Jezebel and Jezreel

“For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth” (Revelation 18:23-24).

God’s ultimate judgment on Babylon details how the powers behind this present darkness have poured out the blood of the prophets onto the dust of Planet Earth.  “For all the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the wealth of her sensual luxury” (Revelation 18:3).

These three activities lie at the heart of modern culture, politics and business. They lurk under the surface of the seemingly quiet lake of world civilization like a demonic Loch Ness monster.  This is the world system or organism which in Greek is called kosmos (κόσμος). 1 John 5:19 uses this word in such a context – “καὶ ὁ κόσμος ὅλος ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ κεῖται” (“The whole world lies in the power of the evil one”).

A few years ago Frank Peretti authored two books “This Present Darkness” and “Piercing the Darkness,” a science-fiction-like description of  spiritual warfare from the perspective of a seer. His working title was based on Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:12, where the phrase “world forces of this darkness” (kosmos authority or kosmos enforcer - κοσμοκράτορας) is used: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The upcoming clash on our planet will pull back the curtain on hidden evil, and reveal the flowers of evil in full bloom. The “refuge of lies” that Satan uses to mask his deceptions (see Isaiah 28:15-17) – the refuge of falsehood and deceptive concealment – will be swept away by Israel’s Messiah, described in the passage as Zion’s cornerstone (see also Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:6-7).

As events barrel down the corridor of time, it is not surprising to see the wildcat growth of lies and deception regarding all of God’s foundational principles and strategies in these areas –

Jezebel and Jezreel

Much digital ink has been spilled on discussions about the Jezebel spirit – witchcraft and politicized manipulation of leadership coming through women. But not a lot of time has been given to discuss the Ahab spirit – indecisive and spineless male leadership and its contributions to this dynamic.

The original Jezebel was a Phoenician (the Canaanite area in modern coastal south Lebanon) who influenced and manipulated Jewish leaders into rejecting and eventually murdering the prophets of God (1 Kings 16:31; 18:4, 13, 19; 21:25; 2 Kings 9:7, 22, 36-37). Her example became a paradigm for similar witchcraft in Revelation 2:20.

Today a similar dynamic exists in the international courts of power, where manipulators, power brokers and politicians, world leaders and terrorists come together in a demonized attempt to weaken, divide and destroy the Jewish people and their state. Bob Dylan referred to these people as “masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition” in his award-winning song “Slow Train Coming.” He added that these Jezebel-like leaders are all “non-believers and man-stealers talkin’ in the name of religion,” the exact terminology in Revelation 18:13.

As politicians make electoral promises concerning Israel, as world councils issue resolutions condemning Israel, as political activists attempt to increase BDS attacks (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel, the spirit of Jezebel is at work regarding Israel – just as it originally was active in shedding Jewish blood and the blood of Jewish prophets over 2,800 years ago. Jezebel met her destruction in Jezreel (2 Kings 9:30-36) at the hand of the warrior-king Jehu, freshly anointed by Elisha with a commission to take out Jezebel: “You shall strike the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of YHVH, at the hand of Jezebel” (2 Kings 9:7).

The Jezebel network

There is a spiritual power shadowing present-day networks of political, military and religious forces standing against Israel. Whereas, just after the Holocaust, it was considered bad form to be blatantly anti-Semitic (though of course no brakes were applied to Jew-hatred in the Islamist Middle East), today the current metastasizing of anti-Semitism in Western Europe shows that post-WWII secular inoculations against anti-Semitism have lost their potency.

International anti-Jewish efforts are currently being prosecuted through the UN, by way of “peace talks,” and through BDS.  All accept certain Jezebellan lies and presuppositions:

In the past few days the world media have spotlighted one of former NSA employee Edward Snowden’s sizzling revelations – that the American spy agency NSA (National Security Agency) in cooperation with Britain’s GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) have used spying bases on Mount Troodos (Cyprus) and Menwith Hill (Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England) to spy on signals intelligence of the Israeli Air Force and Israel’s top political and military leaders. Their penetration of IAF, IDF and Israeli government top-secret communications has been overwhelmingly comprehensive and deep. This specific project (code-named ANARCHIST) has been ongoing at least since 1998 (https://theintercept.com/2016/01/28/israeli-drone-feeds-hacked-by-british-and-american-intelligence/).

The hypocrisy of the Western world’s intelligence agencies regarding Israel is not new, and has been painstakingly laid out by former US Department of Justice Investigator John Loftus and Mark Aarons in their book “The Secret War Against the Jew: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People” (St. Martin’s Press, 1994).

God’s secret weapon

Even as the nations conspire together against Israel (Isaiah 8:10), God “has plans of His own to set up His throne,” as Bob Dylan sings in “When He Returns.”

YHVH swears on the truth of His own name and character that He will do the following in response to BDS, the UN, Islamist terror and Western intelligence agencies:

Regarding Jewish settling in the West Bank and the boycott of Jewish produce from that area:

YHVH appeared to him from afar, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with covenant love. Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! Again you will take up your tambourines, and go forth to the dances of the merrymakers. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria. The planters will plant and will enjoy them” (Jeremiah 31:3-5)

Regarding international pressure and censure:

“For YHVH has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he” (Jeremiah 31:11)

“It shall come about on that day, declares YHVH of armies, that I will break his yoke from off their neck and will tear off their bonds; and strangers will no longer make them their slaves. But they shall serve YHVH their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them” (Jeremiah 30:8-9)

Regarding threats of war from Israel’s neighbors and occupation of territories:

“Then it will happen on that day that YHVH will again recover the second time with His hand the remnant of His people who will remain from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He will lift up a standard for the nations and assemble the banished ones of Israel, and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and those who harass Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, and Judah will not harass Ephraim. They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west. Together they will plunder the sons of the east. They will possess Edom and Moab, and the sons of Ammon will be subject to them” (Isaiah 1:11-14)

The God of Israel describes His Jewish people as a secret weapon of war, a super-weapon that will decisively defeat on the field of battle all nations who oppose God by opposing Israel:

“YHVH says, You are My war-club, My weapon of war, and with you I shatter nations, and with you I destroy kingdoms” (Jeremiah 51:20)

“You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them. Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent. For I am YHVH your God, who upholds your right hand, who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.’ Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel. I will help you, declares YHVH and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I have made you a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges. You will thresh the mountains and pulverize them, and will make the hills like chaff. You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, and the storm will scatter them. But you will rejoice in YHVH. You will glory in the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 41:12-16)

God’s perspective on the nations’ enmity to Israel

“Who hasdirected the Spirit of YHVH, or as Hiscounselor has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and informed Him of the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales. Behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust. Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him. They are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless” (Isaiah 40:13-17)

How should we then pray?

A voice is calling, “Clear the way for YHVH in the wilderness! Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3).

Here are some prayer points about these matters:

We ask you also to please remember to pray for us (Avner and Rachel) as we minister in India February 2-14.

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Chanukah and Santa Claus – restoring truth to the Festival of Lights

Holiday preparations are in full swing. Christmas lights are strung up and blinking, sleighs and reindeer magically appear on suburban lawns; even the occasional Chanukah menorah (or chanukiya in Hebrew) glows brightly in Jewish homes for eight nights.

Today very few adults believe in Santa Claus, though a significant amount do believe in the virgin birth of Israel’s Messiah Yeshua. At this holiday season childhood legends of men in red suits and white beards come face to face with the miraculous Jewish Babe of Bethlehem.

The Jewish Feast of Dedication (known as Chanukah or the Festival of Lights) also has significant legends twined around its holiday menorah – legends that might obscure the spiritual and historical roots of the holiday, and distract from its powerful message, This newsletter focuses on the real meaning of Chanukah.

Superpower pressures on tiny Israel

Between 604 BC and 553 BC the prophet Daniel received the interpretation of a number of apocalyptic visions concerning the rise and fall of major Middle Eastern empires. Communicating in fluent Aramaic, the God of the Hebrews revealed to Daniel that a future kingdom (called ‘the third kingdom’ - Daniel 2:39) would arise and rule over the whole earth. In Daniel 7:2, 6, 16-17 this beast is pictured as a leopard with four wings and four heads, while in Daniel 8:5-25 the empire is alternately depicted as a horned and shaggy goat. Verse 21 states, “the shaggy goat is the king of Greece.” Daniel’s description of the military and  political intrigue of the Greek empire is so accurate, that secular historians (who do not accept that prophecy exists) assume that the Book of Daniel must have been written five hundred years after the fact!

Alexander the Great was a world conqueror with a vision – he wanted to create one unified world government under Greek control, with all the world accepting the Greek language, Hellenistic culture and the deities of Mount Olympus. Any God or people (including YHVH and the Hebrews) who refused to bow down before the might of Greece would be crushed.

The divine vision in Daniel 8 describes how Greek forces would desecrate the Jerusalem Temple after 330 BC, cause the sacrifices to cease, persecute the Jewish people and murder many of them. This detailed and gory vision left Daniel exhausted, appalled and physically sick (8:27).

Daniel 11:21-35 zooms in on the Greek king of that campaign, giving specific details of these Chanukah-related events. Stymied by the rise of Rome (the new up-and-coming Mediterranean superpower), the Greek King of Seleucid Syria Antiochus IV would return from Egypt to Syria in a rage, passing through Jerusalem and wreaking havoc on the Temple. He would profane YHVH’s altar, dedicating it to Zeus of Olympus and sacrificing a pig on it (which act the prophet calls ‘the abomination of desolation’ in 11:31).

Ezekiel’s army in the Days of the Maccabees

The believing remnant of Jewish people in those days rose up against the Seleucid Greek occupiers from Syria, and began a guerrilla war against the Hellenists between 168 and 164 BC. Starting near Modi’in (not far from today’s Ben-Gurion Airport) this revolt was led by descendants of Aaron the High Priest. Matisyahu and his five sons (the most famous being Judah the Maccabee) waged an extensive campaign against superior forces, finally defeating them and rededicating the Jerusalem Temple in December 165, on the 25th day of the month now called Kislev.

These Maccabean fighters are prophesied in Daniel 11:32-35: “The people who know their God will firmly resist him. Those who are wise will instruct many, though for a time they will fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered. When they fall, they will receive a little help… Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless…”  These men and women were true heroes of the faith.

The Maccabees – Hebrew heroes in Hebrews

A Jewish court history was written between 80-70 BC, today called The Second Book of Maccabees. Describing the battles before the Dedication of the Temple, the writer remembers how “a short time before … they… were like wild beasts, in the mountains and in the caves” (2 Maccabees 10:6-7; see also chapters 5-7). The Messianic Jewish writer of the Book of Hebrews adds his Amen to these words, quoting from that book in the New Covenant Letter to the Hebrews 11:32-39:

“And what more can I say? I do not have time to tell about … those whose weakness was turned to strength and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawn in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute persecuted and mistreated – the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground. They were all commended for their faith.”

The first Messianic Chanukah celebration

The first historical descriptions of Jewish holiday celebrations during the Second Temple period are found in the New Covenant. These feasts were Passover (what is today called the Last Supper – Matthew 26:17-30) and Chanukah (the Feast of Dedication mentioned in John 10:22-24). Yeshua celebrated these feasts in a Jewish way, in a Jewish city and according to the biblical Jewish calendar.

Why eight days of Chanukah?

Many children know the song about the Twelve Days of Christmas, though few would understand why there are twelve holy days. In the same way, most Jewish children know that there are eight days of Chanukah and eight candles lit, but do not know why – they do not grasp the origin of that tradition.

It may surprise some to discover that the original historical record knows of no miracles regarding a cruse of oil burning for eight days when it should have only lasted one. That legend comes 300 to 600 years after Chanukah and was created by the leaders of the fledgling Rabbinic movement in order to detract from focusing on the Maccabees. More on this soon.

In the Second Book of Maccabees (written approximately 80 BC) we are told that “on the very same date on which the Temple was profaned by foreigners, there occurred the purification of the Temple – on the 25th day of the ninth month (that is, Kislev). Joyfully they held an eight-day celebration after the pattern of Tabernacles … remembering how a short time before, they spent the Festival of Tabernacles like beasts… Therefore, holding wreathed wands and branches bearing ripe fruit, and palm fronds, they offered songs of praise to Him Who had victoriously brought about the purification of His Place. By vote of the commonwealth they decreed a rule for the entire nation of the Jews to observe these days annually” (2 Maccabees 10:5-8)

To emphasize that point, the same writer states at the opening of 2 Maccabees, “And now we ask you to celebrate the Days of Tabernacles in the Month of Kislev” (2 Maccabees 1:9).

The Feast of Tabernacles (or Sukkot) is an eight day festival (Leviticus 23:33-36). The Maccabees liberated the Temple nearly two months after the passing of the Feast of Tabernacles. They had just missed celebrating this final festival of God’s seven feasts as described in Leviticus 23. Now that the Temple was in Jewish hands again, this Feast could be celebrated – even if it was two months past due! Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures. Following King Hezekiah’s example (2 Chronicles 30:1-23), a second Tabernacles was instituted – not to replace the original feast, but to be a special memorial to the work of deliverance and military victory that YHVH had granted to His people. The eight days of Tabernacles was morphed into a new holiday of eight days – Chanukah.

King without a crown, feast without a miracle

Flavius Josephus, the most prolific Jewish historian of the First century AD, was also known by his Hebrew name Yosef ben Matisyahu. Though he had no direct connection to the father of the Maccabees, Josephus did bequeath us an excellent job of reporting on the Maccabean revolt. In his Antiquities of the Jews XII:322 Josephus says in approximately 80 AD that “the desolation of the Temple came about in accordance with the prophecy of Daniel, which had been made 408 years before, for he had revealed that the Macedonians would destroy it.” He adds that Jewish people “observe this festival, which we call the Festival of Lights, giving this name to it, so I think, from the fact that the right to worship appeared to us at a time when we hardly dared hope for it” (Antiquities XII:325-326).

The death of a revival movement

The Maccabees started out as a revival movement among the Jewish people. They were priests who stepped up to the plate and faced a pagan enemy who wanted to wipe out both the light of God’s word and the existence of God’s chosen people. They fought like lions to regain the Jewish people’s independence, and defied the world’s largest superpower to achieve that goal.

Yet what started out as a movement to safeguard the calling and gifts of the Jewish people (see Romans 11:28-29; 3:1-2; Numbers 23:7-9) against the assimilationist influence of Hellenism, morphed within thirty years into a movement advocating Hellenism, The Maccabees were priests and were forbidden by the Covenant of Moses from becoming kings. That privilege was only granted to the Dynasty of David by covenant (Psalm 89). When the Maccabees began to call themselves kings, they quickly adapted to the political swirls and eddies of Middle Eastern superpower politics, choosing Greek titles and opposing those Jews (Pharisees) who remained faithful to God’s revelation in the Bible (see Acts 23:6). The Maccabean King Alexander Jannaeus ended up murdering 6.000 Pharisees who opposed his measures and even crucified 800 of them while dining luxuriously at their execution site.

This dynamic, wherein a move of God eventually self-corrupts and becomes a persecutor of the next move of God, is well documented in later history. Catholic and Protestant movements reveal similar patterns. In the history of the Pentecostal movement one can note how Catholics persecuted the Anglican revival movement, which subsequently persecuted the Methodists, who then persecuted Nazarenes, who went on to persecute Pentecostals, who later persecuted the Latter Rain movement and the charismatics, who persecuted the Third Wave, who persecuted Toronto etc. May the Lord God of Israel grant us all humility and obedience to cleave to Him, to keep us from such behavior, and to shine His light and love to those around us!

Re-inventing Chanukah

The Pharisee movement started out as a group of Bible-believing Jews who were faithful to the word of God. Eventually they moved into a rigid institutionalism, developing a rigorous structure requiring Jewish adherence to levels of purity and outward righteousness that God had never commanded for the Jewish people. Their laws eventually grew to carry more weight that biblical laws, much in the same way that some Evangelicals put more stock in their study Bibles than in the Biblical texts themselves.

Since the Maccabees moved from being a revival movement to persecuting true believers, and since the Pharisees (who later morphed in to Rabbinic Judaism) felt uncomfortable giving credit to enemies of God’s word, it was decided to de-emphasize the historical role that the Maccabees had played, to downplay their faith and force of arms, and to focus on an esoteric miracle that actually had no historical record.

In a rabbinic document called Megilat Ta’anit (the Scroll concerning Fasting) dating from somewhere between 70-135 AD, the following legend is presented for the first time on folio 9:

“When the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils that were there. When the House of the Hasmoneans prevailed and won a victory over them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil with the seal of the High Priest that was not defiled. It had only enough oil to burn for one day. A miracle happened, and there was light from it for eight days, In the following year they established eight festival days.”

Here is the legendary source of the modern celebration of Chanukah. The original eight day celebration memorializing Tabernacles now becomes an eight day celebration of an apocryphal miracle. The Maccabees are safely relegated to the back rows, and the Pharisaic emphasis maintains the spotlight – even at the expense of historical accuracy. A false miracle was deemed to be more worthy of focus than a revival movement of warrior-priests that went rogue.

A pro-active response

How can we as believers in the God of Israel, who identify with the godly Maccabees and who praise the God of Jacob for delivering His people from the pressure of the nations – how are we to celebrate Chanukah?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

The Hundred Years’ War

In the past few days well over two thousand Arabs (both Israeli Arab citizens and Palestinian Authority Arab residents) have been involved in riots and violent attacks against Israeli police and security forces. The actual murders of Jewish families, stabbings and shootings of Israeli civilians, attempted lynchings of Jewish motorists, and collusion between terrorists and Arab shopkeepers – these have been the order of the day for the past week.

A U.S. State Department official said, in response, that the U.S. has not yet determined whether to characterize the attacks as acts of terrorism (https://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/White-House-deeply-concerned-by-escalating-tensions-in-Jerusalem-official-says-421222#article=6024QkY4NDJCMzA4NjFBMjUyOTI4NzdEQzY4MzMxQTZFMjU=).

Over six hundred years ago Europe was torn asunder by what historians call ‘The Hundred Years’ War’ a clash between the English Kingdom of Plantagenet and the French Kingdom of Valois (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War). Apart from the military casualties involved, during that Hundred Years’ War the bubonic plague swept across Western Europe, killing between 20% and 50% of the population.

The present civil unrest in Israel (the Promised Land given by covenant to the sons of Jacob) is by no means as violent as that European land war, nor does it even approach the present slaughter in Syria and Iraq – the clash between dictators and jihadis. Yet because of the prophetic significance of the Jewish people and their land in the Bible, and because of God’s deep heart-covenant with Jacob’s children, it is worth taking the time to briefly understand what is happening there now, and to pray about these fast-moving events.

Replacement theology – Islamist style

Over the past five years, Islamist societies in Israel have funneled funds from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to groups of women (and some men) known as murabitat (feminine) and murabitoun (masculine)

These women’s role has been to verbally harass and even physically attack non-Islamic visitors to the Temple Mount, Two days ago I spoke with a Christian tourist who was hassled on the Temple Mount because of a necklace she wore with Hebrew lettering on it. She was then physically removed for the Mount. Other tourists (Jewish, Christian and totally secular) have been stalked, yelled at, spit upon, and summarily thrown off the Mount at the instigation of the Muslim waqf security guards. It is illegal to pray on that Mount unless one is a Muslim. Carrying a Bible or reading from it is totally banned.

The official Islamic line is that there has never been a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, and that any attempt by Jewish people to visit that area actually defiles the Islamic sanctity of what they define as exclusively a mosque. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared in the past few days that Jewish feet walking on the stones of the Temple Mount actually defile the sanctity of the al Aqsa compound.

Islamist Replacement theology is the theological background of these views. The belief is that the Jews have been replaced; their land has been forfeited to the forces of Mohammed; their Temple Mount never was, and now has become a mosque. In some ways this perspective is also reflected by the declaration by Amon Goeth, commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, in Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List, as his Nazi forces are about to destroy the ancient Jewish community of Cracow (Kraków):

Riot in the streets

After years of the above-described Islamist abuse of Christian and Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, the Israeli government decided to allow freedom of access for all to the Temple Mount and to drastically curtail murabitat Islamist attacks on non-Muslim visitors. The murabitat and murabitoun are similar in their worldview to al Qaeda and ISIS. Though it was understood that limiting the murabitat’s extremist activities would be used by anti- Israel media against the State of Israel, the government decided that the time had come to exercise its sovereign right to uphold and maintain order – and that sovereignty does extend to the Temple Mount.

The explosive situation on the Temple Mount is linked to the problematic relationship between competing Palestinian groups. The majority of Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, where they are ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (which also gave birth to al Qaeda). Hamas calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, basing itself on impeccable Islamic sources in the Quran and the hadith (Muslim religious law).

The leader of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, however, is Mahmoud Abbas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas). He is not a religious Muslim, and is considered secular and heretical by both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. On the West Bank Abbas finds himself outflanked by Hamas at every turn. Hamas’ jihadi popularity is growing on the West Bank, and polls show that if elections were held today, the Palestinian Authority would lose badly to jihadi forces. As a result, Abbas has postponed elections since January 2009, trying to dodge the jihadi bullet.

Abbas attempts to bolster his image by occasionally emphasizing jihad. Every so often Abbas and the Palestinian Authority turn up the flames, winking to the jihadis that a limited armed insurrection will be quietly encouraged – as long as things don’t get out of hand. For Abbas, this means occasional riots and terror attacks are kosher, but a crushing response by Israel is bad news and is to be avoided.

The Islamo-fascist connection

History shows that events similar to today’s riots happened during the time of the British Mandate, when the British Empire occupied the land of Israel (1922-1947; www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/mandate_for_palestine/mandate_for_palestine.htm).

At the close of WWI, His Majesty George V’s government was attempting to establish Britannia as the Middle East’s superpower. Though Britain was eventually stymied by the United States and lost its pre-eminence to America, in 1917 it still saw itself as regional kingmaker. England issued the Balfour Declaration calling for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, while simultaneously linking that declaration to other statements backing Arab nationalist movements. Eventually Britain sliced off 80% of the Palestine mandate and established a colonialist puppet state known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan. In the remaining 20% England set about preparing the ground for another Arab state, one which would arise on the ashes of the soon-to-be-destroyed Jewish Yishuv (fledgling community) – or so they thought.

The British White Papers (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp; www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/whitetoc.html; www.algemeiner.com/2014/05/06/%E2%80%98a-death-sentence-for-the-jews%E2%80%99-75-years-since-the-british-white-paper/) reveal Britain’s realpolitik tilt during WWII, limiting Jewish escape from Hitler’s Holocaust while preventing Jews from immigrating to the Jewish national homeland. At the same time Britain developed undercover links with jihadi leaders (who were bona fide collaborators with Hitler and Himmler), strengthening pro-Nazi forces while winking at murderous Arab street riots and massacres against the Jewish population in the Promised Land.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, was the first jihadi leader who instigated street riots and murderous attacks against the Jewish population in the Promised Land. His inflammatory charge was based on spreading lies about an attempted Jewish takeover of the Temple Mount.

The Middle Eastern wakeup call

The foundations of the present riots in Israel are simply one more flashpoint in a Hundred Years’ War between the Jewish people and the forces of Islamist jihad. They are another jihadi attempt to raise the black banner of jihad over the smoking ashes of the Jewish state.

As Europe is being flooded with Syrian and pseudo-Syrian refugees fleeing their countries due to Islamist and dictatorial massacres, as Iran (flush with terrorist petro-dollars and new European business contracts) funnels rivers of gold into terrorist coffers, as jihadi forces stream their black banners across Syria, Iraq, Chechnya, Libya, Nigeria, etc., a Middle Eastern wake-up call is clanging desperately for those whose hearing aids still have batteries.

When stars collide

Recent events in Syria include the establishment and expansion of Russian state-of-the-art military might – on land, sea and in the air. China is also positioning aircraft carriers off the coast of Syria and avowing its intentions to fly its bombers over Syria as well. The Middle East, tar pit of the superpowers, is once again exerting her seductive ways on the nations. The words of the prophet Ezekiel seem to have burning relevance at this time:

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Gospel according to Dylan

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

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

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

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

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

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

Job’s friends – from a Jewish context

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Identifying with the Israel that doesn’t exist

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

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

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

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

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

Forgetting how to cry

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

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

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

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

Catching the seventh wave of the Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Bringing greater balance in understanding the sabbatical year

In recent years among some Christians there has been a revived interest in the Hebrew calendar, which Moses described in his Five Books as also being God’s calendar: “YHVH spoke again to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, “YHVH’s appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations/gatherings – these are My appointed times” (Leviticus 23:1-2).

As believers around the world are rediscovering the Jewish roots of the apostolic faith, there has been rejoicing and celebration over the Hebraic richness of the Scriptures and the Jewishness of the Messianic faith. But along with an unearthing of long-lost treasures, occasionally some confusing imbalances have also surfaced. Regretfully, these imbalanced perspectives have the potential to catalyze fear and fatalism among followers of Messiah Yeshua.

Date setting and false alarms

Like the case of the famous boy who cried wolf in Aesop’s Fables, if false alarms are sounded regularly, people will stop believing the boy who sounds the false alarms, and people will not prepare for the real dangers when they manifest. As Paul says, “For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle?” (1 Corinthians 14:8).

Many people are afraid of apocalyptic events and are stampeded and panicked at the prospects of economic and political chaos.. Hollywood has exploited these fears on many occasions to break box office receipts. In the Christian world there have been events over the past thirty years where a few have ‘prophesied’ panic and set erroneous dates for judgment. One can think of such examples as the date-setting of the Rapture in 1987-88, the Y2K panic in 1999 resulting in stockpiling of instant coffee and toilet paper, or the blood-moon controversy (see my article of April 10, 2014 - https://davidstent.com/blood-moons-and-prophetic-confusion/).

Each one of these imbalanced declarations boldly advanced into the public forum and then ashamedly slunk away. But there was unintended blowback, and ramifications included an upsurge in mocking against any prophetic declarations, as well as a herd-instinct shying away from anything connected to the prophetic. “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).

Balance is so important here. Every sensationalized spin can spin off into distortion and lead people to paint the whole of prophetic ministry with a negative aura. In a similar fashion history shows how Christian anti-Semitic attacks against the Jewish people tarnished the gospel message, and tainted the testimony about Israel’s Messiah to Yeshua’s own people. Though this did not invalidate the gospel, it is created huge stumbling blocks that the enemy of Israel’s salvation continues to fan into flame even in our day.

With an appeal for biblical care and brotherly love, I would like to set out some basic principles on how to understand and use God’s biblical calendar in a kosher way. The Scriptures can help us to embrace these feasts and calendar events in the spirit that YHVH Himself intended.

God’s calendar remains a Hebrew calendar

Moses, Yeshua, Peter and Paul all used the same biblical calendar, and it was Hebrew. James the half-brother of Yeshua (his original Hebrew name was Jacob), described the gathering of Messianic Jewish believers in the 1st century as ‘believing synagogues’ (the Greek in James 2:2 “If a man comes into your assembly” actually reads ‘synagogue’ - ἐὰν γὰρ εἰσέλθῃ εἰς συναγωγὴν). The original foundations of the Messianic faith were Jewish, and the original calendar of the Apostle Paul was the Hebrew calendar.

Yet as the amount of Gentile believers in Yeshua within the Roman Empire grew significantly, Roman paganism’s influence darkened the theological schools of Christianity. A concerted effort was made by anti-Jewish Gentile theologians and preachers to anathematize the Hebrew calendar and make its use illegal.  Replacement theology came on the scene, teaching that God has rejected the Jews, their land, their customs, their gifts and calling – and their calendar.

Whereas Yeshua had celebrated the Passover seder with His disciples, earnestly desiring to eat the Exodus 12/Leviticus 23 meal with them immediately before His crucifixion at the hands of Roman soldiers (Luke 22:15), later Church Councils actually forbade followers of Messiah Yeshua from memorializing that event in connection with Passover and the 14th day of Aviv/Abib (Exodus 12; 13:4; 23:15; 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:1). Anyone who chose to remember “Messiah our Passover” (1 Corinthians 5:7) on the actual Feast of Passover would now be considered a heretic, anathema, excommunicated or even in mortal danger (https://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/eusebius_quartodeciman_controversy.htm; https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/heresy-in-the-early-church-timeline/).

The Apostle Paul’s warning to Gentile believers not to boast against the Jewish olive tree branches and not to be arrogant toward them (Romans 11:18-19, 25) was rudely ignored by these Church Councils, as anti-Semitism established itself firmly on the earthly thrones of Church Councils. Hatred and suspicion toward anything Jewish became part of Christian theology and tradition (see James Parkes’ The Conflict of The Church and The Synagogue for the historical documents involved - https://archive.org/details/conflictofthechu012717mbp).

The Mark of Zorro

In the popular Hollywood legend, Zorro would mark his presence by slashing a “Z” at the scenes of his exploits. In a similar fashion, in Bible days the God of the Hebrews marked His exploits and His calendar with two of the three lines of a “Z” – He used the number “7” to indicate that ‘YHVH was in the House’ revealing His mighty outstretched arm. Seven is the number that the Bible repeats many times in relation to God’s works and His calendar. It is understood by most Bible students as being God’s peculiar and holy ‘identifying number,’ His divine ‘calling card.’

At the dawn of Creation, the God of Israel sanctifies the seventh day, the Sabbath, and stamps it as a memorial day – His special day. He rests on that day and in doing that, sets it apart as an exceptional and unusual day (Genesis 2:1-3). He set this day apart long before Moses was born, long before the Torah of Moses’ Covenant was ratified.

In Leviticus 23, YHVH lays out seven holy times, seven feasts, and in doing so marks the entire calendar year as belonging to Him, as set aside by Him for His purposes. His times and seasons were to seize the attention and capture the imagination of His chosen people Israel. Their daily, weekly, monthly and yearly life was to be marked by His pace, His rhythms, His approval and His feasts – His ‘sevens.’

Man does not live by bread alone

In the burning desert sands YHVH invited the Jewish people to trust in Him and to depend on Him. The God of Jacob supernaturally supplied water from a rock on a daily basis, and had manna fall from the skies six days a week. He challenged Israel not to collect manna on the Day of Rest (the Sabbath) but to trust Him to supply a double portion on Friday – a portion which would last through the Sabbath (Exodus 16). God’s provision included providing enough for His beloved people to take a day of rest, to tune their lives so as to fit in with His divine symphony. The rest of the seventh day was a gracious gift and a call to trust.

The sabbatical year

The God of Israel took the weekly Sabbath pattern, and extended it to the sabbatical year (or shnat shemittah in Hebrew). Every seventh year the entire Land of Israel would be able to rest and be restored and refreshed. The entire land would be allowed to lie fallow, when nutrients would be restored to the Israeli soil, invigorating its yield for the years to come (Leviticus 25:1-7).

Again, here was a call to faith and trust. YHVH declared that He would supply enough produce in the sixth year to serve as a bumper crop in the seventh fallow year, and even cause the overflow to extend into the eighth year (the first year of the new seven-year cycle).

This very real expression of personal faith and trust in YHVH was quite a challenge to many in Israel. Scripture says that for over four hundred years the majority of the Jewish people shied away from fully trusting God by obeying His calendar. As a result the God of Isaac exiled His people to Babylon for 70 years to give the Land of Israel its 70 years of skipped sabbatical rest (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10; Daniel 9:2; 2 Chronicles 36:21).

The Jewish people had violated an important clause in a legal document, a legal covenant, that they had sworn to uphold before YHVH. Their external violation expressed their internal lack of trust and faith. After seventy years of Babylonian exile, God had mercy on them and restored them to their land – as He had promised.

Another further application of the Sabbath principle is found in Leviticus 25:8-16. This is a “super-seven” feast called the Jubilee. Seven years multiplied seven times (with one year added to the 49 years) brings Israel to a 50 year Jubilee celebration where all debts are forgiven, all the Hebrew slaves are set free, every man returns to his tribal inheritance and the whole country rejoices. The Jubilee year was inaugurated not on the Feast of Trumpets (what is now called the Jewish New Year or Rosh Hashana) or on the 29th of Elul (the 6th month), but on the tenth day of the seventh month – the Fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9). Based on this passage and this context, it is likely that the sabbatical year was also inaugurated on that same Hebrew calendar day, Yom Kippur.

The future role of the Hebrew calendar

This will be a future time when there will no longer be disputation about the ‘two-state solution’ or about boycotting Israeli produce. The entire world will bow down and accept God’s sovereign wisdom and joy in choosing Israel the people and Israel the land – as well as in His choosing of the Hebrew calendar! True forerunners will rejoice in this biblical truth, and will ask God what He would have them do to incorporate these future realities into their present experience.

God still uses His Hebrew calendar in the affairs of men

God always has the prerogative, the freedom and the sovereign power to use His own biblical calendar as He works with the nations and not simply adapt to the Western secular calendar. The modern Western calendar is a solar (sun-based) calendar with pagan trimmings, using the name of Roman demons and kings for months, and the names of Norse demons and warriors for days of the week. Even the modern Jewish Rabbinic calendar has been influenced by Babylonian paganism: it uses the names of Babylonian demons for months, and has moved the original Jewish New Year from Aviv in the Springtime (Exodus 12:1-2) to Eitanim (1 Kings 8:2) in the Fall. Most Jews today use the name Tishrei (a Babylonian idol) for that month, and hold their New Year celebration at that time (at the same time as the Babylonian New Year).

Some significant events in Jewish history have transpired on important days in the Jewish calendar. Enemies of the Jews have even chosen certain significant and tragic dates to bring further calamity on the Jewish nation. But YHVH promises that He will one day turn many of those ominous days into celebrations when He returns (Zechariah 8:18-19).

Here are a few points to remember and to meditate on:

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Looking at world events through eagle eyes

As the pace of world events speeds up, values which have stood strong and stalwart for millennia are crashing down like mighty redwoods in a hurricane. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20-21)

Whereas in the 1980’s and 1990’s the world’s mouth gaped in unbelief as Communism became “commu-‘was’-im” – as the Iron Curtain came crashing down – today it is the West which is collapsing as the East rises phoenix-like out of the ashes. Today it is jihadi Islam which raises its murderous black banners as it terrorizes its way across the heart of the Middle East and North Africa.

The spirit of denial of reality and compromise with evil is dominating the deliberations of Western powers as the modern march of Mordor draws near to the modern ‘gates of Constantinople.’ The West is trapped in moral confusion and deception, while narcissism rules the airwaves and the pubs, the coffee houses and the social media. The termites have gnawn away the foundations of the 21st century Titanic, and all the positive confession in the world has not succeeded in waking up many in the Western wing of Messiah’s body to the imminent collapse of democracy and a biblical framework of values.

In such a turbulent world, with such turmoil roiling all around us, how can we be “observant” Jews and Gentiles? How can we observe what is going on and understand it from a “God’s eyes” perspective? How can we be pro-active in a world shaken by moral, material and spiritual earthquakes?

Horsing around with the Hebrew prophets

A stunning night vision came to the Hebrew prophet Zechariah (Zechariah 1:8-21). Worldwide in scope, it sums up superpower diplomacy and war into a profound revelation replete with horses, evil horns and muscled blacksmiths and carvers of wood. The proper understanding of this vision holds the key to us assimilating God’s age-to-age perspective on preparation for Last Days’ ministry.

Zechariah had been called to stand before the courts of Israel’s Almighty God and speak YHVH’s heart to His own beloved Jewish people, as well as to bring heavenly oracles to the mostly hostile surrounding nations. Just a few years prior to Zechariah’s call to the prophetic, his Jewish nation had been dragged off to exile by the rivers of Babylon, and their wondrous Temple (where dwelt the presence and fire of YHVH in visible form) had been reduced to ashes and rubble.

Yet this agony of Jewish Exile and the triumph of pagan and satanic forces (who were blaspheming the God of Israel and taunting His people Israel; see 1 Samuel 17:26-28) frankly left the world’s superpowers of Zechariah’s day unmoved. And in our day the agonies that Israel and the Jewish people face from concerted Islamist efforts to destroy it and from the cruel rise of modern anti-Semitism – these leave most of the world and much of the Body of Messiah bored and blasé.

On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the (ed. Babylonian) month Shvat, in the second year of Darius, the word of YHVH came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, as follows: I saw at night, and behold, a man was riding on a red horse, and He was standing among the myrtle trees which were in the ravine, with red, sorrel and white horses behind him. Then I said, “My lord, what are these?” And the angel who was speaking with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.” And the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered and said, “These are those whom YHVH has sent to patrol the earth.” So they answered the Angel of YHVH who was standing among the myrtle trees and said, “We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth is peaceful and quiet.” Then the Angel of YHVH said, “O YHVH of armies, how long will You have no compassion for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which You have been indignant these seventy years?” YHVH answered the Angel who was speaking with me with gracious words, comforting words. (Zechariah 1:7-13)

The current condition of the Jewish people and the way the nations treat Israel – these are the touchstones of God’s foreign policy. That is how He operated then and that is how He still operates.

Remember the days of old. Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father, and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For YHVH’s portion is His people, Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:7-8)

Acc.ording to the Apostle Paul, the calling YHVH has given to the Jewish people, and the gifts He has lavished on them, are irrevocable and not subject to change or re-interpretation (Romans 11:28-29).

So this biblical foreign policy vis-à-vis the nations is still in force, still influencing the super-powers and the United Nations. And that means that these abovementioned power groups are in deep yoghurt from God’s perspective. The eagle eyes of the Hebrew prophets cut through the mumbo-jumbo and politically correct verbiage of international relations. They reveal what God thinks about the shenanigans of the so-called “peace process” and the “two-state solution” – even when such foolish and anti-biblical language comes out of the mouths of rock-stars (https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/07/09/u2-frontman-bono-dedicates-song-to-former-israeli-president-peres/)

“What’s the big deal?”

The world powers of Zechariah’s day couldn’t understand what the big fuss was all about. They concluded that the Jews were a touchy and overly zealous people. Somehow the whole Jewish people had fallen under a spell, so thought the pagan ancients, believing that the God of the universe actually has a covenant with this primitive Jewish race, that their God cares about Israel as a priority, that the Jewish people’s welfare and the treatment they receive at the hand of the nations (and of some believers as well) is a fatefully serious issue in His eyes.

When the nations of the world think that “all is quiet on the Western front,” the national interests of those countries are not in sync with YHVH’s heart for Israel. As Balaam prophesied (Numbers 23:8-9) , Israel is the only nation that stands alone on the other side of the equation (as President Obama recently said in reference to his Iran deal) – the nation that stands alone as looks out for its own survival and counteracts the threats to its own existence.

“In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence saved them” (Isaiah 63:9)

The Hebrew says that in all of the Jewish people’s dire straits (‘narrowness-es’ or tight spots), so YHVH is put in a tight spot, is subject to pressure, is afflicted and is caused pain. There is a clear and undeniable connection between inflicting agony on the Jewish people and inflicting agony on the God of the Jewish people.

Pouring gasoline on anti-Semitism

There is an evil passivity which has taken root in some corners of the body of Messiah. Because of fear – the fear of standing up and being counted, the fear of standing with the Jewish people as anti-Semitism increases – some leaders and teachers are shrinking back from asking and answering the hard questions. The hard questions include:

Shakespeare may well have prophesied of our day when he had Brutus say the following words: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures” (Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224).

Zechariah gives us words from the very heart of God, and that dynamic is the core of what the prophetic is all about. Instead of jumping into the fray and standing with the Jewish people, the nations were content to sit out the battle – somewhat like how in recent days the Turkish army was sitting out the battle while ISIS slaughtered the Kurdish forces in northern Iraq.

The nations lack compassion for the Jewish people – for their safety and their flourishing. Their hearts are often cold about such matters. As a result, their “passive bystander” approach only furthers the disaster threatening Israel.

Compassion is the key word here. Are we overflowing with compassion for the destiny and present estate of the Jewish people? In times past, would we be the ones clucking our tongues and not much else, as Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, jihadis or Nazis massacred the Jewish people? Would we have shaken our heads and sagely whispered that “Biblically, the Jews had it coming to them”? Do we not see that the nations of the world (and believers as well) are today being weighed in the balances by YHVH the God of Jacob, and are mostly being found wanting? (Daniel 5:17-28)

God is good, all the time, to Israel

God’s heart toward Israel is overflowing with compassion. His plans for them are good (Jeremiah 32:36-42). He is restoring the Jewish people to Israel in compassion (Jeremiah 30:18). Though He will not leave sin unpunished (Amos 9:8-10), He will abundantly pardon the sin of His remnant who turns to Him in repentance (Micah 7:18-20).

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

The malignant tumor of anti-Semitism – Modern manifestations and practical cures

A Yiddish joke from Holocaust times aptly illustrates the difficulty of trying to deal constructively with anti-Semitism. In this apocryphal tale, two Jewish ghetto fighters in the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943 were captured by one of SS General Stroop’s Nazi soldiers. As the brave ghetto fighters are lined up against a wall to be shot by the firing squad, the Nazi commander uncharacteristically asks the two if they have any last requests. The first Jewish man says, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I would like a cigarette.” The second Jewish fighter hisses at the first fighter, “For God’s sake don’t make trouble!”

The black humor of this story revolves around the second fighter’s being out of touch with reality, with the deathly seriousness of the situation. Among European Jews, anti-Semitism was a normal part of life. Gentile Christians were expected to sneer at or hate Jews as best, and to attack or even murder Jews on occasion. For many ghetto Jews, the safest course of action was to act like an armadillo or an ostrich, playing dumb or simply hanging onto life until the worst of the pogroms had swept by the ‘Anatevka’ of Jewish life.

Yet there comes a time when downplaying threats to the Jewish people is no longer a joke. The rise of anti-Semitism in the modern world is a fast-spreading malignant cancer, and the angry red tumor of Jew-hatred can no longer be ignored.

From classical anti-Semitism to modern anti-Zionism, from the Der Stürmer propaganda images of the evil Jew controlling world finance to the rabid BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel) and pro-Hamas marches across the Western hemisphere, it is too late for men and women of conscience to timidly request that we should just sit tight, and that no one should make trouble. Believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (all Jews), and followers of Yeshua the Jewish Messiah – it is time to shine God’s light into darkness and to clearly recognize where the battle lines are.

Pagan anti-Semitism infiltrates the Church

Two world-class scholars, one Catholic and one Jewish, shed light on the fact that the roots of Christian anti-Semitism are essentially borrowed from the pagan world.

Edward Flannery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Flannery) penned the historical analysis “The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism” (reprinted Paulist Press 1985). He shows how Greek and Roman Jew-hatred was baptized and given confirmation as orthodox Christian dogma by the Fathers of the Church. The Greco-Roman arrogance toward the Jewish people revealed itself in assuming that the people of Israel were primitives (worshipping an invisible God) who refused to bow down before a superior culture (Hellenism) and who kept themselves separate and distinct.

Pagans accused Jews of performing secret religious ceremonies involving cannibalism and sexual orgies. These pagan philosophers described the ‘seditious nature’ of the Jewish people. Since the original Christians were actually Jews – Messianic Jews – these same anti-Semitic charges were aimed by Romans against these first believers – both Jews and Gentiles. Within two hundred years these same pagan charges were adapted and adopted by the predominantly Gentile Church, and used as live-fire ammunition against the Jewish community at-large.

Dr. Menahem Stern, editor of Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974) has brought together the definitive compendium of all writings by ancient Greeks and Romans dealing with the Jewish people as well as contemporaneous Greco-Roman attitudes to Israel. The reading of these documents is shocking but at the same time strangely familiar. All of their main points have been plagiarized and amplified by the Church Fathers and have become part of the Western world’s guilty subconscious, its prejudiced outlook against the Jewish people.

From Justin Martyr, a Samaritan raised in a community steeped in Jew-hatred, to Saint John Chrysostom (who called for Christians to murder Jews), the bloody tumor of anti-Semitism can be seen bulging out beneath priestly robes. For more on these issues, see chapters 8-10 of Israel the Key To World Revival (https://davidstent.com/books/)  especially “Dragon Theology: The Spiritual Roots of Anti-Semitism”).

The Chosen People teaching – turned on its head 

One of the most revered Fathers of the Church, Saint Augustine, re-interpreted the biblical teaching regarding Israel’s priority calling. He admitted that Jews are different and separate but saw this as a curse, with the Jewish people being forever under judgment, forever to be persecuted and humiliated by Christians, bearing a Jewish ‘mark of Cain’ for the rest of history.

Augustine was not the first to say this. Origen and others said similar things. Yet Augustine’s teaching of contempt for the Jewish people was a crystallization of pagan anti-Semitism in Patristic garb. The Jewish people’s chosenness would now be understood as their being chosen for persecution, for destruction and for damnation.

To put it simply, a negative paradigm about the Jews was now solidly in place. No good thing could or would happen to the Jewish people. All scriptures speaking of a rosy prophetic future for the Jews would no longer be tolerated as orthodox theology. The Jews could no longer look forward to any goodness of kindness from an angry Jehovah. Any prophetic blessing for Israel now applied to the present experience of Gentile believers in Jesus. Only judgment awaited the Jews, both then and down through the corridors of time

This negative paradigm, which refuses to recognize God’s good and kind hand toward Israel after Calvary and also in our day, is part of the cancerous fruit of the pagan anti-Semitism adopted by the Church Fathers. Even today is has been imbibed by many orthodox Christians with their mothers’ milk.

The ‘unforgiveable sins’ of the Jewish people

The Church Fathers believed that the Jewish people were rejected by God and under an unchangeable curse, Paul’s words in Romans 11:1-2, 28-29 notwithstanding.

The two legal charges these theologians made against the Jewish people were: ‘rejecting the Messiah’ and ‘deicide’ (killing God).

Here are three such examples from respected Church Fathers:

The negative paradigm as a factor in Christian anti-Semitism states that, since Jews are guilty of rejecting Messiah and of deicide, there can be no restoration of Israel. A modern metastasis of this anti-Jewish teaching is that no physical or spiritual restoration of the Jewish people is occurring in our day because God would never restore an unbelieving and Christ-rejecting people. In this scenario there is only room in the immediate future for another holocaust, but no room for a God-breathed present-day Jewish restoration to Zion.

Jewish kingdom bad, Gentile kingdom good

Since Christianity had judged the Jewish people as irrevocably chosen for persecution and destruction, it was unthinkable that a Jewish kingdom under Davidic rule would ever be restored. Therefore all the prophecies which insist on Jewish restoration to the Promised Land, and revival of Jewish sovereignty and the Davidic dynasty over Israel and the entire world – these now needed to be understood in ‘spiritual’ (that is to say allegorical) terms. The revival of a real Jewish kingdom on earth could only be carnal and evil, according to these perspectives.

Not so the establishment of a Greek- or Latin-speaking imperial power, however. Constantine’s adoption of Christianity and its incorporation into the Roman Empire was perfectly spiritual, since Jews were not in charge. The Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, which promptly split in two. After Islam conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul, the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow laid claim to being the present incarnation of Holy Gentile power.

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm allegory, the pigs who became the commissars declared “Two legs bad, four legs good!” In the same way, when Gentiles took over the reins of the Body of Messiah, they quickly proclaimed, “Jewish kingdom bad, Gentile kingdom good!”

The unease and loathing some Bible believers feel when they consider the re-establishment of God’s kingdom rule out of physical Jerusalem or the restoration of David’s tabernacle (a governmental term often misunderstood and misapplied by some who love worship and intercession; read and download “A Messianic Perspective on the Restoration of David’s Tabernacle” at https://davidstent.com/books/) – these may stem from the cancerous denial both of God’s covenanted love for the Jewish people, and of His strong avowal that the gifts and calling that He has given them are irrevocable – even if the Jewish people sin, stumble and trip (see Romans 11:1-2, 11-15).

‘The mother of all devils is a Jew’

In his well-researched book The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (Joshua Trachtenberg Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983), Trachtenberg reveals how Western and Greek Christianity were simultaneously fascinated and fearful about the power of the Jewish people. They even branded the Jewish people with the strongest curse they knew how to bestow – the anti-Christ, when he would come, would now be a Jewish man, a fitting and outstanding representative of a godless and Christ-rejecting people.

Irenaeus and Hippolytus are the earliest Church Fathers who established an anti-Semitic linkage between the restoration of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and the appearance of a Jewish antichrist. In this scenario it is Satan and not God who restores the Jewish people to their Promised Land. The modern Zionist return to Israel has been taking place since 1850, yet no Jewish antichrist has appeared. Perhaps this hypothesis needs to be reworked.

Modern expressions of the ‘Jewish antichrist’ teaching

A professional definition of anti-Semitism

In the document titled “Working Definition of Anti-Semitism” (EFOA - 2012),
https://www.european-forum-on-antisemitism.org/working-definition-of-antisemitism/english/ it is stated, “Anti-Semitism frequently … is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits…Contemporary examples of anti-Semitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to: Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews…drawing comparisons … to that of the Nazis.”

When believers in Jesus make mendacious, dehumanizing and stereotypical allegations about Jews, this unfortunately fits the internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism.

European contributions – money, control, defilers of culture

The European arena has made its own unique contributions to anti-Semitism, most of which have become accepted belief among conspiracy junkies, Islamist groups and leftist movements.

Greco-Roman anti-Semitism has metastasized, with modern writers depicting Jews as controlling the world economy though banking families such as the Rothschilds or various secretive Commissions. A Russian Tsarist forgery “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” states that Jews are the demonic power behind capitalism and communism, and that they are pushing for anti-Christ world domination. From this perspective, any anti-Christian development in popular culture is instigated by Jews; America’s banks and entertainment industries are secretly being directed by anti-Christ Jews; any American support of the Jewish state is another example of Jewish anti-Christ control of superpowers.

Such views were popular within the Nazi hierarchy and championed by Joseph Goebbels. They are widely held in the Islamic world, and have a strong measure of popular support in the former Communist Bloc. Many of these ideas have re-appeared in the anti-Zionist and anti-Israel movements. Some Evangelical groups who advocate for BDS (boycott of Jewish products from Israel) do not see the irony that their own actions and beliefs are strikingly similar to those Nazi who boycotted Jewish shops and goods in Germany of the 1930’s.

Modern charismatic expressions

This brief study of the history of anti-Semitism is not only looking at ‘the ghost of Christmas past.’ New mutations of this ancient cancer are spreading, even among Evangelicals, even among charismatics, in our day, on our watch.

The teaching that Jewish rejection of Jesus and the deicide charge has altered Jewish destiny, has decked itself out in our day with the Emperor’s New Clothes.

There is a teaching, popularized a few decades ago by Art Katz (https://davidstent.com/he-being-dead-still-speaks/) and reworked in our day by his disciples and spiritual grandchildren (https://davidstent.com/prophesying-the-destruction-of-zion/), that good things cannot happen to Israel, that restoration to the Land cannot happen before Jewish repentance. According to this view, which fits into the classical anti-Semitic pattern first espoused by the Church Fathers, Israel’s destiny is to suffer as punishment and expiation for her sins. Only then will God allow her to be restored. Perhaps one should be thankful that, according to this modern re-working of an old theme, Jewish restoration is now permitted as long as it remains in the safe and distant future.

But since Jews are being restored to the Land, undeniably so, this creates a bit of a challenge. No problem! Those who teach this position simply state that the present state of Israel is not of God (this sounds like the radically anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta), and that the modern state of Israel will soon be overwhelmingly destroyed. The figure of a future 90% destruction of the Jewish homeland has been placed on record in related books and websites. According to this viewpoint, only then will the coming future restoration of a nearly totally devastated Israel have these believers’ Christian approval as being a bona fide restoration of God.

Christian denigration of Jewish Restoration

There is a fascinating historical encounter between the father of secular Zionism, Theodor Herzl, and Pope Pius X. Their conversation on January 26, 1904 was recorded in Herzl’s diaries (Raphael Patai, The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl; New York/London: Herzl Press, Thomas Yoseloff, 1960; pp. 1601-1605). Herzl had come to ask for Vatican support for the creation of a homeland for his persecuted Jewish people. Here are some excerpts from the Pope’s statements during that dialogue:

The sad fact revealed by these quotes is that no room has been left for the God of the Bible as the loving God who is restoring His people to their Promised Land. And the stark refusal to recognize God’s restorative love for Jacob’s sons and daughters finds cold refuge in the heart of some Christians today as well.

Solutions

The enemy of our souls has invested heavily in perverting and distorting the biblical teaching on God’s heart for Israel. His strategy throughout history has sadly found fertile ground in the theological hothouses of the Christian church. In our day, in order to clear out the Augean stables of centuries of filth, we need to invest ardently in repentance, prayer, teaching and activism, as we labor and groan for the restoration of Israel.

How shall we then live?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Darkness over the face of the abyss

“Stand up, radiate with light, for your light has arrived, and the glory of YHVH is streaming down upon you. For behold, the darkness will cover the earth and terrible darkness the peoples. But upon you YHVH will radiate His light, and upon you His glory will be made manifest” (Isaiah 60:1-2).

This End of the Age prophecy describes a time when gross and evil darkness will spread across Planet Earth. God’s response to that darkness will be to shine His reviving face upon the nation of Israel and bring life from the dead to the world.

Darkness and light

The prophet Isaiah lived in times of violent military upheaval in the Middle East. During the late 700’s BC the Assyrian juggernaut smashed across the Aramean Empire in Syria, crushed all resistance in the Phoenician trading cities of Lebanon, and steamrolled into Samaria. There the ten Jewish tribes of the Kingdom of Israel were brutally kidnapped and then dragged in chains across the Syrian desert to exile in Nineveh (Northern Iraq’s modern Kurdistan near Mosul and Kirkuk).

Isaiah’s prediction of the coming of Messiah is read every year at Christmas pageants. His measured words prophesy of how the cruel darkness of Assyrian invaders would one day be eclipsed by the advent of a great light – the blazing torch of King David’s Greater Son:

“But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a land of deep darkness, light will shine on them” (Isaiah 9:1-2).

The clash of darkness and light is at the heart of the story. Even though Assyria was a tool in the hands of a righteous God to punish disobedient Israel (Isaiah 10:5-11), the prophet clearly saw that Assyria’s pride and arrogance would lead to that superpower’s sure punishment and judgment in the day of YHVH’s wrath (Isaiah 10:12-19). The light and fire of YHVH’s wrath would burn up the darkness of Assyria’s evil: “A fire will be kindled like a burning flame … and the light of Israel will become a fire and his Holy One a flame” (Isaiah 10:16-17).

God is light, and light is good

Every child who has heard Bible stories knows that God created the world – that He spoke into the darkness and created the light.

From the dawn of creation, it has been crystal clear – God is good, God is light, and light is good. Darkness, however, is another matter.

Isaiah tells us that darkness has a moral aspect, and that spiritual darkness has fearful spiritual consequences: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

Yet the God of Jacob (who is sovereign over both light and darkness) even uses darkness as one of the secret weapons in His arsenal:

YHVH’s X-Ray vision

God is actually able to see clearly in complete darkness. His vision is beyond anything that we humans understand, and nothing is hidden from His sight:

God is at war with darkness

The God of Israel understands darkness perfectly because He is the Light. Yet the spiritual wickedness of the darkness cannot grasp the righteous and holy ways of God:

God wants to rescue those trapped in darkness

ISIS is not much interested in bringing unbelievers to repentance, and is even terrorizing Muslims who are seemingly deficient in their religious zeal. Yet Yeshua’s heart for those trapped in darkness is other-worldly, full of compassion, ready to extend mercy and to bring deliverance and healing:

God calls believers to walk in the light of His love

One of the litmus tests of being a New Covenant believer is “to walk the walk” – to shine God’s love on other human beings, whether one agrees with their lifestyles or not:

God calls believers to shine His light into the darkness

Messiah Yeshua – the Light of the world – calls His followers to shine His light on each other and on the human race. His calling to the nation of Israel is to shine as a light to the nations. This means speaking His message, standards and values with love and occasionally with tears. It involves washing people’s feet without using boiling water to do that. But it does not involves playing down, distorting or weakening the message of light, darkness, repentance and judgment:

Darkness is the place of ultimate judgment

YHVH warns mankind that rebels who scorn the ways of God will find themselves receiving throughout eternity what they insisted on having – separation from the One they hate. This separation from the Light of the world will be outer darkness, bereft of even a glimmer of light.

The Day of the Lord is a day of darkness

The Hebrew prophets peered down the corridors of time and were shown some stunning revelation by the God of Israel. A season of time would come at the end of this age, and it would be known as the Day of YHVH. In that Day:

This Day is depicted in the prophets as a Day of darkness:

Worldwide increase of rebellion and ungodliness is one of the clearest benchmarks that we are approaching this prophesied revival of the Jewish people – a revival that will bring life from the dead to the world (Romans 11:15) and much greater riches to all nations who bow the knee before Messiah Yeshua, David’s Greater Son (Romans 11:12).

Yeshua gives those of us who live at this time a mighty word of encouragement: “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28)

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

The Raising Up of Ezekiel’s Army

“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls,” said Paul Simon in his famous hit song Sounds of Silence. The God of the Hebrews does “move in mysterious ways His wonders to perform,” and is on record as even being willing to raise up children of Abraham from roadside stones (see Luke 3:8).

One of the mightiest prophecies concerning Israel in the Last Days concerns a specific army – a spiritual Special Operations Force – that YHVH will raise up prior to the return of Messiah Yeshua. The prophet Ezekiel has been given the honor of describing that amazing army in chapter 37 of his scroll as the Army of the Dry Bones.

The context – prophets in the land of ISIS

Ezekiel, a prophetic Jewish believer of priestly lineage, began his ministry in Judah but was later imprisoned and exiled by the Babylonian superpower. During his lifetime that Gentile superpower occupied the Judean homeland and systematically removed the cream of Jerusalem’s leadership to central Iraq (Ezekiel 1:1-3).  Ezekiel was commissioned to speak a prophetic message – both to Jews in Judea, and later to the Jewish exiles in Babylon – to a people who were mostly in a state of rebellion (2:3-7).

God granted him a fully blown vision of the glory of YHVH (3:12-14) which greatly encouraged him and strengthened his resolve. He was then given prophecies about the destruction of Jerusalem (chapter 9), but also about the salvation and deliverance of a remnant of Jewish believers (6:9-10). At another time YHVH visited Ezekiel again, granting him a stupendous vision of the magnificent and glorious chariot-like Throne and throne-room of God (chapter 10). YHVH  also promised the prophet that He would restore the Jewish people to Zion from their exile, and would pour out His Holy Spirit upon them (chapter 11). YHVH described His ardent love for His unfaithful people in passionate terms, promising a full purification and restoration for His wayward bride (chapter 16).

The God of Moses then prophesied to Ezekiel that a Last Days scenario would come upon Israel similar to the Exodus of Egypt. Those Jewish people who would humble themselves before YHVH would enter the Land of Promise, while those who were disobedient and rebellious would be purged out from entering into the promise (chapter 20).

Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy concerning the countries surrounding Israel and Judah – Ammon, Edom and Moab (today these regions are central and southern Jordan), Philistia (the present Gaza area), Tyre and Sidon (southern Lebanon), Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia  – declaring Abrahamic Covenant curses on the nations who delighted in damaging and dispossessing the Jewish people (chapters 22-30).

False and true shepherds in Israel

God turns Ezekiel’s prophetic anointing to the leaders of Israel, pointing out that there were many who could be accurately labeled false shepherds. These leaders had lost compassion and a servant’s heart for their own people, and YHVH promised to judge and remove them. At the same time, He gave Ezekiel prophecies of a sweet return to the grazing lands of Israel, promising to resurrect King David and re-appoint him as vice-regent ruling the restored Jewish people under David’s Greater Son (34:23-24).

A Last Days Arab attempt to dispossess Israel

YHVH prophesies through Ezekiel that in the Last Days, a consortium of Arab nations coming out of southern Jordan will focus on wresting the Promised Land from the Jewish people who are its rightful possessors (chapters 35-36). God promises to blunt and destroy their military invasion (35:7-15; 36:7).

In these same chapters God promises to restore the Jewish people to their own land, to fill them with His Holy Spirit, and to overwhelmingly prosper them in the Land (36:24-30, 33-38).

Breathe on these slain

Ezekiel chapter 37 (the Dry Bones chapter) carries with it the perfume of a surreal fantasy. The prophet is lifted up by the Spirit of God and made to soar over a huge and broad valley filled with dry bones. Given the divine command, he speaks flesh and breath/spirit/life into the bones, which proceed to rattle and hum and fly through the air, forming millions of perfectly shaped inert bodies in the valley. Yet though the bones have been turned into human bodies, these are all dead bodies. YHVH tells Ezekiel to prophesy once again:

The Hebrew phrase “an exceedingly great army” is literally “an army, big, much much” – in other words, a massive and awesome army. From this perspective of Jewish history, Jacob’s people did not only go into Exile; they experienced a national massacre of tragic proportions. YHVH in His mercy prophesies that He would bring Israel back to their own land, yet without spiritual life. There in the Land He breathes on them, they come alive in the spirit, and become an awesome army.

Fleshing out the Dry Bones Army

Other prophetic voices add their witness to Ezekiel’s vision of a mighty prophetic army. Two or three of these witnesses would include King David, who notes that this army will be typified by youth, volunteerism and holiness (Psalm 110:3). Isaiah adds the dimension that this army will be a divine tool of judgment to conquer, thresh and winnow the mountain-like nations and superpowers of the world (Isaiah 41:14-16). Zechariah adds that that the entire Jewish people will fight powerfully against the gathered superpowers, and the residents of Judah and Jerusalem will be noteworthy for their bravery and accuracy in warfare (Zechariah 12:1-9).

Actualizing the army

God has already activated His prophetic plan by restoring the Jewish people to their homeland. The horses of the nations are impatiently pawing the ground, threatening embargos and sanctions against the Jewish state in order to force Israel to reverse God’s fledgling restoration process. Islamist powers from Sunni ISIS and al Qa’eda to Shi’ite Iran and Hezbollah are all prophesying Israel’s defeat and soon destruction. Anti-Semitic attacks and actions are spreading across post-Christian Europe. These are not times of peace but of war.

The God of Jacob encourages His people at this time in Psalm 46:

Putting a face on the army

For Ezekiel’s Last Days generation of Jewish believers to be equipped –

These goals have been burning within our hearts for many years. The blending of Word and Spirit in the equipping process, the educating of a new generation of Jewish believers to better acquaint themselves with the roots of their own culture and people (and this without falling under Rabbinic influence and control) – these needs are more pressing and relevant than ever.

Would you pray with us about the formation of a training framework for these purposes? A school where these subjects can be taught and fleshed out in godly and biblical balance? And would you consider standing behind this challenge in prayer and financially, for these activities will require a significant increase in finances.

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Burning streets and an army aflame

The streets of Baltimore are smoldering. A few days ago they were burning. The embers of Ferguson, Missouri are still glowing. In previous years American cities like Compton, Long Beach, Watts and Detroit also saw outbreaks of rioting and violent demonstration. The Rolling Stones’ words continue to resonate, “Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy. Cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy” (Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, ‘Street Fighting Man,’ May 1968, Abkco Music Inc.).

Social cracks and fissures in the sidewalks of America are of great concern to all who love and respect that country. Those who see Uncle Sam as the Great Satan no doubt see these events as portents of its collapse, but believers are called to different tasks – to pray for national repentance and confession, for national turning toward righteousness, and for the forsaking of nationally embraced sins.

The 1848 riots which spread like wildfire through the streets of Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Baden  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848_in_the_German_states) eventually wound down, and it was actually the middle classes who benefited economically from that unrest. Karl Marx spoke fatefully of these then-future riots in his Communist Manifesto (published February 1848): “A ghost is haunting the streets of Europe – the ghost of Communism.”

The past 160 years have sadly manifested the broken economic and social promises of Communism. Yet for those who are willing to learn from history, there is at least one lesson – that riots do not necessarily lead to social justice or economic betterment. Riots could indicate the approach of sociological earthquakes which have the potential to devastate a country and collapse its prominent standing.

Who remembers Babylon?

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were well acquainted with Babylonian social and political developments, and they had no problems recognizing Babylonian military insignia. But our own recollection of those days is somewhat dimmer, less precise and fading. Ancient battles, conquests, expulsions and refugee problems have passed on and passed into eternity for the most part. The one people-group from that time which continues to have earth-shaking significance, even in our day, is the Jewish people, the sons and daughters of Israel. And their destiny is the hinge for Planet Earth’s tomorrow.

As events shake the ground under your feet, stay on target through remembering the centrality of Israel’s calling and destiny in these Last Days (Romans 11:28-29).

The God of Israel is a Holy Fire and He uses fire

The prophet Isaiah paints YHVH in fiery colors. He declares that the Holy One of Israel judges all nations (and even His chosen people Israel) with fire, devouring and purifying:

The coming of Messiah Son of David is described in similar word-pictures:

The return of YHVH to this earth on the Day of Judgment will come with fire as well:

Though most people think of fire as Satan’s exclusive preserve, the Scriptures point out that even Satan’s ultimate destiny is connected with the lake of fire:

God’s messengers are like fire

The psalmist describes the grandeur and awesome nature of God’s creation, pointing out that even the mighty winds move in the service of YHVH: “He makes the winds His messengers, flaming fire His ministers” (Psalm 104:4).

Ancient Jewish understanding occasionally used the terms “wind” and “spirit” interchangeably – (ruach in Hebrew). So the writer of the Book of Hebrews dovetails with this usage, declaring: “And of the angels He says, ‘who makes His angels winds and His ministers a flame of fire’” (Hebrews 1:7).

The Hebrew word seraph actually means ‘burning one’ – an angel aflame who stands in the presence of YHVH, the God of Jacob whose very presence is like fire (Exodus 24:12). YHVH’s eyes are a flame of fire (Revelation 1:14; 2:18; 19:12). He sits on a throne beneath which flows a river of fire (Daniel 7:9-10). And the fiery angelic seraphim who minister to YHVH stand next to an altar burning with fiery coals (Isaiah 6:2, 6).

The fiery Jewish army of the Last Days

The prophetic Scriptures talk about a day yet to come, when the fiery God will stretch out His hand and use His fiery Jewish people to start a fire among the nations. The exegetical context in these passages is distinctly military.

What are we to be looking for and praying for in days ahead? How should we prepare for these amazing challenges when the nation of Israel become “a mighty army, exceedingly great” (Ezekiel 37:10-11)?

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Superpower confrontations

Red-starred nuclear bombers probe Swedish, British and American airspace. Camouflaged “irregulars” move heavy weapons across the erstwhile border between Ukraine and Russia. U.S. paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade take up positions near Lviv, Western Ukraine to train and bolster that country’s National Guard against Eastern threats. China presses forward with building a military airfield on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea, extending its air forces’ reach toward Japan.

The world has gotten used to superpower confrontations, and has learned to live with these simmering tensions. Aggressive nations constantly flex their muscles, engaging in brinksmanship as they jostle for greater influence and domination. Such is the way of the world. What was true in the days of the prophet Daniel (and his vision of Middle Eastern superpowers symbolized as marauding beasts) is true in our day as well.

The whole world’s watching

The Passover story has many levels to it. One foundational aspect is the liberation of an enslaved Jewish people from cruel slave-drivers, the astounding and miraculous Hebrew Exodus and the subsequent settling of the nation in the Land of Israel. But on another level, the Exodus story concerns the clash of kingdoms, both in the physical realm and in the spiritual world.

The Ten Plagues were a divine son et lumière – a sound and light show – for all the nations to see, an international declaration on the part of YHVH the God of the Hebrews that He had confronted and defeated the demonic powers worshipped by the Egyptians.

Each one of the Ten Plagues was targeting a deity to whom the Egyptians turned daily in prayer and sacrifice. Each plague revealed that those spiritual forces were powerless before YHVH the One True God, the God of Jacob.

The Egyptian goddess of fertility, Heketq (Hekt) held the frog to be her sacred symbol. YHVH inundated Egypt with a tidal wave of frogs, whose stinking corpses then filled the streets of her cities and villages. The River Nile was sacred to Khnum and also to Hapi, the spiritual being overseeing both the Upper and Lower Nile. Moses turned the waters of the Nile blood-red, showing that even these powerful beings were subject to the outstretched hand of YHVH.

Serapis the god of healing was struck dumb and powerless before YHVH, as the plague of boils filled the flesh and skin of Egyptians great and small. Even the mighty Amun-Re, god of the sun, found his golden orb blackened and confounded by the God of the Jewish people as Egypt fell into a noonday darkness.

Finally, even the glorious palace of Pharaoh was shaken. This mighty king was considered the son of Horus, the son of Hathor. Surely no one could touch the Royal Household or cause harm to the seed of the gods. Yet the slaying of the first born smote even the palace of Pharaoh. Even his dynasty was not immune on that dark Passover night. The builder of the pyramids quaked before a Desert God. Egypt trembled before the God and people of Jacob. For a future aspect of this same dynamic, see Isaiah 19:16-22.

Signs, wonders and Jewish growth

There was drama, shock and awe in the Passover Plagues. But they were definitely not an oversight or an accident. YHVH was not panicked, scrambling to find a dramatic solution to Pharaoh’s hardheartedness. The God of Israel had actually briefed Moses ahead of time, explaining to him that Pharaoh’s stubbornness would be used by YHVH to bring glory to Himself – as well as to bring judgment on the whole Egyptian nation.

The God of Jacob’s strategy involved a world leader hardening his heart to God’s heart for Israel. Pharaoh’s stubbornness would lead to the whole nation of Egypt beholding the hand of God. For generations to come the world would study this scenario in theological schools and in seminaries. Countless congregations would hear sermons about these principles from pulpits the world over.

The Ten Plagues were, from a certain biblical perspective, a divine public relations campaign to arrest the imagination of the Egyptians. Though the scenario had started out with the carnal leader of a superpower flexing his muscles, it ended up with YHVH flexing His own muscles, and with the leader of the world’s greatest superpower “going to Sunday School” – being taught a sobering lesson through the severe mercies of God.

Hook in the jaws

At one point in time the whole Passover plan looked like it was about to collapse like a house of cards. The Jewish people had nearly lost hope and could not even dare to trust Moses during the swirling activity of the Ten Plagues: “So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage” (Exodus 6:9)

But, in the timeless words of a gospel hymn “Hold On, I’m Coming!” (which in time also became a crossover hit), God challenged His people to have faith and hang on. YHVH allowed Pharaoh to hang onto power and its trappings, in order to set him up for an unusual work of Jewish deliverance.

The hook in Pharaoh’s jaws was anchored deep in the flesh of his ancient sins. Yeshua’s beloved disciple John ticks them off one by one: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:16).

At a date in the not too distant future, Ezekiel prophesies further about jaws:

The anger and irritation of superpowers continues to move world leaders to stick out their jutting jaws – making an outstanding target that offers itself to the hooks of God, as He educates the nations about His heart and priority for Israel.

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Stumbling over the calling of Israel

Christians across the planet have just celebrated Palm Sunday, the day commemorating Yeshua’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem in that pre-Passover week leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection. On the Monday of that week (Matthew 21:18) Yeshua declared that the Psalmist’s prophecy 118:22-23 actually spoke of how Israel’s leaders were about to reject the Messiah, the Anointed One of YHVH:

God’s heart and strategy may be on open display in the Scriptures, but the heart of man is sometimes slow to catch up.

In the same way as some Jewish leaders despised the Messiah (while others gladly accepted Him – John 1:11-12), this same dynamic has occurred among the nations of the world regarding their attitude to the people whom YHVH has chosen to be the apple of His eye (Zechariah 2:8, 12).

The choosing of Israel by YHVH is not only based on His covenant love. There are strategic reasons for that choice. The Bible is chock full of teaching on this theme, and God is increasingly restoring biblical understanding about it in our day. This issue is becoming a plumbline for the body of Messiah and for the world, and even if a sword may pierce our hearts, we would do well to heed the word of the Lord and what it reveals about our hearts.

God’s choice of Israel causes stumbling among both Jews and Gentiles, yet that fact does not call Him to downplay His choosing. Blessed is he who does not stumble over Yeshua, His strategies and His choosing of the Jewish people (John 6:60-61; Romans 9:32; Luke 7:22-24).

Milestones and stumbling stones

The Scriptures sketch out three milestones about the Jewish people which, if not accepted, can also become stumbling stones. They are:

These three milestones about Israel are basic keys to clarity in terms of understand the Bible and in terms of finding one’s own biblical identity and destiny.

For those who reject the Chief Cornerstone on this subject, God’s milestones can become millstones (1 Peter 2:7-9).

 Milestone #1 – irrevocable calling and gifts

The Apostle Paul teaches that the calling of Israel and all the gifts to her (detailed in Romans 9:3-5 and throughout the Bible) are not subject to re-interpretation or ‘fulfilment’ or passing away. They continue as part of the New Covenant, which is in itself a Jewish covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Though many in Israel have not walked through Messiah’s gate into the sheepfold of new spiritual life and salvation, YHVH’s covenantal promises with the nation remain strong, and the fulfilment of all His promises (including His purifying discipline) will never be changed (Jeremiah 33:19-26).

These gifts include the essential Jewish nature and future of the Land of Israel, the centrality of Israel in the covenants, the firstborn status of the Jewish people among the nations, and the connection between the Holy Spirit and the Jewish people (the Glory mentioned in Romans 9:4).

This Apostolic teaching has been ‘despised and rejected’ by and large throughout the history of the Church of the Uncircumcision. Replacement Theology has offered itself as a satanic and counterfeit theology. Sadly, throughout church history there has been a ready and willing clientele standing in line to purchase these tainted goods.

Ø  As the world turns against the Jewish state on the Jewish people, and as the heart of significant segments of the Body of Messiah grows cold toward Jacob’s children, these truths will help light the way and guide Yeshua’s followers to greater understanding and effectiveness in these Last Days. 

Milestone #2 – separate and distinctive identity

There are some who view the Body of Messiah as a Country Club. The common feeling is that the Club is Gentile in make-up, in identity and in destiny. Yet Paul explains that another name for the Body of Messiah is actually ‘the Commonwealth of Israel” (Ephesians 2:12) and that it is the Gentile believers in the Jewish Messiah who step across the broken-down wall of partition onto the Jewish side (Ephesians 2:14-16). Those Gentiles who believe in the Jewish Messiah are grafted into a Jewish tree which still belongs to the Jewish people. It is part of their irrevocable gifts (Romans 11:17, 24).

Yet in the wisdom of God, YHVH has called the Jewish people to be distinctive, separate from all the other nations. Whether the Jewish people are at home in their Promised Land, scattered in the Exile, or ‘comfortable in the Diaspora’ as some would describe it, they are still distinct and different.

This was expressed eloquently by the Mesopotamian sorcerer Balaam who, being filled by the Holy Spirit of Israel, uttered an amazing prophetic word about the Jewish people:

“How shall I curse whom God has not cursed, and how can I denounce whom YHVH has not denounced? As I see him from the top of the rocks, and I look at him from the hills – behold, a people who dwells apart, and will not be reckoned as part of the nations” (Numbers 23:8-9)

God’s response to the rebellion of the Tower of Babel – mankind’s attempt to forge a false unity through uniformity of language and religion – was division. YHVH came down and divided the languages of men. His strategy of division was meant to eventually bring unity. For along with the dividing of tongues came the choosing of Israel – Abraham’s seed through Jacob would be the key to healing and rescue for the entire planet. Through Jacob’s seed would come the Davidic dynasty and the Messiah Son of David. Through the distinctive separateness of the Jewish people, mankind would be delivered from sin and rebellion.

This separate identity is ongoing. It will be part of Messiah’s kingdom rule in Jerusalem, centered around the Jewish people, their land and their Messiah (Isaiah 2:1-5). And this separate and distinctive identity will be honored and respected by the nations who walk in obedience and belief (Zechariah 8:20-23).

Milestone #3 – continuing priority status

The third milestone to be considered here is that of the Jewish people’s continuing firstborn status. The mouth of YHVH spoke out this divine guarantee (Exodus 4:22-23) as part of a Passover prophecy. The Apostle Paul includes this firstborn status in Romans 9:3 (“the adoption as sons”) as part of the ongoing spiritual priority and advantage that Israel continues to have (Romans 3:1-2).

This firstborn status involves priority for the Jewish people among the nations in the dealings of God. Based on the right of the firstborn son in Jacob’s deathbed prophecy (Genesis 49:1-3) and amplified by YHVH’s teaching through Moses (Deuteronomy 21:15-17), firstborn status means that the Jewish people receive a double portion of both blessing and discipline from the hand of YHVH Israel’s Father (Isaiah 61:7; Isaiah 40:2; Amos 3:2; Romans 2:5-11; Hosea 11:1-3). It means that they have a calling to be a servant to the nations (Isaiah 4:5-6; Acts 13:46-47). This includes teaching the nations and bringing the gospel message to them.

This dynamic ensures that the Jewish people will always stand out among the nations – whether at the United Nations, in their host countries, in the Middle East, or in primarily Gentile congregations. Obviously this outstanding nature may result in jealousy and persecution, as it has throughout the ages.

Here is where the blessing and cursing aspects of Genesis 12:3 come. For those non-Jews who are prepared to gladly receive this teaching and positional reality, there will be blessing and light. But for those Gentiles (even believers) who reject and disdain this teaching (this is the meaning of the first verb in Genesis 12:3 – meqalelecha means ‘the one who mocks/derides you, or treats you as a light and unimportant matter’), the results involve the withholding of spiritual and physical blessing along with resulting darkening of understanding.

Paul states that this priority status shapes the evangelistic mandate of Messiah’s body, in that the gospel is to go to the Jewish people proton (Romans 1:16; often translated as ‘first to the Jew,’ the Greek word proton actually means chiefly, especially or with priority).

God’s milestones challenge the body of Messiah and the nations of the world, calling for a response. Will our response be one of heartfelt obedience or will it be one of disdain and angry rejection?

Bringing balance to our own strategies

God is preaching for a verdict. He is sifting the nations based on their treatment of Israel, the apple of His eye. He is also sifting the body of Messiah using the same sieve, which is the Word of God.

As we attempt to understand God’s strategies in the Hebrew prophets, it would do us well to remember that future prophecies of co-operative efforts between reborn nations in the Messianic rule of Yeshua (like Isaiah 19:16-25) revolve around the same biblical constellations mentioned above. They are still guided by and interpreted by the irrevocable and unchanging plumbline of the Jewish people.

God’s unique priority with Israel His inheritance is not diluted or diminished by the future love and good fellowship between the reborn nations of Egypt, Assyria (northern Iraq) and Israel. When peace breaks out after Messiah’s return, the whole Middle East will be transformed. But God’s priority calling on Israel will never be altered or interpreted out of existence. It will be at the heart of that glorious future.

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Making the crooked straight : Tearing down Evangelical strongholds opposed to Israel’s restoration

Purim, the Feast of Esther, memorializes the attempted genocide against the Jewish people in what is now called Iran (ancient Persia) by Haman and his supporters. The Bible tells us that Haman was motivated by hatred against the Jews, against their chosen status and because of their being different and distinct from all other people.

As modern Iran once again gears up for nuclear genocide against Jacob’s children, Israel has stepped into its prophetic role of warning the world, and is calling for international thwarting of this clear and present danger. For the most part, the world is in denial, more interested in short term peace and long term profits.

Jeremiah lamented that over 2,600 years ago the nations could not care less about threats to Israel’s survival:

“Therefore all who devour you will be devoured, and all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity. And those who plunder you will be for plunder, and all who prey upon you I will give for prey. For I will restore you to health and I will heal you of your wounds, declares YHVH, because they have called you an outcast, saying, ‘It is Zion; no one cares for her’” (Jeremiah 30:16-17)

Today certain streams in the body of Messiah could not care less about the Jewish people either. Some are blind as to what God is doing in restoring Israel. Others are actively denying the hand of God as He restores the Jewish people. This newsletter digs into the stony ground out of which this denial springs.

Passive bystanders and ‘thumbs down’ critics

In May 1948 the survival of fledgling nation of Israel was threatened. Five Arab armies surrounded and invaded the Jewish state, while Secretary-General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha declared: “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades (“Interview with Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha,” Akhbar al-Yom, October 11, 1947).

Yet for the most part, the nations of the world were stand-offish. They stood aloof and distant in Israel’s hour of need. Indeed, many Christians announced Israel’s imminent destruction. They based their convictions either on the belief that Jews could only play the historical role of victims (as had recently happened in the Holocaust) or that the Jewish people had punishment coming (because they had not believed in Jesus) or that the Hebrew prophets described in some detail a coming fiery purification of Israel, and the 1948 battles seemed to look a lot like those final wars. Certainly God would not stretch forth His scepter and save Israel in 1948!

The results of the May 1948 war were unexpected and radically different from what many Christians had thought. Israel defeated the combined armies of five Arab countries, and was established as a sovereign state for the first time in over 2,000 years. A radical paradigm shift had occurred in history regarding the Jewish people. They were now active players on the world stage, and people sat up and took notice.

Yet some Christians were a little slow to assimilate these facts. Dr. Yona Malachy, author of “American Fundamentalism and Israel: The Relation of Fundamentalist Churches to Zionism and the State of Israel” (Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1978) notes that certain strands of Christian theology (following the teaching of Saint Augustine) saw the Jews as a chosen people -  but chosen specifically for judgment, for humiliation, exile, defeat and destruction!

Some Christians in 1948 had a strong knee-jerk reaction to the Jewish nation regaining its freedom and sovereignty. For centuries it had been a cardinal teaching of the Church that Israel’s sufferings were rightfully deserved, and their exile and suffering proved the truth of the Christian message. All these traditional teachings were being turned on their heads by a Jewish victory in 1948.

A similar scenario happened in June 1967, when potential annihilation of the Jewish state was miraculously transformed into victory, with Israel recovering its ancient spiritual capitol city Jerusalem, as well as the patriarchal and Davidic sites of Bethlehem, Hebron, etc. The Six Day War restored Judea and Samaria to the Jewish people, but in some Christian theologians’ minds and hearts, there was strong opposition to allowing their overwhelmingly negative narrative about Jewish destiny to be sweetened in any way.

The face of the Christian world does not always reflect the face of Yeshua. This continues to be a matter of earnest prayer.

The Ice Age cometh

Scholars of anti-Semitism and sociologists are noting increased world trends toward virulent anti-Semitism. Islamic immigrants to Western Europe have blended with neo-Nazis in creating a critical mass of Jew-hatred. From Manchester to Milan and from Berlin to Brussels, Jews are afraid to walk the streets of Europe. The ghost of anti-Semitism has risen from its grave.

At the same time, anti-Semitic changes are afoot in the Evangelical world. Christians are being brought to Bethlehem to mock Israeli soldiers guarding against terrorist incursions. Anglican leaders meet with Iranian leaders to condemn the Jewish state. Christian conferences call for boycotts against Israel, while large Christian youth movements disseminate anti-Israel DVDs and literature while edging away from public identification with Jews and Israel. It has become cool to be cool towards Israel.

In times past there has always been a solid stream of Evangelical and Charismatic believers who have stood with Israel (see one excellent modern example – www.charismanews.com/us/48203-historic-israel-summit-launches-firm-ministry; https://firm.org.il/).

But today there is a growing counter-movement of Evangelicals and Charismatics actively opposing the Jewish people’s restoration and sovereignty.

These believers in Yeshua see the reconstitution of the Jewish state as simply being a blip on the radar before Israel gets totally destroyed. Any Jewish state (according to this view) must be totally decimated just prior to the return of Messiah. A recent advocate of this position was Art Katz, and the position was recently restated by Dalton Lifsey.

Obviously, if Israel is being gathered for the sole purpose of being destroyed, this would put quite a dent in Evangelical sympathy and support for the restoration of the Jewish people. These abovementioned teachings actually chill the hearts and freeze the passionate prayers of intercessors for Israel.

So what actually is the biblical restoration of Israel?

Biblical descriptions of the restoration of Israel take up a significant amount of space in the Bible. A fast-food summation of these realities include:

This restoration is a process (see 1 Corinthians 15:46; Ezekiel 37:1-14, 24-28, etc.) and we are in the middle of that process. Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones points out that the return of the Jewish people to the physical land of Israel happens mostly before the spiritual resuscitation. But it all merges into one flow; it all happens to one people, and it all takes place in one Promised Land. The end result, according in Ezekiel 37:10, is that the entire Jewish nation becomes a vast physical/spiritual army à la Psalm 110:3 and Isaiah 41:14-16.

It is true (according to the prophetic Scriptures) that the world will at some point rebel against God’s hand of Jewish restoration. It will reject His gracious work, invade Israel and attempt to destroy her. At that time and in that context, the existence of God’s Jewish army will have great significance.

A heart of unbelief

God describes His gracious goodness to Israel in Jeremiah 32:36-44, among many other places. Those who refuse to believe that God’s goodness is being demonstrated to Israel in our day, are forced to conclude that God’s returning the Jewish people to their own land is simply a sadistic set-up for Jewish destruction.

Yet no nation has ever been returned to its own homeland after exile in all of human history. No nation has lost its spoken language and then seen it restored to living use, as Israel has witnessed with Hebrew. No nation suffered the mass murder of one third of its people (as experienced in the Holocaust), and then stepped back onto the battlefields of the Middle East with guts and confidence.

When Christians teach against viewing the present restoration of the Jewish people as a gift of a gracious covenant-keeping God, they reveal a begrudging and barely tolerant attitude toward God’s manifest love for Israel. They unwittingly choose to preserve anti-Semitic stereotypes of the Jew as victim, or of the Jew as anti-Christ. And they sidestep standing firm with Israel, or lending a helping hand toward her restoration.

False piety and Jewish restoration

There is a fascinating historical encounter between the father of secular Zionism, Theodor Herzl, and Pope Pius X. Their conversation on January 26, 1904 was recorded in Herzl’s diaries (Raphael Patai, The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl; New York/London: Herzl Press, Thomas Yoseloff, 1960; pp. 1601-1605). Herzl had come to ask for Vatican support for the creation of a homeland for his persecuted Jewish people. Here are some excerpts from the Pope’s statements during that dialogue:

The sad fact revealed by these quotes is that no room has been left for the God of the Bible as the loving God who is restoring His people to their Promised Land. And the stark refusal to recognize God’s restorative love for Jacob’s sons and daughters finds cold refuge in the heart of some Christians today as well.

It is no wonder that Christians who cannot accept the regathering of the Jewish people as gracious and good, tend to give short thrift to the biblical subject of Ezekiel’s mighty Jewish army. From their point of view, the Jewish people can’t win. According to this viewpoint, Jewish people are suspended between heaven and earth, not allowed to have a homeland of their own. According to this viewpoint, the Jews may have a past and a future – but they certainly do not have a present. According to this viewpoint, all that the Jewish people can look forward to is to “this present darkness.”

Four parallels to consider

There are four parallels worth thinking about here.

The Deistic view of God sees God as the great watchmaker who has wound up the universe and, like Elvis, has abruptly left the building. No one know when He will be back. God is powerful but distant. He doesn’t come around much anymore, and one cannot really have a personal relationship with Him.

This perspective is quite popular in the world today, even among many Christians. Cessationist Christians (who do not believe that God shows up to accomplish healings or to manifest the spiritual gifts) have had their worldview philosophically compared to Deistic views in this area. Those who deny God’s present good hand of restoration for Israel seem to be doing something similar. This viewpoint believes that God has not shown up for Israel and is not intending to do so – at least until Israel screams for mercy.

The Corban principle refers back to Mark 7:9-13. There the cold-hearted and unthankful son who does not want to bless his parents, regretfully informs them that he would like to help them, but the material possessions in question have just recently been dedicated by the son’s holy vow unto the Lord, and cannot be given to help. In the same way, some believers say that they would like to help in Israel’s restoration, but unfortunately Scripture (at least their understanding of it) prevents them from doing so. Sounds religious, but it still doesn’t smell that good.

The Tobiah syndrome is found in Nehemiah 4:3. The man in question looks at Jewish efforts toward restoration and sneers that Jewish efforts are earnest but useless. Even a fox running along the rebuilt walls would cause the restoration work to collapse.

Some Christians who hold to these kind of views vis-à-vis Jewish restoration, condescendingly look upon Israelis who serve in the Israel Defense Forces as serious but misguided, since according to their viewpoint Israel will be totally destroyed. All effort invested in Jewish restoration is worthless, according to this viewpoint.

The Neturei Karta response hearkens back to a miniscule ultra-Orthodox strand of Judaism which refuses to recognize the modern state of Israel. The Neturei Karta (“Guardians of the city” in Aramaic) believe that only Messiah can establish the true Jewish kingdom, and that secular Jewish efforts are to be despised, shunned and rejected. The Neturei Karta regularly turn to Palestinian terror groups to ask for approval and permission for NK activities and have stood on stage in Iran, identifying with Ahmadinejad and praising him.

The result of invalidating God’s good hand in the present restoration of Zion has caused some to seek out very strange bedfellows.

It is not surprising to note that, for those who reject the present restoration work of God, the only eschatological room left for the Jewish people according to these world views is either the Jews as tragic victims, or one specific Jew as the anti-Christ.

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Boasting against the branches at the Feast of Esther

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

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

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

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

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

The three N-words

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

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

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

Negative paradigms

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neo-Colonialism

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

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

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

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

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

Narcissism

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

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

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

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

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

For such a time as this?

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

How shall we then pray?

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

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Marrying the anti-Israel spirit

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

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

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

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

The shadow of “that hyddeous strength”

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

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

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

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

Making way for Hitler

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

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

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

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

Once more with feeling

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

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

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

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

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

Evangelicals aping the world

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

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

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

The Palestinian Christian dimension of the anti-Israel spirit

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

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

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

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

No compromise

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

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

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

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

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

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

How shall we then pray?

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close