Rebellion to tyrants ... is obedience to God.
- David Lane
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
“Americans, whether they understand it or not, need to be grateful to God for the Jewish people and for the foundation upon which freedom and the sanctity of the individual were established. That is what separates our values from the values of totalitarianism and dictatorship. The genesis of that came from right here in this land. Let us never be apologetic.”
Michael Youssef [born 1948], Founding Pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, holds a master's degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Emory University.
In May, more than a month before President Trump’s June 14th announcement of an initial deal with Iran, Youssef appeared on Salem Radio Network’s That Kevin Show to discuss Iran, Israel, end-times urgency, and his new book, An Unholy Alliance: How Progressivism Brought About an Islamist Invasion.
He was candid. “Particularly with the Iranians, I don’t believe a word they say. They can swear on a stack of Qurans, and I still would not believe a thing they say. They are ideologues. They want chaos. They want war; that’s why they have proxies in Lebanon, in Gaza, and in Yemen.”
The Islamic term is taqiyya, entailing a doctrine of concealment historically associated with Shiite Islam, arising when Shiites lived as a threatened minority under Sunni rule. It permitted concealment of one’s beliefs under persecution or coercion. Iran is overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim, where deceiving an adversary is not a vice but a virtue.
Reinforcing Youssef’s judgment, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that Iran attempted to smuggle Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked terrorists into the U.S. by concealing them within Iran’s World Cup soccer delegation.
The IRGC is not Iran’s regular army but a separate military, ideological, and political power center created after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to defend the clerical regime.
Montana U.S. Senator Tim Sheehy [born 1985], the Naval Academy graduate and former Navy SEAL, double-downed as he was interviewed by Brian Kilmeade on FOX & Friends:
“Iran is a murderous regime that doesn’t want the deal. They don’t want $6 gasoline. They don’t want the Straits to be open. They want you, your family, and all of us to be killed. They want to wipe our civilization off the map.
“What we’re seeing now is the Rope-a-Dope: buy time, lead us along until President Trump and his team are out of office, and re-up their campaign. We’re dealing with a regime that will not negotiate in good faith.”
Which brings us to Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who addressed the JNS International Policy Summit* in Jerusalem on June 21, reaffirming America’s “unbreakable bond” with Israel and declaring that Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon.”
We wrote to the 70,000 American Renewal Project pastors on April 28: “If the United States weakens the regime, stirs hope among the oppressed, and then steps back before the tyrants are broken, it will amount to the ultimate betrayal of a people crying out for freedom. To awaken hope and then abandon the captive before liberation is secured would be a historic blow to the cause of freedom.”1
On January 13 this year, President Trump had announced on Truth Social: “KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! … HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
At JNS, Huckabee opened with characteristic wit - before taking the stage, he had checked Trump’s social media account “to make sure this was not my last speech in Israel,” noting that the President “typically fires people in the middle of the night via social media.”
Then he said what needs saying:
“One of the reasons our nations are tied together is because Christianity was formed upon the Jewish and Judeo-Christian foundation. Western Civilization was formed upon that foundation, and without that, there would not be an America. It is as simple as that.”
When critics excoriated him, Huckabee answered plainly:
“Are you not aware that our Founders wanted the
? Are you not aware that in the House of Representatives, there is a marble fixture of Moses - not Cicero, not Aristotle, not Plato - but Moses? Because our history is tied more closely to Mount Sinai than to Athens or Rome. In truth, it is tied to Israel.”
He reached back to the 3,800-year continuity of the Jewish people, beginning with God’s promise to Abraham: “I will make of thee a great nation … and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
“Our Founders understood this. Even in the Declaration of Independence, they made it clear that our rights do not come from government. They come from God. They come from the Creator. And where did they get that notion? [From Scripture].”
He closed with a word America badly needs:
“Americans, whether they understand it or not, need to be grateful to God for the Jewish people and for the foundation upon which freedom and the sanctity of the individual were established. That is what separates our values from the values of totalitarianism and dictatorship. The genesis of that came from right here in this land. Let us never be apologetic.”
What the nation is most in need of was best articulated by A.W. Tozer [1897-1963]: “We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits. It is not the ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God’s position, and to tell us what is actually going on.”
Which brings us to the starting gate for the 2028 Presidential Primary, with horses beginning to nose their way toward the rail.
Senator John Cornyn said last week that he is “thinking deeply about the future of the party,” declining to name Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Vice President Vance. “I don’t want to jinx either one of them. But don’t tell Ted Cruz that, because Ted wants to be the next president.”2
Our friend Mike Huckabee’s mother grew up in a house with dirt floors, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing. His father was a mechanic. He was the first in his family to go to college.
When Mike was elected Arkansas Lieutenant Governor in 1993, the all-powerful Democrat machine nailed his office door shut from the inside with a two-by-four, stripped it of furniture and equipment, and zeroed out the budget. It took him 59 days to get into his office.3
Solomon declared in Proverbs 24:10 that “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.”
A man reveals the depth of his toughness by his conduct in crisis. Don’t take Huckabee’s meekness for weakness.
We’ll throw Mike Huckabee’s name in the hat for 2028.
Gideons and Rahabs have begun to stand.
David Lane American Renewal Project
*JNS [Jerusalem News Syndicate, formerly Jewish News Syndicate] is an independent, nonprofit news agency and wire service that primarily covers Israel, the Middle East, and global Jewish affairs. Founded in 2011, it syndicates articles, podcasts, and multimedia content to more than 100 media outlets worldwide.
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