To Australia – igniting the flame

God ‘sent’ me to Australia* late last year. I had little choice in the matter – the mission sense was urgent; it ignited and took off.

Six weeks later – on December 31, the Palestine Liberation Organization petitioned the UN Security Council to set a clear time frame around evicting Israel from parts of the Jews’ historical homeland and instituting the borders of a ‘Palestinian’ state.

On that day, the last of the year and its last day as a non-permanent Council member, Australia was the single nation – apart from the veto-armed United States – who stood in the face of that submission to vote the ‘No’ vote that defeated it.

A few hours later, not long before Sydney Harbour’s famous fireworks heralded 2015, Thai Airlines Flight 474 climbed into the sky over Brisbane, its nose pointed towards Israel, my family and my home.

News of the Council vote reached me while I was en route to the airport. The ‘coincidental’ timing was striking. Reasons directly related to this climactic moment had brought me Down Under on November 22 to ‘launch’ the Australia Initiative (AI) for Israel: an action plan aimed at rallying Christians to stand up on behalf of their nations in support of Israel’s right to fully reclaim her biblical and ancestral land.

So it was with a full heart that I penned the first words of this article high above that beautiful continent. Australia lay in the sunshine of the late afternoon – her people readying for New Year, mostly oblivious to the eternal consequences of their representative’s vote in New York.

The Australia I was leaving was not quite the one I flew into. In my short stay I saw her pulled deep into the conflict-ridden Middle East. And take a stand.

Why was I there? What led up to me going? And as these events were being played out on earth, what had been unfolding in the heavenly realm?

My journey to ‘Oz’ really began a decade before, when one of the world’s leading pro-Israel Christian organizations changed course, falling suddenly silent on Israel’s right to possess her Biblical heartland, and leading others to do the same. (See BOX 1 – Christian Zionists go off course)

But while most Christian Zionists may have, for a time, abandoned the field of battle to the enemy, it became conspicuously clear in the months leading up to the Australia Initiative that two realities have been unfolding: While the PLO – with the collusion of the world – has been frenetically busy in the political realm to try and force the birth of a Palestinian state, the LORD God of Israel has Himself been ‘busy’ overseeing the fulfillment of His promise to physically restore Israel to the land in readiness for the nation’s spiritual rebirth.

It was in an international atmosphere poisoned against Israel on the one hand and favorably inclined towards ‘Palestine’ on the other, that Australia’s moral positioning vis-à-vis the ‘peace process’ first became apparent. (See BOX 2 – Australia stands out – Adopting a moral policy)
Launching the Initiative

These two streams of thought – Australia’s on-the-face-of-it neutral (and moral) stance on the ‘Two State Solution’ and Christian Zionism’s earlier, unadulterated position on the land question – came naturally together in my mind, as if the Spirit of God blew into flame the sparks of understanding. The ‘sudden’ launching of the AI followed out of Israel and into the nations, starting with Australia.

After conducting a brief investigation into the pro-Israel Christian activity in the country, I fired an email introducing the AI concept to a Christian leader on the Sunshine Coast. What I wrote resonated strongly; his response was immediate and positive.

So too, without exception, was a subsequent raft of responses to a related email sent to men and women known in Australia for their action in support of Israel.

In essence, the Australia Initiative (AI) is an effort to be embraced and acted upon on behalf of their nation by Australian Christians, whose example will be held up for believers in other lands to emulate for the sake of their countries. (It is not an international or global endeavor, although once each nation has taken its stand it will be encouraged to link arms with other nations that have done the same.)

The motive for Christians is to try keep their nations from ending up on the goat side of God in the Valley of Decision (Joel 3).

Two primary components constitute the Initiative:

Firstly, based solely on the Bible, and without any reference to the political realm, the expression of Christian opposition to the Two State Solution and support for Israel’s right to extend sovereignty over all territory hitherto restored to Jewish control.

Secondly, as voters in secular democracies whose leaders are answerable to the electorate, the petitioning of their government by Bible-believing Christians to maintain a moral stance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict (as Canada, Australia, the Czech Republic and a handful of others are doing). Those governments that have adopted a pro-Arab position should be called upon to instead adopt neutral positions.

There are three aims:

1. Of paramount importance – to encourage Christians to base their stand, prayers and actions concerning Israel on the Bible as an unassailable authority.

2. That Israel – its people and its government – see and hear Christian voices raised in support of their God-given right to possess their land.

3. That governments are challenged to relate in a moral way towards the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and to not take sides based on perceived political interests.

Again, it is important to stress that a government’s response is of secondary importance to the position adopted by the Christians in the nation. God is looking for men and women of faith to stand in the gap and proclaim truth into this situation.

To the uttermost parts of the earth

Within days of announcing my willingness to travel to Australia with this message, financial provision had been made, and a whole line-up of Australian CZ leaders just ‘happened’ to flow through Jerusalem in a continuous stream over the following three weeks, linking me up with a small powerhouse of men and women who have stood with and advocated for Israel for years. From the first meeting, the sense of timeliness was palpable has driven the momentum – the hour is now.

An itinerary on Australia’s eastern seaboard rapidly filled out. As I commented at the time, I had “never seen doors slam open so fast.” Days later I was on my way.

My first scheduled stop, as a non-Australian coming to speak about and into the future of a country not my own, was a visit with Christian leaders in Australia – to share my burden and the sense of calling – why I had come.

On November 22 that meeting took place in the picturesque hilltop town of Buderim. With the leaders’ blessing I went on to speak over the ensuing weeks at meetings in and around Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. In each, I conveyed the conviction that Australia had arrived at an historic spiritual crossroads, that the ‘South Land of the Holy Spirit’** – many of whose Christians had long been in expectation of their country’s destiny – had reached an ‘Esther moment’ in the purposes of God, specifically concerning its relationship with restored Israel.

The message was clear-cut but considerable: it was in the God-ordained power of Australia’s true, born again believers to bring and keep their country on side with God’s purposes for Israel. I outlined the vision of the crown, that the Lord – Who in times past gave first the British Empire and then the United States of America the opportunity to lead the gentile nations in blessing and serving Israel – was today offering this crown of service and blessing to Australia. I explained how against the swelling tide of international effort to impose on Israel the ‘Two State Solution’ that threatens her existence with the creation of a Muslim-majority ‘Palestine,’ the government of Australia – a country whose legacy includes the ANZAC’s liberation of Beersheba and thereby of the Land of Israel from centuries of Islamic rule – had adopted a moral foreign policy approach that was to be applauded and supported by Christians in that land.

Everywhere I spoke – at conferences, in churches and to home groups – the message was fervently embraced; people sought to respond right away.

Two issues I highlighted each time I spoke: firstly, that Australia would use its term on the Security Council to thwart the resolution the PLO was planning to bring that would see Israel evicted from its biblical heartland by 2017; secondly, that the Australian government would withstand pressure to add its voice to the growing number of nations that have chosen to unilaterally recognize a ‘State of Palestine.’

Three noteworthy events took place during my tour:

On December 1, a private members’ bill was submitted calling on the Federal Parliament to unilaterally recognize Palestine. Debate on the bill was begun, but then suspended and not resumed before the House recessed for the summer break. Interestingly, the name of the Deputy Speaker of the House under who the bill was proposed was ‘Goodenough’ (the same as mine, though no relation). I read in this strange coincidence a Divine ‘alert’ and urged those working on the AI to hasten the preparation and signing of a petition that would strengthen the government against that effort. That petition is being circulated in different parts of Australia and will be presented to government officials in the coming weeks.

On December 15, Australia went into shock when an Islamic terrorist took hostage ten customers and eight employees of a café in Martin Place, downtown Sydney. After a 16-hour stand-off, the building was stormed in an action that saw the terrorist and two of his hostages killed.

While the killer was repeatedly labeled a lone wolf, he carried out his action shortly after Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) leaders called on Muslims in countries involved in fighting the Islamist group to perpetrate acts of jihad in their host lands.

On the day before the attack I flew into Sydney and addressed a prayer meeting in the New South Wales Parliament building, across the street from Martin Place. The day after the crisis, I was back in the parliament building to speak to Christians, including political figures, concerning the Australia Initiative. Before my meeting I walked down to the hostage site – a growing mountain of flower tributes in memory of the victims, and witnessed the anxiety, fear and stress etched on the faces of hundreds visiting the place.Timing, again, seemed too precise to be coincidental…

The third event of note was Australia’s aforementioned no-vote against the PLO petition to force Israel out of the ‘West Bank.’ The terror group had threatened repeatedly to submit the resolution through November and December, trying to manipulate opinion in order to obtain the votes it needed to force the USA to use its veto. As I travelled through southeast Australia, Christians were exhorted to pray together for the resolution to be submitted before Australia ended its Security Council membership and that – if indeed given the opportunity – their country would vote against the motion.

These prayers were answered on the day I flew out.

Where to now?

The PLO is reportedly considering resubmitting its resolution now that Australia is off the Security Council. New Zealand – a country whose government is less inclined to stand with Israel – is one that has taken Australia’s place. For New Zealand’s Christian Zionists their work is cut out – serious prayer and action is needed for the sake of their nation that, like Australia, has a Christian heritage.

Meanwhile, on January 10 of this year, The Australian newspaper reported that Greens leader Christine Milne has declared intent to move a motion on Palestine when parliament resumes next month.

“In its response to the motion on Palestinian statehood, the Australian government will face an unenviable dilemma. It cannot blindly accept the Faustian pact that Europe is making with Islamist terrorism, but nor can it deny the Palestinian people’s need for a state to call home,” opined the paper.

In the dual reality that exists – the frenetic activity in the political realm to try and force the birth of a Palestinian state, and the God of Israel’s Lordship over all as He works to fulfil the promise made to Israel – the nation’s physical restoration to the land in readiness for its spiritual rebirth – the ‘unenviable dilemma’ that nations face, as Christine Milne reads it, is not the quandary over how far to resist membership in a Euro-Islamist alliance at the expense of the statehood aspirations of a so-called ‘Palestinian’ people, but rather the choice laid down in Scripture (see Genesis 12:3 and Joel 3).

God is quite clear on how He will judge the nations for the choice they make in regard to Israel.

And because – to reiterate an earlier point – we cannot expect secular governments to act as if the Bible is their policy handbook, there are a number of practical, strategic steps Australian Christian Zionists can take to help their national leadership make foreign policy decisions that will bless Australia in the eyes of God.

As mentioned, there is a petition currently in circulation amongst that country’s Christians – two petitions in fact, one addressed to the House of Representatives, one to the Senate – acknowledging the government’s support of Israel and calling on it to maintain a clear stand against joining the heavily-skewed, global unilateral call for a Palestinian state. It is the plan to publicly present these petitions to parliament when it reconvenes in February, before the vote for formal recognition of ‘Palestine’ is retabled.

Following on the heels of this petition, some possible further steps could be:

A lobbying of government by ordinary voters NOT to pass any vote for Palestine in parliament. Christians should know that there is a Canberra Prayer Group that their congregations can partner with to, for example, pray Christine Milne’s proposed resubmission away.

A collaboration by Aussie Christian Zionist leaders on the drafting of a Biblically-based statement for submission to their political representatives, not exhorting the Australian government to adopt it, but just putting the truth of God’s Word concerning Israel out there – taking a clear spiritual stand on behalf of their country that will challenge and withstand anti-God political behaviour.

The submission or resubmission to government by Christian Zionists of a position paper supporting what Foreign Minister Bishop has said: international law does not forbid the construction of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, it in fact holds that Israel has the right to extend sovereignty over these lands, incorporating them into the Jewish state.

The encouragement of active Christian MPs in the Australian government – there are a number of them – as well as other MPs to become part of a bipartisan Australia-Israel Allies Caucus.

Prayer and motivation to encourage Australia’s government to link arms and form an alliance with the handful of other pro-Israel nations (Canada, Czech, Micronesia, Palau, etc) as a bulwark for Israel against global anti-Semitic fury.***

For Zion’s sake, and for Australia’s sake, a great deal can be done.

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BOX 1 – Christian Zionism goes off course

Judea, Samaria and Gaza’s restoration to Jewish control in the Six Day War – as far as the Evangelical world was concerned – had been a Divinely ordained miracle. For decades, Christians expected Israel to extend sovereignty over these areas as she did over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Until the gear change in 2005, Christian Zionists had universally proclaimed their support of such a step.

The ill-advised shift couldn’t have come at a more critical stage in Israel’s more than century-long battle for the land, a battle that began in 1882, when Jews started returning to the covenanted patrimony of their forefathers, and prophetic Scripture became living truth.

Biblically inspired believers had long been at the forefront of efforts to see Israel – land and people – reunited. From before the rise of Jewish Zionism, influential Christian Restorationists advocated and worked for the right and ability of the Jews to take possession of the land. Until the start of the 21st Century, Christians in this stream (now known as Christian Zionists) supported the idea of extending Jewish sovereignty to the ‘occupied territories.’

Together with New Zealand, Australia played its first great role in this process in 1917 when the ANZACS formed the Allied spear point that penetrated Turkish-controlled Palestine, leading to the Ottoman retreat and the freeing up of the Land of Israel to become again the national homeland of its ancient people.

Australia’s sacrifice in World War 1 was enormous: 60,000 soldiers out of a population of just 10 million would fall. From New Zealand, nearly 17,000 out of a population of less than a million lost their lives. From the Jews’ perspective, both were Christian countries.

Many in Israel, not least Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have recognized Christian Zionism’s key contribution to the rebirth of the Jewish national home. Without exception the great names in this movement emphasized the central significance of restoring the land to its people. These church leaders and Christian lawmakers understood from Scripture that Israel’s long-desired spiritual rebirth could not happen until the physical reconstitution of the people in their geographical land.

It was this foundational Christian Zionist position that changed so significantly in 2005, the year Israel’s leadership succumbed to relentless pressure to evacuate and surrender Gaza to the PLO.

As he prepared to carry out the ‘disengagement,’ Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly successfully pressed a CZ organization with worldwide reach to refrain from stating its opposition to it. Whether or not the report was true, amid preparations to forcefully uproot 10,000 Jews who had been replanted in part of Judah’s inheritance, the organization in question declared categorically that it had “nothing to say” about what was happening in Gaza.

The organization would go on to develop a theological ‘justification’ of its non-position, asserting that it was “naïve to stand on God’s word about the land bequeathed to Israel when she is unfaithful to God.”

Left to proceed without any effective Christian opposition, the illusory ‘land for peace’ process that began with the 1993 Oslo Agreement under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (who intended to merely grant autonomous self-government – not statehood – to the Palestinian Arabs), had by 2002 – leaving thousands of casualties and even less prospect for peace in its wake – evolved into the ‘two state solution’ whose implementation is today supported by the world.

Most interestingly, it was as this ‘peace process’ began gaining ground that a vision was relayed to a pastor from Melbourne, according to which God was offering Australia a crown that would enable her to play a principal part in serving and blessing the Jewish people. This crown was offered to Australia after Great Britain and the US had in turn worn it then forfeited it because of their anti-Israel conduct.

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BOX 2 – Australia stands out – Adopting a moral policy

In November 2013, the newly installed government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott opposed a UN resolution demanding an end to “all Israeli settlement activities in all of the occupied territories.”

The ‘territories’ are disputed, and Australia signalled its intention to view as uneven an approach that condemns the construction in these areas of Jewish towns while ignoring or even encouraging the building of Arab ones.

During a January 2014 visit to Israel, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop took this a step further when she refused to go along with the global conventional wisdom that Jewish settlement construction in these lands defies international law.

“I would like to see which international law has declared them illegal,” she declared, igniting an Arab-world firestorm despite not having said anything overtly pro-Israel.

As Bishop put it, “I don’t want to prejudge the fundamental issues in the peace negotiations…the issue of settlements is absolutely and utterly fundamental to the negotiations that are underway and I think it’s appropriate that we give those negotiations every chance of succeeding.”

A few months later, Attorney-General George Brandis infuriated the PLO even more, by simply stating Australia’s intention not to refer to Jerusalem’s eastern neighborhoods as “occupied.”

Again, his avowal merely underscored his country’s unwillingness to utilize terminology that was essentially prejudicial to one side in the conflict.

I’ve never looked to secular governments to behave as if the Bible was their policy handbook; I never will. What arrested me about the Australian positioning was how strongly it stood at variance with virtually the rest of the world.

It was in response to these developments that I wrote two articles last July, the first about how Christians worldwide should respond to Australia’s courageous actions:

We – Christian Zionists in other countries and here in Israel – should rally around Australia’s true Christians and … encourage them to in turn come out strongly in prayer and active support for their government, which won’t understand the spiritual ramifications of the stand it has taken.

Addressing Australian Christians directly in the second piece, I concluded:

Today, under Prime Minister Abbott and Foreign Minister Bishop … your country has at the very least made a move in the right direction. Why not come in hard and fast behind them, seizing the opportunity they have created … to open the windows of blessing over your land? Where are you headed, Australia? The answer could lie in what your Bible-believing Christians choose to do, today.

The ensuing weeks saw my thoughts focus in on the role Christian Zionists had historically fulfilled, and are currently playing, in regard to the issue of Israel’s land.

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* The visit would also take me briefly to New Zealand, but the main emphasis as a first stop was Australia.
** The description given to Australia in 1606 by the Portugese navigator and discoverer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós
*** On February 9, 2015, I am taking this message to Europe, where I will be speaking to audiences in The Netherlands, Germany, Northern Ireland and Eire. In March I will be going to England for meetings in Wales.