God came in a dream of the night

In Bible days God spoke to the patriarchs through the Hebrew prophets in many different parts of the Land and in many diverse ways (see Hebrews 1:1). On occasion, the God of Israel shared His heart with Gentiles like Pharaoh Neco (2 Chronicles 35:20-22), King Cyrus (2 Chronicles 36:22-23) and King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:34-37).

YHVH wants to speak to us too: “Indeed God speaks once, or twice, yet no one notices it. In a dream, a vision of the night, when sound sleep falls on men, while they slumber in their beds. Then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction, that He may turn man aside from his conduct, and keep man from pride. He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from passing over into Sheol” (Job 33:14-18).

It was a dream given by God to Babylon’s king that rocketed Daniel the prophet into public ministry.

The God of the Exodus shared secret intelligence from Heaven’s courts with Daniel. The prophet promptly declared that YHVH speaks directly to the hearts of men, even to Gentiles. Jacob’s God also reveals divine strategies about what He’s planning to do on the earth:

Never underestimate the power of a dream.

God still gives dreams

The Bible is Israel’s history book. It inerrantly shows us that God gives dreams to people. From Abimelech (Genesis 20:3) to Jacob (Genesis 31:10), from Laban (Genesis 31:24) to Egypt’s cupbearer and baker (Genesis 34), from Pharaoh (Genesis 41:25, 32) to the unknown Midianite soldier (Judges 7:13-15), from Joseph (Genesis 37:9-11) to Job (Job 7:14) – dreams are part of the currency of God. And He spends that currency freely on the sons and daughters of Adam.

Last Days dreams are part of God’s upcoming prophetic scenario. Joel tells us on high authority that the day is coming when YHVH will pour out His Spirit on all flesh. In that day the sons and daughters of Israel will prophesy, old Jewish men will dream dreams, and young Hebrew men will see visions (see Joel 2:28). Peter in Acts 2:15-18 declares that there is a correspondence between the promise of Joel and the power-wave of the Holy Spirit on the original Day of Shavuot (Pentecost). The God of Isaac guided Joseph (Yeshua’s step-father) by giving him five different dreams (see Matthew 1, 2). In our day YHVH continues to speak to His people through dreams. Dreams are a healthy part of our biblical and spiritual inheritance.

The three riddles

Over thirty years ago a friend of ours had an unusual dream. It came in the form of three riddles/dark sayings/prophetic parables (see Ezekiel 17:2, Numbers 12:8, Proverbs 1:6, Psalm 78:2 where riddles, prophetic parables, dark sayings, wise words and proverbs are used in similar or parallel contexts). Each of these three riddles will be explained here.

The first riddle was, “Bush went hunting for quail, but the quail was found hiding behind the bush.”

The year was 1988, and President George H.W. Bush was US President. His hobby was fishing.

Since the President was a fisherman, the meaning of the phrase ‘hunting for quail’ was puzzling. But our friend had been told that the fulfilment of each riddle would be the key to the fulfilment of the next one. Then, on August 16, 1988, at the Republican Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, George H. W. Bush announced his choice of Dan Quayle as running mate in the 1988 United States presidential election. The ‘Bush’ had indeed been hunting for ‘Quayle’ all along (see the same word play in www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/06/18/quayle-under-glass-indiana-home-town-boasts-veep-museum/81db7e74-822b-4d43-a808-28778bac37d6/).

Within a short time, however, political attacks were leveled against certain aspects of Quayle’s military record:

Bush’s choice of Dan Quayle had been a surprise to many. The resulting media pounding caused Bush to come out strongly in defense of Quayle (hence the interpretation of the last part of this first riddle – ‘the Quayle was found hiding behind the Bush’).

The second riddle

The second riddle/prophetic parable our friend was given was this: Within a year of the first riddle coming to pass, Communism would become ‘Commu-wasm.’ This play on words indicates that Communism would soon become ‘a thing of the past.’

This prophetic parable was also hard to understand.

The first riddle came to pass in August 1988. Exactly one year later in August 1989, as many as 300,000 East Germans crossed the border into Hungary, fleeing the Communist oppression of the German Democratic Republic (DDR), according to Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) official reports of August 31, 1989 (MfS, ZAIG B/215, Berlin). On September 10, these refugees were permitted to pour into West Germany. On October 4, nearly 6,000 East Germans refugees holed up in the West German embassies of Prague and Warsaw were permitted to board one-way trains to West Germany. At Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche huge ‘Prayers for Peace’ (Friedensgebete) gatherings had been taking place on Monday nights. Finally on November 9, 1989, on the 51st anniversary of Kristallnacht (the Nazi pogrom against German Jews), East Berliners flowed through the open gates of the Berlin Wall into West Berlin. Communism in East Germany had become ‘Commu-wasm.’

But even the West’s top intelligence minds were caught off guard.

During the 1980s, the CIA’s top brass discussed the outlook for the Soviet Union at a special meeting. The Deputy Director of the CIA Robert M. Gates declared at that meeting that there was no way the Soviet Union was going to break up – not in his lifetime, not in his children's lifetime.  Gates later became Director of Central Intelligence (DCI – head of the CIA) under President George H. W. Bush (1991-1993) and then US Secretary of Defense (2006-2011).

Former CIA DCI Stansfield Turner (1977-1981)  wrote in the American journal Foreign Affairs (Fall, 1991), “We should not gloss over the enormity of this failure to forecast the magnitude of the Soviet crisis . . . I never heard a suggestion from the CIA, or the intelligence arms of the departments of Defense or State, that numerous Soviets recognized a growing, systemic economic problem . . . The corporate view missed by a mile” (Milo L. Jones, Milo; Philippe Silberzahn (2013). Constructing Cassandra, Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947–2001. Stanford University Press, p. 108).

Communism’s collapse into ‘Commu-wasm’ took the U.S. Intelligence community by complete surprise. But not so with the God of Israel! YHVH is the One “who changes the times and the epochs. He removes kings and establishes kings. He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding. It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things.”

The God of Jacob had other hidden purposes here connected to the collapse of world Communism. Some of them were certainly connected to the release of Soviet Jews, imprisoned for just over 70 years in a hostile country. Now they would be free to come home to Israel, in a foreshadowing of Jeremiah 16:14-15.

There are other divine purposes in the collapse of Communism. And one of the reasons is seen in why the God of Jacob gave these three riddles to our friend: He wants to share some of His specific upcoming strategies with followers of Yeshua – across the entire planet – in our day. That strategy will be more clearly seen when the third ‘riddle’ is explained.

The collapse of Communism in the Russian and East European spheres has created international shock waves which continue to ripple across the globe. The USSR has been officially dissolved, but Communist China (the People’s Republic of China - PRC) still carries the torch of hoped-for world Communist domination. 

The third riddle

Last but not least comes the third riddle. It was emphasized to our friend that no specific time frame would be given to accompany the fulfillment of this third riddle. He was told that the first two prophetic parables helped to validate the accuracy of the third riddle. The purpose of the third riddle was to focus people’s attention on what’s coming and so to be on the lookout. In other words, the third riddle is a prophetic warning. It will only be of benefit for those who take that warning seriously. Yeshua’s parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-3 makes use of a similar dynamic in its approach. 

This third riddle is more properly a prophetic declaration: Communism will resuscitated. It will return as an active and powerful force on the earth. Our friend was told that the process could be compared poetically to the healed ‘mortal wound’ in Revelation 13:3 – a temporary resuscitation from what seemed to be undeniable death. He was told that this return of Communism wouldn’t be a prophetic fulfillment of Revelation 13:3, but at the same time it would definitely not be a positive development.

The concluding declaration that he was given was this: a reborn Communism would join up with the jihadi Islamist movement, with the Islamist part being the stronger of the two. This blended movement would be horrendously evil, he was informed.

Counterfeit life from the dead

I’ve been meditating on these prophetic parables for more than thirty years. I and my family live in the Middle East, and I was once raised in a Communist home, so I have more than a passing interest in this matter.

I had assumed for a long time that the center for such a resurgent Communism would be Russia. And indeed, the rise of former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Putin

www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mrputin_chapter-1.pdf

https://en.putin.kremlin.ru/bio/page-5

https://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/essays/two-worlds-vladimir-putin-kgb 

to Director of FSB (the successor to the KGB), Prime Minister and President of Russia, shows some real shades of ‘life from the dead’ in his professional achievements. But without question, the renaissance of Russia’s global political ambitions is a real threat and one worthy of sober consideration.

There seem to be three quickly developing centers of gravity in the approaching ‘Commu-wasm’ / ‘Communism’ bloc:

The rise of Communism in the West would once have been inconceivable – twenty years ago. Today it is the elephant in the living room and the shadow on our collective doorstep.

The red-green show

In this newsletter, the color red represents the resurgence of Communism, while the green refers to a mighty jihadi wave. The joining of these two forces would geographically be located across the Eurasian Belt, where both movements have had historic strongholds.

Communism has solid roots in China and in the Asiatic formerly-Communist ‘Stans’ – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan. Islam also has deep roots in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Jordan as well as in most of the ‘Stans.’

Jihadi Islam is active in all of the above countries (either above ground or underground), as well as in all the countries/territories surrounding Israel. From full-blown Salafi and ISIS movements to zealous Muslim Brotherhood revolutionary terror groups – the entire Middle East is a quivering and jumping jambalaya of Islamist ferment. Sunni targets include the Christian and post-Christian West, the Jewish people and their Israeli state, Arab military dictatorships deemed not sufficiently jihadi or religious, and Shi’ite countries. Shi’ite targets include all of the above, but also actively oppose all Sunni expressions of Islam.

The prophetic descriptions in Psalm 83, Ezekiel 38-39, Psalm 137, etc., describe a broad swath of Middle Eastern countries including the ‘Stans’ – and all of them are coming against Israel to destroy her.  Zechariah 12 and 14, and Joel 3 add a comprehensive international dimension to other battles and campaigns.

This Communist and Islamist consortium will home in on the Jewish people and attempt to plunder their state. But this is what YHVH of armies says, “After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye” (Zechariah 2:8). The graphic visuals and computer-generated imagery in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings movies offer some sense of the world-shaking events coming down the pike. This horrendously evil force is going to run face first into YHVH, the Lord of the armies of Israel. God’s army of Ezekiel 37:9-10 will have its finest hour (see Zechariah 12:5-9; Psalm 110:1-3).

The intertwining of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Black Lives Matter movement

There are developments underway in the USA to cultivate a solidarity between revolutionary strategies from Marxist leadership in the Black Lives Matter movement (on the one hand) and Muslim Brotherhood-related movements (on the other hand).

The joining of Communist/Marxist activists and Islamist activists is an American manifestation of the ‘third riddle’ mentioned earlier in this newsletter. This is a trumpet blast for those who have an intercessory burden for these issues.

Be prepared, always faithful

In Mark 13, Yeshua exhorts His disciples five times in a row: “But be on your guard . . . Take heed; behold, I have told you everything in advance . . . Take heed, keep on the alert . . . Therefore, be on the alert . . . What I say to you I say to all, Be on the alert!” (Mark 13:9, 23, 33, 35, 37). God in His goodness lets us listen in to the strategies of His heart – in advance of what is about to happen.

Our calling is to be prepared, like good Boy Scouts. Our goal is to be like the U.S. Marines –  to always be found faithful (‘Semper Fi’) to our Messiah, to His ways and to His plans.

How should we then pray?

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

Paint it black – Black Replacement theology today

In 1966 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards released their huge hit ‘Paint it black:’ “I see a red door and I want it painted black. No colors anymore, I want them to turn black . . . Black as night, black as coal.” What happens when White Replacement Theology gets painted Black?

Students of Christian theology have usually bumped into something called ‘Replacement Theology’ in the course of their studies. This term refers to is a way of interpreting the Scriptures. It takes references to Israel and the Jewish people and re-interprets them as referring instead to the Gentile Church. Any seeming connection with the Jewish people and the physical seed of Jacob is now seen as overshadowed and altered by Christ’s work on the cross. All those ‘primitive Jewish’ blessings  have evolved (according to this teaching) and morphed into ‘God’s original intent’ – which means that the blessings come only to Gentile followers of Jesus. Of course, the curses spoken over Jewish disobedience (according to this interpretative system) still apply to the Jews. Here are three articles that may help to flesh out what’s involved here:

Replacement Theology studies have focused on the thoughts of Western (and therefore white-skinned) theologians. This newsletter broadens the scope, looking at how Black permutations of this ‘White’ theology have influenced Black communities not only over the years (both Christian and non-Christian), but some recent expressions in today’s Black communities as well.

Black American Christian origins

America’s first Black churches were founded in the forty year period between 1774 and 1813. The ministers were usually freed slaves. The very first Black congregation (First Baptist Church, Petersburg, Virginia) was founded in 1774, part of the spiritual fruit of the Great Awakening movement connected to George Whitfield. Other first fruits included  First African Baptist Church, Savannah, Georgia (1777), Free African Society, Philadelphia PA (1787), the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia (1793), and the Union Church of Africans, Wilmington, Delaware (1813). These congregations were broadly evangelical in theology, and were established at a time when segregation and racial prejudice were ‘the law of the land.’

British Israelism becomes Black Israelism

In the 1890’s a teaching known as British or Anglo-Israelism began to spread throughout the United Kingdom and America. It emphasized that the original inhabitants of Britain were direct descendants of the ancient Israelites. Pseudo-Celtic and pseudo-Druidic elements peppered this movement. As this teaching spread throughout the northeastern U.S.A., some Black leaders took this new teaching and altered it, saying that it was actually the Blacks and not the Anglo-Saxons who were the original Israelites. This mutation of White Replacement Theology would leave a pronounced spiritual scar on American Black communities (see Genesis 12:3).

Masonic influence started impacting Black American communities in the 1790’s (see Jacob S. Dorman, Chosen People: The Rise of American Black Israelite Religions, 2013). The two main spokesmen of Prince Hall Masonry (the original Black Masonic Lodge) John Marrant and Prince Hall taught in Boston (1789, 1792, 1797) that “the legacy of ancient Egypt and the biblical destiny of Ethiopia belonged to African Americans” (Joanna Brooks, ‘Prince Hall Freemasonry: Secrecy, Authority, and Culture;’ Boston, Massachusetts; 2007). Freemasonry cultivated a tradition of doctrines, passwords, and symbols – symbolic rituals which supposedly were derived from Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.  These Arabesque symbols and Arabic-sounding names brought an esoteric quasi-African/Middle Eastern flavor to Black Masonic rituals. It also set up a sympathetic open door to things Islamic, which would later be unpacked by Black movements in the 20th century. Black Israelism would access these Masonic pseudo-legends ‘of the ancient Israelites’ and build an African-Israelite synthetic hybrid which has strong influence to this day.

Loving the Talmud and hating the Jews

Frank S. Cherry in 1866 organized the Church of the Living God, Pillar of Truth for All Nations in Chattanooga, TN. He taught himself rudimentary Hebrew and Yiddish. According to Cherry, Jesus, Adam and Eve were Black, but White Jews deceitfully altered their blackness for nefarious purposes. Cherry stated that White Jews were interlopers and frauds, and that God hates White Jews because they are inherently evil and rejected Jesus (using Revelation 3:9 as his proof text; “Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie...”).

Cherry said that he received a divine vision that not all Blacks are Jews, but that all true Jews are Blacks of the lineage of Jacob. According to Cherry, the first white man was Gehazi (2 Kings 5:27) whose color changed to white when he was cursed. At other times Cherry argued that he and his followers “were part of the original Israelite tribes chased from Babylonia (and, they claim, into Central and Western Africa where they were later sold into slavery) by the Romans in 70 CE” (Janice W. Fernheimer, ‘Stepping Into Zion: Hatzaad Harishon, Black Jews, and the Remaking of Jewish Identity;’ University of Alabama Press, 2014; page 10).

Cherry taught that the earth is square, surrounded by three layers of heaven. He prophesied that Jesus would return in the year 2000, raising all the saints who kept the Ten Commandments and obeyed Cherry’s teachings (Eugene V. Gallagher; ‘Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America; Greenwood Publishing Group, 2019). He accepted the Talmud as authoritative, forbade the eating of pork, the observance of Christian holidays, the use of pianos and speaking in tongues. Services began and ended with a prayer facing East toward Jerusalem. Meetings were held Sunday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, and all day Saturdays. Men wore skullcaps and women wore blue and white capes with tassels (Black Jews in Africa and the Americas, Tudor Parfitt, 2013).

Reverend William Christian in 1889 founded the Church of the Living God (Christian Workers for Fellowship) in Wrightsville, Arkansas. His catechism asks and answers the question: “Was Jesus a member of the Black race? Yes. Matthew 1 … Is this assertion sufficient proof that Jesus came of the black generation? Yes” (Moses, Jesus, and the Trickster in the Evangelical South, Paul Harvey 2012). In his book of essays ‘The Feeling Intellect’ (1990) Philip Reiff notes here: “What could more curious for one persecuted people to adopt the [history] that is another’s? . . . What is it to be a Jew? . . . It is to be a living expression of the highest ideals of human existence . . . [This sect] asserts the fiction of its Jewishness to assert its own dignity and equality.” The present attempt to place Black people at the core of Western history and religious narrative (as manifested through the Black Lives Matter movement) has its fledgling beginnings in these initial Black Replacement Theology declarations.

William Saunders Crowdy in 1896 founded the Church of God and Saints of Christ in Lawrence, Kansas. Crowdy was heavily influenced by Masonic symbolism and eschatology. He taught that Blacks are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the Chosen People, destined to play a central role in the narrative of mankind. Crowdy’s congregations kept a seventh day Sabbath, celebrated the Jewish feats, practiced circumcision and denied the deity of Yeshua. Crowdy dealt with issues of race-connected shame in an unusual way: he taught that modern ‘so-called Jews’ have breached God’s laws against intermarriage. As a punishment these Jews have become White. In so doing they have degraded themselves – now to be White is to be degraded! Instead of confronting the supposed shame of Blackness, Crowdy has turned the equation upside down. Now we have the shame of Whiteness. There are strong echoes of this dynamic today in issues pushed by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Leon Richlieu in 1899 established the Moorish Zionist Temple in Brooklyn. Richlieu maintained that he was of Ethiopian origin (from the supposed union of King Solomon and the Queen of Ethiopia), and that his congregation was composed of Black Jews from two or three Jewish tribes driven out of Israel and into Africa as a result of civil war. In 1929 it was re-organized under Mordechai Herman as the Congregation of the Moorish Zionist Temple of the Moorish Jews in Harlem (1929). An offshoot was Beth B’nai Abraham (House of the Sons of Abraham). They taught that they were descended from Black Jews in Carthage (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya). Others taught that Black Jews come from Ethiopia, or from the Hausa tribe of Nigeria. This latter congregation also denied the deity of Yeshua but observed Ramadan.

Arnold Jossiah Ford in the mid-1920’s became rabbi at Beth B’nai Abraham. He was born in Barbados to a Nigerian father and a mother from Sierra Leone. He was part of the Harlem jazz world when he met Marcus Garvey of UNIA fame. He unsuccessfully tried to get Garvey to convert to Judaism and move to Ethiopia. His teachings were a cholent of Judaism, Pentecostalism, Islam, kabbalah and Freemasonry (Black Jews in Africa and the Americas, Tudor Parfitt, 2013). In November 1930 Ford traveled to Ethiopia to participate in the coronation of Haile Selassie as ‘Lion of Judah’ (Martina Konighofer, The New Ship of Zion: Dynamic Diaspora Dimensions of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, 2008). Ford died in Ethiopia in 1935. Though his Black Israelite colonization of Ethiopia had not borne much fruit, the Black Israelite engagement with Ethiopia proved critical to the formation of Rastafarianism, which lives today as Jamaica’s most visible artistic culture (Dorman, Chosen People). The Rastafari movement believes that they are the descendants of the original Hebrew Israelites, and that Haile Selassie is the coming Messiah of Judah.

On November 2, 1930 when Ras Tafari (Selassie) was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia, he received the rank of Negusa Nagast (King of Kings). His royal epithets ‘King of Kings,’ ‘Elect of God,’ ‘Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah’ – these titles are applied in the Book of Revelation to Yeshua (Revelation 5:5, 19:16). Ethiopian tradition claimed that the royal line in Ethiopia began with Menilek, first king of Ethiopia and child of the supposed union of King Solomon of Israel and the queen of Sheba. The king of Ethiopia was thus a descendant of the House of David. Jamaican Leonard Howell concluded that the oracle was being fulfilled in the coronation, and that the Messiah promised in Acts 2:29, “he shall come through the lineage of Solomon, and sit on David’s throne,” had arrived in the person of the Ethiopian emperor. Here is an amazing example of how Black Replacement Theology places an Ethiopian Gentile on David’s throne, wreaking havoc on some major Messianic prophecies.

Timothy Drew aka Noble Drew Ali in 1913 founded the Canaanite Temple in Newark, NJ  which was later renamed the Moorish Science Temple of America. He later moved to Chicago. Ali taught that he was a reincarnation of Jesus, the Buddha and Muhammad. He taught that Blacks are descendants of the Moabites aka Moorish, and are Islamic. Ali recounted that an Egyptian priest gave him a ‘lost section’ of the Quran. His 'lost section of the Quran' contains the first 19 chapters from an occult work published in 1908 called ‘The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.’ Chapters 20 through 45 are borrowed from a Rosicrucian work, Unto Thee I Grant.

Noble Drew Ali believed that Chicago would become a second Mecca. Chicago did become the center of his movement. After Drew Ali died in 1929, a congregant named Wallace Fard Muhammad aka David Ford El claimed to be the reincarnation of Drew Ali. When his claim was rejected, Ford El broke away from the Moorish Science Temple and moved to Detroit, where he formed his own group that would become the Nation of Islam.  On February 26, 2014, Louis Farrakhan acknowledged the contributions of Noble Drew Ali to the Nation of Islam and their founding principles (Poray Sr Casimier, Islamic Impostors, 2004).

The deeply anti-Semitic teachings of the Nation of Islam are based on Black Replacement Theology. The Black racist teachings espoused by Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan have strongly influenced leading voices in both the Black Power movement and in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Radical Black nationalist and minister Albert Cleage was deeply influenced by Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam (see ‘The Creation of the Devil and the End of the White Man’s Rule: The Theological Influence of the Nation of Islam on Early Black Theology;’ Marjorie Corbman, 2020). The following quote from Cleage shows how Black Replacement Theology shaped his perspectives:

The recent (December 2019) murder of three Jewish shoppers at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, NJ was carried out by members of a Black Israelite offshoot known as the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ. This denomination is classified as a hate group. Their theology mirrors many of the developments sketched out in this brief historical overview.

Why Black Israelism?

Professor Jacob Dorman has charted three distinct generations of Black Israelism: the pioneer generation of Southern preachers from 1890 to 1916; a second generation from 1920 to 1930, which blossomed in the urban metropolises of the North and incorporated more modern Jewish elements; and a third generation from 1960 to 1980 of militant, black nationalist groups (Michael T. Miller, Black Judaism(s) and the Hebrew Israelites).

“At the heart of all black Israelite faiths was a radical reimagining of the black past, present, and future. It has been a religious . . . counter-discourse that places people of African descent at the very heart of history and civilization as God's chosen people with a unique racial mission to prepare the earth for the coming of the millennium” (Dorman, Chosen People: The Rise of American Black Israelite Religions; 2013, p. 80).

“African Americans appropriated and advocated Judaism, Jewishness, Jewish history, and often an Israelite bloodline in their attempts to counter oppression, gain approval, re-create lost history, revolt against white authority, and forge new, more useful identities . . . Blacks claimed Jewish racial identity to escape the stigma that came with being regarded as black” (Tudor Parfitt, Black Jews in Africa and the Americas; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013, pages 133, 72).

A more detailed analysis of the Black Israelite movement is available on-line.

Black Replacement Theology meets Marxist Liberation Theology

Marxist political scientists have given the world an ambivalent gift – a blend of Marxist dialectics and anti-capitalist revolutionary strategies. When this political philosophy moves into African American territory, it adopts the name ‘Black Liberation Theology’ or ‘Black Theology.’

On July 31, 1966 an ad hoc group of 51 black pastors (the National Committee of Negro Churchmen) bought a full-page ad in The New York Times to publish their “Black Power Statement." In 1969 James Cone released his ‘Black Theology and Black Power’ and in 1970 he published ‘A Black theology of liberation.’ These Marxist-rooted perspectives are an integral part of the political worldviews of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement:

A New York Times article in 2008 concludes that at least one quarter of African-American churches follow Liberation Theology (Michael Powell, ‘A Fiery Theology Under Fire,’ New York Times, May 4, 2008).  Reverend Jeremiah Wright was former pastor to then-Senator Barack Obama at Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago (a successful megachurch following James Cone’s theology of Black liberation). Wright made headlines many times on a number of issues, including a public damning of America and his use of Malcolm X’s famous line (chickens coming home to roost) in blaming America for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He is also on record as having made many anti-Semitic public pronouncements.

Black Replacement Theology is as guilty before God as is White Replacement Theology, in the same way as Black racism is as reprehensible as White racism. The result of both Black and White Replacement Theology is the robbing of the Jewish people of their calling and gifts (Romans 11:28-29). Anyone – Black or White – who does this comes under God’s mandated curse of Genesis 12:3: “The one who curses/derides/belittles/scorns you, I will curse.” This is serious business, based on God’s promise in His word.

As we connect these dots it is sobering to see how deep the need is for urgent prayer and pro-active discernment here. Who will contend for the spiritual healing of America in general, and for Black America specifically?

How should we then pray?

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

Discerning our future

It’s ‘time out’ on Planet Earth. Trains, planes and automobiles have ground to a screeching halt. The pause button has been hit on Hollywood, rock concerts and fancy weddings for right now. How long will this go on? Will society be able to endure?

Scripture verses which we’ve used countless times all of a sudden are taking on a deeper meaning:

The rapid increase of social temblors (pandemics, rioting, cultural upheavals, etc.) is not abating. Like the carnival/video game whack-a-mole, it seems that new problems are just going to keep popping up. The dynamic in that game: repeated efforts to solve a persistently occurring problem are frustrated by the problem reappearing in different forms. All attempts at a solution result only in temporary or superficial improvement.  Can we make sense of these troubling events? How are we to connect the dots here and discern patterns or solutions? What does the future hold for us?

Wisdom leads to discerning our future

Moses was not only a scribe, a military general and Israel’s national leader. He was also a great singer (see also Revelation 15:3). One of his last prophetic messages was in song:

Then Moses spoke in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song –

“For YHVH’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance . . .

You neglected the Rock who begot you, and forgot the God who gave you birth ...

For they are a nation lacking in counsel, and there is no understanding in them.

Would that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would discern their future!

How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight . . .” (Deuteronomy 31:30; 32:9, 28-30)

Two bedrock principles are declared here – when Israel remembers God and His word, she will be able to discern her future.

Nearly 700 years later, King Uzziah came to the throne at the tender age of sixteen. “He continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding through the vision of God. And as long as he sought YHVH, God prospered him” (2 Chronicles 26:5). Uzziah’s prosperity was directly connected to his paying attention to the Scriptures (see Deuteronomy 17:18-20) and to the words of the Prophets.

Asaph the prophetic minstrel explains to us: “For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked . . . [But] if I had said, ‘I will speak thus,’ Behold, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children. When I pondered to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight until I came into the sanctuary of God. Then I perceived their end” (Psalm 73:3, 15-17). When Asaph meditated on the hard issues of life in the presence of the God of eternity, he was given prophetic insight into the future.

God’s hand is outstretched to every believer. He invites us to follow Him and receive both wisdom and prophetic insight (Proverbs 3-4). If we immerse ourselves in the Scriptures and invest time with Him, He will speak to us, lead us and direct us. He will even show us what is on His heart and His agenda for the future.

Not all that glitters prophetically is gold

The God of Israel has raised up men and women to speak His counsel to the Jewish people as well as to the nations of this planet. These prophets spoke directly to the nation, and some of their words have been enscripturated in the Bible. They sometimes described their experience as ‘standing in the council of YHVH.’  A man or woman who had that experience carried the purposes of God’s heart deep within. The reality of those visions, dreams and prophetic experiences affect us even today.

But there were others who prophesied visions only out ‘of their own imagination.’ God had not sent them but they ran and shared a message. God had not spoken to them but still they prophesied. These were false prophets who flourished like thorns in a wheat field. 

In our day the same principles hold true. All that glitters is not gold, and not all that is declared as a prophetic word is birthed from the council of God (see 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22).

Getting immersed in God’s word and getting pickled in His presence – these are biblical keys to hearing YHVH’s heart and discerning what He has to say about our future. Yeshua challenged the spiritual leaders of His day on these two points. He noted that some of them understood neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (Matthew 22:29; Mark 12:24). Today believers often choose to align themselves with one of these two camps – either the Scriptures or the power of God. Messiah wants us to choose both wings of the eagle.

Those who aspire to speak forth the heart of God are reaching for a high calling. This requires getting in harness and remaining yoked to God’s word and heart.

The gold standard for discerning the future is connected to understanding Israel

Micah makes the same point to the leaders of the nations:

The calling of Israel and God’s destiny for that people is one of the most important issues for the nations of the world to understand. Even as they raise their hand to strike and divide Jerusalem, they have no idea how the God of Jacob sees matters, and how YHVH will soon use the mighty Hebrew army of Ezekiel 37 to pulverize unjust nations (see Zechariah 12:6-9 et al.).

These are the Days of Noah

A popular song sung among believers over the past 20 years is ‘These are the Days of Elijah.’ Perhaps even more timely right now is the fact that we are living in what Yeshua called “the Days of Noah.”

God spoke to Noah, a righteous man – blameless in his time – who found favor in the eyes of YHVH (Genesis 6:1-18). He shared with him that the earth was filled with violence; that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  God revealed to Noah that He was about to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, along with the entire planet. Only Noah, his sons, his wife and his sons’ wives would survive.

When Yeshua spoke to His disciples privately on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24:3), He also revealed something: “the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away – so will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:36-39; Luke 17:22-36).

The Messiah’s emphatic point here is that most people will not understand that judgment is about to happen until it kicks in, even as the world’s population in Noah’s day did not grasp the extent and severity of God’s Flood judgment until it began to rain (Genesis 2:6; 7:4).

Yeshua challenged His disciples and He challenges us to be ready, to be on the alert – even today:

The writer of Hebrews tells us that “by faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in godly fear prepared an ark for the rescue of his household” (Hebrews 11:6-7). Noah’s faith was manifested in two ways – in believing God that judgment was at the door, and then in preparing the ark over the course of months or even years. He is an example for us of what faith involves when the rubber hits the road.

Peter tells us that God “did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly . . . The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment” (2 Peter 2:4-9).

Let’s sum up those principles:

The God of Israel adds a special note of encouragement aimed at the Jewish people. On the day that He sweeps the world with fiery judgment, He will never forsake His covenant promises to the sons and daughters of Jacob. His covenant with Israel will never be shaken:

The sons of Issachar knew

In days of great trial, Israel’s mighty men of war “came to Hebron with a perfect heart to make David king over all Israel. And all the rest also of Israel were of one mind to make David king” (1 Chronicles 12:38). Among them were the warriors from the tribe of Issachar, “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). What an amazing description is given in the Scripture to these men! They discerned the times – what was going down around them – and they had received from God’s council a knowledge of what needed to be done.

When God fed Israel with manna, He commanded the head of each household to daily gather enough for the total number of persons each man had in his tent (Exodus 16:16). In the same way, each one of us needs to get with God and with His word, receiving the manna of discernment and strategy for our own individual household. We need to gather this for ourselves and not depend on ‘big name’ suppliers of manna. We need to be like the sons of Issachar at these times of shaking so that we can receive knowledge of what our families should do.

How should we then pray?

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

God’s SWAT team and the nations

On November 4, 1979, at 06:30 in the morning, 500 Iranian students gathered close to Tehran’s U. S. Embassy to receive an adrenaline-filled briefing. A hastily assembled organization ‘the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line’ set up by Islamic university associations would oversee the violence that followed. A female student concealed a pair of metal cutters in her black chador; her task was to cut the chains locking the gates of the American Embassy. At 10:30 am the storming of the embassy began. Within a few minutes busloads of screaming demonstrators arrived and over 3,000 clambered over the gates. Approximately 90 people were taken hostage, including 66 Americans. The U.S. Marine guards and embassy staff were bound, blindfolded and paraded before shouting mobs and the world’s TV cameras.

It took the U.S. military five and a half months to attempt a hostage rescue mission on April 24, 1980 (Operation Eagle Claw). It failed dramatically resulting in the death of eight American servicemen and one Iranian civilian. For a total of 444 days the 53 (later 52) American hostages were imprisoned and/or tortured. The shock waves of that event continue to ripple across the globe to this day.

Two other appalling hostage situations in recent years were:

Hostage-taking – it’s what enemies do

The word ‘hostage’ comes from the Latin word for ‘stranger’ – hostis. That word later morphed into meaning ‘enemy’ – from where we get the word ‘hostile.’ A hostage is a person seized in a hostile, criminal or enemy action under threat of serious physical harm or death. In the above three examples Islamist terrorists took non-Muslims hostage in order to further Islamist jihadi strategies.

Hostage-freeing – it’s what the good people do

Security forces around the world have raised up special forces whose specific job it is to free hostages with a minimum loss of life. They are often called SWAT teams (acronym for ‘special weapons and tactics’).

The U.S.A. has highly trained Special Operations Forces groups like Delta Force and Navy Seals for such tasks. The FBI also has its crack Hostage Rescue Teams (HRT) based in Quantico, Virginia at the FBI Academy. Its motto is Servare Vitas (‘to save life’).

England has a dedicated division of its Special Air Service (SAS) called the Special Projects Team, one part of which deals with hostage situations.

Germany has its GSG9 (Grenzschutzgruppe 9 - Border Guard Group 9), formed after the disastrous Munich Massacre of Israel’s Olympic team.

France is famous for its GIGN (Groupe d'intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale; National Gendarmerie Intervention Group) whose motto is ‘S'engager pour la vie’ (‘To join the fight for (the sake of) life’). GIGN was called in by Saudi Arabia in December 1979 to oversee the freeing of hostages at Mecca’s Grand Mosque.

The gold standard of SWAT teams

Israel has been dealing with hostile neighbors for at least 3,800 years. The 20th century has seen the Jewish state develop military responses to hostage taking, raising up what its neighbors grudgingly describe as “the world’s gold standard” in SWAT teams. Its YAMAM (Yechida Merkazit Meyuchedet; ‘Central Special Unit’) is considered tops for its Close Quarter Battles doctrine and real-time applications regarding hostage rescue and counter-terrorism operations. YAMAM’s motto is taken from Psalm 18:37: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and I did not turn back until they were consumed.” YAMAM operators see their calling as saving lives – to rescue hostages and surgically neutralize terrorists before innocent civilians are murdered.

Most Israeli young men and women see these SOF soldiers as heroes and role models. Motivation to enter these units is strong, and competition is fierce to get in.

YHVH is a One-Man SWAT team

The God of Jacob describes Himself in Isaiah as being a SWAT team all by Himself as far as Israel is concerned:

God is prepared to sacrifice other nations – even superpowers like Egypt and Cush (Ethiopia) – in order to rescue Israel. He would gladly pay a kingly ransom in order to buy His people out of enemy slavery or exile. The God of Jacob is committed to spiritually and physically free His Jewish hostages, and to restore them to the Promised Land – by any means necessary.

Today some Americans see the U.S.A. as being polarized over racial issues. Others see the division as more politically based, between Left and Right ideologies. It may help to consider the latest census and demographic studies done in the U.S.A. They reveal that Whites are 60.1%, Hispanics are 18.5%, Blacks/African-Americans are 13.4% of the total U.S. population.

It may come as a surprise to some to discover that the God of Jacob’s census taking starts from a totally different presupposition. YHVH’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob delineates the way He looks at the world:

God’s heart and strategy touches all nations. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have life everlasting!” (John 3:16).  At the same time, YHVH proclaims that He has a special strategic priority and heart for the Jewish people. They are His firstborn nation: “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says YHVH, “Israel is My son, My firstborn” (Exodus 4:22).

This firstborn status is explained in the Bible (Deuteronomy 21:15-18; Romans 1:16; 9:1-5; 11:28-29) as being a continuing priority in the outworking of God’s kingdom. Though all are created by Him – red and yellow, black and white – God draws a redemptive plumb line through mankind: on one side are the Jewish people, and on the other are all the nations (the Gentiles). These Gentiles includes Caucasians, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, etc.

Most Bible believers have not grasped this clear biblical teaching about God’s priority dealings with the Jewish people. This is due to the malignant influence of Replacement Theology both in the Christian Church and in Islam. Most Whites don’t grasp this truth. Most Blacks don’t get it either.

A measure of sanity could be restored to all if we could grasp God’s revelation that, according to Scripture, Jewish lives are a priority matter to God and therefore Jewish lives and destiny should matter to all believers. This priority is not something fleeting or limited to the Old Testament. It continues in our day and into the Days of Messiah, because “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:28-29).

For more information

The Bible is often the last place we turn to when we are lost. If you are interested in learning more about why God has a priority calling on the Jewish people, and how that should affect our lives both spiritually and physically, I encourage you to read the book ‘Israel the Key to World Revival.’ It is available in English at https://davidstent.org/books/ and also in Spanish (follow the Spanish flag on our website). It is also available in German (www.amazon.co.uk/Israel-Schl%C3%BCssel-weltweiten-Erweckung-German-ebook/dp/B00CNDP8QS).

How should we then pray?

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

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