Apples of Gold Mar/Apr 2023

It is written in Jeremiah 6:14, “‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace.” It is also written, “I will give you assured peace in this place” (14:13).

We hope here in Israel that we will have peace, but we found none from Yasser Arafat when he led the Palestinian National Authority. He was cruel like a wolf. After he died, Mahmoud Abbas took his place. People were confident that he would be kinder and more humane, but he was another wolf in sheep’s clothing.

This does not surprise me. Where there is no true faith in the Lord, there is hate. But many Arabs in my neighborhood come to me to show me they are friendly. Recently, several of them spoke with me; and one asked me, “What do you think? Will we have peace or not?”

“If we only trust in men who just want to show their strength, we will not find peace,” I said. “Peace can only be found when we put our trust in the Lord. It is written in Isaiah 48:22, ‘“There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”’”

One of our Arab neighbors asked, “How can you say that?”

“I am 75 years old,” I said. “In those 75 years, how many times have your leaders signed their names for peace, only for nothing to happen? It is written in Deuteronomy 19:15, ‘By the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.’ But what have you done? When you look around, you cannot find peace. Why? Because you have trusted in men who are far from the truth that is found only in the Lord Himself.

“You are our neighbors. And what is written in Exodus 20:16? ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’ I have lived with you in this neighborhood for 30 years and have never had a true friend among you. Why? Only because none of you have faith in the Lord.”

They asked me how I could be so confident. “There are one and a half billion of us, and there are 56 Muslim countries,” one said. “But it is hard to find Israel on a map, even with a telescope! How long do you think you will still be on the map?”

I replied, “You trust in your size, but I trust what the Lord says.” I read from Deuteronomy 7:17–18: “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.”

“Remember how God destroyed the Egyptians in Exodus 14,” I said. “The Jewish people are still here because the Lord has delivered us again in our own time. I am sure of this because I was a soldier fighting in wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. This is no story but the truth. The Lord’s Word is eternal, as it is written in Psalm 119:89.”

They became more and more interested as I spoke with them. When I showed them my Bible, they saw I was not reading made-up stories but that which was written by the Holy Spirit of God.

Later, they approached me when different situations arose to ask what my Bible had to say. I told them, “This Bible can also be yours because the Lord does not belong to just one nationality or one group of people.”

I read John 3:16 for them: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

“You see,” I said, “this does not say God is only for Arabs or Jews. God laid on His Son the iniquity of us all. Only through Him can we find peace. Will you receive Him as your Savior?”

One of them asked me if he could have a copy of the Bible for himself. I gave him one gladly. It was my duty to bring His salvation to the ends of the earth. Here in Israel, we have people who have come from the ends of the earth! We pray the Lord will save them and fill them with His Holy Spirit.

From The Friends of Israel archives

Zvi Kalisher (1928–2014) was a Holocaust survivor who was known for his unswerving faithfulness to the Lord and his bold witness in Jerusalem. He was with The Friends of Israel for more than 55 years.