When a home falls apart

Back in the 1980’s Rachel and I had the privilege to meet Steve and Annie Chapman, Nashville recording artists with a wonderful ministry to married couples. One of their great songs touches on blowback from divorce:

All across this nation homes are falling and daily the number increases

And the ones who suffer most aren't the mothers or the fathers – The children are the broken pieces

            The children are the broken pieces when a home falls apart

            The children are the broken pieces – who's going to mend their broken hearts?

And when a nation is fill with broken pieces, it's so hard to build upon the ruins

You mothers and you fathers if you will not stay together, your children pay the price for what you're doing . . .

            (‘Broken Pieces’ © Steve & Annie Chapman, Star Song Records)

Over two thousand years ago the prophet Malachi said much the same:

Denial and the blame game

When a husband declares to his marriage counselor that there really are no problems in his marriage, a red light starts flashing. Or conversely, when the wife states that all the couple’s problems are simply her husband’s fault, something is up. And what is true about individual marriages can also be true about an entire nation.

The recent elections in the U.S.A. reveal sobering dynamics. Approximately 163 million voters (out of  239 million – 66.7%) were listed as having cast a ballot. The initial results showed a comfortable majority for President Trump, but within a few days, amidst much disputation and accusations of electoral fraud, the Democratic candidate had pulled ahead. Today’s estimates are that between 74 and 75 million Americans voted for Trump, while close to 80 million voted for Biden. That’s a lot of voters on both sides of the aisle.

Proverbs 18:18 says that “the cast lot puts an end to quarrels, and decides between the mighty ones,” but the latest U.S. elections points in an opposite direction. Proverbs 18:17 throws light on the present context, “The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him.” Whereas 77% of all polled Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, only 10% of polled Democrats agree. Over 66% of polled Republicans say that the Presidents lawsuits are helping American democracy, while 84% of canvased Democrats think Trump is harming democracy. Approximately 90% of polled Democrats are relieved with the results of the election, while 67% of canvased Republicans are angry.

Like two spouses on the brink of divorce, acrid disagreement has touched just about every major area of life – the vision for the country; politico-economic direction (free-enterprise versus big government); sexual ethics (biblical morality versus legalized abortion, homosexuality, etc.); freedom of speech/press (public square debate versus big tech/social media censorship); a common historical vision (the Declaration of Independence versus a belief that America’s ‘DNA’ foundations are built on systematic racism).

Mutual accusation, acrimony, sniping and nastiness have exploded on both sides of the body politic, spotlighting long-standing divisions in a country once known as the United States of America. And like children in a divorcing family whose security is shaken to the core, many Americans are in shock. Will daddy and mommy (that is, the United States) separate? Will they actually start hitting each other (will there be civil war)? Will we end up homeless?

Are America’s ‘children’ turning into “the broken pieces as this home falls apart?” Should the motto on the Great Seal of America motto remain ‘e pluribus unum’ (out of many peoples, one nation has arisen), or are things are moving more in the direction of ‘ex uno plures’ (the one united entity breaks down and is transformed into many divided groups)? Is the U.S.A. heading for a ‘no-fault divorce,’ or have the fault lines been visible for some time?

Solomon once said that “a brother who is offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and quarrels are like the bars of a citadel” (Proverbs 18:19). The roots of America’s divisions are spiritual, and her solutions are also ultimately spiritual. Those who advocate a radical and violent departure from America’s original spiritual and ethical foundations are “sowing wind and harvesting a storm” (Hosea 8:7). Ultimately, the “one who troubles his own house will inherit the wind” (Proverbs 11:29).

Progressives versus Primitives

I was raised to be a Communist revolutionary. My parents were disciples of ‘the Gospel according to Karl Marx,’ and as a youth I longed to follow in their footsteps. I was taught to scorn people who were ‘politically incorrect’ – that is to say, right-of-center or even just center. My mother told me that she hoped/prayed that I would never become a capitalist, a fascist or a rabbi. When I studied political science at McGill University in Montreal, my instructors sneered at conservatives, religious people and successful entrepreneurs. I was taught that all revolutionary movements (which they labeled ‘progressive’) were activated and led by elites – intellectuals and left-wingers who had chosen to be on ‘the correct side of history.’ Today these same poisonous perspectives characterize the curricula of most Western universities and the worldview of the mainstream media. Scorn for political and religious conservatives, whether Westerners or Israelis, is considered business-as-usual on the internet, the TV screen and social media.

If Communism is the only politically correct position, then a refusal to bow the knee and worship at a Marxist altar can only be considered as a mental aberration, as a political sickness, as insanity. Indeed, until quite recently those brave Russian souls who publically disagreed with a Marxist view of history (or with Russia’s political activities) were often considered psychiatric cases, and sentenced to brainwashing in psychiatric prisons/institutions known as ‘psikhushka’ (психу́шка - ‘crazy ward’). The forced confinement of dissidents in psychiatric hospitals, where debilitating drugs were administered, was normative KGB practice. The goal was to isolate, discredit and break ‘enemies of the state’ physically and mentally.

Recent trends in America’s mainstream media carry a faint echo of KGB approaches. The suppression, mocking and censorship of eminently newsworthy stories (e.g. legal attempts to investigate potential voter fraud or ‘smoking-gun’ laptops); the categorizing of a sitting President and his party as Russian spies or enemies of democracy; the caricaturing of right-of-center politicians and white Americans as guilty of systematic racism – these (to paraphrase Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’ anthem) feel like they are all part of a slow build-up, like individual “cogs in something turning.” 

The weaponizing of mainstream media and social media (based on philosophy and perspective similar to the KGB’s use of psychiatry) is a developing and worrisome trend leading quite possibly to the rise of a new totalitarianism. Whether led by the Left or by the Right, the toxic results could be the same. And anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli trends are usually not lagging far behind.

Whereas the recent The Plot Against America miniseries aimed it sights at the rise of an anti-Semitic Right, recent developments point soberly to the concurrent rise in America and the West of an anti-Semitic Left (see Abe Greenwald’s article in Commentary, where he describes current events as a revolution “aimed in all directions at once” but it is “most fundamentally a revolution against the United States of America and all it stands for”).

A heart like Pharaoh

In Exodus, YHVH prophesied ten times that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart. The text also tells us ten times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Whether from YHVH’s perspective or from Pharaoh’s, the hardening of the Egyptian ruler’s heart was a sign and expression of God’s judgment:

When God brings judgment to a nation, it can involve giving its leaders a ‘deluding influence’ – something that will reinforce them in ways not pleasing to YHVH.

A city set on a hill

In the Sermon on the Mount, Yeshua challenged His Jewish disciples: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14). He was teaching about righteousness – external and internal, and reminded His followers of their calling to shine in the midst of a dark and evil society (see Philippians 2:12-15).

The Puritan lawyer John Winthrop delivered his sermon, ‘A Model of Christian Charity’ on March 21, 1630 at Holyrood Church in Southampton, England, just before the Massachusetts Bay colonists embarked on the Arbella for Boston. Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans that their new community would be “as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.” If the Puritans failed to honor their covenant with God, then their sins and errors would be exposed for all the world to see: “So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.”

America has Winthrop’s challenge as part of her spiritual history. The United States has been the world’s point-man in so many ways. It has been the main super-power, the economic powerhouse of the world, the cutting-edge innovator in military, science, medicine, music, film and theater. Both its triumphs and its sins cannot be hidden.

Every empire has its time in the sun before it fades. The Roman historian Livy (Titus Livius Patavinus) declared that Rome was “a city destined for glory” (Roman History: V.54.4). Edgar Allan Poe spoke of “the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome” (‘To Helen’). The only kingdom which has a guaranteed and prophesied ‘place in the sun’ is a Jewish kingdom – the Davidic Kingdom – when Messiah Yeshua reigns from Jerusalem. Until that day, as Thomas à Kempis noted in his 1418 ‘The Imitation of Christ,’ “O quam cito transit gloria mundi” (“How quickly the glory of the world passes away!”).

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Hanukkah – the fake news, the real news and the kosher message

Many Jewish people have a hard time figuring out what Christmas is about. When I was a young Jewish kid growing up in Catholic-Protestant Quebec, I loved the winking tree lights, the holly and the ivy wreaths, the fact that many people were getting tipsy and acting especially friendly to each other. As a musician, I knew that during the Christmas season there would be paying gigs at parties and dances. But the Christmas message I was hearing focused mostly on Santa, joie de vivre, Nativity scenes, saxophone-soaked Christmas muzak and shopping frenzies. Only after I had a life-changing personal encounter with Yeshua the Messiah of Israel did I begin to discern the real meaning of the Messianic faith, the reason for the season – the prophesied birth of the Jewish Messiah, and His coming to earth in order to give His life as an atonement for all peoples (but with priority to His own Jewish people – Romans 1:16), a Yom Kippur gift to pay for my sins and to wash away my rebellious ways.

Most Christians (and many Jews too!) are similarly confused about the message of Hanukkah. The official line proclaimed by most Jewish religious authorities is that a miracle occurred long ago in the Jerusalem Temple: a one-day supply of kosher candelabrum-oil supernaturally lasted eight days – hence the eight day traditional holiday commemorated by lighting a total of eight little candles.  Problem is, that traditional miracle is nowhere to be found in contemporaneous Jewish historical sources.

Some Jewish traditions are based on ‘fake news’

The ‘fake news’ Hanukkah miracle was added on 400 years after the Maccabean revolt of 168 B.C., a sleight-of-hand tradition ascribed by scholars to a later Pharisaic development. By that time the Maccabees were no longer a revival movement; they had gotten co-opted by the very Greek Hellenistic spiritual forces that they had originally opposed. The Pharisaic rabbis wanted to downplay the Maccabean role in Jewish history (see https://davidstent.org/maccabees-wanna-bes-and-fake-news-the-real-story-of-hanukkah/; https://davidstent.org/when-glory-shatters-the-night/). Their ‘creative’ re-interpretation of Hanukkah thus sidestepped the Maccabean military deliverance, focusing instead on an unconnected ‘miracle’ unknown to Jews of that day.

But Hanukkah is in the Bible and was prophesied by Daniel the seer nearly 400 years before it happened. Read about the heroic Maccabean special forces in Daniel 11:31-32a (also see Hebrews 11:32-28, which quotes from 2 Maccabees 6:21-30; 7:7-36). These flesh and blood Jewish warriors had been raised up by the God of Jacob to wage an all-out guerilla war against the Seleucid (Syrian-Greek) military forces – pagans whose goals included the crushing of Jewish independence, the destruction of the Scriptures and the adulteration of the pure worship of YHVH. Had these Greeks been successful, Messiah might never have been born, nor would the Jewish people have survived as bearers of God’s light to the world.

The Broadway musical ‘Fiddler on the Roof’s rousing theme-song ‘Tradition!’ spotlights the love and warmth that Jewish people have had for their religion and feasts. Without question Jews and Christians have many sweet customs connected with the December holidays. But let’s make sure that the traditional stew stays biblically kosher. What Messianic and biblical emphases should be remembered and celebrated at Hanukkah?

Remember to fact-check Greek cynicism and its scorn for Biblical truth

The Greek civilization of Alexander the Great saw itself as the zenith of human achievement. Hellenistic society held out the option of many gods to be worshipped, many expressions of sexuality to indulge in, and many philosophical perspectives on truth (see John 18:38). The Jews, however, were seen as barbarians (βάρβαροι / barbaroi), a nation who did not speak Greek or follow Greek customs. Greek philosophers and pundits scoffed at those who believed in YHVH as the only true God, the Bible as the only accurate book of divine revelation, and the Jewish people as God’s chosen nation. For a Jew to hold his own in such an overwhelmingly pagan and cynical climate took guts and courage. Refusing to bow the ideological knee in political correctness required spiritual backbone. The words of Thomas Paine can well be applied here: “These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink” back from the clash of empires and worldviews (see Hebrews 10:38-39: “But we are not among those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith for the safekeeping of the soul”).

Alexander the Great’s ‘Great Grecian Reset’ is not YHVH’s goal

Alexander of Macedon had a dream. He would establish a ‘one world’ culture, and the glue to unify his world dictatorship would be Greek – Greek language, art, philosophy, education, town planning, local government, religion, etc. Persia (modern Iran) and Galatia (modern Turkey) were the laboratory for his first experiment – a ‘Great Grecian Reset’ for the planet. Alexander planned to homogenize the populations of Asia and Europe into one huge world-encompassing Hellenistic empire.

Later Roman leaders saw Alexander as their role model. Pompey searched conquered lands of the east for Alexander's 260-year-old cloak, which he then wore as a sign of greatness and authority. Julius Caesar had an equestrian bronze statue dedicated, replacing Alexander's head with his own. Only the Jewish people were the stubborn ones who refused to go along with Alexander’s Greek dreams.

Israel refused to bow the knee to Greece because they had already bowed the knee to YHVH and His strategy. For the God of Jacob also had a dream, and His prophetic dream predates and supersedes Alexander’s. He gave gifts and a calling to the Jewish people, and promised that they would bring life from the dead to the entire planet (see Romans 11:28-29). YHVH marked every Jewish male with an indelible marking called circumcision, and vowed to make Jerusalem the capitol of the world. The God of Jacob’s biblical and prophetic description of this future vision could be called His ‘Great Hebrew Reset.’ Most Christians have not yet grasped the Jewish reality of this, preferring to use all Jewish biblical prophecies as de-ethnicized devotional tools to encourage fellow Christians. But YHVH of armies makes an unshakeable promise: “In those days ten people from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’” (Zechariah 8:23).

Jewish Special Operations Forces are heroes in the Bible’s Hall of Fame

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” The Bible does not shrink from revealing that the God of the Hebrews is a God who is prepared to fight His enemies and defend His children:

The Maccabees were descendants of Aaron, called by God to be priests in Israel. Their forefather Phinehas son of Eleazer was also an Aaronic priest who responded to the challenge and established God’s plumbline in Israel at the point of a sword (see Numbers 25). YHVH commended him, declaring “Behold, I am giving him My covenant of peace. And it shall be for him and for his descendants after him, a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel” (Numbers 25:17-18).

Hanukkah is the feast when we say ‘Amen!’ to King David’s bold declaration – that believers can also be stalwart warriors:

The motto of the Monarch of the United Kingdom echoes these biblical sentiments in the words “Dieu et mon droit!” (see Edward Coke [1671], ‘The Fourth part of the Institutes of Laws of England: Concerning the Jurisdiction of Courts’; “The ancient Motto of the King of England is, God and my right hand shall me defend”).

Quoting the Book of Maccabees, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says that the Maccabees “quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (Hebrews 11:34). “ And all these … gained approval through their faith,” he concludes (Hebrews 11:39). Hanukkah celebrates their deeds and their testimony, and gives thanks to YHVH Lord of the battle who upheld their right hand.

They who are faithful to the covenant

In his scroll, the prophet Daniel describes the Hanukkah scenario, looking down the prophetic corridors of time. Antiochus Epiphanes IV would strengthen the hand of Hellenistic Jewish apostates, those who sided with Alexander’s Greek ‘one-world vision.’ God describes those assimilated and ‘secularized’ Jews as those “who abandon the holy (Mosaic) covenant and act wickedly toward it.” But those who were faithful to YHVH and to His covenant commands were valiant in teaching, as well as courageous on the battlefield.

The writer of Hebrews leaves us with an encouraging exhortation based on the Maccabees:

Kosher feast, kosher calling, kosher light

Isaiah foresees what will happen when the Jewish people embrace Messiah their Light, and then spread that light across the globe in a ‘Great Hebrew Reset:’ “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of YHVH has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples. But YHVH will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isaiah 60:1-3). The fulfilment of Hanukkah is on its way!

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

The Marx Brothers, the sanity clause and ‘the Jewish problem’

In the Marx Brothers’ 1935 smash hit “A Night at the Opera,” Fiorello (Chico) and Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho) are in the thick of a business transaction regarding an opera singer’s contract. Fiorello points to a line in the contract and asks “Hey, wait, wait! What does this say here, this thing here?” Driftwood answers, “Oh, that? Oh, that’s the usual clause that’s in every contract. That just says, uh, it says, uh, if any of the parties participating in this contract are shown to be not in their right mind, the entire agreement is automatically nullified.” Fiorello balks, “Well, I don’t know . . . ” Driftwood immediately responds: “It’s alright. That’s, that’s in every contract, That’s, that’s what they call a sanity clause.”  Fiorello barks with laughter, “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You can’t fool me. There ain’t no Sanity Clause!”

Chanukah is fast approaching, with Christmas close behind. Many young folks still gaze with wide-eyed wonder on the yuletide tinsel and the white-bearded Santa Claus.  At the same time, political, economic and military events seem to be going topsy-turvy. It’s a good time to take a deeper look at God’s ‘Sanity Clause’ – His Jewish strategic focus – an important divine key to help bring balance, clarity and light to help drive away the surrounding confusion during these days.

At their wit’s end

The Psalmist describes times which try men’s souls: “They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region . . . hungry and thirsty . . .  Their souls felt weak within them” (Psalm 107:4-5). He adds that “their soul melted away in their misery. They reeled and staggered like a drunken person, and were at their wits’ end” (verses 26-27).  “There were those who lived in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in misery and chains,” he writes.  The Psalmist explains to us some of the reasons for these hard times. Sometimes it was due to issues beyond people’s control (like storms or drought – verses 23-25, 4). At other times it was because people “had rebelled against the words of God and rejected the plan of the Most High . . . They were afflicted because of their rebellious way and because of their guilty deeds” (verses 10-11, 17).

Grading on a curve?

Some high school teachers grade on a curve, and many of us do it ourselves. We measure our own sins against our neighbors who may even be ‘worse offenders.’ Then we conclude that in comparison we are ‘relatively not that bad.’ But the real benchmark is not relative; its measurements have been set by the God of the Hebrews: “For it is not the one who commends himself that is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Corinthians 10:18). It is not elections or public opinion polls which determine the ultimate benchmark, but Messiah Yeshua Himself. “Wait until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of human hearts. And then praise will come to each person from God” (1 Corinthians 4:5).

The benchmark for each and every one of us is found in the words of Yeshua and the words of Moses. As Messiah said, “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have put your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:45-47).

When mankind abandons the words of Yeshua and the words of Moses, when nations and governments lead according to what is wise in their own eyes, the courts of Heaven are not panicked, hastily scrambling about to tweak divine law codes. On the contrary! “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and are clever in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:21; see also Judges 17:6; 21;25). Isaiah declares, “Should a people not consult their God? To the Law and to the Testimony! If they do not speak in accordance with this word, it is because they have no dawn!” (Isaiah 8:19-20).

Denying Thanksgiving

Paul explains that the large majority of mankind “did not honor God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21-22). It looks like humanity is blindly marching closer to the edge of the cliff and the abyss. So it should not surprise us to behold multitudes (and their leaders) who “do not see fit to acknowledge God” (Romans 1:28) and His ways. Scripture sadly declares that the justice of God gives these men and women up “to a depraved mind” (1:28).

Side-stepping the apostolic warning

Paul cautions the Gentile believers in Rome who live at the very heart of the empire. He extends to them a key which will guide them through all the tumultuous events about to crash down on the Jewish nation and on the Roman Republic. The key to biblical sanity in days of trial is keep our eyes on the prize, to stay on target, to remember that YHVH is adamantly determined to restore the Jewish people and to use them to bring light to the nations: “Do not be arrogant toward the (ed. natural Jewish) branches. But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in’ . . . Do not be conceited but fear!” (Romans 11:18-20).

The apostolic warning was prophetic. Within 200 years theological arrogance toward the Jewish people received patristic imprimatur. Replacement Theology hijacked the entire Bible, stealing all the prophecies about the Jewish people. Instead of clearly trumpeting God’s love and heart for Israel and preaching His plan to bring restoration and salvation to Jacob’s children, the theologians of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant streams for the most part twisted the clear words of Scripture, turning the Bible and its prophecies exclusively into devotional applications focused on Gentile Christians alone.

This theological theft has brought the curse of Genesis 12:3 down on many in the Body of Christ. YHVH promised Abraham that “the one who despises/sneers at/ condemns/treats with contempt/dishonors” the Jewish people will himself be cursed. Two different Hebrew verbs are used in this phrase. The first verb (meqalelecha) has all the shades of meaning explained above, while the second verb (a’or) clearly refers to negative spiritual cursing.  When Christian theologians overwhelmingly embraced that spiritual theft known as Replacement Theology, they activated the cursing principles in God’s covenant with Abraham. Wearing a cross around one’s neck will not protect one from this Abrahamic curse. Rather, true and biblically-based obedience to Yeshua in these matters is seen when Gentile Christians and theologians bless, honor and protect the Jewish people, their land and their destiny.

The sanity clause and the Jewish problem

The majority of Christians in the world are still walking in ancient yet toxic spiritual footsteps as they continue their wholesale embrace of Replacement Theology. The door to spiritual malaise has been left ajar, and a mutant form of spiritual insanity (denying God’s word and His heart concerning Israel) has seized a foothold.

Here’s a helpful mini-test, a spiritual ‘COVID-19 nose swab’ to help diagnose this virus. When you listen to teaching, preaching and worship, and when you hear scriptures being taught which talk about the Jewish people, their history, their future, their spiritual destiny – are they being used to refer instead to the Church? Are God’s enscripturated promises to the sons and daughters of Jacob being twisted to the point of leaving the Jewish people in the dust while applying those verses to Gentile Christians instead? The vast majority of Christian preachers in nearly every denomination, stream and movement have side-stepped Paul’s warning. The result is that their spiritual understanding of God’s word has been darkened. It is difficult for them to understand what the Scriptures teach concerning God’s heart for the Jewish people and the priority nature of His promises to Israel. This is a form of spiritual insanity which has laid hold of many in the Body of Messiah. What began as a clear violation of apostolic teaching has become the ‘new normal.’

My goal here is not to point out case-by-case infractions –  neither to ‘name names’ nor hand out ‘spiritual reckless driving tickets.’ But this is nevertheless a warning – an apostolic warning based on the apostolic words of Paul: such theological misuse and spiritual theft must stop. The Judge is at the door. “Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep. For now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let’s rid ourselves of the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12).

"But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will … pay attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons . . . In pointing out these things to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Messiah Yeshua, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the good doctrine which you have been following" (1 Timothy 4:1-6).

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Running with the chariots

On July 6, 1924 a non-descript Scotsman approached the pulpit on 17 rue Bayard in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.  The building was L'église écossaise de Paris (The Scots Kirk, Paris), and the preacher was Eric Liddell, the ‘Flying Scot’ and great Olympic hope of the United Kingdom. He chose not to run that day in the prestigious Olympic 100 meter race held at the Stade Colombes stadium because it was held ‘on Shabbat’ – on Sunday (which he believed to be the Christian day of rest). Like Orthodox Jewish people, Liddell refused to engage in secular pursuits and efforts on his sabbath. Instead, he stood at the pulpit and preached a message from Isaiah 40:

The Academy Awards-winning film ‘Chariots of Fire’ (see 2 Kings 2:11) focused on the lives of these two Olympians – Eric Liddell (a Scottish Christian) and Harold Abrams (a British Jewish athlete). The theme in both men’s lives involved being faithful to one’s convictions and values, as well as the character needed to go against the stream. The film reminds us all about what counts, and especially what counts in God’s eyes. This jogging of memory is so helpful in our present day. “If you are not guided by God, you will be guided by something or someone else” (Eric Liddell, British Olympian).

Playing by the Book

Five days after his Paris sermon, Liddell was preparing for the Olympic 400-meter final on the morning of July 11, 1924 where he would win the gold. He was handed a folded square of paper by one of the team masseurs. Reading it later he found the message: “In the Old Book it says: ‘He that honours me I will honour.’ Wishing you the best of success always.” The reference here was to 1 Samuel 2:30.

In that passage YHVH honors those who honor Him and His precepts, but condemns those showing contempt for God’s word and His commandments: “But now YHVH declares, ‘Far be it from Me! For those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be insignificant.’” Eric Liddell had brought his message about the fear of the Lord and obedience to His word directly into the popular forum of the world of sports. He played by the Book and he received his reward.

Chariots of fire

The ‘chariots of fire’ in the movie are described in the Bible as angels who carry out God’s orders and judgments on the earth:

In the Scriptures the Holy One of Israel is described as a consuming fire:

A day is coming when the God of Israel will re-establish His truth over a planet which increasingly spurns His message and His ways:

The context of fire

Isaiah tells us under prophetic unction, that the return of God and His fiery angels comes in an international context regarding the Jewish people – how the nations have voted against Jacob’s welfare and restoration; how YHVH has determined to bless those who bless Israel, but how He has also determined to condemn those who scorn or curse the Jewish people (see Genesis 12:3):

As the world in general and the still-united USA seem to be stumbling at midday (see Isaiah 59:10, 14) over God’s heart for Israel, for innocent life, for purity and for justice, let’s remember the words of Jeremiah 30:16-17 where YHVH gives us a prophetic foreshadowing of how He will render back upon the nations according to their heart-attitude to the Jewish people:

Run but don’t stumble

If we are to run the race in a way which will please God, we need to know what the rules of the competition are. Those rules have been laid out in the Old Book and in the New Book – the Bible. That Book says that the Jewish people are the people of the Book, the nation who has been entrusted with the original Scriptures:

It is painfully obvious that most world leaders and world media are not factoring God’s word and His strategically warm heart for Israel into how politics and news are to be pursued. It is therefore up to us who follow Yeshua to stay on target and “run the race with endurance that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).  “If you have run with infantrymen and they have tired you out, how can you compete with horses? If you fall down in a land of peace, how will you do in the thicket by the Jordan?  (Jeremiah 12:5)

 “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win!” (1 Corinthians 9:24)

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

The earth is polluted by its inhabitants

In 1966 Randy Wolfe, a fifteen year old Jewish kid and brilliant guitar player, stepped into Manny’s Music on West 48th in Midtown Manhattan. There he bumped into a guitarist by the name of Jimmy James (‘and his Blue Flames’). Jimmy (who soon changed his own name to Jimi Hendrix) invited Randy down to the Café Wha? in Greenwich Village to jam. Jimi drafted Randy into the band for a three month stint, giving him the stage name ‘Randy California.’ Randy later formed the rock group ‘Spirit’ and wrote the powerful “It’s Nature’s Way,” a song speaking of upcoming dangers facing mankind. The opening words of the hit song were, “It’s Nature’s way of telling you something’s wrong; It’s Nature’s way of telling you in a song.”

Randy was darkly warning of industrial pollution back in 1970. But 2,700 years before Randy’s song, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah warned about a different kind of pollution: “The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty” (Isaiah 24:5-6). What do these words – breaking the eternal covenant – mean for us today?

Ye chosen seed of Adam’s race

Hosea the prophet declares that all mankind has followed in the spiritual footsteps of our forefather Adam: “But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant. There they have dealt treacherously against Me” (Hosea 6:7). Job concurs: “Have I covered my transgressions like Adam by hiding my iniquity in my bosom?” (Job 31:33). The Hebrew word for transgression here (pésha' -  פָשַׁע) means to rebel against the commands of a king (see 1 Kings 12:19; 2 Kings 3:5).

The King of the Universe had warned Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the one forbidden tree, lest a curse break out against them: “But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). After Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, the King of kings said to Adam, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 2:17). 

God’s regal command in the Garden was righteous, and His pronouncement of the curse was a severe mercy. The devil “who has sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:8) had been “crouching at Adam’s door,” waiting for the opportunity to enslave our parents (see Genesis 4:7). Adam and Eve stepped into the devil’s trap and received the deadly wages of their own sin (Romans 6:23). And we, their often-disobedient children, keep on transgressing God’s laws and scoffing at His statutes, continually moving His righteous goalposts further and further down the road, away from their divinely ordained locus.

The Bible is clear about sin, righteousness and judgment, but our modern society soft-peddles and warps God’s perspectives on these issues. PC consensus refuses to grapple with the sinfulness of the human heart. It’s much more user-friendly to focus on political solutions, counseling therapies or pain medication of all sorts (from anti-depressants to soft drugs). 

In 1973, Dr. Karl Menninger, famous psychiatrist and founder of Topeka, Kansas’ Menninger Clinic, wrote a best-seller, ‘Whatever Became of Sin?’ He states that the concept of sin is vanishing from our culture. Sin has first been redefined as crime (a transgression against men’s laws rather than a transgression against God and His laws).  Second, sin has been redefined as a symptom – a response to things which are external to the individual. Sinful behavior is now seen as a response for which the offender is not responsible. It is merely ‘the unfortunate effects of bad circumstances.’ As a result, there is no forwarding address, no need for people to take accountability for their own sins.

“I fought the law and the law won”

In 1966 the Bobby Fuller Four had a hit record. “I fought the law.” One memorable line said, “Robbin' people with a six-gun, I fought the law and the law won.” The Hebrew concept of law echoes the moral underpinnings of this song, focusing on justice (mishpat), divine instruction/teaching (torah), and authoritative boundaries or marked-out limitations (khók; see Exodus 12:24; Deuteronomy 32:8; Proverbs 8:29; Psalm 2:7; 81:5; 148:4-6; etc.). Underneath these terms rests a solid faith in YHVH as the Lord Chief Justice, that He requires of Israel and the nations obedience to His teachings and ways, and that He has established boundaries that are not to be trifled with, finessed or perverted. God’s goalposts shall not be moved.

The serpent’s seductive counsel to Eve in Genesis 3:4 stood in brazen opposition to God’s warning in Genesis 2:17. The snake hissed “You will definitely not die!” – the first biblical example of fake news.  But YHVH had promised the opposite, and He would not violate His own promises. That would have caused Him to profane His own holy utterances: “My covenant I will not profane, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness!” (Psalm 89:34-35). The irrevocable nature of God’s promises gives us who believe in Him both great confidence and hope: “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:17-18).

Western Judeo-Christian society has been based on the legal and ethical stability of these biblical foundations. Similarly, the Jewish people’s covenant vows in Deuteronomy 27:12-16 are rooted in the unchangingly righteous and truthful character of the God of Israel. God does not change; therefore His established boundaries, legal precedents and biblical morality do not change: “‘Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary mark.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen’” (Deuteronomy 27:17).

Doing what’s right in your own eyes

In the days before King David, during the time of the Judges, the Jewish people were not so faithful in modeling their community on God’s guidelines, His boundaries and His ways: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:26; 21:25). In Isaiah’s day the same was true: “When they say to you, ‘Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the Teaching and to the Testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:19-20).

When a people abandons her love for and obedience to the God of Jacob, the first things thrown out of the window are biblical morality, ethics, social order and purity of worship. Whether the issue is abortion/infanticide, divorce, sexual identity, obedience to and respect of legally established authorities, etc. – a nation goes into freefall when it forsakes its Bible-based foundations.

A debate has been going on for some time in the United States of America regarding precisely this matter.  Over the past 150 years Social Darwinists and pragmatists have focused attention on morphing American legal philosophy, rejecting any necessary connection between biblical morality and law. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated “that men make their own laws; that these laws do not flow from some mysterious omnipresence in the sky, and that judges are not independent mouthpieces of the infinite.” Holmes also rejected the argument that the text of the U.S. Constitution should be applied as if it were a statute. He saw the law as being in a constant state of evolution: “A word [in the Constitution] is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged but the skin of a living thought.” It is the decisions of judges which determine conduct, and no external system of religious morality (especially the Bible) should be consulted.

Basing his philosophy on Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ principle, Holmes said that “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” This pragmatist philosophy opens the ethical doorway for the triumph of Nazism, Communism or more modern forms of PC dictatorship. Abortion, sexual perversion and confusion, and the dictatorship of what is currently ‘politically correct’ – all of these find a staunch potential advocate in this new and dangerous form of legal amorality. What counts in the new system is what lawyers and legal oracles determine to be the socially advantageous and dominant opinion. Biblical perspectives regarding right and wrong, pure and impure, justice and morality – all are irrelevant from Holmes’ perspective.

Deuteronomy 19:14’s divine boundaries (“You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary mark, which the ancestors have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that YHVH your God gives you to possess”) would be dismissed out of hand by this novel legal perspective, often called ‘Living Constitutionalism’ by its adherents. The current argument over the appointment of Supreme Court Justices in the U.S.A. is directly related to this ‘clash of the titans’ between two very different ways of looking at law and morality.

A changing Constitution or a changing American people?

American government and society have changed radically since the U.S. Constitution was ratified on December 7, 1787:

This fundamental and grass-roots change in American society may indicate a fatal disconnect between the original Constitution and a significant percent of the American people. Only a foundational spiritual renewal – a revival of original American morality and behavior – can stop that country’s descent into “a social democracy consistent with [America’s] corrupted national character.”

Wil Waluchow, Senator William McMaster Chair in Constitutional Studies at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) asks a telling question: “Can one group of people justifiably place entrenched constitutional impediments of a decidedly moral nature in the way of a second group? . . .  Can one generation legitimately bind the moral choices of another?”

The Good Book replies to this question: “One generation shall praise Your works to another and shall declare Your mighty acts” (Psalm 145:4). Isaiah envisions a national scenario where “a father tells his sons about Your covenant faithfulness” (Isaiah 38:19).

The Greek historian Polybius offered some words of wisdom, having watched the downfall of assorted countries in his day (230-146 B.C.):

Humpty Dumpty’s Bible

The same dynamic – the twisting of the original intent of the law, whether God’s law or man’s law –  is found in other areas and disciplines. One of the most prominent is in Replacement Theology, a counterfeit method of Bible interpretation which predominates in most Christian streams.

Replacement Theology takes the Bible – a book 95% written by Jews and over 90% written about Jews – and twists the original intent of these scriptures. Whereas in a straight reading of the text they refer to the Jewish people and to God’s irrevocable calling and gifts to them (see Romans 11:28-29), in Replacement Theology the meaning of the texts is twisted and turned away from the Jewish people. Instead Scripture is made to refer primarily if not exclusively to Gentile Christians. Prophetic promises about the nation of Israel are re-interpreted to refer to the destiny of the Gentiles, and the Jewish people’s spiritual history is re-formed into an allegorical spiritual history about Gentile Christians. Thus an overwhelmingly Jewish Bible is morphed into a manual for Gentiles wherein the original Jewish inhabitants have nearly no place – apart from serving as a bad example.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll) was an Oxford-educated mathematician and logician. In chapter six of his Through the Looking-Glass, a conversation between Alice and Humpty Dumpty is conveyed: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”  “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”  “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that's all.” Alice was too much puzzled to say anything.

Every time the vast majority of Christians twist scripture passages about Israel into referring to Gentile Christians, the original intent of the Scriptures is being violated. When passages clearly dealing with Israel are preached week-in and week-out as describing Gentiles and the Christian church, this is as much a violation of the Bible as ‘Living Constitutionalism’ is a violation of the original intent of the American Constitution.

This behavior is unfortunately par for the course among most Catholics and Protestants; among most Baptists, Methodists and Episcopalians; among most charismatics and anti-charismatics; among most Third Wave, prophetic and apostolic streams.

This ‘Humpty Dumpty Theory of Language’ is not just a brief moment of comedic light reading in a children’s book; it is a potentially fatal disconnect between God’s original intent in Scripture and a significant percent of the Body of Messiah.

Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday

Another thoughtful quotation comes from Through The Looking Glass, this time in a dialogue between the White Queen and Alice: The Queen said, “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day.”  “It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,’” Alice objected. “No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know.”  “I don't understand you,” said Alice. “It's dreadfully confusing!”

The parallel here concerns the destiny of the Jewish people in the Scriptures. There are some who say that God gave jam (grace and blessing) to the Jewish people in ancient times, and will do so again in the future – but not today! God cannot bring the Jewish people back and restore them to their land in our day (they say) – no jam today – because (according to this theory) the sons and daughters of Jacob have not yet repented. God can love the Jewish people in the past and again in the future, but not today. From this twisted perspective, any present Jewish return to the Land of Israel is only a preparation for a Second Holocaust and an even greater persecution and exile of Isaac’s descendants. Again, I have dear friends who hold to this ‘no jam today’ teaching and it deeply grieves me. I am doing my best to let believers know that such teaching is dreadfully confusing (to quote Alice) and has a strong scent of anti-Semitism as well.

Begin at the beginning

How shall we then live and understand the Scriptures properly, using the care God wants us to exercise? Once again, Alice comes to the rescue. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the King instructs the White Rabbit:  “Read them,” said the King. The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked. “Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

To grasp the original intent of the ‘Jewish Constitution’ known as the Holy Scriptures, one needs to begin at Genesis and read all the way through to Revelation, taking every reference to the Jewish people as actually referring to the Jewish people. Take every spiritual promise to Jacob’s children as applying primarily to the Hebrew people, and only after that, consider how those principles may also apply to the nations. This method of biblical interpretation may be highly radical to some, but it is the foundational key to discerning YHVH’s heart and strategy from the beginning to the end of history. Full stop.

 God’s love for the nations does not come to fruition at the expense of Israel’s calling. When one applies the Bibles’ Jewish principles to the nations of the world, it in no way diminishes YHVH’s priority calling and plan for Isaac’s seed.

As believers in Messiah Yeshua let’s hold each other responsible to greater accountability and higher accuracy in our interpretation, teaching and preaching of God’s ‘Bible-Constitution’ – “accurately handling the word of truth as workmen who do not need to be ashamed” (2 Timothy 2:15).

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Saudis, Rose Gardens and Genesis 12:3 – an update on 9/11

Nineteen years ago jihadi terrorists attacked America. Four jet-liners rammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field murdering 2,996 civilians. Fifteen of the nineteen Islamist hijackers were Saudis.

At that time Saudi official sources denied any Saudi involvement. Instead they blamed Israel and the Zionists for the 9/11 attacks:

Other royal Saudi statements shed light on their perspectives on Jews and Zionists :

A recent Jordanian article in a top newspaper declares that the U.S. National Security Council staged 9/11, and another states that Muslims are the biggest victims of 9/11.

What information has come out since 9/11 about Saudi connections? Are any biblical dynamics involved here?

Saudi long-term support of jihadi terror

Saudi royal funding helped establish the Makhtab al-Khidamat  (Arabic for Services Center) in 1984. It was set up by two members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam (Bin Laden’s mentor) and Osama bin Laden with strong support of the Saudi, Egyptian, and U.S. Governments, including Prince Turki al-Faisal (then head of Saudi Intelligence). Jihad against the Russians in Afghanistan was an original focus. Later it evolved into al-Qaeda (Arabic, the Base, like a rolodex of contacts), supported by Saudi Intelligence, the Saudi Red Crescent, and Saudi government-established groups World Muslim League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, as well as private donations from Saudi princes and mosques. These groups and their offshoots organized and carried out the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the US Embassy Africa bombings in 1998.

Rachel Bronson details in her book Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership With Saudi Arabia, how in the 1980's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud helped to recruit fighters for Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan Salafist jihadi who mentored both Osama bin Laden and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The Saudi government was the principal financial backer of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement since at least 1996.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency accused the Saudi High Commission of shipping both aid and weapons in the 1990's to Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the al-Qaeda-linked Somali warlord depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down.

Mohammed al-Khilewi, the First Secretary at the Saudi Mission to the United Nations, defected in May 1994 and sought political asylum in the United States. He brought with him 14,000 internal Saudi government documents depicting the royal family’s corruption, human-rights abuses, and financial support for Islamist extremists. In particular, he presented evidence that the Saudis were giving financial and technical support to Hamas (a jihadi terror group in Gaza). At a lawyer’s office meeting with two F.B.I. agents and an Assistant United States Attorney, the agents refused to accept the Saudi documents (following instructions from their superiors). 

Saudi support for Hamas (money and logistic support) was warmly acknowledged with thanksgiving by Hamas’ founder Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in an April 26, 1998 interview on Qatari television. In Yassin’s Al-Quds interview on July 26, 1998, he stated that his audience with the Saudi King during his recent tour of the Arab states “was an expression of appreciation on the part of Saudi Arabia for [our] activities for the sake of Palestine and to tell the world – especially the U.S. and Israel – that Saudi Arabia supports the path of jihad. Saudi Arabia has demonstrated strength and courage.”

On May 6, 2002 Israel Defense Forces raided Palestinian Authority buildings, seizing documents, including a copy of a personal letter from PA Envoy Abu Mazen to the Saudi governor of Riyadh province, Prince Salman Bo Abed al Aziz, This letter dated December 30, 2000 protested that most of the $130 million sent to the West Bank by the Saudi Interior Ministry ended up in the hands of Gaza’s Hamas and other jihadi terror groups. The Saudi Committee for Support of the Intifada Al Quds (an Arabic phrase for Jerusalem) headed by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz and financially supported by the Saudi royal family, habitually transferred funds through both Chase Manhattan Bank and Citibank in New York State to Hamas, the jihadi terror group responsible for 40 percent of the homicide bombings during the intifada of 2002-2005. US State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs explained at the time, “No one seriously doubts the veracity of the information contained in [the documents seized by Israel].”

Israeli authorities on September 27, 2005 announced the arrest of an Israeli-Arab Hamas activist who played central militant, political, and financing roles at a ‘Hamas command center in Saudi Arabia.’

Robert Baer, former CIA case officer, notes that “on June 22, 1998, forty Chechens were quietly brought to a secret military camp located seventy-five miles southeast of Riyadh. Over the next four months, they were trained in explosives, hand-to-hand combat, and small weapons. A lot of time was set aside for indoctrination into Wahhabi Islam. Salman, the governor of Riyadh and the full brother of King Fahd, was the camp’s sponsor” (Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude).

Saudi-al Qaeda connections

In a March 2002 raid by Bosnian police on the Sarajevo offices of the Saudi charity Benevolence International Foundation (a front for terror funding) investigators found a document dubbed the “Golden Chain,” later authenticated by U.S. intelligence officials. Believed to have been written in 1988, the document outlines the top 20 financial sponsors of al-Qaida, all of them Saudis – bankers, businessmen, two former ministers, etc. Their aggregate net worth was $85 billion. One of the entities on the chain was “Bin Laden brothers.”

Former CIA director James Woolsey describes Wahabism (the Saudi stream of jihadi Islam) as “the soil in which al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing.” Saudi Arabia is the world's largest source of funds for and promoter of Salafist jihadism. In 2013, Strasbourg's European Parliament declared Salafism and Wahabism to be the main source of global terrorism.

Former Taliban intelligence chief Mohammed Khaksar said in sworn statements after 9/11, that Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Department (G.I.D.), made a deal with Osama bin Laden in 1998. Al-Qaeda, following a stream of Islam even more radical than Saudi Wahabism and based on the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah, saw the House of Saud as apostate, weak on Islam and worthy of destruction. But al-Qaeda agreed not to attack Saudi targets. In return, Saudi Arabia would provide material assistance to the Taliban, not demand bin Laden’s extradition or close down al-Qaeda training camps. Saudi money would continue to flow without stop into al-Qaeda’s coffers.

Dick Gannon, who served as Director of Operations for the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism, observed in October 1998, less than three months after leaving his post, “We've got information about who's backing bin Laden and, in a lot of cases, it goes back to the royal family.”

In 2003 David Aufhauser (General Counsel to the Department of the Treasury) told the Senate Judiciary Hearing on Terrorism: Two Years After 9/11, Connecting the Dots (September 10, 2003) that “Saudi Arabia is the epicenter of terrorism financing.” He added that during the 1980’s and 1990’s Saudi Arabia had spent “nearly $80 billion” to spread Wahhabi ideology throughout both Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.

According to the U.S. Senate Hearings on Counterterror Initiatives in the Terror Finance Program (September 2003 through October 2004), “Saudi Arabia is present at every stage of al-Qaeda financing, but primarily as the major source of funding.”

French counterterrorism expert Jean-Charles Brisard, author of The Economic Environment of Osama Bin Laden (October 2001) was asked what proportion of bin Laden’s funding came from Saudi Arabia: “It would be more than 90 percent. No question about that.”

Brisard’s written testimony given before the U.S. Senate on October 22, 2003, noted that in June 2001, the late FBI Chief of Antiterrorism, John O’Neill, told him that “All the answers, all the keys enabling us to dismantle Bin Laden's network are in Saudi Arabia.”

Robert Baer, former CIA case officer, notes that “one report sent to the United Nations Security Council indicated that Saudi Arabia transferred half a billion dollars to al Qaeda in the ten years beginning 1992” (Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude).

Blacking out a Saudi role connections

Between January and November 2002, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence conducted a ‘Joint Congressional Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activity Before and After Terrorists Attacks of September 11.’ At page 396 of the Joint Inquiry’s report, in the final section of the body of the report, black marks cover all the words. All 28 pages of Part Four, entitled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters,” had been redacted.

Florida Senator Bob Graham was then Chairman of the Joint Congressional Inquiry as well as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  Graham is quoted by authors Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan (The Eleventh Day) as saying that his panel found “that the Saudis were facilitating, assisting, some of the hijackers. And my suspicion is that they were providing some assistance to most if not all of the hijackers. It's my opinion that 9/11 could not have occurred but for the existence of an infrastructure of support within the United States. By ‘the Saudis,’ I mean the Saudi government and individual Saudis who are for some purposes dependent on the government – which includes all of the elite in the country,” Graham noted, “I was stunned that the intelligence community would feel that it was a threat to national security for the American people to know who had made 9/11 financially possible.” At a subsequent press conference, Senator Graham, who retired in 2005, added that “Saudi Arabia was essentially a co-conspirator in 9/11.”

A U.S. official who had read the censored section told the Los Angeles Times that it described “very direct, very specific links” with Saudi officials, links that “cannot be passed off as rogue, isolated or coincidental.” The New York Times journalist Philip Shenon has written that Senator Graham and his investigators became “convinced that a number of sympathetic Saudi officials, possibly within the sprawling Islamic Affairs Ministry, had known that al-Qaeda terrorists were entering the United States beginning in 2000 in preparation for some sort of attack. Graham believed the Saudi officials had directed spies operating in the United States to assist them.”

It is puzzling that U.S. intelligence agents were regularly called off from pursuing leads which pointed back to the Saudi embassy in Washington or its consulate in Los Angeles, where former FBI Agent Stephen Moore headed a 9/11 task force looking into local contacts made by two of the 15 Saudi hijackers, “Moore testified in an affidavit for the 9/11 lawsuit. He concluded that ‘diplomatic and intelligence personnel of Saudi Arabia knowingly provided material support to the two hijackers and facilitated the 9/11 plot.’ Yet he and his team were not allowed to interview them, according to the suit.”

In October 2001, Newsweek reported that “Two interrelated global charities directly financed by the Saudi government – the International Islamic Relief Organization and the Muslim World League – have been used by bin Laden to finance his operations. The organizations were left off the list of groups sanctioned by the United States last week, U.S. officials hinted to NEWSWEEK, in order to avoid embarrassing the Saudi government.”

According to the Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, the ‘banking and wire service infrastructure’ of the United Arab Emirates aided the September 11 hijackers. Four transfers totaling approximately $110,000 to a SunTrust account in Venice, Florida, served as the principal funding for the attacks . . . Due to such transfers, and the reputation of the U.A.E. as a financial center of the Persian Gulf with lax banking regulations and unregulated free trade zones, the U.A.E. serves as a particularly illustrative example of the problems of money laundering and terrorist financing mechanisms in the Middle East . . . With the bulk of terrorist funds being raised in Saudi Arabia, and both nations dependent on each other for economic and security reasons, it is doubtful that the United States would ever impose special measures on the ‘epicenter of terrorist financing’”

A U.S. official who read the redacted 28 pages commented anonymously to the New Republic journal in 2003 that “if the twenty-eight pages were to be made public, . . . I have no question that the entire relationship with Saudi Arabia would change overnight.”

Michael Schneuer was chief of the CIA's ALEC STATION (Bin Laden Issue Station) from 1995 to 1999. On June 20, 2006 he gave an interview to PBS Frontline. He dryly noted that leaders of the USA have decided that America is “being attacked because [al-Qaeda] hate freedoms and liberties and elections and gender equality. As long as we're pursuing it from that side, we don't understand the enemy's motivation. We also like to say that they are people who are gangsters and criminals and on the lunatic fringe of the Muslim world . . . Both of those things are wrong. We're being attacked . . . by a great and rising percentage of the Islamic world.” Schneuer’s overall appraisal of spiritual dynamics in the Middle East is less than biblical, though, to put it mildly: “The American relationship with Israel, in my mind, is a useless and unnecessary relationship.”

Former CIA case officer Robert Baer sums it up, “Anger against the West and particularly the United States spills all over the Land of Islam. But there are groups that all the signs keep pointing to – the Wahhabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaeda, of course – and there’s one place that serves more than any other as the principal backer: Saudi Arabia” (Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude).

A small word of clarification is necessary here. The Saudi royal family is Wahhabi, following a strict jihadi interpretation of Islam which is not far removed from Mohammad’s original message. At the same time, many of the thousands of Saudi princes and their families live a profligate private life which is privately condemned by the ulema (Islam’s highest religious authorities) and publicly condemned by al-Qaeda, ISIS and their jihadi following. Saudi kings have made a deal with al-Qaeda – freedom of operation in exchange for leaving the House of Saud alone. This is how Saudis manage to support jihad, as long as it abides by the rules and stays out of Saudi Arabia. So the Saudis can both support jihad and, at the same time, declare that they are opposed to its advocates.

I never promised you a Rose Garden

The Hebrew prophets declare that at the End of Days “it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it” (Zechariah 12:3). There is a sobering connection (both in timing and in spiritual substance) between the 9/11 attacks and the issue of Jerusalem.

Between May and July 2001, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Aziz (now King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia) instructed his Ambassador Prince Bandar Sultan to communicate his grave displeasure with America’s support of Israel. Abdullah was infuriated by Israel’s counter-terrorism efforts against Islamic jihadi terror groups, and by American refusal to condemn Israel’s anti-terrorism policies. Deciding that America did not “get the hint”, on August 25 Prince Bandar told the Saudi Chief of Staff General bin Muhayya to cancel Saudi Arabia’s high-level strategic military review with America’s top brass.

Then, on August 27, 2001 Prince Bandar delivered a message to President Bush from Crown Prince Abdullah which said, “A time comes when peoples and nations part. We are at a crossroads. It is time for the United States and Saudi Arabia to look to their separate interests.” The message continued, “Therefore the Crown Prince will not communicate in any form, type or shape with you, and Saudi Arabia will take all its political, economic and security decisions based on how it sees its own interest in the region, without taking into account American interests anymore because it is obvious that the United States has taken a strategic decision adopting (Israel’s) policy.” Unspoken (though anonymously leaked at the same time) were threats of drastic cuts in oil supply to America or even an oil embargo; turning to other countries for weaponry; and no further intelligence cooperation regarding jihadi terror groups and plans.

Less than two days later, a two-page Presidential letter was winging its way to Riyadh, held tightly in Prince Bandar’s hands. President George W. Bush had for the first time ever officially committed the United States to establish a Palestinian state – to divide the land of Israel – and was planning to announce this sea-change in US policy on September 24, 2001.  Saturday September 8, 2001 saw Saudi and U.S. officials discuss how the revolutionary announcement would be publicized – would Secretary of State Colin Powell publicize it first, or would President Bush, or perhaps both? Final decisions were put off to the next week.

Prince Bandar recollected that “the happiest man in the world that night, on Monday night, was Bandar bin Sultan. I was in the [indoor] swimming pool [of my McLean residence], smoking a cigar. I gave myself a day off because I worked the whole weekend. I had been to Saudi Arabia . . . out with the [Bush] response, back with our response. I worked on the weekend up to 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock in the morning . . . I worked all Monday. And I said to my office, Tuesday I’m taking the day off.”  But Tuesday was 9/11.

The terror attack on September 11 2001 which destroyed the Twin Towers was carried out by 15 Saudi citizens. The resulting confusion and American crisis forced a rescheduling of President Bush’s Palestine policy change.  The announcement was postponed until Bush’s Rose Garden speech of June 24, 2002. The principles were then further established by the international ‘Quartet’ on April 30, 2003 as part of what is now known as the ‘Road Map.’  This ‘Road Map’ plan called for Israel’s withdrawals from its settlements and for the establishment of a Palestinian state on land promised by the God of Israel to the Jewish people.

The connection between America’s official decision to divide the land of Israel and the most serious terror attack on U.S. soil to date is a sobering point, fully worthy of meditation and prayerful consideration. Though there are other factors which contributed to the tragedy of 9/11, God’s warnings about cursing Israel and dividing His land (in Genesis 12:3, Joel 3:1-3 and Zechariah 14:1-3) call us to serious prayer for our nation’s leaders.

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Rachel Boskey: the letter I didn't want to write - August 30 2020

August 30 2020

Shalom dear friend,

This is a letter I didn’t want to write.  Composing this letter over the last few weeks has been difficult. 

Yet I am compelled to tell you what I sense, writing as carefully as I can. 

For many years of our marriage and ministry Avner has been the one who has written the pertinent newsletters.  I have written the more personal Boskey ministry and family updates. 

This time I’m the one who has written a newsletter.  I’ve poured my anguished heart into this.  

Anybody who knows me knows that I desire to think, speak and live positively.  My default setting is wearing rose-colored glasses every day.  Most of the time I choose positivity as my temporal reality.  But joy is different.  True joy is from God and can be experienced in the most difficult, painful and even horrific times.  True joy can walk hand in hand with sorrow.

So this letter that I didn’t want to write is not a “happy” letter.  But it is a true letter as God is my witness and my helper.  I hope that this letter will encourage you to dive deeper to reach the ultimate source of unfailing joy.  What I desire for myself I desire for you.

2020 foreseen

Some years ago I felt that 2020 would be different than previous years.  I sensed that the movement of time itself, in a sense, would seem to accelerate.  On January 27 2020 I wrote these words to our whole mailing list:  “For the last few years I’ve sensed that the year 2020 would be a time of a quickening pace in the events leading to the Lord’s return.  Already I feel this is happening and it points to our increasing need for spiritual sobriety and prayerful vigilance.  We ask the Lord to keep our eyes focused on Him and on His call in our lives to see ‘all Israel saved’ and ‘Israel the exceedingly great army’ of Ezekiel 37:10.”

Trouble is coming and is here

Avner and I have traveled to over 35 countries in 41 years of marriage.  For the last several decades and especially for the last five years, we have been writing and speaking about unprecedented trouble coming on the earth.  We have spoken about steadily increasing persecution of the Jewish people, especially in the West.  We have consistently warned believers in Yeshua to be ready to help Jewish people when their lives are threatened.  We’ve constantly encouraged people to watch, pray and prepare. 

North America is one of the primary countries where our voices have been heard.  In the USA, every time I’ve spoken about coming persecution of the Jewish people there, I’ve felt disbelief at the words coming out of my own mouth.  I’ve usually said “I believe trouble is coming, but I honestly don’t see how it will come.  I can’t imagine what it will look like.  I can hardly believe it will happen.”  The last time we were in the USA was November 2019.  I warned then to prepare for coming trouble, especially for Jewish people, still hardly believing myself as I spoke. 

Yet I proclaimed the need to be alert and watching, based on my convictions about what I know of history, Bible prophecy, God’s covenants, character and commitment to His own Word and to His own people Israel.  At the same time I’ve struggled to accept how the prophetic scriptures detailing the end time events could touch the USA, especially juxtaposed with the goodness that has prevailed over the USA by the grace of God.

I just didn’t see how this trouble, which I knew would surely be coming to the USA, would happen.

My own history

I was born in 1957, a mere 12 years after the end of the Shoah.  Awareness of WWII and the Holocaust are of huge significance in my life.  I’m the oldest of seven children and grew up in a Bible-believing home.  I was born in Minneapolis Minnesota, formerly the headquarters of Billy Graham’s ministry and once a bastion of evangelicalism.  I grew up listening to Christian radio, going to church every Sunday, singing hymns, listening to recordings of Handel’s Messiah and hearing the Bible read every night by my father.  My parents also read other books to us.  We had no TV in our home.  One of the books my parents read was “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom.  Corrie’s story captured my heart.  These foundational elements marked and shaped me. 

My parents, today ages 94 and 88, love and pray for Israel and the Jewish people.  Both Christian and Jewish periodicals, music, art, literature and people were present in our home.  I was always in love with Israel.  I committed my life to the Lord at age 16 and knew unmistakably that Israel would be my destiny, my calling and my home.  I’ve been watching, studying, living beside and learning from Jewish people my entire life.  Jewish people of all kinds have shaped me.  I am beyond privileged to share in the destiny of the Jewish people, physically and spiritually.

My father often said that he desired for all of his children to have a sense of history, to grasp the importance of historical events, to live in light of the grand sweep of time’s movement and to have heaven’s view of what is to come.  I believe his desire has come true in my life.  Now, from my vantage point of living most of the last four decades in Israel, I am watching a massive paradigm shift take place in the USA.

In 1981 I remember reading “Our Dance has Turned to Death,” a book popular among some evangelicals at that time (referenced in the linked article).  The author identifies and explains the common pattern of family decline in civilizations which have crumbled, like the fall of the Roman Empire.  I thought to myself then — yes, all of this will happen in the USA.  I didn’t want to think too much about this decay, but I saw it coming almost 40 years ago.  Since then, of course, this decline and much worse have already happened.  Many faithful believers (including our respected friend and Messianic Jewish scholar, speaker and writer Dr. Michael Brown have correctly identified the downward spiral of the West and have offered the only solution to stop the decline:  repentance and return to the moral code given by the God of Israel. 

Yet, even with some measure of repentance, I believe the die has been irreversibly cast for the USA.  I grieve deeply even to write these words.

“If the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do?”  (Psalm 11:3)

I love the land of my birth.  I love the freedom for Gospel preaching there and from there to the world.  I love the commitment to the welfare of the Jewish people and Israel.  I love so much about America.  But there has been a significant degrading of the biblical and moral foundations of the USA.  In my innermost being I sense that the damage to the foundations is beyond repair in either the near or the distant future.   

Here’s how I see it.  Picture the USA as a table with four legs.  Two of those legs are already broken. 

One broken leg:  since 1973 over 61,000,000 babies have been killed in their mothers’ wombs in the USA.  There is a lot of blood crying from the ground. 

The second broken leg of the table is the degradation, distortion and attempt to mutilate beyond recognition the foundational building block of humanity — God’s order for human sexuality — “male and female” He created them.  The broken parts and pieces of this foundation would include rampant pornography, human trafficking and the homosexual agenda being forced upon society in America.  A date I will never forget is June 26 2015 when homosexual marriage became legal in the USA.  I wept.  For some days I remember driving around in the Negev in my car, tears running down my face, grieving about the precipitous moral downward shift in the USA.  At that point I sensed that there was no going back, no retrieval of what had been, no way to reverse the trend picking up the speed of a tsunami-birthed tidal wave. 

The forces that maintain domestic law and order may be a third leg of the table which is disintegrating.  The protection of law-abiding citizens in the USA is being eaten by termites.  Lawlessness (Matthew 24:12) will damage any nation from within.

Dare I say that a weakened fourth pillar may be the spiritual status of Christians in the USA?  The moral compromise, watered-down message of the Gospel, lack of widespread true repentance and shortage of preaching on sin, righteousness and judgment is causing the partially broken structure of my illustration to lurch and reel.  

Writings from various sources about the current state of affairs in the USA

Here are some articles and quotes which have squeezed my heart.

1) “Yes, This Is a Revolution” written by Abe Greenwald, executive editor of Commentary Magazine. Here are some quotes from Abe Greenwald’s article:

2) “NYC is Dead Forever” article and video, both worth your time

“When the earth experiences Your judgments the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness”  (Isaiah 26:9)

I believe there are now two main objectives of the Lord regarding two groups of people in the USA.

1)     One purpose is to purify His bride, to prepare His own redeemed people dwelling in the USA for His coming and to work through them to bring revival wherever possible.  The USA, as a nation, is not the Lord’s priority in the same measure as Him preparing His people.   

2)    The other purpose is what the Lord said He will do regarding the Jewish people including those now living in the USA.  This is the primary focus of my letter. 

There is a ton of scripture written about and to the Jewish people in nearly every book of the Bible.  Since the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God has consistently dealt with the people of Israel as His major focus.  He has prioritized the Jewish people throughout their history.  Their past, present and future judgments, their past, present and future successes and blessings are recorded in the Word.  God will always go after His people Israel, He will always remember them, He is always jealous for them and He will always have His way with them.  His faithfulness to His covenants and His uncompromising and particular love for them are unwavering.

Throughout their history the Lord has more than once scattered Jewish people from their land and regathered them back to their home.  We are now living in the unprecedented season of Jewish people returning to the land of Israel from every nation and land on the face of the earth.  Over the last 150 years Jewish people have returned to Israel in successive waves of Aliyah.  There are now 6.8 million Jewish people living in Israel.  More Jews are returning every day to escape increasingly anti-Semitic countries.

One of God’s purposes in shaking nations is to reach, move and ultimately save Jewish people who live in the midst of them, who hear and obey the voice of the Lord

Jeremiah describes specific geographical places from which the Lord would return the Jewish people to their land.  He speaks of (1) the land of the north and (2) from all the countries.

Since 1990 over 1,000,000 Jewish people have moved to Israel, from lands north of Israel.  When communism fell in 1989, the gates opened suddenly to let great numbers of Russian-speaking Jewish people out of the Former Soviet Union.  This is a major move of God in our day, massively eclipsing the return of 50,000 Jews to the land of Israel in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.  Most of the church is unaware of this huge prophetic sign taking place in our generation.

Hatred of Jewish people is once again mushrooming across Europe.  There is ongoing movement of Jewish people from France, the UK and other European countries relocating to Israel to escape persecution.

My purpose in writing this letter is to alert you

Without a doubt this wave of Anti-Semitism is moving rapidly to the West and has already found fertile ground to spread its poison in the USA.

Anti-Semitic crimes in the USA are sky-rocketing.  Unprecedented in US history until just the last few years, Jewish people are being murdered in synagogues and beaten on streets in the US.  Their tombstones are being toppled, hate-based graffiti is marring their community centers and houses of worship, their lives are being threatened, they are being chased and hounded.

Four murderous assaults on multiple Jewish people in the last three years (two of these were by perpetrated by white-supremacists, two by black Anti-Semites, all were ideologically based hate crimes):

Just one news item among countless others is this July 15 2020 article: “Former NYPD commissioner warns US Jews:  protect your communities. We are in a dangerous place in history, Raymond Kelly warned”

There are approximately six million Jewish people now living in the USA.  The societal upheaval in the USA, called a “revolution” by Abe Greenwald of Commentary Magazine, is already awakening some Jewish people.  There is an increase in the number of American Jews seeking to make Aliyah.  

Many theologians and bible scholars have written about the “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7, Zechariah 13:8).   It’s not my purpose to explain or give my views about this doctrine in this letter.  My hope is that Jewish lives will be saved.  

Shouting out a warning that more trouble is coming

In the 1930’s a famous man named Ze’ev Jabotinsky repeatedly warned and shouted to Jewish people to get out of Europe. 

The following is a translation from Yiddish of Jabotinsky’s touching and sad speech in Tisha B’Av, October 24, 1938, Warsaw, Poland.  It was his prophetic warning to his people, to the masses of his brothers and sisters:

Corrie ten Boom is a model for me.  Corrie, her family and many other righteous people risked their lives to save Jewish people during WWII.  One-third of the Jewish people alive at that time perished in the Holocaust.  Even more than 6,000,000 Jewish people would have perished if righteous people had not acted to save them.  Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, many who opposed the Nazi regime perished.

Tragically most Jews didn’t escape from Europe and they perished.  There are not enough words.  Only fountains of tears will touch the incalculable grief of this calamity.  

Right now there are about six million Jewish people living in the USA 

Avner and I rarely watch films.  Yet at the recommendation of one our sons we recently watched the six-part mini-series “Plot Against America.”

This film describes a dystopian scenario in which an extreme right-wing Nazi-allied candidate wins the US presidency in 1940.  We see the story develop through the eyes of one extended Jewish family.  The realities portrayed in this mini-series are disturbingly believable and ring out a prophetic warning. 

Often mainstream writers and artists have their fingers on the pulse of history.  Many accurately analyze the present and predict the future.  This film describes what would have happened to Jewish Americans if extreme far-right or fascist forces had ascended to leadership in the USA in the 1940’s. 

I believe the very same type of scenario could develop if just the opposite result took place — that is, if the far left ascended to leadership in the USA.  Far-left/Marxist/Communist leadership in the USA would be as dangerous for the future of Jewish Americans as if the far-right were to be in charge.

With sorrow I write that I believe that whichever candidate wins the US presidential election in November 2020 — whether the right or the left prevails — the moral compass of the USA has already been severely damaged.  In the last years I have seen America as a speeding car, dangerously careening to the left and to the right.  I’ve seen an enormous ship in a severe storm, pitching severely toward the port side, swaying precipitously toward the starboard side.   

I do not believe the future of American Jews is secure.  If the Jewish people continue to have false hope of safety in the USA, their future will be jeopardized.  This causes much grief. 

The God of Israel is a covenant-keeping God.  He fulfills His Word.  His Word and history prove that He has always moved the Jewish people back — back to Him, back to their land, back to their promises, back to their destiny. 

Jewish people who have sought to find safety in allegiance to godless or political or totalitarian systems have suffered.  Forgetting or ignoring their covenant relationship with God and the privileges, responsibilities and callings He has given them as a people have often caught them up short and landed them in dire straits.

Totalitarianism of the left or the right ends up in the same spot.  Seeking to find refuge in a political system is like hoping to find water in a cracked cistern. 

Jewish people who hoped in flawed leftist and rightist systems

In the 20th century Jewish people of Germany were some of the most faithful German citizens, loyal to their land, government and way of life.  Their loyalty was not rewarded.  In France, Jewish Colonel Alfred Dreyfus, falsely accused of treason against the French government he served and then subsequently imprisoned, awakened Theodore Herzl to the need of a homeland for the Jewish people. In Russia, many Russian-speaking Jews rose to the top of the communist regime and ended up betrayed, persecuted or dead.  These are just a few illustrations of Jewish people who put their confidence in political systems, both left and right, which ultimately betrayed them. 

The present leadership of the USA has a plan on record to divide the land of Israel.  This plan is in opposition to God’s future plans for the land of Israel.  Concessions will be forced on Israel by either type of US administration, by the left or by the right.  This increasing pressure on Israel will sift hearts and require Americans (believers in Yeshua, Jewish people and others) to consider the ramifications for their own lives.  The present leadership of the USA is already compelling Israel to prepare for both the formation of a Palestinian state in the heartland of Israel and dividing the city of Jerusalem.  

Whether the right or the left takes leadership in the USA, in the end the US government will not stand with God’s covenant purposes and promises for the Jewish people (Zechariah 14:3, Joel 3:2). 

Here are some recent writings which illustrate potential dangers inherent in both the political left and right, from both left-wing alliances and right-wing alliances in the USA.  

On the left:

On the right:

Jewish people in the USA are on both sides of the divide, though most side with the left.  Most Jewish people who choose to side with the political left do so because they believe this will land them on the politically-correct side of future US history and will insure them some measure of safety.  Without question I believe they are badly and dangerously deceived.  Orthodox Jews tend to vote according to their conservative values: “the two outbreaks Orthodox Jews fear most are a breakdown of law and order and rising Anti-Semitism”).  Yet, either way they lean, Jewish people’s lives will be altered by seen and unseen forces influencing events in the USA in the future.  Ultimately all Americans will have to choose where they stand.   

Revolution and civil war

We are witnessing an unprecedented and breathtaking display of hatred in the USA.  At this point extreme left-wing forces are outdoing themselves in violence, intimidation, the cancel culture and historical revisionism in the media and on the ground (again Abe Greenwald’s “Yes, This is a Revolution” article in Commentary Magazine is the best analysis I have seen). 

Along with others I hope for even a temporary return to some semblance of sanity and normalcy.  However, I don’t think there will be a slowdown or course correction in the paradigm-shifting American scene. 

Even more, I sense that extremist elements on the right side of the divide will not long remain as subdued as they are now.  Remember, my whole point in writing this letter is to alert anyone who can be alerted that trouble is coming to the Jewish people of America.

Extreme right-wing forces may well raise their ugly heads in backlash against what they see as a flood of left-wing based violence, bullying and menacing threats.

Vivid and chilling dream that America was no more

In 1993, while staying with friends in Jerusalem, I had a short dream that I have never forgotten and indeed remember now more than ever.  It is more relevant to me now than it has ever been. 

I dreamed that Avner and I were in rural Kansas in what had been a small and poor town.  Darkness and chaos prevailed.  It was night.  I could not see anything very well.  The atmosphere was electric with danger and I knew that my life could be ended at any moment.  There was no government.  There were armed vigilante gangs roaming the countryside.  No one was safe.  Avner and I were in mortal danger.  I entered a small convenience store at night looking to find food on shelves which were mostly empty.  There was really no food to buy.  There was no electricity and no light in the store.  There were neo-Nazi signs against Jews on the floor of the store.  I met just one man who had a gun.  He said to me “all this has happened and the Jews are to blame.”  I ran out of the store and said to Avner that we must flee from that place as quickly as possible. 

My heart’s desire is the salvation of Israel and to see Yeshua sitting on His throne in Jerusalem

Some of my close friends know that I love to talk about the return of the Lord.  I sometimes ask my friends “when do you think Yeshua is coming back?”  Even knowing that no one can answer this question, I love to talk about His return.  Lately I’ve sensed the Lord saying to me “don’t ask when,” but “just ask Me to come back.”  

“Daughters of Jerusalem, help me find my Lover! And if you find my Lover, tell Him I am lovesick” (Song of Solomon 5:8)

I believe there is a myriad of lovesick lovers of Yeshua across the face of the earth who are increasingly desirous to see His return.  I believe He is hearing our cries, prayers, petitions and pleas to Him to come back and fix this world.  I believe He is counting our tears and hearing our wordless groans.  I believe He is just as hungry to be with us as we are to be with Him.  Creation is groaning.  I believe the earth is experiencing birth-pangs leading to the Second Coming of Yeshua in a whole new way in these very days. 

What can we do now?

Feel free to forward and to share this letter with people who can help and pray.

With a sober but warm heart I send my love in Messiah Yeshua,

Rachel Boskey

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.

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Putting together the jigsaw puzzle

There is something inside of man that delights in solving problems. For example: in a marriage, when a wife shares with her husband about a problem she’s having,  the husband immediately tries to solve the problem for her – though she may be looking for something more relational than his proffered solution.

Some people have spent years trying to solve Bible problems. Calvinists and Arminians, Pretribers and Posttribers – some have dedicated the lion’s share of their energies trying to become ‘the Bible Answer Man’ on one (or all) of these subjects.

There can be an aspect of godliness in this searching. “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to thoroughly figure out a matter” (Proverbs 25:2).  On the other hand, there can sometimes be a restless striving to be the one who has everything figured out: “I have seen that every labor and every talented deed is the result of envy that a man has of his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 4:4). Professional jealousy and obsessive-compulsive tendencies are handicaps that preachers and teachers (and even apostles) also struggle with.

Middle East experts

American stage cowboy, humorist and social commentator Will Rogers said that an expert is “a man fifty miles from home with a briefcase.”  Danish atom scientist Niels Bohr described an expert as “a person that has made every possible mistake within his or her field.” Surfing the internet, I’ve run into a fair number of experts about prophecy, Israel and the Middle East.

Recently I’ve been receiving e-mails from puzzled friends and baffled acquaintances asking for my read or clarification about some new teachings circulating on the web. Subjects raising red flags include new and detailed eschatological scenarios; a unique interpretation of Isaiah 19 and its potential prophetic connection to Jewish-Arab relationships; surprising suggestions of Last Days roles for Ishmael and Egypt; and teachings about End of Days timelines supposedly encrypted in poetic portions of the Hebrew prophets.

Since the community of those who write about the prophetic destiny of the Jewish people and the Middle East is not that large, and since nearly all of these writers are also my friends, I will stay away from mentioning names, book titles or other identity markers. What follows are two sections:

Much could be written on these subjects. I’ve written one book which touches on some of these specific matters: ‘Jews, Arabs and the Middle East’ (https://davidstent.org/product/jews-arabs-the-middle-east/).

SECTION ONE: a compilation of some of these new teachings

Egyptian eschatology, Isaiah 19 and Israel

A teaching gaining traction in some streams of Christianity proclaims that Isaiah 19:18-25 is God’s paradigm for soon-coming Middle East unity, a prophetic guideline for revival in Egypt which will occur prior to Yeshua’s return. According to this teaching, it is essential that houses of worship and prayer be established in Egypt and Assyria (defined as the broader Middle East – wherever the ancient Assyrian Empire ruled). These Houses of Prayer will catalyze a revival among young Egyptian believers.

Other widespread views in this stream that various people teach:

Some in this movement teach that young Egyptian believers will be living a life of such purity, spiritual fullness and power than the Jewish exiles will be moved to jealousy and come to faith in Yeshua. Egypt (in this scenario) is the key to Israel’s salvation, and will trigger life from the dead for Israel. When Israel calls out to Yeshua, the Messiah will return to Egypt, free the Jewish people from their concentration camps and then lead these exiles in victory procession back to Israel. Secret literary keys to decrypting and unpacking some of these detailed End Times events are said to be concealed in poetic passages of the Hebrew prophets.

Advocates of this teaching proclaim that the salvation of Egypt, Israel and greater Assyria will come to pass prior to Yeshua’s return, and the these three countries will have equal future standing, bringing amazing blessing to the whole world.

Ishmael and covenantal standing

Another stream of teaching has recently been circulating, stating that Ishmael has an equality of covenantal standing in the Abrahamic covenant due to his physical descendance from Abraham. Ishmael is called the father of the Arab world and all Arabs are described as descending from Ishmael. Sarah is guilty of ‘an original sin’ against Hagar and Ishmael by pushing for their departure from Abraham’s camp – thus causing a ‘wound in the original family.’ This wound needs to be healed by repentance prayer on the part of Messianic Jews standing in for Sarah. There also needs to be the championing of equal standing for ‘the three mothers’ (Hagar, Sarah and Keturah) at the Abrahamic Covenant table. Jewish believers need to request pardon from the descendants of Ishmael and Hagar, asking forgiveness for the ‘sins of Sarah.’ When Messianic Jews extend an invitation to Ishmael to sit down and join in as a full participant at the Abrahamic Covenant table, the ‘spirit of rejection’ which affects Arabs will be healed, and ‘the orphan spirit’ hanging over the international Arab community will be dealt with as well.

This multifaceted message is being spread through conferences and Zoom meetings where Messianic Jews and believing Arabs meet (along with tens of thousands of non-Jews and non-Arabs), bless each other, repent to each other, testify to God’s working in their lives, and listen to teachings from leaders in this movement.

SECTION TWO: bringing a measure of biblical balance to these issues

Text, context and pretext

The late Bible scholar David L. Cooper of the Biblical Research Society would often say that a text apart from its context is a pretext. That is why the Holy Scriptures challenge us to use the highest care and accuracy as we unpack God’s word:

The original Messianic Jewish movement was birthed 2,000 years ago having a profound respect for and interest in Messianic prophecy. John believed that “these things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him” (John 12:41). Philip also communicated the same when he shared with the Ethiopian eunuch:

John and Philip were not speaking visions birthed out of their own imaginations. They spoke forth visions given to them from the mouth of YHVH (see Jeremiah 23:16). But not all Bible teaching today is being carried out with accuracy. That is why we’re called to pay attention, to weigh teachings with respect but also with discernment:

The prophetic words which we find in Scripture are actually ‘breathed out of the very lungs of God’ (Greek, theopneustos – breathed out from God) as Paul teaches in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 – “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Many of us have discovered that there’s a difference between God’s inerrant word and human beings’ interpretations of that word. Paul notes, “According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it . . .  Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident. For the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work” (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). Our interpretations of Isaiah, Genesis or any other book of the Bible need to be guided by what the texts say. The God of Jacob still has things He wants to communicate to us through His word. And we are challenged to be faithful and accurate as we explore what He is saying in the Scriptures.

Hebrew highways and Egyptian houses of prayer

Recently I gave a series of lectures in Warsaw, Poland on the Book of Isaiah. My students had many lively questions regarding Isaiah 19 (https://davidstent.org/the-isaiah-19-highway-prophecies-amidst-the-potholes/).

Isaiah 19:1-15 starts off with a prophecy of an approaching Egyptian drought. Other prophets brought similar prophecies: Zechariah 14:17-19 (a future drought on Egypt after Yeshua returns), and Jeremiah 50:35-38; Jeremiah 51:11, 59 (a Babylonian drought coming in his own day).

Isaiah 19:16-22 details six prophecies (all identified by the phrase “in that day”) – some of them prior to Yeshua’s return, some of them after Yeshua’s return. These include:

Verses 23-25 prophesy that after both nations (Assyria and Egypt) repent and after Yeshua returns, a physical highway will be constructed between the two grizzled superpowers.  Tiny Israel, the Jewish nation which suffered much throughout history at the hands of Assyria and Egypt (cruelty, enslavement and exile) will impart blessing (see Genesis 12:3; 26:4; 28:14; Acts 3:25) to both superpowers, smack dab in the middle of that superhighway. The Hebrew wording in 19:24 clearly emphasizes that it is Israel who will be the blessing to the other two nations, and not that a synthesis of the three nations will bring blessing.

Parts of Isaiah 19 are prophecy past (verses 1-15). Other parts are definitely future (verses 16-17 – military defeat, much destruction). Verses 18-25 prophesy a peaceful future after Yeshua returns. But there are no biblical descriptions in Isaiah 19 (or anywhere else in the Bible) of Egyptian houses of prayer bringing Israelis to faith.

The term ‘House of Prayer’ is only used once in the Hebrew Scriptures (in Isaiah 56:7). Yeshua is quoted three times in the gospels referring this to the Temple in Jerusalem.  But a network of houses of prayer across the Middle East is not mentioned anywhere in Isaiah 19. There are those who say that this concept can be spiritually discerned in the text. But it seems that somehow they have inserted this concept into their interpretation of this passage (a process known as eisegesis). As a result it seems to me that this End of Days scenario lacks biblical authority. Like the description of Egypt in Isaiah 36:6, this scenario of a powerful prophetic role for Egyptian houses of prayer vis-à-vis Israel may end up being a bruised reed to those who lean on it for support.

Houses of prayer and worship are important to God and to the body of Messiah. Some of our dearest friends are involved in these endeavors, and we are as well. But it is my appraisal that the ‘house of prayer’ paradigm cannot be forced as a hermeneutical grid onto Isaiah 19 without doing damage to the biblical text.

Assyria by any other name

Those who champion this unusual interpretation of Isaiah 19 regularly interpret Assyria as including any countries over which the Assyrian empire ruled. This allows them to interpret Assyria is representing the entire Middle East. At the same time, they differentiate between Assyria, Egypt and Israel, seeing them as three separate countries.

There are two basic problems with this allegorical-mystical approach:

If we define Assyria as all the countries included within the borders of the greater Assyrian Empire, the countries of Israel and Egypt would actually disappear from the prophecy, since at one point in history they too were defined as part of the greater Assyrian Empire. Such a broad interpretation would make the prophecy of Isaiah 19:23-25 unintelligible.

In Bible days Assyria and Egypt were not Arab countries. The Bible (Genesis 10:11-12) says that Assyria was founded by Ham’s grandson Nimrod. Its capital city of Assyria had a distant connection to Shem, but that was through Shem’s son Ashur and not Abraham’s line through Arpachshad (1 Chronicles 1:17). In the prophet’s days Assyria and Egypt were pagan empires not related to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or Ishmael, and were spiritually unconnected to the covenants YHVH the God of Israel had made with the Jewish patriarchs (see John 4:22).

Slicing the Ham really thin

God wants us to know our roots – where we’re from, who were our forefathers, what people-group we belong to, and what is the destiny of our people-group. That why the Book of Genesis establishes these principles at the beginning of recorded human history: “Now these are the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood (Genesis 10:1). John tells us that national origins are also connected to national prophetic destinies:

The national origins of Egypt are non-Semitic and non-Arab. “Then Israel entered Egypt, Jacob resided as a foreigner in the Land of Ham” (Psalm 105:23, 27; 78:51; 106:22). Ham was one of Noah’s three sons, the others being Shem (father of the Semitic peoples) and Japheth. Scripture tells us that Ham’s descendants moved into Ethiopia, Sudan (Cush), Libya (Put), Egypt and Canaan (Genesis 10:1, 6–20).

According to the Scriptures, Egypt was never an Arab land. It was a land given to the sons of Ham. A dear Egyptian pastor friend told me something that most Egyptian Christians only discuss freely in the privacy of their homes — that the original Coptic Christians (who survive to this day in Egypt) are not Arabs at all. The word ‘Copt’ was probably the Greek word for ‘Egyptian,’ linguistically mangled by Arabic-speaking jihadi invaders. Modern Egyptians are a mixed blend — mostly Hamitic (Copts and Sudanese) but also partly Arab (as a result of the jihadi invasions). But the original Egyptians in Isaiah’s day had no racial connection with Abraham or Ishmael.

Arabs predate Ishmael

Before Ishmael was born, the Arab peoples existed. Today those Arabs who are descended from Ishmael are a minority in the Islamic world. The Arabs of the Saudi-dominated Arabian Peninsula are commonly divided into two groups:  those whose historical origins traditionally begin with Shem (Al-‘arab al-‘āriba – ‘the Arab Arabs’/‘pure Arabs’ from Yemen), and those whose historical origins traditionally begins with Ishmael (Al-‘arab al-mustaʿribah – ‘the Arabicized Arabs’ from central and northern Arabia). Some ramifications here:

The Scriptures clearly teach that the Abrahamic covenantal status and its related blessings come exclusively through Isaac and Jacob, not through Ishmael or Esau: “And Abraham said to God, ‘Oh that Ishmael might live before You!’ But God said, ‘No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him’” (Genesis 17:18-19).

An errant claim is sometimes made that, because Ishmael was born to Abraham and was circumcised, he is a full partaker in the Abrahamic promise and a true son of the Abrahamic Covenant. The Apostle Paul explains why such a conclusion is in error:

French historian and Orientalist Maxime Rodinson points out that some Christians make much “of the fact that the Arabs are supposedly descendants of Ishmael.” As a result, they conclude that Ishmael “was therefore a party to the first covenant . . . [They believe that] certain of God’s promises apply to him.”  Those who hold these positions have “a tendency to go beyond what is given in the texts with very bold interpretations that reflect their own passions and inclinations.”

Jewish ‘original sin’

I have been hearing from a handful of friends (Jews and Arabs) that Sarah is guilty of ‘an original sin’ against Hagar and Ishmael, first by mistreating Hagar and then by forcing Hagar’s and Ishmael’s departure from Abraham’s camp, thus causing a ‘wound in the original family.’ This wound, I have been told, needs to be healed by repentance on the part of Messianic Jews standing in for Sarah. And then the ‘original family unity’ will be restored.

Biblical and historical facts don’t jibe with this statement. According to Middle Eastern laws from Abraham’s time, if a slave woman bore a son for her mistress and then tried to assert domestic equality with her, that slave would either be returned to a full slave status or expelled from the household. Hagar had violated the boundaries of Middle Eastern propriety, as it says in the Book of Proverbs: “Under three things the earth quakes, and under four it cannot bear up: under a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when he is satisfied with food; under an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maidservant when she supplants her mistress” (Proverbs 31:21-23).

As soon as Hagar conceived, she began to despise or mock Sarai (Genesis 16:4). The Hebrew verb used here is based on the same root used in Genesis 12:3 (“the one who mocks you” from the root qalal). Sarai responded to Hagar’s mocking with harshness (according to Genesis 16:16). Though that was grievous, this grief must be balanced by a clear-eyed appraisal of the reality of the situation. When a slave begins to usurp a king, the stability and security of the realm is in danger. When Ishmael began to manifest the same scorn to Isaac as Hagar his mother manifested to Sarai (Genesis 21:9), Sarai saw an upcoming threat to Isaac’s dynastic survival and insisted in no uncertain terms, “Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac” (Genesis 21:10).

Hagar and Ishmael sadly had brought down upon themselves the ‘curse’ clauses of the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12:3) in this situation. They had mocked Abraham’s wife and Abraham’s covenant son. The biblical text is clear that the ‘original sin’ was Hagar’s and Ishmael’s mocking. Sarah is considered a stalwart woman of faith who believed God’s promises and conceived Isaac by faith (Hebrews 11:11). The Bible nowhere describes Hagar and Ishmael as part of Abraham’s family of covenant, and God takes the time to encourage Abraham (Genesis 21:12) not to be distressed in sending Hagar and Ishmael away.

So why would anyone want to level blame against Sarah? And why would someone tell the Jewish people that they must ask forgiveness from Arabs for the blowback of Hagar’s mocking? Sometimes, it is said, the issue is not the issue. Is there a key to unlock deeper issues of the heart here? I have heard some teachers declare that the Arab peoples have an ‘orphan spirit’ and ‘a spirit of rejection,’ and that this is all due to Sarah’s rotten behavior. It is true that some in the Arabic-speaking world struggle with such issues, and it is also true that some blame these dynamics on the Jewish people. But respect for biblical accuracy (and for the physical make-up of the non-Ishmaelic majority of Arabic-speaking peoples today) prevent us from taking that path. There is an Arabic proverb, “First he hit me, then he started to cry, and then he went straight to the judge to sue me.” Let’s remember that:

I must confess that something sounds fishy in the way this ‘dynamic’ is being presented – calling for ‘a healing in the family of Abraham,’ when the majority of the Arab world has no ties to Abraham, when the Scriptures never call Hagar and Ishmael part of the ‘covenant family,’ and when the Bible never presents a mandate to ‘heal this family wound.’

A more helpful focus might be an examination of some biblical leads. These might be valid spiritual wells worth peering into:

Three mothers at one table?

The call for equal standing to be given at the ‘Abrahamic Covenant table’ to ‘the three mothers’ (Hagar, Keturah and Sarah) is also a call with no biblical grounding. The biblical covenant was made between YHVH (one the one hand) and Abraham (and his seed through Sarah on the other hand). Hagar and Keturah are nowhere described in the Scriptures as partaking in Abrahamic Covenant promises. In point of fact, the angel of YHVH prophesies that Ishmael will live not in the Promised Land but to the east of it, in the desert (Genesis 16:12). Isaac prophesies to Esau that he too will live not in the Land of Israel but in the barren wilderness (Genesis 27:39).

These new teachings floating around the web involve a subtle yet significant tweaking of the irrevocable calling and gifts to Israel (Romans 11:28-29).

In Islamic theology, Isaac’s firstborn status gets replaced by that of Ishmael. This Islamic worldview may be spiritually influencing some people’s thinking here. The process we’ve been looking at begins with an understated watering-down of Jacob’s priority status, before segueing into a non-biblical view of Ishmael’s status and finally into a distorted interpretation of a Last Days vision regarding Egypt and Assyria. Years ago I remarked that “left unchecked, this distorted take on Isaac and Ishmael could lead to a new mutation of Arab Replacement Theology.” 

Apocalyptic visions of destruction, and hidden poetic keys

The gospel message has two indispensable elements – Yeshua’s death of the cross, and Yeshua’s resurrection (see Romans 6:23; 2 Corinthians 4:11; Philippians 1:20; Revelation 2:10). The Hebrew prophets declare that God’s ways involve not only Millennial joys, but also the judgments of the Day of Lord (see Hebrews 10:31). Believers in the West have tended to shy away from the reality of judgments. They are shocked to discover verses like this: “Rejoice, O nations, with His people! For He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance on His adversaries, and will atone for His land and His people” (Deuteronomy 32:43). We salute those who preach the cross and not only the resurrection.

At the same time, it needs to be pointed out that it is a human tendency for some people to exaggerate and overstress aspects of specific judgments or even their extent. Not every ‘judgment event’ coming down the pike has been described for us in the Bible, but that does not give us the authority to ‘fill in the blanks’ here. Great care must be exercised, both regarding accuracy of interpretation and pastoral wisdom when it comes to teaching Middle Eastern eschatology.

The Scriptures talk about overwhelming judgment falling on Israel (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28; Ezekiel 20; Zechariah 13-14; Joel 3; etc.) but also on the nations (Isaiah 24; Revelation 8-9, 11-12, etc.). Not all details of how these judgments will be actualized or their detailed timelines are given in the Bible. I have seen some teachers weave together scores of unrelated passages into complex eschatological scenarios – yet those passages are not clearly identified in Scripture as dealing with God’s final judgments, and these verses have no clear biblical markers connecting them to specific events. I believe that there is a cry in God’s heart for some Bible teachers to exercise greater care and demonstrate greater humility as they work out their eschatological convictions in the glare of the spotlight.

A new book is about to circulate on the web, teaching that poetic passages in the Hebrew prophets conceal detailed keys to Last Days judgments and intricate timeline events. The method used in this book again involves the weaving together of scores of unrelated passages into complex eschatological scenarios – which are then proclaimed as being the cutting edge of Last Days theology on the Middle East. This approach has been championed in years past by Art Katz. In his article ‘Israel in Flight’ Katz acknowledged that his theological perspectives are not easily arrived at from a simple reading of the Bible: “There are no systematic line-upon-line statements to make it easy for us to understand them.  We need, therefore, to be apprehended by the implicit pattern rather than by a methodical, chronological approach.”

What is being stated here is that clear, plain, systematic study of Scripture regarding Israel will not get one to the conclusions being offered. On the contrary, one must combine a mystical perspective and an eisegetical use of Scripture in order to bolster these peculiar eschatological views regarding the Jewish people’s destiny. In this case above, Katz’s perspectives of Jewish history ended up fixated on judgment and the punishment of Israel, downgrading God’s biblical emphasis on continuing grace, love and covenant faithfulness as demonstrated in the present ongoing regathering of the Jewish people.

Balancing the highway

The best way to reach a spiritual balance regarding the relationship between Jews, Egyptians and Assyrians is to start with what the Bible says about national callings. Scripture repeatedly emphasizes that the Jewish people have gifts and a priority calling which are different from any other nation (see Romans 11:28-29; Psalm 147:20). Israel is specifically called to be a light and a servant to all nations (Isaiah 49:5-6; Luke 2:32; Acts 13:47). Israel needs to be faithful to her calling, and surrounding nations in the Middle East would do well to recognize and honor that calling. The next step after that would be for each nation to faithfully fulfill its own calling. For example, the nations of the Middle East are also called to bless and serve the Jewish nation (see Isaiah 60-61; Psalm 117).

Isaiah’s vision in chapter 19 (a fellowship of worship between Egypt and Assyria, with Israel acting as the blessing between the two of them, after Messiah returns) can be a powerful impetus in our day for local believers throughout the Middle East to worship and pray together. It may come as a surprise for those who are new to the Middle East that activities of this nature have been going on in Israel since the early 1980’s, though it has not always been easy. When the First Intifada broke out in 1987, two years of meetings between Jewish and Arab pastors (in which we had also been involved) hit the deep freeze and never fully recovered. At present there are continuing modest contacts between Jewish and Arab believers within Israel, and occasional low-profile gatherings in other areas of the Middle East. The vision of Isaiah 19 can encourage us as we walk what is still a long and bumpy road into the Messianic future.

If errant interpretations of Isaiah 19 can be brought into a more biblical balance, some wonderful clear sailing could be experienced for those who focus on this chapter’s encouraging points. YHVH gives great honor to both Egypt and Assyria after their purifying judgment. It is then that the God of Israel uses terms of affection about his children, words that a happy father would tenderly use. Assyria is called “the work of My hands.” Egypt is called “My people.”  Israel still maintains her covenantal gifts and calling; she is called “My inheritance.” The story “is not over until it’s over.” And in this case, the end of the story is better than its beginning. What a day that will be!

When all else fails, read the Bible

Considering that over 90% of the Bible has been written by Jews, and that over 90% of the Bible is about the Jewish people, there is room available for all of us to deepen our awareness of YHVH’s prophetic plan for the Jewish people. Most of the prophetic writings in the Bible are Israel-centric, though it is sad to say that most believers (and that includes most Arabs and most Jews) still are barely acquainted with these amazing coming events. “Your servant meditates on Your statutes. Your testimonies also are my delight. They are my counselors!” (Psalm 119:23-24).

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Sapphire foundations

One of God’s most precious promises to the Jewish people is found in Isaiah 54. Israel will undergo a process of  metamorphosis which will transform her from shame and humiliation, from barrenness and desolation, from being considered a rejected wife and a reproached widow. She will morph into a gloriously married woman, filled with joy and surrounded by her many healthy children:

The God of Jacob promises to anchor His blessing and restoration of the Jewish people on foundations carved out of precious jewels: “O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of crystal, and your entire wall of precious stones” (Isaiah 54:11-12).

Israel’s bejeweled restoration is also reflected in the depiction of the New Jerusalem, the city whose gates are named after the Twelve Tribes of Jacob, and whose foundations (crafted of precious jewels) are stunningly parallel to Isaiah 54:

How firm a foundation

Messiah Yeshua says that true disciples are those who don’t just listen to God’s words but act on them. The one who acts on His words is like a man who builds the foundation of his house on a rock. The house becomes impervious to the destructive power of flash floods (like those in the Negev; Psalm 126:4; the Hebrew afiqim [streams] refers to raging flash floods).

Building on a firm foundation, using solid materials and following a trustworthy architectural plan is how Paul describes our calling as Yeshua’s followers.  The work we do in our brief lifetime will be tested when we come face to face with God. Some of our works may be like gold, silver and precious stones. On the other hand, some of it may be wood, hay and straw.

A trustworthy architectural plan makes for a firm foundation. That plan is the apostolic and prophetic teaching of the Scriptures, anchored by Messiah Yeshua Himself:

The Scriptures are the foundation stone that Messiah Yeshua gives us. It is His plan to equip us all for ministry – not just a few special ministers.  Believers are meant to work together like a kosher construction crew, building up the body of Messiah qualitatively and quantitatively, bringing us to unity, catalyzing within us a greater maturity, and leading us into a deeper intimacy of relationship with Yeshua:

Just follow the instructions

The path is the same for all followers of Yeshua, whether you wear a collar or a t-shirt, silk or denim. The way we get equipped for a lifetime of productive and fruitful ministry is by getting to know and properly understand the Bible: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

And this apostolic teaching needs to be fleshed out by us with accuracy. We must take pains to understand and apply the Scriptures correctly.  Paul exhorted Timothy: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:14-15). We are called to build our life and ministry on an accurate handling of the Scripture, so that in the end we might not be ashamed about how we used the Bible. This spiritual truth may not be the front-and-center focus for many, but it’s highly important and precious to Israel’s God.

YHVH makes a special promise to all craftsmen, and it also applies to those who minister God’s word: “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before boorish (or insignificant or obscure) men” (Proverbs 22:29; the Hebrew word here is ḥă·šuk·kîm).

Here are some suggestions for those who aspire to greater accuracy in interpreting the Scriptures – especially in dealing with the 95% of the Bible that focuses on the Jewish people. 

The Chosen People

God offends the mind to reveal the heart (see Luke 2:34-35). The choosing of one nation, the Jewish nation, to be God’s priority people (see Deuteronomy 32:8-10; Numbers 23:9; 1 Kings 8:51-53; Jeremiah 10:16; Zechariah 2:8; Romans 1:16; 2:9-10) has been a hard challenge for many non-Jews to accept (Jeremiah 30:16-17). But Paul adamantly emphasizes that this calling has not been done away with, nor has it been morphed into something different (Romans 11:28-29). The original conditions of the Jewish people’s calling remain steadfast (Galatians 3:15-18). It remains a holy covenant between two clearly defined parties – the God of Abraham and His nation Israel.

This priority calling is one of the main keys to accurately handling the Scriptures. It follows the journey of the Seed – from Genesis 3:15 through Romans 11:15 to Revelation 21:12, 14. An accurate understanding of what this Jewish calling means (and what it doesn’t mean) is vital in order to ‘accurately handle the word of truth.’

I have written a book on this subject – ‘Israel the Key to World Revival’ – which delves into this subject in greater detail. It’s available on line in printed or e-book versions.

Here are some foundational bullet points regarding the choosing of Israel:

The judgments of God

Most people don’t like to think or talk about God’s judgments, but this subject is very much a part of His biblical and historical dealings on earth. Mankind’s disobedience and his violation of a trust relationship with the Almighty – these have been a sad part of history from the Garden of Eden to Noah, from Sodom and Gomorrah to the Red Sea, from the destruction of two Jewish Temples on the same calendar day, to the fall of Babylon, both past and future (Jeremiah 51:60-64; Daniel 5:17-30; Revelation 14:8; 18:2). These judgments are actual space-time realities (Isaiah 24:5). The prophet tells us that some people have learned God’s righteousness though these judgments, while others definitely have not (Isaiah 26:8-11).

One often-ignored aspect of God’s judgments is connected to Genesis 12:3. There it states that, even on an individual level, the person who sneers at/disrespects/relates with condescension/scorns/holds in contempt (the sense of the Hebrew mə·qal·lel·ḵā, usually mistranslated as “the one who curses you”) to the Jewish people will himself be cursed. The Bible places much stress on this priority principle. Therefore this should have our full attention when we consider God’s judgments.

If we are to use the Scriptures accurately, our focus on the judgments on Israel needs to be balanced by focus on the judgment on the nations (e.g., Revelation 6-9; Isaiah 41:11-16). Natan Sharansky’s definition of anti-Semitism, includes the use of double standards in criticisms of Israel. The U.S. State Department has adopted this definition as well. A Bible teacher who stresses judgments on Israel while downplaying judgments on the nations would fit the U.S. State Department’s definition of being a purveyor of anti-Semitic teachings. Also, teaching that anti-Semitism and the Holocaust are deserved judgments on Israel, or that Israel is the nation most opposed to Yeshua, are also dangerously close to that same line. Here are a few examples of such inaccuracy:

When a harsh stress on God’s judgments against Israel becomes a major element of a man’s teaching, two questions should be raised here:

For a different and more biblical perspective, consider Ezekiel 37:8-14, where the entire nation is brought back to the Promised Land in unbelief, by God’s loving grace.

To use the Scriptures accurately when teaching about God’s judgments, means that one should not insert imported meanings into biblical texts (that’s called eisegesis). Also, texts which are only describing sad events involving Jewish people but which lack clear prophetic/historical markers about the End of Days, carry no weight in establishing a ‘judgment eschatology’. Unfortunately, I am aware of three new publications which are sadly inaccurate in their use of Scripture regarding aspects of Israel-related eschatology.

As one studies passages dealing with judgments on Israel, figuring out the contextual and exegetical meaning there, one should not twist these passages in an effort to conform them to an eschatological scheme one wants to prove. The ancient Greeks called this method a ‘Procrustes’ bed’ and ‘the bed of Sodom’ was the term used in rabbinical teaching (Sefer Ha-Yashar, Va-Yera; 58-62).

End of Days perspectives

The Scriptures aim a significant focus on Last Days prophetic events. Many prophecies were given through the Jewish people in order to prepare them and the rest of mankind for upcoming challenges. We bless those teachers who call believers to consider the importance of these prophecies! In light of the fact that over the years various cults and fringe movements have their origins in unusual and anti-Biblical eschatological outlines (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, etc.), it is important to approach (and communicate) End of Days teaching with care, humility, measured cadence and accuracy.

Students of the Bible need to take time to consider and weigh what each passage in question actually says. No skating quickly across thin ice! If accurate equipping is to happen, it is important that people are given the opportunity to think, chew and to come to their own conclusions. The best forum for such interaction between teacher and student must by nature be personal – kind of like how Yeshua worked most intensively with only twelve of His disciples.

Whatever conclusions the student or teacher comes to about Last Days events – perhaps regarding timing issues or the order of Last Days events, or even concerning certain events themselves – it is essential for him to have wise and mature sounding boards as a safety measure, in order to avoid maverick conclusions or sectarian tendencies.

Straightening what is bent

“Consider the work of God, for who is able to repair what He has bent?” (Ecclesiastes 7:13). Some might say that I am an observant Jew. That would be true, in that that over the years I have observed how new-fangled teachings have breezed through town. Novel emphases which some new teachers feel are “the key to God’s real thrust to the Jews for the End Times” have had their heyday and then slowly faded away. Recently there have arisen unconventional focuses on (supposedly biblically based) ground-breaking roles for Ishmael and Egypt, trends which are sweeping through some charismatic and prophetic circles (see https://davidstent.org/the-isaiah-19-highway-prophecies-amidst-the-potholes/). Most of these above emphases lack biblical foundation and interpretational precision.  Not all that glitters is gold, and not all that trumpets ‘a new take’ on the Middle East or the Jewish people is necessarily accurate.  It’s good to remember that every man’s way is usually right in his own eyes, but it is YHVH who weighs our hearts (Proverbs 21:2).

As we study the Scriptures and aspire to faithfulness and accuracy, let us remember that teachers of the word are called to help build up the body of Messiah: “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Messiah” (Ephesians 4:11-12). Our teachings about Israel – whether they be about Israel’s priority calling, the judgments of God, End of Days events, or the peoples of the Middle East – need to be based on accurate and careful interpretation. Shepherds are called to strengthen, guide and guard the flock of God toward greater balance, love and stalwart clarity: “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the witness-community of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).

“In all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach” (Titus 2:7-8)

How should we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Strange bedfellows in the Middle East

“The longer a blind man lives, the more he sees,” said Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem. Grandiose plans can lead to folly, and the blindness of politicians and kings may lead to disaster.

The recent peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) surprised the world’s media. Only the third country to enter into a political pact with the Jewish state, UAE is the first which has no contiguous borders with Israel. Two other countries – Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) – have U.S.-brokered peace deals with Israel, but those treaties are tenuous, dependent on the political and social stability of both Islamic countries. Egypt’s Camp David accords and Jordan’s Wadi Araba Treaty are labeled by political scientists as classic examples of what is a ‘cold peace.’

Here is a pertinent example of this ‘tenuous cold peace’: When Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi came to power in 2012, Israel rapidly discovered that its ally was transforming into a jihadi Frankenstein’s monster. The same movement that birthed 9/11 and Osama bin Laden was now in charge next door. So peace treaties in the Middle East between Israel and her enemies are in the end only documents written on paper. Their staying power hangs on a very fragile balance of factors.  What are the factors involved in this latest peace agreement?

Rule Britannia!

“Britannia rules the waves” – words from the British Navy’s famous patriotic song reflect her imperialist strategies in the 1700’s, when it set its lion’s paw on a handful of small sheikdoms in Northern Arabia bordering the Arabian Gulf.  England’s ‘Divide and Rule’ policy homed in on the smallest possible political entities on the Gulf Coast and made a  truce with each one in 1820. The original name for the British Protectorate established in that strip of Gulf territory (which included present-day Oman as well) was ‘Trucial Oman’ (Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Origin of the United Arab Emirates, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978).

Rulers were set on thrones in each emirate: from the Bani Yas tribe – the Nahyan family in Abu Dhabi, and the Maktoum family in Dubai; and from the Qawasim tribe, the rulers of Sharjah and Ra’as al-Khaimah (Ono Motohiro, Reconsideration of the Meanings of the Tribal Ties in the United Arab Emirates: Abu Dhabi Emirate in Early ʼ90s; Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies, 4-1&2; March 2011). The goal was to establish British centers of influence and control in an impoverished region whose main exports up to that time were pearling, fishing and date farming. The discovery of petroleum in Bahrain (1932) led to exporting abilities in Qatar (1949), Kuwait (1953) and Abu Dhabi (1962). Britain had literally ‘struck oil’ in its Gulf colonies.

In the 1960’s, in an effort to solidify UK access to intelligence, petroleum and political clout, the British secret service (SAS/MI6) replaced Abu Dhabi’s then Sheik Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan with his brother Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. In 1970 Timothy Landon (SAS) oversaw a bloodless coup replacing Sultan Said bin Taimur with his son Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said. The British GCHQ and later the NSA established sigint listening posts in the Gulf States. The UAE was now a strategically significant hub for geopolitics in general, and for Middle East events in particular.

Another example of ‘strange bedfellows’ is the neighboring Gulf State of Qatar, where the United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) has a forward HQ since 2002, now situated at Al Udeid Air Base. At the same time as serving the Americans, Qatar is the chief bankroller of much of the Middle East’s anti-American terror groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Syrian Jabhat Al-Nusra and ISIS/Da'esh, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, extremist groups in Iraq and in Libya. U.S. official policy continues, ostrich-like, to hide its head in the sand about these matters.

Anti-Jewish roots

The Emirate of Abu Dhabi is the capitol of the UAE. The previous Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (died in 2004) held aggressively anti-Israel views.  He founded the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up (1999), a ritzy think-tank for the Arab League. The list of speakers included political glitterati like U.S. former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former Vice-President Al Gore, former Secretary of State James Baker, and former French President Jacques Chirac. Simultaneously the Center was a virulent platform for the dissemination of anti-American, anti-Semitic and extreme anti-Israel views. Here is a partial list of speakers and lecture topics at the Center:

In 2003 after Western protests, Sheikh Zayed himself shut down the Center, one year before he passed away in 2004.

This deep anti-Jewish heart attitude is wrapped around UAE’s spiritual roots. It has never been acknowledged, repented of or publicly forsaken. Investigative reporting stays far away from this subject, especially when peace deals are being trotted out. But anti-Semitism in the UAE is something that should trigger intercession in the hearts of those who love the Jewish people and their state.

Tribes with flags

“Tribes With Flags” is a phrase attributed to Egyptian diplomat Tahseen Bashir: “Egypt is the only nation-state in the Arab world. All the rest – forgive me – are just tribes with flags.” Bashir’s pride in his country Egypt shines through, though it is worth remembering that the Bible describes Egypt as a Hamitic country and not as a Semitic or Arab one (Psalm 78:12, 43, 51; 105:23, 27; 106:21-22).

The history of the UAE’s inhabitants is living proof of this ‘tribes with flags’ proverb. UAE has a total population of 9,890,402, of which only 11.6% are Emiratis. The majority of the working population are expatriates – South Asian 59.4% (Indian 38.2%, Bangladeshi 9.5%, Pakistani 9.4%, other 2.3%), Egyptian 10.2%, Philippine 6.1%, and other backgrounds12.8%.

Today’s Arab Emiratis come from an original mix of 44 migrating tribes (today 67 in number) who moved in successive waves of population movement from Yemen and southern Nejd [Al Yamamah and Riyadh regions in modern Saudi Arabia] into Oman and what is today called UAE. The predominant tribe in modern UAE is Banu Yas, an Arab but non-Abrahamic tribe whose Qaḥṭāni forefather was Elhaf bin Quda’a. Since many people assume that all Muslims (or all Arabs, or all Bedouin) are descended from Ishmael, a clarification of this matter is in order.

Scholars of Arab genealogy recognize that the majority of the Arab peoples predate Ishmael, and that those descended from Ishmael are a minority. Arabs are usually divided into two groups:

These ‘Surviving Arabs’ are furthered divided into two groups – those whose historical origins traditionally begin with Shem, and those whose appearance traditionally begins with Ishmael:

Al-‘arab al-‘āriba  – ‘the Arab Arabs’/‘pure Arabs’ from Yemen, traditionally descended from Ya‘rub bin Qahtan, are called the Qaḥṭāni (or ‘Yamānī’) group

Al-‘arab al-mustaʿribah or al-mutaʿrribah – ‘the Arabicized Arabs’ or ‘those who learned to speak Arabic’ or ‘those making themselves/seeking to be Arab’ – from central and northern Arabia, are called the ‘Adnāni’ group, traditionally descended from Ishmael

The majority of those who are Muslims in the world today are not Arabs. The majority of Arabs today are not related to Ishmael. And the majority of Emiratis see themselves as ‘Qaḥṭāni’ (‘pure Arabs’ of Yemenite background) – not descended from Ishmael. Nevertheless, the U.S.-brokered peace agreement between Israel and the UAE has been labeled ‘the Abraham Accords.” This goes over well in the West, where conjuring up the name ‘Abraham’ grants biblical patina and prophetic perfume to the agreement. A more accurate title for the treaty would be ‘The Isaac-Shem Accords.’

Who catalyzed this deal?

Politically correct wisdom is that the Arab world hates Israel and will remain at war with the Jewish state until the Palestinians raise Mohammed’s black jihadi flag over Jerusalem. This statement may be true of many Muslims, but there are some shades of gray here. It’s true that the Islamist roots of Jew-hatred are deeply embedded in religious texts, and these teachings are ardently believed by many in the Muslim world. Yet a popular proverb in the Middle East still notes that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Others add a dry postscript, “The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.”

So what has pushed UAE to the negotiating table, considering that Israel and UAE have had thriving clandestine relations for many years in areas of intelligence, military cooperation, trade, hi-tech and medical research? The answers are eminently clear.

Ebtesam Al-Ketbi, Founder and President of the Emirates Policy Center and Professor of Political Science at United Arab Emirates University, gets right to the point: “The United Arab Emirates and its partners . . . Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco have formed an alliance to counter the challenges that Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood pose . . . The UAE fears that Tehran interpreted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on its nuclear programme as a signal that world powers would accept Iranian regional hegemony . . . As the nucleus of this alliance, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have the opportunity to create a new regional order . . .  The UAE faces a dilemma in that it wants to push back against Tehran’s regional expansion but also recognizes that Iran is its second-largest trading partner.”

The Sunni UAE sheep are deeply troubled by the ever-louder growling coming from the Shi’ite Iran wolf. Iranian nuclear weapons are a direct threat to UAE’s independence and survival. Former President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran truly frightened America’s allies, be they Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt or Israel.

UAE still feels the need to walk gingerly regarding Iran. Their Minister of State for Foreign Affairs recently took pains to stress that “the UAE-Israeli peace treaty is a sovereign decision not directed at Iran. We say this and repeat this.”  Official Iranian media responded that Iran threatens to attack UAE over the Israel deal. 

A popular Arab newspaper brings added insight that “the UAE wants to build a concrete axis against Turkey and Qatar” – both are major bankrollers of the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadi terror. Turkey, Qatar and Iran are  conspiring together against UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus and pro-Western Libyan forces, using military proxies and threatening international shipping lanes and commercial activities.  

Meir Dagan, Israeli Mossad Director from 2002 to 2011, said in an interview before his death in 2016: “There is an intersection of interests, not a small one, between us and many of the Arab states . . . The interests of most of those states – Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates, Morocco, and so on – did not correspond with those of radical Shiite revolutionaries or their allies in Damascus, let alone their heavily armed proxy militias. Those Arab states mostly feared the thought of Iran with a nuclear weapon, maybe more so than Israel.” The motivations for UAE to sign a peace treaty with Israel are existential and not emotional. And U.S. Presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s declaration that he will re-institute Obama’s pro-Iranian JCPOA has set the fuses burning again for Gulf Arabs.

Israeli commentator Moshe Dann adds that “the UN Security Council’s recent decision not to extend sanctions on Iran and the inability of UNIFIL to prevent, or at least contain Hezbollah’s hegemony are indications that the international community does not care about the danger to Sunni Arab states, and will empower Iran. Supporting Israel, therefore, as a bulwark against Iran and Hezbollah, makes sense.”

If Iran were not hell-bent on obtaining nuclear weapons, if ex-President Obama had not significantly strengthened Iran at the expense of America's traditional Middle Eastern allies, and if the Muslim Brotherhood were not striving mightily on the path of jihad to overthrow UAE’s leaders, there might never have been a peace agreement between Israel and UAE.

Political world

Bob Dylan sings that “we live in a political world, turning and a-thrashing about. As soon as you’re awake, you’re trained to take what looks like the easy way out.” Israel is an intensely political country. We have had three elections within 12 months and the possibility of a fourth is looming. November sees a U.S. election which still looks too close to call. Pulling off the first Middle East peace treaty in over 25 years looks good on anyone's CV. At a recent rally held at an airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, U.S. President Donald Trump declared, “And we moved the capitol of Israel to Jerusalem. That’s for the evangelicals!” Along with biblical principles and geopolitical strategizing, domestic politics in both countries remain a priority in the whole equation. 

The spirit of the century

There’s a line from a song by Al Stewart, 'On the border': : “Late last night the rain was knocking at my window   . . . I thought I saw down in the street the spirit of the century telling us that we're all standing on the border.” And another line from the Eagles: “I'm stuck on the border. All I wanted was some peace of mind. Don't you tell me ‘bout your law and order. I'm trying to change this water to wine!"

One of the pillars of the deal between Israel and the UAE is set on sinking sand – connecting the Abraham Accords treaty to Israel stepping back from applying sovereignty to portions of the Land promised by YHVH to Jacob.

This pillar buttresses goals which run afoul of biblical teaching, perspective and prophecy. Many in the world will either ignore or mock these biblical principles. Nevertheless, “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).

The third and most recent Israeli election saw both major parties campaigning on record to extend sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank. This was in accordance with President Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century.’ Some big bumps in the road (COVID-19 pandemic, international economic shuddering, domestic U.S. and Israeli politics) have dialed down present White House appetite for such an Israeli step. And of course Trump’s deal involves the establishment of a Palestinian state on 70% of the territory promised by the God of Israel to the people of Israel. Though some (including some in Israel) feel that such an action would be a short-term step in the right direction, others are concerned that this move runs counter to God’s clear declarations in Scripture.

For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat (Yehoshafat; YHVH judges). Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations. And they have divided up My land” (Joel 3:1-2)

The sobering reality of this End of Days prophecy is a stark warning to all comers, “Stay far away from dividing up any part of the Land of Israel!"

From the geo-strategic angle, the United Arab Emirates have no common border with Israel. The native population of that country (apart from the 88% who are short-term workers) consists of desert Bedouin who migrated to that area of the Gulf Coast over the past millennium to engage in pearling, fishing and date farming. They are relative newcomers to the region now called the UAE. Why should they have been given a decisive say in determining Israel’s borders, and in causing Israel to step back from embracing the Land that YHVH promised to the sons and daughters of Jacob through the real ‘Abraham Accord’ – the Abrahamic covenant?

YHVH said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you” (Genesis 13:14-17)

And He said to him, “I am YHVH who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day YHVH made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite” (Genesis 15:7, 17-21)

Some ambitious politicians (to paraphrase the Eagles’ lyrics) are “trying to change this Middle Eastern water into wine” – trying to strengthen temporary military and intelligence connections between the Gulf States and Israel, thereby blocking the expansionist jihad of Iran, Turkey and Qatar. But at the same time these politicians are brushing aside God’s burning promises to the Jewish people; they are ignoring His sober threats against anyone who would lend a hand to dividing up the Promised Land.

In the meantime UAE is hoping that Iran will now think twice before attacking it with an army of swarming drones. And many Israelis are excited about taking their next vacation (whenever that may be!) in Dubai . . .

There is an old Yiddish tale about an old beggar trudging along the country road with a heavy pack on his shoulders. A merchant came by with a wagon load of produce bound for the county market. He saw the old beggar, felt sorry for him and invited him to get into the wagon. After a few minutes of traveling together in silence, the merchant saw that the beggar was sitting quietly with the pack still on his shoulders. “Why don’t you put the pack down?” he exclaimed in surprise. The old beggar replied, “May the Highly Exalted One bless you! It’s enough that you’re carrying me! Do I have to burden you with my pack besides?” 

When you offer a ride to the Jewish people, you need to be also ready to help them carry their ‘backpack’ – their covenantal promises. Israel has been carrying the blessed ‘backpack’ of these gifts and calling (one of these gifts is the Land of Israel; see Romans 9:1-5; 11:28-29) for millennia across the face of this planet. But be careful: the burden of the Land must be correctly carried! If not, the stone of Jerusalem (see Zechariah 12:2-3) can cause a painful hernia and bring damaging pain to any nation who picks up this burden carelessly.

In Deuteronomy 32:8-10 YHVH declares that He alone establishes the borders of all nations, and His decisions are based on His priority of heart for Israel. The complete opposite of this divine principle occurs when the nations of the world attempt to define Israel’s borders according to their own wisdom. And that is exactly what the ‘Abraham Accords’ are attempting to do.

The Bible makes this point crystal clear: God is not at all pleased.  Psalm 2 reveals His reactions and His coming responses: He laughs. He scoffs. He speaks to the nations in His anger and terrifies them in His fury. He will break them with a rod of iron and shatter them like earthenware (Psalm 2:4-9). We need to get ready for serious days ahead.

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

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