ali hoop

If you listened to Tucker’s TPUSA speech, you heard a man: * Accurately citing and appealing to Scripture * Unashamedly proclaming Jesus as Lord * Confessing his own sin and shortcomings * Begging the Scripture stop being twisted for foreign policy objectives * Promote peace and oppose unnecessary war * Frame America’s primary problem as spiritual rather than political * Affirm the image of God in every man and condemn race-based hostility He might have said things you don’t like. Heck, endorsing the NLT raised my blood pressure 20 points. He might have even shared opinions you oppose. But if you listened, and heard those things above, and persist in accusing him of “working for the devil” or continue calling for his cancellation, you’re behaving as an enemy of God. Yup. I said it. You’re attacking Christ’s servant. You’re working for the wrong team. You’re calling good, evil and evil, good. You’re taking an active part in the fruitless deeds darkness. You’re trying to hide light under a bushel, and extinguish a Christian witness. Jesus warned his disciples about people like you, in His case the unbelieving Rabbinical Jews who “will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” (John 16:2) Think not that you do this on God’s behalf. You’re doing this on the behalf of Satan. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.” And like the Jews who stoned the prophets and then built sepulchers to them, Christians have been praying for God to raise up men in the political realm to proclaim Christ crucified, articulate the gospel, and shine light in the darkness. And there he is, right there on stage of TPUSA and you immediately denounce him, and demand everyone else denounce him, all because he has a historic Christian view of Israel and wants the American government to put America first. Instead, you applaud a Barabbas on stage who’s calling for more bloodshed and shout crucify at the Christian calling for peace. God has given us blessings and you reject them. You prefer to curse those who bless Christ and bless those who curse Christ. So if you want proof of Judaizing in the church, there it is. Because heroizing the unbelieving Jew while rejecting the Christ-confessor with vehement contempt is straight up the most 1st Century Palestinian mob mentality I’ve ever witnessed.

The irony is watching Arminians deny election and God’s sovereignty over salvation while the vast majority of them are Dispensational Zionists. Which means, they are Arminians about Christians but Calvinists about Jews. Ask why God chose Israel, and suddenly they understand unconditional election. Israel did not choose God. God chose Israel because He sovereignly determined to do so. Israel did nothing to deserve election, and centuries of unbelief cannot frustrate God’s purpose. God chose them, God keeps them, and God will accomplish what He ordained for them. Congratulations. You have discovered sovereign grace. But apply the same logic to salvation and suddenly God’s sovereignty becomes offensive. Now election must depend upon man’s response, grace must be resistible, and God’s saving purpose can be frustrated by human will. For Israel, God’s choice determines man’s response. For salvation, man’s response determines God’s choice. The Arminian Christian Zionist therefore spends half his theology insisting that God’s election cannot fail and the other half insisting that Calvinism must be false because God’s election cannot be sovereign. And notice how naturally they use Calvinist language when defending it. Chosen. Elect. Sovereign purpose. Unconditional promise. Irrevocable calling. God’s faithfulness despite man’s faithlessness. They will fight you over every one of those concepts in soteriology and then build their entire doctrine of Israel out of them. Arminians have spent generations explaining why Romans 9 cannot possibly teach unconditional election for Christians, while they routinely appeal to the same chapter to prove that God’s sovereign election has nothing to do with anything Israel would do or not do, but only to accomplish His own divine purpose purposes. God can choose Israel for no reason other than He wants to, whether they deserve it or not, unconditionally, because He wants to and in order to glorify Himself. God gets the Israel He chose, but apparently God doesn’t have the right to get the sinners He chooses, unless they cooperate with His sovereign will.