The Hatred Matters

SERIES INTRODUCTION

Over the last three weeks we’ve been talking about WHY ISRAEL MATTERS. In week one, we said ISRAEL MATTERS because of THE COVENANT. In week two, we said SRAEL MATTERS because of THE BLUEPRINT. Last week, we said ISRAEL MATTERS because of THE REMNANT. This week I want to declare to you that ISRAEL MATTERS because of THE HATRED.

Antisemitism is on the rise. Antisemitism can be defined simply as the hatred of the Jewish people. Antisemitic incidents have increased by 340% worldwide since 2022. There has been antisemitism as long as Israel has been around. For nearly 4,000 years of human history it has existed in every area of society. It has started wars and fueled genocide. It has even found its way into church doctrine throughout history in the form of Replacement Theology: the false doctrine that says that God is done with Israel, the Church has replaced Israel, and all of the promises and covenants God made to Israel are now transferred to the Church.

Replacement Theology and its antisemitic undertones is on the rise in the Church today. Let me say very plainly, there is no place for antisemitism in the Church! There should be no room for hatred of any kind in the Church, and certainly not against the covenant people of God. The Bible instructs us to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” God says that He will “bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel.” The Old Testament prophet Baalam tried to curse Israel three times, but God would not allow it.

Again, let me say plainly, antisemitism is the spirit of antichrist! The spirit of antichrist denies Christ and is opposed to the redemptive plan of God. As we’ve proven from the Word of God over the last three weeks, Israel is still part of God’s redemptive plan. So at it’s root, antisemitism is not just a hatred of a people group or a geopolitical movement, it is the hatred of God’s covenant people and is opposed to His redemptive plan.

This hatred of God’s people goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15:

Genesis 3:15 NKJV

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

Enmity is hatred. God said that from the time of the fall in the Garden of Eden that there were would be enmity, or hatred, between the woman and her Seed and the seed of Satan. This was the beginning of the seed war that has been going on for all of human history. Satan tried everything to stop the Messiah, Jesus Christ, from being born and fulfilling God’s plan to reconcile humanity to Himself. And that has included many attempts to destroy Israel. From Pharaoh of Egypt calling for the killing of the first-born male children, to Haman’s evil plot to kill the Jews during the time of Esther, to Herod’s slaughter of the innocents during the time of the birth of Christ, Satan tried everything to stop the Seed of the woman from being born.

But Satan failed, just like God prophesied in Genesis 3:15. The Seed of the woman (Jesus Christ) crushed the head of the serpent (Satan) at the Cross of Calvary. Satan could not stop God’s plan then and he will not stop it now or in the future. But this has not stopped Satan from focusing his attention on trying to destroy God’s people: both the Church and the nation of Israel.

The fact that Israel is a nation today and there are Jews on planet earth is nothing short of a miracle. Demonically-driven dictators and terrorist regimes have tried their best to wipe Israel off the map, but they have all failed! The fact that Israel exists today is another proof that God is real and the Word of God is true! And every Word of God’s prophetic plan is going to be fulfilled just like He said!

The hatred of the Jewish people is not going to stop. It is part of the spirit of antichrist that is gaining momentum right now. Another sign that we are close to the rapture of the Church.

ISRAEL MATTERS because THE HATRED is actually part of God’s plan. God’s Word says it is going to happen. It also says that it is not just a societal or geopolitical issue. It is not just a military conflict. It is a spiritual war that is 4,000 years in the making. But God’s Word also tells us who will ultimately win this war.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

What You Are Watching in the News Has a Name

I want you to think about what you have been watching on the news over the last few months. Campus protests. International resolutions. Boycotts. Social media campaigns. A level of hostility directed at one specific nation and one specific people that is difficult to explain by any normal political or historical standard.

Think about this for a moment. Jewish people make up less than 0.2 percent of the world's population. The nation of Israel is smaller than the state of New Jersey. And yet — by virtually every measurable standard — Israel occupies more international attention, generates more United Nations resolutions, and produces more global controversy than any other nation on earth. Not China. Not Russia. Not North Korea. Israel.

And it is not just political. The hatred of Jewish people is not a modern phenomenon. It is not a product of the 20th century or the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948. It predates all of that by millennia. Jewish people have been hated in Egypt, in Babylon, in Persia, in Rome, in medieval Europe, in Nazi Germany, and on American university campuses in 2024. Every culture. Every century. Every economic condition. The hatred follows them everywhere they go.

Historians cannot fully explain it. Sociologists cannot fully explain it. Political scientists cannot fully explain it. Because what they are looking at is not primarily a political, racial, or socioeconomic phenomenon. It is a supernatural one. And the Bible — as always — has the explanation they cannot find.

Today I want to show you what is really behind what you are watching. I want to pull back the curtain on the oldest war in human history. And I want to show you that the hatred of Israel — as dark and disturbing as it is — is actually evidence that God's prophetic calendar is running exactly on schedule.

Connect to the Series

Three weeks ago we established that the covenant God made with Abraham is irrevocable. Two weeks ago we learned the reading rule. Last week we walked through Romans 11 and discovered that God has never abandoned His people — the remnant proves it in every generation. Today we find out why there has always been a force working so hard to destroy what God has always been so faithful to preserve. The covenant is irrevocable. The remnant has survived. And today we find out why that survival has been such a fight.

Main Idea

The hatred of Israel is not random. It is not merely ethnic prejudice or political grievance. It is a supernatural, strategic, millennia-long campaign — authored by the dragon of Revelation 12 — to destroy the people through whom God's covenant purposes will be fulfilled and whose national repentance will trigger the return of Jesus Christ. And God's answer to that campaign — the regathering of Israel to the land — is already underway.

SERMON POINTS

THE SEED WAR — The Oldest Conflict in Human History (Genesis 3:15)

Genesis 3:15 NKJV

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

This Prophecy is the Key to Understanding Current Events

Before there was a nation of Israel. Before there was a covenant with Abraham. Before there was a Torah, a temple, or a promised land. In the very first chapters of human history — in the Garden of Eden, in the immediate aftermath of the Fall — God spoke a prophecy that set the course of everything that would follow. And it is the key that unlocks every headline you have read about Israel in the last year.

Unpacking The Seed War

God is speaking directly to the serpent — to Satan. And He announces something that will define all of history: I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her Seed. Enmity means hostility. War. A conflict that will not be resolved until one side is finally, permanently defeated.

The Seed of the woman is Jesus — Galatians 3:16 and 4:4 make that identification unmistakable. The Seed of the woman is the One born of a woman, entering human history through a specific people, through a specific nation, through a specific lineage — to crush the serpent's head. And the serpent knows it.

Galatians 3:16 NKJV

16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.

Galatians 4:4 NKJV

4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

From the moment God spoke these words Satan understood one thing with absolute clarity — his destruction was coming through a specific human lineage. Not through all of humanity generally. Through a specific woman's Seed. And from that moment forward the war had one target: eliminate that lineage before the Seed can arrive and before the serpent's head can be crushed.

The Seed War Explains Everything

Genesis 3:15 is not just a prophecy about the cross. It is the explanation for 4,000 years of Jewish history. Every attempt to destroy the Jewish people — from Pharaoh to Haman to Herod to Hitler — is an episode in the same war. The same war that started in the Garden. The same strategy. The same target. The same dragon. Because if the lineage can be destroyed — if the Jewish people can be eliminated before the full purposes of God are fulfilled — then the head never gets crushed. And the dragon survives.

What you are watching on the news is not a new conflict. It is the oldest conflict in human history. And it started in a garden before there was a single Jewish person on the earth.

THE DRAGON — Who Is Behind the Hatred and Why (Revelation 12:1–6, 9, 13–17)

Revelation 12:1–4 NKJV

1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.

The Woman is Israel

John sees a vision in heaven — a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, a crown of twelve stars on her head. Who is this woman? The imagery is pulled directly from Genesis 37 — Joseph's dream, where the sun, moon, and twelve stars represent Jacob, Rachel, and the twelve sons of Israel. Every Jewish reader in John's audience would have recognized it immediately. The woman is Israel. The child she bears is Jesus — verse 5 identifies Him as the One who will rule all nations with a rod of iron, a direct quote from Psalm 2:9. Jesus was born from Israel. The woman is the nation that brought forth the Messiah.

The Dragon is Satan

John does not leave the dragon's identity as a mystery. Verse 9 names him plainly — the great dragon, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan. The same serpent from Genesis 3. The same one who heard God's pronouncement in the Garden and has been running the same strategy ever since. And what is the dragon doing in this vision? He is standing before the woman — before Israel — ready to devour her child the moment He is born.

This is not mythology. This is the spiritual reality behind human history. The dragon has one target — the woman and her child. Israel and her Messiah. And when he cannot destroy the child — when Jesus is crucified, resurrected, and caught up to God — he turns his full fury on the woman. Verse 13 — he persecuted the woman. Verse 17 — he was enraged with the woman and went to make war with her offspring.

The Dragon’s Satanic Strategy

Now I want to show you the logic behind the dragon's strategy. Because once you see it you will never read a headline about Israel the same way again.

Here is what the dragon knows. God's prophetic calendar requires a surviving, believing Jewish remnant at the end of the age to trigger the Second Coming of Jesus. Matthew 23:39 — Jesus said He would not return until Jerusalem cries 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.' The Second Coming requires a Jewish remnant in Jerusalem calling on their Messiah.

Now follow the logic. If the dragon can destroy the Jewish people before that remnant can call on their Messiah — the Second Coming cannot happen. If the Second Coming cannot happen — Revelation 20:10 cannot happen. And if Revelation 20:10 cannot happen — the dragon is never thrown into the lake of fire. His judgment never comes.

Antisemitism is not random hatred. It is Satan's survival strategy. Every pogrom, every expulsion, every genocide — seen from heaven — is the dragon attempting to abort the prophetic calendar of God and prevent his own judgment. That is what is behind what you are watching on the news. That is the war underneath the war.

The Dragon’s Current Posture

Look at verse 17 one more time. The dragon was enraged with the woman. After 4,000 years of trying and failing he is not tired. He is furious. Revelation 12:12 tells us why — he knows his time is short. What you are watching in the world right now is not a geopolitical conflict that escalated beyond anyone's control. It is the intensifying fury of a defeated enemy who knows the clock is running out.

Revelation 12:12 NKJV

12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

THE PURSUIT — The Dragon's Campaign Through History (Genesis 3:15; Matthew 2:13–16; Esther 3:5–6)

Matthew 2:13 NKJV

13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”

Egypt — Pharaoh and the Hebrew Midwives

The first episode in the dragon's campaign after Genesis 3:15 comes in Egypt. Pharaoh commands the murder of every Hebrew male infant. On the surface it looks like population control — a political decision by a nervous ruler. But behind the politics is the strategy we just identified. The Messianic lineage is growing in Egypt. If it can be cut off here — before it ever produces a deliverer — the Seed never arrives. God's response — midwives who feared God more than Pharaoh. The line survived.

Persia — Haman's Decree

Several centuries later in the Persian Empire — Haman. A man with a wound to his pride and a genocidal ambition that goes far beyond personal offense. His decree targets every Jewish man, woman, and child in the empire. Not one person. Every person. This is not political rivalry. This is an attempt to end the Jewish people as a biological entity. The dragon's fingerprints are all over it. God's response — a Jewish woman in a palace, positioned for such a time as this. The line survived.

Bethlehem — Herod and the Innocents

Now we arrive at the most explicit moment of dragon activity in the entire New Testament. The Magi arrive in Jerusalem looking for the King of the Jews. And Herod orders the slaughter of every male child in Bethlehem under two years old. This is Revelation 12:4 in historical real time — the dragon standing before the woman, ready to devour her child the moment He is born. God's response — a dream, a flight to Egypt, and a family that slipped through the net. The Child survived.

Nazi Germany — The Holocaust

And then — the 20th century. Six million. One third of the entire world's Jewish population. The most technologically sophisticated, bureaucratically organized, industrially executed attempt at genocide in human history. And it was carried out in the heart of Christian Europe — built on a foundation of cultural antisemitism that the church had been laying for fifteen centuries.

I said something in an earlier message that I want to repeat here because it needs to be heard. Replacement theology — the belief that God is finished with Israel as a nation — removed the theological guardrail that should have protected Jewish people from Christian hostility. When the church decided God was done with Israel, it became easy to be indifferent to Jewish suffering. That indifference did not cause the Holocaust. But it created the cultural soil in which the Holocaust could grow. We need to own that.

God's response to the Holocaust — three years after the ovens went cold, on May 14, 1948 — a nation was born in a day. The line survived.

The Pattern

Every generation a new instrument. Pharaoh. Haman. Herod. Hitler. Every generation the same dragon. Every generation the same result — the Jewish people survive. Not because of military superiority or historical fortune. Because the God who made an irrevocable covenant with Abraham is not willing to let His word fail. The dragon has been running the same strategy for 4,000 years. And he has lost every time.

THE SIGN — Zechariah's Warning for the Current Moment (Zechariah 12:2–3)

Zechariah 12:2–3 NKJV

2 “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. 3 And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.

A Heavy Stone

Zechariah wrote these words 2,500 years ago. And yet — look at the headlines. Jerusalem is the most contested city on earth. The United Nations spends more time debating Israel than any other nation on the planet. The international community is increasingly aligned against the Jewish state in diplomatic, military, and cultural terms. Zechariah called it a cup of drunkenness — a stone so heavy that everyone who tries to move it gets hurt in the process.

We are not in the final fulfillment of this prophecy yet. The complete alignment of all nations against Jerusalem belongs to the Tribulation period — still future. But the trajectory of what we are watching is moving in exactly this direction. The stage is being arranged. The nations are taking their positions. And the dragon — knowing his time is short — is intensifying the campaign he has been running since the Garden.

Bless or Curse

Genesis 12:3 NKJV

3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God said to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 — I will bless those who bless you and curse him who curses you. That is not a political position. That is a prophetic warning with a 4,000-year track record. The nations that have set themselves against Israel have not fared well. Egypt. Babylon. Persia. Rome. Nazi Germany. History is a long commentary on Genesis 12:3. And the nations lining up against Israel today are writing their own chapter in that commentary — whether they know it or not.

The Church’s Response

As a church we need to be clear about where we stand. Not because of politics. Because of the Word of God. We stand with the Jewish people — not because they are perfect, not because every decision of the Israeli government is above criticism, but because God's covenant with them is irrevocable and we want to be found on the right side of it. We stand against antisemitism in every form — in the streets, on campuses, in social media, and in theology. And we pray for the peace of Jerusalem — knowing that the ultimate peace of Jerusalem comes only when the Prince of Peace returns.

THE ANSWER — God's Response to the Dragon (Ezekiel 36:24–28; Ezekiel 37:1–14)

Ezekiel 36:24–27 NKJV

24 For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

Ezekiel 37:1 NKJV

1 The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.

Ezekiel 37:3 NKJV

3 And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”

The Ancient Strategy

The dragon has been running the same strategy for 4,000 years. He has thrown everything he has at the woman — at Israel — and she is still here. So the question becomes — what does God do with the people the dragon cannot destroy? Ezekiel 36 and 37 answer that question. And the answer is one of the most hope-filled, visually dramatic, prophetically precise passages in the entire Old Testament.

The Two-Stage Fulfillment

God speaks to Ezekiel in plain, direct language. First — I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. That is Stage 1. Physical. Geographical. National. A global regathering of the Jewish people back to the land God promised to Abraham.

Then — I will give you a new heart. I will put My Spirit within you. That is Stage 2. Spiritual. Internal. A national transformation from the inside out.

Notice the sequence. Physical first. Spiritual second. The nation returns to the land before the nation returns to God. The body comes together before the breath enters. And that sequence — physical regathering before spiritual awakening — is exactly what explains the modern State of Israel.

The Valley of Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37 takes the same two-stage sequence and puts it in the most unforgettable visual in the entire prophetic literature. God sets Ezekiel down in a valley — enormous, silent, carpeted with dry bones. Bleached. Scattered. Disconnected. No life. No moisture. No flesh. No breath. And God asks the most unanswerable question imaginable — Son of man, can these bones live? Ezekiel does not answer directly. He says — O Lord GOD, You know. Because humanly speaking the answer is obviously no. But he knows he is talking to a God for whom that answer may not be final.

Stage 1 — The Physical Regathering

God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. And the valley erupts. Bone finds bone. Sinews form. Flesh covers the framework. Skin closes over the flesh. And then — silence. The bodies are complete, anatomically. Formed. Assembled. Standing. But there is no breath in them.

That pause — bodies assembled, no breath — is the most important moment in the entire vision. Because it describes a real historical condition. A nation that has returned to the land physically. That has the form of national life — a government, a military, an economy, a culture, a resurrected language spoken in the streets of Jerusalem for the first time in 2,000 years. But without the breath of spiritual life.

That pause has a date. May 14, 1948. On that day — in fulfillment of Isaiah 66:7–8, which asked shall a nation be born in a day — Israel declared independence. After nearly 1,900 years of exile, after the worst genocide in human history, after every attempt by the dragon to end the Jewish people permanently — the bones came together. The nation that the world said could never exist declared statehood in a single afternoon. Stage 1 is underway.

The Current Condition

Now here is something important I want you to understand — because critics of biblical Zionism use this as their argument against the prophetic significance of modern Israel. The modern State of Israel is largely secular. The majority of Jewish Israelis do not believe Jesus is their Messiah. The nation is in constant conflict. It does not look like a spiritual revival.

And here is the answer — it is not supposed to. Not yet. Ezekiel told us Stage 1 would look exactly like this. The bodies assembled. The nation formed. The land inhabited. But the breath has not come yet. Stage 2 has not arrived. The critics are looking at Stage 1 and expecting Stage 2. But God said Stage 1 comes first. The physical regathering comes before the spiritual awakening. The bones come together before the breath enters.

Stage 2 — The Spiritual Awakening

God tells Ezekiel to prophesy a second time — not to the bones, but to the wind, the breath, the Spirit. And the breath comes. And the vast army stands on its feet — exceedingly great. Alive. Fully alive.

This is Stage 2. And Stage 2 is still coming. It is the moment the Spirit of God is poured out on national Israel — Zechariah 12:10, Romans 11:26 — when the Jewish people look on the One they pierced and recognize their Messiah. When the nation that has been assembled in unbelief receives the Spirit of the living God and every Jewish person alive in that day calls on the name of Jesus.

This is all Israel will be saved from Romans 11:26. This is the Deliverer coming out of Zion from Romans 11:27. This is they will look on Me whom they pierced from Zechariah 12:10. Stage 2 is the moment the Father runs. It is the prodigal nation coming home. It is the dry bones — fully alive, exceedingly great, standing on their feet — knowing their God.

God's Own Interpretation

God does not leave Ezekiel — or us — to guess at the meaning. Verse 11 — These bones are the whole house of Israel. The valley is the Diaspora. The bones are the Jewish people scattered across the nations. The regathering to the land is Stage 1. The Spirit entering is Stage 2. And verse 14 — Then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it.

The regathering itself — even in its current incomplete state — is God's self-authentication. He is putting His name on it. He is saying — watch this. Watch what I do with the people the dragon could not destroy. Watch the bones come together. Watch Stage 1. And then watch what I do next.

The Urgency

The dragon is enraged — which means his time is short. The bones are assembled — which means Stage 1 is underway. We are living between Stage 1 and Stage 2 — between the physical regathering and the spiritual awakening — in the most prophetically significant generation since the first century. The stage is set. The bones are standing. And the breath is coming.

CLOSING

The Dragon Lost Before He Started

I want to take you back to where we started this morning. Genesis 3:15. A garden. A serpent. A curse. And a promise — the Seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head.

From that moment the dragon has been running one strategy — destroy the lineage, prevent the Seed, abort the prophetic calendar, survive the judgment. And for 4,000 years he has failed. Pharaoh failed. Haman failed. Herod failed. Hitler failed. And every instrument the dragon has raised up against Israel in our generation will fail too — because the God who made the promise in Genesis 3:15 is the same God who is assembling the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.

The dragon's rage is real. The hatred is real. The war is real. But the outcome was decided in the Garden before the war began. The Seed came. The cross happened. The head was bruised. And the final crushing is coming — when Jesus returns, when all Israel is saved, when the dragon is bound and thrown into the lake of fire, and when every covenant God ever made is fulfilled to the last word.

The dragon lost before he started. He just has not accepted it yet.

Application

Stand with Israel

You cannot be antisemitic and be biblical. To align yourself with the hatred of Jewish people is to align yourself with the dragon's strategy. To love Jewish people — to pray for them, stand against their persecution, and share the gospel with them — is to align yourself with the covenant purposes of God.

Read the News with Biblical Lenses

Every headline about Israel is a data point on the prophetic map. The nations aligning against Jerusalem — Zechariah 12:3. The fury directed at a people who should not matter this much by any secular measure — Revelation 12:17. The survival of Israel against every odd — Genesis 12:3. You have a category for all of it now. Use it.

Share the Gospel with Urgency

Stage 2 is coming. The breath is coming. The Spirit will be poured out on national Israel. All Israel will be saved. But between now and then — the fullness of the Gentiles has a number. Every person you share the gospel with moves that number closer to completion. The bones are assembled. The fig tree is budding. The clock is running. Do not waste the time you have in the gap.

ANTICIPATE THESE OBJECTIONS

"Isn't connecting antisemitism to Satan just avoiding the real political issues?"

The supernatural diagnosis does not remove the responsibility to evaluate political actions on their own moral terms — those are separate questions. The point is that the irrational, disproportionate, historically persistent hatred of Jewish people as a people cannot be fully explained by political grievance alone. Antisemitism targets Jewish people as Jewish — across every culture, every century, every economic condition. That consistency has a supernatural explanation that no purely political framework has ever adequately provided.

"Ezekiel 37 was fulfilled in the Babylonian return."

The Babylonian return was from one nation involving tens of thousands. Ezekiel 36:24 says all countries. Isaiah 11:11 says the four corners of the earth. The modern regathering involves millions from every continent. God's own interpretation in 37:11 describes a people saying our hope is lost, we are cut off — language far more fitting of post-Holocaust Jewish people than of Babylonian exiles who had Jeremiah's 70-year promise and knew exactly when they were going home.

"If Israel is secular how can the regathering be from God?"

Ezekiel 36–37 anticipates this directly. Stage 1 — physical regathering — precedes Stage 2 — spiritual awakening — by design. The secular character of modern Israel is not evidence against prophetic fulfillment. It is embedded in the prophetic sequence. The bones come together before the breath enters. The secular state is Stage 1. Stage 2 is coming.

"The woman in Revelation 12 is Mary — not Israel."

Mary cannot be the woman because the woman is persecuted during the Tribulation — after the child is caught up to God (v. 5). Mary is not the subject of Tribulation persecution. The imagery is drawn from Genesis 37 — Joseph's dream — which John's Jewish audience would have recognized immediately as a reference to Israel. The woman is Israel. The child is Jesus. The identification is made by the text itself.