Switzerland: Day 3

christopher hopper in switzerland day 3

Today was the final day of “Discerner le Temps.” And as always, there are many sad goodbyes and many wonderful memories.

The morning started off with an extremely profound message from Pastor David Davis–an actor from NY saved in the 80′s, married to a now believing Jew (former NYC model and singer), and pastor of a Jewish and Arab congregation on top of Mt. Carmel. With a story like that, how would it be anything less than profound? He explained the vision out of Zechariah 4 as the two olive trees being the Jews and the Gentiles (Jeremiah 11, Romans 11), and the Menorah being the Church (Rev 1), filled with the presence of God. Many many lives were touched as their hearts for (or against) Israel were healed, and a new desire to pray for God’s people was stirred up. [Davis is pictured below with one of my best friends, Manu, after a powerful time of prayer].

After lunch, Pastor Vincent Fernandez brought yet another moving message, this time on the Prodigal Son out of Luke 15, revealing even more dimensions to a story most Christians know all too well, this time focusing on the Pharisee’s attitude toward the parable: rather than rejoicing with the father’s joy over his returned son, they–in effect–ended up killing him…as they put Jesus–the one portrayed in the Parable–to death that very week. Many people were convicted of their religiosity and likewise touched by the Father’s love.

I took some other random pictures from the day, including a fish between my feet on the dock, and a candid practice session with me and Simion Freymond in the dressing room rehearsing; it’s his 18th birthday today. And boy, can this guy lead worship and play the guitar. I’m honored to call him friend.

I will never forget this conference and all that the Lord did in my heart personally, as well as what He spoke corporately. Tomorrow we start recording in the studio; please pray for my voice as I pushed it a little too much tonight. (Shocking, I know). ch:

What If All Nations Were Treated Like Israel?

flags-against-israel

I am not Jewish. I just want to be clear so you understand I have nothing to gain by the following piece. And I count on the fact that I’ll take bullets for it. But I consider myself in good company if so.

5’9″, bald, as white as the cream filling of an Oreo, and with a nose from a long-line of Dutchmen, I am a European amalgamation of varied lineages, and constitute the average All-American male. But one thing I am not, is a moron.

A moron? In my simplest definition, that’s someone who is ignorant on purpose (intentionally sidestepping truth). And right now, I feel as though I’m surrounded by them in the US and Global media.

I’m not sure if you have been following the plight of Israel. Most things surely seem more important. Sports. Award shows that honor award recipients. Michael Jackson. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is a world-wide scandal happening to one of the tiniest, most seemingly insignificant nations on the planet right now. Because if I’m the only rocket scientist taking note, then NASA really needs to hire me.

If Canada launched a single missile over the border into the US–Canada–my friends, would be the next acquisition of the United States faster than you could cough up a hockey puck. But how about 1,000′s of missiles? Let’s just say that there would be a lot of reconstruction work to be done before we could settle our newest State.

What if we told China that she must give up substantial holdings of 3,500 year-old, Biblically-mandated sovereign soil to appease small, militant nomadic tribes who purported to have legitimate claims to property even though these groups never previously existed under any sort of organized name,ruling body, or internationally respected council?

More over, what if the US were to go into Saudi Arabia, Egypt–or say, Iran–and, through means of unprecedented political manipulation, do anything short of outright coercion and extortion to tell them how to run their country?

Oh, we have? Well, almost.

What’s fascinating to me is that President Obama will hold a press conference on Iran’s recent political proceedings and say he’s “appalled and outraged” by their conduct, but that he “respect[s] the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and does not want to “interfere[ing] with Iran’s affairs.”

Does not want to interfere with Iran’s affairs? Huh, sounds respectful enough. Surely, I wouldn’t want to cross a mullah on a bad PMS day. But what fascinates me is our nation’s proposed honor of a nation with which we have rocky friendship (at best), and who seemingly stands for everything that we do not, yet for a nation with which we helped engineer it’s very birth, we have contrary, if unfriendly dealings with (at best). Israel.

You see, it’s my humble and “uninformed belief” (by some) that if any other nation on the planet was enduring the same atrocities that Israel is being forced to undergo–both in political pressure and terrorist assaults–there would be global outcry. Instead, the world is siding with a rebel group of nomads who previously had no legal claim to anything. Palestinian refugees. Yes, go check your history books; they hadn’t even been termed as such until the last century. These “refugees” were created when the surrounding Arab nations told them to leave the two-state solution during a “get out or suffer with them” attack against the new Israel. Things, obviously, went differently than expected and Israel prevailed. Decades later the same Arab nations that protested a two-state deal and created the refugee situation are now lobbying for–you guessed it–a two-state deal. Funny that everyone wants Israel to do what the Palestinians’ religious kinfolk would not: give up land for them.

If any other nation on the planet was enduring the same atrocities that Israel is being forced to undergo–both in political pressure and terrorist assaults–there would be global outcry.

Am I saying Israel is lily-white? Not at all. They have done some horrible things, as all nations do in war. But that’s not what I’m contesting here. For if that was the basis of international mediation, we should be meddling with Iran and countless other nations long before we turn our eyes to the homeland of the Jews. What I am asking, however, is how can our media be so selective? How can our government be this blinded to such a severe double-standard?

Because I’m not a political pundit, my commentary starts where theirs stops. This is much more than a political struggle for power. This is a spiritual battle for control of a promised inheritance, and the coming return of the Messiah. You honestly think the enemy of mankind wants property rights to a strip of desert because he likes to build sand castles?

Politically, I pray that the leadership of our nation once again recognizes God’s decree of Israel’s physical right to the land belonging to the descendants of Isaac as we did in 1948. I pray that Americans would have wisdom to filter through the un-journalistic and unprofessional reporting that our media is proliferating. And I pray that we have the creative wisdom to express–both through prayer and activism–our intolerance of preposterously immoral expectations imposed on Israel.Because if you were Jewish–which, if you’re grafted into their adopted lineage through Jesus, you are no longer an alien–you would and should be ticked.

When you pray for the peace of Jerusalem, you are praying for the return of Jesus…because he does not return to Allah’s Dome of the Rock. He returns to Zion, a City on a Hill. The Jerusalem of the Jews. May revival come to you swiftly, and may the Church ever urge you forward. ch: