The Thursday Update

OCTOBER 16, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

On Monday, after more than two years of Hamas captivity, the twenty living hostages held under barbaric conditions were welcomed home by Israel. Thanks to the efforts of President Trump and others, they were turned over as part of a potential peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians. When considering the approximately 1,200 people killed by Hamas and the 251 people kidnapped (with many of them being murdered while held hostage), you would think that people everywhere would celebrate this long-awaited victory.

Sadly, you would think wrong.

It is amazing how muted the celebration was around the world. Protestors still protested, “From the river to the sea” which is their expressed desire to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth. Way too many news agencies gave such passing and faint praise for it all as well. Many politicians on the left said very little about how great this day was. The world seemed to accept it with a collective yawn.

What is clear to me in all of this is that there is a lot of hate in our world that comes from more than just those who are terrorists. According to The New York Times polling, shortly after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 47% of Americans sided with Israel while 20% sided with Hamas. That in and of itself makes no sense to me, but it only gets worse. Today, 34% side with Israel and 35% side with Hamas, with 31% being unsure. Slightly more people in our nation back a group recognized world-wide as a terrorist group that had just killed nearly 1,400 innocent people over a nation that defended itself like America did after 9/11. And the numbers are stronger in support of Hamas among younger Americans thanks to so much cultural indoctrination. This is both sad and baffling.

Why is that the case? I think there are two main reasons.

The first reason is the legacy media has clearly provided slanted coverage in favor of Hamas over Israel. They accepted the narrative and number of casualties that Hamas provided them, despite it being virtually impossible to be as high as they reported per experts in this field. They rarely, if ever, reported that Hamas used civilians as human shields for their terrorism plots. They rarely, if ever, reported how they blocked the aid sent into Gaza by Isarel and other nations, in effect starving their own people. The New York Times even erroneously posted a picture of a child who was barely skin and bones claiming that he was in this condition because of the starvation and food not entering Gaza, when in reality it was a rare medical condition. The lies were so frequent that it’s hard for any reasonably minded person to not think this was intentional and by design due to their biased reporting.

But the second reason is even more significant: The rise of antisemitism. People have an unexplainable hatred for Jews and Israel. It’s prevalent on college campuses, in politics, and around the world. Even though Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, it is the country so many people love to hate. In fact, the Arab and Muslim nations surrounding Israel are 643 times the size of tiny Israel. But just like the little child who only wants to play with the one toy it cannot have, people do not even want Israel to have their present land, the land that was given to them by God in the covenant promised to Abraham (Genesis 12, 15), by military victories through King David, and by the British and post-World War II mandates in May 1948.

Where does antisemitism come from? Ultimately, it comes from the evil one. Satan hates God and hates His covenant people. We have seen this throughout world history, at the birth of Jesus, during World War II, and we see it in Revelation 12 when Satan will take one last stab at wiping Israel off the face of the earth. This is ultimately a spiritual battle above anything else.

I hope you will do what the Bible says to do with respect to Israel in Psalm 122:6-9:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

And I hope you will be here on Sunday when we kick off a new series called, “Heaven, Hell, And Everything In Between” and look at how the “Invisible Battle” that we all face works.

Vince
Senior Pastor