Zvi Jul/Aug 2005
It is written in Deuteronomy, “You shall not pervert justice;…You shall follow what is altogether just” (16:19–20). What organization on Earth should be the best example of this command? The biggest organization: the United Nations (UN). But it is far from the UN to uphold justice.
Within it are 56 Muslim countries and only one little Israel. The palestinians shoot our soldiers and use Arab mothers and children as shields to protect themselves. They know our soldiers will not shoot back because we do not want to kill palestinian mothers and children.
They teach their children to become suicide bombers who murder our families in cold blood. The fathers of these bombers receive money afterward. We do not do such things. We believe they are immoral.
But which country does the UN consider the most dangerous in the world? Israel. For Israel, even self-defense is forbidden. So you can see, with the UN there is no justice.
Recently I was in a supermarket and who should be there but several UN soldiers stationed here. I asked them, “Whom are you serving?”
“We are here to make sure justice is done,” one replied.
“Do you believe in God?” I asked. “Do you believe in the One who is truly just and wants us to be just also? This means He does not want us to murder.”
They said they believed in God, but they also believed Israel is the guilty party in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“And who is shooting all those missiles into Israeli towns and killing little children every day?” I asked.
One replied, “The Palestinians do so because Israel occupies their land, Palestine.”
Now we had arrived at the main point. This time I asked, “Have you read the Bible?” Some said they had and believed what is written there. I asked, “What is written in Genesis 13:14–17?” They were quiet. So I read it for them:
And the Lᴏʀᴅ said to Abram…“Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever….Arise, walk in the land…for I give it to you.”
“God gave this land to the people of Israel. Read Exodus 6:5–8 and Deuteronomy 8:7–9. And what about the borders? The people at the UN break their heads over this issue. But the borders are settled in black and white in Genesis 15:18 and Exodus 23:31.”
They replied, “These are only words. There are 56 Muslim countries. How many of you are there?”
To this I answered, “The Lord is the same. As He was then, so is He now. psalms 19 and 89 declare His eternal truth. What did He do to the Egyptians? It is written, ‘The Lᴏʀᴅ is a man of war; the Lᴏʀᴅ is His name. pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea’” (Ex. 15:3–4).
“Yes. We know all this,” one replied. “That was then. This is now.”
So I reminded them what happened in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, in which I fought. “They came against us like the mighty locusts. Many Arab countries attacked us. And they were so confident that this time they would do to us what they could not do in 1948: destroy us. More than 200 million Arabs came against a half million Israelis, most of whom were like me, survivors of the Holocaust. Who do you think was on our side?” I asked.
“America, of course!” they all replied.
I read Psalm 124:2–8, which begins, “‘If it had not been the Lᴏʀᴅ who was on our side,’ Let Israel now say—‘If it had not been the Lᴏʀᴅ who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive’” (vv. 1–3).
“What is written here was fulfilled,” I said, “and also what is written in Deuteronomy 7:17–18, which tells us not to fear the nations around us but to ‘remember well what the Lᴏʀᴅ your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.’” They knew I was speaking truth. Now they began to pay close attention.
“Show me where this is written,” one said. “Show us everything you have read to us. We want to mark this, so we may study it in our free time.”
“Studying is good,” I said. “But it is not enough. You must believe all that is written in the Bible.”
Now one asked me, “What do you want to do? Make us Jewish?”
“You can be who you are,” I said. “We believe in one God. There is only one God for all the people on the earth. It is clearly written in John 3:16, ‘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.’”
This time they were surprised. “You speak to us about Christianity!” one declared. “Jesus is not a Jew! Why do you speak to us of Him?”
I read to them Moses’ words concerning Jesus in Deuteronomy 18:15–16:
The Lᴏʀᴅ your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the Lᴏʀᴅ your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, “Let me not hear again the voice of the Lᴏʀᴅ my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.”
“We never heard this,” one said.
I replied, “Now you have heard God’s Word, so you can know what the Lord said to the people of Israel. But you must read this for yourselves. Here is the Bible. Read Isaiah 49:3–6.”
So after a long time in the supermarket, these UN soldiers received what they could never buy: a love for the Lord and the full truth about God and justice. They were happy that we had such a long conversation. We also learned that we live near each other. I hope we will speak again.
