Let me introduce myself first. My name is Roy Hagemyer, a Christian pastor in Arizona. I have personally been to Israel twice, and I absolutely love the Holy Land and the people of Israel. I consider myself Jewish by adoption, as my Savior, the Lord Jesus, is Jewish! I wholeheartedly support Israel and the Jewish people—they are God’s chosen people, and God has not changed their position. They have not, nor will they ever be, replaced by the church.
I have to say I am appalled at the number of Christians, and even Christian pastors, who have issues with the Jewish people, to the point of being antisemitic from the pulpit. My stance is this: you cannot be a real Christian and hate the Jewish people! How can you hate the one you say you love? And then there are the political elite who think they can say whatever they like and get away with it, like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and many others. Sorry people, but this Christian is standing up for what is right and what is of God! They say that the church has replaced the Jewish people—this is known as Replacement Theology, and it is a lie from the pit of hell! Romans 11:24 states: “For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.”
The hatred for the Jewish people is not new—this goes back to the beginning, in the Garden, when Adam and Eve were God’s chosen people and Satan attacked them. And we see this same trend continue throughout Scripture: Haman in the book of Esther, Satan tempting Christ in the wilderness, and then the Book of Revelation, where Satan is on a tear because he knows his time is short! Then there is this man Abraham, called of God to be His man, a man upon whom our faith is built and stands strong. We read plainly in Genesis 14:13: “Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew.” Abraham is a Hebrew, a Jew, a friend of God!
This man Abraham was told by God that he would be a blessing to many, that all nations would be blessed through him. And you might ask, how could this be? Is not Abraham a Jew? Well, my Christian friends, let me give you some very good news, news you may have never heard before: Salvation in Christ Jesus is from the Jews! Jesus, speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, said in John 4:22: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” Every person who claims to be a born-again Christian, saved by the Lord Jesus, gained salvation through the Jewish people. Jesus is a Jew to this very day as He sits at the right hand of God!
And to touch further on the Jewish people remaining God’s chosen, the apostle Paul, a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, wrote in Romans 11:25-27: “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob’; ‘and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.'” Did you get that? “And in this way all Israel will be saved!” Through the end of the age, Israel is God’s chosen—always has been, always will be.
God is merciful, He is loving, and He is full of grace. How could a God like that ever turn His back upon those He loves so much?
Pastor Roy is an ordained pastor at The Way Christian Church in Fort Mohave, Arizona. Pastor Roy graduated from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona (Summa Cum Laude) with his bachelor’s degree in Christian studies. Pastor Roy graduated from Crown College in St. Bonifacius, Minnesota with his master’s degree in Christian studies.
