“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper” (Isaiah 54:17)

The Sabbath murder of eleven Jewish men and women in Pittsburgh caught many by surprise. Robert Bowers, a 46 year old neo-Nazi racist who posted anti-Jewish and anti-Trump conspiracy theories on the web, walked in to the Tree of Life-Or L’simcha synagogue in the Squirrel Hill district and unloaded clips from a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun at Jewish worshipers, while yelling out “All Jews must die!” and other anti-Jewish curses. He murdered 4 people in the main sanctuary and then moved up toward the Rabbi’s study on the next floor, where he shot 4 others.

Three different Jewish congregations were each conducting their own services in the facility at the time, with nearly 100 gathered in the building. A family was having a bris (circumcision ceremony), bringing their eight-day old baby boy into the Covenant of Abraham according to Genesis 21:3-5 and publicly announcing his name for the first time.

Police and SWAT teams attempted to rescue the congregants. Four policemen were injured by Bowers’ gunfire, one critically. The gunman was moderately injured by return fire and eventually was apprehended by law enforcement units.

How can we make any sense out of the travesty of these eleven murders?

Main Street USA

Squirrel Hill is a quiet largely Jewish community in Pittsburgh. Its graceful trees and brick homes give way to small storefronts, including Judaica bookstores, synagogues and temples. My wife and I were married many years ago only a few blocks away from where these murders took place. The host of children’s television program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Fred Rogers lived in Squirrel Hill, three blocks away from Tree of Life. He would attend Sixth Presbyterian Church, a ten-minute walk from there.

This attack is the largest mass casualty event involving Jewish people in the U.S. (https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/27/us/jewish-hate-crimes-fbi/index.html) apart from 9/11, although many Jews were murdered in Manhattan that day. The Twin Towers terror attack was jihad-motivated violence directed against Americans as a whole.

The rise of hate crimes against America’s Jewish population is a real and present danger.

Half of all USA hate crimes target Jewish people.

Anti-Jewish hate crimes increased by 60% in 2017. There were 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents reported across the United States in 2017, a 57% increase over 2016’s 1,267 incidents. Incidents were reported in all 50 states for the first time in at least a decade (www.adl.org/news/press-releases/anti-semitic-incidents-surged-nearly-60-in-2017-according-to-new-adl-report).

Going back one year to 2016, religious bias hate crimes were directed with priority against Jews [54.2%] and only then Muslims [24.8%] (https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2016/topic-pages/incidentsandoffenses).

Instigators of these hate crimes can be found in jihadi-influenced communities, in neo-Nazi, White Power and Christian Identity streams, in Black supremacist and Black Power movements, and in anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movements. They can be found on the edges of most political parties in the USA.

Anti-Semitism is not theologically neutral

Zechariah the prophet reveals an astounding spiritual experience that he had on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. “He showed me Joshua the High Priest standing before the Angel of YHVH, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. YHVH said to Satan, ‘YHVH rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, YHVH who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?’” (Zechariah 3:1-2).

On the most solemn day of the Jewish calendar, Satan appears before the God of Israel, accusing Joshua the Kohen Gadol as he pleads with YHVH for Israel’s forgiveness and atonement. The God of Jacob describes Himself here as ‘YHVH who has chosen Jerusalem.’ The satanic accusations and physical attacks against the Jewish people (whom God has chosen irrevocably – see Romans 11:28-29) actually underscore the validity of Israel’s divine chosen status.

An attack on the Jewish people is satanically based, and is simultaneously an attack on the name and reputation of YHVH the God of the Exodus

Shooting into the eye of God

From the Biblical perspective, the most important issue about someone who attacks the Jewish people is not necessarily his or her religious or political beliefs. Zechariah directly quotes the God of Israel on this matter: “For thus says YHVH or armies, ‘After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye’” (Zechariah 3:1-2).

This is the common spiritual thread between:

a Hamas terrorist who explodes a bomb on an Israeli bus
a neo-Nazi who sprays automatic fire in a synagogue
a leader of an African-American movement described Jews as “the so-called Jews are not Jews, but are Satanic people” (https://thejewishvoice.com/2018/05/30/nation-islam-leader-louis-farrakhan-ratchets-anti-semitism-latest-rant/) or “Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit” (www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Farrakhan-compares-Jews-to-termites-says-Jews-are-stupid-569627)

Spiritual warfare is being waged by Satan (Hebrew for ‘the accuser’) against the people whom God has chosen to declare His praises (Isaiah 43:21). These attacks show that this anti-Jewish warfare is increasing, and even Main Street USA is not exempt from this monster.

The spiritual and moral foundations of America have been slowly eaten away over the decades by a departure from godly behavior and a descent into corrupt ethics. The original hope that God would shed His grace on America has been overshadowed by a materialistic and narcissistic culture which has relegated the God of Jacob to the back seat of the car. This out of control vehicle is careening around dangerous corners. The people of the God of Jacob are feeling the encroaching threat.

The theology of contempt leads to the practice of murder

The Squirrel Hill murderer filled his web postings with vicious screed against Jews, Trump and many other targets. He even quoted from the Gospel of John (8:44), “You are of your father the devil,” blusteringly concealing his deadly racism behind the twisting of Scripture. In that passage Yeshua speaks warmly of the Jewish people who followed Him and believed in Him (verses 30-31), and of the many Jewish people who eagerly heard and accepted His teachings (8:2).

But Robert Bowers had evidently picked up anti-Jewish perspectives which float around some Christian circles, whether it was Replacement Theology or the medieval ‘deicide charge’ – what Dr. Jules Isaac has called ‘The Teaching of contempt: the Christian roots of anti-Semitism” (www.amazon.com/teaching-contempt-Christian-roots-anti-Semitism/dp/B0007DNNKO). See also Father Edward Flannery’s “The Anguish of the Jews” (www.amazon.com/Anguish-Jews-Twenty-Three-Centuries-Antisemitism/dp/0809143240).

In his own day Hitler referenced Martin Luther in justifying the Nazi genocidal campaign against the Jews:

In a similar way, Bowers probably made place in his heart and mind for satanic lies which came embedded in whatever Christian teaching he had been exposed to, whether in a church setting or in neo-Nazi meetings.

The birthpangs of the Messiah

Some rabbis describe a future time before the coming of Messiah as ‘the birth pangs of Messiah’ (hevlei Mashiach; see TB Sanhedrin 98b, TB Shabbat 118a). They are probably reflecting what Messiah Yeshua had spoken of centuries earlier in Matthew 24 (see verses 3-14):

“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold… But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs” (Matthew 24:12, 8)

The increase of lawlessness combined with the growing coldness of men’s and women’s hearts indicate that these prophesied days are coming upon us. The spread of anti-Jewish hatred and hatred of the Jewish state are two solid benchmark indicators of these times.

Yeshua encouraged us about these days: “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).

Sifted but not consumed

Moses and Amos spoke prophetically about Jewish history, declaring that Jacob’s children would go into Exile and undergo harsh judgment among the nations (see Deuteronomy 28:15-68; Amos 9:8-10). Yet even after these terrible events, YHVH would regather His people and return them to their Promised Land (Amos 9:14-15). The Jewish people have been scattered across the face of the globe (James 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1), from the Amazon to America, and from Canada to China. This is not just a Diaspora, a Dispersion; it is truly an Exile (Deuteronomy 30:1-6). Even the wonders and comforts of America are coming to an end. It is time for Jacob’s children to start lifting their eyes to Zion.

A weaponized promise

“YHVH is a man of war; YHVH is His name” (Exodus 15:3). The God of Jacob is a defender of His people (see Isaiah 59:15-20). His warlike return to Jerusalem is described with strong prose in Zechariah 14:3-9. The Day of the Lord will be a day that causes the enemies of Israel to tremble, and there won’t be anywhere to hide.

In that day, the promise God gave to the Jewish people will be fully realized: “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper, and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of YHVH, and their vindication is from Me, declares YHVH” (Isaiah 54:17).

We are not yet in the fullness of that day. There are still many birth pangs to endure. Let us run the marathon, in prayer, in intercession, in standing with the Jewish people and standing up for the Jewish state as the darkening clouds gather.

How should we then pray?

Pray that the God of Jacob would bring to naught all plans crafted against the Jewish people
Pray that all intelligence and security forces involved would find and neutralize such perpetrators
Pray that the Jewish people would be kept safe from those who would destroy us
Pray for an outpouring of revelation and salvation upon the lost sheep of the House of Israel
Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s army speedily and in our day

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

Healing the wounds – Messianic Judaism’s intercessory challenge

Without question, the predominantly Gentile body of Messiah has much to learn from the Messianic Jewish movement. It is said that “a text without a context is a pretext.” The Jewish foundations of the Messianic faith are the fundamental floor on which the Christian world stands. To sidestep the existence of this floor leads to instability, unrootedness, sapping of strength and of spiritual integrity. The ‘as-we-speak’ restoration of the remnant of Israel to the Messiah of Israel is not only a prophetic sign; it is an absolutely essential step toward ‘life from the dead’ for both the body of Messiah and for the whole world (see Romans 11:15).

But at the same time, not all is well in some eddies of the Messianic Jewish movement. Wounds of rejection have chiseled and sculpted aspects of our developing theology and practice. A few of these wounds have become infected, and the resulting bitter fruit has helped to skew some emphases in this promising and prophetic movement.

A deeper understanding of these dynamics can help intercessors as they labor in prayer and travail for Messianic Jewish healing and restoration. Let’s look at a few of these issues together.

“Even paranoid people can have real enemies”

Golda Meir was said to have directed this snappy response to US Secretary of State Kissinger’s snipe during the 1973 post-Yom Kippur War negotiations. Truth is, many Jewish people have a long historical memory, and history has deposited at our doorstep a long list of persecutors and genocidal tyrants. The terrible words of Deuteronomy 28:15-68 have echoed time and again throughout Jewish history.

One of the great scholars of Jewish History, Professor Salo W. Baron (Nathan L. Miller Professor of Jewish History, Literature and Institutions at Columbia University) asked students to be careful not to view Jewish history as consisting only of persecution and tears (the “lachrymose conception” of Jewish history; https://jewsandjudaism.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/baronghettoandemancipation.pdf).

Baron stated in the early 1940’s (when Hitler’s killing machines were operating at full throttle) that anti-Semitism was on the decline and that mass destruction of the Jewish people was an impossibility – on the grounds that technology favored migratory movements. Robert Liberles (David Berg and Family Chair in European History at Ben Gurion University, Beersheva) suggests that Baron’s view of history might have blurred his ability to accurately perceive Holocaust events (“A Conversation about Salo Baron between Robert Liberles and Steven J. Zipperstein,” Jewish Social Studies 1, no. 3 (1995): pp. 66–82).

It is important for us all to be realists about Jewish history. Though we have prospered in the lands of our Exile, most of these sojourns ended in persecutions, torture, murder and banishment. These cold truths can easily cast a paranoid shadow over even the stoutest of souls. But the words of the Psalmist bring courage to trembling hearts:

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting” (Psalm 126:5)
“For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, But in the morning – a joyous shout!” (Psalm 30:5)

“When father and mother reject me…”

The Jewish people have experienced rejection from the nations throughout our long history, from Pharaoh’s Nile to the Nazi killing fields.

Rejection of the Jewish people’s irrevocable gifts and calling

This came at the hands of Christianity (Replacement Theology) and later at the hands of Islamic theology (which could accurately be described as ‘Double Replacement Theology’ – a rejection of Israel’s national calling and divine gift of the Promised Land ).

Rejecting the Jewish people’s physical presence

Even the champion of Western secularism – the French Revolution – advocated rejecting the Jewish people’s physical presence in France, unless Israel cut off all links to her own Hebrew nation. The Comte de Clermont–Tonnerre gave his famous “Speech on Religious Minorities and Questionable Professions” on December 23, 1789, stating, “We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals...It is repugnant to have in the state...a nation within the nation” (The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History, Lynn Hunt [Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1996], pp. 86–88; https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/284/).

Rejection through pogrom, forced immigration and assimilation

In 1894 Russian Tsar Alexander III's Minister Pobedonostsev stated the aim of the government with regard to the Jews was that “one third will perish, one third will emigrate, and one third will be completely assimilated into the surrounding population” (Russian: “Одна треть вымрет, одна выселится, одна треть бесследно растворится в окружающем населении”; https://eleven.co.il/jews-of-russia/government-society-jews/13248/).

Rejection through pogrom, forced immigration and assimilation was the Tsarist strategy (Simon Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, JPS, Philadelphia, Vol 3, p. 10).

A world history of rejecting the Jewish people

One Jewish historian of the Holocaust put it this way: “Christianity had said in effect: You have no right to live among us as Jews. The secular rulers who followed had proclaimed: You have no right to live among us. The German Nazis at last decreed: You have no right to live . . . The German Nazis, then, did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did not begin a development; they completed it” (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews; [New York: Holmes & Meier], p. 9).

God will reverse the rejection

The God of Jacob promises a total revolution in history regarding the rejection of the Jewish people:

“For You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us” (Isaiah 63:16)
“Whereas you have been forsaken and hated with no one passing through, I will make you an everlasting pride, a joy from generation to generation” (Isaiah 60:15)
“O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted... You will be far from oppression, for you will not fear, and from terror, for it will not come near you...If anyone fiercely assails you it will not be from Me. Whoever assails you will fall because of you... No weapon that is formed against you will prosper, and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of YHVH, and their vindication is from Me, declares YHVH” (Isaiah 54:11, 14-15, 17)
“For my father and my mother have rejected me, but YHVH will gather me up” (Psalm 27:10)

The rejection dynamic between Jacob and the God of Israel

God’s heart for Israel is stronger than any failure or disobedience on the Jewish people’s part:

“Moreover, I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject you. I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people” (Leviticus 26:11-12)

“Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am YHVH their God” (Leviticus 26:44)

“You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its remotest parts, and said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you’” (Isaiah 41:9)

And the word of YHVH came to Jeremiah, saying, “Have you not observed what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which YHVH chose, He has rejected them’? Thus they despise My people, no longer are they as a nation in their sight. Thus says YHVH, ‘If My covenant for day and night stand not, and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established, then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them’” (Jeremiah 33:23-26)

“I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (Romans 11:1-2)

Yet at the same time the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that throughout history a majority of Israel (including leaders, priests and commoners) have often rejected the oversight and authority of the God of Jacob, even rejecting the words of the prophets and of the Messiah Himself:

“For the land will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes” (Leviticus 26:43)

YHVH said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7)
But Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of YHVH, and YHVH has rejected you from being king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:26)

“YHVH rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them out of His sight” (2 Kings 17:20)

“Yet You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor, and do not go out with our armies” (Psalm 44:9)

“Arouse Yourself, why do You sleep, YHVH? Awake, do not reject us forever” (Psalm 44:23)

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children” (Hosea 4:6)

“The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me” (Luke 10:16)

“The Stone which the builders rejected Has become the Chief Corner Stone” (Psalm 118:22)

Even a people dealing with rejection can still reject their own

The majority of my Jewish people have unfortunately followed the guidelines set by Pharisaic leaders nearly 2,000 years ago regarding Messiah Yeshua. As a result Jews who today follow Messiah Yeshua are sometimes shunned or rejected by the broader Jewish community, though this dynamic is slowly changing in our day.

When Messianic Jews find themselves rejected and marginalized by the Orthodox Jewish community, or even by secular Jewish streams, it is often triply painful for us. Rejection by the nations, rejection by major religions, and now rejection by our own people.

Often the pain of this extreme rejection contorts our visage and distorts our discernment. We try at a high cost to avoid rejection, rebuffing and denunciation. The side-effects of this blowback are strikingly evident in certain areas of the Messianic Jewish movement.

In search of the lost Jew

A strong prophetic instinct exists among Messianic Jews to identify with and cleave to our Jewish people (see Isaiah 65:8). We are often standing alone in a no man’s land, a spiritual DMZ, between the Jewish people and Gentile Christian followers of Jesus. We are the lightning rod, and we feel the sizzling surge of current flowing through us. Isaiah spoke of a slightly different situation (dealing with Gentiles who want to stick like glue to His Jewish people), but the sentiment remains the same for many Messianic Jews: “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to YHVH say, ‘YHVH will surely separate me from His people.’ Nor let the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree”’ (Isaiah 56:3).

When we feel rejection from the larger Jewish community, some of us are at a loss what to do. How can we re-integrate? How can we live as Jews among Jews? What changes do we need to make in order to be really accepted by the broader Jewish community? What have we done wrong? How are we at fault?

Some of us look back to the vanished world of the shtetl and the ghetto. We remember ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and yearn for simpler and better days. Never mind that our parents and grandparents were thankful to leave their own tightly controlled rabbinically led communities for the greater freedom and opportunities presented in the Western world. Some in the Messianic community have taken to dressing how our great-grandparents and grandparents used to dress, praying the liturgy of the Synagogue siddur (prayer book), and defining themselves as the real remnant in Israel (as opposed to other Messianic Jews) because (they say) that they are the faithful ones who keep the Mosaic covenant and rabbinic traditions.

These perspectives have blossomed in various areas of both the Messianic and the Hebrew Roots movement. It is the rare individual who has not bumped into individuals or leaders who hold these beliefs.

Two kinds of Jews – or is it three?

The situation of Jews in Israel is somewhat different from Jews in the Exile/Diaspora. In America, for example, unless one lives in a nearly totally Jewish area like Boro Park or Skokie, one will rub shoulders with many non-Jews, and one’s Jewish identity and continuity cannot be something taken for granted. In Israel the tension of trying to hold onto and prove one’s Jewish identity is not an issue. In most cities and towns, everyone from the mailman to the milkman is Jewish. Secular Jewish identity is assumed, and 80% or more of Israeli Jews do not gravitate to an Orthodox lifestyle.

In the Diaspora, there are various choice available in the smorgasbord of Judaisms – Orthodox, Hasidic, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Humanist, Zionist in various stripes and colors, etc. So which one of these expressions is “the approved one”? Which philosophical expression of Judaism is the one that Messianic Jews “need to follow”?

It seems that the answers we give to these questions will reflect a lot about the ‘idealized image’ of religious Jewish expression we each hold to or were shaped by.

Glue for the Jew

Messianic Jews who care about their people’s continuity, and who burn for the Messianic remnant to be solidly rooted within the Jewish community, do not want to ‘crossover’ and become Gentile in lifestyle. We don’t want to move spiritually to the ‘other side of the tracks.’ What will bind us to our people as a recognizably Jewish remnant among the sons and daughters of Jacob? What will be the glue that will cause us to inseparably adhere to our own people?

Will a selective adherence to Rabbinic Judaism on our part bind us to the 80% of the Jewish people (both in Israel and in the Diaspora) – the same ones who give Orthodox Judaism a wide birth? Will the pronunciation of prayers in broken Hebrew or the repetition of medieval liturgy without sufficient understanding be the key that unlocks the hearts of the (mostly secular) Jewish people? Will we persuade Orthodox Jews in this way that we are ‘the real thing’ and ‘the true remnant’? Will our belief in Yeshua as Messiah and Immanuel (‘God with us’) now be accepted by the Jewish community because we externally look like Orthodox Jews?

Don’t ignore the obvious, child

Being able to freely choose the expression of one’s Jewish identity is a rather new phenomenon. Only with the advent of the Greek-speaking Hellenistic world (in Maccabean days circa 150 BC) did any such options appear for the Jewish people. Indeed, that very question and the religious blowback resulting was one of the main struggles in the Hanukkah revolt.

Messianic Jews will continue to hammer out their own culture and religious expressions on the anvil of Jewish life, in both Israel and the Diaspora. One of the most basic questions that we need to ask ourselves is, what is our Jewishness based on and on what authority can we fashion our national identity? Are we to turn back to the Mosaic covenant and traditional lifestyle expressions as the basis of our Jewish identity? Do the Scriptures have any guidelines for us here?

Four quick bullet-points:

In the original Messianic communities of the Book of Acts, all Jews and all Messianic Jews followed the Mosaic covenant.

And when they heard it they began glorifying God; and they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Torah" (Acts 21:20)

After three days Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews, and when they came together, he began saying to them, “Brethren, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers" (Acts 28:17)

Peter and Paul understood that keeping of the Torah (Mosaic covenant) was not enough to be justified or saved before God:

“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today.I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons” (Acts 22:3-4)

“Nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Torah but through faith in Messiah Yeshua, even we have believed in Messiah Yeshua, so that we may be justified by faith in Messiah and not by the works of the Torah; since by the works of the Torah no flesh will be justified” (Galatians 2:16)

“But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, ‘If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” (Galatians 2:14)

“Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10)

Paul taught that Jewish believers are no longer under the tutelage of the Mosaic Torah:

“What I am saying is this: the Torah, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.For if the inheritance is based on Torah, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise… But before faith came, we were kept in custody under Torah, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Torah has become our tutor (Greek, παιδαγωγὸς / paidagogos – a custodian who brings a child from his safe home to the school and then home again) to lead us to Messiah, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:17, 23-25)

The New Covenant is described as a distinctly new covenant (and not a renewed Mosaic covenant)

“Behold, days are coming, declares YHVH, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares YHVH” (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

How should we then pray?

Pray that any wounds of rejection in our Messianic Jewish family will be healed
Pray that a divine restoration of healthy Jewish identity will blossom among Messianic Jews
Pray that those Messianic leaders who need it, would receive a revelation of these realities and respond in obedience
Pray for Gentile believers everywhere to receive biblical and Spirit-breathed revelation about these matters
Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s army speedily and in our day

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

Egypt and the Feast of Tabernacles – bumps in the prophetic road

The end of Sukkot (the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles) is upon us. In a few hours Israeli families will be taking down their family sukkah (or makeshift booth), pitching out the palm branches and storing away the linens for another year. Many thousands of Christian pilgrims who flew to Jerusalem from all the nations of the planet and attended colorful conferences will be boarding their jet planes and heading home.

One of the much-loved passages which motivates many of these pilgrims is Zechariah 14:16-19. Verse 16 is the prime focus here: “Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, YHVH of armies, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths.” There are some interesting nuggets in these four verses which may be surprising to some of us. Let’s unpack them now.

Future friends are present enemies

The prophetic context for these wonderful international pilgrimages is actually grim. “For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered…” (Zechariah 14:2).

In the midst of this intense ‘Lord of the Rings’ battle (described in greater detail in Zechariah 12:1-9), “all the nations of the earth will be gathered against” Jerusalem (12:3).
God’s purpose for the battle is trumpeted: “In that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem” (12:9).
All the nations of the world without exception will attack the Jewish state: “All the nations of the earth will be gathered against” Jerusalem (12:3b).
God’s sovereign plan will be to break the power of the superpowers: “It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured” (12:3a).
There will be a unique ‘twilight zone’ – a somber half-light/half-dusk – that will cover the whole earth during that intense battle: “In that day there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle. For it will be a unique day which is known to YHVH, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light” (14:6-7).
YHVH will actively intervene on behalf of the Jewish people, strengthening them with a victorious warrior anointing for the battle: “In that day YHVH will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them” (12:8).
The God of Jacob will energize the destructive power of the armies of Israel, and will lead them to victory over their belligerent neighbors: “In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot among pieces of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves, so they will consume on the right hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples” (12:6; see also the term “surrounding peoples” in Deuteronomy 25:19; Nehemiah 6:16; Ezekiel 16:57; Joel 3:11-12; Amos 3:11).
YHVH will “save the tents of Judah, the house of David and … the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (12:7).
The God of Israel will “pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn” (12:10). This will result in a national spiritual and physical cleansing for the Jewish people, including a repentant recognition and acceptance of Messiah Yeshua: “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity” (13:1).
YHVH “will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle” (14:3).
The God of Isaac will personally smite all the nations of the world who will militarily attack the Jewish state: “Now this will be the plague with which YHVH will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem: their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth. It will come about in that day that a great panic from YHVH will fall on them. And they will seize one another’s hand, and the hand of one will be lifted against the hand of another. Judah also will fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered, gold and silver and garments in great abundance. So also like this plague will be the plague on the horse, the mule, the camel, the donkey and all the cattle that will be in those camps” (14:12-15).
A brand new river will gush forth from underneath the Temple Mount, flowing down to the Dead Sea and making it come alive: “And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter” (14:8; see also Ezekiel 47:7-12).
Messiah Yeshua will personally return as Warrior King, and will rule over the nations from Jerusalem the Jewish world capital: “Then YHVH will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle.In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east… And YHVH will be king over all the earth; in that day YHVH will be the only one, and His name the only one” (14:3-4, 9).

Enemies are crushingly defeated

Zechariah’s prophesy foresees a day when the combined armies of the Arab world will be overwhelmingly defeated. As well, all the armies of the nations will meet the same fate. Those who are not entirely destroyed will submit to Messiah’s Yeshua’s rule, as both Isaiah and Paul prophesy:

“Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself – the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back – that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. They will say of Me, ‘Only in YHVH are righteousness and strength.’ Men will come to Him and all who were angry at Him will be put to shame. In YHVH all the offspring of Israel will be justified and will glory” (Isaiah 45:22-25).
“God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Yeshua every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Messiah Yeshua is YHVH (Lord), to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

When Messiah Yeshua sits on David’s throne (see 2 Samuel 3:10; 1 Kings 9:5; Psalm 122:5; Isaiah 9:7; Jeremiah 3:17; 33:17-21; Luke 1:32; Matthew 19:28; Revelation 22:16), the nations will come up to Jerusalem once a year to celebrate the third pilgrim feast (see Exodus 23:17; Ezekiel 44:24; 46:9).

This is the context of Zechariah’s Tabernacles prophecy: “Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, YHVH of armies, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths” (Zechariah 14:16).

How do you solve a problem like ‘Mizraim’?

The Hebrew word for Egypt in the Bible is Mizraim (pronounced Mitz-rah-yim). Egypt was the country chosen by God within which Israel would take shelter in Joseph’s day. It was there in the Land of Ham (see Psalm 105:23, 27) that the Jewish people increased from 70 (Genesis 46:27; Deuteronomy 10:22) to over three million (based on Numbers 2:32-33).

Egypt was the first nation which tried to commit genocide against the Jewish people (Exodus 1:22). It is described in the Bible as “the House of slavery” (Exodus 13:3) and was known for harsh and abusive treatment of Israel (Deuteronomy 26:6). It would be the country to which Israel would again be exiled in slavery (Deuteronomy 28:68), and event amazingly fulfilled in 70 A.D. It was a country steeped in idolatry, and the Ten Plagues were targeted by YHVH as a divine take-down of different Egyptian demonic powers (Exodus 12:12). It was known as a land of “harmful diseases” (Deuteronomy 7:15; 28:27). It was listed as a country of abominations along with the ten other nations of Genesis 15:19-21 (Ezra 9:1).

Egypt was also known as a country with a high state of wisdom and scientific achievement (1 Kings 4:30).

Nowhere in the Bible does the God of Israel classify Egypt as a Semitic country or as an Abrahamic country. Instead, it is a country which considered the Jewish people as aliens (Deuteronomy 23:7). Egypt’s forefather was not Shem but Ham (Genesis 10:6). The context for the “Isaiah 19 Highway” is not three Abrahamic nations or three Semitic nations. The only Abrahamic nation in Isaiah 19:24-25 is Israel.

Future Middle Eastern war

Isaiah prophesies of future battles between Egypt and the Jewish state. “The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the purpose of YHVH or armies which He is purposing against them” (Isaiah 19:17). Egypt will commemorate their own defeat and will even have five cities where Hebrew will be spoken. One of these cities will commemorate these destructive battles. “In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to YHVH of armies.” One will be called ‘the City of Destruction’” (Isaiah 19:18).

In light of this continuing enmity in many Egyptian hearts toward the Jewish people, Zechariah points out how this will play itself out even in the Days of Messiah.

“Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, YHVH of armies, and to celebrate the Feast of Sukkot. And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, YHVH of armies, there will be no rain on them. If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on them. It will be the plague with which YHVH smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Sukkot. This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Sukkot” (Zechariah 14:16-19).

From this passage it is instructive that Egypt is used as an example of a recalcitrant nation, one who has not exactly repented of its anti-Jewish heart. “This will be the punishment of Egypt” is the prophetic declaration, and it leaves room for other specific but unnamed nations in that future roster.

The solution to Egypt’s anti-Jewish heart comes through a combination of military defeat/destruction and a heart-felt repentance toward YHVH the God of the Hebrews. This principle can be applied to all nations in the world, especially to those in the Middle East. It should guide us as we intercede for the Jewish people and their surrounding neighbors.

Today and in the immediate future, the nations are turning against Israel. We are not yet at the point where the nations have repented and have embraced God’s heart for Israel and His restoration of the Jewish people

Balancing our Tabernacles vision

As all followers of Messiah Yeshua rejoice in the coming fulfilment of prophecy – especially as it applies to Sukkot/Tabernacles – we also accept the sobering context and process which will lead to that fulfilment. Not a Middle-East peace process, but a Middle-East war process. Not a ‘World Union’ or ‘United International States.’ Not a ‘Two State solution’ or ‘Oslo solution’ or ‘UN solution.’ Not a jihadi solution or a Shi’ite Crescent solution. Only through the decisive and divine defeat of Israel’s enemies, and the destruction of every weapon raised up against us will there be peace. It is within this prophetic context that the mighty Ezekiel 37 army (Ezekiel 37:9-11) will fulfil its long awaited calling.

The spiritual zenith of this glorious process will be when Israel opens her arms to Messiah Yeshua our Deliverer, Rescuer and Atonement.

How should we then pray?

Pray for the Jewish people to receive and embrace Messiah Yeshua as our Atonement and Protector
Pray for the people of Egypt to call upon the God of Israel and repent for their centuries-long hatred of Israel
Pray for the leaders of your country – that they would receive a revelation of these realities and respond in obedience
Pray for believers everywhere to receive biblical and Spirit-breathed revelation about these matters
Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s army speedily and in our day

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical 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 or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org