Boasting against the branches at the Feast of Esther

The coming week ushers in the worldwide celebration of Purim (the Feast of Lots). A Persian plot to destroy the Jewish people, hatched in the prideful heart of Haman, nearly led to the genocide of the entire people of Israel. Its murderous machinations were foiled by the hand of an almost invisible God. This is laid out poetically in the Book of Esther.

A modern-day Persian plot (hatched in the same country, now called Iran) to destroy the Jewish people and their state with nuclear weapons is afoot, and media headlines trumpet a clash between America’s President Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu over this issue. The spat is over the latter’s acceptance of an invitation to address both Houses of Congress regarding the clear and present danger of a potential default deal allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons against Israel or other pro-Western allies (including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc).

Just before WWII, Western nations gruffly stated that the Jewish people were acting like a troublesome little boy; that the Jewish people didn’t know what is good for them; that they were only thinking about themselves; that their focus was skewed and overstated; and that the Jewish people’s cries of warning were unwarranted and would only offend other nations in the region.

Six million casualties later, the present leadership in Israel is willing to take the chance of similar international rebuke, if by any possible means Iran’s march toward nuclear holocaust can be stopped.

There are troubling parallels between Western secular anti-Israel attitudes then, and the present attitudes of some modern Evangelicals to the Jewish people and their state-in-the-process-of-restoration. This newsletter examines some of these dynamics.

The three N-words

As Western society’s social and spiritual fabric unwinds, it is not surprising that similar deconstruction is happening regarding Christian worldviews about Israel. Biblical warm-heartedness has given way to lukewarm toleration. The flavor of the decade is now Replacement Theology, Marxist Liberation Theology and the BDS movement (a Nazi-like political movement to boycott the Jewish state, to pressure companies to pull out their investments in Israel, and to bring economic sanctions against Israel until Jerusalem is divided and a Palestinian state is established in the biblical heartland).

Other Evangelicals increase the distance between themselves and the Jewish people and hide their sympathy for Jewish restoration, in a mistaken and misplaced desire to curry favor with anti-Jewish Muslim countries. In this they are coming into spiritual alignment with Israel’s enemies.

The three bullet points of a presently occurring Evangelical slide into anti-Jewish apostasy can be crystallized by three words, all beginning with the letter “N” –

Negative paradigms
Neo-Colonialism
Narcissism

Negative paradigms

This simplistic anti-Semitic perspective sees anything “Christian” as good, and anything “Jewish” as bad. “Jewish” becomes a synonym for evil, for unbelief, for deniers of God’s truth, and for those who choose Satan over God.

The medieval, patristic and modern roots of this paradigm can be explored in:

“The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism,” (Joshua Trachtenberg; JPS, 1933)
“The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Anti-Semitism” (Edward H. Flannery, MacMillan, 1965)
“Jews and Money: The Myths and the Reality” (Gerald Krefetz, Ticknor & Fields, 1982)

This pathological identification of the Jews as a nation genetically opposed to both the prophets and the Gospel is also very much part and parcel of an Islamist worldview. It forgets that the prophets and Yeshua were also Jews, as were their original followers and writers of Scripture. This negative paradigm sees the Jewish people as the black sheep of the Bible.

This perspective has room for the Jewish people in their eschatology only as “victim” (at the very least), and for the Jewish people as the personification of the anti-Christ (at the very most)

It is not unusual for anti-Semitic language and attitudes to hitch a ride on such beliefs. “Jews are good with money”; “Jews control the banks and Hollywood”; “Jews are clannish and only care about themselves” – I have heard such statements for decades by well-meaning Evangelicals who have no idea how deeply the venom of anti-Semitism has seeped into the aquifers of their own Evangelical thought processes.

Sometimes these attitudes bear a toxic fruit which denies that God’s hand and favor is on the Jewish people in their present and prophetic restoration to the land of Israel.

Neither the wars of 1948 (which re-established the Jewish state after 2,00 years of exile), 1967 (which united Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty) or 1973 (when 21 Arab countries, as well as Russians, Cubans, North Vietnamese and Iraqis united to try to destroy the Jewish state) make an intellectual, moral or theological dent on these cool and crisp hearts. There seems to be eschatological room only for Israel’s decimation and destruction. There is certainly no rejoicing or hopeful expectation in these hearts regarding God’s present-day raising up of Israel to be His mighty army (see Ezekiel 37:9-10; Isaiah 41:14-16).

Regrettably, these above attitudes would typically fit the description of an abusive father who shows little affection for his firstborn son and whose favor can only be accessed after a severe beating. This less-than-biblical caricature of a biblical God has become a stronghold of the enemy within the body of Messiah. It severely impedes opening one’s heart to the Jewish people, and it dams up reservoirs of God’s living waters from reaching other believing hearts.

Neo-Colonialism

Years ago Rudyard Kipling (of later “Jungle Book” fame) talked about “the white man’s burden.” The word picture here is of a British explorer in a white pith helmet slashing his way through the African jungle as he makes the dark continent safe for colonial exploitation. The denigrating and condescending attitude evinced by Spanish, Portuguese, French and British conquistadores can also be reflected in the way some Evangelicals relate to Israel and the Jewish people.

Recent examples of such attitudes can be seen in some Christian conferences held in Israel or about Israel where Jewish spokesmen are either absent, only make a token appearance, or are told to tone down their message. The unspoken attitude is often, “We Gentile believers know that Messianic Jews are unbalanced in their approach. Jews need to learn from our deep Gentile insight into the Jewish people. We Gentile believers, however, have next to nothing to learn from them about the Jewish people, Jewish sensitivities, and the perspectives of the Jews who wrote the Scriptures. Besides, if we seem too chummy with Jews, we may lose our access to the Arab and Islamic world.” Sometuimes it seems as if some of these movements want to ‘plant their flag’ in ‘the Holy Land’ and want to ‘stake a claim” of spiritual territory in Israel for their own movement – kind of like how Columbus claimed the New World for Isabella the Queen of Spain.

A mutation of this can be seen in the association between some Evangelicals and Palestinian Christians of the pro-BDS and pro-Liberation theology streams. Smiling benignly down at Messianic Jews and Evangelical Christians (who believe that God is the Prime Mover behind the restoration of the Jewish people to their land), these neo-colonialist Evangelicals seductively insinuate that belief in the restoration of Israel is simply one way of looking at events – it is only one ‘narrative’ and certainly not an exclusive biblical one. Those who support the Jewish people’s restoration are actually primitive and propagandistic, they claim.

Yet a study of Judges 11:12-18 shows that Jephthah the Judge rejected this position as an outright falsehood. His response was clear – no compromising of the truth; no prostituting one’s inheritance for short-term political favor; no sharing of YHVH’s glory with the Temple of Dagon (1 Samuel 5).

God’s priority calling of the Jewish people and His gifts to them (which include the land, the chosen peoplehood, the international priority, the covenants, etc) are non-refundable and eternally irrevocable (Romans 11:28-29).

Narcissism

In the movie “Snow White” the Evil Queen asks the classic narcissistic question, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” As long as the answer was, “You, Your Majesty” all was right in the world. But when the answer turned out to be Snow White, the Queen was filled with Haman-like jealousy and proceeded to arrange a targeted hit on the fair maiden.

Interestingly, in the Scroll of Esther, Haman’s undoing was connected to such a narcissistic condition. “So Haman came in and the king said to him, “’What is to be done for the man whom the king desires to honor?’ And Haman said to himself, ‘Whom would the king desire to honor more than me?’” (Esther 6:6).

Sometimes the Bride of Christ spends too much time looking at herself in the mirror, and finds a green-tinged jealousy rising up within her breast when the subject of Israel is raised. “What? Am I not the fairest in the land?” she says in a voice trembling with outrage. God’s irrevocable calling of Israel and abiding love for her, to speak frankly, makes some Evangelicals insecure. As a result, though some Evangelicals may accept that the Bible teaches a Jewish priority (Romans 1:16; 2:5-11; 3:1-2; 9:1-5, etc.), there is an accompanying attitude among some that can only be described as begrudging. “That all may be true, but don’t ask me to get excited about it!”

Yet is not true love that which seeks the good of the beloved? Every healthy father wants his own children to surpass his own achievements. Is the Body of Messiah interested in Israel coming back into her place of favor and possibly even surpassing the Gentiles in their connection with the God of Israel (see Zechariah 8:22-23)? When we meet a Jewish person, do we recognize that we are standing in the presence of royalty – in the presence of a people made royal (Isaiah 60:16; 62:3; 60:11,16) by their connection to their Royal King (the One who has ‘INRI/King of the Jews’ written on His cross)?

Some Evangelicals do know how to behave in a seeker-sensitive way to Gentiles in the Western world, even to the point of expressing patriotic fervor or of soft-peddling the need for repentance from national sins. Yet when it comes to Israel, these same people feel no need to “speak tenderly to Jerusalem” (Isaiah 40:1-2). Instead, they preach of a gospel of destruction, exile, imprisonment and national collapse.

The priority calling that God has graciously granted to the Jewish people demands a heart-response of obedience, and not a lifted eyebrow of unbelief and prideful arrogance. God still abhors a scornful and prideful heart (Proverbs 8:13; 21:24).

For such a time as this?

Mordecai challenged Esther regarding standing up for her own people in the courts of power. Yes, it could cost Esther her own life, but “who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14-15).

How shall we then pray?

In the same way, we who follow Israel’s Messiah and King Yeshua need to all ask ourselves:

Why are we alive at this point in time
What can we do in prayer and in action to stand with and for the Jewish people in their time of distress and need
How can we pray for the Jewish people’s safety and salvation
How we can pray for our own country’s leadership (governmentally and spiritually) for clear revelation, understanding and courage regarding the Jewish people, the apple of God’s eye
Ask God to bring down the hand raised to destroy Israel (Esther 9; Jeremiah 30:16-17)

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do!

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

Donations can also be made on-line (by PayPal) through: www.davidstent.org

Marrying the anti-Israel spirit

“The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills, into shadow. How did it come to this?” (Théoden’s soliloquy before the Battle of Helm’s Deep, www.councilofelrond.com/subject/the-two-towers-2/).

As the light fades in the West, as the world totters on the cusp of darkness, it is imperative that we understand the times and be prepared for the challenges coming quickly down the pike. It was said of the warriors in Issachar’s ancient tribe, that they were “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (see 1 Chronicles 12:32) (וּמִבְּנֵ֣י יִשָּׂשכָ֗ר יֹודְעֵ֤י בִינָה֙ לַֽעִתִּ֔ים לָדַ֖עַת מַה־יַּעֲשֶׂ֣ה יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל ).

As some rage against the dying of the light, it helps to remember Gandalf’s words of wisdom:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us” (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring page 50).

The shadow of “that hyddeous strength”

C.S. Lewis once referred to the satanic power behind the Tower of Babel rebellion (using an Old English phrase) as “the shadow of that hideous strength.” Today that shadow casts its pall over Western society, advocating a new and darker world vision. The sleight-of-hand transmogrification of traditional and biblical marital relationships has led to a rapid unwinding of the social fabric. The strident dictatorship of politically correct perspectives on subjects as diverse as Islamic jihad (on one hand) and homosexual practices (on the other) has brought about a dumbing down of intelligent discourse, a slavishness among the intelligentsia, and a castrating of intelligence services.

The simultaneous mushrooming of anti-Semitism, anti-Israel activities and anti-Christian attacks (especially in the Muslim world, though also in the West) is unparalleled in recent years. The last few times these have been manifested with such coldness of heart would be during the eras of Hitler and Mohammed.

The road ahead may be less travelled, but it also has some dramatic bumps. Here are some thoughts from Bob Dylan and other Jewish men carried along by the spirit of prophecy:

“Well, the howling wolf will howl tonight, the king snake will crawl. Trees that’ve stood for a thousand years suddenly will fall. Wanna get married? Do it now! Tomorrow all activity will cease. You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace” (“Man of Peace” - words & music Bob Dylan © 1983 by Special Rider Music)

“You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the Day of YHVH” (Ezekiel 13:5)

“The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows, yet they turned back in the day of battle” (Psalm 78:9)

“So it came about on the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and his son Jonathan” (1 Samuel 13:22)

The importance of speaking clearly and not of stuttering is paramount today, especially concerning Israel and the Jewish people. Unfortunately, the transformation of significant swaths of Evangelicalism reveals that, in this regard, not all is well in Protestant Christianity.

Making way for Hitler

In the 1920’s and 1930’s Western industrialists quickly became aware of the ability to make a killing by investing in the ascending Nazi military-industrial complex. Such notables as Wall Street attorneys Allen and John Foster Dulles (later of FBI and CIA fame), Standard Oil king Nelson Rockefeller and other magnates bet heavily on Hitler, creating massive financial pipelines to supply the Nazi juggernaut.

An exhaustive analysis of these activities is found in “The Secret War against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People” (John Loftus and Mark Aarons, St. Mark’s Griffin, 1997; www.amazon.com/The-Secret-War-Against-Jews/dp/0312156480). Even after World War II was joined, arrangements were made to continue oil and financial connections through shell companies in other non-aligned countries. As Germany began to lose the war, alternate arrangements were made to transfer investments to South American dictatorships, and then after a hiatus of ten or so years, to reinvest in the rebuilding of modern German industry.

The window panes of ethical considerations involved in trafficking with the enemy were obscured by the greasy film of greed and power. Though the Jewish people were the first casualty, the blowback of terrifying world war soon became the portion of the entire Western world.

Today similar dynamics are occurring in broad daylight, detailed on the internet and international media. Western countries have flocked, pushed and shoved to be first in line, drooling to invest in oil-rich Islamic countries. Former CIA case officer Robert Baer’s observations as an insider in this world made a good book (“Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold our Soul for Saudi Crude”; Three Rivers Press, 2004), which was later reworked into a less accurate movie (Syriana, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, 2005).

Once more with feeling

Whereas Western bankers once supported Hitler, today they support many of the prime bankrollers of world terrorism. One of many examples is Qatar. The following link details this involvement (www.stopqatarnow.com/p/letters.html?m=1).

Jihadi terror armies like Hamas, Boko Haram, ISIS and al-Nusra receive generous and open support from this Islamic country. News organizations Al Jazeera (founded by Qatar) and CNN have rather chummy relationships here as well. Companies such as ExxonMobil, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are prime trading partners with this regime. American universities and Foundations such as Harvard, Georgetown, Cornell, Texas A & M, the Brookings Institute are much involved with Qatar and Qatari funding. Miramax and Bank of America have also received significant funding from Qatar. At least one American ex-President, one ex-Vice-President and one perhaps future President have all garnered significant financial benefits from their post officio connections with Qatar. The USA has two massive military bases in Qatar: al-Udeid, the home of CENTCOM for the region, and as-Sayliyah, the largest pre-positioning base outside the continental United States. Qatar supports the main preacher of the Muslim Brotherhood (Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi) and grants him a weekly television audience of 80 million viewers in the Islamic world, where he calls for jihad against Israel.

And Qatar is not the only country involved at this level. Baer’s book reveals extensive and nearly incestuous connections between Islamic oil kleptocracies, the US “oil bidness”, the US State Department and US intelligence agencies.

At this moment significant pressure is being brought to bear on Western governments to open up profitable financial markets and spheres of influence in Iran and so achieve a new “Munich agreement” with her. One trifling by-product of such a “Chamberlain Agreement” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain) would be allowing the Shi’te Islamic Republic to rapidly actualize nuclear weapons and target them jihad-style at Israel and the Jewish people.

As in the days of Adolf, so in our day pressure is being brought to bear to cut out the tongues of the warning shepherds, while paving the contingencies for a new Jewish Holocaust.

The parallels between the Western world in the 1930’s and today’s military-industrial-university complex is striking. The situation is quite serious. Pray for God to frustrate the plans of the enemy here, for revelation and clear thinking and courage to be given to all the middle-men in this process, and for God’s heart for the Jewish people to be made manifest by those believers who want to obey His word.

Evangelicals aping the world

The spiritual malaise described above is not limited to wealthy power-brokers. There are manifestations of a similar and serious spiritual sickness in some streams of the Evangelical world. As Isaiah remarked in another context, “The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is nothing sound in it – only bruises, welts and raw wounds” (Isaiah 1:5-6).

The same cup of poison already drunk by the Western world regarding the abandonment of traditional and biblical views of marriage and human life is being proffered to church-goers by many Christian church leaders. We have witnessed the rise of a movement within Evangelicalism which sneers, scorns and smirks at Israel while advocating Replacement theology and BDS (Boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Jewish state).

Back in the 1930’s there were official Evangelical movements in Nazi Germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Christians) which advocated boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, and called for Germans to divest themselves of the Jews as equal citizens. The Deutche Christen group called for Jews to be forced to wear yellow stars, to be ghettoized, and for Jesus to be recreated as an Aryan. Gerhard Kittel (of Theological Dictionary of the New Testament fame; www.christianbook.com/theological-dictionary-the-new-testament-volumes/9780802871428/pd/2324) was one of their outstanding spokesmen and theologians.

The Palestinian Christian dimension of the anti-Israel spirit

In recent years Liberation theology (violent Marxist revolution in Christian drag) has been openly embraced by Arab Palestinian theologians like ex-Anglican Canon Naim Ateek (www.sabeel.org/), while a spokesman connected to supposed reconciliation groups in Israel as well as to a Palestinian Bible college speaks unreservedly of the “resistance,” using the same Arabic word (al-Muqāwamah) as does Hamas to describe their own terrorist attacks (الاسلامية or Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, or “Islamic Resistance Movement”).

A large seeker-sensitive church in the American Mid-West has leadership which publically advocates anti-Israel positions. A large youth ministry in England recently canceled the yearly participation of a Christian pro-Israel organization’s booth out of concern about appearing too friendly to the Jewish people and state during the recent Gaza War. Boycotting Jews and the Jewish state is once again in vogue, even in polite company.

It is grievous to see a recent book written in Israel but published elsewhere, which depicts the restoration of the Jewish people to their Promised Land not as a fulfilment of prophecy, but as simply a problematic narrative which runs afoul of the Palestinian Islamist narrative. This downplaying of Israel’s restoration because it does not fit in with PC (political correctness) is a sign of things to come. Under the guise of advocating tolerance and allowing freedom of speech to ‘conflicting narratives,’ these writers have given the works and words of YHVH equal billing to Middle Eastern idols in the Temple of Dagon (1 Samuel 5:2-7).

It is worth remembering that in Judges 11:12-18 Jephthah the Judge simply did not accept or tolerate the Ammonite anti-Israel “narrative.” Instead, he gave Israel’s enemies a history lecture – and this as a prelude to Middle Eastern war. Though modern PC tolerance has no room for biblical Jephthahs, let us remember that “victory belongs to YHVH” (Proverbs 21:31).

When Evangelicals proclaim their commitment to a biblical heart for Israel, while simultaneously giving place to the narrative of Israel’s enemies and allowing them a platform to influence believers, this indicates that a political spirit has been given permission to influence the counsel of godly men

No compromise

In these days of compromise, false dealing and outright anti-Semitism, it is important that prophetic voices speak out.

“Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp? For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air” (1 Corinthians 14:7-9)

Some challenges to those who affirm that they stand with the Jewish people, yet distance themselves from a full, open-hearted and unfeigned embrace of Israel:

“Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously, says YHVH of armies” (Malachi 2:16)
“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12)
“Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come” (Mark 13:33)

Now is the time to recommit to being a brave heart for God, a friend faithful to Israel even unto death – like Ruth was to Naomi and her people (Ruth 1:16-18).

“No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4).

Bob Dylan reminds us in his inscrutable way that, on the battlefield, embracing the cross can be the key to winning the battle: “There’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door. You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars after losin’ every battle” (“Idiot Wind”, words and music by Bob Dylan, © 1974 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2002 by Ram’s Horn Music).