A blast from the past

On May 21, 1910, the first modern Jewish city was founded. It was given the name Tel Aviv [Hebrew for ‘Hill of Spring’] borrowed from a Babylonian town mentioned in Ezekiel 3:15. The coat of arms of Tel Aviv featured a red Star of David and a quotation from Jeremiah: “I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt." (Jeremiah 31:4).

Archeologists dig into the hard ground looking for keys to the past. They may uncover a palace or a garbage dump, yet these broken remains throw light on long forgotten kings and commoners – their clothing, food, lifestyles – even their worship and music. For those who love the Bible and Jewish history, the same dynamic exists. Those who dig into the layers of Hebrew history and sift through medieval and rabbinic writings will discover the fundamental richness of the Israeli people, and will gain understanding about the foundational roots of the Jewish faith. There will of course be some surprises along the way, since the currents of tradition sometimes flow in different directions than biblical perspectives do.

This newsletter (the second of three) looks at biblical teachings regarding the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teru’ah – the day of blowing [of shofars]; the fifth biblical feast in the seventh month of the biblical year as per Leviticus 23:2) as well as at rabbinic and traditional perceptions.

Shofar so good

The two central passages defining and outlining the celebration of the Feast of Trumpets (the Day of Blowing) are Leviticus 23:23-25 and Numbers 29:1:

Again, YHVH spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest [shabbaton], a reminder by blowing (zichron teru’ah), a holy convocation [miqra qodesh]. You shall not do any laborious work, but you shall present an offering by fire to YHVH’” (Leviticus 23:23-25)

“Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy assembly [miqra qodesh]. You shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing [Yom Teruah]” (Numbers 29:1)

The essential ingredients in both passages are:

a wonderful Sabbath rest (a shabbaton), where no professional work is done

a holy convocation (‘being called together’; miqra qodesh) a meeting with a holy and set apart purpose

a special commemoration/remembering (zichron) through blowing (a musical sound called teru’ah) of shofars/trumpets

The Scriptures describe teru’ah as a musical expression of joyous and explosive power:

a shofar blast (Leviticus 25:9; Hosea 5:8; Psalm 81:3/4)

a great shout of joyous praise (2 Samuel 6:15; Ezra 3:11; Job 8:21; Psalm 27:6)

a resounding cymbal clash (Psalm 150:5)

YHVH the designer of the holy trumpet

In Numbers 10, YHVH gives Moses specific instructions about trumpets made of metal – how to make them and how to use them:

YHVH spoke further to Moses, saying, “Make yourself two trumpets of silver, you shall make them of hammered work; and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and breaking camp . . . And when you go to war in your land against the enemy who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, so that you will be thought of by YHVH your God, and be saved from your enemies.  Also, on the day of your joy and at your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am YHVH your God” (Numbers 10:1-2, 9-10)

These metal trumpets are to be used to alert the nation regarding breaking camp, military gatherings, spiritual worship and intercessory pleas to the God of Israel.

The idea here is that God hears the blowing of the trumpets, remembers His covenant with the Jewish people and is moved by His own heart of love to respond (see Deuteronomy 7:6-8). The trumpet blast is an intercessory act, reminding YHVH of His prophetic promises over the Jewish people.

The joy of the Lord is our strength

The God of Jacob considers the Feast of Trumpets a joyous convocation. Festive food and drink (and lots of it) are part of the celebration, and YHVH emphasizes that, on this special day His joy is our refuge (Hebrew, ma’oz – stronghold or refuge). This is not a day for tears or fears, for being afraid, for grieving or mourning. It is a holy party day!

Also, Yeshua, Bani, Sherev-Yah, Yamin, Akuv, Shab’tai, Hodi-Yah, Ma’aseh-Yah, Klita, Azar-Yah, Yozavad, Hanan, Plah-Yah, and the Levites explained the Torah [the Mosaic teaching] to the people while the people remained in their place. They read from the scroll from the Teaching of God, translating [from Hebrew to Aramaic] to give the sense so that they understood the reading. Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to YHVH your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the Teaching. Then he said to them, “Go, eat the festival foods, drink the sweet drinks, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared. For this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of YHVH is your refuge.” So, the Levites silenced all the people, saying, “Be still, for the day is holy. Do not be grieved.” Then all the people went away to eat, drink, to send portions,  and to celebrate a great feast, because they understood the words which had been made known to them. (Nehemiah 8:7-12)

In Nehemiah 8 the nation had just heard the words of Deuteronomy 27-28. They understood that their national Exile was a deserved judgment, and they immediately repented of our national rejection of God’s prophets. The holy celebration of the Feast of Trumpets followed immediately on the heels of a national revival.

Our Jewish people today have followed our national leaders in rejecting the message of the Prophets about Messiah Yeshua (Matthew 23:34-39; Mark 12:1-12). Our need in this awesome hour is to wake up and realize that our existence in the Exile is like that of a bird in a gilded cage. We need to enter into national repentance both in Israel and across the globe.

A fork in the road

A crucial fork in the road was crossed in 33 A.D. when Messiah Yeshua was rejected by Israel’s spiritual authorities and handed over to the Romans to be crucified. If Jerusalem’s then spiritual leadership could have made such a horrific decision to reject the Messiah, these same leaders could eventually make errant decisions about a host of other issues – including the nature of the New Covenant, the status of the Mosaic covenant, the way of salvation, the authority of the rabbinic leadership, the date of the New Year, emphases associated with the Feast of Trumpets, etc.

By circa 200 AD Rabbi Judah the Prince (the editor of the Mishnah) made a valiant attempt at justifying an obvious departure from the biblical New Year date, when he proclaimed that there are actually a whole bunch of New Years. He explained that there are “four New Years – on the first of Nisan is the New Year for kings and festivals; on the first of Elul is the New Year of the tithe of cattle…; on the first of Tishrei is the New Year for years, for release and for jubilee years, for plantation and for tithing vegetables; on the first of Shevat is the New Year for trees” (TB, Tractate Rosh Hashanah, Mishna 1, 2a). This teaching seems to be his attempt to justify an accommodation to the Babylonian calendar. His argument has been accepted in rabbinic Judaism as the kosher solution.

This same Rabbi Judah added (with no biblical warrant): “All are judged on New Year and the separate dooms are sealed each in its time – on Passover in respect of produce, on Pentecost in respect of fruit, on Tabernacles judgment is passed in respect of rain, and man is judged on New Year and his doom is sealed on the Day of Atonement” (Babylonian Talmud [TB], Tractate Rosh Hashana 16a).

Another Rabbi (Yochanan bar Nappaha) declared (again, with no biblical authority): “Three books are opened (in heaven) on New Year, one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of life. The thoroughly wicked are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of death. The doom of the intermediate is suspended from New Year till the Day of Atonement. If they deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of life. If they do not deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of death” (TB, Tractate Rosh Hashana 16b). This tradition has led to Rosh Hashanah being described as Yom Ha-Din – the Day of Judgment.

These traditional rabbinic perspectives have shaped the way most Jewish people see and relate to the Feast of Trumpets. Their emphases are quite different from those that the God of Israel conveyed in Nehemiah 8, Leviticus 23 and Number 29.

How sweet it is!

The traditions associated with the Feast of Trumpets are deeply moving; the liturgy and celebrations are a rich part of many Jewish people’s lives. The sons and daughters of Jacob nibble on apple wedges and honey in hopes for a sweet coming year. They bless each other with wishes that each one will be inscribed in the Book of Life at this season (more on this in our third newsletter). Worldwide, synagogues register their highest attendance as the High Holy Days or ‘Days of Awe’ approach. As the Day of Atonement draws closer, there is a heightened awareness of the dynamic of sin in the Jewish community.

One of the callings that we have as the remnant of Israel – those Messianic Jews who have accepted Yeshua as our Messiah and atonement – is to celebrate the Feast of Trumpets in full light of these above-mentioned biblical teachings. We hold up the flag of God’s word and the glorious person of Messiah Yeshua, and call our people back to Him and His ways. As the Jewish world celebrates the Feast of Trumpets this year, would you join in with us in asking the Redeemer of Israel to shine His glory on His people, and that we would receive Him with open arms and shining eyes!

How should we then pray? 

Pray for God to bring revelation and alignment to believers everywhere concerning His times and seasons (Daniel 2:21; Genesis 1:14-18)

Pray for many Jewish people to reach out to our God during this season of heightened spiritual focus

Pray that YHVH would pour out a spirit of grace and supplications on Israel through a revelation of Messiah Yeshua our atonement

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) through: www.davidstent.org

Jeroboam’s Feast

In the days of King Solomon, there was a valiant warrior whose name was Jeroboam (see 1 Kings 11:28). King Solomon promoted him to an important governmental post. But YHVH had even bigger plans. He sent Ahijah the Shilonite to prophesy over Jeroboam and to commission him to overthrow Solomon’s rule over the ten northern tribes of the Jewish people:

Jeroboam was YHVH’s tool to weaken the Davidic dynasty. This happened because King Solomon had not walked in God’s ways. He did not do what was right in God’s sight and did not keep YHVH’s statutes and ordinances. In turn, Jeroboam was given the opportunity to listen to all that God was commanding him, to walk in God’s ways, and to do what was right in YHVH’s sight by keeping His statutes and His commandments. But, like Solomon, Jeroboam also flagrantly violated the terms of his own calling.

Four wrongs do not make a right

Those who do not learn from history, it is said, are fated to repeat that history. The Bible describes Jeroboam’s sins in detail:

Jeroboam was motivated by fear of the people and not by a holy fear of YHVH. He realized that the God of Israel had not granted him to rule over Jerusalem and the House of YHVH. He feared that the yearly pilgrimages of the ten tribes to Jerusalem would undermine his royal credibility and eventually lead to his own overthrow. As a result, he deliberately violated YHVH’s commands in Leviticus 23:23-25 that the Feast of Trumpets should be in the seventh month:

By moving the date of that Feast, he hoped to ensure that his ten tribes would have no difficulties attending his ‘new and improved’ feast celebrations.

Jeroboam also moved the center of worship from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount to Bethel (less than a day’s journey from Jerusalem) and also to Dan in the north (for those Jews who lived in the Galilee and the Golan). Yet this change of location was also forbidden by Moses:

Jeroboam also chose priests who were not from the tribe of Levi, to oversee the worship, the burning of incense and the sacrifices. Jeroboam’s decision was in clear violation of YHVH’s commands:

Jeroboam himself went up to the altar in Bethel to burn incense. But this calling was only given to the descendants of Aaron; Jeroboam was a descendant of Ephraim (1 Kings 11:26) and thus not qualified to burn priestly incense:

The ten tribes of Israel were in a bad way. They were now stuck in the middle with a wrong dynasty, a wrong feast date, a wrong worship city, a wrong priesthood, and a wrong master of ceremonies. All these were the result of a leader with a wrong heart.

No Messiah, no Temple, no atonement, no New Covenant

Nine hundred years later, the leaders of the Jewish people – both the High Priestly sons of Zadok (Bnei Tzadok or Sadducees) and the self-appointed scribes and interpreters of the Teaching of Moses (the Perushim or Pharisees) – were involved in rejecting Messiah Yeshua, handing Him over to the occupation forces of Rome and catalyzing His crucifixion:

The rejection of the Messiah and the destruction of the House of YHVH resulted in the practical removal of the authority of the Davidic dynasty, as well as no national atonement for the Jewish people. Though the New Covenant had been ratified (see Hebrews 9:11-15) at that Passover season nearly 2,000 years ago, the majority of Israel’s sons and daughters have not yet entered into its provisions and blessings (see Hebrews 1:1-2):

When God’s word challenges what our heart feels

Jeroboam had established a ‘kosher-style Judaism’ which was not really kosher. Instead of following YHVH’s calendar in Leviticus 23, he tweaked God’s clear commandments and devised in his own heart a different month for celebrating the Feast of Trumpets. The Hebrew Scriptures warn against such behavior. Moses challenges the Jewish people to remember that the tassels (tzitzit) on the borders of their robes have a spiritual purpose: “It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of YHVH, so that you will do them and not follow your own heart and your own eyes, which led you to prostitute yourselves” (Numbers 15:39). Yet the period of the Hebrew Judges was characterized by Samuel in exactly this way: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). And Solomon concludes the matter: “Every person’s way is right in his own eyes, but YHVH examines the hearts” (Proverbs 21:12).

The Prophets saw that a day was coming when self-appointed teachers of the Mosaic Covenant would actually twist the plain meaning of the Torah (a Hebrew word meaning ‘Teaching’). Isaiah warned that such violation of God’s word would lead to spiritual shipwreck: “To the Teaching (Torah) and to the testimony (te’udah)! If they do not speak in accordance with this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:20). One hundred years later Jeremiah declared that the spiritual leadership of the Jewish people was in mortal danger of reshaping Judaism into a leaky vessel that would not find favor in the sight of YHVH: “For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the Fountain of living waters – to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

From this vantage point the words of Daniel the prophet take on added weight. He describes the final manifestation of evil – what is usually referred to as the anti-Messiah or anti-Christ – as someone like Jeroboam, who changes God’s appointed times and seasons:

When seven becomes eight

YHVH revealed to Moses that His own divine calendar (which is also called the Hebrew calendar; see Leviticus 23:1-2) begins in the Spring: “Now YHVH said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be the beginning of months for you. It is to be the first month of the year to you’” (Exodus 12:1-2). This month is known in the Bible by its Hebrew name – Aviv [which means ‘Spring’]: “On this day in the month of Aviv, you are about to go forth . . .  Therefore, you shall keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year” (Exodus 13:4, 10; see also Exodus 23:15; 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:1).

Yet modern rabbinic practice calls this month by a different name – Nisan (from the Akkadian nisānu, meaning ‘sanctuary’ or ‘sacrifice’, or possibly from Sumerian nisag meaning ‘first fruits’) and lists it as the seventh month of the year. The Jewish New Year according to the rabbinical reckoning does not occur in Aviv (which is biblically the first month) but in Tishrei (from the Akkadian word tašrītu or ‘beginning’) – the month which the Bible describes in Hebrew as Eitanim (1 Kings 8:2) – that is, the seventh biblical month. These are significant changes in times and seasons. How did this change of calendar – this departure from the biblical pattern – happen?

In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the calendar described in the Bible still reflected the biblical New Year as being in the Spring: “Then Josiah celebrated the Passover to YHVH in Jerusalem, and they slaughtered the Passover animals on the fourteenth day of the first month” (2 Chronicles 35:1). Yet in Persia, at approximately the same time period, the pagan Babylonian and Akkadian month-names were what was being used in foreign courts. The Jewish people still used the biblical calendar’s year order, but began calling the Hebrew months by pagan names. Aviv was now referred to as Nisan, but it was still seen as the first month of the year: “In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, Pur, that is the lot, was cast before Haman from day to day and from month to month, until the twelfth month, that is the month Adar” (Esther 3:7). For more background on this, see ‘Raiders of the Lost Jewish New Year’ and ‘The blast of the shofar.’

By the rivers of Babylon

The twelve Jewish tribes went into Exile between 722 B.C. (Assyria) and 587/6 B.C. (Babylon). They took the 12 original names of the Hebrew months with them. These included:

When Israel returned from Babylonian Exile, according to Rabbi Hanina bar Hama (d. 250 A.D.) “the month names came up with them [with the exiles] from Babylon” (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh HaShanah 1:2, 56d). Babylonian names gradually replaced the original Hebrew names after the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. Today eight of the twelve original Hebrew names of the months have disappeared from our sources. The Babylonian month-names are for the most part names of Babylonian demons, even as most modern Western months are based on the names of Roman gods, while European days of the week are taken from Norse and Germanic gods. The Babylonian royal calendar began its year in Tishrei (biblical Eitanim) and so the Jewish people gradually fitted their calendar into this accepted international calendar. The Jewish calendar was swept along by the riptide of Babylonian paganism. It was still based on the biblical lunar cycle, but its month-names and New Year now differed from the biblical calendar. Whereas Jeroboam moved the Feast of Trumpets from the seventh to the eighth month, the rabbis moved the New Year from Aviv to Eitanim – from Nisan to Tishrei. All of this was done without biblical authority, yet today it is considered part of the normative traditions of Judaism.

The Karaite movement (an early medieval Biblicist form of Judaism) celebrates the New Year according to the Biblical commandment, in the month of Nisan, in the Spring.

When Messiah Yeshua returns, the whole planet will follow the Hebrew calendar. Ezekiel 45:18 prophesies a future Jerusalem holiday on the 1st of Aviv, while Zechariah 14:16-19, 8:18-19 and Isaiah 66:23 show that the entire planet will be keeping the Jewish calendar. Greek, Roman and Norse titans will all bow the knee and declare that Messiah Yeshua and His calendar are sovereign over the whole earth (Isaiah 45:23; Philippians 2:10-11).

And what about Messianic Jewish traditions?

The simple facts are that most Jews (and Gentiles, too!) are not aware of all the above historical information. Most Messianic Jews are similarly unaware of these facts. In an effort to identify with our people, we strive to imitate the traditions we learned as children or have heard about in old movies and Jewish literature. For most Messianic Jews, if it was good enough for Rabbi Akiva or the Lubavitcher Rebbe, it’s good enough for us. Come the High Holidays, most Messianic Jews publicize their Jewish New Year services and exchange the traditional Jewish greetings which are based on the rabbinic perspective.

The unquestioning acceptance of rabbinic tradition here reveals some fault lines in some streams of the Messianic Jewish movement.

Other examples of this include a blind acceptance of how rabbinic theology refuses to accept the teaching of Jeremiah 31:31-32. Jeremiah declares that the New Covenant is not like the Mosaic covenant, and that it is a different covenant: “Behold, days are coming, declares YHVH, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah – not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on 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).

The rabbis disagree with the ‘peshat’ (the plain exegetical meaning) of this text. Instead, they define ‘New Covenant’ as simply being a renewed Mosaic Covenant. I have had the privilege of sitting down with some of those who are considered to be top Messianic scholars and asking them why they buy the rabbinic reasoning here, and how that fits with accurate exegesis. Their responses were not what I had expected, and fell short of the apostolic standard that Paul exhorts us all to follow: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). 

There is a certain amount of confusion among some Messianic leaders and teachers on these points. Some teach that Jewish identity must be Mosaic-based, and that rabbinic expressions are the quintessential expressions which we need to follow closely. This tendency in turn has led to encouraging Gentiles to convert to rabbinic Judaism, to mold Messianic liturgy based on rabbinic liturgy and theology, etc. These positions can be problematic, because rabbinic theology often fundamentally disagrees with Yeshua’s New Covenant teachings. Two historical vignettes on this point follow.

Rachmiel Frydland and my haredi friend

Rachmiel Frydland was a Polish Jewish Messianic teacher and scholar who survived the Holocaust, losing his entire family. He had studied at the Mir Yeshiva in Poland before becoming a believer. His Holocaust story is available on Amazon. His first language was Yiddish, a language that I also speak. Once I had the privilege of spending a week in 1977 as his house guest. We had deep conversations about Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. In a discussion we had regarding the differences between halachic and biblical definitions of ‘Who is a Jew,’ Rachmiel emphatically stated: “If we give the rabbis the authority to determine who is a Jew, then we give them the authority to determine who is the Messiah.”

Another interesting interaction occurred at the brit (circumcision or bris) of one of my grandsons in Jerusalem. A haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish man who has an ongoing relationship with one of my sons, asked my other son, “Why is it that you Messianic Jews have this fixation to imitate rabbinic traditions when you yourselves know that rabbinic teaching is fundamentally opposed to what you believe – the Messiahship of Yeshua, the validity of atonement and forgiveness through the New Covenant, etc.?”

Digging deeper – Jewish Roots and Hebraic Roots

I love the roots of my people – spiritual, historical, cultural, musical, culinary, etc. I have seen that sometimes in the Messianic movement the terms ‘Jewish Roots’ and Hebraic Roots’ mean different things to different people. Sometimes it can mean very positive things. At other times it means the acceptance of rabbinic authority, rabbinic anti-Messianic perspectives, and spiritual control that borders on witchcraft and misogyny. I encourage all who would pursue Jewish and Hebraic roots to weigh carefully how hidden agendas may spin out here. I have written a book titled ‘How to be Messianic without becoming Meshuggeh (*crazy): A common sense approach to kosher Messianic foundations’ which delves into these issues and more, for those who would like to go deeper.

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) through: www.davidstent.org

McDonald's and the Second Coming

The great Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem authored a trilogy dealing with Tevye the Milkman (Tevye der milchiker, known today as ‘Fiddler on the Roof’), his relative Menakhem Mendel and his wife Sheyne-Sheyndl (The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl), and Motel the Cantor’s son (Motel Peysi dem Khazns). In the second book, Sheyne-Sheyndl humorously declares her faltering faith in the God of Israel: “God will provide, but how will He provide until He provides?”

As we peer into the gray fog of the onrushing future, we sometimes ask ourselves that same exact question – “But who can endure the day of His coming?” (Malachi 3:2).

Some rabbis in the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D. made similar confessions:

Returning to the front pages of history

Life in Israel is spicy – never a dull moment here. Our very existence is lived smack in the middle of a swirling butter churn. Apocalyptic and ‘mostly apocalyptic’ events are a daily occurrence. This is the warp and the woof of prophecy: God is returning His dry bones to the Land of Promise – yet we as a nation are without the indwelling Holy Spirit (see Ezekiel 37:8-9). Our malevolent neighbors (see Ezekiel 25:12-14; 35:10-15) and those who balefully share the Land with us (see Ezekiel 36:2-7) are like thorns and briars to us (see Numbers 33:55). These resulting conflicts continue to trigger international anti-Semitic sympathies for our enemies. This process will hit its zenith in a military invasion by the united nations of the world and the subsequent superpower division of the Jewish homeland (see Joel 3:1-2; Zechariah 14:1-2). The return of Messiah Yeshua – the Second Coming – then ensues with a vengeance (see Deuteronomy 32:43; Psalm 79:10; 149:7; Isaiah 34:8; 63:4; Jeremiah 50:28; 51:11). Yeshua’s two-edged sword will be stretched out against all the nations who hate Zion (see Isaiah 34:1-8; 66:10-16).

We are beholding the restoration of the Jewish people to their land (mostly in unbelief). This is a central part of YHVH’s strategy. The God of Jacob is returning Israel to the front pages of history, and the world for the most part does not like it. An old Yiddish proverb notes that “If God lived on Earth, people would break his windows.” Since it is considered in bad taste (and a trifle dangerous) to break God’s windows, the nations have come to the conclusion that their second-best choice is to vent their anger on God’s chosen people the Jews. Therefore we should not be surprised by current events.

Restoration is a process

The majority of Israelis consider that Israel’s survival, health and flowering rest on the following three pillars: a Western form of democracy, some sort of expression of Judaism/Jewishness, and a robust military/intelligence community with a universal draft.

Yet not all of these pillars have characterized history. Western democracy was unknown to Abraham, Moses, David and the Maccabees. The sons of Asaph and the prophets Isaiah and Malachi would be shocked at modern Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism, and would have strongly objected to major tenets of today’s Orthodox Judaism. On the other hand, Joshua, David and Joab would have been familiar with and supportive of Jewish military prowess and the accurate intelligence needed to run those models.

Today, many in Israel would not want to see the re-establishment of a Davidic dynasty, or the growth of a Jewish faith expression rooted in the biblical covenants. A growing number of Israeli citizens on the Left side of the political aisle are actively questioning or even opposing the value of strengthening and defending a Jewish state. One stream of recent anti-government demonstrations calls for the weakening or dissolving of universal draft as a national value.

It is worth remembering that God’s restoration of His people does not envision the triumph of an ‘Athens on the Gihon’ (1 Kings 1:38, 45). Isaiah 2:3 prophesies the flowering of the New Covenant in Jerusalem (‘Ki mi-Tziyon tetzeh Torah’ – from out of Zion will come the New Covenant teaching). For that to become a reality, there will have to be many changes made. Many secular and religious Jewish Israelis (as well as non-Jewish citizens of the Jewish state) are not prepared for or excited about such coming changes.

The coconut shell game – praying for Israel’s leaders

There is a time-honored confidence game – a swindle – known as the shell game or coconut shell game. A ball or an object is hidden underneath one of three coconut shells as they are quickly shuffled back and forth on a flat surface. The victim is invited to bet money, attempting to correctly choose the shell which conceals the object. In most cases the victim ends up ruefully forking over his money, as he was unable to keep track of the sleight-of-hand.

Israel’s political mosaic has much in common with the coconut shell game. Three basic coconut shells exist – Right, Left and Religious. But again, these three blocs are amazingly fragmented and have shattered into many sub-groups – sometimes due to political worldviews or theology, but often due to personal ambition. Due to the bitter and broken relationships between most party leaders and their rivals in opposing parties, sometimes two parties may agree to ‘work together’ – to hide under one coconut shell, appearing to be a new ‘unity party’ but in fact are anything but that. At one point in Israel’s chequered political history, nearly every political party has entered into marriages of convenience with their sworn enemies. Today’s coalition and opposition also bear testimony to this reality.

Here are three examples: Israel’s most decorated soldier, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (whose party barely crossed the electoral threshold in recent elections) has been meeting and planning mass civil disturbances as well as organizing mass resistance to military service – all in an effort to take down PM Bibi Netanyahu, his hated opponent. Right wing former Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman is accusing his own Right wing and all religious parties of being wild-eyed crazed zealots, labelling them as ‘Messianists’ (Meshichistim) – with that term being used as an extreme insult. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security in Israel’s present government, was a follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane  (this man was blacklisted as a terrorist by U.S. authorities). He was much involved with the Kach organization in times past, and is now in charge of overseeing and arresting pro-Leftist demonstrators who are regularly blocking Tel Aviv’s freeways and lighting bonfires on its asphalt roads.

Due to a highly successful campaign of disinformation and propaganda, most non-Israelis (and many Israelis as well) are simply unable to tell what object is hiding under what coconut shell. They drink the soup which is being spoon-fed to them by national Main Stream Media, thinking that they fully understand current events in Israel.

When did ‘Messianism’ become a dirty word in Hebrew?

The use of the term ‘Messianist’ has been morphing lately in Israel. A recent anti-government demonstration displayed signs attacking Bibi’s coalition, declaring ‘Atem meshichei hurban’ – ‘You are the Messianists of the Destruction’ (referring to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D.). A screaming front-page headline of October 2, 2018 in Israel’s premier newspaper Yediot Aharonot, quoted politician Avigdor Lieberman declaring that Member of Knesset (MK and later Prime Minister) Naftali Bennett “is a Messianic and zealot Rightist.” Bennett later was PM, presiding over a coalition that included Lieberman. On July 9, 2023 anti-government activists plastered posters all over the residence of MK Ariel Kallner which declared in red and black bold fonts ‘Boosha la-Likud – kan gar Meshichist’ (Shame on the Likud – here lives a Messianist!). A Facebook post by Ehud Barak declares that PM Netanyahu “is being dragged along by a Messianic stream, is standing next to the abyss and is insisting on striding forward!” And two more: a TikTok meme asks a rhetorical question: “Is the Messianist Religious Zionism movement seizing control of Israel?” And a last example: “Government Minister Rafi Peretz, recently a progressive, an IAF pilot and a rabbi, has been recently involved in the Religious Zionism movement – which is in fact a delusional Messianist cult, darkness from Medieval times.”

These selected examples reveal cracks of division and extremist rhetoric and behavior growing among Israeli citizens. Those seeking to overthrow the present government have no qualms about classifying all religious Jews as being dangerous ‘enemies of the people’ and as crazy ‘Messianists.’

McDonald’s and the Second Coming

Sometimes our minds play out certain scenarios: we imagine that when Yeshua returns to set up His Jerusalem-centered kingdom on earth, we will be able to watch the entire event on CNN or FOX, and then go out and grab a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder with Cheese at McDonald’s. We may embrace the sovereign reality of these coming apocalyptic events, but we forget how many changes will be involved as these birth pangs get ushered in.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that God whispers in our pleasure and shouts in our pains; they are his megaphone to raise a deaf world. The Return of Messiah Yeshua will not only be glorious; it will also be dramatic and literally earth-shaking. As Haggai 2:1-9, 21-22 explains, everything created will be shaken, and only that which is unshakeable will remain standing. Hebrews 12:26-27 sums up this dynamic: “And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.’ This expression, ‘yet once more,’ denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken – as of created things – so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

Stuck in the moment

Bono, U2’s famous vocalist, wrote a remorseful song for a friend of his who took his own life. He elegized him, regretting that his friend had gotten “stuck in the moment” and couldn’t get out or break free of the deception in time.

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) through: www.davidstent.org

Don’t put a stumbling block in the path of a blind man (Leviticus 19:14)

Then YHVH spoke to Moses, saying:

The God of Jacob tells us that our own godly behavior should be rooted in the example of God’s own character. We follow His commandments because He is holy. We are made in His image (imago dei, as Latin theologians and Renaissance philosophers would describe it) and we want to imitate Him (imitatio dei). This is how God guides our ethical behavior throughout the Bible:

The opposite of reverence for God is cruelty to one’s fellow humans and idolatry. To put a stumbling block in the path of a blind man is a violation of love, kindness and honesty. Such behavior is cruel and malevolent. YHVH describes rudeness to one’s parents as evil. And idolatry – the worship of anything other than YHVH, or the encouraging of others to worship anything other than the God of Jacob – is a foundational violation of God’s holiness, says Moses.

  

 

What is a stone of stumbling?

The Scriptures refer to stumbling stones a number of times. In certain contexts, the words refer to physical impediments or obstacles, like those preventing the exiled Jewish people from returning to the Promised Land: “Go through, go through the gates. Clear a way for the people! Build up, build up the highway. Remove the stones, lift up a flag over the peoples” (Isaiah 62:10-11).

At other times the focus of the phrase is on an individual’s sin and wrongdoing, which can cause other people to stumble (see Psalm 140:4-5):

A third use of the term relates to idolatry – engaging in it (in one’s heart or outwardly) or encouraging others to do so:

The Bible – a history book whose principles have not expired

The Bible was given to the world through the Jewish people (see Romans 3:1-2). Part of this gift came from God’s heart to guide and instruct the nations (see 1 Corinthians 10:11). At the same time, these Scriptures are a totally trustworthy history of the Jewish people, waxing eloquent about God’s heart, calling, strategies and priority for the sons and daughters of Jacob (John 4:22; Romans 9:4-5). And here is a point worth stressing:  the historical principles laid out in the Hebrew Scriptures still chart and shape the destiny of Israel. Seven of these principles – national stumbling stones for the Jewish people in the past, the present and the future – will be considered in this newsletter.

Stumbling stone #1 – Rebellion against the House of David

King David’s grandson Rehoboam watched as his kingdom disintegrated before his very eyes – divine payback for his father Solomon’s sins (see 1 Kings 11). The ten tribes of Israel broke away from his rule, leaving him to reign over the much tinier state of the two tribes of Judah and Simeon.

That rebellion has continued up to our day. David’s Greater Son Messiah Yeshua is still not honored and accepted by the majority of Israel’s leaders and populace. Here is a great intercessory challenge: to pray that the Jewish people repent for rejecting David their king (Hosea 3:5) and Yeshua their Messiah (see Matthew 23:39)

Stumbling stone #2 – Broken cisterns

Back in the days of the kings of Judah, the Scriptures tell us that the kings, the priests and the people mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets (2 Chronicles 36:11-16). The spiritual leaders of the Jewish people found themselves ‘in the dock’ before the God of Jacob, who prophetically accused them of rebellion against the Word of God through establishing false religious traditions:

In His day, Messiah Yeshua confronted the developers of what would become the traditions of rabbinic Judaism, challenging with the same message as Jeremiah had presented (Matthew 23).

Rabbinic Judaism’s foundations and influence continue up to our day, and Messiah Yeshua’s challenge remains as valid today as it was in Second Temple times. Here is another huge intercessory challenge: to pray that the Jewish people and our leaders will repent for rejecting Yeshua ‘the Fountain of living waters’ (see Jeremiah 17:13) and whole-heartedly receive the living waters of the New Covenant (Hebrews 12:24).

Stumbling stone #3 – Wanting to get accepted by the nations

Moses warned the Jewish people that a spiritual temptation would come upon the entire nation in days to come – the desire to be accepted into the pagan world and be part of the superpower ‘Old Boys’ Network.’ This political hunger would lead to an embracing of pagan values and demonic influences:

This same misguided passion was manifested in the days of Saul, when the entire nation was seduced (see Isaiah 57:7-9; 31:1-3; Ezekiel 16 and 23) into the trap of spiritual and political compromise in order to hobnob with top kings, generals and diplomats of that day:

The God of Israel is a good judge of character. When He addresses his people, He reveals their ‘heart secrets’ – their carnal desire to fit in to a rebellious and pagan world: “But you said, ‘It is hopeless! No! For I have loved strangers, and I will walk after them’” (Jeremiah 2:25). God’s perspective on this issue is adamant and dogmatic. Addressing His people, he emphatically declares: “And whatever comes into your mind certainly will not come about, when you say: ‘We will be like the nations, like the families of the lands, serving wood and stone’” (Ezekiel 20:32)

Israel’s desire to have a seat at the table with the international power-brokers continues up to our day, even though the majority of those groups look upon the Jewish state with barely concealed antipathy. Superpowers and Arab ‘peace partners’/ ‘potential peace partners’ avoid displays of warmth and friendliness to Israel. Yet the Jewish state keeps bending over backward as it attempts to win the favor of these cold suitors.  Here is another intercessory challenge: to pray that the Jewish people and our leaders will receive clear revelation and strategies regarding the true hearts of our quasi-allies and avowed enemies alike – and will respond according to God’s perspectives, values and strategies.

 

Stumbling stone #4 – Narcissism and materialism

The biblical prophets spoke plainly about the spiritual condition of the daughters of Zion, who focused in ancient days on outer appearance while ignoring godly virtues (see 1 Peter 3:3-5):

Looking into days yet future, Isaiah prophesies that there are some future aspects of the same dynamic which will yet be purified by the God of Jacob:

The God of Isaac warns His people that spiritual temptations come when God pours out material blessings. He cautions His nation that prosperity raises challenges of its own (see Ezekiel 18 & 20):

We are thankful for the blessing of the God of Jacob upon the fledgling Jewish state.  And herein lies another intercessory challenge: to pray that the Jewish people and our leaders will receive spiritual revelation that these material blessings are an unmerited gracious gift from YHVH, and not that our brilliance and hard work have earned us this wealth.

Stumbling stone #5 – Idolatry and uncleanness

The testimony of the Hebrew prophets is painfully clear: the Jewish nation repeatedly abandoned pure worship of YHVH and turned to the demonic and pagan worship of its neighbors (Psalm 106:34-40; 2 Kings 17:9-13; 2 Chronicles 24:18).  God’s strategic response is also clear: YHVH would turn to the Gentiles and offer them access to Israel’s spiritual blessings: “They have made Me jealous with what is not God. They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation” (Deuteronomy 32:21).

The God of Jacob promises that, as He gets ready to re-establish His kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven, He will burn away all idolatry from the Jewish people, as He orchestrated in the days of King Josiah:

This future prophetic process is summed up by Hosea. A Last Days revival will occur, and on that day, Israel will turn, trembling and will bow before her true Messiah:

Our intercessory challenge: to pray for divine revelation for the Jewish people and religious leaders, to recognize unclean spiritual sources and teachings and leaders, to repent individually and nationally for the many facets involved, and to ask YHVH for deep and full cleansing from all physical and spiritual impurity.

Stumbling stone #6 – Division

The civil war and tribal divisions that occurred in the days of King Solomon’s son Rehoboam, still continue in our day. The division between streams of the Jewish people may not be clearly defined tribally in our day, but the prophetic reality of this division is clearly laid out by the Jewish prophets:

On a more positive note, Jeremiah tells us that, in spite of the grievous division, “neither Israel nor Judah has been forsaken by his God, YHVH of armies, although their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel” (Jeremiah 51:5).

The divisions will be healed, and the scattered twelve tribes will be restored back to their Promised Land:

Weeping will be involved in the process of return (Jeremiah 50:4), and the New Covenant will be fully established with the nation of Israel: “Behold, days are coming, declares YHVH, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31).

In that day all divisions will be healed between the divided tribes of Israel: “Behold, I am going to take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions. And I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand” (Ezekiel 37:19).

Our intercessory challenge: these prophecies over the Jewish people are also invitations to us – to ask God to quicken the fulfilment of His promises to the Jewish people, speedily and in our day.

Stumbling stone #7 – Fear

Moses reached far into the future and described the Exile of his precious Jewish people. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he spoke over Israel regarding their sojourn in the diaspora: “In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And at evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the terror of your heart which you fear, and the sight of your eyes which you will see” (Deuteronomy 28:67). We are thankful the beginning of the gracious restoration and return to the Land of Israel that we are seeing in our day. We recognize that the enemy of both our souls and our people is not pleased (as per Revelation 12:13): “And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.”

The 20th century has seen much cause for fear among the Jewish people – from Hitler to Stalin and Islamist terror. The citizens of Israel also know something about sirens, rockets, missiles, bombs and assorted terror attacks involving car-rammings, guns and knives.

The words of Proverbs 3:25 and Isaiah 8:10 comfort us here: “Do not be afraid of sudden terror, nor of the destruction from wicked people when it comes . . .  You all may devise a plan, but it will be overthrown. You may speak of a plan of action, but it will not stand – for God is with us [Immanuel].”

And let us not forget who our God is, as it is written: “A bent reed He will not break off and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish” (Isaiah 42:3). This is our confidence.

Our intercessory challenge: to ask God to use us and other believers to comfort those Jewish people who are dealing with fear, with the same comfort with which we ourselves are being comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1:4).

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) through: www.davidstent.org

Making room for the elephant

Israel is the country of prophecy. Its valleys, hills and springs are embossed on every page of the Bible. The Scriptures shine a priority focus on the Jewish people like on no other nation. The God of Jacob weaves the themes of Jacob’s welfare – physical and spiritual – on the loom of redemption history.

In light of Scripture’s divine emphasis on the destiny and restoration of the Jewish people, it is worth paying attention the current news coming out of Israel. Most of the headlines appear to be fraught with negativity and cataclysm. No help here from the Mainstream News Media (MSM), once known as the ‘fourth estate.’ We look for clarity and accuracy, but find instead spin, half-truths and propaganda. But of course, it is worth remembering that the shapers of media narratives are themselves being shaped by shadowy figures who stand hidden behind a digital ‘Wizard of Oz’ curtain. Let’s peer through this fog and ask God to help us discern what He is doing in these troubled times.

The Return to Zion

One of the spiritual hopes of the Jewish people in Exile has revolved around a concept known as ‘Shivat Tziyon’ – the return to Zion from the farthest extremities of the Exile. Moses prophesied about this event more than 3,400 years ago:

The prophet Isaiah reached into the far future and envisioned the Return to Zion:

In David Ben-Gurion’s introduction to the multi-volume View of the Biblical World, he quotes Isaiah 43 to back up his declaration: “Today we can see Isaiah’s prophecy of the ingathering of the exiles taking place before our eyes.” This same vision is reflected in Israel’s Declaration of Independence of May 14, 1948: “The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles . . . as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.”

Ben-Gurion adds a postscript to this in 1950: “Because Israel is not like other countries, and there is no instance in history like the revival of the state of Israel – the uniqueness of its revival reflects the uniqueness of its destiny . . .  The entire people carried the hope of the redemption in its heart, and the state is only the beginning of that hope’s fruition. And the Ingathering of the Exiles is the task and the destiny and the mission of the State of Israel. Without this endeavor it is emptied of its historical content and of no significance to the Jewish people in our day, in the generations that preceded us, and in the generations to come.”

Rabbi Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa, writing around 250 A.D., added: “The day of the Ingathering of Exiles is as great as the day on which heaven and earth were created” (Babylonian Talmud; Pesaḥim 88 A).

The reason for the season

The Return to Zion, biblically speaking, only happens after the Exile from Zion – after Israel sins, acts disobediently, rebels against the House of David and is exiled to Assyria and Babylon. The Musaf prayer (recited by religious Jews on Shabbat, festivals and New Moon celebrations) speaks plainly in its public confession: “But because of our sins we have been exiled from our Land and sent far from our soil  . . . Draw our scattered ones near from among the nations, and bring in our dispersions from the ends of the earth. Bring us to Zion Your city in glad song, and to Jerusalem home of Your Sanctuary in eternal joy.”

The history Book of the Jewish people does not mince words: we Jewish people were scattered due to our own sin, and our restoration will be an amazing work based on YHVH’s gracious love – one which we do not deserve:

The Elephant in Zion’s living room

Limor Livnat, former Minister in three Israeli governments, pointed out in 1999 that Ben-Gurion’s vision of a Return to Zion (and that of Israel’s secular Founding Fathers) was seen in socialist terms and not in traditionally religious terms:

There is an old Persian proverb which warns: “Do not invite an elephant trainer into your living room unless you also have room there for an elephant!” Jewish socialists of the 19th and 20th centuries were captivated by an ancient dream – the biblical/prophetic vision of an international Return to Zion by the exiled Jewish people. But their vision was not exactly Isaiah’s, which was Temple centered and covenant based. Instead, it was closer to Theodor Herzl’s 1902 epic novel Altneuland – a European-styled Jewish homeland, a cultural cross-pollination between Vienna, Paris and London. In their wildest dreams, none of the secular founders imagined that their Zionist restoration-enterprise would be peopled by rabbis or run by yeshiva students.

Jerusalem in black-and-white

Yet Jerusalem is becoming more and more an Orthodox/ultra-Orthodox city. A recent May 2022 survey by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics shows a significant increase in Jerusalem’s haredi (ultra-Orthodox) population, with 35% of Jerusalem’s Jewish residents being haredi, and 25% being Orthodox Jews. In contrast, less than one in five residents (18%) are secular Jews. Jews are 61.2% of Jerusalem’s population (590,000) while Arabs are 38.8% (375,000). A January 2023 survey showed national haredi population growth at 4% (13.5% of the national population), while the projection for the haredi community of 2030 is 16% of Israel’s total population.

Ben-Gurion probably never imagined that his Western-styled secular state would morph into an Orthodox/haredi country. Neither did Israel’s secular pioneers – whether kibbutzniks or Holocaust survivors – and their secular progeny. These secular Israelis are struggling with fear, anger and concern.  The prospect of a halachic state – one ruled by rabbinic law – fills many secular Jews with trepidation. Considering that PM Netanyahu’s Likud party has coalition partners, most who long for the establishment of a halachic state – United Torah Judaism, Shas, Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit [Jewish Force], and Noam – it is no wonder that recent Israeli anti-government demonstrations and internet forums hammer away at the perceived threat of ‘the enemy’ – the growing power of Jewish Orthodoxy. To the hi-tech denizens of secular and gleaming Tel Aviv, the black-clothed haredi enclaves of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak appear to be a clear and present danger.

At’chalta d’geula

In 1918 a cutting-edge Orthodox rabbi with a ‘futurist’ bent,  Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook began to teach that redeeming the land of Israel through pioneer farming and the establishing of a Jewish state – these activities would hasten the coming of the Messiah and the launching of the Davidic kingdom. He described this movement as at’chalta d’geula (Aramaic for ‘the beginning of redemption’). Here is a quote from a letter he wrote in that year: “At’chalta d’geula is undoubtedly coming about before us, even though this coming-about has not begun this very day, . . . Banishing [us from the Land of Israel], and [then] only from the times that the people of Israel started [again] to shoot forth their branches and yield their fruits to the people of Israel [in their Land], . . . [these days] are at hand to come and only then will this at’chalta begin.”

Rabbi Kook’s teaching helped catalyze the movement now known as Religious Zionism. The Gush Emunim settlers’ movement as well as the Religious Zionist Party both have ideological roots in Rabbi Kook’s teachings. This multi-faceted stream sees political activism as the most productive way to achieve its goals. Though these parties are willing to sit in right-wing coalitions, their vision of Zion has marked differences – both in strategies and in goals.

 Hating and fearing one’s grandparents

An increasing polarization between Israeli Jews has been developing over the past years, but has been quickening on steroids over the past year. Many Israeli Jewish citizens who oppose Bibi had great-grandparents who lived Orthodox lives in Eastern Europe or Morocco. They are finding themselves fearing and hating people who look awfully like their own great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. On the other hand, Likud Coalition-connected conservative, right-wing and more traditionally minded secularists stand aghast as they watch opposition crowds (many who are descended from the original Zionist pioneers) lighting bonfires on Israeli freeways, sparring with police forces, blocking main traffic junctions, and threatening coalition politicians (including the PM and his family) at home or at work – even surrounding them and preventing them from accessing airports, etc. 

The God of Jacob’s Last Days vision is neither secular nor rabbinic. When Messiah Yeshua sits on David’s throne in Jerusalem, all false idols and all broken cisterns (see Jeremiah 2:13) will be swept away; only the shining truth of YHVH will radiate from the Holy City, and the teaching of Yeshua’s New Covenant will flow out to the world.

A handful of my Messianic brothers look forward to the day when rabbinic authority will control the Temple Mount and the people of Israel. They have declared in print that this will be a righteous step in the direction of national Jewish salvation. The facts presented in this newsletter should encourage us to treat such perspectives with necessary caution.

Relocation, relocation, relocation

The political power groups attempting to take down Israel’s present government (see my previous newsletter) have privately (though this has become public knowledge over the past week) developed a strategy to weaken the present coalition diplomatically, economically and socially. This coordinated alignment of major companies, banks, hi-tech owners, MSM oligarchs, educational and medical organizations against the Netanyahu coalition government was demonstrated  a few days ago when all the top major newspapers blacked out their front page on July 25, running an opposition ad declaring that the passage of a Knesset law 64 to 0 was ‘a black day for Israel.’

New waves of screaming headlines daily fan the flames in Israel, declaring that hi-tech and investment companies, medical personnel, internet and digital people are investigating possibilities of relocating out of Israel. Fear seems to be the overwhelming motive – either of rising religious power, or financial and social shakings.  When former PM Ehud Olmert (who makes no secret of his hatred for PM Netanyahu) declares to British TV Channel 4 that “there is a threat. This is a serious threat. It’s never happened before and we are going into a civil war now,” one can understand how such unhelpful declarations could negatively affect some Israeli citizens. Moses’ prophetic curses in Deuteronomy 28:33-37 seem to find a measure of parallelism here.

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) through: www.davidstent.org

Following after the crowd

The spreading of false or evil reports is nothing new. In the Second Book of Moses, the God of Israel warns His people to stay far away from mass movements which, knowingly or unwittingly, pervert justice and stir up evil: “You shall not give a false report; do not join your hand with a wicked person to be a malicious witness. You shall not follow the crowd in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to join together with a crowd in order to pervert justice” (Exodus 23:1-2).

Another variation of this dynamic occurred in the days of Nehemiah, when he struggled to counteract evil reports brought by false prophets. The evil goals in this case were to strike fear into the hearts of Israel’s returning pioneers and cause them to abandon the struggle for national restoration, both spiritual and physical:

Much of recent reporting coming out of Israel and onto Main Stream Media (MSM) international news screens about developments in Israel fits the above biblical descriptions. The majority of these reports have more spin on them than a runaway gyroscope. Some of this is due to the lack of Hebrew facility on the part of foreign reporters. Some of it is due to news people’s inexperience regarding Israeli history, religion and politics (this is sometimes also true about a few Messianic voices in Israel). Then again, some of it is due to a ‘politically correct’ and left-wing socialist bent, an all-too-common professional liability in MSM reportage.

In light of the fact that world media is intensely focused on recent events in Israel (including ‘mostly peaceful’ demonstrations, Knesset filibusters and legislative activity, etc.), we have received many requests from readers around the world for clarity and insight. A good place to begin would be our last six newsletters, which trace the history and developments of these matters over the past 10 months (February 22, March 15, March 28, April 30, July 4, July 19). This newsletter presents some recently revealed news – a ‘smoking gun’ – regarding leadership, perspectives and strategies of those who are catalyzing and acting as the ‘behind the scenes’ leadership of the recent ‘civil disobedience’ and street violence in Israel. These facts have barely been addressed by Israeli and world MSM.

A specialist is someone 50 miles away from home

King Solomon shares his wisdom with us: “The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him. The cast lot puts an end to quarrels, and decides between the mighty ones” (Proverbs 18:17-18). Some dear friends have pointed out to us that, even among Israeli Messianic bloggers, different opinions are being espoused. The prophet Jeremiah wryly commented on a similar dynamic in his own day: “For as many as the number of your cities are your gods, Judah!” (Jeremiah 2:28). Though ‘the cast lot’ – an ancient parallel to ‘the election ballot’ – is supposed to decisively end national conflict, in Israel we have had many inconclusive election results, leading to wobbly coalitions and five elections in three and a half years.

“I love it when a plan comes together” (Hannibal Smith in ‘The A-Team’)

Tension and barely concealed strife have existed within the Jewish State even before its international recognition in May 1948. The socialist Founding Fathers (like Ben-Gurion) exhibited a barely concealed disgust for conservative right-wingers (like Begin or Jabotinsky). Socialist-leaning oligarchs controlled the government and economy of this fledgling country until 1977, when Begin’s Likud took the political reins. For the better part of the last fifty years, the right wing has led Israel. Israel’s longest serving (over 15 years) and current Prime Minister is Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. Over the past 15 years. Left-leaning oligarchs have used the ‘yellow journalism’ of their MSM organs to attack and attempt to unseat Bibi, for the most part unsuccessfully. This ongoing ‘media soap opera’ has been going on in full public view for many years. In November 2019, four main charges were filed (at the instigation of Bibi’s enemies) against PM Netanyahu, though so far none have led to conviction. These attacks have come from such enemies as former PMs Ehud Barak (Labor, Israel Democratic Party), Ehud Olmert (Likud, Kadima), General Dan Halutz, and Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu). Their desire to unseat Bibi and invalidate him from holding office is common knowledge among all Israelis.

From ‘mostly peaceful’ demonstrations to street riots

In July 2020 former PM Ehud Barak addressed (excerpted with English subtitles) a private ZOOM meeting (excerpted with Hebrew subtitles) of retired Israel Air Force pilots and navigators (titled ‘Forum 555’) who all supported him in his desire to remove Bibi from office. The complete Hebrew video is found on YouTube. The meeting included Shikma Bressler and Moshe Redman, present leaders of the 2023 protest demonstrations. In that meeting Ehud Barak stated that Bibi is heading up “an attempted governmental coup.”  A civil uprising is needed, he added, but it must be presented to the public as an uprising “for the sake of democracy,” rather than an attempt to unseat Netanyahu.

In the Zoom video Barak discusses strategies of a civilian revolt, including the use of slogans, civil disobedience, and both general and ultimate goals of the protest movement. He stated that he will raise the necessary funds to cover all logistics for the project, including flags, banners and PA systems. He continued, stating that the more there are clashes with the government, the stronger would the opposition’s resistance become. This would inevitably lead to the government needing to use force against the demonstrators, which would again bolster the protest movement. In Barak’s words, when an army shoots into a crowd, the government is bound to fall.

Israel’s Public Diplomacy Minister Galit Distel Atbaryan publicized this video on July 21, 2023. Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev sent a letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara calling for an investigation to be opened against former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Forum 555 for allegedly inciting a coup d’état. Regev stated that the video clip “shows without any shadow of a doubt that beginning in March 2020, former officials began concocting a plan for a coup d’état and civil disobedience, with detailed and careful planning.”

On January 14, 2023 Barak gave an interview to Israel Channel 12, where he declared: “This government is legal but clearly illegitimate because of its plan to crush Israeli democracy . . .  We are witnessing a coup here. This is an assassination of the Declaration of Independence, and democracy must defend itself . . . It is clearly illegitimate to assassinate the Declaration of Independence. It is not the right of every citizen, it is the duty of every citizen to come and fight for the security of the government and the rights and dignity of human beings, for the security, the future of the country and equality and freedom. Civil disobedience is a very important thing and that means blocking roads, civil disobedience is the duty of citizens when the government has gone mad.”

Ehud Barak gave a speech in Haifa on Saturday June 10, 2023, where he told his audience: “To this end, the protest must increase and move to civil rebellion, or in more precise language, nonviolent civil disobedience . . . The script for civil disobedience was written by Mahatma Gandhi, who drove the British Empire from India, by Martin Luther King, who led the struggle for civil rights for blacks, by the young people of the United States, who pulled it out of Vietnam, and by those who removed [Slobodan] Milošević from his dictator’s chair in Serbia. I am calling upon all the citizens of Israel to prepare for the call to act, and when the call comes, to answer it. We will fight, and we will not fear anyone or anything. The purpose of the protest must be clear. There are no compromises with someone who tried to destroy democracy.”

 

A salami-style military coup?

One of the most recent strategic steps taken by the protest organizers is to declare that certain top pilots, SIGINT personnel and special operations forces reserve soldiers will no longer show up for training and perhaps not even for duty. Figures of 10,000+ have been bandied about in the media. One of Israel’s top intelligence journalists and strategic affairs correspondents is Yossi Melman. On July 20, 2023 he wrote an analysis in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz: “A Military Coup Is Underway in Israel – and It’s Completely Justified.”

Top British journalist Melanie Phillips states that “we owe Ha’aretz a debt of gratitude for tearing aside at least one of the veils of obfuscation to call this crisis out for what it is – a military coup.”

This is the context that moved Prime Minister Netanyahu to address the nation on Thursday evening, July 20, 2023:

One who troubles his own house will inherit wind (Proverbs 11:29)

 And say to them, “This is what YHVH God says: ‘Behold, I am going to take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king will be king for all of them. And they will no longer be two nations, and no longer be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their offenses. But I will rescue them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. And they will be My people, and I will be their God’” (Ezekiel 37:21-23)

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) through: www.davidstent.org

When skies are red

Just after Messiah Yeshua fed the four thousand, “the Pharisees and Sadducees came up and, putting Yeshua to the test, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, ‘When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, “There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.” You know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but are you unable to discern the signs of the times?’” (Matthew 16:1-3)

At another time Yeshua said to the crowds, “Whenever you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And whenever you feel a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way. You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how is it that you do not know how to analyze this present time?” (Luke 12:54-56).

It seems that weathermen in Yeshua’s day did a better job of forecasting the weather than some modern TV pundits. But Yeshua’s point in these Messianic proverbs focused on spiritual discernment: how are we doing in analyzing the present time? Are we properly discerning the signs of the times?

A time to remember and mourn

In Micah 7:1-6 the prophet spoke about spiritual, ethical and political rot engulfing his entire country. In today’s Israel,  Left and Right, secular and religious are all pointing an accusatory finger at each other during this season – each accusing the other of being the source of all rottenness. Local Messianic Jewish believers have also been influenced by these trends.

We have been tracking these general developments in five newsletters over the past six months (February 22, March 15, March 28, April 30, July 4). Fast approaching on the Hebrew calendar is the Jewish Memorial Day known as the Ninth of Av (Tish’a B’Av) – the exact day on which both the First and the Second Temples (Solomon’s and Herod’s) were destroyed (the first by Babylon and the second by Rome). The days of the Jewish calendar preceding the Ninth of Av are known as ‘the Dire Straits’ or ‘Bein ha’meitzarim.’ For Orthodox Jews this is a time of extreme sobriety, where Israel reminds herself of her sins (which led to the destructions of both Temples and our two exiles among the nations). For religious Jews, marriages and celebration (and even the eating of meat) are forbidden during this time. It is a time of spiritual mourning. Religious Jews try to avoid conflict with their fellow Jews during this time; this would include sidestepping civil disturbance and violent behavior.

Still waters run deep

God has been known at times to choose unusual spokesmen. Two biblical examples include a donkey and a professional curser/‘witch doctor’ like Balaam. The God of Israel sometimes turns to artists, musicians and actors as His mouthpieces when prophetic voices lack courage or remain silent. During the 1960’s, folk, pop and rock anthems were penned, pleading for the world to discern the signs of the times, to analyze what was going on at that ‘present time.’ These voices may not have spoken with clear revelation or full understanding, yet some of these songs stirred a generation to take a deeper look at what was happening. One such song was For What It’s Worth, written by Steve Stills and recorded by the rock group Buffalo Springfield.

Steve Stills wrote his rock anthem (considered one of the best protest songs of that period) on November 12, 1966 after observing police breaking up a hippie protest directed against an enforced 10 pm curfew at Sunset Strip clubs in West Hollywood. In the year 2000, this song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Some of the piercing lyrics include the following:

Still’s sympathies were obviously with the demonstrators, yet he wryly noted that American society seemed to be heading toward a kulturkampf, a clash of cultures. He realized that even ‘his side’ was prone to narcissistic self-justification, and that, unless sectarian trends were tweaked, the broader culture could be torn to shreds. His earnest plea was for everyone to stop, to take a deep breath and to consider what might bring unity and social healing to a divided nation – because the problems and solutions were not exactly clear. But one thing was sure: if left unattended, these infected wounds could end up destroying his beloved country.

This same soul-searching is needed in Israel today. As thousands demonstrate in an anarchistic manner against the government, blocking freeways, train stations and airports, screaming in front of politicians’ homes and offices, and with doctors calling wildcat strikes at major hospitals,  the social fabric of Israel is fraying. When ex-politicians and ex-generals publicly call for Israel’s allies to abandon her, and for Israel’s army reserves to abandon their training and commitment to the IDF (an army highly dependent on its civilian contribution), most Western democracies would define such behavior as treasonous. When cells in a body start attacking other cells in that same body, most medical professionals would call this pathology ‘cancerous.’ How should these events in today’s Israel be defined?

The present victorious coalition in Israel is attempting to limit the self-usurped role of the judiciary in shaping the country. Yet a significant minority in the opposition is concerned and fearful about some of those changes: some do not trust extreme and influential minority elements in the coalition – elements with a proven record of thuggery and anti-democratic activities. Yet the pervasive fear tactics used by the puppet-masters of the minority opposition have whipped up anxiety among many of the undecided, stampeding them to join the marching masses and to oppose the coalition which has won recent elections with a significant majority.  These civil disturbances have as their goal to shut down the country and to throw out the current government.

The whipping up of these fears has created a new dynamic – one which is leading to even deeper divisions among Israelis. Widening cracks are appearing on the surface of a country that has always pulled together in crisis.

Kamtza, Bar Kamtza and sinat hinam

For nearly 2,000 years, every time the Ninth of Av rolls in, Jewish people remember the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, two Jews who had a history of great bitterness between them (recounted in the Babylonian Talmud (TB) Gittin 55b-56a). A mistakenly sent missive to Bar Kamtza invited him to attend a feast at Kamtza’s mansion. Upon his arrival, Bar Kamtza was publicly embarrassed, humiliated and expelled by Kamtza from that celebration. The narrative explains: “Since the Rabbis were sitting there and did not stop [Kamtza], this shows that they agreed with him. [Bar Kamtza said] I will go and inform against them to the king. He went and said to Caesar, ‘The Jews are rebelling against you.’” The story continues, explaining that the Jewish religious rulers consulted a Sage and judge, Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkolas, to come up with an acceptable solution which would lower the flames on this potentially disastrous situation. Judge Ben Avkolas made what seemed to him to be a reasonable ruling, sticking with a status quo decision. Years later the famous Rabbi Yoḥanan bar Nafḥa declared: “The excessive humility of Rabbi Zekharya ben Avkolas destroyed our Temple, burned our Sanctuary, and exiled us from our land.”

The schwerpunkt of this story is that needless quarrels and internal tensions among the Jewish people actually catalyzed attacks by their Roman conquerors, leading to a major Jewish tragedy.  The rabbis call this dynamic ‘wanton or baseless hatred’– sinat hinam in Hebrew – in their discussion in TB Yoma 9b:

King Solomon warns us: “The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so abandon the quarrel before it breaks out” (Proverbs 17:14). When politicians stir up strife in order to achieve their goals and cement their control over the flock of Israel, sometimes these waters of division cannot be easily controlled or safely contained.

The nation of Israel needs your prayers – that the God of Jacob would still the turbulent waters roiling across the Promised Land, and restore a soft and repentant heart to His people speedily and in our day.

Bad vibrations

Years ago, a dear prophetic friend shared a spiritual principle with me. When one comes into a country or a specific geographical location, one enters into an area under specific spiritual strongholds and influences (as per Daniel 10:13, 20). For example, if one travels to a land where the enemy has invested heavily in manipulation, hierarchy and control – one needs to ask God to deal ruthlessly with one’s desire for hierarchical control. For if we come onto the spiritual battlefield having common ground with the enemy (see John 14:30), he will have an open door to amplify his own spiritual ‘radio signals’ through us. And we should not be surprised if we begin to see a rise of ungodly control and manipulation manifesting in our relationships there.

Israel is described in the Scriptures as struggling with specific national sins: rebellion against divine and Davidic authority (1 Kings 12:15-19); rebellion against the Word of God through establishing false traditions (Jeremiah 2:13); mocking the messengers of God, despising His words, scoffing at His prophets (2 Chronicles 36:16). These dynamics still influence aspects of the spiritual life of modern Israel: many scoff at the existence of God, the truth of the Scriptures, and the Messiahship of Yeshua, David’s Greater Son; a significant minority of Israelis hold to a rabbinically-catalyzed rebellion against the Messenger of the New Covenant and His followers; a significant minority of the population look fondly on civil disturbance, socialist revolution, and crude propaganda.

The Bible talks about malevolent and biting words associated with curling of the lip:  “All they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they shake the head” (Psalm 22:7);  “Behold, they belch out with their mouth. Swords are in their lips” (Psalm 59:7). Some Israelis finds themselves attacking each other with wanton hatred, employing hateful sarcasm and poisonous language to label and condemn others whose take on developments is opposed to their own. Some Israeli Messianic believers have fallen under similar influences.

In their hugely popular hit song “You can’t always get what you want,” the Rolling Stones sang about mass demonstrations in their generation, noting that sometimes protestors are actually looking forward to clashes with security forces, and often are quite happy to raise a ruckus: “I went down to the demonstration to get my fair share of abuse, singing, ‘We're gonna vent our frustration; If we don't we’re gonna blow a fifty-amp fuse.’”

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) through: www.davidstent.org

The wisdom of Ahithophel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once stated: “Wir lernen aus der Geschichte, dass wir überhaupt nichts lernen” (We learn from history, that we mostly learn nothing at all).

Yet there is a lesson to be learned from King David’s premier counselor Ahithophel the Gilonite (1 Chronicles 27:33; 2 Samuel 23:34).  The Scriptures tell us: “Now the advice of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was taken as though one inquired of the word of God. So was all the advice of Ahithophel regarded by both David and Absalom” (2 Samuel 16:23). Ahithophel’s God-inspired wisdom was held in high esteem by King David himself. Yet something happened to him which turned honor into tragedy.

Something rotten up on the rooftop

King David’s Special Operations Forces were led by ‘The Three’ (see 2 Samuel 23:8-12, 19). Joab’s brother Avishai in turn oversaw the lower ranking but still highly courageous team known as ‘The Thirty’ (2 Samuel 23:18-19). The last of ‘The Thirty’ mentioned in the Scriptures was a crack commando named Eliam son of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 23:34). Eliam had a daughter named Bathsheba, and Bathsheba’s grandfather was Ahithophel. When David seduced Bathsheba and later had her husband Uriah murdered on the battlefield, bitterness toward the king filled Ahithophel’s heart. By the time that Absalom activated his putsch against his own father, Ahithophel was on board supporting the mutiny:

Ahithophel quickly offered his services to Absalom, offering to assassinate his father David: “Please let me choose twelve thousand men and let me set out and pursue David tonight. And I will attack him while he is weary and exhausted and startle him, so that all the people who are with him will flee. Then I will strike and kill the king when he is alone, and I will bring all the people back to you. The return of everyone depends on the man whom you are seeking. Then all the people will be at peace” (2 Samuel 17:1-3). Ahithophel’s bitterness had morphed his own heart into that of a rebel and a murderer. The God who had bound Himself to David by covenant now stepped in to thwart the evil counsel of Israel’s premier counselor:

Ahithophel did not need a weatherman to know which way the Wind blows, to paraphrase Robert Zimmerman. The gall of bitterness and the bondage of unrighteousness (see Acts 8:23) had distorted his wisdom, leading to a tragic end.  As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews said, a root of bitterness can spring up causing trouble, and by it many can become defiled (Hebrews 12:15).

King David was a man after God’s own heart (see Acts 13:22). Yet he was also guilty of adultery and murder. Ahithophel was aware of some of David’s real sins, but was not able to handle those matters in an ultimately redemptive way.

Old-New dynamics

Theodor Herzl’s ground-breaking utopian novel was titled Altneuland (Old-New Land). His dream of a reborn Zion in Israel’s once-green-and-pleasant-land fired up the imaginations of Jews worldwide – a reborn Jewish nation in a reborn Jewish homeland, once again taking its place as a sovereign nation on the world stage.

Along with the wonders of physical restoration can also come the repeat of the sins of bygone days. The bitterness and desire for revenge that motivated Ahithophel and ultimately destroyed him, can be found sprouting noxious buds among modern Ahithophels in today’s Israel’s body politic.

“Zeal for vengeance hath consumed me”

Famous politicians and outstanding generals have fallen pray to this dynamic, including former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman who has called PM Bibi Netanyahu “the scum of the earth” who “deserves to suffer in hell every day.” Lieberman has declared that Netanyahu’s “methods are just like those of Goebbels and Stalin.” A political commentator recently summed up matters here: “Avigdor Lieberman’s Failed Plan To Topple Netanyahu: The Russian politician’s surprise decision to pull out of coalition talks is only the latest echo of his undying ambition . . . The former foreign minister wants to see Netanyahu out of office, and he will do whatever he can to make it happen.”

Another leader who is riven with an Ahithophel-like syndrome is former Mayor of Jerusalem and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert is known for an extraordinarily bitter relationship with Netanyahu. In 2022, Olmert was found guilty in a defamation lawsuit filed by the Netanyahu family, paying $28,000 for having asserted in two interviews in April 2021 that the Netanyahu family were “irreparably” mentally ill.

In March 2023 Olmert spoke to world leaders in a public forum: “And I say, whoever loves the state of Israel has to act publicly, strongly, and aggressively against the Israeli government. If you love Israel, you have to spell it out in the bluntest possible manner: . . . because the government of Israel is the enemy of the state of Israel. And if you want to support the state of Israel, you have to act against the enemy of the state of Israel, and the enemy of the state of Israel is a government made up of thugs and terrorists and chauvinists and nationalists and brutal people, as they are.”  Olmert added, “I think that the present government of Israel is simply anti-Israeli . . . Those who are in favor of the state of Israel should be against the Prime Minister of the state of Israel.” In his Channel 12 interview, Olmert added: “I very much hope that the British Prime Minister will cancel the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister. I’m very happy that the US President isn’t inviting the Israeli Prime Minister. I very much hope that the US President and the British Prime Minister reevaluate their ties with the Israeli government.” The Ahithophelian desire for vengeance is on full display here.

 

Also in March 2023 Olmert addressed news media, declaring: “We'll be rioting and we will be raising the public opinion and we'll continue to oppose the government, publicly and . . .  in every square and street.” On March 28, 2023, Olmert addressed media in Jerusalem: “We now must get to the next stage, the stage of war, and war is not waged through speeches. War is waged in a face-to-face battle, head-to-head and hand-to-hand, and that is bound to happen here. While it’s great to see 100,000 people turn out to protest, that’s not what will clinch the real fight. The real fight will break through these fences and spill over into a real war.”

That same day, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai spoke at a mass protest outside Jerusalem’s Knesset buildings, saying, “Democratic countries such as ours can become dictatorships. But dictatorships can only return to be democracies through bloodshed. This is what history has taught us."

Vendettas and dividing the Promised Land

Former PM Ehud Barak is Israel’s most decorated soldier, Head of Sayeret Matkal (IDF Delta Force; he was Netanyahu’s commander there), Head of AMAN (IDF Military Intelligence), Minister of Defence and former Chairman of Israel’s Labor Party. There has been an ongoing historic rivalry between Barak and Netanyahu. In 1999, Barak defeated Netanyahu in the elections and become PM for a little more than a year. In subsequent elections, he was defeated by Bibi time and again.

Back in 2016, Barak announced that “Netanyahu’s reckless conduct endangers Israel . . . Netanyahu enabled a militant, nationalist minority to carry out a hostile takeover of his party, Likud; . . . to hijack our national agenda in the service of a messianic drive toward, as it’s often put, ‘a single Jewish state, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.’ This . . . spell[s] doom for the Zionist dream.”

Barak’s former Chief of Staff Gilead Sher (also Policy Coordinator for Barak, and co-chief negotiator 1999-2001 at the Camp David summit), Ami Ayalon, former director of Shayetet 13 (IDF Navy Seals) and the Shin Bet (Israel’s FBI), and Orni Petruschka are the founders of non-partisan political movement Blue White Future. These three men have been major catalysts of the mass demonstrations. They have been activists for years, working for the overthrow of Netanyahu and the Likud party.

Long before the questions of judicial reform arose in Israel, in an April 2012 NY Times article, these three stated: “Israel can and must take constructive steps to advance the reality of two states based on the 1967 borders, with land swaps – regardless of whether Palestinian leaders have agreed to accept it . . . Israel should first declare that it is willing to return to negotiations anytime and that it has no claims of sovereignty on areas east of the existing security barrier. It should then end all settlement construction east of the security barrier and in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. And it should create a plan to help 100,000 settlers who live east of the barrier to relocate within Israel’s recognized borders.”

In 2015 these three men advocated a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, the redivision of Jerusalem between Jews and Palestinians, etc. On January 15, 2019 they stated: “Anybody who wants to support Israel should keep in mind that only the vision of two states for two peoples can fulfill the Zionist dream of a secure and democratic home for the Jewish people.” They opposed President Trump’s moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem and campaigned for the UK to refuse to follow suit: “But we believe it would not be in Israel's interest for the UK move the embassy to Jerusalem.”

In 2019 they stated: “The choice Israelis must make today is between separating from the Palestinians into two nation-states, thereby maintaining Israel as the democratic and secure state of the Jewish people (albeit not in all of the territory of the Mandatory or Biblical Land of Israel), and annexation, which will bring the Zionist enterprise to its final end.” These are the clearly worded statements of the movers and shakers behind the move to overthrow the Netanyahu government.

Speaking at a June 2019 press conference in Tel Aviv, Barak called for an end to “Netanyahu’s rule with the radicals, racists and corrupt, with the Messianists and his corrupt leadership.” He declared that he was returning to politics in order to “topple Netanyahu.”  In July 2019 author and Barak biographer Calev Ben-Dor stated that “Ehud Barak has the energy, the venom and the gravitas to hurt Netanyahu in a way no other candidate seemingly can.” Later that month, Barak states that the “State of Israel is at a moment before the total dissolution of Israeli democracy.”

Black flags, blue flags

The present mass street demonstrations in Israel, the civil disobedience and blocking of freeways and airports all have deep political roots, as was detailed in three recent newsletters. The origins of this movement go back to the 1930’s during the British occupation, when communists and socialists considered all conservatives to be fascists, and practically excommunicated the pre-Likud movement from participation in political discourse. Today this same worldview thrives on the Left side of the political aisle. It finds fellow-travelers in parties of the center-left as well. It is not hard to find hatred for the moderate right and for Orthodox Jewish parties openly manifested in political discussion. The demonization of the Likud party and its coalition partners – and directed especially against Bibi Netanyahu over the past 20 years – is part of normal political discourse here.

What is new is the reshaping of the discourse. Starting on March 19, 2020, the Black Flags movement (initiated by three brothers and a sister – Eyal, Yarden, Dekel and Shikma Schwartzman) organized a convoy up to Jerusalem to push for legal attempts to remove Prime Minister Netanyahu from office. Israel’s Channel 13 presented an exposé in early 2020 that the Black Flags movement was heavily underwritten by Ehud Barak at that time.  On April 25, 2020, Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square was filled with 2,000 protesters opposed to a coalition agreement between Netanyahu’s Likud and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz. Black-clad protesters carried blue and white Israeli flags ‘stained by black tears.’ Former Shin Bet head (GSS) Carmi Gillon  publicly blamed the Netanyahu-Gantz deal for destroying Israel’s parliament.

When Netanyahu lost the elections and stepped down in June 2021, the Black Flags movement declared victory. They released a statement: “Our beloved country faced the greatest threat since its inception — the dismantling of the democratic system and it becoming a dictatorship . . .  Now is the time for the elected leadership to rebuild the systems and work to strengthen democracy and all that that entails. We cleared the way for them. We now put down our black flag and proudly wave the flag of the State of Israel.”

Yet within a short time (November 2022), Netanyahu was on his way back to the PM’s office. Barak immediately got busy rousing the troops for another assault on the PM.

When you don’t like the election results

In a recent Hebrew podcast, Ha’aretz reporter Amir Oren spoke with Barak’s longtime confidant, lawyer Gilead Sher, who revealed that a small circle was convened after the November 2022 election to strategize and develop funding for a new anti-Bibi movement. Hosted by Yossi Kutchik (Barak’s former Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office), the group included Sher (Barak’s former Chief of Staff and Policy Coordinator); former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz; hi-tech entrepreneur, former fighter pilot, and left-wing political activist Orni Petruschka; former Deputy Attorney-General Dina Zilber, and Shikma Bressler, prominent founder of the Black Flags group.

At that time Sher and his colleagues set up the organizational and financial structure for the mass ‘spontaneous demonstrations’ and rioting that Israel has experienced since January 2023 – before Netanyahu had formed the government or had set up government policy on legal reform proposals. The subsequent protests and riots were not spur-of-the-moment responses to the government’s legal reform proposals. They were planned and financed weeks ahead of those events. In Sher’s telling, “The four of us met and very quickly, maybe a week or two, we were joined by a number of other people.”

Ahithophel and the call for revolt

Ehud Barak and Yair Golan (a former Deputy Chief of Staff) have recently been calling for an intensification of civil rebellion and large-scale resistance:

Barak: “We must increase the protest and end the negotiations immediately. To this end, the protest must increase and move to civil rebellion. Nonviolent disobedience . . . The script for civil rebellion has already been written by Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others. I call on all Israeli civilians to prepare to act, and when the call comes – answer it. We will fight, and we will not fear anyone or anything.”

Golan: “Civil revolt is not an exaggeration; we have to fight for democracy . . . We will present unequivocal and clear civil resistance, and if we have to reach a large-scale and non-violent protest, that is what we will do. I am calling here, within a reasonable framework and without resorting to violence – to do illegal things as well . . . In the fight for democracy, you have to do non-violent things that are on the fringes of the law – there is no choice but to do it”

Golan: “Shut down their stores, block the streets, bar all services . . .  Friends, against this evil, malevolent government we have only one path: a comprehensive, broad public rebellion . . . From tomorrow, we’re changing things. No more polite Saturday evening protests. No more lamentations and complaints. Just actions. Just results. Businesses will be shut down, services will come to a halt, roads will be blocked, and this arrogant person who presumes to rule, with the help of corrupt, extreme, and dark forces will be made to realize that the people are sovereign.”

A recent exposé of a closed WhatsApp chat was recently publicized on June 11, 2023 on Israel’s Channel 14. The group included former prime ministers Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, former IDF Chiefs of Staff Dan Halutz and Moshe ‘Bogie’ Ya’alon, Yishai Hadas (founder of the Crime Minister movement), and leaders of the ‘Black Flags’ movement Roy Neuman, Shikma Schwarzman-Bressler and Eyal Schwarzman. The communications made public show that the real goal of the protests is to topple Netanyahu’s government.

King David is not Bibi, and Ahithophel is not Barak. Israel currently lives under a form of democratic government and not under a Davidic monarchy. Yet the spiritual principles that the Bible reveals, and the lessons we can all learn about guarding our hearts and not justifying vengeance and bitterness, are very much needed in our day. Ahithophel was a wise man, yet he still got poisoned by bitterness. Perhaps even modern Israeli heroes can suffer a similar fate from malevolent spiritual hands. Many hearts and minds can be defiled in Israel as a result.  No human leader of any political party will be able to ultimately solve Israel’s problems and challenges. Only Messiah Yeshua will succeed in establishing God’s righteousness and justice on earth as it is in Heaven, as His Second Coming (see Isaiah 11:3-5).

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) through: www.davidstent.org

For Zion’s sake – the divine cry of Isaiah 62

During the month of May 2023, a world-wide 21-day intercessory ‘prayer meeting’ took place, focusing on the protection and salvation of the people of Israel. Isaiah 62 was its scriptural theme. Across the planet over 5,000 ministries put their shoulders to the prayer-plough; our dear friend Mike Bickle of International House of Prayer in Kansas City was a major spearhead, catalyst and trumpeter of this gathering. And on May 28 (the traditional Christian Day of Pentecost) up to 100,000,000 believers united to seek the Father’s face regarding Israel’s protection and destiny – all in all an encouraging event.

Isaiah 62 is a bejeweled passage, rich in divine insights. For many believers, the first part of verse 1 is what is remembered: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet.”

This newsletter takes a closer look at Isaiah 62’s multifaceted message – God’s burning heart and prophetic strategies for His Jewish people.

With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?

The usual interpretation of Isaiah 62:1 is this – the prophet is proclaiming that he will not be silent. This concept is then applied (by those who believe in the continued prophetic calling of the Jewish people) as an intercessory command to pray diligently for the salvation and blessing of Israel. A right-on application, and very much God’s heart.

A closer look at Isaiah reveals two helpful things about this verse:

1: The Book of Isaiah uses two specific Hebrew verbs five different times (Isaiah 18:4: 42:14; 57:11; 64:11-12; 65:6), where YHVH speaks in the first person (‘keep silent’ chashah/חָשָׁה; ‘keep quiet’ shaqat/שָׁקַט). These are the same two verbs used in the double-declaration of Isaiah 62:1.

2: Throughout chapter 62, the God of Jacob describes Himself as the One speaking:

3: The person speaking in the immediately preceding chapter 61:1-2 is described as being anointed by the Spirit of YHVH/YHVH Himself. The Hebrew word for ‘Anointed’ is Mashiach, or Messiah in English. The calling of the Messiah is to proclaim good news to the Jewish people – release, freedom, the favorable Year of YHVH and the Day of God’s vengeance on all His enemies.

Commenting on Isaiah 62, OT scholar Franz Delitzch states that “it is evident that Jehovah is the speaker here.” The Proclaimer in Isaiah 62 is the God of Israel – whether it be the Father or the Anointed Son.

What does this all mean?

The fact that YHVH is speaking in chapter 62 – what does that mean for us here?

1: YHVH Himself is not keeping silent and is not keeping quiet about these matters

2: The God of Isaac has an unmistakable commitment of the highest priority: to passionately pursue the protection, salvation and blessing of the Jewish people – all the way through and up to the point where His promises become reality.

3: YHVH’s divine declaration issues forth from His own mouth and it echoes the cry of His heart as well.

YHVH proclaims two of His marvelous deeds

In this magnificent chapter, YHVH proclaims two awesome facts:

1: He has appointed intercessory watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem (verse 6). These ‘guardians’ (šō·mə·rîm שָׁמַר) will press into their mission – not limited by time or personal strength – until YHVH’s restoration plans for the Jewish people and their capital city are fulfilled on earth, and until all nations honor and praise the Jewish people for that redemptive reality.

2: He has proclaimed a message to all the nations of the earth, no matter how far away from the Land of Israel (verse 11). Those who hear Him and obey are called to proclaim a two-fold message to the Jewish people (ed., the daughter of Zion):

To sum up: all believers have received an intercessory call to pray and labor for the full restoration of the Jewish people and their Land. All believers are called to proclaim to the Jewish people the gospel message of Messiah Yeshua’s atonement, resurrection and return, as well as His swift-coming judgment to judge all the nations.

YHVH’s five commands

In chapter 62:10 the God of Israel commands His listeners to do five things:

These commands call upon the listeners (Jewish and/or Gentile) to set their hands to physically restore the Land of Israel (at the very least) – the removing of physical obstacles and stones as roads are constructed which pass from desolate areas to Jerusalem the Jewish people’s capital city. The flags are a physical manifestation that God is restoring the sons and daughters of Jacob, and that the nations of the world need to sit up and take notice.

To sum up: Jews and Gentiles who believe in Messiah Yeshua are commanded to rise to the challenge and help in the restoration of the Jewish people and the reclamation of their Land – both physically and spiritually. This calling includes the priority call of the gospel to the Jewish people in Romans 1:16.

YHVH pounds three prophetic sign-posts into holy ground

In Isaiah 62 the God of Israel grants three prophetic time-signs – three times the word ‘until’ is used in this chapter. These draw attention to what is known as a ‘terminus ad quem’ – the finishing point in a process. Intercessors are called on to intensely intercede from the ‘now’ of today until the ‘then’ – when these prayers become fulfilled reality for Jerusalem, Zion and Israel:

To sum up: our intercessory calling and mandate for the Jewish people continues until – until Israel comes into a full and saving knowledge of Messiah Yeshua; until the Jewish people become a lighthouse of spiritual truth, righteousness and rescue for the entire plant – life from the dead (see Romans 11:12); until the whole world recognizes these realities.

YHVH reveals twenty-four future events

Here are the twenty-four prophetic future events that Isaiah sees in chapter 62. We look forward to seeing these come to pass as well:

  1. Jerusalem’s righteousness will go forth like brightness
  2. Jerusalem’s salvation will go forth like a torch that is burning
  3. The nations will see Jerusalem’s righteousness
  4. All kings will see Jerusalem’s glory
  5. Jerusalem will be called by a new name which the mouth of YHVH will designate
  6. Jerusalem will be a crown of beauty in the hand of YHVH
  7. Jerusalem will be a royal headband in the hand of her God
  8. It will no longer be said to Jerusalem, ‘Forsaken’
  9. It will no longer be said of your Land, ‘Desolate’
  10. You (Jerusalem) will be called ‘My delight is in her’
  11. Your Land will be called ‘Married’
  12. To YHVH your Land will be married
  13. Your sons (O Land) will marry you
  14. Your God (O Israel) will rejoice over you
  15. Jerusalem will be established by YHVH and made an object of praise in the earth
  16. YHVH will never again give Israeli grain as food for to Israel’s enemies
  17. Foreigners will never drink Israel’s new wine for which the Jewish people have labored
  18. Israeli Jews will harvest their own crops. They will eat them and praise YHVH.
  19. They will gather grapes and will drink that wine in the courtyards of YHVH’s Sanctuary
  20. Israel’s salvation is coming
  21. Messiah’s (positive) reward is with Him
  22. Messiah’s (judging) compensation is before Him
  23. The nations will call the Jewish people, ‘The holy people, the redeemed of YHVH’
  24. The Jewish people will be called, ‘Sought Out, A City Not Abandoned’

To sum up: the prophetic fulfilment of Isaiah 62 homes in on physical and spiritual blessings to the Jewish people in their Jewish homeland. Overflowing intimacy with YHVH and physical prosperity will be their portion, and this fact will be recognized by the entire world. Spiritual truth and light and Messianic teaching will flow from Jerusalem (see Isaiah 2:1-5; Zechariah 8:20-23).

Postscriptum

It is becoming more and more common in a ‘politically correct’ world – especially when it concerns the Middle East – to describe the prophetic future in the Holy Land as being divided between Jews and Arabs; to describe the fulfilment of a ‘One New Man’ identity as being that of properly blended percentage of Jews and Arabs in the Promised Land; to envision and even prophesy a coming ‘Abrahamic Table’ where Ishmael and Esau will have priority seating at the covenantal table along with Isaac and Jacob. One offshoot of this includes the blatant misuse of Isaiah 19,  mistakenly classifying the Hamitic people of Egypt as honorary Ishmaelites who are then somehow ‘granted’ (according to this false teaching) full covenantal inheritance rights with the sons and daughters of Jacob.

It is noted that the futuristic vision of Isaiah 62 contains no description of an Ishmaelite or Edomite enclave on the soil of the Abrahamic Land. That territory has been eternally bequeathed to Isaac, Jacob and his twelve sons by the God of Abraham.

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) through: www.davidstent.org

God’s burning heart for Israel sifts the hearts of the nation

The Bible is an unusual book. One can read a million volumes, but this is the only book that actually reads the person who peruses its pages. “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

In the same way, God’s strategic choosing of the Jewish people to be His firstborn nation (Exodus 4:22; Romans 9:4; 11:29) is meant to expose the heart of the world, to weigh the nations as to whether or not they accept God’s sovereign choice and appreciate the passions of His heart.

As humankind considers the existence, the calling and the destiny of the Jewish people, it is worth remembering that the God of Eternity is using the sons of Jacob to sift, weigh and purify the hearts of the nations of the world.

Though the peoples of this planet may feel that they are the ones who are making decisions about the role and righteousness of the Jewish people, in the final analysis it is the God of Jacob who is weighing the nations (which also includes the followers of Yeshua) in the balance (see Daniel 5:25-27; Isaiah 40:15-17, 27-31)

The Gospel according to Dylan

In his classic song ‘Gonna change my way of thinking’ Bob Dylan wryly notes, “Don’t know which is worse – doin’ your own thing or just being cool” (Copyright © 1979 Special Rider Music). For many in the Western world today, Israel is not cool, and standing with God’s heart for Israel is definitely uncool. There are some believers who insist on hyphenating or footnoting their love for Israel, insisting that it is the Jewish people they love, and not the Jewish state (which they then deprecate and delegitimize).

God’s outstanding example of a woman of faith, chosen from Israel’s adversaries, is Ruth. Her heart is the atomic core of the Book of Ruth, and it ticked in sync with the heart of Israel’s God. Even though a famine had visited Israel, Ruth made a bold and no-holds-barred confession: “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may YHVH do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me” (Ruth 1:16-17).

In the same way that James (or Jacob, as his Brother Yeshua called him) teaches us that faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26), so Ruth’s love for Israel meant that she manifested real fruit of that love. That love was so tangible that Jewish men and women in her day could concretely see and tangibly feel her love. Ruth was willing to identify totally with the Jewish people. She was willing to share their lot (the good and the bad), walk with them even when they were attacked by their enemies, embrace their culture and lifestyle, and cleave to that people more than to her own original nation.

Those who feel a mandate from God to stand with Israel need to ask themselves if their commitment measures up to the living example of Ruth the Moabitess. Words have never been enough. And today being politically correct won’t cut it. Distancing ones’ self from the regathered Jewish people and their prophetically established state in order to appeal to a PC generation will not make God’s grade. ‘Asking the hard questions’ means asking if we really see Ruth as our mother in the faith.

But perhaps it would be more honest to admit that cool-hearted reserve toward the Jewish people more suits our style. Ultimately, before the eyes of an all-seeing God, it comes down to a question of courage and backbone (“For the eyes of YHVH move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

“And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me” (Matthew 11:6)

Job’s friends – from a Jewish context

The Book of Job describes the eloquent arguments of Job’s friends in his time of need. They raised questions concerning God’s sovereignty and Job’s potentially hidden sins, but they missed the point of what God was trying to get at. Ultimately God rebuked them:

“It came about after YHVH had spoken these words to Job, that YHVH said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has’ ” (Job 42:7-8).

Yeshua teaches us that our attitude as His followers need to be touched by humility and compassion. My friend John Wimber used to teach that a heart of forgiveness and compassion is a key to ministering the healing heart of God. A heart which ministers without compassion will not make the grade. “Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’” (Matthew 18:32-33).

So in the same way we must ask the Lord God of Israel to tune our hearts, revealing to us even hidden sins of the heart, especially in our attitudes toward the Jewish people. A heart of compassion toward the Jewish people is the sine qua non – the essential foundation stone for anyone who wants to minister God’s heart for His chosen people.

Satan in Hebrew means the accuser. One of the priority callings of the body of Messiah is to love the Jewish people with Yeshua’s love – to actually be an incarnation of the Good News. Followers of Yeshua are not called to point cold-blooded fingers, all the while insisting that they are Job’s best friends.

Isaiah wept over Assyria’s cruel violation of the daughter of Zion, while Jeremiah mourned over Babylon’s destructive acts against Israel. Obadiah pointed out that the Arabs of Edom gazed upon Israel’s ruin with voyeuristic joy, and even furthered the violence. Corrie ten Boom’s pastor refused to encourage anti-Hitler resistance, declaring that the Nazis were the established and God-approved authority.

What will believers in Yeshua do in our day when anti-Semitic clouds swirl across the capital cities and squares, streets and marketplaces of the world? What will the body of Messiah do when jihadi forces succeed in obtaining nuclear weapons and prosecute deadly jihad against the Jewish people and their state (see Psalm 83). Will we weep, intercede, actively rescue and stand with the Jewish people, or will we simply cluck our tongues like Job’s friends and damn Israel with faint praise, saying, “Nice try! Jolly good show! That was quite an effort your army and air force put up, but it was all in vain!”

One famous brother (now departed) posited in a public address that we will see “the probable extermination of the present state of Israel.” What a blithe and cold-hearted delivery irradiated his voice when he said those words. Where are the tears on the cheeks of Job’s friends?

“For wisdom is vindicated by all her children” (Luke 7:35). Let us be wise children filled to overflowing with God’s heart of compassion for the Jewish people.

Identifying with the Israel that doesn’t exist

Years ago my own brother once told me that he could have stood with Israel back in the day, in the 1950’s, when the country championed values more socialist in nature. That was the Israel worth supporting, he said. But not present Israel, which to him is anti-progressive.

In the same way, I have met some believers who say that they would support the Israel of King David’s day, when camels roamed, Jews lived in tents and the Big House of Worship stood on the Temple Mount. But not now, when Israel has to fight to survive, and the combined propaganda might of the Islamic world paints Israel as Goliath and the forces of Palestinian jihad as David. Ex-President Jimmy Carter is an outstanding example of a nominal Christian activist who labors to undermine the Jewish state while sheltering beneath pseudo-Christian camouflage netting.

In the same way as a small cadre of radical ultra-Orthodox Jews (the Neturei Karta) refuse to recognize or support the modern state of Israel because its present leaders are not radical ultra-Orthodox Jews themselves, some Evangelicals refuse to allow their hearts to warm to Israel because (they explain) most Jewish people do not yet believe in Messiah Yeshua. This is conditional love. It cannot even be properly defined as love. Rather, it is better described as a withholding of one’s affections in an attempt to manipulate a faith response on the part of Jewish people – a rather hopeless and non-biblical endeavor!

Strikingly, some politically correct people who define themselves as Christians show a greater affinity for and identification with Islamist Arab forces, even if those groups openly call for the physical Replacement or removal of the Jewish nation from their Promised Land. Often the phrase is heard “I would be more supportive of Israel if only they were more supportive of my solution to Middle East hostilities.”

The love of a colonialist is not cut from the same cloth as a love which flowers between friends or between equals. The body of Messiah is not called to foster or model such a twisted form of love. It is the opposite of God’s own burning and passionate heart:

Forgetting how to cry

Years ago  a friend of mine spend a season traveling with John Wimber, encouraging him about passion for Yeshua and the importance of intercessory prayer. At one point my friend told John that he needed to stop traveling with John and return to spending more time in the prayer room. When John ask in puzzlement why this had to be, my friend explained to John that he was no longer crying when he prayed – that the tears and passion that had been so much a part of his prayer life had subsided somewhat, and for my friend this was a litmus test that something was out of place for him. These words are powerful, and the truth behind them is rock-solid.

In the same way, when tears are not a part of our prayers for and teaching about Israel, something has gone wrong. Israel is not an eschatological chess piece, whose suffering and troubles are merely part of a huge Last Days blueprint that we sign off on.

“Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote…” (Isaiah 29:13)

“Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! … Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the wailing women, that they may come! Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may shed tears and our eyelids flow with water … Now hear the word of YHVH, O you women, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters wailing…” (Jeremiah 9:1, 17-18, 20)

Catching the seventh wave of the Spirit

Theologians and researchers refer to various waves of the Holy Spirit during the 20th century. One of the last waves yet to come is the future wave of restoration for His Jewish people, based on God’s burning and passionate heart for Israel, and His continuing priority and loving strategy for the sons and daughters of Jacob (see Zechariah 12:10).

Entering into this revelation requires a circumcision of one’s eyes as one reads the Holy Scriptures. When one truly believes that the Bible was written over 90% by Jewish people, and that its prophetic declarations focus over 90% on the Jewish people, then reading the Word becomes an invigorating and eye-opening event. If God really means what He says regarding Israel’s restoration, Israel’s regathering, Israel’s repentance, Israel’s Last Days role as a mighty army, etc., then we live in days of awesome opportunity and awakening – days which will bring life from the dead to the entire world (see Romans 11:12, 15).

It has been in vogue in some circles – the fashionable approach – to focus on the future shaking of the house of Jacob as the main eschatological event coming down the pipe. It is biblically true that both Jews and Gentiles will be shaken. As C.S. Lewis once said, “God whispers in our pleasures and shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to raise a deaf world.” Yet the Scriptures have much to say (if we have eyes to read) concerning many positive Last Days events concerning the Jewish people.

Teachers and preachers in the body of Messiah need to get a spiritual checkup every so often concerning possible fixation or tunnel-vision on negative events regarding the Jewish people. The Doctor of our souls may well ask, “For every teaching given on calamity yet to befall the Jewish people, is this declaration accompanied both by authentic tears and by balanced focus on the amazing plan God has to bring light and victory – life from the dead – through the Jewish people as well”?

It is time for us all to be about our Father’s business!

How shall 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) through: www.davidstent.org

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