The Eric Metaxas Show - Greg Denham

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Pastor Greg Denham joins to share his thoughts on Israel

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. They say it's a thin line between love and hate, but we're working every day to thicken that line, or at least make it a double or triple line. But now here's your line jumping host, Eric Mattaxas.

Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. Chris, welcome to your program. You're the producer. Welcome. Thank you very much. I got a lot. We have two exciting interviews today, but three guests.

Just kidding. Just two guests. Both exciting. Both exciting. In hour one today, we are talking to someone who is, I mean, you won't believe the story when I think of what our government is doing, it is so evil, ladies and gentlemen, when you hear the story of Douglas Mackey, it is utterly astonishing. And I say this over and over, Douglas Mackey persecuted by the Biden administration on a level that if it doesn't activate you to do something, I don't know. That means you didn't listen to it.

It's amazing. So that's in hour one, Douglas Mackey. In hour two, my dear friend Greg Denham talking about Israel, surprising information. You're going to hear something very surprising about what goes on in Israel, some good news and some bad news. And this needs prayer. So we're talking to Douglas Mackey in Hour 1 and Greg Denham in Hour 2. Also, we have a number of sponsors on the program. I thought I should mention them.

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His name is Pastor Greg Denham. He is in California. And there's so much I could say about Greg, but one thing I'll say to tee up this interview, he's a friend of Israel. He visits Israel often. He loves Israel passionately. But he wrote an article at the Christian Post, which really knocks. me backwards. And I said, I've got to get him on the program. We tried to get him on. We couldn't schedule it. He then wrote another article at the Christian Post on the same subject. And I said,

we have got to talk about this. It makes me uncomfortable to talk about it because it shows that Israel ain't perfect. They got some big problems. And we're going to talk about that right now. Pastor Greg Denham, my friend, welcome back. Oh, it's so good to be with you, Eric. I love you. And listen, I'm so proud of you. Letter to American Church, of course, is taking our country by storm. We had a great showing at our church, Eric. So thank you so much for your leadership and your friendship. Well, listen, can I just frame this just real quick? I mean, I got on a plane, Eric, on New Year's Day, and traveled to Israel. We were actually invited essentially by the Foreign Affairs. They asked me to kind of lead an evangelical delegation of pastors to stand with Israel,

the aftermath of October 7. I just want to say to every Christian, every evangelical all throughout the world, we need to be the best friends to Israel we can possibly be. What does that look like, like unconditional love, proclamation of the gospel to the Jew first and then to the Gentile? And we need to stand against all forms of anti-Semitism in the times in which we live. I mean, Eric, I'm going to get to this article in just a second. But as you will know, you got major rise of anti-Semitism at this time. And this is so important to what we're talking about, the context of our times. I mean, it's not in 1990.

I mean, Israel's on the front lines of the enemy of our time. That's just a flat-out fact. I mean, you have the head of the snake, which is Iran, and, you know, the puppets of Hamas and Hezbollah. I mean, what are they want? They want the destruction of Western civilization. they want to replace it with an Islamic new world order. You're talking about Islamic Nazis. And look, we need to be Churchill's and Bonhoeffers in the times in which we live.

And we need to stand with our Jewish friends who are on the front line of this, you know, hellish, demonic reality. In fact, when we visited, you know, Israel, Eric, you know, we visited Kafar Azza. There were 63, you know, 63 precious lives just brutally murdered. And they showed his pictures, Eric, that are not, you know, in the public that, you know, I got to suppress in my mind even right now. I mean, pictures of just the most demonic insane brutality. And I don't even want to describe it at a sole respect for those who lost their lives and their families and stuff. And, you know, Douglas Murray, you interviewed Douglas Murray. I love Douglas Murray.

He's such a smart guy, clear thinker. But, you know, he just said, this evil of Hamas, what, what, one of the, what, one of the differences that you see with Hamas and other crazy people is the glee by which, you know, they, they perpetrated this evil, you know, they were just like, it's as if they were intoxicated. But I just want to say quickly, I mean, these are headlines, Eric, two-thirds of American Jews feel less secure. Over a thousand anti-Semitic incidents reported at U.S. colleges since October 7th.

Anti-Semitism wave prompts sharp rise in immigration. You know, Harvard pro-Palestinian faculty group apologizes for sharing anti-Semitic image. Holocaust memorial stones in Vienna splattered with yellow paint. I mean, that's just half the list here. Okay, I mention all of that because all believers, I just want to encourage you, be extra sensitive to your Jewish friends at this time who are feeling really pressed and many times alone. And, you know, and I would encourage you to, like, reach out to your Jewish friends and tell them, you stand with them, you love them. And I'll tell you, if they ever feel threatened, they got an

open door to your home. You know, one of the things I loved about, you know, Rob McCoy, Eric, He was conversing with your dear friend Dennis Prager, and I got to meet Dennis when I was with you. But, you know, Rob gave Dennis his home address. And he just said, hey, you know, kind of as a demonstration, we love you, I stand with you. And I thought, oh, my goodness, that is so beautiful. Like when I met, Dennis, I did the same thing. But look, the thing is that there is a deeper layer of evil here. There is a darkness behind the darkness.

there's a spiritual battle. And that was evident October 7. The point is that the context of our times, clearly, there is a rise of anti-Semitism. There's no doubt about it. And when we visited Israel, we had a chance, Eric, to sit down with the third in power in Israel, Amir O'Hana, who is the Speaker of the Knesset. And we're able to share our hearts with him that in the unique times in which we live, which he, of course, knows about this terrible rise of anti-Semitism,

that there are Jews that are believers in Jesus. And a lot of people don't know this. So they believe that Yeshua, Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. They cannot get back to their ancestral home. They are being discriminated against. Okay, that's right. Hold on. I want to be clear with my audience.

The reason I had you want, because you love Israel, but you wrote two articles at the Christian Post. And that's what we're going to start talking about right now. Okay. What are the articles, what are the titles of these articles at the Christian Post? Right. Sorry about that, Eric. And by the way, Eric, it's, it was all Israel news and the Christian Post.

I mean, Joel Rosenberg's... Both places, all Israel news and the Christian Post, and your last name is Denham, D-E-N-H-A-M. Right, yeah. So what I read in these articles, and I just want to tee this up for my audience. Thank you so much. And I've heard about this going back for years, and it's very upsetting. So we can be friends of Israel. We can still criticize Israel, right?

Officially, folks, take this in, because this is pretty sick. Israel will not allow Jews who believe in Jesus as Messiah and Lord. They will not allow them to be citizens in Israel. Now, if you say, I'm an atheist, I'm a Buddhist, but I'm a Jew, they say, come on in. we'd like you to be a citizen in Israel. But if you say, I believe in Jesus, they say, no. Now, that to me, Greg Denham, is mind-blowing. I heard this years ago, and I just batted it away because I thought, this is just bizarre and sick.

Can you, I mean, as somebody who loves Israel as you do, can you explain? I mean, how long has this been going on? Who sets this policy? Yeah, that's a great question. Well, it's been going on for a long time, and here's the thing. It is often not addressed, Eric. And I'm not so sure there's been any program like this today that we're addressing this issue. I'm sure there has.

But the reality is this thing is his needs light. And I think of Herschley used this phrase, throwing light on this subject. You're exactly right. Unfortunately, you have in Israel terrible discrimination towards descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. who are Jews. And we're talking, you know, a Jew is, we're talking in ethnicity. Judaism is a religion. But once a Jew, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, believes that Jesus is the Messiah. They're discriminated against very, very tough to get into the land of Israel. Of course, as I was mentioning earlier, the context of our time is you got this radical rise of anti-Semitism. The founding fathers, Eric, of modern Zionism like Herzl,

they envisioned Israel to be a safe harbor for all Jews. I mean, Bingurian, the first prime minister, said, look, if you qualified to lose your life in the Holocaust, hey, there's a green light essentially to the land of Israel. I mean, something has gone wrong. It's sticky. It's messy. There's a few people in the interior ministry of Israel that make it very, very difficult.

For our brothers and sisters who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, to enter into the land at this particular time. And here's the thing. Evangelicals have been identified as Israel's best friends. And so I just want to say to all of our evangelical friends and genuine believers all throughout the world that we can play a role in helping throw light on this and make Israel even stronger.

So look, Israel is a democratic, secular state. It has its flaws like any other nation. I mean, like our own nation, right? But a Christian must not forget their relationship to Israel and their responsibility to Israel. I was mentioning earlier, every Christian should be a friend of Israel. So doesn't mean like, you know,

we have to agree with every policy. But the Lord is coming back to Israel. Jesus said, you know, if you've done it to the least of these, you've done it unto me. So he's speaking of his Jewish brethren. Yeah. Hang on one second. We're going to go to a break.

We'll be right back. We're talking to my friend, Pastor Greg Denham, D-E-N-H-A-M. You need to check out his articles at All-Israel News and Christian Post. This is a very important subject, folks. We'll be right back. Our God-given freedoms are facing unrelenting attacks. It's a battle for truth, and the only way we win is if we stand together. Thankfully, Alliance defending freedom has been defending our rights for, 30 years and winning. Right now, they're involved in two critical cases before the Supreme Court. They're suing the FDA for endangering the health and safety of women and girls. And in the second case, they're assisting the state of Idaho to defend its law protecting the lives of women and their unborn children against the Biden administration's attempt to override the law and force doctors to perform abortions. Think about it. They need your help. With your best gift, you courageously join ADF in fighting critical Supreme Court cases against government lawlessness.

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Again, Neutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-D-I-X.com. Nutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend, Pastor Greg. Denham. We're talking about something very important. Greg, you over and over and over and over talk about your love of Israel, the love of evangelical Christians for Israel. But you say you have this one thing against them, which I do as well. And this needs to be fixed. This is a big deal, ladies and gentlemen. In Israel, you know, your family could have been killed in the Holocaust. And you could have

come to faith in Jesus as Messiah. And Israel says, if you believe in Jesus as Messiah, oh, you can't be a citizen. That to me is so mind-blowing that every time I hear about this, I just can't even believe that this is happening. And my question to you, Greg Denham, you wrote two articles about this. What do you suppose could be behind this? I mean, there's some people that hate Israel and they criticize Israel. But, you know, this is something where I think if you love Israel, you have an obligation to criticize Israel. This is bad. Why do you suppose they would have made this decision? Who made this decision? And how do they even enforce it? It's just so strange to me. Well, I got to say, I think there's a lot of water under the bridge on this

issue. And we can throw some light on it. I keep referencing that phrase because Herzl used it. look, there's some misunderstanding. For one, Jesus, you know, was not a Christian. You know, Jesus didn't come to start Christianity. He was born King of the Jews. He died King of the Jews. He's coming back as King of the Jews. And the King of the Jews is the Savior of the world, who is the Lord, right? You know, and you were talking about just the insanity of this. Look, let me take a little further. The discriminative policy, the immigration policy, there in the interior ministry. Essentially, Eric, I mean, unfortunately, it's like, you know, a Jew who believes in Jesus,

actually they don't see them any longer as a Jew. I mean, and so in other words, it's like they actually hold, if, you know, if you have changed your religion to Christianity, that somehow that negates your ethnicity. You're talking about, like, you know, the cancel culture times a billion here. I mean, it's just really, really sad. And look, it is my part. I love Israel. The Lord loves Israel.

Christians are to be a friend of Israel. Evangelicals are identified as the best friends of Israel. And our Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel, I'll tell you, Eric, have been overlooked. And we need to stand with them. And I think of like when you wrote about Bonhofer, I could just quickly say, you know, Bonhofer identify and recognize the insanity of Hitler. and the Nazi leadership in Germany who tried to divide the church, right? They tried to devalue and disregard Jews in the church. The church is made up of both Jew and Gentile.

But you have voices in Israel. It's not the exact parallel. But you have voices in Israel, influences, not all Israelis, who are dividing Jews. So essentially are saying that a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who believes in Jesus as Messiah is no longer a part of Israel. Well, of course, that's just insane. I mean, think about it. Like you and I are believers. We follow Jesus from voices, from Jewish voices. You know, the Jesus movement was a Jewish movement for which we are invited into. So my point is, in such a time is this, we can help. I believe Israel. You know, faithful are the wounds of a

friend. I'm not interested in wounding Israel, but I'm just saying we can shed light on this. You know, Jesus wasn't a Christian. He didn't come to start, you know, a new religion. I mean, Eric, check this out. Israeli scholar and Orthodox Jew, Pinkus Lapid, said, Jesus was utterly true to the Torah as I myself hoped to be. I even suspect that Jesus is even more true to the Torah than I in Orthodox Jew. He continued by saying that he believed in the resurrection of Jesus, right? You have Jewish philosophy. philosopher Martin Buber, who said, we must overcome the superstitious fear which we harbor about the messianic movement of Jesus, and we must place the movement where it belongs, namely, in the

spiritual history of Judaism. So look, I just want to say to all of our evangelical friends out there, my brothers and sisters, and every genuine Christian all throughout the world, speak in private and in public that all Jewish lives matter. A Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel exists to be a safe harbor for all Jews. And I believe we can continue to be a great friend of Israel by throwing light on this issue. And remember, you know, quote Christianity, the Jesus movement began in Jerusalem, not in Rome. and Jesus is coming back as the Davidic king.

You know, I think of, just me to say one more quick thing, Eric, is that, you know, thinking of when Jesus was making his way to Jerusalem and Blind Bartimaeus was getting his attention, you know, he didn't say, hey, Christian, have mercy on me. No, he said, hey, son of David have mercy on me, right? The Davidic king, the descendant of David, who was promised to establish the kingdom forever. I want to ask you before. We're going to go to a break here. But what is the title of your website? Is it the context movement? Yes. Thank you so much. Thecontextmovement.com. Yes. Thecontextmovement.com. I want to steer people to that website because this is so important and we need to understand it.

Thecontextmovement.com. Folks, please check out the contextmovement.com. And what's What's the title of your new book before we go to the break? Oh, you know, Rediscovering the Original Jesus Movement and how first century context clarifies God's plan and courts corrects, course corrects the church. And thank you for your recognition. Yeah. Discovering the original Jesus Movement. Yeah. Rediscovering the original Jesus Movement.

We'll talk about that in a minute. And the website is the context movement.com, the context movement.com. Be right back. As you know, Mike Lindell has a passion to help you get the best sleep. of your life. After he invented the world's best pillow, he created the famous Giza dream sheets. They're the best sheets you'll ever sleep on. The best night's sleep just got even better. For a limited time, you'll get a queen-size set for 5998. King's size, just 6998. The lowest prices in history. Mike and the MyPillow employees continue to be canceled by big box stores and attacked by the

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Great Bargans. MyPillow.com promo code Eric. Make like Mr. Milk Toast, you'll get shot. Welcome back, folks. I'm talking to my friend, good friend, Pastor Greg Denham, who is in California. Greg, what is the church that you pastor? I always forget the name and the location. Thank you so much. Well, it's actually Rice Church, San Marcos, North County, San Diego, extraordinary church.

And thank you for visiting numerous times, and we can't wait to have you back. I love it. Rise church in San Marcos. If people are interested, if you can get to San Marcos, rise church, my friend, Pastor Greg Denham, leads that church. And we're talking, Greg, about your, you know, decades-long interest in Israel, your appreciation for the Jewish people, and for the Jewishness of our Christian faith. I mean, it's not like Jesus invented a new religion, as you said.

And I think this is what sticks in the craw of a number of big, bigots who have a voice in Israel. They have managed to do something terrible, managed to say that if you believe in Jesus as Messiah, we don't care if you have Jewish blood. We don't care if your family died in the Holocaust. You can't be a Jew according to our definition. That's despicable. We need to call them out on it. We need to understand it.

And you've written about it at all Israel News and at the Christian Post. And folks, if you look up Denham, D-E-N-H-A-M. I will share those articles again, but it's very shocking to me. So you could say, Greg, theoretically, I am an atheist. I do not believe in the God of the Bible. I don't believe in the Bible. I believe it's baloney, but I'm a Jew. And they go, well, come on in.

You can be a citizen in Israel. Would they not say that? Yeah, that's my understanding. Exactly right. And look, you have some Shabad Jews, for example, believe that the late Rabbi Malakim Shneershan of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was the problem. Thomas Messiah, other Orthodox Jews disagree, but it's not an issue in getting into Israel. And I'm going to say, I was conversing, Eric, with a precious mom.

Her son made Alia to Israel. He's fighting. I mean, you know, he's willing to lay his life down for the protection of Israel. You know, he's fighting in the IDF. And she, she cannot join him because they found out that she was a believer in Jesus. and essentially kind of kicked out of the country. So her son is actually fighting for the IDF even right now. I mean, there's other instances like, let's say, for example,

you have, you know, a mom and dad make Alia, and then the son wants to follow, but then they find out, oh, the son, you know, is a messianic, and they're not allowed in. So now you have to explain when you say making Ali, a lot of people on this, listening to the program, don't know what you mean by that. Describe what that means. Thank you. Yeah. So a Jew returning to their ancestral home and Alia means to go up. I mean,

it's kind of a reference to going up to Jerusalem in the holy days. But in this case, I'm just referring to, you know, making their way to Jerusalem, making their way back to their ancestral home. And, you know, and I have a friend who wants to do this as a Jewish believer. And when he was investigated, actually what seemed to like shut his case down, was the fact that, you know, his wife was, they discovered that his wife was a believer. She went to a Christian college and things. Look, this is a blind. This is such a scandal. I mean, you're, you're such a sweet man and you speak about this so gently. But I mean, to me, I'm a little more hot-blooded. I cannot believe when I hear this. This is amazing to me. This is something so dark. It's such a black mark on Israel.

that evangelicals have been the most unbelievably staunch supporters of Israel, of this government, of Netanyahu. And to hear that they have this prejudice, to my mind it's very telling that there are people somehow who have an animus against believers in Jesus, and they have a loud voice in Israel. And I find it interesting that they don't have a problem with a people. atheists. They don't have a problem with all the Jews who say, oh, I'm a Buddhist. They don't have a problem with any of that. But they have a problem if you say, I believe in Jesus. That is an

amazing thing to me. I still wonder who is behind this and why Netanyahu would not stand against it. Well, you know, you know what I'm reminded of, Eric, my dad, and by the way, I was thinking about your dad the other day and love you and I'm so sorry for the absence. Thank God. Everything's moving towards the king. We're all going to be together. But, you know, my dad, my dad told me, Eric, that my grandmother, there was a time in our country, she couldn't vote, right? It's like, I can't even wrap my mind around that. This is a blind spot. It is a blind spot that there needs to be light thrown on it. And look, I really believe evangelicals, and we're the greatest friends of Israel, we need to speak of this. We need to communicate this. And I told the, I told

the Knesset Speaker. I mean, wonderful man, Amir O'Han, a great meeting, got to pray with them, open up Psalm 2. But I told him, look, this is going to increasingly become an issue because what's happening, theologically and doctrinally, if you will, is believers in the West are recognizing, hey, we, you know, the Jesus movement, I mean, began in Jerusalem, right? I mean, we're in grad, the idea is that, you know, we're invited in to this genius plan from eternity past to return in future in and through Israel, the Messiah of Israel. God is a peace plan and it's for the entire world. And ultimately, everything is culminating back to Jerusalem because Jesus was returning to Jerusalem.

And I just told them, because I'm protective of Israel. I mean, deep down inside, I want them living their full potential. And this is going to be critical. They must make this adjustment. They must stop. equating like if you believe hold a particular ideology or religion that it could potentially cancel your ethnicity insane i mean it's that that's insane in addition to that can i just say i have to say yeah no i just want to say jesus is the most famous jew in the history of man i mean

far exceeds you know with all due respect the rabbi halal and akiva i mean and what we can do Eric, I believe in helping this. If I could just quickly say, think of Joseph when he was in Egypt, and he's now dressed in Egyptian garb, and his brothers come and meet him. They don't know it's their brother. And we in the West need to make sure that Israel sees the Jewishness of Jesus. When we were there, you know, I was making, alluding this earlier, but when we were there in our delegation, I kid you not, we got to share the gospel, pray with people.

But I would say like 30% of the people we communicated precious Israelis had no idea Jesus was a Jew. And look, evangelical. Holy guacamole. We're at a time. Let's leave it. There's the headline. Jesus was a Jew. Guess what, folks?

That's true. We all know his mother was Italian. We'll talk about that on another show. Greg Denham, my friend. Thank you. Folks, please go to the context movement.com. The context movement.com. And spread these articles.

They're at all Israel news. Christian Post, Greg Denham, D-E-N-H-A-M. Greg, thank you. Thank you so much. Welcome back. Some of you know it's my privilege on this program to highlight the work of heroes in America. And the Alliance Defending Freedom, they're at the top of the list. If you knew what they were doing, we can only touch on it on this program.

But if you knew what they were doing, you'd want to help. And that's a part of why I have my guest on Jeremy Tedesco. He's a senior council at 8.000. ADF, Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom. And I want to exhort everybody who's listening to help the Alliance Defending Freedom. We are in a tremendous battle in this nation. And people often say to me, what can I do? And I say, there are many things you can do.

One of the things you can do, especially now, is give to the Alliance Defending Freedom. We're raising money for them on this program. And folks, I hope you have some sense of how serious this is. and that whatever little bit you can do or a lot, it's really needed now. This is not, we're not exaggerating. This is very serious. The phone number, if you want to dial, the phone number is 855-385-0-5-96, 855-3-8-5-96. And the website is metaxistalk.com.

You'll see the banner metaxistalk.com. So Jeremy Tedesco, we were talking about debanking and how the federal government is attacking people in terms of their ability to make financial transactions. It's a scary and amazing moment that we've come to in American history. And to me, the only good news is that it's waking some people up. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, we've seen debanking, especially on the basis of viewpoint, has been on the rise the last few years. This hearing last week was really kind of the crescendo of everything we've been seeing. One of our clients' indigenous advanced ministries is a small ministry in Tennessee that does relief work over in Uganda, builds wells, feeds kids, helps widows and orphans.

They got debanked by Bank of America last year in April, had been a longtime customer there and just were told, look, your risk tolerance exceeds our risk tolerance policies at this point. No good reason at all. We see this again and in again and again. And so it's on the rise. National Committee for Religious Freedom was debanked by Chase. The Arkansas Family Council that does pro-life and pro-religious liberty work, and Arkansas got debanked by Chase for being so-called high risk. And so we know these things are happening. We know the federal government has incredible control through the regulators that operate

on a day-to-day basis in banks, supervising them to push disfavored industries and people outside of the financial marketplace. This is a real problem. And we definitely need to solve for it, whether through litigation or legislation, or just like, you know, Chairman Jordan is doing shining sunlight on this as a disinfectant. I think the more and more we pressure banks to knock off these practices and even put regulatory, you know, pressure on them to knock it off, the better off everybody's going to be. Nobody should be afraid they're going to lose their bank account because of their political

or religious beliefs. There are enough Americans who claim to love God, who claim to be Christians, that if we were all to do the tiniest bit, this stuff would end. But most Americans who claim to be Christians, who claim to love liberty, aren't doing anything. They think somebody else has this covered. And I'm here to tell you, folks, that's not right. We need to each do something. If we each would do the tiniest bit, it would be game. changing, which is why we're doing this fundraiser with the Alliance defending freedom.

I cannot underscore it sufficiently. We each need to do something. Some folks who are listening can do a lot, but everyone listening can do something. And I ask you, folks, please go to metaxis talk.com, whoever you are, whatever you can do, for your own consciences sake. Do something. Metaxistalk.com is the website. We're trying to raise a lot of money. Every tiny bit will help. We want you to be generous. Go to Metaxistock.com or call 855-085-0596. 855-385-0-596. God bless you.