Booster rocket theology

It’s a high calling to intercede for Zion’s sake, to “not be silent” concerning the welfare and destiny of Jerusalem.  Most people who intercede for the coming restoration of the Jewish people know that Israel’s place in God’s heart and in biblical strategy has not been usurped or replaced by the primarily Gentile body of Messiah. They would classify themselves as opposing Replacement Theology.

Yet quiet waters are said to run deep. Over the years one occasionally runs into certain comments that surface like dorsal-fins – comments that reveal what can be called a “Practical Replacement Theology” lurking just below the water level, even among Christians with a ‘kosher’ attitude to Israel.

What are manifestations of this “Practical Replacement Theology”? What light can the word of God shine on these issues?

Rocket Man and the Jews

In the 1960’s a generation was transfixed to watch the lift-off of space rockets from Cape Canaveral – Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. The white blasting clouds of rocket exhaust, the hurtling bright javelin of metal, the booster rockets burning out and falling off – it made for great TV.

A booster rocket is the first stage of a multi-stage rocket or launch vehicle. Its engine is used to increase thrust and payload capability – to get the spacecraft on its way out of Planet Earth’s atmosphere and heavy gravitational pull. When the booster rocket’s fuel is expended, it is released from the spacecraft and dropped into the ocean (a point known as booster engine cut-off – BECO). The rest of the launch vehicle continues on its mission with its core or upper-stage engines.

What does this have to do with Christian attitudes toward the Jewish people? A lot.

Many believers see the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish people as a booster rocket. They were helpful in bringing Jesus to the Gentiles, these people say, but now that we have the New Testament, now that Christianity has taken root and become a major world religion, there is no need for the original Jewish nature and context of the gospel. And there will certainly be no literal fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, to Jacob and to David.

As a snake sheds its old skin, so the Church (it is claimed) needs to forget about Old Testament ways and hopes. Jesus was the Jewish Messiah; He is now Christ the Savior of the world. Though we may feel some regret for the booster rocket which falls backward into earth’s blue oceans, our focus should be on the continuing flight of the core, the basically Gentile body of Christ. The booster rocket is not the main issue; the Gentile spacecraft is. To twist Paul’s turn of phrase in 1 Corinthians 13 (according to booster theology perspective), now that the Church has become a man, it is time to put away childish (i.e., Jewish) things!

Rocket science and the Apostle Paul

In Romans 11, Paul challenges his Gentile readers with four commands, meant to test the health and integrity of their attitudes toward the Jewish people:

Paul is teaching the nations with apostolic authority, that Gentile believers have a spiritual obligation to make sure their own hearts are right vis-à-vis the Jewish people.

To those non-Jewish believers in Yeshua who have a “booster rocket theology” toward Israel, Paul explains, “You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in’” (Romans 11:19). Paul labels the heart-attitude behind this last statement as ‘conceit’ (verse 20). Rather than conceit, he suggests that the new believers from among the nations adopt a new and different heart-attitude – that of holy fear (verse 20).

Paul’s perspective is not booster rocket theology. One could even say that it does not take a rocket scientist to understand it! His outlook would better be described as “olive tree theology.” God and His covenants are the root and trunk of the Romans 11 olive tree, while the Jewish people are the natural branches and the prototype of believers. Some Jewish people who turned their backs on Yeshua’s call were broken off from the place of salvation and obedience, while those Gentiles who followed Yeshua were grafted in (albeit as wild olive branches) to the Jewish olive tree. The tree remains Jewish, the natural Jewish branches remain Jewish, the covenants remain Jewish, and Messiah Yeshua Son of David also remains Jewish. What we have is a basically Jewish tree, with a vast majority of Gentile wild olive branches! This is what Paul describes as the current state of the “Commonwealth of Israel” in Ephesians 2:12-13; 3:5-6.

“Spiritual Israel”

Nearly two thousand years ago Paul wrote a letter to believers living in what today is modern Turkey. That country, originally inhabited in King Solomon’s day by the Hittite Empire, was later overrun by Celtic tribes from France-Switzerland-Germany known as the Gauls – hence the area’s name became Galatia, and Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians was sent to them.

The Galatian believers were struggling with a false teaching coming out from a non-kosher and non-authorized Messianic Jewish stream based in Jerusalem, which taught that Gentile believers in Messiah Yeshua needed to ‘go all the way’ and convert to Pharisaic Judaism, taking on the obligation of keeping the Mosaic Torah (law, covenant or teaching of Moses) by solemn oath.

Paul’s immediate concern was to let these Gentile Galatian believers know that they had received full standing as Gentiles through the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah. They had been justified, set apart for God and were recipients of salvation and the Holy Spirit. Nothing more needed to be added to that finished work. It was not God’s intention to transform their Gentile DNA into Jewish DNA, nor was it Yeshua’s intention to make Gentiles (who were already partakers of the New Covenant) into followers of the Mosaic Covenant. Paul calls those false brethren (Galatians 2:4) the purveyors of “a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). They were hypocrites who were bringing Gentiles into bondage by compelling them to be circumcised (in order to follow the Mosaic Covenant; Galatians 2:13, 3-4).

Gentiles who believe in Yeshua do not become Jews and are not under the Law of Moses (Galatians 4:21, 31), but can now be described as “Gentiles justified by faith” (Galatians 3:8).

From Paul’s perspective, Jews who believe in Yeshua become Messianic Jews or spiritual Jews; while Gentiles who believe in Yeshua become Messianic Gentiles or spiritual Gentiles.

With this background in place, we can now address the habit that some have of calling Gentiles who believe in Yeshua by the name ‘spiritual Israel.’ The presupposition behind this term is that being a spiritual Gentile is not enough; one has to ‘go all the way’ and somehow become Jewish in order to have God’s favor. It was precisely this type of confused thinking that moved Paul to focus so strongly on the liberating truth of the gospel for Gentile believers qua Gentiles.

It is true that Gentiles become part of the spiritual Commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:12-13). But this does not mean that Gentiles become Jews. To take a current illustration from the British Commonwealth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations): though the Commonwealth’s main office is found in Marlborough House, London, England, its members come in all shapes, sizes and colors – 54 nations, to be exact. Africans, Canadians, Cypriots, Tongans and Zambians – a veritable rainbow of cultures and hues!

It would be preposterous to declare that every member of the British Commonwealth has to dye their hair blond and apply blue contact lenses! In the same way, though the Commonwealth of Israel contains Jews and many, many Gentiles, it does not require participating males to become females, or for Gentiles to become Jews.

The Bible nowhere uses the term ‘spiritual Israel’ to describe Gentile believers, but it does use the term “Commonwealth of Israel” to describe the entity to which Gentile believers are joined. In light of the many problems associated with the term ‘spiritual Israel,’ clarity and accuracy would be best served by using biblical terms to describe biblical truths.

“Origen”-al thinking

One of the elephants hiding in the broom closet regarding this issue has to do with how historical Christian anti-Semitism has created the term ‘spiritual Israel.’ Two of the original Church Fathers, the Samaritan Justin Martyr (of Flavia Neapolis, modern Nablus; 100-165 A.D.) and Origen Adamantius (of Alexandria and Caesarea Maritima; 184-254 A.D.), both taught that Gentile believers had replaced the Jewish people (Replacement Theology) and that now Jews were un-chosen. According to Justin and especially to Origen, the term Israel could now only be rightfully applied to Gentile believers in Jesus. They were the ‘Verus Israel’, the True Israel, the spiritual Israel.

Justin Martyr’s definition of spiritual Israel (in Dialogue with Trypho; www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-dialoguetrypho.html):

Origen’s definition of spiritual Israel:

These tragic historical examples of arrogance toward the Jewish people and of boasting against the branches show that the term ‘spiritual Israel’ has a non-kosher and intensely anti-Semitic origin.  Believers who love Israel and respect her divine gifts and calling should stay far away from these terms lest they be inadvertently tarred with the same brush.

 “This is that”

The majority of sermons preached in the world today take their message from the Bible, a book written overwhelmingly by Jews, and which describes the Jewish people in over 90% of its texts.  Yet the surprising thing is that much of the time it is rare to hear about the Jewish people in most sermons, unless the reference is negative.

I remember being taught in a Pentecostal church a long time back that one can never lose the gift of tongues, because “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” It took me a few years to realize that the Apostle Paul was focusing on God’s irrevocable gifts and callings on Israel in Romans 11, and not on glossolalia! In a similar way, many Christians do not see that Jerusalem and Judea are referring to real places where real Jews live, since they have grown up hearing their teachers re-interpret Jewish places and people into non-Jewish generic Christian symbols.

This habit of subconsciously using a ‘Replacement theology’ hermeneutic is so strong, that sometimes even intercessors who love Israel find themselves re-interpreting clear prophecies about Jewish revival (like Isaiah 60) and morphing them into descriptions of the primarily Gentile church in revival. Even dead bones (and Jewish ones at that in Ezekiel 37) are pressed into service, and reinterpreted to mean a revival of the Gentile church – though the prophetic passage is strikingly clear in being ascribed to the Jewish people alone (Ezekiel 37:11-14).

The healthiest and most accurate way of interpreting Scriptures which deal with the Jewish people and their destiny, is to apply the passages to the Jews first and with priority.

That may sound revolutionary to some, but it is in exegetical accordance with God’s way, His heart and His word.  Then, having honored God’s original intentions, one is free to apply the lessons of that passage to any and all situations in life – without violating copyright or authorial intent!

Caricaturing the Chosen People

The Bible says a lot about the Jewish people – their triumphs and tragedies, their poetry and their sins. No history book of any people is as ruthlessly honest as is the Bible. King David’s sins are not covered up, but detailed and dissected. The Ten Tribes’ unfaithfulness is categorized. At the same time, David’s victories and worship are also spotlighted, and the Jewish people’s faith and intercessory cries are documented throughout Scriptural history (Exodus 2:23-25; Hosea 12:3-4). One of the reasons this exhaustive biblical record is given by God, is in order to test the reader’s heart.

If a reader from among the nations concludes that Jews are worse than any other nation, he has come away with a distorted message, with a perverse interpretation. For the fact is that Jews are as human as any other nation. Jews sin as much as Gentiles; they triumph as much as Gentiles; they cry as much as Gentiles; and they laugh at least as much as Gentiles! Some Jewish people may have killed the prophets, but don’t forget that all of the prophets were Jewish people!

Since Jewish people have a priority status with God as His firstborn nation (see Genesis 49:3; Deuteronomy 21:15-17; Exodus 4:22; Isaiah 40:2; Amos 3:22 etc.), they are punished twice as severely for their sins. But they are also blessed twice as much for their obedience (Romans 1:16; 2:8, 10; Isaiah 61:6-7 etc.).

Yet it happens all too often that some believers obsess on a negative caricature of the Jewish people. One recent book aimed at intercessors describes the Jewish people in exclusively negative terms – as hostile to their Maker, having a historic unfaithfulness to the Covenant, as an undeserving and obstinate people who by and large resist and reject both God and His Messiah.

Such intemperate language is a negative caricature of God’s Chosen People, typecasting Jews as unbelievers and Christians as believers. Such language ignores the fact that there have been many Jewish people throughout biblical and post-biblical history who have been faithful and exemplary servants of God and of His Messiah.  Such language glosses over the fact that today there is a thriving and growing community of Messianic Jews across the face of the globe. Indeed, in the last fifty years there has been a major and unprecedented revival of Jewish people coming to know their Messiah.

As the same time, there are many people who are labeled Christians, who have never accepted Yeshua’s atonement for their own personal sins. The Bible actually teaches that it is a remnant that believes, both from among the Jews and among the Gentiles (see Romans 11:4-5; 9:24, 27). Greater sensitivity must be used here in talking about Israel’s failures, and greater balance must be brought by remembering Israel’s mighty calling and stellar achievements both in the Bible and in history.

How can we 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

The restoration of David’s throne

Every believer in King Yeshua is looking forward to His soon return to this earth. In that day the knowledge of YHVH will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9; Habakkuk 2:14).  Messiah’s teaching will flow from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2), and He will instruct all nations concerning His ways.

For many, it is a joy to think about the future day when Christ will rule over the nations. Yet so many followers of Yeshua are unaware that the nature of Messiah’s person, kingdom and dynasty will be strikingly Jewish. So many believers are unaware of the Jewish nature of the future kingdom because so many Christian leaders shy away from equipping their people on these issues.

Here are a few thoughts on biblical passages regarding the restoration of David’s throne – the rebuilding of what Amos describes as the “shanty (or hut, hovel or tabernacle; see Isaiah 1:7-8) of David which is fallen” (Amos 9:11ff; see also the 40 page article “A Messianic Perspective on the Restoration of David’s Tabernacle” https://davidstent.com/words/).

Dying to see a plan come together

Sometimes, before God’s prophetic promise can be fulfilled in that person’s life, the main recipient of the covenant promise has to die first.  On some occasions the key to unlock the door of God’s promise can only be grasped on the other side of death.

Some of the most significant covenants made between God and Jewish men (the Abrahamic and Davidic Covenants) have aspects that will only be fulfilled after the future physical resurrections of Abraham and David. When one considers the New Covenant (which required Yeshua’s death and resurrection to be activated), its future fulfillment will flower only when the Jewish people become spiritually resurrected (see Jeremiah 31:33-34; Romans 11:12, 15, 23-27).

Isaiah the prophet described that Messiah Yeshua would see the good pleasure of YHVH prospering in His hand – but only after Yeshua would render Himself an asham (Hebrew, a guilt offering) and be buried with a rich man in His death (Isaiah 53:9,10). Only after His death and resurrection would YHVH’s Servant justify many through bearing their sins and iniquities (Isaiah 53:11-12).

The same is true for Abraham. The divine promises regarding the Promised Land of Israel include borders that Abraham has never possessed (see Genesis 12:1, 7; 13:14-17; 15:18-21; 17:8, 21; 18:19; 22:15-18; 24:7; 25:5-6; 26:1-5; 27:27-29, 37; 28:3-4, 12-16; 32:12; 35:9-12; 46:1-4; 48:1-4, 21-22; 49:10; 50:24-25). Abraham’s promised seed through Isaac and Jacob never possessed the land in fullness either. Indeed, even up to our own day this promise has not been totally fulfilled.

The long wait of faith

Hebrew 11:8-12 describes Abraham’s life in Canaan 4,000 years ago – living like a stranger in the Promised Land, waiting for YHVH’s promised inheritance in the land of Canaan (Hebrews 11: 9-10). The writer says, “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance…” (Hebrews 11:13).

Joseph prophesied the return of the Jewish people from Egypt by faith, trusting in God’s power to accomplish what He had promised concerning the Land of Israel (Hebrews 11:22).

Even King David did not receive the fullness of the kingdom promised to him (Hebrews 11:32, 39), “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised.”

A prophetic key is concealed in Hebrews 11:17-18, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’ He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.”

Abraham believed that God would keep His promises, even if he would have to wait until after the death of his son Isaac.

He knew, believed and trusted that God could raise Isaac from the dead.  It was Abraham’s belief in the resurrection that saw him through the trial of sacrifice in the region of Mount Moriah.

In the same way, Abraham believed God when YHVH promised to give him the entire Land of Canaan as his physical inheritance – even if he had to die before fully receiving it. He knew that with God, a promise is a promise. God could and would raise Abraham from the dead if need be!

On the Day of Resurrection, Abraham will stand to his feet, beholding the face of God in righteous satisfaction (see Psalm 17:15).  He will then receive the keys to the land of Israel, the Land of Promise.  He (along with his chosen descendants the Jewish people) will become (as an amazing verse tells us in Romans 4:13) “the heir of the world” (see also Luke 1:54-55, 70-74).

Dem bones gonna rise again

When the God of Israel established His covenant with David son of Jesse (2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17; Psalm 89) He promised David many things, only some of which have been fulfilled.

In the same way that Abraham will only receive the fullness of the promise when he will be resurrected, King David will receive the fullness of God’s promise to him in the Davidic Covenant at his own physical resurrection.

The Apostle Paul in his Shabbat sermon at the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, emphasized that “David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay” (Acts 13:36).

Yet the word of God promises that David himself will one day receive the fullness of the promise: he will rule over the Jewish people forever, something that can only be possible after David’s resurrection: “They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons’ sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever” (Ezekiel 37:25; see also Ezekiel 34:23-24; 37:24; Hosea 3:5 etc.).

When Yeshua returns as King of kings and Lord of all the earth, He will reign from Jerusalem as David's Greater Son (Matthew 22:41-46; Romans 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:8). David will be raised from the dead, and he will reign as viceroy under Messiah Yeshua's supreme command. The Davidic dynasty will reign under the tutelage of King David himself, as it was in ancient days (see Psalm 122:4-5; Amos 9:11; Jeremiah 30:9; 33:21-22, 26).

The New Covenant teaches us that God’s promised gift (the Messiah Son of David) needed to die and be resurrected for that covenant to be birthed. In Romans 1:1-4, Paul teaches that even though God’s Good News had long been prophesied in the Holy Scriptures, its realization involved the fact that His own Son – “born of a descendant of David according to the flesh – was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Messiah Yeshua our Lord.”

Here comes the sun

We can have absolute confidence that these Davidic events will come to pass with certainty, because YHVH has given us an iron-clad promise in Jeremiah 33:19-21: “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, ‘Thus says YHVH, If you can break My covenant for the day and My covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant…’ ”

Since no human being will ever have the power to stop day and night (which would necessitate stopping the turning of the earth and the sun), YHVH used this figure of speech to communicate overwhelming encouragement to us that His covenant to David and to his house is unshakable and eternal.

Guess who’s coming to dinner

Persian Sufis have a proverb, “Do not invite an elephant trainer into your living room unless you have room for an elephant.” In other words, be aware that actions have ramifications. God made certain theological declarations; we can count on it that there will be practical consequences!

Some of the clauses of the Davidic Covenant include:

These are some ramifications of the fullness of the Davidic covenant.  There will be wonderfully practical consequences for the entire Jewish people and for the whole Land of Israel.

As well, it’s worth remembering that YHVH promised three blessings to David personally:

When we pray, “even so, come Lord Yeshua!”, remember that He is not coming back to this earth with no backup . He is bringing with Him a whole Davidic entourage. From God’s perspective Biblical Restoration is not a generic term; it has strong Jewish ramifications as well!

Prophetic ramifications of Davidic restoration

When the full restoration of David’s governmental rule comes to pass, some of the future benefits described in Scripture include:

The full restoration of David’s Covenant will bring overflowing physical blessings for Israel and the world (see Isaiah 27:6, 55:3, 12-13).

The return of the Jewish Messiah will be accompanied by the restoration of His family dynasty, the Royal Family of the House of David.  That restored dynasty will rule over both the Jewish people and the world from the capitol city of a Jewish land which will be experiencing the fullness of YHVH’s blessings.

The promise of Jewish physical restoration to the entire land of Israel (Jeremiah 31:5-6, 50:19), the spiritual salvation of the entire Jewish nation (Jeremiah 31:31-34; 50:20), and governmental restoration of the Davidic dynasty (Amos 9:11-12, Isaiah 2:1-5, Jeremiah 33:19-26), will all be fulfilled prophecy for Israel in that day, because the zeal of YHVH of armies will perform this (Isaiah 9:7).

Some of this teaching, though profoundly biblical, may be new to you. If that is so, I encourage you not to stumble over God’s marvelous plans for His Jewish people, but to treasure these and meditate on them in your heart. And remember the apostolic declaration in Romans 11:18, 20, 25, 29: “Don’t be arrogant towards the Jewish people, don’t be conceited towards them, and don’t be ignorant of their calling.  The calling and the gifts given to the Jewish people (by the Messiah of Israel) are irrevocable.”

Living in a political world

Bob Dylan once said, “We live in a political world, where courage is a thing of the past.” As believers grasp that the God of all creation is restoring His people to the Land of Israel, resituating them on the chessboard of the nations – we also realize that (from Satan’s perspective) Israel has now become a stationary target.

In the 1930’s and 40’s, believers who stood with Israel and who tried to save Jewish lives, speedily came to the realization that these endeavors required taking a stand against Hitler’s genocidal fury. And that had definite political consequences. Rees Howell’s intercessory prayer meetings took what could be seen as a political stand – they prayed for the defeat of Nazi Germany, the victory of the Allied armies, and the protection, physical restoration and spiritual salvation of the Jewish people to their own Promised Land. Their stand for a return to Zion meant that they were intercessory Zionists – believers, encouragers and advocates of the prophesied return of the Jewish people to Zion, their capitol city and their God-given homeland.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christian convictions led him to help smuggle Jews out of Germany, and to support a band of brave military and political leaders who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler. They saw no conflict between their actions and their Messianic faith. Neither did Corrie ten Boom and her extended family in the Netherlands.

Court etiquette

As we meditate on these Scriptures, as they begin to inform our dreams and our prayers, we look forward to the soon re-establishment of Messiah’s rule and reign in Jerusalem.

We expectantly peer through the fog of history present into history future, longing for day when we will more clearly understand and embrace the fullness of YHVH’s strategic plan and court order on earth.

And part of that will involve the re-establishment of the Royal Family of the House of David as the greatest and grandest of all the royal lineages on the face of Planet Earth!

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

Ma-wij

In the classic film “The Princess Bride”, Cambridge-trained actor Peter Cook plays the Impressive Clergyman, presiding at the almost official wedding of Prince Humperdinck and Buttercup.  His famous lines are known and loved by many moviegoers: “Ma-wij! Ma-wij is wot bwings us togevah today! Ma-wij – that bwessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam …”  The contrast between the solemnity and pomp of a High Church of England Royal Wedding ceremony and the comic antics of the actors makes for a droll and humorous scene.

The disparity between a loveless wedding and “twu wuv” (true love), however, is no joke. There have always been and still are many broken and lifeless homes from where passion and joy have long departed, leaving a grey existence and a jaded reality in their stead.

It is thought-provoking that the God of Jacob has used the institution of marriage to reflect the burning center of His love for the human race, for believers in Yeshua, and in a challenging way for the entire people of Israel. Yet though some excellent works have been written about God’s love for the bride of Christ, less has been written and grasped among Christian believers about God’s blazing passion and tender marital love for Israel, Messiah’s own Jewish people. Indeed, the relationship between Israel and YHVH is described by some in a way that lacks passion. Others describe that relationship as being full of hair-trigger anger and toxic silence on both sides.

A marriage covenant between YHVH and Israel

The Hebrew prophets did not blush to describe the relationship between the Jewish people and their God as a passionate connection between a man and his bride on their wedding night: “Then you grew up and became tall. You reached the age for fine ornaments … You were exceedingly beautiful” (Ezekiel 16:7, 13).  The attraction between God and Israel is so powerful that the air fairly crackles on the pages of Scripture. Passages such as Hosea 2:1-13, 14-23, Isaiah 50:1; 54:4-12; Jeremiah 3:1-3; Ezekiel 16:1-6, 7-14, 15-59; 60-63; Song of Solomon 8:6-7 all describe aspects of God’s passionate embrace of His beloved Jewish bride.

Mark Twain once said. “It ain’t the parts of the Bible I can’t understand that bother me.  It is the parts that I do understand” (The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain). There can sometimes be aspects of theology that are hard to grasp, like how God’s love for the Church and for Israel all balance out in the end.

Sometimes theologians try to play down God’s love for Israel or try to elevate God’s love for the Gentiles to be the main issue. Perhaps we can have the grace to allow for both to co-exist simultaneously as we try to delve into the depths of God’s heart about the matter. “For God has revealed these things to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).

What is clear is that YHVH is not an uninvolved bystander. He’s passionately caught up with the Jewish people. He is their passionate Pursuer and Lover.

YHVH is a jilted Lover

The prophets tell us that God has not only fallen head over heels in love with Israel. He has also had His heart broken by the fact that His beloved wife has had ‘a case of the straying eyes.’ Her willingness to give her heart over to other passions, to be consumed with other loves, to pour her affections, time and energies into other activities – all these have meant that YHVH is the “owner of a broken heart.”

The prophets convey God’s deep grief at this tragic turn of events, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I surrender you, Israel? … My heart is turned upside down within Me, and all My compassions are kindled!” (Hosea 11:8).

Holy grief, holy anger

YHVH the Consummate Husband and Lover sent His own express delivery messengers to His beloved wife Israel for centuries, pleading with her to return to her First Love. “Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they didn’t obey Me or incline their ear, but instead stiffened their neck” (Jeremiah 7:25).

YHVH brought military invasion, famine, wild beasts and plagues and even exile to His beloved wife (Ezekiel 14:21) in order to shock her into repentance (2 Kings 17:23; 1 Chronicles 9:1).  Though YHVH expressed His righteous anger, fury and jealousy (Ezekiel 16:38-43) through these judgments, He also expressed His own deep anguish, grief and horror at what He was doing. “I will not execute My fierce anger, nor will I destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, Holy in your midst, and I will not come in burning wrath” (Hosea 11:9).

Empathy --  not just sympathy

The God of Jacob testifies that whenever the Jewish people suffer or are struck in judgment, He also feels their pain – and in ways far beyond that of President William Clinton. “In all their (the Jewish people’s) afflictions He was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9). God not only sorrowfully brings judgment; He cries out with His own beloved Jewish wife as she goes through that suffering, because He feels every blow, every slash, every bullet, every drop of poison gas.

In a very similar dynamic, both the Holy Spirit and the Apostle Paul feel agony at the majority of Israel’s turning away from their God and from David’s Greater Son. Paul testifies that the Ruach HaKodesh also feels the unceasing grief and anguish that is in Paul’s heart (Romans 9:1-2) over the current spiritual status of the majority of Jacob’s children.

Tenderness in the midst of trouble

The prophet Hosea conveys some exquisite jewels in his descriptions of God’s heart. Whereas Ezekiel will later describe a time of purification in the desert in aggressive terms, Hosea describes this same process from a different angle – that of a Husband who is attempting to woo His wife back into a tender love relationship: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her” (Hosea 2:14).

Singing in the vineyards

The entire scenario of this re-marriage is one of singing, of romance in the vineyards and of tenderness: “Then I will give her the vineyards from there that were hers, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15).

The language of this encounter between YHVH and His Jewish bride is enscripturated with great tenderness and marital affection. “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in loving kindness and in compassion, and I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know YHVH” (Hosea 2:19-20). As many are already aware, the Hebrew word for “to know” is the same wonderful word used of Adam and Eve’s first intimate encounter (see Genesis 2:24; 4:1).

YHVH declares with great tenderness at the close of this song, that His wife Israel will no longer whisper intimacies to Him using the name “Lord” (in Hebrew, Ba’al). That would remind her and Him both of her prior unfaithfulness to other lords, including to Baal Zaphon of the Canaanite pantheon.  Instead, Israel will have the privilege of calling YHVH “my man” (in Hebrew “Ishi”), signifying renewed intimacy and tenderness at a new level. “It will come about in that day, declares YHVH, that you will call Me Ishi, and will no longer call Me Ba’ali” (Hosea 2:16).

Yeshua never asked us to be rage-aholics

Family counselors use the term ‘rage-aholic’ to describe a person who slips quickly into a violent rage, and who uses that strong anger to keep his or her family in check. Of course, any family member can play that addicting role, although many husbands and fathers in modern society find themselves glitching down the playground slide of rage all too often.

Theologians can have the same problem vis-à-vis interpreting the Scriptures.  It is not an easy challenge to keep Scriptural equilibrium when processing the length and breadth of the Bible, especially when trying to balance God’s love for His Jewish bride with His righteous anger, His grief with His tenderness.

This is why the community of saints, the interaction of believers, is so important in these matters.  Yeshua intended that we each help to balance out the other. When youthful zeal results in washing people’s feet in boiling water, then more seasoned saints can help bring balance (and help avoid medical bills too!). When courage has given way to fear of man in the hearts of some older battle-scarred leaders, sometimes it is the younger saints who can encourage through their fighting spirit and feelings of ‘invincibility.’

Rabbi Sha’ul (known in Latin as the Apostle Paul) put it elegantly: “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Messiah, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15-17).

How can we 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

Prophesying the destruction of Zion?

From time to time I am asked to review a book or a musical project. This has occasionally led to some pleasant discoveries. Recently some acquaintances have asked me to analyze and respond to the teachings of Dalton Lifsey’s recent “The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob’s Trouble” (Maskilim Publishing, 2011). The author himself had asked for my feedback just prior to the publishing, but since the book was already at the printer’s, initially I was only able to give a cursory response.

Lifsey’s book raises some important issues. In my mind one of the most important is his forceful attempt to get believers to consider those prophetic passages in Scripture which describe military invasion of the land of Israel, subsequent havoc, and Israel’s cry to Messiah Yeshua for deliverance. I am confident that some beneficial debate will result from these discussions.

However, along with this, some of the book’s teaching has the potential to create prophetic confusion, weaken intercessory passion for Israel, estrange the hearts of believers from what God is doing today in restoring the Jewish people, and even possibly catalyze a pathological fixation, an unbalanced fascination and a cold-hearted attitude about Israel’s most intense period of suffering in history future.

A summary of three main points

Lifsey expounds on three main themes:

An initial response to these three points

A full response to this book’s arguments would require at least half a book. Here are my responses in capsule form:

Though the book quotes many biblical passages, it does not present a balanced weighing of both negative and positive passages. There is nearly an exclusive focus on passages of destruction.

The rest of this newsletter examines various aspects of this book’s teaching in greater detail.

Horsing around with a balanced gospel

Many years ago Martin Luther described the world as a drunken peasant. “If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off again on the other side.” The history of the Christian Church has often illustrated Luther’s proverb with sad accuracy.

The original and entirely Jewish apostolic community of faith in the Book of Acts spoke to their own Hebrew people with a heart of tenderness and compassion (see Isaiah 40:1-2). Yet within less than two hundred years an in-house argument between Jews had given way to the strident accents of baptized anti-Semitism.  The good news of Israel’s Messiah had become the bad news of condemnation, legal discrimination and murderous riot – those were now the definitive voice of Christian theology.

The gospel is a binary message – for it to be balanced, it must contain both the crucifixion and the resurrection. Neither is complete without the other. Neither is balanced without the other. Some believers focus on the sufferings of Messiah to the exclusion or detriment of the resurrection. Other trends focus on resurrection power as if there were no call to take up one’s cross and follow Messiah. Each aspect is important, and each one must be in balance.

Over the past millennia many believers have ignored the irrevocable gifts and calling of Israel. In recent years a healthy stream is re-embracing the biblical realities of Israel as God’s firstborn son. This stream is a healthy antidote to the ‘Theology of Contempt’ (see Jules Isaac’s The Teaching of Contempt: Christian roots of anti-Semitism; (https://jcs.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/3/382.extract).

A balanced portrayal of the heart of the prophetic scriptures means that both the amazing calling and the heartrending stumbling of the Jewish people must be addressed. Last Days events regarding the Jewish people must also be subject to the same balance: some biblical passages describe Israel’s trials and troubles, others describe Israel’s mighty prophetic army, its defeat of its enemies, and its continued tenacious hold on Jerusalem even in the worst of days.

A balanced biblical perspective will not attempt to champion either Jewish victories or Jewish defeats at the expense of the other. It will attempt to create a synthesis – a systematic theology – which allows both streams to flow in one mighty river.

Such a book which manages to discuss these subjects in a balanced way is needed, and it could be of real help to the body of Messiah. Unfortunately, this is not that book.  Lifsey’s book has failed to strike that necessary biblical balance.

He who does not learn from history …

George Santayana once said that he who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.  The book being considered occasionally shows a glib and careless hand as it approaches Jewish and Christian history.

The entire scope of Jewish history is described in this book as condensed into “the most significant events in two millennia of Jewish history” –

Speaking from the perspective of one who both has a degree in Jewish History and is a life-long student of that subject, I am surprised by the unprofessional nature of Lifsey's statements. There is a distinct lack of awareness and appreciation for all that God has done in guiding and preserving His Jewish people through the period of Exile.

The fast-food McDonald’s approach has spread across the world from Downey, California to New Zealand. But what works for hamburgers does not always carry the same weight in theology or history. The riches of Jewish history and of God's watch care for His exiled people demand far more honor and respect than this book has managed to extend.

Lifsey’s book categorically states on a number of occasions that the return of Jewish people to the Land of Israel began in 1948. This would probably come as a surprise to the following Jewish people movements: the 300 English Tosafists of 1211; Rabbi Yehiel of Paris who moved with many followers to Acre in 1260; the Sephardic Jews of Spain led by Don Joseph Nasi after 1492; over 1,500 Polish Jews who moved to Israel in 1700 led by Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid; the Hasidic waves in the 1770’s and the Misnaged waves in the 1830’s. Of course, one would have to include the First through Fifth Aliyahs (1882-1939), as well as the Aliyah Bet (1932-1948) which together brought nearly a half a million Jews home.

Such historical inaccuracies show that the author has not done sufficient homework to be able to speak authoritatively on significant events of Jewish history, whether past, present or future. The book has also not grasped the intimate, prayerful bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish homeland – something that Isaiah’s mystic words convey in his description of the Land of Israel being married (beulah) to her own Jewish people – a cause of great rejoicing in Isaiah 62:1-7. The Bible sees the connection between the Jewish people and their land as something good, healthy and righteous, and not as a divine mousetrap. Exile is described in the Scriptures as "eating unclean bread among the nations" (Ezekiel 4:13) who are "the enemies of God" (Leviticus 26:41. 44; Psalm 83:1-5). Lifsey nowhere grapples with this biblical worldview.

Speaking as an Israeli Messianic Jew, I found this book lacking in at least three areas – little to no awareness of events taking place today in Israel; no expressed understanding concerning the pulse of the country and people of Israel (including what is going on among Messianic Jews here); and the use of language and thought which reflects a considerable tactlessness regarding Jewish sensitivities. The author has much to learn about how to talk to the very people he writes about.

One striking example of this insensitivity to Jewish hearts is the author’s arcane use of the strange phrase “an ethnic Jew.” What exactly is an ‘ethnic Jew?’ Is it something like being ‘an ethnic Afro-American,’ an ‘ethnic Hispanic’ or an ‘ethnic Maori?’ The very phrasing shows estrangement, and it reveals a marked dislocation from interaction with living Jews, who would interpret Lifsey's term to be a convoluted cryptic Christian buzzword best left ignored in polite company.

Sour grapes

Those who have walked the paths of the Messianic Jewish world for the last four or five decades will probably recognize a hidden voice echoing throughout the pages of this book – that of Art Katz, who is now with the Lord. Lifsey states at one point, “I agree with Art Katz who said, ‘The State of Israel exists not for its success but for its necessary failure’” (p. 127).

Art Katz was an outspoken and courageous figure, not known to back down from an argument. His groundbreaking book Ben Israel demonstrated that he was one of the rising prophetic voices of a new Messianic generation – Messianic lions of Judah in the 20th century.

At the same time, Art was known throughout the Messianic movement for espousing some extreme positions that at times appeared to be anti-Jewish.

Art and I were acquaintances, although we did not have much common personal history. Years ago Art came to Israel, wanting to spread his message of the coming destruction of the Jewish State among the Messianic congregations. At a gathering of some of the country’s leaders (including those most sympathetic to him), his message was judged as imbalanced and doors were closed to his message. Art (unsurprisingly) saw these closed doors as another justification of his own prophetic calling.

It concerns me that a similar message to Art’s is again being propagated, this time not by a Jewish high school teacher from New York, but by other voices at the uttermost parts of the earth.  But the song remains the same. A prophet who rails against the Jewish people without divine commissioning and without Jeremiah's tears can end up polluting waters and causing good grapes to sour on the vine (see Jeremiah 31:29-30; Isaiah 5:20; James 3:11; Hebrews 12:15). Such things could poison a new generation all over again. May it never be (μὴ γένοιτο – Romans 11:1b)!

Handling the word accurately (2 Timothy 2:15)

The hypothesis of Lifsey’s book is bold – it is asking believers to reject the present return of Israel as an expression of God’s goodness, and to see it instead as a “probational gathering” of rebellious Jewish people who are being led into a divinely crafted slaughterhouse, out of which a small number alone will be saved when they turn to Jesus as a totally shattered people.

The book’s claims need to be judged on how the author uses Scripture – is he fair, is he careful, is his exegesis grounded, etc. In most of these areas the book comes out sorely lacking.

The author repeatedly refers to the importance of exegesis (drawing or leading the meaning out of the text in the original languages). Here are some quotes which indicate his appreciation for exegetical accuracy:

Yet the rub is that in this book the author never conveys any exegetical argumentation which is based on the original Hebrew or Greek etymologies. He never appeals to the original meanings of biblical words in the original languages. His arguments are logical constructs based on his own understanding of the English text. This is praiseworthy in itself, but it cannot fairly be defined as exegesis. Therefore his stress on the importance of exegesis to his theologizing seems to be overstated.

Twisting on the Bed of Procrustes

In actuality, the author has made a category error, confusing the two terms ‘exegesis’ and ‘exposition.’ In one place Lifsey states that “‘Exegetical’ means ‘expository’” (p. 15). But these two terms are not synonymous, and the author’s theological teachings cannot be accurately described as based on exegesis.

Lifsey engages in the cherry picking of negative scriptures. Foreboding passages describing ‘the Time of Jacob's Trouble’ definitely do exist. They must be reckoned with, and are sobering in the extreme. Yet simultaneously the author studiously avoids those scriptures which present a differing and positive slant on Israel in the Last Days (e.g., Psalm 110:3; Ezekiel 37:9-14; Isaiah 11:14; 41:14-16; Zechariah 12:6-9 et al). The author does not welcome or offer Middle Eastern hospitality to these positive evidences, for their presence at the table would force a drastic reconsideration of his primarily negative message. More care, accuracy and intellectual honesty are needed here on the author's part.

Another striking example affects one of the author’s main hypotheses. Lifsey posits a total destruction of the Jewish State and of its capitol city Jerusalem, as well as a near total abandonment of Jerusalem. He bases his hypotheses on Zechariah 14. Yet a more careful reading of that passage reveals that Lifsey is not reflecting all that Zechariah is saying.

While Zechariah 14:1, 2a describe Jews being exiled from half of Jerusalem, verse 2b states that Jewish people will continue to live in the other half of Jerusalem. The author downplays this and other scriptures which do not fit into his larger eschatological scheme. The literary term for this hermeneutical process is “Procrustes’ bed” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes).

The author twists scripture frequently in order to avoid clear biblical statements which would cause his hypotheses to disintegrate. Coming to Joel, Isaiah and Jeremiah (some examples) with his own preconceptions (that God cannot initiate an ultimate Jewish restoration to the Land before Israel repents), he twists the clear words of Scripture to mean the opposite of what they actually say (Isaiah 11:11 – pp. 161-65; Amos 9:15 – pp. 144-46 and 113-14; Jeremiah 30-31 – pp.191-202; Joel 3:1 – pp.203-6).

In these above examples Lifsey is using the opposite of exegesis (leading the correct meaning out of the text). What he is doing is actually called eisegesis (leading a non-original meaning into the text, which overwhelms and blocks what the text itself is communicating).

Weakness in interfacing with a biblical theology of Israel’s calling

Lifsey’s book does not base its theological constructions on the solid foundation of biblical teaching regarding Israel’s priority calling (as revealed in such scriptures as Genesis 12:3; Deuteronomy 21:15-17; Number 23:7-9; Romans 1:16 and 2:5-11 etc.). One could call this the heart of the matter, for what is being discussed is not a game of Russian chess but the heart of God. Years ago I taught a series at the Anaheim Vineyard titled “Touching the Father's Heart for Israel.” I have found that apart from a revelation about God’s tender heart for His people, all theologizing on Israel ends up losing the stamp of passion and authority.

It would be accurate to say that this book views the Jewish people’s history and destiny not through the primary lens of God’s loving strategy and heart attitudes, but through the monolithic prism of the covenantal judgments and curses of Deuteronomy 28.

Were the biblical foundations of God’s bridegroom love for Israel in proper place in this book, its superstructure might have had a better chance of standing firm.

An obsessive-compulsive hermeneutic

Four of the book’s philosophical underpinnings are:

These strongly asserted philosophical presuppositions are all slightly off kilter. Let’s consider the matter.

Theology makes for strange bedfellows

Lifsey has adopted an “all or nothing” approach to Last Days’ prophetic scriptures. From his perspective, no return to the Land has the imprimatur of God unless Israel repents before that return.

Of course, there are a few logical problems with this position. Do the Jews repent first in Exile and only then return to Israel? But if they have to repent before they can return to Israel, what do we make of the biblical passages that talk about a Last Days’ repentance in Israel? That means that Jews are living in Israel and also repent in Israel.

And what about the biblical passages that describe a Jewish repentance in the Diaspora? Evidently the matter has various shades of subtlety here, many more than Lifsey might have led us to believe. One must be careful to avoid the temptation which an Old Testament professor of world renown once described for me, “Cutting the baloney so thin that there is only one side!” For more help, read chapter 17 in my book “Israel the Key to World Revival” (available at www.davidstent.com), especially the sub-section titled “Which comes first – the chicken or the Teshuvah”

Interestingly, and for the purposes of this discussion, two groups can be considered in this regard which insist on a dogmatic “all or nothing” approach to the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. One group is Rabbinic Judaism, which refuses to accept a process of fulfillment in Isaiah 53 (especially as it pertains to Yeshua). A second group is the ultra-Orthodox sect Neturei Karta (“the guardians of the city” of Jerusalem, in Aramaic), which refuses to accept the theological validity of the modern State of Israel (for most of the same reasons as Katz and Lifsey, by the way!).

Nothing less than a Messianic kingdom descending deus ex machina would be acceptable to these rigid guardians. Neturei Karta refuse to acknowledge the authority of secular Jews in the State of Israel, but are quite willing to accept the oversight of cruel and murderous terror taskmasters like Yasser Arafat and his PLO/PA, Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Neturei Karta believe that Islamic and Arab hatred of Israel is deserved, and is due to the Jewish people’s lack of repentance. According to their own beliefs, they strongly believe that the Jewish people should never have set up a secular state. They should have instead become ultra-Orthodox Jews. They refuse to accept the validity of the State of Israel due to the same reasoning.

Note the similarities between Neturei Karta’s views and Lifsey’s positions:

To sum up, this book invalidates the modern Jewish State as a positive work of God because, according to the author's logic, secular Israel refuses to wholeheartedly embrace Yeshua.

However, most secular Jews in Israel do not often think about Yeshua, and are not even sure that there is a God, or if He cares. Most have never heard the gospel, and some are quite open to the claims of Yeshua's Messiahship. It is actually the followers of Rabbinic Judaism who live for the most part in a cloistered community hermetically sealed (mostly!) against the Good News.

Ironically, it seems that Lifsey is proclaiming that secular Israel is guilty because the Rabbinic community refuses to accept Yeshua! This is another significant category error.

One of the book’s endorsers writes, “With the two-fold danger of replacement theology and what I would call ‘un-sanctified Zionism’ in the Church we need voices of truth to emerge” (p. iii). The position advocated by this man is that simple-minded lovers of Israel are as much of a danger to the cause of Christ and His kingdom, as are those Christians who deny the Jewish people’s gifts, calling and election. This is a skewed emphasis of significant proportions.

Double standards lead to double vision

Lifsey's book harps vociferously on Israel’s sin and rebellion, while the ungodly nations of the world are referred to in far less strident terms. Lifsey nowhere proclaims the burning judgments of God on New Zealand or America with the same passion as he targets Israel. This is what is known as a double standard. Jewish people would label it an anti-Semitic tendency.

A more balanced treatment of the whole subject would not only refer to Israel’s sins but also refer to Israel’s victories. A more balanced treatment would not only mention the rebels within the Jewish people, but would also mention her outstanding Jewish prophets and apostles. A fair treatment would do better at honoring Israel, and would stress that being Jewish does not equal being a reprobate sinner! It would make sure to strike a balance in reminding its readers that Gentiles can also be outstanding sinners in both quality and quality. In that this book gives a quite unbalanced impression on these matters, it would be fair to ask if the tone of this work could lead readers to mistake this book for anti-Jewish propaganda.

The book's focus on “Israel's deserved judgment” is hard to blend with Lifsey's declaration that believers are mandated to stand with this “disobedient” people in their suffering. I suggest that more foundational work needs to be done in this area, because the logical, ethical and emotional inconsistencies between the two above-mentioned issues create the need for exceptionally sensitive pastoral counsel. When Jews get typecast as hostile infidels, one cannot simply issue a “mandate” (p. 210) to sacrifice yourself for them, and expect people to embrace that teaching with their full heart and mind.

I dreamed I saw Saint Augustine

Some of the theological presuppositions in the book are strikingly reminiscent of Saint Augustine’s less than positive declarations about the Jewish people. Augustine of Hippo was the first who recast the Jewish people’s “chosen people” status into the status of being chosen for persecution, conquest and exile. According to this North African Church Father, the Jewish people’s present role on earth is that of an unrepentant infidel groaning under the punishment and discipline of God.

“So to the end of the seven days of time, the continued preservation of the Jews will be proof to believing Christians of the subjection merited by those who, in the pride of their kingdom, put the Lord to death” (St. Augustine, Contra Faustum, 12.12, www.newadvent.org/fathers/140601.htm)

“But of the enemies themselves what? ... The Jews nevertheless remain with a mark ... Not without reason is there that Cain, on whom, when he had slain his brother, God set a mark in order that no one should slay him. This is the mark which the Jews have: they hold fast by the remnant of their law, they are circumcised, they keep Sabbaths, they sacrifice the Passover; they eat unleavened bread. These are therefore Jews, they have not been slain, they are necessary to believing nations” (Homilies on the Psalms, 59, 18).

One scholar has said, “It’s difficult for a modern reader to see (Augustine’s) doctrine as anything less than dehumanizing, reducing the Jews to little more than God’s pawns for furthering Christianity” (www.patheos.com/blogs/godandthemachine/2012/05/unwilling-witnesses-st-augustine-and-the-witness-doctrine/).

“Augustine’s purpose (...was...) to remind (the Jews) of just how evil they were in their past history and that their existence at large today has nothing to do with their claims to personal virtue or religious merit ... Augustine was very clear that the Jews’ present existence was tolerated by God for the purpose of authenticating the Christian religion and serving as a sign of His continuing judgment against the Jews” (Robert Sungenis, The Bellarmine Report; www.catholicintl.com/index.php/component/content/article/34-conversion/258-a-review-of-paula-fredriksens-qaugustin-and-the-jewsq).

Compare Augustine’s above-quoted words and views with selected quotes from Lifsey’s book:

Note in this regard a quote from Robert Baer, former CIA case officer in the Directorate of Operations from 1976 to 1997 (www.chronogram.com/issue/2006/02/news/index.php):

In light of the murderous consequences of anti-Semitic language on the part of the Church Fathers, every follower of Messiah Yeshua must exercise (at the very least) a modicum of discernment, gentleness, humility and love in discussing the Jewish people, their gifts and calling, and God’s unswerving heart of a Lover for them. The above quotes, while not exhaustive, show that the tenor of this book falls rather short of conveying God’s compassion and passion for Israel as described in Deuteronomy 7:7-8, in Hosea 11:1-4, 8-9 and in Hosea 14. The author has much to learn about how to engage in normal human conversation with real Jews on these subjects.

The reader of this book comes away having read precious little of God’s tender love for Israel. Au contraire, he has received a barrelful of tainted verbiage (like “gruesome judgment” and “vengeful anger”) which leave a toxic residue. The reader reads page after page of descriptions characterizing the Jews as the enemies of God, but he would be hard-pressed to find a truly tender call in this book to intercede for Jacob's progeny with tears (though a few attempts to do so are made in passing, scattered like the occasional used tissue in a handful of places throughout the book).

As a Jew I was offended and angered by the condescending and strident tone of the book. Though I believe and have always taught that God will purify His beloved people through both wooing and judgment, reading Lifsey's book was somewhat similar to peering through a distorted looking-glass into a hostile and unfriendly corner of a bizarre parallel universe.

Ramifications of this teaching – chilling the intercessory heart

The harsh and rebuking tone of this book has the potential to chill the hearts of intercessors who love and pray for Israel. Since (according to this book) the present State is merely a divine setup for God’s aktion against His own people, then why pray for Israel’s physical protection or spiritual benefit? If the Jews are simply a rebellious people and there is no spiritual awakening going on of any significant value with them (according to this book), then why pray for them?

The prophet Isaiah can help in restoring hope, heart and vision, “In all their (the Jewish people's) afflictions He was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9). When we understand that God suffers with His people as they go through suffering, we will approach the subject of ‘the Time of Jacob's trouble’ with far gentler hands and with more tender words (see Isaiah 40:1-2 – “Comfort, comfort My people, … Speak to the heart of Jerusalem”).

Ramifications of this teaching – jamming the watchman’s radar

The confusion set loose by some of this book’s teachings could cause doubt to enter into the spirits of some prophetic watchmen, and make them wonder if they have really heard from God regarding His love and purposes for His people Israel.

A case in point can be illustrated by a prophetic word from Bob Jones, who in December 2006 declared that there are two issues that are holding back judgment from falling on America, and that if and when these positions change, judgment will be instant. The two issues are – standing with Israel, and love for the poor.

Yet if the central hypotheses of Lifsey's book are true, then standing with Israel today could be potentially “arrogant”  and “ignorant” (p. 69). It could even lead to “deception,” says Lifsey, because a pro-Israel position is fraught with “disastrous consequences in the generation of the Lord’s return” (p. 69).

In this matter, if Lifsey is right, then Bob Jones’ prophetic word is wrong.

But the converse is actually true here. Lifsey is off-course, and Bob Jones has delivered the word of the Lord to America.

Stop using Israel as a prophetic chess piece

Shunning Israel

Here is an extended quote from our February 2, 2010 newsletter. It still rings true today, and especially in this context:

“I regret to say that some believers have a detached heart regarding Israel. Their thought (and heart) processes would unfold something like this: they correctly observe that many in Israel turned away from following the Davidic dynasty (1 Kings 12:16-19), or turned away from honoring the prophets (Jeremiah 7:25-26), or again turned away from embracing King Messiah Yeshua when He came at His first appearing (Matthew 23:37-39).

As a result, these believers relate to Israel with a sense of offense, turning a cold shoulder and an even colder heart away from the Jewish people. This attitude is often blended with a false sense of spiritual superiority, ‘We Christians are not like these bad Jews. We follow Christ and we obey the truth. But as for these people, they obviously don't!’

From this skewed perspective, when tragedies happen to the Jewish people – like the Holocaust, pogroms, or Arab wars of annihilation waged against Israel – these brothers and sisters often respond, saying that we can be assured that such evils were prophesied against Israel in Deuteronomy 28, and that these events demonstrate that Israel is still not redeemed – that we are not yet in the decisive period of God's favor for the Jewish people.

As well, many would add that God cannot allow Himself to show any real favor to Israel until He has totally ‘broken the power’ of His own set-apart yet stubborn people (Daniel 12:7). Such believers would be hesitant about openly admitting that God is in the process of restoring His Jewish people to Zion. The present State of Israel, for these believers, might or might not have any theological significance or divine value.

For these believers it seems easier to theologically explain attacks against the Jewish people and their state, than to support the Jewish people and their state against such attacks. When anti-Semitic assaults are more easily justified than pro-Jewish restoration efforts, something is definitely wrong with this picture.”

Ramifications of this teaching – serious consequences

Any teaching that fosters a cold heart regarding the restoration of Israel in our day; any teaching that typecasts the Jewish people as calves to the slaughter awaiting divine destruction; any teaching that detaches intercessory and prophetic hearts from engaging with the Jewish people and the Jewish state in the here and now – I must confess that I have great concern for the spiritual blowback that attends such teachings, and for the spiritual wellbeing of those who disseminate such things. Let us pray for these people and about these matters!

Stirring up unbalanced controversy

As I said at the outset, the benefit of this book lies mainly in that it may get more believers to become aware of some of the deep challenges confronting Israel. This in turn could lead some into deeper intercession.

The liabilities (which potentially are many) have been explained throughout the body of this newsletter and do not need to be repeated here.

How can we 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

When I’m sixty-four

In 1958 at the tender age of sixteen Paul McCartney penned a catchy tune called “When I’m sixty-four.” Recorded in December 1966 in the key of C major for the Sgt. Pepper album, it was speeded up on Abbey Road’s Studer J37 multi-track recorder to play in the key of D-flat, making Paul’s voice sound younger and the arrangement “more rooty tooty.”

The Beatles made use of the tune in their Cavern days, especially when the club’s electricity blew a fuse. The song penned by this sixteen-year old imagines what life will be like with the love of his life forty-eight years down the road. The delightful quality of the recording still touches listeners half a century later.

In less than a week’s time the Jewish state will turn sixty-four. When David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel’s national resurrection in May 1948, very few people could imagine how the Jewish state would look in 2012. Yet the numinous aspect of God restoring the Jewish people to their homeland still touches believers more than half a century later. Let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights of the last sixty-four years of this precocious, old-new nation.

Born in battle

Surrounded by Islamic and Arab countries committed to strangling the Jewish state before it could be birthed, the Jewish leadership was attacked on all fronts by five of the seven Arab League countries – Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as contingents from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The Secretary of the Arab League Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha declared at the time, “I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades” (www.meforum.org/3082/azzam-genocide-threat).

The Arab League’s stated goal of destruction and genocide against the Jews brings to mind the words of Bob Marley in his hit “I Shot the Sheriff,” “Sheriff John Brown always hated me, for what, I don’t know. Every time I plant a seed, he said kill it before it grow - he said kill them before they grow.”

The seven nations which attacked the fledgling State of Israel were not trying to recapture the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza – for none of these areas were under Israeli control. The Arab League wanted to conquer Tel Aviv, Haifa and West Jerusalem – in short, any area that had a Jewish population. Their stated military goal was the crushing of any Jewish presence in the Promised Land – to make those territories Judenrein (a Nazi term meaning ‘cleansed of Jews’) – the destruction of Abraham’s promised seed.

Against all odds the newborn Israel Defense Forces won that war. The State of Israel withstood that first round of combat. The baby was born.

Ingathering of the exiles

One of the first prophetic tasks that lay before the new Jewish state was the immediate ingathering of over one million Jewish people from over 100 countries. Many were Holocaust survivors who had managed to survive Hitler’s genocidal plans. Hundreds of thousands were Jews who had lived for centuries in Arab and Muslim lands, now being attacked and murdered by crazed mobs furious about a re-born Jewish national homeland. Many Muslims were livid that the combined military might of the Islamic Arab League’s strongest armies were soundly defeated by a ‘puny’ and rag-tag army of Jewish ‘infidels.’ The very survival of the Jewish state was seen as an unforgiveable insult to both Islam and Mohammed’s cause.

Unusual medical, scientific, military and creative achievements

The world’s post-1948 generation is beholding a divine drama. As Abraham’s chosen seed is being restored to Abraham’s land, the result is a creative flowering that is riveting the attention of the planet.  Israeli accomplishments in medicine, science and technology are cutting-edge achievements for mankind, as the following links briefly explain:

A recent best-seller “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer describes some of the historical and sociological factors that have contributed to these attainments (www.startupnationbook.com/; www.cfr.org/israel/start-up-nation/p20356; https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704779704574553884271802474.html).

Israel’s restoration has no parallel with any other culture or people (Numbers 23:7-12 NASB). There has been no other example of a nation who has been scattered twice by brutal exile, has returned to its ancestral homeland after 2,700 years of banishment, has restored its ancient language (biblical Hebrew), and has made the most profound per-capita contribution of any people on earth through world-shaking advances in science, medicine, technology and the humanities.

Living out biblical prophecy

When God acted as the divine midwife to Israel’s birth as a nation-state in 1948, He threw down the gauntlet in the international arena. Jerusalem became a divided city for nineteen years and, for the first time in two millennia, biblical passages dealing with Jerusalem and the End of Days suddenly came into sharper focus. The land, borders and people of Israel now have become energized by a living, breathing prophetic dynamic – a magnet drawing the blundering and darkened focus of super powers, the United Nations, the Quartet, the EU and anyone else who cares to get involved.

Today the headlines of major newspapers and the leading stories on all major TV networks zoom in with a negative spin on any news concerning Israel, usually justifying its enemies’ attempts to weaken and destroy her.

World leaders regularly home in on Israel as “the biggest impediment to world peace” (www.commentarymagazine.com/article/israel-today-the-west-tomorrow/). One striking and current example paints Israel’s attempts to thwart Iran’s megalomaniac drive to obtain nuclear weapons as the greatest danger to the world, rather than truthfully stating that the Islamic Republic’s brazen public declaration of genocidal intent against the Jewish state (and threats against Sunni, European and American interests) is the main menace in the Middle East.

Prepare for world galvanization

Prayer points

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

The ABC’s of Replacement Theology - Palestinian Style

This article was just written by Avner for publication in MAOZ Ministries’ latest e-letter. It is reprinted here with kind permission of the Sorko-Rams and MAOZ Ministries. Here is the link:

www.maozisrael.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9224#2

Over the past few years, some Palestinian Christians have been trumpeting a Replacement theology message which most Messianic Jews feel is harmful to the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Before we look at what this new Palestinian Replacement theology is saying, we need to first define terms, and understand what a Palestinian is.

Historical roots of the term ‘Palestinian’

The origin of the term ‘Palestinian’ comes from the period just after the Romans crushed the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt (135 AD/CE). The Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the province Provincia Syria Palaestina, using the Latin version of the word ‘Philistine’ the biblical enemies of the Jewish people. Hadrian’s choice of the word was not accidental – it was a deliberate Roman insult. In that century the majority of the inhabitants of this region were Jews. Arabs did not pour into the province of Palaestina until the jihadi invasions of 638 AD.

Though no country called Palestine was ever established, the curse-name given by the Romans continued to be loosely associated with the region through the centuries. After the Islamist invasion, many Arabs settled here. With the advent of the Crusaders, an influx of Catholic Europeans and Byzantines from Constantinople inundated the land. In the centuries surrounding the Turkish Ottoman invasion of 1517, successive levels of Central Asian Muslims also made their home in this region.

Only after the British conquest in December 1917 did the region receive the name the ‘Palestine Mandate’ – in 1922. In those days the term Palestinian was used to describe Jews as well as Arabs, and the original name of the Jewish newspaper ‘The Jerusalem Post’ was ‘The Palestine Post.’ Only after the 1948 War of Independence did the term Palestinian gradually morph into a synonym for Arabs from the Land of Israel. As a result, the term Palestinian is a rather modern moniker.

As Arab Palestinians attempt to make their own unique contribution to religious discussion, as they share their distinctive perspective as Semites living in the land which Abraham bequeathed to Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 25:5-6), let’s ask the question: What have Palestinian Christian Arabs contributed so far to the Body of Messiah’s theological and spiritual understandings regarding the role and calling of the Jewish people?

Suffering and theology

One of the main issues that Palestinian Christians have focused upon concerns their suffering in the 20th century, as the armed forces of the Arab-Islamic world have clashed with the resurgent Jewish State of Israel. Arab Christians in the land of Israel are truly a small Christian minority within the larger Muslim community, and much of their perspective is borrowed from the larger Muslim community’s group perspective.

The Islamist riots in Jerusalem in the 1920’s and 30’s, the massacre of the Jewish community in Hebron in 1929, the local Arab attacks on first British and then Israeli Jewish infrastructure and communities in the 1930’s and 40’s – these violent expressions of resistance to established authority are an important key in understanding modern Palestinian Christian theologizing vis-à-vis Jews, Israel and Messianic Jews.

In the early 20th century Arab Christians often found themselves rejected by their larger Islamic host communities as quislings. Arab Christians were viewed as collaborating with the infidel western civilization, spiritual heirs of the Crusaders, as dhimmi (an Arabic term for the oppressive second-class status of Jews and Christians in Islamic society) – in short, a disloyal fifth column in a monolithic Muslim world.

As a result, some Christian Arabs (both nominal and Evangelical) have bent over backwards, manifesting a nearly compulsive desire to prove themselves even more committed to the greater Arab umma (people), even more radical than their Muslim neighbors in their espousal of Palestinian national awakening and in their resistance to the Jewish state.

One outstanding example of this dynamic comes to us from the PLO’s world of violent resistance. Dr. George Habash, founder and former Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was born to an Arab Christian family in Lod and sang in a children’s choir in his family’s Greek Orthodox Church. He eventually moved into politics, and was exiled twice from Jordan after participating in two unsuccessful coups to overthrow Jordan’s King Hussein. He joined Yasser Arafat’s PLO and became a leading member. In 1970 his attempted putsch resulted in the Black September massacres. He directed the terror massacres at Ben-Gurion airport (27 dead), the Swissair bombing (47 dead), and the Entebbe hijacking to Uganda. Habash was unusually radical in the world of Palestinian terror, and was the only Christian to achieve such a prominent status.

Suffering and victimhood – building blocks of a Palestinian theology

In 1948 the combined armies of many Arab countries declared a jihad against the Jewish farms and towns of the land of Israel, prophesying massacre and genocide. Yet in bloody and extended combat, these Arab armies were for the most part pushed back by Jewish irregulars (the Haganah). Instead of a massacre of Jews, the War of Independence saw repeated Israeli victories.

Arabs fled their own cities and villages, in most cases urged to do so by Arab leaders. Many simply moved up the coast to Beirut or down the coast to Gaza, awaiting the almost certain Islamic triumph and massacre of the Jews that had been proclaimed. In a minority of other cases, some Arabs were forcibly removed from their villages by Israeli forces, especially in strategic areas where Arab forces were hoping to break through and strangle the fledgling Jewish state.

The terminology of revenge

Since then, at least two Palestinian generations have been brought up with a skewed view of Palestinian history – a view which blames the Jews for winning a war which, if the Jewish forces had lost, would have resulted in the annihilation of the Israeli people. This skewed Palestinian view speaks with a voice trembling with the anger of revenge and the desire for reconquest. This Palestinian narrative of history is kept alive by inflammatory Arabic buzz words: Naqba (the disaster, used to describe Arab defeats in 1948), Naksa (the setback, Arab defeats in 1967), summud (resolute Islamic determination to hold on to and retake the whole land of Israel) and al-Muqawamah (resistance, usually a euphemism for violent terror; the Arabic word Hamas is the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah, the Islamic resistance movement).

Here are the unofficial ‘articles of faith’ of the Islamic Palestinian narrative. This is the way they read history:

In this narrative, no one recalls that attempts to slaughter the Jews of Israel and steal Jewish lands which had been legally purchased, utterly failed. No one dares to remember that for centuries Jews were forced to live as second-class citizens in Islamic society, subject to pogroms, riots and even community slaughter from time to time.

Most importantly, the Islamic Palestinian narrative rejects the biblical framework which sees the return of the Jewish people as prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Covenant.

Modern Protestant developments

This article has time to focus only on Protestant and Evangelical theological thought over the past thirty years. Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, former Canon of St. George’s Cathedral in East Jerusalem, is founder of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. His first book Justice and only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation (Orbis, 1989) outlined a clear platform for modern Palestinian theology on these issues:

These three points are the skeletal framework upon which the majority of modern Palestinian Replacement theology hangs its arguments:

Justice, and only Palestinian justice

At CATC March 2012 conference in Bethlehem (perhaps the premier gathering of Palestinian Protestant Replacement theology activists) the speakers regularly used the terms ‘justice,’ ‘peacemaking,’ ‘oppression,’ ‘evil’ and ‘violence’ in line with Ateek’s philosophy. Oppression, violence and evil were buzz words which referred to the Jewish control over the land of Israel and IDF security activities, while justice and peacemaking referred to the need for Palestinians to retake lands lost in the 1948 and 1967 wars; the requirement to establish a Palestinian state; the importance of influencing Christian believers across the planet to stop supporting planting trees in Israel, to boycott Israeli products, and to lobby their own politicians to diminish support for Israel’s democratically elected government and her policies.

When the terms justice, peace, oppression and evil are used so inaccurately to describe the Jewish state and those who defend it, there is jingoistic mindset at work in much of what comes out of the Palestinian Replacement theology movement today.

A rose by any other name

Most of the speakers at the 2012 CATC conference were agreed on this main point: the belief of Christian Zionists (that Yeshua is returning to Jerusalem to set up His Davidic kingdom) is the main cause of Islamic hatred for Israel. The majority of these speakers describe the belief in Jewish restoration as a distortion of both the Bible and the gospel. In the words of one speaker whose words dripped with sarcasm, those who believe in the physical restoration of the Jewish people are stupid, blind and blockheads.

At the same time, nearly all the speakers refused to define their beliefs as Replacement theology. Yet, classically understood, Replacement Theology teaches that the promises originally made to the Jewish people no longer apply to the Jewish people. Since it is unfashionable to state this boldly in our day, the term ‘replace’ is removed, and the terms ‘fulfilled’ or ‘spiritual meaning’ or ‘expanded’ are used instead. But the result is the same. Paul’s teaching (that the gifts given to the Jewish people and the calling on them still remain and are unchangeable) is transformed by Palestinian Replacement theologians into direct opposition of Romans 11:29.

According to this view, the land and the promise of blessing given to the descendants of Jacob now belong to Palestinians, or indeed to any nation – just not to the Jewish nation per se. This view violates what Abraham had expressly intended in Genesis 25:5-6. All promises given to the Jewish people, this movement teaches, were “conditional in any case,” yet “only spiritual in nature,” and “almost always only universalist in intent.” The logical inconsistencies here are simply astounding!

While the Apostle Paul warned Gentile believers not to be arrogant toward the Jewish people (Romans 11:18), one theologian at the recent CATC conference said that a belief that God is restoring the Jewish people to Israel is in itself arrogant!

When does non-violence blend into violence?

At first glance, it seems that there is a consensus among these Palestinian theologians and thinkers that violence is to be eschewed. The term ‘non-violent resistance’ is repeated like a mantra many times in publications and at meetings. But there seems to be more here than meets the eye.

Mubarak Awad, the brother of Alex and Bishara (respectively Dean and President of Bethlehem Bible College) and a speaker at the 2012 CATC conference, has stated in the Journal for Palestine Studies (Volume 13; number 4; Summer 1984; pp. 22-36): “...The most effective strategy is one of non-violence. This does not determine the methods open to Palestinians on the outside; nor does it constitute a rejection of the concept of armed struggle. It does not rule out the possibility that the struggle on the inside may turn into an armed struggle at a later stage... These methods can be successfully utilized, at least at this stage, by individuals who are not necessarily committed to non-violence and who may choose, at a different stage, to engage in armed struggle” (all bold and italics from editor).

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin points out (Chicago Tribune, January 7 1988) that Mubarak Awad’s form of non-violence calls for ‘peacemakers’ to “attempt to block roads, prevent communications, cut electricity, telephone and water lines, and prevent the movement of equipment” – in short, sabotage mixed with aspects of guerilla warfare. 

A similar point to the one made by Mubarak Awad was stated by Ben White (who is listed as speaker at CATC but was a no-show), in an article titled ”Nonviolent resistance a means, not the end,” in the journal ‘The Electronic Intifada’ (October 12, 2007), ”Popular struggle, like violent resistance, is not an end in and of itself; it is a method, a strategy. It is the end goal, decolonization and liberation from occupation and Zionist apartheid...”

Sami Awad is the Director of the Holy Land Trust, and was one of the main organizers and speakers at CATC 2012 (he is Bishara’s son and Mubarak’s nephew). Awad spoke freely in an article by Najib Farag titled “Nonviolent resistance: Wake up every day and ask yourself what you can do to resist the occupation” (Palestine New Network, January 5, 2007).

“The training,” Awad declares, “also focuses on the popular campaigns, demonstrations and marches ... We also focus on other methods of nonviolent resistance such as product boycotts. To boycott Israeli production is one of the most important tools of nonviolent struggle that we have available to us…” Awad also focused on massive demonstrations against the separation fences and walls built by Israel to keep out suicide bombers and terrorists. These demonstrations are ”not a substitute for the armed struggle. This is not a method for normalization with the occupation. Our goal is to revive the popular resistance until every person is involved in dismantling the occupation.”

The veil between non-violence, civil disobedience which creates violence, and armed struggle appears paper-thin in these quotes. The Replacement theologians of this modern Palestinian movement are experimenting with a Frankenstein’s monster, one destined to run amok. A miniscule movement like this one lives, moves, and has its being in a Palestinian community which is aflame. These thinkers and writers are swimming in a raging sea of Islamist violence.

When circumstances allow for it, this movement can find wiggle room to agree with the Koranic teachings regarding God’s disfavor toward the Jewish people, or with the jihadi necessity of reclaiming lost Islamic lands. Yet in conferences heavily attended by Westerners, this movement can stress its impeccable Christian non-violent credentials.

A gift from the Holy Land?

Palestinian Replacement theology is more of the same old Christian anti-Jewish theology.

Though it tries to make its beliefs appear fashionable and politically correct, its bedrock teaching still involves ignoring God’s clear enscripturated promises to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and His irrevocable calling on them. It tries to rivet the world’s attention on Palestinian suffering, while strengthening the hands of those who would weaken and dismember the Jewish state.

It refuses to humbly acknowledge the hand of God in the restoration of Jacob’s children to the land covenanted to the Jewish people by Abraham himself, or even to recognize God’s covenant love for the children of Israel.

Tellingly, it seems that they have completely forgotten to give thanks for the enormous territories and lands that God has allotted to the Arab peoples more than 640 times greater than Israel’s allotment, the tiny land of Canaan.

Surely there must be a better way to raise prayer for Palestinian Arabs – to encourage intercession for their spiritual and physical needs, and to cultivate a heart of love and outreach to them on the part of the international body of Messiah – without instigating a denial of Israel’s gifts, a mocking of her calling, and a fostering of anti-Israeli sentiment, while simultaneously teaching a rehashed form of Replacement Theology spiced up with leftist civil disobedience.

Is this truly the best that Palestinians have to offer as a gift to lay before the feet of Yeshua, the King of Israel who is seated on David’s throne?

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

The Purim Missiles

This past weekend has seen Jews all over the world celebrating their divine deliverance from genocidal murderers in Persia (modern-day Iran) as described in the Biblical Book of Esther. According to Esther 9:18-32 the Jewish people celebrate two days of Purim in memory of this great event. Persia was the world superpower in those days, and Haman’s decree (if successfully carried out) would have slaughtered the children of Jacob throughout the entire Exile. Nothing more, nothing less -  the very survival of the Jewish people was at stake.

Targeting Haman

Biblical Hebrew reckoning counts days from sunset to sunset, based on God’s pattern in Genesis 1:5, on the very first day of Creation. The eve of Thursday March 8 was the first night of the Feast of Purim, extending to Friday evening. On Friday afternoon, Israeli security services obtained pinpoint intelligence concerning a major jihadi leader named Zuhair al-Qaisi (nom de guerre Abu Ibrahim), the Secretary General (SG) of the Palestinian terror group the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).

This group has been responsible for a number of deadly attacks, including:

a bomb and machine-gun ambush of Israeli passenger buses and private vehicles on Route 12, a road running parallel to the border with Egypt near Eilat (August 18, 2011) where 8 civilians were killed and over 30 injured. This was a joint operation with Gaza’s Islamic Jihad (IJ) terror group. Israel struck back at IJ and PRC that same evening (again with pinpoint intelligence), killing Kamal al-Nairab , the former SG of the PRC. PRC and IJ rocket squads responded with massive barrages - nearly 120 Gazan rockets struck Israeli cities and kibbutzim (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2011). The IAF responded to these rocket attacks with numerous attacks on rocket launching sites, arms depots and terror leaders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_southern_Israel_cross-border_attacks).

On Friday March 9, the eve of the second day of Purim, at approximately 1700 Al-Qaisi’s VW was struck by an Israeli missile in the Gaza suburb of Deir al-Hawa, instantly killing him and his aide Mahmoud Hanani. Al-Qaisi was considered a ticking bomb by Israel. He had been in the final stages of planning another mega-terror attack similar to his previous work in August 2011. In a change of strategy from August 2011, Israel’s Shabak (General Security Services or GSS) decided this time not to wait until the PRC attack was on its way. They recommended a pre-emptive strike against Al-Qaisi, hoping to decisively foil the imminent Islamic terror plans.

“Opening the doors of hell”

As Al-Qaisi was being buried, the PRC’s an-Nasser Salah ad-Din Brigades promised a “seismic response” to the assassination. “The enemy by targeting Abu Ibrahim has opened the doors to hell and the continuous revenge for all our martyrs, and the response will be commensurate with the size of this heinous crime.”

Over the past 72 hours more than 180 rockets have been fired from Gaza. The targets have been civilian cities, towns, kibbutzim and farms (www.idfblog.com/2012/03/10/israel-under-fire-gaza/). At all hours of the day or night, Israelis in the Negev (southern) region, in Ashkelon and Ashdod, have had their ears seared by the cold wail of air raid sirens. Depending on the distance to the Gaza Strip, one has between 15 and 60 seconds to move resolutely to one’s personal bomb shelter or reinforced room. Within a few more seconds comes the crump of a Grad missile (Russian for ‘hail’) as it strikes the ground. These 122 mm steel missiles have a range of over 40 kilometers (over 25 miles) and are approximately 3 meters (9 feet) in length.

Here is an example of the destructive damage that these missiles can cause. A Grad fell at 3pm Sunday in Beersheva, landing in a schoolyard that should have been full of Israeli schoolchildren. Thankfully, the IDF Home Command had decided to close all schools for the past few days. The concrete walls of the playground building were totally ripped up by metal shards and explosives. If schoolchildren had been there, scores would have died and a major land invasion of Gaza would now have been underway (www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hamas-qassam.htm).

Iron Dome

One of the bright spots in this conflict is a new Israeli anti-missile system called Iron Dome (ID). Israel finds itself on the cutting edge of anti-missile development. Due to the challenges from a potentially nuclear Iran, an extensive Syrian SCUD arsenal equipped with VX and Sarin nerve gas, a vast Hezbollah armada of Katyusha and al-Fajr long range rockets in Lebanon, and the Qassam, Grad and Katyusha rockets of Hamas, IJ and PRC groups in Gaza, Israel has invested heavily in developing its anti-missile technology and armory (https://global-security-news.com/2011/09/28/israel-and-the-iron-dome-system-a-lesson-for-the-united-states/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome).

Three Iron Dome batteries are positioned in the defense of three Israeli cities -  Beersheva, Ashkelon and Ashdod. They do double duty, covering the airspace of smaller towns like Omer, Lehavim, Rahat, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Gan Yavne, Sderot, Netivot and Gedera. When one Gazan missile’s trajectory is determined to be heading to a population center, two Iron Dome missiles are fired at that one incoming Grad. Since Grads approximately $250 per unit, while the Iron Dome (ID) missiles run approximately $100,000 per shot, finances are evidently not the determinative issue here.

The ID anti-missile system has done an amazing job of shooting down enemy missiles, achieving a success rate of over 90%. Over 52 rockets have been intercepted at this moment (Monday March 12 1500 hours). Nevertheless, in order to avoid civilian casualties, over 200,000 schoolchildren and students have stayed home for two days straight. One million Israelis are living in range of active rocket fire, moving rapidly into bomb shelters several times a day (and night!).

Who’s minding the store?

The infighting between different terror groups in Gaza is not easily understood. Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood franchise, calling for the total destruction of the Jewish people and their state through jihad. They are supported by Sunni Egypt and Shi’ite Iran, and receive military training from Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah. This Sunni Islamic group is regularly described as ‘moderate’ in Western media.

Though Hamas is the official Gazan government and has the largest storehouse of armaments, their main Palestinian enemy is actually the Palestinian Authority (PA - formerly Arafat’s PLO), who are equally committed to jihad terror, but less radical in their Islamist ways. When Hamas grabbed power in Gaza, they immediately began to torture and kneecap PA loyalists, or even throw them off tall buildings. The Sunni PA receives support from many Islamic countries, as well as from the EU and the USA.

Islamic Jihad is a Sunni terror group which receives significant support from Shi’ite Iran. Its rocket forces are as big as or perhaps even larger than Hamas’ storehouses. As relations warm between Sunni Hamas and Sunni Egypt, Shi’ite Iran is concerned that Hamas will soon no longer obey Teheran’s orders. As a result, Iran has been cultivating and arming Islamic Jihad in Gaza to be the Persians’ wild card, catalyst and hired gun. This is the strategic reason why Islamic Jihad is vying for popular Gazan support by placing itself at the head of all radical attacks on Israel.

Hamas is aware that ‘tough guy’ Islamic Jihad could sway Gazan hearts away from Hamas, yet it does not prefer to step into an all-out war with Israel at precisely this moment. The last time this happened (Operation Cast Lead, December 27, 2008 - January 21, 2009; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War), Israel shook Hamas’ power structure to its core. So Hamas prefers to unofficially let IJ escalate attacks on Israel while pretending to remain uninvolved. If IJ manages to catalyze a war, then Hamas can enter the fray, asserting control over the order of battle. This same scenario played itself out in August 2011 and December 2008, and it is being repeated in Gaza in exactly the same way right now.

Hamas has been slowly preparing for another jihadi conflict with Israel, but would prefer to hold off on major hostilities until the Muslim Brotherhood has solidified its control over Egypt’s government. At the same time, Islamic Jihad is foaming at the mouth, taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by the PRC incident to pull out the stops in its rocket wars. The PA is watching from the sidelines. And while Gaza melts down, modern Iran (once known as Haman’s Persia) is throwing kerosene on the fire, hoping to distract world attention from the atomic smoke seeping out from under the door of its nuclear labs.

Smoke on the mountain

Hamas, IJ and PRC have one thing in common - they are channeling arms into new terror training camps scattered across the Sinai desert, close to the border with Israel. Egypt is turning a blind eye to events in Sinai, while terror camps prepare commando groups for lightening raids into Israel - to kidnap Israeli soldiers, kill civilians, and then hightail it safely back to Egyptian territory. This is what the PRC pulled off in August 2011, which resulted in intense exchanges of fire, involving Gazan Islamist rockets (on the one side), and IAF jets responding with missiles (on the other).

These three Gazan terror groups are hoping that present hostilities will set fire to the entire length of the Egypt-Israel border and cause these two countries to come to blows. From the jihadi perspective, a good Islamist war against Israel could even ignite an explosion, a chain reaction of international jihad.

In the Spring of the year

Israel’s chief strategists have been quietly observing the gathering strength of Gaza’s terror groups - the rocket forces, the preparations in Sinai, and the smuggling in of advanced weaponry from China, Iran and Libya (including long range rockets that can reach Tel Aviv). A decision has been taken by Israel’s top brass that Gaza’s terror storehouse of weapons must be severely downgraded. Such a goal cannot be achieved only from the air, as military strategists have sadly learned on other fronts.

How can we pray?

The entire Middle East region is very ‘dry’ and highly combustible. Any one spark could set off a conflagration.

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

Korah versus Moses

“This is what YHVH of armies says, ‘In those days ten men from all of the nations will grab hold of the corner of the garment of a Jew, and say, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:32).

In days to come, the entire human race will be drawn by cords of spiritual affection to the Jewish people. Mankind will seek out and make it a priority to get to know individual Jews, because the Hebrew nation will characterized by an unusual walk and intimacy with the God of Jacob.

Those days are not yet at hand. Instead, our era sees the fast-growing spread of an anti-Semitic virus throughout the world. Yet at the same time a parallel outpouring of love for the Jewish people is also burgeoning. Gentile believers across the globe are rediscovering the original Jewish roots of the gospel, Jewish expressions of faith, and styles of worship, dress and celebration that are identifiably Jewish.

Many in the larger Jewish community do not quite know what to make of these trends. Of course, Jews feel somewhat safer when Gentiles are nice to Jacob’s children – as opposed to when the nations attack Jews and commit pogroms against them. And we have seen with our own eyes how many Israelis are deeply touched to see believers from the nations arrive in Jerusalem from far away islands and continents carrying Israeli flags and praying for the peace of Jerusalem.

Though there will always be some cynical Jewish leaders who mistrust the motives of even the most benign Gentile believers, the majority of Jews are profoundly touched when confronted by Gentile lovers of Zion.

Yet love of Israel and love for things Jewish need to be coupled to discernment, An undiscerning embrace of anything and everything Jewish could have some potentially negative implications, and that could lead to some confusion.

Let’s look at some of these issues in greater depth.

These are the days of Elijah

During the days of Elijah’s ministry on earth, the nation of Israel was torn by its own divided heart. The majority of the northern ten tribes were swept under by tidal wave of Baal worship, while only a small remnant remained faithful to YHVH in their hearts. Elijah at one point thought in a fit of depression that he was the only Jew still loyal to God (1 Kings 18:20-22). But then YHVH revealed to him that He had reserved for Himself a remnant of seven thousand Jews “whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him” (1 Kings 19:14, 18).

God was revealing a spiritual mystery to Elijah – that in every age there is a portion of the Jewish people (called “the remnant of Israel”) which remains faithful to God’s calling. Paul echoes this thought in referring to the Messianic Jews of his own day (as well as of today): “In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice” (Romans 11:5).

Crossover Jews

In the days of Joshua, mighty miracles were seen by the twelve tribes through the hand of Moses. Yet only two Jews from Joshua’s own generation (Joshua and his comrade Caleb – the “Joshua generation”  consisted of only two people!) were allowed the privilege of crossing over the Jordan and entering the Promised Land – and both were over the age of eighty.

The rest of the Jewish people of Joshua’s age were believers, yet were disqualified from entering into the Land. Many of these Jewish people were what we would today call “saved” – part of the faith community – yet their generation still had to bear a national judgment (Numbers 1:3; 14:19-38). That discipline fell on everyone who was twenty years of age and over, on that fateful day in Kadesh of Paran (Numbers 13:26).

Though Joshua and Caleb were a tiny minority, a very small remnant in their day, and though Elijah and his seven thousand were also a remnant in their day, it was these heroes of the faith who were the authentic voices of Israel.

Not all that glitters is gold

In the excellent film “The Princess Bride”, Miracle Max points out that “there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.” In the same way there is a big difference between gold and fool’s gold. Gold is the mineral symbolized by Au, with an atomic number of 79 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold). Fool’s gold, however, is iron pyrites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrite), a non-kosher look-alike.

When believers begin to investigate Jewish expressions of faith and styles of worship, it is of utmost importance that the Jewish expressions they choose and build on are “kosher” – biblically sound, faithful to the New Covenant and to the Messiah who has given us new life – pure gold, and not iron pyrites!

All in the family

Levi’s name is internationally known today, but more for blue jeans than for being one of the twelve sons of Jacob. In Exodus 6:16-21 the genealogy of Levi mentions two of his descendants who were brothers – Amram (father of Moses and Aaron) and Izhar (father of Korah). Moses and Korah were first cousins. Both were involved in worshipping YHVH in the Tent of Meeting (Numbers 16:9-10). Yet Korah’s ambition and spirit of control had become demonized to the point where he wanted to steal Aaron’s high priestly office as well (Numbers 16:10-11).

Though both Moses and Korah were Jews, and though both were Levites, in the conflict described in Numbers 16 only Moses was the “kosher” choice, while Korah was definitely non-kosher or “treif.” His rebellion led to the death of his immediate family in a supernatural earthquake, as well as heavenly fire destroying 250 incense burning Levites who sided with the revolt. A further 14,700 Jews who sided with Korah’s attempted putsch were destroyed in a divinely mandated plague.

A goat may have a beard …

I have been told that my grandfather Shmuel (of blessed memory) used to say, “A goat may have a beard, but that does not make him a rabbi!” My zayde (Yiddish for grandfather) was conveying the same “Korah versus Moses” principle here. What makes a rabbi’s pronouncements kosher (acceptable to God) is not his beautiful, long white beard but if his declarations match up with God’s word.

Here are three areas to consider, as to whether or not these practices match up to God’s word: conversion to Judaism, use of the rabbinic calendar, and gematria (numerological calculations influenced by kabbalah or Jewish black magic – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria).

Driving under the influence

In Yeshua’s day the practice of converting Gentiles to Pharisaic Judaism was well known. Yeshua addresses some Pharisaic teachers of the Torah who “travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15). It is obvious that Yeshua is stating that not all was well with Pharisaism.

For the sake of accuracy, it is important to emphasize that not all Pharisaic expressions of faith were negative. There were outstanding godly examples of Pharisaism that the New Covenant Scriptures bring to our attention (Acts 5:34; 23:6-9, etc.).

Nevertheless Yeshua was addressing a very real problem rising up within Pharisaic Judaism, one which would eventually crest in Pharisaic rejection of His Messiahship. He warns of an anti-prophetic and anti-Messianic faith system which nevertheless was seeking Gentile converts. This counterfeit conversion movement, Yeshua said, actually shuts “the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to…” (Matthew 23:13).

It was this strand of Pharisaism, Yeshua declared, which also had a hand in the death of so many of God’s prophets – especially in the rejection and crucifixion of Messiah Yeshua: “You testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets” (Matthew 23:31).

Forty years later the city of Jerusalem and the Temple (where the Sadducees had their power base) were destroyed by Roman armies in 70 AD.  By 80 AD the leaders of Pharisaic Judaism went on record rejecting the Messiahship of Yeshua, excommunicating His followers from mainstream Jewish houses of worship and prayer (through the Tanna Shmuel Hakatan who authored the Birkat Haminim curse circa 80 AD – still read daily in the synagogue prayer Shmoneh Esrei; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkat_HaMinim).

The Apostle Paul in his letters used the full extent of his apostolic authority to clearly forbid Gentile believers from converting to rabbinic Judaism (1 Corinthians 7:18-20; Galatians 5:2-4, 7-12; 6:12-13), saying that such a conversion is like chometz oyf Peysach (leaven on Passover), “A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough” (Galatians 5:9).

Travelling on a lie

An old Yiddish proverb wryly notes that one can travel a long way on a lie, but one can never come home. With that in mind, let’s consider the rabbinic declaration that one who converts to Judaism is no longer a Gentile, but a member in good standing of the Jewish people.

In order to be a member in good standing of the Jewish people, one has to be a physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (1 Kings 18:31). This biblical definition is also a racial definition – one actually has to be descended from one of the twelve tribes.

The same is true if one wants to be a recipient of the prophetic blessing given by Jacob – one needs to be descended from one of the twelve tribes (Genesis 49:28).

A Jew could not live wherever he wanted in the Promised Land of Israel. He needed to live in the inheritance given to his own tribe, and those boundaries were mapped out by God through Moses the prophet (Joshua 11:23). These tribal allotments are not only part of ancient Jewish history; they will again be in force in future days – in the coming Days of Messiah (Ezekiel 47:13).

No convert to Judaism wakes up to discover that his/her own DNA has miraculously been converted into Jewish DNA. A Gentile convert to Judaism remains a Gentile in the same way that Ruth was described as a Moabite, even months after her declaration of faith (Ruth 1:16-17; 4:5,9). There is no magic wave of the hand or a hocus-pocus incantation that joins the convert physically to Israel, or even to one specific tribe in Israel.

Positive ID check

There are many ways that Gentile believers can positively identify with the Jewish people. Corrie ten Boom, Orde Wingate and tens of thousands of Polish Christians during Nazi occupation serve as amazing examples of how Gentiles can constructively stand with the Jewish people.

Positive identification can take various forms. It begins with developing an appreciation for things Jewish. For some, identification could involve acculturation – the joyous yet discerning embrace of a Jewish lifestyle, language and culture. Standing with the Jewish people can even lead to losing sleep (“give Him and yourselves no rest until …”, Isaiah 62:1, 6-7). At its zenith, it can include being prepared to die for the Jewish people, or even with them (Ruth 1:16-17).

As the same time, loving the Jewish people and appreciating their roots, does not mean denying or devaluing one’s own roots. God has scattered bejeweled facets of grace among all the nations of the world. Women can appreciate masculine expressions and perspectives without denying their own femininity. In the same way Jews and Gentiles can appreciate God’s creative handiwork in the other – without denying their own God-given national identities.

Fire on the mountains

In the days before Yeshua’s birth, the Jewish Temple leadership in Judea would need to communicate the arrival of festivals and new moons to the exiled Jewish community in Babylon in record time. Bonfires would be lit on the Mount of Olives and then successively across the Middle East, beginning with Mount Sartaba, continuing to Aggrupina, Hauran and Beth Baltin, and finally ending up in Babylon (Mishna, Rosh Hashana 2:2-4).

This system worked well for many years until the Samaritans (sworn enemies of the Jews and the first promoters of Replacement Theology) disrupted the Jewish calendar by lighting counterfeit bonfires on a mountain adjacent to Sartaba – and on the wrong day to boot! After that fiasco, Jerusalem decided to use pony express, a longer method for sure, but one less susceptible to identity theft.

Just as the Samaritans tried to alter and disrupt proper adherence to the Jewish calendar in their day, one should understand that the biblical Jewish calendar has also undergone a certain measure of alteration and disruption since Yeshua’s day.

One of the first steps here involved the replacing of the original Hebrew names of the months (Aviv, Ziv, Bul, Eitanim etc.; see Deuteronomy 16:1; 1 Kings 6:1; 6:38; 8:2) with the names of Babylonian deities and demons (Tammuz, Heshvan etc.). A similar process occurred with the modern Western calendar, which uses monthly names of Roman deities (Janus, Mars, Julius and Augustus Caesar, etc.), and weekday names of Norse gods (Wodens-day, Thors-day etc).

Does anybody really know what time it is?

What we today call “the Jewish calendar” has been influenced by a combination of both biblical and Rabbinic elements. Some Jewish holidays (as well as most liturgical blessings and datings of biblical events) were only created in the Talmudic and medieval periods, centuries after Yeshua – including the supposed year of Creation, the year of the Flood, etc. Though we may admire rabbinic zeal in these matters, there is no way to accurately ascertain the precision of their conclusions. Rabbinic speculations on these matters cannot be the basis for New Covenant theology, history or prophetic perspectives.

When Messiah Yeshua returns, He will correct any errors that we may all have in our dating systems. Whether Yeshua was born in 4 BC or in 3 BC, in the month of December or in April, whether the correct year since Creation is actually 5772 or 6773, let us make sure that we keep our focus on the most important thing – being about our Father’s business until Messiah returns (Luke 2:49 KJV).

Are Hebrew letters really that mysterious?

Rabbinic Judaism has its mystical schools of interpretation. Some of these offshoots are considered heretical by some Orthodox Jews, though still other Orthodox Jewish streams are passionate aficionados of these mystical movements. One mystical interpretative stream is kabbalah (a form of Jewish black magic that has attracted pop personalities from Madonna to Demi Moore). Another mystical method of interpretation involves gematria, an attempt to uncover supposedly hidden spiritual meanings in the Bible by means of a comparative study of the numeric values of Hebrew letters,

Ancient writers often gave numerical values to letters in their alphabets. Most of us are aware of ancient Roman numerals, and can speed read dates of release in the credits at the end of motion pictures (where Roman numerals are used). In the ancient Near East, numbers occasionally substituted for letters in order to avoid “spelling it out” due to religious, political or artistic sensitivities. It is possible that the prophet Jeremiah used such a poetic parallelism in Jeremiah 51:41 (the technique known as atbash, where Sheshak stands in for Babel).

In Jewish mystical writings dating from the 200’s AD and onward, rabbis would occasionally add up the numerical value of all the Hebrew letters in a word, and then compare that total to the total value of another Hebrew word. For example, the word zemer (wordless song) has the same numerical value as remez (spiritual hint). A practitioner of gematria might draw connections between these two words, connecting them because of their similar numeric value. He might then try to posit a gematria-based conclusion – that hints (remez) of redemption can be found specifically in wordless songs (zemer).

This gematria process is not based on accurately explaining the clear meaning of the text (exegesis and exposition) but by pasting together a patchwork of unrelated thoughts and concepts, while trying to establish mystical connections between very different words and contexts.

Why gematria?

The presupposition behind gematria is twofold – one, that straight biblical exposition is not as exciting to people as gematria studies; and two, that free-standing Hebrew letters have intrinsic mystical value, and that the God of the Hebrew intended us to uncover the Hebrew Bible’s deepest secrets not by understanding the clear teaching of the text, but by looking for arcane and hidden (or occult, a word which also means “hidden”) meanings in the mystical values of Hebrew letters.

The whole gematria process raises some very red flags. One, the gematria method is never recommended in Scripture. Even among many rabbis it is considered as nutritious as junk food. Two, there is an inherent danger here of a new Gnosticism – hidden revelation that can only be uncovered by those sufficiently trained in the “mystical interpretation of the Hebrew alphabet.” Three, a subtle de-emphasis on Scripture is created, while dependency is created for even wilder and more allegorical flights of fancy based on rabbinic mystical methodology.

One should remember that most Israelis are fluent in Hebrew – including all Israeli children! Yet most Israelis would consider gematria methods of interpretation and its fruits to be a dead end, out of touch with reality, a fanciful dream world having little to do either with logic or with the Biblical text.

How can we 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

The Prophetic Plumbline

“Be diligent to present yourself as someone approved to God, as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Paul’s challenge applies across the board, to Messianic Jews and to Gentile believers in Yeshua; to Charismatics and non-Charismatics; to Protestants and to Catholics, to men and women everywhere who accept the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Covenant as God’s accurate love-letters.

The following is a short word of appeal to the wider body of believers regarding one aspect of YHVH’s “prophetic plumbline,” God’s call on His followers to make sure that, regarding Israel and the Jewish people, they are accurately handling the word of truth in their teaching, ministry and lives.

The Scriptures - God’s own perspective

Shimon bar Yonah, internationally known as the Apostle Peter, shared some powerful words in his Second Epistle:

“We have the completely reliable prophetic word, and you would do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For no prophecy ever had its origin by an act of human will, but prophetic people carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:19-21).

Peter lets us know that the prophetic Scriptures are not simply one man’s take on events. They are not merely a human interpretation of history. They are a completely accurate message spoken through these prophets and breathed out from the very lungs of God.

The Scriptures - God’s solid foundation

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:16-17).

Since the Scriptures are breathed out from the very heart of God, they are accurate and dependable. They form the foundation upon which faithful and healthy ministry can confidently stand, without fear of instability.

The Scriptures - handle them accurately!

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one who has received His approval, as an artisan who does not need to be ashamed, one who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Paul explains that there are correct and incorrect ways of interpreting Scripture. There are accurate and inaccurate approaches to communicating the word of God. The apostolic prayer for us (and our prayer as well) is that we should all communicate God’s word clearly, accurately and according to the intentions of His heart.

Baby food and grown-up food

An individual’s spiritual maturity is related to his or her ability to correctly understand foundational truths. Elementary truths are the platform on which each of us builds our house, our life and ministry.

“Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You have come to need milk and not solid food! Anyone who lives on a diet of milk is still an infant; he is not accustomed to the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant practice have their senses trained to discern good from evil” (Hebrews 5:12-14).

Foundational teachings (as in Hebrew 6:1-2) involve not only Messiah Yeshua’s return and the resurrection of the dead. According to Romans 11:18, 20, 25, 28-29 these underpinnings also includes the bold proclamation of God’s gifts to and irrevocable calling on the Jewish people.

Honoring the patent

At least 95% of the Scriptures were written by Jews. Over 90% of the Bible focuses exclusively on the Jewish nation’s history and destiny. Prophecy and poetry combine in the Scriptures, presenting the overwhelming Gentile world with a strikingly Jewish message about salvation in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

In the New Covenant Scriptures the Christ of the nations dies with a placard above His head declaring Him to be the King of the Jews, while Paul proclaims that the message of salvation is to be preached with priority to the Jewish people (the sense of the Greek words proton in Romans 1:16).

In many Christian pulpits preachers preach their Sunday messages from a Jewish book written originally in Hebrew, a book which describes the Jewish people and their destiny, yet for the most part these same preachers nearly never refer to the Jewish people positively, or speak warmly of Israel’s prophetic destiny. Instead, many preachers  freeze dry these Hebrew prophetic promises concerning Israel’s restoration and revival; they then remove all Jewish content from them, and then they apply these now-generic teachings, either as ethical lessons unconnected to the Jewish people, or as allegorical types and symbols relating to the latest move of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles in that town, state or country.

Why does this happen? How can it be? Why do so many Christian ministers assiduously avoid communicating what the Scriptures teach about God’s heart and His strategies for the Jewish people? What motivates these preachers to use the Bible (a Jewish Book) to only preach Gentile-oriented messages exclusively to their own non-Jewish communities?

The answer is two-fold. On the one hand, the explanation is rather simple and very human. People (whether Jews or Gentiles) tend to be most interested in what directly concerns themselves, their own livelihood, their own families, their own comfort and blessing. So when they study the Scriptures, they are usually thinking more about what messages will bless their people, and less about what the text actually says.

The preacher who sidesteps God’s clear revelation given in the prophetic Scriptures regarding the Jewish people,who refuses to deal with 90% of the Bible in order to produce a “more relevant or more spiritual sermon”, that minister is actually engaging in “patent infringement.” He or she is not demonstrating either accuracy or maturity in handling the word of God. He is violating the priorities of God’s word and God’s ways in this matter.

Basics of Bible study methods

The three foundational steps of Bible study methods involve observation (what does the text say), interpretation (what does the text mean in context), and application (what principle is the text teaching). Careful students of the Scriptures take great pains to make sure that they exercise holy care and caution as they meditate on the divinely inspired biblical words.

When one approaches a text which clearly describes the Jewish people (for example, Zechariah 2 or Isaiah 60, though of course there are tens of thousands of such Scriptural passages, since most of the Bible describes the Jewish people!), it is clear that an accurate interpretation of those texts will present them as talking about the Jewish people. As well, an accurate application of those texts would do the same.

Though these above statements seem glaringly obvious, it is necessary to re-emphasize them continually, since much of present-day preaching and teaching ignores these foundational hermeneutical principles.

Putting the toys back on the shelf

An illustration from a kindergarten setting may shed some helpful light here. Let’s pretend that the prophetic promises to the Jewish people are like kindergarten toys. Many toddlers can come and play with them, having a great time flying the toy planes through the air, or pushing dump trucks, or having plastic knights confront each other with plastic swords. But when the time comes to move on and grow up, the management asks that these toddlers carefully put the toys back on the shelf for the next group of toddlers coming.

We are happy when believers from the nations draw personal encouragement from the God who dispenses all promises. Yet these prophetic promises for the Jewish people are the life and breath of our nation. If Gentile toddlers walk off with our promises and refuse to honor the Jewish people to whom these promises belong, there will be confusion in the kindergarten, and perhaps even a ruckus.

Let’s take an example from Isaiah 60:1-3: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of YHVH has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and thick darkness will cover the peoples, but YHVH will rise like the sun upon you and His glory will appear over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

The passage states that the nations will one day be covered by a thick and dark spiritual fog. Precisely at that time YHVH will shine His face on Israel according to Psalm 67, and that all the nations will seek out the Jewish people based on that Jewish spiritual revival (as in Zechariah 8:20-23).

This passage reveals a latter day secret which ties in Israel’s revival to the revival of the nations. When the passage is used incorrectly to refer to a Gentile spiritual revival apart from the Jewish people’s central role, violence is done to the word of God and to His heart intentions.

Plumbline etiquette

The Holy Spirit often takes Scriptural principles and applies them to the specific situation of local believers, congregations or movements. Every preacher or teacher knows the joy of applying Biblical principles in a Spirit-breathed fashion to their listeners bringing grace to those who hear and encouraging them in the ways of the Lord.

At the same time the faithful preacher should point out to his listeners in every instance that the passage at hand refers primarily to the Jewish people and to Israel’s prophetic destiny and that, while the Holy Spirit may be applying those same lessons to the gathered believers at that meeting, the ultimate fulfillment of this passage concerns Israel, and that fulfillment will come to pass for the Jewish people at the appointed time (see Psalm 102:13).

When teachers don’t take the time and care to explain this important point to the congregation, the unintended result is “practical Replacement theology.” The listeners leave the meeting assuming that the passage in question does not ultimately or primarily refer to Israel or the Jewish people, but instead that Isaiah (or Zechariah or Obadiah etc.) refers specifically to their local congregation or spiritual movement. When this happens, one has to conclude that God’s Scriptures have not been accurately or adequately handled.

Though God may have invested thousands of years insuring that believers possess an accurate and trustworthy Biblical text (full of His heart and strategies for the Jewish people), the people who hear the abovementioned sermon walk out of the building totally in thick darkness about what God was trying to communicate regarding Israel’s resurrection, restoration and connection to world revival.

God’s prophetic plumbline

The Hebrew Scriptures occasionally use the concept of a plumbline (Isaiah 34:11; Amos 7:7-8; Zechariah 4:10) to describe aspects of God’s judgment. A plumbline consists of a string with a weight at one end that, when suspended, points directly towards the earth’s center of gravity. Plumblines are used to determine the straightness and architectural soundness of a building. To “use a plumbline on something” is another way of saying that you are about to determine whether or not the structure has been built accurately and up to standard.

How can we 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

Bombing Auschwitz

World media is zooming in on the odds of an Israeli bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons factories. Discussions range from electronic counter-measures to potential economic fallout on the world’s oil market. An Islamist bomb in the hands of a jihadi Shi’ite dictatorship is the talk of the town.

But demonized leaders bent on destroying the Jewish people are not a new thing in Jewish history. George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Reason in Common Sense, Vol. 1). Let’s consider some recent examples – the world’s response to Hitler barely 70 years ago – to guide us in preparing for and praying into the coming daunting challenge.

Hitler’s prophecy

On September 30, 1942 at the Berliner Sportpalast Adolph Hitler publically prophesied Nazi Germany’s attempt to destroy the entire Jewish people:

“In my Reichstag speech of September 1, 1939, I have spoken of two things: first, that now that the war has been forced upon us, no array of weapons and no passage of time will bring us to defeat, and second, that if Jewry should plot another world war in order to exterminate the Aryan peoples of Europe, it would not be the Aryan peoples which would be exterminated, but Jewry … At one time the Jews of Germany laughed about my prophecies. I do not know whether they are still laughing or whether they have already lost all desire to laugh. But right now I can only repeat: they will stop laughing everywhere and I shall be right also in that prophecy” (www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/420930a.html).

“Ich habe am 1. September 1939 in der damaligen Reichstagssitzung zwei Dinge ausgesprochen: Erstens, daß, nachdem man uns den Krieg schon aufgezwungen hat, keine Macht der Waffen und auch nicht die Zeit uns jemals niederzwingen werden, und zweitens, dass, wenn das Judentum einen internationalen Weltkrieg zur Ausrottung etwa der arischen Völker anzettelt, dann nicht die arischen Völker ausgerottet werden, sondern das Judentum... Die Juden haben einst auch in Deutschland über meine Prophezeiungen gelacht. Ich weiß nicht, ob sie auch heute noch lachen oder ob ihnen nicht das Lachen bereits vergangen ist. Ich kann aber auch jetzt nur versichern: Es wird ihnen das Lachen überall vergehen. Und ich werde auch mit diesen Prophezeiungen Recht behalten” (Rede Adolf Hitlers vom 30. September 1942 - zitiert nach: Hilberg, Raul: Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden. Bd.2. Frankfurt am Main 1990, S. 425; www.fes-online-akademie.de/download.php?d=auschwitz_luege_1.pdf). 

In 1933, nine years before Hitler’s Berliner Sportpalast speech, prize-winning New York Times journalist Frederick T. Birchall wrote from the site of the Nuremberg rally: “Aryanism is now the keystone of Nazi policy, as all along it has been the principal tent of Adolph Hitler’s faith. It is also in Germany the most popular of the Nazi principles, and of all the Nazi tendencies is the most warmly defended by the Germans. Its corollary is persecution even to extermination – the word is the Nazis’ own – of the non-Aryans, if that can be established without too much world disturbance.”

Cain’s confession

The first case of murder in the Bible involved two brothers, Cain and Abel. Envious of his brother’s favor with God, Cain allowed a demonized jealousy to access the sins of his own heart. After he murdered Abel with premeditation, Cain was confronted by God, who directly asked him, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain responded, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).

Cain’s cold-hearted confession has echoed down through the ages like a Greek chorus. Empires great and small throughout history – from Pharaoh’s Egypt to Iran’s Islamic Republic – have chosen the role of Cain vis-à-vis the sons of Jacob, either participating in or excusing persecution, torture, expulsion and mass murder of the Jewish people.

Closing the doors of rescue

Many Western countries were silent accomplices to Hitler’s genocide, rather than active advocates of Jewish survival. One example in recent Canadian history was Frederick Charles Blair, the Director of the Government of Canada’s Immigration Branch (1936-43) as well as an elder in a local Baptist church. In a September 1938 letter to Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Blair wrote, “Pressure by Jewish people to get into Canada has never been greater than it is now, and I am glad to be able to add that, after 35 years of experience here, that it has never been so carefully controlled” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Blair).  Whereas the USA allowed over 200.000 Jews into America during that period, and Mexico admitted 20,000, Blair capped Canadian efforts, allowing less than 5,000 Jews to find refuge in the Dominion of Canada (None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948, Irving Abella & Harold Tropper; Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys,1982).

Commenting on Jewish refugees who had fled to Japan to escape Hitler, Blair opined, “I am reminded of what I have seen on a farm at hog feeding time when they are all trying to get their feet into the trough.” When asked about how many Jewish refugees Canada would be willing to let in toward the end of WWII, Blair was reported to have replied, “None is too many!”

In May 1939 the President Federico Laredo Bru of Cuba succumbed to US State Department pressure and refused to allow the MS St. Louis to dock in Halifax with 907 Jewish emigrants aboard, all possessing valid visas and all fleeing Hitler’s persecutions. At the time Bru hypocritically declared at a press interview, “The post that I occupy has painful duties, which oblige me to disregard the impulses of my heart and follow the stern dictates of duty”.

As the MS St. Louis the made its way up the U.S. coastline to Canada, it was shadowed by US Coast Guard cutter 244 out of Fort Lauderdale, with orders to prevent any Jewish refugees from jumping overboard and swimming ashore (https://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-04-02/news/0304010493_1_nazis-passengers-cuban-government).

A few days later in June 1939 Canada’s Immigration Branch also refused permission for the MS St. Louis to dock in Halifax. The St. Louis was forced to return to Europe where 254 of the passengers perished at the hands of the Nazis. Upon his retirement in 1943, Blair was named a Companion of the Imperial Service Order for his “long and meritorious service to the British Empire” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Service_Order).

Positive confession

History reveals not only negative examples, but also shining examples of courage and commitment. In Nazi-occupied France, various Christian leaders in both Catholic and Protestant churches risked their lives, reputation and welfare to help hide Jewish children from Nazi destruction. Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier of Lyons, Doctor Marc Boegner (President of the Protestant Federation of France) and Archbishop Jules-Géraud Saliège of Toulouse (among many) spoke publically against the Nazi round-ups. Their bold stance encouraged many Catholics and Reformed Christians in France to save Jewish lives. 

One exemplary Catholic rescuer happened to also be Jewish. Cardinal Gerlier’s Jewish assistant, Alexander Glasberg, was originally born in Zhitomer, Ukraine in 1902. His parents baptized him when he was a child, and he later moved to France and became a Catholic abbot. L’Abbé Glasberg was appointed by Cardinal Gerlier as a delegate to the Comité d’aide aux réfugiés. His underground activities involved falsifying files to obtain the release of hundreds of Jewish children, being a co-founder of the resistance group l’Amitié Chrétienne, and smuggling 180 Jewish children out of the Venissieux camp (www.wertheimer.info/family/GRAMPS/Haapalah/ppl/3/0/bbe2275b2f13b79dc03.html).

He later worked with the Hagana, purchasing arms in Czechoslovakia and smuggling them through Corisca. In 1951 he aided the Mossad in smuggling Jews out of Iraq in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. In 1972 he was decorated by France as Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur, and in 2004 he and (posthumously) his brother Vila were honored by Yad vaShem (Israel’s Holocaust Museum and Archives) as Righteous among the Nations.

This courageous Jewish Catholic saved thousands of Jewish lives. He later commented that he and his colleagues “could have save virtually all of the sixty thousand Jewish victims of the Nazis in France if they had possessed two weapons – American visas and more money” (While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American apathy, Arthur D Morse, Random House, 1967, p. 62).

Bombing Auschwitz

The Allies had solid intelligence regarding the murder camps at Auschwitz (Oświęcim in Polish) going back to November 1940, based on reports of Polish Army Captain Witold Pilecki. This brave Polish officer had volunteered for a dangerous mission – to be taken prisoner by the Nazis and to be held captive in Auschwitz for 945 days. He actively gathered intelligence on the mass murder taking place there and, after escaping on April 27, 1943, supplied a comprehensive description to the British.

Tragically his reports were dismissed by the Allies as exaggeration (Ochotnik do Auschwitz – Witold Pilecki 1901–1948, Adam Cyra, Oświęcim 20; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki). The subsequent detailed report by two Jewish escapees from Auschwitz, Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler, were broadcast, on June 15, 1944 by the BBC and on June 20, 1944 in The New York Times – one full year after Pilecki’s report.

Frantic pleas were made by the War Refugee Board and by a US Treasury lawyer named John Pehle (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/interview/pehle02.html), asking Allied forces to bomb bridges and railway lines leading to Auschwitz and thus slow the Nazi death machine. Over a thousand Allied bombers were attacking Germany each night at that time, while at the same time tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews were being transported by train each week to Auschwitz’s ovens.

In response, on June 26, 1944 Thomas Handy, Assistant Chief of Staff, War Department, sent a directive to the Director of the Civil Affairs Division: “The War Department is of the opinion that the suggested air operation is impracticable. It could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations and would in any case be of such doubtful efficiency that it would not amount to a practical project” (www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/primary/bombthomas2.html).

Even 35 years later in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher could declare to Israeli Prime Minister Begin: “I have to tell you in all candor, the policy of the Allies in those years was to destroy the Hitlerite war machine as speedily as possible. I would have agreed to nothing that would have detracted one iota from that goal” (The Prime Ministers, Yehuda Avner, The Toby Press 2010, p. 508).

Bombing Osirak – learning from history

On June 7 1981 in a military sortie code-named Operation Opera, the IAF attacked and destroyed Iraq’s atomic bomb plant (Osirak or Tammuz 1) at al-Tuwaitah, 11 miles south-east of Baghdad. Israel had been following the construction of that plant (built with French and Italian help) as well as Iraqi chemical warfare installations and bunkers (built with German help) “with growing concern” for many years. As in Hitler’s day, the world belittled and dismissed Israel’s concerns until the moment of no return approached, when the reactor was about to go hot. A force of eight Israeli F-16s and six escorting F-15s flew 680 miles across Jordan, Saudi Arabia and into Iraq to bomb the target successfully.

What was the response of the world to this successful attack? For starters, Israel was condemned and censured at the United Nations by the United States, UK, France, etc. On June 19 1981 the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed UN Security Council Resolution 487, which “strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct.” (S/RES/487; https://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/6c57312cc8bd93ca852560df00653995?OpenDocument).

The United States punitively suspended the delivery of four F-16 aircraft to Israel (Nonproliferation and the National Interest: America’s Response to the Spread of Nuclear Weapons; Peter A. Clausen, Longman, 1992. p. 178). Jeane Kirkpatrick, the US Ambassador to the UN, described the raid as “shocking” and compared it to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Los Angeles Times called it “state-sponsored terrorism,” while the New York Times declared, “Israel’s sneak attack on a French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression.” Senator Mark Hatfield noted that the Israeli attack was “provocative, ill timed and internationally illegal.”

French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson said, “We don’t think [Israel’s] action serves the cause of peace in the area.” One should remember that France had supplied Saddam Hussein with their ill-fated nuclear reactor. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared, “Armed attack in such circumstances cannot be justified; it represents a grave breach of international law.” Time magazine declared that the raid “vastly compounded the difficulties of procuring a peaceful settlement of the confrontations in the Middle East.”

Belated appreciation

Ten years later, in the prelude to the First Gulf War, the Iraqi government attempted to recover components from the Osirak site in August 1990 and then accelerated its nuclear program to create a weapon using radioactive fuel. On January 17 1991 coalition forces targeted the site previously bombed by Israel, halting this renewed weapons program. On January 20 56 F-16s attacked the same site and on January 23 a force of F-117s bombed Osirak. Finally 48 F-16s targeted the facility 7 more times for over a month and, a few weeks later, 17 F-111’s participated in the raids. After these last 19 days of strikes the US Defense Intelligence Agency declared the site to be “severely degraded.” This time, it seems, coalition forces were not censured at the UN, as Israel had been ten years earlier for their one pin-point bombing run.

In June 1991, then-Defense Secretary Richard Cheney visited Israel and gave a satellite photograph of the destroyed reactor to the Commander of the Israel Air Force Major General David Ivry. On the photograph, Cheney wrote, ‘For General David Ivri, with thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job he did on the Iraqi Nuclear Program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm.’ (this story is found in Maj. Gen. [res.] David Ivry’s ‘The Attack on the Osiraq Nuclear Reactor – Looking Back 21 Years Later,’ Israel’s Strike Against the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor 7 June, 1981, Jerusalem: Menachem Begin Heritage Center: 2003, p. 35).

Professor of International Law at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana) Louis Rene Beres wrote that, “Israel’s citizens, together with Jews and Arabs, American, and other coalition soldiers who fought in the Gulf War may owe their lives to Israel’s courage, skill, and foresight in June 1981. Had it not been for the brilliant raid at Osiraq, Saddam’s forces might have been equipped with atomic warheads in 1991. Ironically, the Saudis, too, are in Jerusalem’s debt. Had it not been for Prime Minister Begin’s resolve to protect the Israeli people in 1981, Iraq’s SCUDs falling on Saudi Arabia might have spawned immense casualties and lethal irradiation.” (Louis Rene Beres and Tsiddon-Chatto, Col. (res.) Yoash, “Reconsidering Israel’s Destruction of Iraq’s Osiraq Nuclear Reactor,” Temple International and Comparitive Law Journal 9 (2), 1995. Reprinted in Israel’s Strike Against the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor 7 June, 1981, Jerusalem: Menachem Begin Heritage Center: 2003, p.60).

The Begin Doctrine – learning from history

As the IAF fighter bombers were returning from Osirak, PM Begin was drafting a cabinet communiqué. The concluding words of that statement were, “Let the world know that under no circumstances will Israel ever allow an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against our people. If such a threat reoccurs we shall take whatever preemptive measures are necessary to defend the citizens of Israel will all the means at our disposal” (The Prime Ministers, Yehuda Avner, The Toby Press 2010, p. 555). This declaration has become known as the Begin Doctrine (www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/07/us-israel-militarydoctrine-idUSTRE7A61SA20111107; https://kms1.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/47904/ichaptersection_singledocument/621745fb-48f9-4149-b66c-5b4107ab5a3e/en/08_Chapter+6.pdf).

Israel has learned from history that, in the final analysis, it cannot entrust its security to any other country. It has also learned that the Great Powers of the world will probably not be pro-active in removing existential threats to Israel’s security. As a result, those who pray for the survival, protection and salvation of Israel need to take the current situation with the utmost seriousness.

How can we 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

Breaking Hitler’s Bow

Economic upheaval in Europe, riots in North Africa and Damascus (the jewel of the Islamic world), Palestinian attempts to establish a fait accompli at the UN (prior to dividing up the land of Israel) – we live in interesting times. The recent public exposure by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) of Iran’s secretive drive to arm its Shi’ite Islamist revolution with nuclear weapons persists in creating diplomatic jitters through the Arab Gulf states. The Shi’ite A-bomb has merited intense Israeli attention for the past twenty years, with political, intelligence and military aspects in high gear.

Ezekiel’s four judgments

Two thousand six hundred years ago the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel gave the world a sneak peak at some of the secret weapons in God’s arsenal “My four severe judgments  … the sword, famine, wild beasts and pestilence” (Ezekiel 14:21). These can be rephrased in modern language – weapons and warfare; natural disasters; the results of economic collapse; plagues and communicable diseases. In the 21st century these fears and concerns are very much alive, though few would have the intellectual clarity or spiritual courage to agree with Ezekiel’s take on these matters.

The prophet’s moral message is that YHVH uses such judgments to punish iniquity and idolatry (vv.7, 10), to remove those who indulge in profanity (v.11), and to root out apathetic or blasé attitudes to the holiness and righteousness of God (vv.4-5).

Zion’s enemies in the day of YHVH’s wrath

King David once prophesied about a coming day when all the nations of the earth would gather against Jerusalem as enemies of Zion. YHVH promises to crush these enemies, declaring that the Messiah will rule over them with a rod of iron from the capital of a reborn Jewish kingdom: “YHVH said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’ YHVH will extend the rod of Your strength out of Zion, saying ‘Rule in the midst of Your enemies’”(Psalm 110:1-2).

In that day, David says, the God of the armies of Israel will raise up a youthful and holy Hebrew army which will be involved in carrying out the military strategies of the Lord of the battle (v.3).

The description of that war is short and bloody: “YHVH at Your right hand will crush kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations. He will fill the place with dead bodies. He will crush the rulers of the whole earth” (vv.5-6).

“Si vis pacem, para bellum”

A once famous Latin writer Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (400’s AD) once said, “If you wish for peace, prepare for war.” In modern terms, peace can only be established when the arm of the bellicose is broken.

Hosea prophesied something similar in the late 700’s BC, speaking of the end of days when Israel is regathered and the Davidic kingdom is re-established: “In that day I will cut a covenant for them (ed., the Jewish people) with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the air, and with all the creeping creatures on the ground. I will shatter from the earth the bow, the sword and war, and I will make them (ed. the Jewish people) lie down in safety” (Hosea 2:18).

What is happening in our day is the exact opposite of this biblical truth. Israel is being pressured by all the nations of the world to declare peace with its enemies, while at the same time its enemies are actively and openly preparing for war. The Hamas government of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank, the shaky governments of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the pro-Western governments of the Persian Gulf, and of course the Islamic Republic of Iran – all refuse to recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people; they refuse to acknowledge that God is regathering His Jewish people to their promised land; and they threaten Israel with destruction and actively prepare to carry out these genocidal threats.

Peace will only come to Israel and to the Middle East when the arm of the warmongers is broken. The international political stance – that Israel must retreat from portions of its own promised land, and then peace will break out in the Islamist dictatorships of the Middle East – is biblically false and brings with it the judgment of Genesis 12:3.

Only when the nuclear weapons industry of Iran is crushed, and when superpowers will no longer casually flex their military prowess at Israel in order to scare her into a panicked retreat – only when YHVH the God of Jacob’s armies “shatters the bow, the sword and war from the earth” – only then will Israel dwell in safety with no wolves to disturb it. In the meantime, for Israel to survive, it must prepare for war.

Mick Jagger and the hunters

On April 13, 1967 the Rolling Stones had the privilege of being the first Western rock n’ roll band to play behind the Iron Curtain, when they performed at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland. In an interview given after that double-concert, Mick Jagger (whose last name means “hunter” in German) spoke with exasperation about how Communist apparatchiks took exception to the Stones’ focus on partying and loose living. Polish Communist leaders kept referring to the terrible and sobering experiences of WWII, and insisted that Poland’s youth needed to keep these historical lessons as a priority perspective, rather than the rock n’ roll lifestyle.

But the Polish “right-think” and “right-speak” perspective fell on “Stoney” or deaf ears. Jagger declared that the war had ended over twenty years before. What possible affect should it have on Jagger’s own generation, he asked rhetorically.

Breaking Hitler’s Bow

Less than 70 years ago, the European slaughter of the Jewish people was in full force. Those Jews who tried to focus the world’s attention on this holocaust were for the most part laughed off as overly paranoid and as “crying wolf.” Even minimal efforts to bomb railway lines to Auschwitz at the height of the destruction of Hungarian Jewry (when British and American heavy bombers were already doing daily runs over those lines) met with studied disinterest and condescending sneers. The combination of Hitler’s demonized assembly-line murder camps (on the one hand) and Allied anti-Semitism and cold-heartedness (on the other), led to the gassing and burning of six million Jewish people.

How can we 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

Flight out of Egypt

On the weekend of the tenth yearly commemoration for 9/11, the night of Friday September 9, 2011 saw a mass attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. Tens of thousands of violent demonstrators attacked the Embassy grounds, which were surrounded by Egyptian security forces. The demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails and stoned police. Over 1,000 were wounded (including 300 police), and three demonstrators died (one of a heart attack).

The events of the attack

The attacks began close to 1900 hours, as a spillover from the Tahrir Square ‘Arab Spring’ demonstrations. By midnight rioters equipped with sledgehammers and battering rams knocked over 12 foot high concrete walls surrounding the Israel Embassy. That building houses the Israeli Embassy on its three upper floors.

At 2225 hours a handful of young Egyptian hotheads (nicknamed “Spidermen” on Israeli TV) scaled the outside building walls to the top floor. One of them ripped down the Israeli flag. Others hoisted the Egyptian flag.

By 0110 hours Saturday morning the mob had broken down the front lobby doors into the 19 storey building, spray-painting anti-Jewish graffiti as they climbed the stairwells. Reaching the 17th floor they attacked the Embassy doors with sledgehammers, forcing the six Israeli security guards back into the last secure area. The intruders threw consular documents out of the office windows, and the papers scattered on the cheering and yelling mobs below, who were screaming for Israel’s destruction.

The situation was only a short step away from total pandemonium, and the lynch mob was ready. Throughout the evening Israeli Shabak security men (all young men working for the Israeli equivalent of the FBI) were in constant touch with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and all the heads of intelligence and the IDF. As the mob battered down the second to last security door, the Israeli security guards asked that, if they were to die in the next few minutes, their parents and loved ones be informed in person and not by phone calls.

All is quiet on the Egyptian front

Throughout the evening, from 2200 hours and onward, the leader of Egypt’s Supreme Military Council (the provisional government) General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi refused to answer persistent phone calls at the highest level from Israel’s PM. He was described as “unavailable.” As the mob began breaking down the outer door, Tantawi was nowhere to be found. Only frenzied calls to US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at 0140 hours began to bring extreme pressure on Egypt’s top brass, who up to that time seemed to have no problem with seeing Israel’s Embassy overrun and its security detail lynched. President Obama officially called the Egyptian leadership at 0250 hours, insisting that they protect Israeli Embassy staff as well as honor international diplomatic norms.

By 0330 hours Egyptian commandos disguised as rioters had entered the building and were able to create a sterile area on the upper floors. By 0400 they were able to successfully identify themselves to the six Shabak guards. Then they disguised the Israelis in traditional Arab dress (galabiyas and keffiyehs), smuggled them down 17 floors, inserted them into waiting armored personnel carriers and tore off to Cairo’s International Airport.

At 0440 hours the Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Itzhak Levanon along with 79 of his staff were evacuated by an IDF plane hastily ordered over to Cairo when the riots began. At 0745 hours a smaller IDF jet flew the six security personnel back to safety in Israel.

In this extremely tense standoff no Israeli loss of life occurred, but these events are hugely ominous portents of bad days ahead in the Middle East.

Arab Spring turns to Islamist winter

The so-called Arab Spring (which began in Tunisia and spread to Cairo in January) was spun by Western media into a false golden thread of liberty, equality and fraternity. But as far as Egypt goes, it has led to the opposite – mob rule, the suppression of the original liberal hi-tech student leadership, and the rise of Muslim Brotherhood (spiritual cousins of 9/11’s al Qaeda) and ultra-nationalist forces. Egypt’s economy is a shambles, tourism has ground to a halt, former President Mubarak is being wheeled in and out of a hanging court on a gurney, and the army is hesitant about disobeying volatile mob rule.

A threefold cord - broken

In the second half of the 20th century the United States’ Middle East strategic policies vis-à-vis the Islamic world once hinged upon three countries – Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. All three were ruled by anti-communist dictatorships – the first two military, the last one a corrupted and nepotistic Islamist kleptocracy.

In 1979 the Mid-East linchpin of America’s geopolitical strategic vision – Iran – was taken out in one fell swoop. The Shah of Iran fled Teheran, as street riots engulfed the capital (managed behind the scenes by Shi’ite Islamist revolutionaries). Shi’ite tyrant Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established a violent and cruel dictatorship which made the streets of Iran run with blood. Today Iran is building nuclear weapons in defiance of the world, and has blatantly declared that it will wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

More recently the second linchpin of America’s Islamic strategic vision – Egypt – has begun to crumble. Street demonstrations between January 25 and February 11 2011 forced Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from office, especially since the US President insisting on allowing the street riots to take their course. Though diplomats and world media then put a positive spin on the riots, they have led to frightening and anarchic developments in Egypt, with America’s former ally transmogriphying into an Islamized version of Frankenstein’s monster.

US arms companies once had burgeoning arms industries in the Shah’s Iran, with state-of-the-art factories producing American weapons in situ. With the advent of Khomeini those weapons fell into the hands of Shi’ite megalomaniacs. Today and in the same way, as Egypt collapses, its M-1 Abrams tank factory and many other American arms industries will fall into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, which openly targets Israel and Western interests throughout the Middle East.

The third linchpin, next in line, is Saudi Arabia. The destruction of Saudi Arabia’s corrupt leadership and the establishment of a revolutionary Islamist caliphate based out of Mecca has long been al Qaeda’s central dream.

Echoes of Teheran

According to international law (Article 22 of the 1961 UN Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations – https://worldinbalance.net/intagreements/1961-vienna-diplomaticrelations.php), the invasion of a sovereign embassy is like unto the invasion of a sovereign country. It is a violation of international law and can be considered an act of war. “The premises of the (ed. diplomatic) mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission. . . The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity. . . The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.”

On November 4 1979 an armed Iranian mob (under the control of Khomeini’s forces) attacked and captured the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days until January 20, 1981. One of the leaders of this mob was a young man, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who later became President of Iran.

For 444 days the greatest superpower in the world was humiliated and toyed with by a brazen Islamist Iranian leadership. The humiliations of Operation Eagle Claw, the prolonged torture and murder of CIA Beirut station chief William Buckley and Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Higgins, Irangate – all of these were spinoffs from this Islamist takeover of the US Embassy, fueled by America’s ardent desire to rescue and return these captives.

In the Arab world, the humiliation of an enemy by such activities has great symbolic and motivational value (see The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, by David Pryce-Jones, 1989, HarperCollins). The humiliation of America in 1979 had special significance for the Islamic world then, as does the frenzied attack on Israel’s Embassy at this moment in time.

Islamic Last Days?

According to the Islamic calendar (which takes its starting point or hijri from July 16, 622 AD, when Muhammad escaped from Mecca), the Muslim’s 14th century came to a close in 1979. From a jihadi perspective, two apocalyptic events occurred that year – Iran’s Shi’ite Islamic Revolution (including the US Embassy takeover), and the short-lived but violent takeover of Saudi Arabia’s central mosque containing the Ka’ba (Masjid al-Haram) in November 1979 by mujahidin. “For Islamic revivalists, the writing was on the wall: the Hour of Judgment is nearly here, and jihad is now the order of the day” (see A Perspective on Islam, https://davidstent.org/words.htm#).

The rise of Islam’s star (or crescent moon) is the profound hope for Muslim faithful, and especially for jihadis. Any blow to Arab military dictatorships, to Western secular governments and of course to the Jewish state – all of these events encourage Islamist forces to press in to the task of world jihad.

On May 26, 2000 the Lebanese Shi’ite terror leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah declared, “Our beloved and our dear brothers in Palestine, I want to tell you that this Israel, which possesses nuclear weapons and the most powerful air force in the region, by Allah, it is weaker than a spider web … “ (www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=11&x_article=1158). This “spider’s web” perspective is further strengthened in Islamic eyes by the recent attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.

How could this spin out?

Recently a group of at least 20 Islamic terrorists crawled through tunnels from Gaza to Egyptian Sinai (see https://davidstent.com/words/, August 21, 2011). They trained there, and then traveled down to where Egypt and the Israeli city of Eilat touch. In that area, dressed in Egyptian army uniforms and shooting from beside Egyptian Army positions, they fired across the border at Israeli civilian buses and private cars, murdering 6 civilians and 2 soldiers. In the exchange of fire five or six Egyptian soldiers were also killed, some blown up by terrorist suicide bombers. Egyptian media refused to publish accurate information about this terror attack, and disseminated a blood libel against Israel, saying that IDF forces simply shot Egyptian soldiers in cold blood. This warlike propaganda has contributed to stirring up murder in the eyes of many Egyptians, who are already fed a steady stream of Nazi-like propaganda against the Jewish state.

Most Egyptians are unaware that their sovereign territory is being used to train, support and channel terrorists against Israel. The majority of Egyptians do not understand that a major terror attack against Israeli civilians was recently carried out from Egyptian soil. And because Egyptians have been cynically lied to by their government-controlled media and have been led to believe that Israel is guilty of bloodthirsty murder of innocent Egyptian soldiers, they have willingly embraced another very serious anti-Israeli sin – one more in a long list of offenses: Egyptian citizens have violated the sovereign diplomatic territory of Israel and have attempted to lynch Israeli security personnel.

Inasmuch as one of the main strategic American pillars for strategic cooperation between Arabs and Jews is the 1978 Camp David Accords (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords), this recent Egyptian mob’s attack on Cairo’s Israeli Embassy is a trumpet-blast of warning for all who have ears to hear: the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt may be on life-support, but it truly is brain-dead.

Though anarchy is sweeping Egypt, and though Egyptians are presently fighting with each other for control of their own country (secular, jihadi, Muslim Brotherhood, ultra-nationalists, etc; see Isaiah 19:2) they all agree on one thing – hatred of Israel. The ‘Jewish state as scapegoat’ is a living and breathing dynamic again, as it was is Europe for millenia. It is now is an integral ingredient of the political struggle in Egypt, and has gone viral to anywhere else where the “Arab Spring” is budding.

What do the Scriptures say?

The prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 19:16-18) describes a future day when the entire population of Egypt will tremble and shudder with fear about the awesome judgments that the people of Judah will bring upon them. Isaiah also prophesies that at Israel’s border with Egypt, there will be five Egyptian towns who will have learned the Hebrew language and will recognize and worship the God who defends and protects the Jewish people. Zechariah 14:18-19 adds that Egypt at some point in the future will suffer divine punishment (the withholding of rain) because of a stubborn recalcitrance to embrace and honor Israel.

How can we 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

Conspiring and plotting on the East River

The planet is slowly turning its gaze to New York City, peering owlishly at a glassy building abutting the East River – the international headquarters of the United Nations. Come the end of September, this stepchild of the League of Nations will be voting on a request by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud al-Abbas (nom de guerre Abu Mazen), asking for the world body to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state as a full member at the UN.

Many are concerned about the outcome of this process:

Who is President Mahmoud al-Abbas?

Al-Abbas (shortened by world media to Abbas) is the President of the Palestinian Authority with active headquarters in Ramallah. He was born in 1935 in Safed (or Tzfat), a Galilean town. His family fled to Syria in 1948, and Abbas studied in Damascus and later in Egypt. In Moscow he took the Soviet equivalent of a PhD under the supervision of KGB officer (and later SVR Chief) Yevgeny Primakov. His doctoral study was “The Other Side: The secret relations between Nazism and the leadership of the Zionist movement”. This was an attempt to deny that the Holocaust resulted in the murder of six million European Jews, and to prove that the Nazis and Israeli Jews were actually secret collaborators (www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/856.htm; www.adl.org/holocaust/denial_me/hdme_origins.asp; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas).

Abbas joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as one of its early members, and is described as one of the co-founders of the al-Fatah terror group (https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1933453.stm). In 1970 he was one of the organizers of the attempted Black September coup against King Hussein of Jordan, and in 1972 he provided PLO funding for the Munich Olympics Black September terror attack, in which eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were murdered (https://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1088; https://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/news/2002/08/20/sb2). Abbas later became Chairman of the PLO in November 2004, and President of the Palestinian National Authority in January 2005.

Still denying after all these years

Abbas (while PA President in Gaza during the years 2005-6) allowed Holocaust denial and Nazi-like anti-Jewish attacks to be broadcast on official Gazan-Palestinian TV – attacks which are strikingly similar to Abbas’ own conclusions in his Russian PhD dissertation. The Simon Wiesenthal Center drew attention to a sermon in a Gaza mosque on Friday May 13, 2005, where Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis declared,

“The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world ... The Jews are a virus like AIDS hitting humankind ... Jews are responsible for all wars and conflicts ...Through the Zionist movement the Jews incited many nations to start economic war against Germany and boycotted it...True, the Germans killed and burnt Jews but the Jews exaggerate the numbers to gain propaganda advantages and sympathy... Allah has predetermined that the Jewish problem will be solved with the extermination of the Jews ... Allah has also predetermined that Christian-Islam interactions will end with today’s Christian countries under Islam” (www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4442249&ct=5851999.

Years ago the prophet Jeremiah wryly commented on similar events, “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil” (Jeremiah 13:23).

Which Palestinians does Abbas represent?

On January 25 2006 free elections were held in Gaza. Though Abbas and the PLO did not want elections at that time, strong American pressure on Israel forced the elections through. The Islamist perspective on democracy (“One man, one vote, one time”) resulted in Hamas (the Muslim Brotherhood, see https://davidstent.com/words/, February 2006, “Hurtling Through The Fog of War: A Messianic Perspective On The New Hamastan”) coming to power.

Within a short time Abbas and the PLO had lost control of Gaza to jihadi Hamas, and at least 120 PLO members were assassinated, while more than 500 were kneecapped or tortured (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/14/AR2007061402098.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007) ; www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/world/americas/15iht-gaza.1.6152626.html;

www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism+Obstacle+to+Peace/Hamas+war+against+Israel/A+year+since+the+Hamas+takeover+of+Gaza+-+June+2008.htm).

According to recent population statistics, there are up to 1.6 million Arabs living in Gaza, while the Arab population sector of the West Bank is somewhat larger that 1.5 million (https://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=38108; www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html; www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html).

When President Abbas comes to the UN on or about September 20 2011, he will not be representing the majority of Palestinians. Indeed, West Bank Palestinians may be on Abbas’ home turf, but there are many who are strongly pro-Hamas. Hamas’ constitution calls for military jihad against Israel, no recognition of Israel, and the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel will never negotiate a peace treaty with an Islamist group that openly seeks the Jewish state’s destruction.

What is the strategic goal behind this UN appeal?

Abbas’ goal is multi-pronged:

What are the possible outcomes?

No one is quite sure how this will all work itself out. Last minute machinations in smoke-filled rooms may prevent a Security Council veto. Nevertheless, Abbas is assured of a GA majority at this point.

The Oslo Accords (which were signed on the White House Lawn on September 13 1993) created a legal framework which forces Israel and the PA to work only through direct negotiations. In going to the United Nations unilaterally, the PA is actually in basic breach of the Oslo Accords. Israel now has the legal right to no longer accept the Oslo guidelines.

Israel could take the following steps, should it choose to:

ü  Stop supplying electricity, communications services and land access to Gaza from Israeli territory. Israel currently supplies 70% of Gaza’s electricity, as well as telephone services, fresh water etc. (www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=353702; www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3496729,00.html). 

If the PA receives world approval and acceptance at the UN in September, chances are that there will be an emboldened increase in terror attacks from Palestinian-held territories, as well as an even stronger Israeli response.

What do the Scriptures say?

Many scriptures describe a last days’ international conspiracy to shrink, divide and conquer Israel:

Why do the nations conspire together and the peoples plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against YHVH and against His Messiah (ed., His Anointed One), saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles” (Psalm 2:1-2).

See how Your enemies make an uproar, how those who hate You exalt themselves. They make shrewd plans against Your people; they plot against those whom You cherish. “Come,” they say, “let us wipe them out as a nation, so that the name of Israel be remembered no more.” With one accord they plot together; they form an alliance against You — the tents of Edom, Ishmael, Moab and the sons of Hagar, Byblos, Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the people of Tyre. Even Assyria has joined them to reinforce Lot’s descendants … who said, “Let us possess for ourselves the pastures of God” (Psalm 83:2-8, 12). 

This is what YHVH says: In the fire of My jealousy I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who appropriated My land for themselves with glee and with malice in their hearts so that they might plunder its pastureland. Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and hills, to the wadis and valleys: “This is what YHVH says: I speak in My jealousy and in My fierce anger because you have suffered the insults of the nations. Therefore this is what YHVH says: I swear with an uplifted hand that the nations around you will themselves endure their own insults!” (Ezekiel 36:5-7). 

In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to My inheritance, My people Israel, because they scattered My people among the nations and divided up My land (Joel 3:1-2). 

A day of YHVH is coming, Jerusalem, when your possessions will be plundered and divided up within your very walls. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses plundered ... Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. Then YHVH will go out and fight against those nations, as He fights on a day of battle. In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives ... (Zechariah 14:1-4). 

How can we 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

Painting the roses red – politically correct lies

In Lewis Carroll’s classic “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice discovers three gardeners busily working on a large rose bush, painting red paint onto white roses. In response to her curious question, one of the gardeners explains, “Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes…” (chapter 8).

‘Painting the roses red’ has become a metaphor for putting a spin on the truth, for covering up unpleasant realities. Today’s media look at the Jewish state of Israel through ‘rose-red’ colored glasses, explaining away threats and redefining unpleasant realities. The result is that many people do not have a clear, in-focus biblical understanding of Middle East events.

This newsletter will try to gently sandblast some layers of paint off of these Middle Eastern petals, and restore needed clarity and contrast to several spiritual issues of burning importance.

Painting terrorists as ‘militants’

A quick glance at the world’s top newspapers reveals that over the past decade the term ‘terrorist’ has been replaced by the word ‘militant.’  Palestinian gunmen or Islamic suicide bombers who attack, murder and maim civilians are now blithely described as militants.

One hundred years ago the term ‘militant’ had a totally different meaning. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word as meaning “aggressively active, especially in support of a (usually political) cause.” Striking teachers would have been described as ‘militant about workers’ rights.’ Teresa Billington Grieg’s 1911 book about the “votes for women” movement was called the “Militant Suffrage Movement,” while suffragette Annie Kenney’s 1924 autobiography was titled “Memories of a Militant.”

How has this change come about? Why is it now politically incorrect to call Islamic terrorists by their proper name?

The foundation for this change is directly connected with the collapse of the West’s Bible-based ethical and religious underpinnings. European thinkers have led the way in this endeavor over the past three centuries. Those who initiated this process (by jettisoning belief in the accuracy of Biblical revelation) also intensified the direction by eventually abandoning the religious and moral authority of the Ten Commandments and of the gospel (as Dr. Francis Schaeffer continually warned).

Once liberal theologians discarded the bedrock of Biblical faith, how could they claim that Islamic beliefs and practices are wrong – even when Islamic teachings fundamentally oppose both Torah and gospel? Once Western faith had been gutted, its spokesmen had become gutless.

To a post-Christian world, it has become offensive to describe the faith-based actions of Islamic jihadis as terrorism. In the same way, liberal Christians and Jews had difficulty calling Marxist terror by its proper name. ‘Revolutionary activity on the part of freedom fighters’ sounded a lot better, and even gave the illusion of holding the moral high ground. The German Rote Armee Fraktion (or Baader-Meinhof terror cells) saw themselves as freedom fighters, even as they kidnapped, selected and murdered Jews in the 1976 Entebbe operation.

Gerald Seymour (in his 1975 novel Harry’s Game) coined the proverb, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The fact remains that one man’s terrorist – is still a terrorist.

Painting jihadi Islam as ‘a religion of peace’

The terror attacks of 9/11 presented a unique and pressing challenge for many Western leaders – how to hold together their shaky and morally bankrupt partnership with oil-rich Islamic dictatorships while papering over the fast-spreading cracks in the international wallpaper.

The strategic response was not long in coming – it involved getting Western audiences to believe that ‘real Islam’ was peaceful, and that the Islamic faith of the 19 Al Qa’eda terrorists was a perversion of Islam. This (it was hoped) would afford a small fig leaf of modesty for Saudi Arabia – fifteen of whose citizens were hijackers, and where the lion’s share of funding comes for jihadi terror.

President George W. Bush declared on 9/17 in Washington’s Islamic Center: “…(A)cts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that … The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace” (https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/faq-what.html).

U.S. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer added on the same day, “This attack had nothing to do with Islam. This attack was a perversion of Islam” (www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=47565#axzz1WcENB9eB).

The unpainted facts are much less perverted: jihad as violent military attack is a central tenet and commandment of Islam, and was taught and practiced by Mohammed (see “A perspective on Islam”; https://davidstent.org/Images/a_perspective_on_islam.pdf). Though Islam teaches many things and some are good, its jihadi commandments and future vision involve world conquest and dictatorship achieved by force of arms.

The Islamic terrorists of 9/11 believed that they were very much obedient to a Koranic perspective. The majority of Muslims in the Middle East see them as heroes. Therefore it is a perversion of truth to call such an Islamic perspective ‘a religion of peace.’ Please note the fresh red paint on the roses.

Painting Islamic revolt as an ‘Arab Spring’

TV screens have been gorged with pictures of Islamic countries shaken by street riots and revolt. Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya – each has had or is having far more than its fifteen minutes of fame, to paraphrase Andy Warhol. All the major 24-hour news channels have ‘spun’ the story, declaring that the spontaneous uprisings are leading the Muslim world into a 21st century version of the French Revolution. Soon liberty, equality and fraternity will reign supreme in Luxor, in Hama, in Jerba and in Sana’a!

The bouquets of red roses lovingly FedExed by Western media groupies are nevertheless masking the fact that the Islamist movement (also known as the Muslim Brotherhood; see https://davidstent.com/words/, February 2006, “Hurtling Through The Fog of War: A Messianic Perspective On The New Hamastan”) in each country is the strongest and most organized political force waiting in the wings. Even as Hamas (a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate) controls Gaza and oversees rocket attacks on Israel, so Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen are all tottering on the cusp of Islamist disaster and dictatorship.

The unvarnished white color of the roses, in this case, foretells an Islamist winter and not a promising Arab Spring.

How winning a war became ‘an obstacle to peace’

Before Israel again became a recognized sovereign country in May 1948, the Arab and Islamic world was prophesying its destruction, and preparing its armies for invasion and slaughter. The Arab nation would complete the genocidal task that Hitler had not finished. In 1943 the Mufti of Jerusalem declared on Nazi radio, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This is pleasing to Allah.”

On May 15 1948 the Secretary General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha, speaking in Cairo, declared a jihad against the Jews (reported in the New York Times, May 16, 1948): “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades” (https://tech.mit.edu/V123/N12/kraus12.12c.html).

President Gamel Abd al-Nasser of Egypt declared on September 27 1961 at the UN General Assembly (when the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem were all in Islamic hands), that “the only solution to Palestine…is ... the annulment of Israel’s existence.”

On May 28 1967, prior to the Six-Day War, Nasser added that “we will not accept any…coexistence with Israel … Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel….The war with Israel is in effect since 1948.”

On 1 September 1960, Nasser clearly pointed out that any return of Arab refugees to the state of Israel would destroy Israel as an independent country: “If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.”

On April 23, 1964 Nasser declared in a speech in Sana’a, Yemen, “… (T)here is no room for Israel within the Arab nation.”

Were one to add the PLO’s “plan of stages” (first the return of territory, then the final battle of annihilation), or Iran’s President Ahmedinejad’s call for the violent destruction of Israel, or Hamas’ ongoing declaration that Israel will be destroyed by the armies of Islam, it becomes crystal clear –

Mass media declare that Israel’s holding on to its biblical inheritance is one of the major (if not the major) obstacles to peace. But the real obstacle is Islamic war-mongering. Any other explanation is simply painting the roses red.

How dividing Jerusalem became a world consensus

Though many Bible-believers have not thought a lot about it, Israel’s birth as a sovereign nation came about as a result of the nations of the world advocating the partitioning of the land of Israel and the re-division of Jerusalem.

The UN Partition Plan adopted on November 29, 1947 was passed by a majority of 33 in favor, 13 against, 10 abstentions and one absent. Since that day, though those who love the Scriptures rejoice in the decision to recognize a Jewish state, it is important to remember that world consensus went on record as dividing up the land of Israel.

All potential peace discussions, conferences and treaties take this division of the land of Israel as a given. All political parties in Israel accept this 1947 division as a fait accompli. When the nations get together to discuss ‘peace,’ the question they really are asking is simply, how much will the borders of the land of Israel be tightened, shortened and shaved.

This above perspective is bolstered when one examines the private declarations of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Paris to the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Sa’dun Hammadi on December 17 1975: “We can’t negotiate about the existence of Israel but we can reduce its size to historical proportions … (ed., to the point where) it will be like Lebanon, struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world … If the issue is the existence of Israel, we can’t cooperate. But if the issue is more normal borders, we can cooperate” (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB107/iraq04.pdf).

What does God think about painting the roses

The God of the Bible is also the God of Israel. The land of Israel belongs to Him (Leviticus 25:23; Ezekiel 36:5) and He is very sensitive about how the nations treat either the Jewish people (Zech.2:8) or the land of the Jews (Zechariah 12:2-3).

The two most detailed descriptions of Messiah Yeshua’s return to Planet Earth involve Him bringing judgment on the nations who invade, divide up and despoil the Jewish people and their land (Zechariah 14:1-4; Joel 3:1-2). All the red dye in the world will not parry God’s x-ray vision. He sees exactly what nefarious plans are concealed under a thin coating of politicized paint.

After the Lord touches down in Jerusalem, the Scriptures tell us that He will roar (Joel 3:12-17) in judgment as He chastens the nations (Zechariah 14:12-13). To paraphrase Bobby Bare’s Christian country waltz, the God of Israel will drop-kick the rebellious among the nations through the goalposts of divine judgment – those who have painted over God’s truth and heart regarding the land and the people of Israel: “For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness …” (Romans 1:18).

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

How to deal with Mid-East terror – prophetic wisdom from Jephthah

The past 60 hours have seen over 90 rockets rain down on Israeli cities, including Beersheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, Ofakim, Lehavim, Gedera, Kiryat Malachi and Beer Tuvya. All of these cities are within striking range from Gazan terror missiles. One 38-year old man has been murdered by a direct hit; one youg woman is fighting for her life. Scores have been wounded, and many have suffered shock.

The background of this explosion

During the month of August a group of possibly up to one hundred jihadi terrorists gathered in Egypt close to the Israeli border. They had smuggled themselves out of the Gaza Strip tunnels one at a time under Hamas’ watchful eye, and had gathered in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. There they trained for a mass terror attack, the goal of which was to kill Israeli citizens, as well as to kidnap some who could be used as bargaining chips to free jihadi prisoners in Israeli jails. Working with Sinai Bedouin, al-Qa’eda affiliated jihadi forces, and weaponry smuggled in by Iran, they gathered next to the Israeli border in the southern Negev close to the Red Sea port/resort of Eilat.

By Thursday August 18 their spearhead force of twenty men had dug tunnels under an Egyptian military border post, from which they emerged (some in Egyptian army uniforms) at 12:25 pm, crossing the international border under the eyes of Egyptian border patrol. They spread out over a thousand foot radius and began firing into a passing civilian Egged bus  number 392 filled with Israelis returning to Eilat for the weekend, as well as soldiers on leave. One of our son’s friends was on the bus and was wounded. The driver of the bus hit the gas and tore off down the road, rescuing his passengers from certain death. Seven were moderately wounded and evacuated by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Beersheva.

Using military tactics borrowed from Hezbollah (Lebanese Shiite jihadi terror group) and indicating Iranian logistical support, they activated Claymore mines, fired mortars from the Egyptian side, and shot RPGs at a civilian car and at a helicopter (both missed the target). Three terrorists attacked a private car of Israeli tourists out on a weekend vacation, machine gunning two sisters and their husbands, and then confirming the kills at close range. They murdered the driver of another civilian car, whose wife pretended to be dead and so saved her life. A suicide bomber then blew himself up next to a civilian bus passing by (without passengers) killing himself and the driver.

Israeli Golani recon forces (Sayeret Golani) and the Eilat-based SWAT team (YAMAM LOTAR) stormed the terrorists, killing six at close range. A 22-year old Golani soldier, Moshe Naftali, was shot and killed as he stepped out of his jeep. After a temporary lull in the fighting, people dressed in Egyptian army uniforms on the Egyptian side of the border shot and killed Pascal Avrahami, the 49-year old legendary YAMAM sniper. As Israeli helicopters followed in hot pursuit of other terrorists, four to six Egyptian soldiers were caught in the crossfire between the helicopter and the terrorists, causing the death of some of the Egyptians.

There is still concern that an undetermined number of jihadi terrorists are concealing themselves in the Israeli desert close by. Another attack site was uncovered at 6pm with IEDs ready, while a search of the dead terrorists revealed that they had plastic handcuffs with them, which would have been used to immobilize kidnapping victims.

Arab Spring or jihadi chaos?

The tumultuous events in Cairo’s Tahrir Square have not lead to an Arab Spring but to a jihadi Summer. Total chaos is the rule in Egyptian-held Sinai. Al Qa’eda and other jihadi forces have recently attacked the Egyptian police station in El Arish with 200 armed men, and are attempting (aided by their 6,000-strong armed militias) to establish Shari’a-led dictatorships in enclaves throughout the area. Egypt’s Supreme Military Council has come under verbal fire by retired Egyptians generals in the past week, being accused of having allowed Salafist and jihadi forces a free hand in the Sinai.

Five attacks by these forces have put the natural gas pipelines (which carry Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan) totally out of commission. The Camp David peace accords initiated by President Jimmy Carter guaranteed a continuing flow of this energy source to Israel. Its stoppage indicates a major breakdown of peaceful and cooperative relations between Egypt and Israel, and a harbinger of more serious problems to come.

For sovereign Egypt to allow its soil to be used to host and facilitate a major terror attack on Israel is a serious event that bears careful consideration. But rather than learning and applying the fateful lessons here, the Egyptian government has gone into attack mode, demanding an Israeli apology for the deaths of its soldiers and witholding from its own people the facts that terrorists were able to infiltrate Egypt, and stage a massive attack from Egyptian soil while hiding behind Egyptian military posts and while dressed in Egyptian army uniforms.

On Friday and Saturday Egyptian police have permitted violent attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo to go on without disruption – shades of what Iran orchestrated on November 4 1979 at the US Embassy in Teheran.

Hitting the target

Within five hours of the initial attack, IAF targeted and eliminated the head of the PRC (Popular Resistence Committee) military wing and five of his top leaders – the group that had spearheaded the multi-pronged terror attack – in the southern end of the Gaza Strip. Within 24 hours another senior commander was neutralized as he maneuvered through northern Gaza’s alleys on a speed bike. Israel focused its initial fury on the PRC leadership, but also destroyed smuggling tunnels, weapons workshops and rocket squads firing Qassam rockets. Though the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Hamas jihadi organization initially washed its hands of responsibility or awareness of PRC’s preparations, it too began to fire rockets into Israel on Friday.

Over the past three days air raid sirens reminiscent of WWII movies have been going off with sickening repetition, often in the middle of the night. Beersheva residents have 60 seconds to make it to the one room in their house which is built to withstand missile attack. After that (usually within 25 to 60 seconds) one hears the crrrumppp of a missile smashing into the ground, or being blown up in the skies above by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile batteries.

What is happening now is strikingly similar to the opening stages of the war in late December 2008 known as Operation Cast Lead. After over 12,000 rockets and mortars had been fired from Gaza at Israeli cities, villages, kibbutzim and farms, Israeli forces entered the Gaza Strip in order to end the rocket fire, to destroy the rocket infrastructure, and “to reduce the ability of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza to perpetrate future attacks against the civilian population in Israel” (www.mfa.gov.il/gazafacts).

Jephthah and the peace process

Over 3,100 years ago Jephthah son of Gilead was chosen by the elders of Israel to defend Israel from Arab attacks coming from Ammon (present-day Jordan). Jephthah sent ambassadors to the Ammonites asking the straightforward question, “What do you have against me, that you have come against me to fight against my land?” (Judges 11:12). The king of Ammon then accused Israel of having stolen land which had belonged to Ammon. “Now therefore restore these land peaceably!” he demanded (verse 13).

Jephthah responded by giving the king of Ammon a history lesson. He explained that YHVH had never allowed the Jewish people to claim land that belonged to Moab or Ammon, people distantly related to Abraham through Lot’s daughters. He agreed that Israel had followed God’s orders on the matter to the tee. However, YHVH had allowed Israel to conquer Amorite territory (a different people, led by King Sihon) – land which had never belonged to Ammon. The territory in question was Amorite and not Ammonite territory, and therefore was a valid Israeli possession. It had even been in Israeli hands for over 300 years at that point (verse 26).

Jephthah broke off the diplomatic process with the warning, “I have not sinned against you, but you wronged me by fighting against me. May YHVH the Judge render judgment this day between the children of Israel and the people of Ammon” (verse 27).

Praying the prayer of Jehoshaphat

What was true in Jephthah’s case is even more true in the case of Gaza. Whereas God told Israel not to invade or conquer Ammon and Moab, He definitely promised the entire land of Canaan (which borders include Gaza – see Genesis 10:19; Joshua 10:41; 11:22; 15:47; Judges 1:18; 1 Kings 4:24) to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

King Jehoshaphat was confronted with a similar situation in his day – Arab invasions from Ammon, Moab and Edom – and he, like Jephthah, reminded God in prayer of the same covenantal promises to Abraham.

“But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir,
 whose territory You would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt;
so they turned away from them and did not destroy them.
See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession
You gave us as an inheritance.
Our God, will You not judge them?
For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.
We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You” (2 Chronicles 20:10-12)

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

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