Monthly Archives: August 2009

I Want to be Left Behind: Matthew 24 and the Return of Jesus

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I Want to be Left Behind: Matthew 24 from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

The video game taking Christian America by storm, apparently is called‘Left Behind: Eternal Forces’. Controversially it encourages players to kill anyone who resists conversion to Christianity. As Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft battle it out for domination of the electronic game world, the games’ creator anticipates a ready market among those who have already bought 63 million copies of the ‘Left Behind’ novels.

The game is set in New York City, a rather unusual venue for Armageddon you might think since New York doesn’t actually get a mention in the Bible. It is, however, the location of the United Nations headquarters and that is the clue. Never popular in some Christian circles, in Left Behind: Eternal Forces, the bad guys are the Global Community Peacekeepers, who are on a search and destroy mission in Manhattan. Their target is the remnant of newly converted Bible-believers, left behind when Christians were secretly raptured to heaven. These new believers, left on earth, form a Christian army called the Tribulation Force. Under the heading ‘Turn or Burn?’ a review by Focus on the Family asks,

How do peace and prayer go hand in hand with tanks, attack choppers and street battles? … Yes, you’re offered sniper rifles, gun turrets, even tanks and helicopters. And there are points at which a gun battle is necessary to avoid a massacre. It’s easier to convert a group of enemies than it is to shoot them. Still, post-Rapture warfare is integral to the game…books and movies.

In an interview, Tim LaHaye, the author justified the use of violence by Christians as the “self preservation instinct of the much-persecuted saints during the Tribulation.”[1] What a relief. It’s all right then. Christians can kill as long as its “self preservation” killing… in the name of Jesus. A rather more sceptical review by a Jewish website observes that,

The goals of the game are simple: Spread the gospel, and stay alive. But staying alive may sometimes lead to the taking of life — “fighting hellfire with hellfire”.  And that raises a knotty moral conundrum for any game designer who worships Jesus, the Prince of Peace.[2]

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Ready to Rebuild: The Temple in Scripture

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Ready to Rebuild? The Temple in Scripture from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

On January 8, 2001, former Shin Bet secret service chief Carmi Gillon and former police commissioner Assaf Hefetz together with leading Israeli academics delivered a report to the then, Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, detailing their concerns regarding plots by several Jewish extremist groups, to blow up the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Gillon and Hefetz founded Keshev, the Centre for the Protection of Democracy, based in Tel Aviv, after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. Their report, entitled, ‘Target Temple Mount’ examined current threats to the Temple Mount from extreme militant and Messianic groups. It concluded,

‘The Temple Mount is like a smouldering volcano that is bubbling and threatening to erupt – a threat that is liable to endanger Israel’s existence.’[1]

Six months later, in July 2001, the Rabbinical Council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza reversed the position taken for nearly 2000 years. They called upon all rabbis to take their communities to visit the Temple Mount. This was the first time a group of rabbis representing a significant proportion of the religious Jewish community had ruled it permissible for Jews to ascend the Temple Mount. Previously this had been forbidden because Jews might walk on the area what used to be the sacred holy of holies.

The rabbis also called upon the Yesha Council of Jewish settlements to organise mass visits to the Temple Mount from the settlements.[2] As a result around 500,000 secular, religious and ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered near the Temple Mount at the Western Wall ‘and swore faithfulness to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem.’[3] In the same month, July 2001, the Israeli Supreme Court made an equally momentous decision. For the first time ever they gave permission to Gershon Saloman and the Temple Mount Faithful to hold a symbolic cornerstone laying ceremony for the Third Temple near the Dung Gate adjacent to the Western Wall. Every year on Tisha B’Av (29th July), the day when Jews mourn the destruction of the first and second Temples, Salomon and his Faithful drive a lorry carrying three ton corner stones as near as possible to the Temple Mount. In 2006, despite police objections, the Israeli Supreme Court gave them permission to actually enter the area of the Haram Al Sharif on the festival of Tisha B’Av. To pre-empt a massacre, the police closed the site to Jews as well as Muslims for the whole day. Intelligence reports revealed that thousands of Muslims were planning to flock to the site to protect it.[4] On Tisha B’Av in July 2007, in 2008 and yet again this July, Salomon and his disciples have asserted their legal right to hold a ceremony nearby. Salomon’s agenda is clear and unambiguous.

“The Israeli Government must do it. We must have a war. There will be many nations against us but God will be our general. I am sure this is a test, that God is expecting us to move the Dome with no fear from other nations. The Messiah will not come by himself, we should bring him by fighting.”[5]

Since 1967, when Israel took the Temple Mount by force, there have been no less than 100 armed assaults on the Haram Al Sharif often led by Jewish rabbis.[6] An Israeli Arab MP, Mohammed Barakeh described the Israeli High Court’s decision as like putting ‘petrol in the hands of declared pyromaniacs.’  And it seems some Christians  too are convinced the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt. So much so, they are funding Jewish groups committed to removing the Dome of the Rock and replacing it with a Jewish Temple.

But aren’t we just dealing with a small bunch of religious fundamentalists and radical extremists? If only. Millions of Orthodox Jews worldwide pray three times a day “may the Temple be speedily rebuilt in our days”. And millions of Christians readily buy books on prophecy that predict it. And it seems, most Israelis, religious and secular, apparently agree.

Read more here and listen here

The Battle for Jerusalem

The Battle for Jerusalem from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

What provides you with most security? After your faith and your family, what comes next? Probably your home.

It is probably your largest monthly financial expense or, if the mortgage is paid, your most valuable asset. You may have only just moved in yesterday. Your life, your memories, your hopes and dreams are still carefully packed away in those unopened boxes, but it is still your home. Or you may be living in your parents home. You may have been born there, grown up there, never spent a night anywhere else. What ever, your home is your security. The place where you can lock the door, feel secure, be yourself, protect your loved ones, raise your family.

Now imagine losing it. Not to a mortgage company through repossession, not because of a divorce settlement or an act of nature be it fire or flood, but lose it violently to a foreign government. Imagine being woken at 6:00am by riot police with dogs and bulldozers. They force you out at gun point.

They give you 15 minutes to remove your possessions.

They demolish your home in front of you. Then a week later, they send you the bill. It happens every day. Salim and Arabiya Shawamreh live in Anata, a village to the east of Jerusalem.

In June, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that their home could be demolished – for the fifth time. Four times it has been demolished and four times friends and international volunteers have rebuilt it.

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With God on our Side

I am delighted to endorse a new film being launched this autumn produced by Porter Speakman Jr and Rooftop Productions.

“With God On Our Side takes a look at the theology of Christian Zionism, which teaches that because the Jews are God’s chosen people, they have a divine right to the land of Israel. Aspects of this belief system lead some Christians in the West to give uncritical support to Israeli government policies, even those that privilege Jews at the expense of Palestinians, leading to great suffering among Muslim and Christian Palestinians alike and threatening Israel’s security as a whole.

This film demonstrates that there is a biblical alternative for Christians who want to love and support the people of Israel, a theology that doesn’t favor one people group over another but instead promotes peace and reconciliation for both Jews and Palestinians.”

Launch: Autumn 2009. More news soon.

With God on our Side – Website, FaceBook and YouTube

Where is the Promised Land?

Kristin Davis, star of Sex in the City is, “the new face of Ahava” the Israeli cosmetic company which specialises in natural skin care products made from Dead Sea minerals. “I’m honoured to be a part of a beauty legend that dates back to Cleopatra,” she said. Unfortunately, Ahava cosmetic products are made in Mitzpe Shalem, an illegal Jewish settlement built in the Palestinian West Bank. Ahava’s extraction of Palestinian natural resources from the Dead Sea is, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, illegal use by an occupying power of stolen resources for its own profit. To add insult to injury, Ahava’s labels claim Israel to be the country of origin, something decried by Oxfam and other human rights groups as blatantly misleading. Ironically, Kristin Davis is a spokeswoman for Oxfam – or rather was until this week when they suspended her (see here for details). Hopefully, Kristin will now sever her relationship with the cosmetics-maker, regain her platform with Oxfam, and campaign for the human rights of all who have been dispossessed.

Not surprisingly the subject of ‘the Land’ is deeply controversial and highly politicised. Even its name – Canaan, Israel, Palestine, the Promised Land – says as much about our presuppositions as our knowledge of Middle East geography: Promised Land? Promised to whom? Under what terms? For what purpose?

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Golf Lessons for Life

The current best-selling golf book on Amazon is Dream on: One Hacker’s Challenge to Break Par in a Year by John Richardson. It is closely followed by The Golfer’s Mind by Bob Rotella and Bob Cullen. Keep scrolling down and you’ll find the occasional biography or history among the 11,487 books listed, but you’ll be overwhelmed with ‘how to’ books.

Clearly there are many of us who long to consistently drive the middle of the fairway, hit the green in regulation, get out of sand traps in decent shape, and sink those birdie putts. And we are willing to spend serious money on the latest clubs, clothing, lessons, books and videos to achieve that.

Whether you play golf or not, here are 12 simple lessons I am learning about golf which equally apply to marriage, to family life or relationships generally. They are adapted from Jack Canfield’s, Chicken Soup for the Golfer’s Soul. They may not improve your game of golf but they will certainly improve your game in life.

1. Golf teaches that we all have handicaps … and that hardly anybody knows what they really are. In marriage you get the chance to discover what those handicaps are in yourself and in your partner and in love help improve one another’s game.

2. Golf teaches that the best courses are the ones that hardly change at all what God put there in the first place. As they say, play the ball where it lies and play the course as you find it. Fulfillment comes in accepting each other the way God has made us, handicaps and all, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.

3. Golf teaches that although there are a few people who are honest in golf but cheat in life, everybody who cheats in golf cheats in life. Marriage, like the rules of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of Saint Andrew, requires total honesty. In marriage you never need to lie about your handicap. Share everything with one another, openly and honestly and then together you will find an answer to every hazard ahead of you.

4. Golf teaches that even though we need strict rules, we also need a leaf rule. Because we all have a handicap, we all need a forgiving partner. The most important words to use in marriage as in golf are ‘I am sorry’ ‘what do you think?’ ‘Its your honour’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

5. Golf teaches that even people who wear green tartan plus fours deserve a place where they can get a little exercise and not be laughed at. Marriage is the place where you can be yourself and not have to follow a dress code. Instead of competing with each other all the time, marriage is the place to support and protect your partnership and improve your game together.

6. Golf teaches that even though you probably don’t have a shot at being the best, you do have a good shot at being the best you can be. Start each day with a fresh score card and aim to be the best partner you can be. You will be surprised how far your strokes will go.

7. Golf teaches that both success and failure are temporary and that success is a lot more temporary. You can start a game in glorious sunshine and by the second hole you are have to change into all-weather gear. Marriage is about the long haul and the greatest rewards are for those who persevere and make the whole round.  Winning at golf, as in marriage is about finishing well. Golf rewards those who forget what lies behind, the mis-hits, the bunkers and the double bogeys – and press on to a strong finish.

8. Golf teaches that although practice does not always make us perfect, no practice always makes us imperfect. Marriage is all about being a learner and always seeking new ways to improve your stroke, your pitching and your putting. Make it your aim to be teachable and a learner in marriage and your game will improve.

9. Golf teaches that no matter how good you are, there is always someone better and that person will usually find you and tell you. Resist the temptation to be like someone else or be with someone else. The grass may be greener on the other fairway but you will still have to mow the grass or pay the fees.

10. Golf teaches that even though the best golfers have the most chances to win, we all have the most chances to improve. Marriage is about the joy of improving your partners game. Keep practising and you will keep improving.

11. Golf teaches you to hand in your score card because the aim is to lower your handicap. I am still waiting to get a card worth handing in. The third person in a good marriage, as in a game of golf, is having a pro play along side you, the person who modelled the rules perfectly –  Jesus Christ.

Imagine playing someone with a perfect score – a hole in one on every fairway, every time, better even than a Tiger Woods. Would it put you off or improve your game? But imagine as you walk away from the 18th, he takes your card, puts his name on your card and your name on his. That is what Jesus did for us on the cross. A perfect score. In marriage as in golf, God would have us remember he thought up the rules because he designed us with a purpose in mind. If we ask for his help he will show us how to play the only game that matters, the game that need never end, if we invite him to be our pro.

12. Finally, golf teaches that, on some dewy morning or golden afternoon, with the sun warming the world, we can find ourselves walking through an improvised meadow and realize we are not searching for a little white ball, but for a glimpse of eternity  where the world of nature and the world of play are one. And then in the dew and sunshine we can understand that even though we can make a ball perfectly white, only God can make a meadow perfectly green.

May you experience that sense of wonder in God’s presence every day of your life.