't about our strength or our wisdom or our ability or our resources. We're on an assignment. And if we'll be faithful day over day with whatever the tasks may be, then I trust God to help us with the outcome.

Amen. And I think we have both experienced that in our lives. And I think for those people listening, I typically feel under-resourced. I don't feel like I have the wisdom or the strength. I get tired or discouraged or whatever. But if I'll simply be faithful to God in the moment. So for everybody listening, they think you don't have enough, you're not an influencer, nobody cares about your opinion.

If you will honor the Lord, he'll do more with your life than you can imagine. Yes. You seem to be the poster for that story, so I don't want to miss this. Tell us a little bit about what the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews does in the land of Israel, because you're a powerful force there. Well, going back to what you said for one second with your permission, I just had this vision of me. I was 22 years old.

I just made Aliat to Israel. I saw what the International Fellowship of Christians was doing on the ground, of Christians and Jews was doing on the ground with my father, Rabbi Felix, seen a blessed memory. And I went to my father and I said, Abba, I need to be a part of my father. part of it. And I just graduated college and I was going to go to law school. He said, no, you, Elle, you have your own calling on your life. He wanted to try to push me away so that, see if I really wanted it or not. I said, I'll put stamps on envelopes for minimum wage if that's all I could do for this ministry. And for a year and a half, I put stamps on envelopes for minimum

wage until I slowly, slowly worked my way up and God put me in this position. When you talk about doing the little you can with all of your heart and then trust. and God has a plan for you, that is something I connect to in such a deep way. So the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, we are the largest philanthropic organization in Israel. We are the voice of Christians on the ground. We help over 2 million people a year. Now, the entire country of Israel is less than 10 million people.

So we're pretty relevant there in the sense of... You think? Yeah. I'd say so. Yeah, yeah. So wherever we're called within biblical mandate and scripture, were there. And for me, I could talk about all the big numbers.

We've distributed over $15 million since October 7th and one year in emergency aid to the people of Israel that we've brought over 700,000 people and Alia, brought them to Israel from the ingathering of the nations from Ukraine and Russia and Ethiopia and India. Since our founding, we could talk about the thousands of bomb shelters that we've placed. But for me, it always goes back to the individual pastor.

It always goes, you know, you have to hold this balance. And on one hand, having the data and analytics and the statistics and making sure getting to the right people and that you're doing it as cost-effective as you possibly can. And that's important. But it can't be on the backs or at the price of helping the individual. So what comes to mind here is fireman Davy, who on October 7th, he's the head of all of the fire services, firefighting services for Southern Israel.

And on October 7th, his daughter and son-in-law were burned alive by terrorists, tied together in their home and burned alive. And he couldn't go and help them. And every day since then, we've been standing with Avi in order to support him in anything that he needed. I think of this incredible man who's now a sergeant in the army, but he was just a citizen then on October 7th. And when he heard what was happening, he got in his car and rushed down to southern Israel with a his own personal gun in order to save whatever lives he could. He didn't even have a bulletproof vest. And on his way down, we were distributing bulletproof vest to anyone who was going down south because there were no bulletproof vests in the country that were being distributed. We had a warehouse.

So we got it out. And on October 7th, giving it all the volunteers going down, protect yourself, protect yourself. And I was watching the news that night. And all of a sudden I see this young man who we distributed a vest, who he's wearing a vest that says international fellowship of Christians and shoes, and he's reporting from Southern Israel was happening, and on live television, he starts getting shot at by terrorists. Terrorists are targeting him, and he gets out of his car, he keeps his phone on, so he's still reporting. He lays down in the bushes. He's being shot at, and I'm watching as the bulletproof vest, just one of them. We distributed over 6,000. One of them is saving his life on live television. And so we talk about numbers, we talk about impact,

and that's important because it creates the cumulative story. the people of Israel know Christians love them. And ultimately, that's my goal. But it comes down to Avi the firefighter, comes down to the first responder, it comes down to the Holocaust survivor who needs food and then got it, comes down to the soup kitchen that we have

that was hit by a direct Chazbala rocket and within 24 hours was distributing hundreds of meals. For me, that's where the calling of God is. Yeah, you can't get lost in the numbers. Yes, exactly. Well, I went to the, actually, Kathy, I went to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. and saw the video footage of that October 7th event. When you were describing, it began to bring some of those images back.

It was not human behavior. What took place? And it started with Hezbollah, those terrorists, had been trained in Iran. But very quickly after that, it was the citizens from Gaza coming in their vehicles and their bicycles. And the behaviors were just unbelievable. And I don't think the typical person sitting in America behind the oceans understands how small Israel is, how close your enemies are, and the kind of hatred they express.

You know, we have hate speech and we think that's a threat and we feel bullied. But there is violence expressed against the Jewish people, and your adversaries are close. When your kids graduate from high school, they go serve in the military. Your daughter's getting ready to do that. So it's not some great distance. How do you live with that threat, minutes from your homes, and still have the peace that you have? Wow.

It's a great question. And in short, I can say, answer it with three words. The grace of God. Those are good words. Because it doesn't make sense, Pastor. I look at tiny Israel on the map, the size of New Jersey, right here in your church. You have that huge map that shows that. Israel is 0.4% of the landmass of the Middle East,

rounded by 99.6% that are inhabited by mostly Arab enemies. One Jewish country in the entire world, 22 in the Arab Union and many more Muslim states. You have a tiny Israel, 7 million Jews around, 2.5 million non-Jews. Well, in the entire Middle East, you have only 40,000 Jewish people. So that's something I think is lost. In the entire Middle East, you have around 40,000 Jewish people outside of Israel, inside of Israel, you have two million Muslims. Tiny Israel, two million Muslims. And they can

hold political office, excuse me, but I mean, they participate in the nation. It's not an apartheid state? Oh, they have free health care, free education, their doctors, their pharmacists, they're in the government. There's full freedom. They have the same rights as me and my children. You don't think the American media would report something that's not true. Surely not. You're too polite. You won't say it, I will. They will report things that are not true. Well, I think that the not reporting is even more of the problem. They're not reporting, Muhammad, a father of six, who went on October 6th, on October 7th to save Jewish lives and children from the Nova Festival because he realized these barbarians are going to go after me the same way they're going after Jews. That's it.

And that there are right now Muslims being held by Hamas in the dungeons of Gaza. So I think what's being lost across the world is both the recognition how small Israel is, how we are surrounded by enemies. It's not even like America and Mexico. I mean, if you could imagine less than a mile away having ISIS on your border with California, shooting rockets all the way through the country to New York, that's what Israel's facing. And so it's important to recognize, I think, that Israel's Tiny, that this is the success story of the oppressed, getting strong and being inclusive in order to spread freedom. It's the story of Tiny Israel standing up for these American values in the Middle East so that

America doesn't have to have boots on the ground, but that their interests can still be protected. In the past 20 days, we've killed more terrorists on America's most wanted list than in the past 20 years America has done. And so we are doing everything we can, so America will be safe. Well, let me say thank you. They don't invite me to the halls of Congress or the White House, but from the halls of Nashville, Tennessee, thank you for what you're doing. You speak too much truth for the halls of government. But I want to come back to that, because we've heard so many reports about, you know, Israel's committing genocide and there needs to be humanitarian intervention. I believe the greatest opportunity for the people of Gaza is

to be freed from the tyranny of Hamas. Amen. They have received hundreds of millions, billions of dollars. They've spent it on weapons and armaments and tunnels. They haven't helped the people of Gaza. And the elimination of Hamas and their reign of terror actually brings a future to the people of Gaza that was impossible as long as they were in place.

Am I wrong about that or is that somewhat realistic? You are spot on. And our problem, I think, Pastor, is that we don't listen to the people And we don't listen to the very terrorists who are telling us that. They are saying we don't care about the lives of our people. Our people were created and ordered die as martyrs. What's their greatest honor dying as a martyr? They are not scared of death.

They don't care about life. The only point of life is to knock out the Jews, to knock out Americas, to get rid of the infidels. And both Jews and Christians are infidels. And I think that's our problem. It's so hard for us in the West to recognize there really is even. We see it in the scriptures. It says, love your neighbor, treat others with respect, turn the other cheek. But then God says, O'av Hashem Sinura, lovers of the Lord despise evil. And it's so hard for us to see evil. It's so hard for us to believe, really, everyone doesn't just want a better life.

And actually, that's what led to the October 7th attacks. They were training in openness to kidnap and kill Israelis, to take over army bases, to take children into the tunnels of Gaza, openly. But what did Israel and the West think? If we give them more money, they'll have a better life and then they won't want to kill us. I have a friend. The Fellowship has a lot of work in hospitals. We get them ready for mass trauma events and we make sure that the hospitals are protected from rocket attacks, that they could be sheltered, that we provide shelter for almost every single hospital and even build underground units. So as are a rocket attacks, they could go underground. I was in a hospital in southern Israel.

I was talking to a doctor who said, I personally drove people from the border of Gaza to the hospitals in Israel to get treatment. I personally drove these Palestinians and I would talk to them. And I really wanted to believe that if we gave them medical treatment, if we gave them a better life,

then we would have peace. Well, what did those people that I drove into Israel do? They went to the local communities, scouted out where the community center is out, scouted out where our first responders are, where the ambulances are, where our heroic first responders are, sent it back to Hamas, and that's how they had a map of all of Southern Israel. And so it's been a wake-up call, pastor. Not everybody wants a good life. Not everybody is looking for money and prosperity. The evil is sanctifying death, while those who love the Lord are sanctifying life. And until we

wake up to that, we're not going to win. No, you're right. The point you make about evil is so important. You know, we're given in the book of Romans this assignment to overcome evil. Yeah. And the contemporary Christian community, I believe, has adopted a different posture. We overlook evil. We excuse it. We make friends with it. We invite it to a party. We think if we're kind and generous that evil will negotiate with us. You can't negotiate with evil. The only thing evil will yield to is a power greater than itself. Yes. And I always feel when I return home from Israel that I've been given another lesson. in the effort it takes to defend ourselves. We have been capitulating.

American evangelicalism has been capitulating to evil for too long. We've withdrawn from the corporate setting, the academic setting. And so now we see these vile universities that we used to call elite. They're not elite to me. They're unwilling to discipline these demonstrations that are anti-Semitic. I mean, they are sponsors of hate while they lecture us. about such behavior. So I agree, we've got to defeat evil, but God will help us. Amen. And that's been my prayer really here in Nashville. When we landed, I was with my kids, and my eight-year-old look up

at the sky. We were right by the airport, and there were lines from the airplanes in the sky, the white lines. And my son, Shimmy said, Mommy, look how many rockets are here. And I said, no, my love, there are no rockets in America. Those are from the airplanes. And I've been praying, pastor, ever since he opened my eyes to that, I realized how quickly may we never know the evil that Israel's facing could, God forbid, get to America. And I'm just praying a hedge of protection over America because the evil that threatens Israel threatens America. We both remember 9-11. We both have seen what this evil has been doing to the heroic American soldiers across the Middle East, targeting their bases, killing them. Why is that not breaking news? Why is

that not being on mainstream news every day, American soldiers being targeted, killed even, wounded by the same forces that are trying to target Israel. And so I pray that if the world will wake up, that when we are kind to our enemies, we are being wicked to our friends. When we are Oh, say that again when I'm kind to my enemies? We're being wicked to our friends. That is so good. It's true. I remember when I would visit Israel My parents took my brother and I'd Israel when we were just boys

And at that time in the world terrorism was imagined to be an Israeli problem It wasn't really We didn't occur to anyone that terrorism would grow beyond Israel People would say you can't go there They have terrorists And now it's a global circumstance

We don't even think about Israel in that conversation But I want to change topics There's some good news There's too big a gulf between the Jewish community and the Christian community You know

In the book of Romans it says without the Jewish people, we have no story. And so we're not apart or separate from you. We stand together with you. And I have so much appreciation for what you do at the fellowship to bring those expressions of grace to the Jewish people, to the citizens of Israel. Just I want a little bit of an overview.

I know there's bomb shelters, and you help with firefighters and body armor and food and people making alia. Tell us a little bit, make it a little more personal for us, what you're doing. All right. Well, you know, sometimes I look around, And I think, how could there be a reality where we need bulletproof ambulances? Because when there are terror attacks, the first ones to respond are the ambulances,

and then they're targeted, secondary attacks. And so what I see on the ground... Explain that, because the people here are a bit naive. Okay. So if there's an act of violence, then when the responders come... They'll be a shooting on the road, or a bomb planted on the road. There's a family who's driving with their three kids on the way back from mom and dad's house for dinner. On the way back to their home, they're on the road, and there's terrorists shooting at them.

Now, their car crashes because the father who's driving the car was shot. The mom and three kids are wounded, but still okay. They call for help. The ambulance comes. There are terrorists still hiding in bushes. The ambulance comes starts evacuating mom and kids, and they start shooting on the first responders, they start shooting on the paramedics. When the ambulance starts to drive up, let's give another attack that just happens every single day in Israel now. That's evil.

There's a rocket attack. There's a rocket attack. The rocket attack doesn't stop after one rocket. We sometimes have 200 rockets on one tiny town. Think of Nashville. Think of a fourth of Nashville, 200 rockets. And so a rocket hits a home. There's a family that is wounded in their home, maybe in their bomb shelter, maybe they couldn't make it in time, and they call for help. We need help. An ambulance to come. The ambulance come, but there's still rockets falling. One of the rockets takes out the ambulance.

The driver and those volunteers are killed. That we need bullet and shrapnel proof ambulances in Israel. And so the fellowship saw this, and within a minute we said, we are giving bulletproof and shrapnel proof ambulances to these heroes. And so when you ask to describe the work of the federal, I would say it's a calling that God speaks to us and we respond in the moment. We don't have bureaucracy. We don't have roundtable discussions. What should we do next week or what should we do in six months? There's a crisis right now in northern Israel. Israel's the desert, as we all know. And so the rockets fall in northern Israel and lights the entire earth on fire, wildfires,

homes going up in flames, lives going up in flames, wildfires that we don't have enough fire trucks to put out. And so the fellowship sees this. The government comes to the fellowship. Could you think of any solution? We can't get fire trucks up there because it's also too dangerous. They're a target driving with the border. So if you have a huge red fire truck driving up on the border with Lebanon, that's not safe. So you let the fires go out of control within a week. We designed and produced trolleys that go in the back of the first responder trucks that these heroes on the front lines are responding. Who's responding to the rocket attacks?

The volunteer first responders. And so there's a rocket attack. The volunteer first responders go. There's a fire, but they have no equipment to put out the fire. So I have to just watch it until it turns into a mass fire. Well, now every one of those first responder trucks has a trolley connected to it with firefighting equipment. And we're able, when they respond, put out the fire before it grows.

Who's doing that? Christians in America through the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And so you could talk about, again, the big numbers. You could talk about we help over 2 million people. We distributed over $115 million of emergency aid. What it comes down to is a $25 tithe that provides a food box. I went to Curiat Shmone. Again, it's the town where our soup kitchen had a direct hit.

In the north. In the north. On the border with Hezbollah, less than a mile. We have a soup kitchen that provides hundreds of meals a day, goes house to house, even under rocket fire, bringing the meals. This is from Christians who love you, Christians who love you. And we had a donor who gave $25 for a food box note. This was widows might.

This was the little that they didn't even have in order to provide a food box. I said, I'm going to go personally distribute this. And I went up to Kiryachmona, and I took a food box, and I went, and there was a family who hasn't left their bomb shelter in three months, just living in a bomb shelter with rockets falling. falling everywhere. They have three children. Their children are terrified. And I brought them a food box and a shelter box. Our shelter box has games for children, clean water to drink, a flashlight, a radio. I brought it to them. Pastor, it was as if for the first time in their life they had hope.

They were crying tears for a $25 food box because they're on the war zone. They feel forgotten and suddenly Christians remember them. So I could go on and on with all. all the heroes I've been honored to me. But it's in the stories of the individuals of giving hope, of giving God's grace, of letting them know they're not alone, that I personally find my inspiration. That's pretty inspiring.

You know, we don't really have a vision of what it means for a shelter to be important. Yeah. And I know you've got a 90-second rule to be able to get. I have a good friend whose son went to study in the South and he had some physical limitations. And he said, before my son left, he said, you won't be able to get to the shelter.

So when you hear the sire, you get under the bed. And he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and he said, a father should never have to have that conversation with his son when he's sending him to college. But help the people listening. You hear the sirens.

It means rockets are coming, and it's not a, it's a real threat. Yeah. What do you do when the sirens go off? Well, I'll give you a personal example from just a few days before I came here to Nashville. It was five in the morning. The sirens started sounding, and they're very loud.

You can't miss them. miss them. And when the siren sounds in Israel, it means the rocket is coming to your city. We have all this different amazing technology, the iron dome, that we know exactly where the rocket is going to. So when you hear the siren, it's coming to you. We have the opposite problem. We have a thunderstorm. They tell us about a thunderstorm that's 400 miles away, and they tell us to go get in the closet. But you're a little more specific than you're targeting. Yes. Exactly. And this is the wrath of man, not the wrath of God. I understand the difference.

A hundred percent, though. But you know the sound of those sirens, that they're scary. So, right, we don't have the 400-mile warning. We have, if you're lucky, 90 seconds. So my husband and I, we have four children, run into each child's room, making sure they're up. Go in the shelter, go in the shelter, go in the shelter. You have to close the door to the shelter. We close the door to the shelter.

It's probably 87 seconds. And my baby starts crying. But mommy, our puppies outside. We didn't bring the dog in. how could we leave the dog out there? And I had to make that decision, do we put ourselves at risk for our puppy that we love, or do we just pray for the dog? And we decided to pray for the dog. But that's actually one of the easier ones. I've been driving with my children and we're driving and the siren sounds, well, you're not at home. There's no shelter close by. You get out, you put your hands over your

head because that's all you can do. And that's when I realized we need to protect the children. And so the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews started a project at every single bus stop from zero to nine kilometers on the northern border, we are going to put a bomb shelter. And God has blessed this. They say God creates the cure before he creates the disease. This is an example of that because you produce these shelters in a factory and then you move them to the locations. So when these shelters were ready, it was a day with so many rockets in northern Israel that we were asked, are you sure you want to put the drivers and your staff at risk? Do you want to wait until maybe they'll be quieter days?

And I prayed about it and I heard God saying, go, go, go, go. If there are rockets, people need these shelters. That's why they're here. And driving up north, we had to stop many times because rockets were falling all around us and get on the ground and thank God eventually we placed every single one of the shelters by the bus stops. Not even two weeks later. There's a school bus of children that arrive at their bus stop.

A siren starts sounding and there's dozens. of rockets everywhere. We have the video surveillance. Dozens of rockets falling everywhere. The kids are crying. They get off their bus, leave their backpacks, and right at the bus stop, praise God, is that international fellowship of Christians and Jews' bomb shelter that we placed just a few days earlier that saved their lives. And so when you talk about bomb shelters, this is not just a preventative or theoretical or this is the difference between life and death for my family, for the people of Israel and school children across Israel. If somebody wants to participate with you, how do they do that?

Well, I can say that every single penny literally helps. When I was at your service, a man came over and gave, I think it was $12 and $1 bills. And I said, that is the most sacred in God's eyes. That is what God holds so precious. And that's the voice. That's the voice that I need to represent. This isn't some multi-millionaires sitting in their offices, writing big checks. This is the voice of the people, the silenced majority.

So I would encourage anyone to give whatever they can, $5, $15, $50, $500, just to have your voice heard to make that difference. And you can go to www.ifcj.org. That's international fellowship of Christians and Jews.org. And I can say that I truly believe that God made a promise. Genesis 12.3. God doesn't promise often, but God says,

I will bless those who bless Israel. And I think in these days when it's so unpopular to bless Israel, when it could even be dangerous to bless Israel, when you are so ostracized if you bless Israel, I believe that only makes the power of God's promise and the blessings you get in return magnified. Absolutely. It's always a good time to do the right thing.

Amen. Amen. Yael, thank you for what you're doing in the land of Israel and really around the earth. You're a voice into two communities that desperately need one another. And I pray we will have the wisdom that we will awaken to that reality with a greater strength than we ever have before. Amen, amen, I believe that pastor with you. You come back and see us in Nashville again?

I look forward to it. Very good. Well, for everybody listening, you be a voice for the Jewish people. Don't wait for me to show up in your community or Yael. I'm quite certain in your sphere of influence. There are some people that are Jewish or a part of that community or have friends in that community.

And you can use your voice to be an encouragement for them. And even more importantly, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. The end of the day, this is not a geopolitical problem, it's a spiritual problem. I've told you many, many times that politicians are not gonna fix the problems in the United States. We have a spiritual problem.

And until God's people humble themselves, turn from our ungodliness and seek the face of God, politicians aren't going to fix us. We have the power if we will humble ourselves and seek the Lord. For now, that's Culture and Christianity. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel

and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith. and change our culture. I'll see you next time.