Looking at world events through eagle eyes

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

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

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

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

Horsing around with the Hebrew prophets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s the big deal?”

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

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

When today’s world and modern Christians ignore God’s priority of Israel, they are repeating the ancient sins of Babylon. But God is not mocked, and He responds quite forcefully to the nations’ blithe dismissal of Israel’s continuing calling and divine protection.

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

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

Some believers may think that concern for the Jewish people is simply carnal – a partisan and soulish loyalty. If that were true, then how can one explain the very words of the God who answers by fire, who takes the same ardent stand in His burning love for Israel and in His zealous defense of their existence?

Pouring gasoline on anti-Semitism

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

What are believers to do when they see the world oppose the restoration of the Jewish people to their land?
What are believers to do when they see their own political leaders attempt to divide the Land of Israel and establish a terrorist Islamist jihadi state on the earth YHVH has pledged exclusively to the sons of Isaac (Genesis 25:1-6)?
What are believers to do when standing with the Jewish people is considered not cool but reactionary, when zeal for Israel’s restoration doesn’t resonate well with Millennials?

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

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

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

So the Angel who was speaking with me said to me, “Proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says YHVH of armies, I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. But I am very angry with the nations who are at ease. For while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster. Therefore thus says YHVH, I will return to Jerusalem with compassion. My house will be built in it, declares YHVH of armies, and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem. Again, proclaim, saying, Thus says YHVH of armies, My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and YHVH will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem” (Zechariah 1:14-17)

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

God is good, all the time, to Israel

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

Our message needs to be fortified with these spiritual vitamins in order to be considered a message of kosher comfort to Zion.

How shall we then pray?

The nations of this world are hovering on the brink of sealing a deal with the world’s foremost terror regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran. This deal would allow Iran to vastly increase its support of jihadi terrorism against the West, the East and Israel. It would also allow Iran to achieve nuclear capability, while Iran’s leaders repeatedly call for Israel’s total destruction
Pray that God will change the hearts of world leaders concerning Iran and speak to them in the night and at their banquets, even as YHVH spoke to Babylon’s leaders in Daniel the prophet’s day
Pray for a revelatory breakthrough for those spiritual bystanders who are passive-aggressive toward the Jewish people, their survival and their restoration to the Land of Israel. Not all who publically proclaim their right theology about Israel are actually Israel’s faithful friends. As Yeshua said in Luke 7:35, wisdom will be judged by her children. The reality of the confession will be rightly judged by the manifested fruit

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pagan anti-Semitism infiltrates the Church

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

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

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

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

These books are a good place to start for those who want to uncover anti-Semitic roots hiding within some aspects of Christian theology. They give helpful directions for those who would like to prioritize repentance and intercession about these matters.

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

The Chosen People teaching – turned on its head

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

“No one can fail to see that in every land where the Jews are scattered they mourn for the loss of their kingdom, and are in terrified subjection to the immensely superior number of Christians. Not by bodily death shall the ungodly race of carnal Jews perish. For whoever destroys them in this way shall suffer sevenfold vengeance, that is, shall bring upon himself the sevenfold penalty under which the Jews lie for the crucifixion of Christ. So to the end of the seven days of time, the continued preservation of the Jews will be a proof to believing Christians of the subjection merited by those who . . . put the Lord to death” (Schaff, Philip, ed., St. Augustine in A Selection of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church; 8 vol., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983, 4:187-188).

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

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

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

The ‘unforgiveable sins’ of the Jewish people

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

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

Here are three such examples from respected Church Fathers:

“They committed a crime of the most unhallowed kind, in conspiring against the Savior of the human race” (Origen, Against Celsus, 4:22 in Ante-Nicene Christian Literature; New York: Scribner, 1905; IV, p. 506)

“(Concerning the Jews' assassination of Christ there is) no expiation possible, no indulgence, no pardon . . . (The destruction of Jerusalem) was done by the wrath of God and His absolute abandon of you . . . (Jews will live) under the yoke of servitude without end . . . He who can never love Christ enough will never have done fighting against those (Jews) who hate Him . . . Flee, then, their assemblies, flee their houses, and far from venerating the synagogue because of the book it contains, hold it in hatred and aversion for the same reason . . . I hate the synagogue precisely because it has the law and the prophets . . . I hate the Jews also because they have the law...” (John Chrysostom, Adversus Iudaeos in The Fathers of the Church: Saint John Chrysostom, vol.68; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979)

“What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blaspheming and cursing, we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy . . . We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity . . . Let me give you my honest advice: First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom. . .Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. . .” (Martin Luther, On The Jews And Their Lies; 1543; trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther’s Works, 47:268-72)

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

Jewish kingdom bad, Gentile kingdom good

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

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

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

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

‘The mother of all devils is a Jew’

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

“The Antichrist will ... command that Jerusalem be rebuilt in its splendor and will make it a great and populous city, second to none in the world and will order his palace to be built there… And Jeremiah does not merely point out his sudden coming, but he even indicates the tribe from which he shall come...” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book Five, Chapter 30, Section 2; circa 180 A.D.)

“For Moses speaks thus: ‘Dan is a lion's whelp, and he shall leap from Bashan’ … in naming the tribe of Dan, he declared clearly the tribe from which Antichrist is destined to spring. For as Christ springs from the tribe of Judah, so Antichrist is to spring from the tribe of Dan. But since it is necessary to prove this assertion by sufficient testimony, we shall not shrink from the task” (Hippolytus, 170-236 A.D., Bishop of Portus - probably Portus Romanus, 15 miles north of Rome; Treatise on Christ and Antichrist,14)

“As his tribe, then, and his manifestation, and his destruction, have been set forth in these words. For he will call together all the people to himself, out of every country of the dispersion, making them his own, as though they were his own children, and promising to restore their country, and establish again their kingdom and nation, in order that he may be worshipped by them as God” (Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 54)

“They did slide, therefore, in all things, as they were found to be in harmony with the truth in nothing: neither as concerns the law, because they became transgressors; nor as concerns the prophets, because they cut off even the prophets themselves; nor as concerns the voice of the Gospels, because they crucified the Saviour Himself; nor in believing the apostles, because they persecuted them. At all times they showed themselves enemies and betrayers of the truth, and were found to be haters of God, and not lovers of Him; and such they shall be then when they find opportunity: for, rousing themselves against the servants of God, they will seek to obtain vengeance by the hand of a mortal man” (Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 58)

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

Modern expressions of the ‘Jewish antichrist’ teaching

“(In Scripture) the hints given are so plain, the conclusions which must be drawn from certain statements of Holy Writ are so obvious, and the requirements of the case are so inevitable, that we are forced to believe he (the Anti-Christ) must be a Jew” (Arthur W. Pink, The Antichrist, Chapter 3, The Person of the Antichrist)

“Who will the Antichrist be?” asked Mr. Falwell, whose Sunday services at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg are carried by television stations nationwide. “Is he alive and here today?” he asked. “Probably. Because when he appears during the Tribulation period he will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course he'll be Jewish” (“Antichrist Is Alive, And a Male Jew, Falwell Contends”; New York Times, January 16, 1999)

“Then, Hagee boomed, ‘There's a phrase in Scripture used solely to identify the Jewish people. It suggests that this man [the Antichrist] is at least going to be partially Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler, as was Karl Marx” (“Pastor Hagee: The Antichrist Is Gay, ‘Partially Jewish, As Was Adolph Hitler’”; Huffington Post, Max Blumenthal June 2, 2008)

“The statement by Rev. Jerry Falwell, that the Antichrist, who is evil incarnate, is Jewish, borders on anti-Semitism at best and is anti-Semitic at worst. In identifying the Antichrist as a living Jewish man, Rev. Falwell draws from an especially vicious tradition of Christian theological anti-Judaism… Fortunately, the great majority of Christian leaders and ministers consider these hateful myths to be wholly contradictory to true Christian doctrine. If Rev. Falwell and others persist in these prognostications they will be instigating an anti-Semitism rooted in Christian theological extremism” [The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry]. (Abraham H. Foxman, Anti-Defamation League National Director, New York, NY, January 19, 1999)

“The Jewish Antichrist legend is a prelude to persecution – of Jews. The most infamous piece of anti-Semitic propaganda, the so-called ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ also repeats the medieval fable. The ‘Protocols,’ together with the Antichrist myth, sow the seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism and endanger religious liberty” (Andrew Gow, The Myth of the Jewish Antichrist: Falwell Stumbles Badly, History News Service, Feb 10, 1999)

A professional definition of anti-Semitism

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

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

European contributions – money, control, defilers of culture

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

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

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

The sharpness of demonic anger toward anything Israeli or Jewish on many Western university campuses is another indication of the virulent spread of this new-old anti-Semitic cancer

Modern charismatic expressions

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

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

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

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

The result of this school of interpretation is simple and chilling – all teachings in the prophets regarding the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel cannot be applied in any way to the Return to Zion in our day. This present Jewish return is only a regathering for massive Jewish slaughter. Such Christians can never really accept what is going on today with any warmth of heart. Cold hearts and pained smiles greet Jewish enthusiasm, and once again Gentile Christian expressions of anti-Semitism lend a hand in crushing out God’s heart for His Chosen people (see Hosea 11:8; Romans 11:28).

Christian denigration of Jewish Restoration

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

“We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem – but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people”

“There are two possibilities. Either the Jews will cling to their faith and continue to await the Messiah who, for us, has already appeared. In that case they will be denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot help them. Or else they will go there without any religion, and then we can be even less favorable to them… The Jewish religion was the foundation of our own; but it was superseded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot concede it any further validity. The Jews, who ought to have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ, have not done so to this day”

“And so, if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you”

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

According to this viewpoint, the Jews may have a past and a future – but they certainly do not have a present. According to this viewpoint, all that the Jewish people can look forward to is to “this present darkness” (see https://davidstent.com/making-the-crooked-straight-tearing-down-evangelical-strongholds-opposed-to-israels-restoration/)

Solutions

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

How shall we then live?

Recommit to study the history of anti-Semitism and its shifting shapes

Recommit to reading the Bible with new and open eyes about these subjects

Pray for a spirit of repentance to fall upon your community, your teachers, your country about these matters

Become an activist – holding up the hands of those involved in Israel’s restoration, standing against anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and boycotters of the Jewish state

Make Matthew 25:31-46 a place of meditation, encouragement and challenge regarding taking a stand for Yeshua’s Jewish brethren

Get involved in the Jewish community. Make Jewish friends, Rejoice and appreciate things Jewish. Don’t wait for times of anti-Semitic persecution to do this

Wash Jewish people’s feet but don’t use boiling water

Be prepared to live and die like Ruth, whose heart was so bound to the Jewish people that she was prepared to love them even if it meant her own death

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Darkness over the face of the abyss

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

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

Darkness and light

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

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

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

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

God is light, and light is good

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

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness He called ‘night’. And there was evening and there was morning, one day” (Genesis 1:3-5)

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

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

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

“The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity – I am YHVH who does all these” (Isaiah 45:7)

“Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?” (Job 38:17)

“Complete darkness is held in reserve for His treasures” (Job 20:26)

YHVH’s X-Ray vision

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

“For the morning is the same to Him as thick darkness, for He is familiar with the terrors of thick darkness” (Job 24:17)

“Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You” (Psalm 139:12)

“It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him” (Daniel 2:22)

“He reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deep darkness into light” (Job 12:22)

“Wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5)

“And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13)

God is at war with darkness

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

“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it” (John 1:5)

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5)

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19)

“Then Yeshua again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life’ ” (John 8:12)

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12)

God wants to rescue those trapped in darkness

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

“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness” (John 12:46)

“To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18)

“But you are … a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9)

“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13)

“For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8)

“For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Messiah” (2 Corinthians 4:6)

God calls believers to walk in the light of His love

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

“Beloved …I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:7-11)

“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21)

“Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness” (Luke 11:35)

God calls believers to shine His light into the darkness

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

“I will also make you a light to the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6)

“For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have placed you as a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring My salvation to the end of the earth’” (Acts 13:47)

“… a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness” (Romans 2:19)

“And if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday” (Isaiah 58:10)

“Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them” (Ephesians 5:11)

“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Darkness is the place of ultimate judgment

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

“Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ ” (Matthew 22:13)

“Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties… wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever… But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, that they were saying to you, ‘In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.’ These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh” (Jude 1:3-23)

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority” (2 Peter 2:1-10)

The Day of the Lord is a day of darkness

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

The God of Israel will return to the earth, crushing the rebel arm raised against Him (Psalm 2).

YHVH will destroy all the enemies of the Jewish people (Isaiah 59:15-21)

The God of Jacob will regather the scattered exiles of Israel (Ezekiel 39:27-29; Isaiah 27:12-13)

His atonement for all of Israel’s sins and for the sins of the world will be manifest to all (Daniel 9:24, 26; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2)

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

“A day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Zephaniah 1:15)

“A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness … There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it to the years of many generations” (Joel 2:2)

The Day that Isaiah described – gross darkness covering the earth – is the period of time when God begins to stream His stupendous rays of divine power, deliverance, healing and salvation onto the face of the Jewish people (see Isaiah 60:1-2)

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

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

How shall we then pray?

Press in to God in worship and thanksgiving. Find the comfort, healing and encouragement that comes from spending intimate time with Him

Pray that YHVH will shine the radiance of His countenance upon the very heart of the Jewish people, bringing world revival

Pray for a spirit of repentance to fall on your own nation, that many would turn from their wicked ways and walk into the Light

Pray that the God of Israel will grant you the privilege to shine His light to your friends and neighbors, to be a witness for Him whether it means life or death, praise or persecution

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

The Raising Up of Ezekiel’s Army

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

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

The context – prophets in the land of ISIS

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

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

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

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

False and true shepherds in Israel

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

A Last Days Arab attempt to dispossess Israel

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

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

This is the context in which Ezekiel’s prophecy of the Dry Bones Army is given

Breathe on these slain

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

Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, “Thus says YHVH God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

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

Fleshing out the Dry Bones Army

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

The restoration of Israel has many facets. One of those, stressed by the prophets, involves defending the Jewish people successfully from the ravenous attacks of the wolf nations and triumphing over them in battle. Our Last Days vision needs to make room for this axial aspect of prophetic fulfillment!

Actualizing the army

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

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

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride… God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered. He raised His voice, the earth melted. YHVH of armies is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. Come, behold the works of YHVH, who has wrought desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariots with fire.

Putting a face on the army

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

They need to know their own history and their own prophetic and national calling.

They need to know how to use the weapons of God, which include both the Word of God and the gifts and weapons of the Spirit (Psalm 7:13; Isaiah 30:32; Jeremiah 50:25; Ezekiel 39:9-10; 2 Corinthians 6:7; 10:4; Revelation 14:15-19).

Jewish believers need to know how to live, move and have their being among their own people. They need to increase their own sensitivities and connections with their own people, and drink more water from their own cultural and spiritual wells (1 Corinthians 9:20; Romans 15:8)

They need to know how to better communicate the message and presence of Messiah Yeshua, King of the Jews, to His own people (Romans 1:16)

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

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

How shall we then pray?

Pray with us that God would raise up a new sphere for activation of this prophetic army described by Ezekiel

Pray that God will guide us in wisdom and discernment as we lay the foundations of strategy & curriculum

Pray for the provision of finances and co-laborers that this endeavor will require

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Burning streets and an army aflame

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

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

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

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

Who remembers Babylon?

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

This is what YHVH says, Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears. for your labor will be rewarded, declares YHVH, and they will return from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares YHVH, and your children will return to their own territory (Jeremiah 31:16-17)

And the word of YHVH came to Jeremiah, saying, “Have you not observed what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which YHVH chose, He has rejected them.’ Thus they despise My people, no longer are they as a nation in their sight. Thus says YHVH, If My covenant for day and night stand not, and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established, then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them” (Jeremiah 33:22-26)

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

For I am YHVH your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I have given Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place. Since you are precious in My sight, and since you are honored and I love you, I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life (Isaiah 43:3-4)

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

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

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

And the Light of Israel will become a fire and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day (Isaiah 10:17)

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

Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and He will clear the way before Me. And YHVH, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His Temple. And the Messenger of the Covenant, in Whom you delight, behold, He is coming, says YHVH of armies. But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to YHVH offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to YHVH as in the days of old and as in former years (Malachi 3:1-4)

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

For behold, YHVH will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire (Isaiah 66:15)

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

And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. (Revelation 20:9-10)

God’s messengers are like fire

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

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

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

The fiery Jewish army of the Last Days

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

In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot among pieces of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves, so they will consume on the right hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples, while the inhabitants of Jerusalem again dwell on their own sites in Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:6)

Then the House of Jacob will be a fire and the House of Joseph a flame. But the House of Esau will be as stubble. And they will set them on fire and consume them, so that there will be no survivor of the House of Esau, for YHVH has spoken (Obadiah 1:18)

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

How shall we then pray?

Pray for God to grant us all revelation, illumination and understanding about these passages of Scripture. God has much truth He still wants to impart to those who are earnest in heart

Pray that God will help us all to recognize these events as they develop and to know how to pray for His strategies to be fulfilled

Pray for all believers in Yeshua to be led by YHVH to prepare for these events, to equip themselves and others – both to protect God’s people Israel in these Last Days, and to equip the remnant of that nation as they equip Israel to enter into its prophetic calling

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Superpower confrontations

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

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

The whole world’s watching

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

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

“For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments – I am YHVH!” (Exodus 12:12).

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

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

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

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

Signs, wonders and Jewish growth

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

“God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions’ ” (Genesis 15:13-14)

“But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except under compulsion. So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My miracles which I shall do in the midst of it; and after that he will let you go” (Exodus 3:19-20)

YHVH said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says YHVH, Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I said to you, Let My son go that he may serve Me; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn” (Exodus 4:21-23)
“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My armies, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments. The Egyptians shall know that I am YHVH, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst” (Exodus 7:3-5)

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

“For this time I will send all My plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth” (Exodus 9:14)

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

Hook in the jaws

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

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

“But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth. Still you exalt yourself against My people by not letting them go” (Exodus 9:14 )

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

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

Thus says YHVH God, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords … from the remote parts of the north with all its troops – many peoples with you … After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword, whose inhabitants have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel which had been a continual waste; but its people were brought out from the nations, and they are living securely, all of them” (Ezekiel 38:2-8)

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

How shall we then pray?

Pray for humility, clear revelation and courage for your country’s leaders (governmentally and spiritually) regarding the Jewish people, the apple of God’s eye

Pray for the Jewish people’s safety and salvation – that they would step into their divine calling as a light to the nations

Pray for God’s will to be accomplished as He lifts up leaders, softening and hardening hearts for His international purposes

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Stumbling over the calling of Israel

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

Yeshua said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The Stone which the builders despised, this has become the capstone. This has come about from YHVH, and it is marvelous in our eyes!” (Matthew 21:42).

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

“Many plans are in a man’s heart, But the counsel of YHVH – that alone will stand” (Proverbs 19:21)

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

And Shimon blessed them and said to Miriam His mother, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed – and a sword will pierce even your own soul – to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35)

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

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

Milestones and stumbling stones

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

The irrevocable gifts and calling of the Jewish people
The separate and distinctive identity of the Jewish people
Israel’s continuing priority status among the nations

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

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

Milestone #1 – irrevocable calling and gifts

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

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

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

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

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

Milestone #2 – separate and distinctive identity

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

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

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

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

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

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

Milestone #3 – continuing priority status

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bringing balance to our own strategies

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

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

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

How shall we then pray?

Pray for revelation of these three milestones to believers throughout the world and especially in the Middle East
Pray for the Jewish people’s safety and salvation – that they would step into their divine calling
Pray for your country’s leadership (governmentally and spiritually) for clear revelation, understanding and courage regarding the Jewish people, the apple of God’s eye

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passive bystanders and ‘thumbs down’ critics

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many Jewish thinkers were quick to note that the Christian community at large was (and still is) divided into two camps – those who rejoiced about restored Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem and the biblical patrimony (one the one hand), and those who were cold-hearted about these developments, insisting that these events had no spiritual or biblical significance (on the other).

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

The Ice Age cometh

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

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

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

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

One matter for prayer concerns Christians who teach about Israel’s past and future while at the same time denying that the present return of the Jewish people to their homeland has any positive prophetic meaning.

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

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

So what actually is the biblical restoration of Israel?

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

the total return of all Jews to the Land of Israel, leaving none in the Exile (Ezekiel 39:27-29)
the re-establishment of the Davidic throne and the Davidic dynasty (Amos 9:11; Jeremiah 33:23-26; Luke 22:30 etc.)
the establishment of Jerusalem as the political and spiritual capitol of the world (Isaiah 2:1-4; 66:20; Zechariah 14:16-19, etc.)
the priority of the Jewish people in God’s kingdom (Zechariah 8:21-23; Romans 1:16; 2:5-11; 3:1-2; 11:28-29, etc.)
world revival, refreshing and restoration as a result (Acts 3:19-21; Romans 11:12, 15, etc.)

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

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

A heart of unbelief

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

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

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

False piety and Jewish restoration

“We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem – but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people”

“There are two possibilities. Either the Jews will cling to their faith and continue to await the Messiah who, for us, has already appeared. In that case they will be denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot help them. Or else they will go there without any religion, and then we can be even less favorable to them… The Jewish religion was the foundation of our own; but it was superseded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot concede it any further validity. The Jews, who ought to have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ, have not done so to this day”

“And so, if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you”

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

Four parallels to consider

There are four parallels worth thinking about here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How shall we then pray?

Ask the Lord to grant a renewal of revelation and understanding to believers everywhere concerning the biblical restoration of Israel
Ask for guidance in prayer for intercessors who call out for the restoration of the Jewish people
Ask for guidance for those who want to be actively involved in the Jewish people’s safety and salvation

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Boasting against the branches at the Feast of Esther

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

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

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

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

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

The three N-words

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

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

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

Negative paradigms
Neo-Colonialism
Narcissism

Negative paradigms

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

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

“The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism,” (Joshua Trachtenberg; JPS, 1933)
“The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Anti-Semitism” (Edward H. Flannery, MacMillan, 1965)
“Jews and Money: The Myths and the Reality” (Gerald Krefetz, Ticknor & Fields, 1982)

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

This perspective has room for the Jewish people in their eschatology only as “victim” (at the very least), and for the Jewish people as the personification of the anti-Christ (at the very most)

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

Sometimes these attitudes bear a toxic fruit which denies that God’s hand and favor is on the Jewish people in their present and prophetic restoration to the land of Israel.

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

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

Neo-Colonialism

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

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

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

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

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

Narcissism

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

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

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

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

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

The priority calling that God has graciously granted to the Jewish people demands a heart-response of obedience, and not a lifted eyebrow of unbelief and prideful arrogance. God still abhors a scornful and prideful heart (Proverbs 8:13; 21:24).

For such a time as this?

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

How shall we then pray?

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

Why are we alive at this point in time
What can we do in prayer and in action to stand with and for the Jewish people in their time of distress and need
How can we pray for the Jewish people’s safety and salvation
How we can pray for our own country’s leadership (governmentally and spiritually) for clear revelation, understanding and courage regarding the Jewish people, the apple of God’s eye
Ask God to bring down the hand raised to destroy Israel (Esther 9; Jeremiah 30:16-17)

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

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

Marrying the anti-Israel spirit

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

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

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

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

The shadow of “that hyddeous strength”

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

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

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

“Well, the howling wolf will howl tonight, the king snake will crawl. Trees that’ve stood for a thousand years suddenly will fall. Wanna get married? Do it now! Tomorrow all activity will cease. You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace” (“Man of Peace” - words & music Bob Dylan © 1983 by Special Rider Music)

“You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the Day of YHVH” (Ezekiel 13:5)

“The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows, yet they turned back in the day of battle” (Psalm 78:9)

“So it came about on the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and his son Jonathan” (1 Samuel 13:22)

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

Making way for Hitler

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

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

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

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

Once more with feeling

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

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

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

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

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

The parallels between the Western world in the 1930’s and today’s military-industrial-university complex is striking. The situation is quite serious. Pray for God to frustrate the plans of the enemy here, for revelation and clear thinking and courage to be given to all the middle-men in this process, and for God’s heart for the Jewish people to be made manifest by those believers who want to obey His word.

Evangelicals aping the world

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

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

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

The Palestinian Christian dimension of the anti-Israel spirit

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

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

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

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

When Evangelicals proclaim their commitment to a biblical heart for Israel, while simultaneously giving place to the narrative of Israel’s enemies and allowing them a platform to influence believers, this indicates that a political spirit has been given permission to influence the counsel of godly men

No compromise

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

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

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

“Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously, says YHVH of armies” (Malachi 2:16)
“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12)
“Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come” (Mark 13:33)

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

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

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

How shall we then pray?

Pray for revelation, conviction of sin and repentance for Christian leaders who falsify the truth and tell lies regarding Israel (2 Timothy 4:4; Jeremiah 30:16-17)

Pray for restoration of a righteous and courage message to Christian leaders regarding the Jewish people – one which does not compromise God’s heart for His chosen (1 Timothy 1:7; Micah 4:11-13)

Intercede for Israel’s salvation and protection, and for divine wisdom for her leaders (Isaiah 62:1, 6-7; 33:6; Zechariah 2:8)

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