“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob!” (Numbers 24:5)

The hot Summer months of July and August 2011 have witnessed an unusual phenomenon in Israel – large street demonstrations and the springing up of “tent cities” protests. The demonstrators were not the urban poor in this case – the protestors were middle class folk, post-IDF students and young married couples. For the most part they had adequate housing, were equipped with cell phones and brought along spare tents. Long-haired young people with acoustic guitars and nargilahs (tobacco water pipes) strummed folk songs at 2 am in public parks amidst clusters of silver painted pup tents, while Israeli rock and pop stars serenaded the protestors with live mini-concerts and pep talks.

These demonstrations caught many by surprise, in that Israel’s overall financial situation is considered rather good, and its credit ratings and economic stability are the envy of many a European country.

Yet the fiscal pressure on most Israelis is heavy. The cost of consumer goods is very high (often due to monopolistic price gouging and cartel price fixing). The cost of housing (both rental and mortgage) has literally gone through the roof, making it prohibitively expensive to rent or buy. Most Israelis find it hard to finish the month without a bank overdraft. For many decades and for the most part, Israelis have accepted rising prices with a battle-weary stoicism – until this Summer. What has changed consumer passivity so radically?

A storm in a teacup of cottage cheese

The straw that broke the camel’s back in this case was made of cottage cheese. A consumer protest in June focused on the exorbitant rise of the price of an Israeli breakfast staple – small tubs of cottage cheese. Strident consumer rights advocates filled TV screens calling on patriotic citizens to refrain from purchasing this product until national food conglomerates lowered prices. Prices did eventually go down, and the media was quick to declare a rousing consumer victory. Within a few weeks, however, cottage cheese prices rose again (albeit more slowly).

Cartels and catalyzers

Economists and sociologists have long pointed out a disturbing trend in Israeli society. Approximately sixteen mega-wealthy oligarchic Israeli family consortiums own between 25% and 45% of Israeli industry, including the majority of the newspapers and television stations. Whereas in the majority of Western countries such influence and control over the media is exercised with a greater degree of subtlety, here in Israel the boxing gloves are off.

PM Ariel Sharon was treated with kid gloves until after the withdrawal from Gaza (Summer 2005). PM Olmert was the media’s darling until after the Lebanon war (Summer 2006). But since the election of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the major TV stations have actively campaigned against him while advocating a left-of-center political agenda, threatening that unless Israel withdraws from Judea and Samaria she will be sanctioned and destroyed.

Israel’s largest newspapers actively and daily pummel the democratically elected Prime Minister, accusing him of all manners of corruption, character weakness, treason and falsehood. Sarcasm, mocking, false allegations and treasonous accusations have become the mainstay of much of Israeli political reportage. Verbum sapientiae sufficens, for those who have the courage to draw parallels with levels of political debate in other countries ...

Socialist roots and populist shoots

The modern restoration of the Jewish people to their biblical Promised Land was initiated by many East European Jews whose eschatological vision was built on socialist promises of a world revolution, the zeal to right economic wrongs, and the hope of an egalitarian state not controlled by political or religious anti-Semites. The initial pioneers of the kibbutz movement strongly advocated a socialist state, and the political foundations of the modern state of Israel were built on the underpinnings of the socialist trade union movement (in Hebrew, the Histadrut). The first thirty years of Israeli majority government were resoundingly led by the Labor Party, and Israel’s leading Labor politicians regularly made the rounds of the Socialist International meetings in Europe.

The near collapse of the Jewish state in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 and Labor’s sluggish protectionist economy led Menahem Begin’s right of center political coalition to seize the helm in 1977. As a result, a greater measure of democratic give-and-take functioned in the political and economic spheres.

Yet although their political influence rapidly faded in the polls, the socialist leaders of the Labor party continued to present themselves as the champions of the underprivileged and the poor in Israel. Some industrialist magnates (having hitched their political and economic futures to the socialist wagon, similar to the Italian model of Gianni Agnelli and FIAT) continued to throw their weight behind Labor, pushing for a strong social welfare state based on Greek, French and Eastern European models.

“They grumbled in their tents “ (Psalm 106:25)

Over the past two months, Israeli media has been whipping up and manipulating popular economic dissatisfaction, shaping and channeling discontent into brazen and ill-concealed attempts to bring down the democratically elected government of Israel. Their main goal seems to be to bring to power political parties which will acquiesce in withdrawing from large portions of the land promised to the Jewish people, and thereby (they hope) reduce international pressure on the State of Israel.

It is both grievous and shocking to watch how TV and newspapers began to call a small group of demonstrators “a huge popular movement” when only handfuls showed up. Blazing front page headlines and sensational editorials followed, calling this movement a “slave uprising.”  Wildly inaccurate figures flew in all directions, affirming that there were 100,000 (or perhaps 300,000) demonstrators at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square.

The same media have mocked Orthodox Jews and settlers as ‘beyond the pale’ in this movement, describing them as enemies of the protestors and of peace. Television’s ‘talking heads’ have moved from reporting news to attacking politicians on prime time, while presenting their own opinions and editorial slants as expert ‘news analysis.’  Normal journalistic balance and professional conduct have for the most part been jettisoned.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows

Over the past weeks the media have bent over backwards in insisting that the demonstrations are only apolitical expressions of popular frustration, and that there are no Rasputin-like powers behind the scenes pulling the strings. Nevertheless, the leaders of Kadima and Labor are egging the protests on, while leftist political activists are at the helm of the protest leadership. A recent op-ed by Zalman Shoval (former Israeli Ambassador to the US – www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=233900) points out that clearly left-wing local and foreign groups have been organizing and bankrolling the protest events. In a recent news article, one famous pop star is approvingly quoted as saying that the social protests are and always have been deeply political in nature.

What is morally ironic (though political astute) is that the magnates and cartels who deeply influence the direction of Israel’s economy have taken it upon themselves to direct popular frustration through media propaganda and the activation of leftist leaders. Their goals include the setting up a government which will better serve their own economic interests – while simultaneously bowing the knee to world pressure regarding the upcoming Palestinian strategies at the United Nations. These underhanded methods are not good for Israel’s territorial integrity, but they are good for business – or at least for the magnates’ own short-term business interests.

“I will make you live in tents again” (Hosea 12:9)

The prophet Hosea addressed wealthy though ungodly men in his day, who were more concerned about profit than prophet, who cared more about wealth gained unjustly (12.1, 7-9) than about a relationship with God anchored in justice and covenant faithfulness (12: 3-4, 6). He declared that unless the Jewish people – rich and poor alike – in both Northern and Southern kingdoms returned to God with heartfelt repentance, they would all go into nomadic exile, dwelling again in tents as in the days of Moses and the Sinai wanderings.

Rapacious greed is a dishonor to any nation, and the Hebrew prophets lambasted ungodly materialism when it raised its head among some of Israel’s leaders of days gone by. The economic pressure and financial anguish that many Israelis feel today is all too real. Yet the spiritual priority that Hosea, Amos and Isaiah home in on is the necessity for repentance and getting right with God as the key to an economic and political transformation.

Though some in Israel have chosen to temporarily move out of their apartments and into pup tents in the park, what is ultimately needed in Israel is not a change of government or even cheaper housing (though the latter would be nice)! What is needed is a radical turning to God, to His heart, to His just ways and His guidelines for godly living.

“O YHVH, who will dwell in Your tent?” (Psalm 15:1)

David the shepherd-king once wrote a poem which became part of Israel’s spiritual heritage. His question was slightly different than that asked by many in Israel today. He was not calling “every man in Israel to his own tents” (as in 2 Chronicles 10:16) but rather, he was asking if there is anyone in Israel – rich or poor, young or old, blind or lame – who would actually want to live in God’s tents. Is there a remnant in Israel who desires more than anything else to live in the favor and under the protective glory of the God of Israel?

Here are David’s words:

O YHVH, who may abide in Your tent?

Who may dwell on Your holy hill?

He who walks with integrity, and does what is righteous, who speaks truth from his heart.

He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor,

nor does he cast a slur against his friend;

He despises a vile person, but honors those who fear YHVH.

He keeps his promise even when it causes him damage, and does not change his word.

He does not lend out his money at interest, nor does he accept a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things will never be shaken.  (Psalm 15)

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

A Messianic perspective on Poland and the Jewish people

As world events vis-à-vis the Jewish people begin to look like flashbacks from Nazi Germany during the late 1930’s, it might be helpful to consider some prophetic lessons from history for our own day. Rachel and I recently traveled across Poland and dialogued with Polish believers (both Jewish and Gentile), searching for wisdom and insight about what happened during the era of World War Two.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said George Santayana (Reason in Common Sense, volume 1 in The Life of Reason, 1905). The experiences and sufferings that previous generations have endured can become building blocks and ladder steps for us as we confront similar challenges in our day. The Apostle Paul adds, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:11-12).

A shelter from the storm

The soil of Poland is drenched with the bloodiest slaughter of Jewish people in human history. Yet nearly one thousand years ago Poland was seen as a land of opportunity and shelter for Jews who were being persecuted in what is now called France and Germany. Bloodthirsty mobs of Crusaders were murdering local European Jews even before they could cross the Mediterranean and attack Saladin’s Muslims. Mass annihilation of whole Jewish communities occurred, and stampeded a massive wave of Jewish refugees, who pushed their wagons and possessions to a more welcoming oasis in the territory of the Polish Kings Mieszko I, Boleslaw III and Kazimierz III.

A fascinating historical description of this process is found in Paul Kriwaczek’s excellent book “Yiddish Civilization” available at www.orionbooks.com.

Little by little the Jewish community in Poland grew, until by 1939 it had became the largest Jewish community in Europe, in the vicinity of 3,500,000 Jews. A telling anecdote from the 1500’s morphs the name of Poland (in Hebrew, Polin) into the Hebrew term “Po lan YAH” – “Here YHVH rested overnight”. But Poland was not always a safe and healthy refuge for Israel-in-exile, since ambivalent attitudes toward Polish Jews could turn violent at any moment. Nevertheless, the Abrahamic principle of Exodus 1:12a was amply manifested in Polish history, “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread...”

The flowering of Yiddish language, culture and artistic expression occurred primarily on Polish soil. These riches of Yiddish culture (which most Western Jews appreciate in a romantic ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ way) were hammered out and fashioned beside the streams and meadows, on the roads and in the sewing-machine sweatshops of the country called Poland.

Jealousy

The Jewish people brought prosperity to Poland (see Jeremiah 29:7) through their gifts of hard work, the benefits of national literacy and a developed economic framework, as well as through their communal disapproval of drunkenness. Unfortunately their prosperity and success was not seen by Polish peasants and guildsmen as the blessing of God (see Deuteronomy 8:18), but as a threat to life and livelihood. This jealousy often led to violent attempts to expel Jews from villages, towns and regions. Sometimes it even led to pillage, riots and pogroms.

The Scriptures warn us of these works of the flesh, which are at the root demonically energized.

“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are ...enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness... and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).

“Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing” (James 3:13-16).

Bitter milk from a poisoned well

Polish royalty and nobility appreciated the Jewish contribution to Poland’s development and flowering. But at the same time materialistic jealousy toward the Jewish people ran like a scarlet thread through Polish history, raising its ugly head from time to time in peasant riots and attacks by merchants and artisans on peaceful Jewish communities. Envy toward Jacob’s children fused with anti-Semitic Church teachings and distilled into a noxious brew – one which poisoned the well from which many Polish Catholics drank deeply.

As a result, the personal and historical experience of many Polish Jews was not always positive. One famous example is Israeli former Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir (born 1915 in Ruszczany, Poland) who once commented that Poles suck in anti-Semitism “with their mother’s milk! This is something that is deeply imbued in their tradition, their mentality. Like their loathing of Russia. The two things are not connected, of course. But that, too, is something very deep, like their hatred of the people of Israel. Today, though, there are elements (in Poland) that are cleansed of this anti-Semitism” (‘We can’t fight the whole world,’ David Landau interviews Shamir, Friday, September 8, 1989, Jerusalem Post).

It is true that some Polish hearts have been poisoned, but it is also true that not all Polish hearts have been poisoned. There is a godly remnant of Poles who love and cherish the Jewish people as dear to God and dear to Poland’s history (www.tesknie.com/index.php?id=50). We have met only a small portion of these beloved saints. Nevertheless, the poisoning of Christian wells of affection for the Jewish people has left a toxic stain which still influences many people in Poland today.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Driving across the Polish countryside recently, we saw a lot of anti-Semitic graffiti spray-painted on bus stops and public walls. Posters advertising Radio Maria (a Polish radio station described by the Council of Europe as “openly inciting to anti-Semitism for several years” and demonstrating “a lack of effective implementation of measures intended to prohibit anti-Semitic acts and statements” in Poland; www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?docid=46efa2dfd) can be seen throughout the villages and towns, popping up like mushrooms after the rain. Tel Aviv University’s Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, says that “the popular Torun-based Catholic nationalist radio station Radio Maryja [sic.] is the most influential source of anti-Semitic propaganda in Poland today” (www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw99-2000/poland.htm).

At the same time it should be noted that in July 2007 over 700 Polish Catholic intellectuals, journalists, priests and activists (as well as a former Prime Minister and a Foreign Minister) signed a public letter of protest condemning Radio Maria director Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk’s anti-Semitic remarks.

Though Mary (in Hebrew Miriam) herself was a Jewish maiden greatly anointed by YHVH, it is ironic that some of those claiming to revere her heritage would stoop to curse Mary’s own Jewish people with such vehemence (Luke 1:54-55, 69-77).

Polish Yad Vashem

In Europe during WWII, the highest number of people who risked their lives to rescue or save Jewish people were the citizens of Poland. Over 6,266 non-Jewish Poles have been awarded by Yad Vashem (Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem) the Righteous Among the Nations award (https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/about.asp; https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/statistics.asp), though the actual number of Poles involved was even higher.

The following is a detailed list of seven hundred non-Jewish Poles who were murdered by the Nazis for helping to rescue Jewish Poles (www.holocaustforgotten.com/list.htm). You can read more about such Poles in the following article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Righteous_among_the_Nations).

PM Shamir notes, “There were also Poles who extended a hand to save Jews from the claws of extermination. . . . These people showed by their actions that even in an era of eclipse and bestial darkness, there are people who preserve the image of God” (https://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-05-21/news/9102150537_1_shamir-israel-nazi-genocide).

The Israeli poet Haim Hefer (born in Sosnowiec, Poland)  dedicated a poem “The Righteous of the World” to those Poles who were prepared to sacrifice themselves, their families and their wealth to stand with the Jewish people:

I hear this title and it makes me think
about the people who saved me.
I ask and ask “Oh, my dear God,
Could I have done the same thing?”

In a sea of hate stood my home,
Could I shelter a foreign son in my home?
Would I be willing along with my family
constantly be threatened by certain evil?
Sleepless dark nights watching out for noise
Hearing footsteps of certain evil.
Would I be able to understand every sign,
Would I be ready for this, could I walk like this
Among those who would betray
Not one day, not one week, but so many years! 

There a suspicious neighbor, there a look, and here a sound
For that one – warm  –  brotherly clasping of my hand...
Not having any pension  –  not having anything for this.
Because a person to person must be a people.
Because a people comes at this time through  –
So I ask you and ask you once more  –
Could I have done the same if I was in their place? 

It was they who went to war every day.
It was they who made the world a place for me.
It was they, the pillars, the Righteous brother,
who this day this world is founded by. 

For your courage, and for your warm extended hand
In front of you, the Righteous, I bow.

(www.polishpages.poland.us/strona,20,7891,0.html)

Obadiah and the Polish problem

Around 600 BC the prophet Obadiah brought a stinging rebuke against the Edomite Arabs who lived in what is today southern Jordan. He chastises the Edomites, because on the day that violence was done to “your brother Jacob, & you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth”. When “foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. You should not have gloated over your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoiced over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor spoken so proudly in the day of their trouble. You should not have marched through the gates of My people in the day of their disaster, nor gloated over them in their calamity in the day of their disaster, nor seized their wealth in the day of their disaster. You should not have waited at the crossroads to cut down their fugitives, nor have handed over their survivors in the day of their trouble” (Obadiah 1:10-14).

In 1939 Jewish people made up 10% of Poland’s citizens. In some cities like Warsaw they were 30% of the population; in others they were 50%. When the Nazis marched Jews off to ghettos or forced them onto trucks or trains headed for death-camps, within 48 hours most of the homes and personal possessions left behind by the Jews had been seized by Polish non-Jewish citizens. The words of Obadiah cast a chilling shadow over this whole process.

After the war, when the few Jewish survivors straggled back to their ancient homesteads, they were usually threatened with death, and often were murdered by angry Poles who refused to return what had once belonged to those Jewish families.

The heart attitude of many of these Poles is reflected in the flat and chilling words of Polish Chief of State and First Marshall Jozef Pilsudski (commenting in 1918 on a recent pogrom against Jews in Lwow), “I must say that the Poles are not philo-Semites. That must be admitted. The Jews in Poland form a very large number and are a foreign body whom one would like to get rid of.” (Shores of Refuge: A Hundred Years of Jewish Emigration, by Ronald Sanders (Henry Holt, 1988).

Amazingly, even Poles who had saved Jewish lives often asked that their acts be kept secret, as they feared very real and murderous anti-Semitic reprisals by their Jew-hating neighbors. For two sobering historical analyses of these realities, see Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (2001, Penguin Books) and Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz (2006, Random House).

We were told on more than one occasion recently, that some Polish people are afraid of Jews because they fear that Jewish people will return to Poland and try to get back their family’s property. “A popular theme in nationalist anti-Semitic circles is that Jews are attempting to seize control of Polish assets through re-privatization claims” (www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw99-2000/poland.htm). The guilty conscience that some Poles validly have about this matter does not allow them much rest, and this “not yet atoned for” unease has been passed on to subsequent generations for the young people of Poland to deal with on their own.

Avoiding or accepting responsibility

In our recent discussions with Polish people, we saw certain repeated responses to the tragedy of mass murder that befell Poland’s Jews. This involved ascribing the main blame to other parties. It is certainly true that some of the historical facts behind these protestations are historically correct. Yet other aspects of this blame shifting hearken back to the first Adam’s complaint in Genesis 3:12, “The woman whom You gave to me – she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”

Polish people have suffered much in their history, and even sometimes see their suffering in mystically redemptive terms, calling Poland the “Christ of Europe” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_of_Europe). The “suffering servant” concept (used here by Polish poet and philosopher Adam Bernard Mickiewicz) is taken from Isaiah 53, but the original biblical context in that text concerns the Davidic Messiah who suffers for the sins of His own Jewish people. To make use of the suffering servant analogy for Polish Gentiles while trying to sidestep questions regarding the slaughter of Polish Jews would be seen as a theological and exegetical travesty by Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Messianic Jews alike.

Poles rightly point out that it was the German Nazis and not the Poles who planned, built and ran the network of death camps in Poland. This is true, and it is important to remember that the instigators of this mass murder were not Poles.

Other Poles say that Polish anti-Semitism was merely a reaction to Jewish support of Communism (what is known as the Zydokomuna conspiracy charge, masterfully refuted by Gross in Fear, pp. 192-243). This charge (which is in itself anti-Semitic) is not borne out by the facts: Communism was itself anti-Semitic and actively involved in persecuting Polish Jews. As well, Jews were by and large both advocates of liberal democracy and proud Polish patriots. The linking of Jews to Communism in a supposedly “nefarious conspiracy” was actually a favorite Nazi tactic.

Blaming the Jews for anti-Semitism

Some Poles say that Polish anti-Semitism was merely a healthy Polish Gentile response to Jewish anti-Polish attitudes. A startling example of the latter is found in the words of Cardinal Jozef Glemp, Catholic Primate of Poland and Archbishop of Warsaw, while addressing a mass meeting of 100,000 at the Jasna Gora Monastery during the celebration of the Most Holy Virgin Mary of Czestochowa (the Matka Boska Czestochowska) on August 26, 1989.

In his homily the Primate accused Jews of complicity in inducing Polish peasants to drunkenness, of propagating Communism and of collaborating with Nazis. He accused Jews of spreading anti-Polish propaganda through the world’s mass media, rebuking the Jewish people in classic Hitlerian terms, “We have feelings toward the Jews, but today I would like to say, dear Jews, do not talk with us from a position of a people raised above all others, and do not dictate conditions & Do you, esteemed Jews, not see that your pronouncements & offend the feelings of all Poles, and our sovereignty, which has been achieved with such difficulty? Your power lies in the mass media that are easily at your disposal in many countries. Let them not serve to spread anti-Polish feeling” (Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy, C. Rittner and J. K. Roth, eds.; New York: Praeger, 1991; pp. 220-25, 245; https://archive.jta.org/article/1991/08/26/2874479/reaction-mixed-to-statement-of-regret-from-polish-cardinal).

In each of the above cases (Nazis, Communists or Jewish conspiracies) “the buck is passed” to others, to use American slang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing). The Nazis are the ones chiefly responsible, or the Communists, or even the Jews themselves but the Poles are basically the true victims (in this distorted scenario). Though this may make for a seemingly plausible debating point, ultimately it is a less than courageous approach. And it only postpones the reckoning that must one day come at the footstool of YHVH’s throne of judgment (Matthew 25:40, 46).

Responsibility

On July 4 1946 scores of Jewish Holocaust survivors in the Polish town of Kielce were slaughtered in an all-day pogrom instigated and carried out by local, average Poles (see Gross, Fear, pp. 81-166). We had the privilege of fellowshipping with and ministering at a local gathering of believers in that city. One of the pastors spoke very quietly and straightforwardly to us. He said that as Poles they do not primarily feel guilt for what the Nazis did to Poland’s Jewish people. In the immediate context it was the Nazis who were the prime movers.

But nevertheless, they as Poles feel responsible, because these atrocities happened in Poland (their own country) and “on their watch” – on the watch of the Polish people (see Ezekiel 33:1-9). Polish response should have been greater. Polish efforts to save Jews should have been much more activist in nature. Polish refusal to countenance anti-Semitism in the public square should have been much more forceful.

The pastor in Kielce added that Poles must avoid passing off responsibility, but must speak the truth regarding Polish Gentile indifference toward Jewish suffering, Poles benefitting from Jewish misfortune, and Poles harboring murderous anti-Semitism in their hearts.

It is true that the Nazis chose Poland for the majority of the death camps because so many Jews lived in Poland. They situated these camps close to main Jewish population centers. Yet the fact that these murders happened in Poland is not merely another sad side effect of Poles being a victimized people. The God who sees everything saw how centuries of Polish cursing of the Jews had fertilized Polish ground and had prepared Polish soil. Though the demonic seed which fathered the death-camps was Nazi in origin, the womb wherein it sprouted was Polish.

Healing

Healing comes after confession, repentance and forsaking of sin. The whole process requires and involves restitution.

Speaking as a member of the Jewish people, I can state that, until we as a nation confess and repent, the Jewish people will continue to deal with the fact that we have rejected the Davidic dynasty (1 Kings 12:16-19), the Jewish prophets (Jeremiah 7:25-26) and the Jewish Messiah (Matthew 23:37-39). It is part and parcel of our own Jewish history, and the Bible has made these facts internationally known.

Moving on to Germans and Austrians – they will have to deal with their anti-Semitic and Nazi past (and present) until confession and repentance engulfs and transforms these countries – when skinheads and anti-Semites no longer exist in German-speaking lands, and when German speakers rejoice in God’s heart for Israel, in the Jewish people’s gifts, calling and prophetic significance (see Romans 11:28-29).

In the same way, Poles will continue to carry the cross of their own national failings in this area until national confession and repentance overtake the Polish people; until they forsake evil anti-Semitic ways and enter into national restitution vis-à-vis the Jewish people.

Brothers and sisters, these heavy thoughts and realities do not only have relevance for the Polish people. They apply to all the nations who are currently jostling to be first in the line-up to divide the land of Israel and the holy city of Jerusalem. They apply to the movements which are attempting to delegitimize and harm Israel as the state of the Jewish people. They apply to the leaders of these nations who are taking an active role in “throwing Mother Israel off the train.”

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

God’s hook in the jaws of the world

Middle Eastern events are speeding up, both in significance and momentum. Yet even amidst the tumult, there is a quiet place available in God from which flows understanding, discernment, sobriety and peace.

Like the men of the tribe of Issachar, “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (1 Chronicles 12:32), we want to find that place, grasp hold of it with both hands, and cleave to what God is doing among the nations regarding His Jewish people.

The divine gambit

In Ezekiel 38 YHVH allows us a measure of insight into His ways regarding the nations. The prophet declares that God’s last days judgments will fall on a consortium of nations who trouble the nation and land of Israel. “I am against you” (verse 3); “thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil plan” (verse 10).

Yet God is sovereignly pro-active in this whole process, leading the troublers of Israel into judgment: “It shall come about in the last days that I shall bring you against My land” (verse 16). “Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them?” (verse 17). “It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel, declares YHVH God, that My fury will mount up in My anger” (verse 18). “With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him” (verse 22). God is not absent from this process nor is He unaware of what is happening. Au contraire – He is much involved.

The key phrases in this divine scenario are found in verse three, “ I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army,” as well as in verse eight, “After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword.”

When the set time comes for God to trigger His plans for judgment on the nations, He activates His hooks and pulls those nations down into the Middle East, to trouble the nation of Israel. Even the greatest super-power can be caught on the hook of God, whether he was expecting it or not. Unauthorized and anti-biblical pressure on Israel brings, according to the Scriptures, both God’s wrath (Jeremiah 30:16) and God’s curse (Genesis 12:3).

Imperial hubris

The sound and fury being demonstrated by most of the nations – in pontificating about how the land of Israel must be divided and about how the restoration of the Jewish people to major portions of their Promised Land is a “rectifiable error” – is actually a sign and a wonder to those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. The season we are living in is no longer one of whether or not judgment will fall on these nations. The only question now is one of timing.

Just a reminder of biblical perspective on this matter: the clearest passages dealing with the return of Messiah (Zechariah 14:1-3; Joel 3:1-2) plainly teach that Yeshua returns in judgment based on the nations’ invasion of Israel and division of both the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. The Second Coming is triggered by the nations’ plans and actions to establish the borders of these areas, and by their attempting to remove Jewish people from East Jerusalem. The unholy source and sober significance of such moves is unmistakably set forth in Scripture.

What is happening in our day and at this moment is not the invasion of Gog and Magog, for that battle is nearly the zenith of the nations’ troubling of Israel. What is happening right now is “a preview of coming attractions,” a dress-rehearsal of the nations where the same principles are at play today and the same issues are at stake. The empires of the world are zooming in on Zion, and the nations are getting into quite an uproar.

I hear the sound of “Rolling Thunder”

The list of nations intent on whittling Israel down grows by the minute. Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries of these countries go on record practically daily, declaring that Israel must be pressured for her own good, and that her recalcitrant attitude is the main obstacle to a smoothly running Middle East. The latest world leader to dance on this spiritual minefield is President Obama, who declared on May 19 2011 that Israel must withdraw to the pre-June 1967 lines, and that Jerusalem must be divided. He was immediately seconded by the discordant chimes of France, England, Poland, Germany, the European Union, the Quartet, Egypt, Jordan etc.

YHVH’s words to Belshazzar in Daniel 5:5-28 have sober relevance for the mightiest powers of our day: “Mene, mene, tekel u’farsin.” You have been surely weighed on the scales of God. You have been found severely lacking in what He was looking for. Your kingdom will be soon divided.”

Where judgment will fall first is not really the central issue, for when judgment falls it will not stop in one country alone. What is coming could rightly be described as a “Rolling Thunder Revue.”

In days gone by the bearded Hebrew prophets fulminated against the evils of ungodly kings. In our day God is raising up a fiery army of New Covenant prophets who will bring the leaders of our world to account for their evil thoughts and plans against Israel the people and the land.

Avoiding the minefield of fear

The initial response of many believers to the rapidly lengthening shadows of malevolence against Israel is often fear. How will the Jewish people be able to stand if Iran develops a nuclear arsenal, or if the USA reduces her military, political or economic aid to Israel? What will happen if the European Union boycotts the Jewish state, or if the United Nations passes resolutions declaring that a Jewish presence on portions of the Promised Land is illegal and subject to international sanctions? What will happen if hordes of Muslims (whether Turks, Syrians, Palestinians from Gaza or Lebanon or even from within Israel) try to invade Israel en masse and wreak havoc on Israel’s borders and security forces?

After this first wave of fear passes, it would be good to remember that these nations and these Palestinians have absolutely no idea of Whom they are angering, and Who He is who is preparing to visit these nations with His judgments. Let’s remember that even though events in Pharaoh’s Egypt looked bad for the sons of Israel immediately prior to the Exodus, the soon-to-come revelation of God’s glory and judgments through Moses the prophet topped anything that anyone had ever known up to that point. The same is true in our day.

Avoiding the minefield of eschatological cold-heartedness

Years ago I remember having a theological conversation with a seminary student. “When I see Israel’s dependence on weapons and on its army, I think of God’s rebuke to Israel not to trust in horses or chariots!”, said my friend. His unspoken presupposition was that America was allowed to pursue its military interests to the uttermost, but that Israel was somehow carnal and disobedient to God when it did the same! A similar geopolitical weltanschauung can be seen when one compares international reaction to Israel’s targeting of Islamic terrorists, with international reaction to the recent Navy SEAL special operations forces hit on Osama bin Laden.

As we try to align our hearts with God’s own heart as revealed in the Bible, let us ask God for revelatory insight on how the mighty Israeli prophetic army that God is raising up (Ezekiel 37:9-10; Isaiah 41:14-16) is related to the present Israeli army.

Avoiding the minefield of last days narcissism

One further thought. The Scriptures are filled with end-time descriptions of the Jewish people, their land and God’s plans for their restoration and good. Sometimes the prophetic rushing river of God’s promises to Israel is so powerful and fast-moving that it is possible to get caught in the web of all of these prophetic facts, to get hypnotized by the oncoming speed and surge of their soon-coming fulfillment.

Yet God has given us all of this biblical information not for our own satisfaction, not to assuage our own compulsive tendencies, and not to become eschatological know-it-alls. What He really wants is for us to weep for His people (Isaiah 62:1-12). He wants us to intercede with hot tears for their protection, their salvation and their restoration.

“He’s got plans of His own to set up His throne …”

Do not be afraid of the evil plans of the enemy, nor of how he may be using the blinded leaders of nations. Isaiah 8:10 proclaims, “Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not stand, for God is with us – Immanuel!”

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

Bin Laden - Of heroes and hydras

Usama Bin Laden is dead. The Saudi born Islamist of Yemeni extraction was “terminated with extreme prejudice” by U.S. Navy Seals Team Six, in a superbly executed 40 minute special forces operation involving at least four helicopters flying out of Afghanistan. A ten year manhunt has come to an end.

President Obama called an uncharacteristically late-evening press conference to announce the positive identification of the terrorist leader as well as his subsequent anonymous burial in the waters of the Persian Gulf.  Spontaneous crowds gathered at Ground Zero in New York City, remembering the more than 3,000 civilians murdered by Bin Laden’s jihadi comrades. Iran’s leaders announced that it was high time that U.S. forces leave Afghanistan since, according to Teheran, this was the only reason America had occupied that country.

Both Hamas and Fatah cursed America and mourned Bin Laden’s death, calling him a Muslim hero and an Islamic lion (the word Osama in Arabic means ‘lion’). The Islamic imam of Jerusalem prophesied a dog’s death to President Obama, while the supreme world Islamic authority (the sheikh of Al-Azhar University in Cairo) accused the U.S. of violating Islamic law and sensibilities by burying Bin Laden (UBL) at sea.

How can we make sense of these events? What help do the Scriptures give in sorting things out?

David’s mighty men

In 1 Chronicles 11:10-47 King David’s Seal Team is described. His special forces in that day were called “the Three” and “the Thirty.” Their strength, speed and stealth were legendary throughout Israel, and their stunning exploits are quoted with approval in Scripture.

King David gives thanks to God his Rock, who trained his hands for war and his fingers for the battle (Psalm 144:1). Regarding the Hebrew warrior-judge Othniel it is written, “The Spirit of YHVH came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war” (Judges 3:10).

Ultimately satan himself will be the one who gathers all ungodly nations to fight against the Jewish people, the Jewish Messiah, and all believers: “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the Rider on the horse and His army” (Rev.19:19; see also Psalm 83).

YHVH is a warrior, Moses said in Exodus 15:3. Modern-day warriors who oppose evil know something of YHVH’s character and zeal in a way that few others can. We are thankful for those men and women who have dedicated their strength and skill for such purposes.

Ten years is a long time

A friend in the USA reminded me that UBL and Hitler died within a few hours of each other, 66 years apart, and their deaths were both announced on May 1. Certainly the spiritual forces that operated in Hitler also motivated UBL. They also drove Saddam Hussein, Hezbollah and Hamas to fire mortars, rockets and missiles at Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheva. The source of these murderous spirits comes fundamentally from satan. In the Islamist examples seen above, it also draws historical and spiritual inspiration from the words and works of Mohammed the jihad warrior.

The American intelligence community has been pursuing al-Qa’eda for ten years. Yet even prior to 9/11 such voices like the FBI’s counterterrorism specialist John O’Neill (see The Man Who Warned America, by Murray Weiss) tried in vain to focus attention on the clear and present danger.  At various times over the past years, U.S. special forces actually had UBL in their sights, yet the go-ahead was never given. Fear of failure or lack of trust in hot intelligence aborted more than one such operation. It is to President Obama’s credit that he decided to go ahead with this operation. It required courage and resolve.

Take no prisoners, but who is the enemy?

One of the hardest battles to win is the one where one cannot discern who the enemy is. For believers it is clear that satan himself is the ultimate enemy. Those who are God’s enemies are also our enemies (Psalm 139:19-24). Those who are the Jewish people’s enemies are also our enemies (Psalm 83:2-3, 5, 12).

But what about Islam? The leaders of the West never cease to declare that Islam is not the enemy; that it is a religion of peace; and that the problem is only some crazy terrorists who are perverting Islam and giving it a bad name. U.S. Presidents (Barak Obama and George W. Bush) and former U.K. PM Tony Blair are notable advocates for that position. One can see the concern (or even fear) in their words, since they were ultra-sensitive about not wanting to upset a very volatile Muslim world. Street riots and attacks on Western embassies have resulted due to statements, cartoons and rumors deemed insulting to Islam.

Yet a desire to avoid conflict does not always lead to people speaking the truth.  An analysis of Islam’s source documents (the Koran and the Hadith) is the best way for us to determine whether or not UBL has perverted Mohammed’s original jihad call. Such a simple study (see “A Perspective on Islam”, www.davidstent.com) leads the average reader to the stunning conclusion that the Koran clearly mandates continuing violent military attacks against non-Muslims until the whole world submits to Mohammed’s control. What is called ‘terror’ in the West is seen as true and courageous Koranic Islam by over 95% of all Islamic teachers and preachers.

The West would prefer to ignore these unpalatable facts, while attempting to prop up corrupt Arab and Islamic pro-Western dictators. The recent Arab street riots conclusively prove that the U.S.A. is having as much success there as they had in Havana, Managua and Saigon. Unless the West wakes up its defensive limbs (which have fallen asleep) and recognizes the spiritual and geopolitical threats connected to jihadi and Koranic Islam, the enemy will continue to be able to operate under the radar with great stealth and effectiveness.

The enemy is much more than Osama Bin Laden’s talking head, or than the al-Qa’eda hierarchy. It is the Islamic goal of world jihad and the restoration of a shari’a-based Islamic caliphate dictatorship.

How many heads does a hydra have?

An Arab youth interviewed by Western media after UBL’s assassination proudly declared, “Now you will have one thousand jihadis to take Bin Laden’s place!”  The Islamist activists have never ceased in their strategy to take over all the Arab and Islamic countries from their corrupt leadership. This is done either through street revolution followed by military putsch, or by democratic elections followed by military putsch (“one man, one vote, one time”). In either case, it leads to the establishment of an Islamic dictatorship.

Such was the case in Gaza, where U.S. pressure led to free elections, The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas government came to power, whose constitution calls for jihadi destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. After coming to power, they murdered their main Islamic competitors (Arafat’s Fatah gunmen) and have transformed Gaza into an Islamic dictatorship. The Egyptian elections are presently facing the likelihood of a Muslim Brotherhood victory, either outright or in a few quick stages.

The U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Ministry have both spoken positively of Fatah’s declaration that it will sign a unity agreement with Hamas this week. The cognitive dissonance here is more than huge – how can the U.S. assassinate Bin Laden while speaking positively about the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, which call for the same jihad as did UBL?

It will not do to proclaim victory over jihadi forces in Pakistan while encouraging those same forces in the Palestinian Authority and Egypt.

When is a targeted assassination kosher?

Israelis look at world news from a unique perspective. The centuries of anti-Semitism, the past century of genocide and Islamic attempts to wipe out Israel through terrorism and conventional warfare, and present attempts to do the same through nuclear weapons – all of these have engendered a certain cynicism about the world’s intentions regarding the Jewish people and their state. As Bob Dylan once said, Israel is “supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in” (Neighborhood Bully, words & music by Bob Dylan © Special Rider Music 1983). Lately Israel has not been overly enthusiastic in embracing this role.

When Israel began to use targeted assassinations to kill jihadi terrorist leaders, it was rebuked by nearly every Western country and censured at the United Nations. When Israel’s Mossad  tried to assassinate the operational head of Hamas who was living in Jordan (a country with a peace treaty with Israel) while all the time planning terror attacks on Israel and her leaders, she faced world (and Jordanian) condemnation. When the head of procurement for Hamas was assassinated in Dubai while engaged in arms purchases meant to destroy the State of Israel, Britain, Ireland and Germany rushed to condemn Israeli activities, while keeping mum about Islamist genocidal goals and operations.

The double-standard here is striking: a targeted assassination is kosher, as long as it is not done by Israel against jihadi enemies!

Sowing the wind

One further thought. The state departments, foreign ministries, intelligence agencies and economic magnates of the West have long sided with and favored the Arab and Islamic world in their struggles against tiny Israel. Every single one of the Western countries sides with Islamic claims to much of the land of Israel promised by God to Jacob exclusively. None recognizes Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and all call for that city’s re-division (see Zechariah 14:1-2; Joel 3:1-3). Is the rise of Islamic terrorism directed against the West a divine way of getting Western attentions about these above issues? Does God take His promises seriously in Genesis 12:3, Isaiah 60:12 and 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

The House of Windsor and the House of David

On Friday April 29 2011 nearly two billion people watched the fairy tale wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey in the heart of London. From the shimmering gold vestments of the Dean of Westminster to the gold-encrusted liveried coach-and-four, from Prince William’s handsome scarlet Irish Guard’s jacket to Catherine’s ivory silk tulle veil and 1936 Cartier Halo tiara, the world sat transfixed with shining eyes as they beheld the pomp and glory of a British royal wedding. As one joyous Englishwoman pronounced on television, the British are the best at pomp, ceremony and majesty.

The Kings of the world in attendance

The 2,000 guests at the wedding included the crowned heads of the globe who walked the Abbey aisles – the Kings of Bulgaria, Norway, Romania, Swaziland and Tonga; the Queen of Denmark; the Crown Princes of Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Greece, The Netherlands and Sweden; the Princes of Belgium, Lesotho, Monaco, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Yugoslavia; the Sultan of Brunei and the Emir of Qatar. Other notables included David Beckham, Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) and Elton John and his partner.

Glorious things of thee are spoken Zion

The ceremony was rich and meaningful, tying in nearly a thousand years of British history as the married couple signed the marriage register in the chapel of Edward the Confessor (1003-1066; the English king of Scandinavian origin). The ancient Welsh tune Cwm Rhondda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cwm_Rhondda) was sung to the English words “Guide me O Thou great Redeemer” (originally ‘great Jehovah’), recalling the Jewish nation’s wandering in the Sinai desert and their subsequent conquering of the Promised Land of Israel. This had also been the final hymn at Princess Diana’s memorial service at Westminster Abbey in 1997.

The Duchess of Cambridge (Catherine’s new title) walked the aisle to the anthem “I was glad” based on Psalm 122 and composed in 1902 by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. The psalm recalls the joy that Jewish pilgrims felt as their feet entered the gates of Jerusalem, and as they remembered God’s unshakeable covenant to establish the Jewish dynasty of David as sovereign over the entire globe.

Toward the close of the service, the traditional hymn “Jerusalem” was sung. Martin Chilton of The Telegraph waxed eloquently, “Jerusalem, a hymn which has been banned (and) been an official anthem of the England football team … was hailed as one of the triumphs of today’s royal wedding” (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-wedding/8483364/Royal-Wedding-Jerusalem-triumphant-at-Kate-and-Wills-wedding.html).

The words to “Jerusalem” were penned by William Blake (the equivalent of a New Ager in his day) in 1804. He based his hymn on an apocryphal legend that Yeshua visited Roman England in a post-resurrection appearance, walking through “England’s green and pleasant land.”

The Mormon community believes something similar – that Jesus appeared in America after His crucifixion, while some British Replacement theology streams which advocate British Israelite teaching look upon Britain as God’s new Jerusalem. Traces of this false teaching can be found in the legends surrounding the Stone of Scone, where its origins are supposedly found in Jacob’s Bethel pillow-stone (www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Scotland-History/StoneofDestiny.htm), or the pedestal of the Ark of the Covenant in Solomon’s Temple. The Dean of Southwark Cathedral banned the hymn from his services in 2008, stating that the hymn “was not in the glory of God” being too nationalistic and having no praise of God in the words.

A dress rehearsal for the future

Many aspects of this glorious wedding capture our hearts and dreams. They also point to future events which will be even more breathtaking in their power, pomp, ceremony and majesty.

The Scriptures tells us that, though Britannia once ruled the waves, the God of the Bible has already made a promise that He intends to keep regarding the final and most glorious world empire. In Psalm 89 He declares (concerning the Jewish King David and his dynasty) that “his horn shall be exalted, and I will set his hand over the sea and his right hand over the rivers … I will make him My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth… My mercy I will keep for him forever, and My covenant shall stand firm with him; his seed also I will make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of Heaven” (Psalm 89:24-29).

Psalm 102 prophesies that the kings of the world will gather in a Jewish Jerusalem, there to worship YHVH the God of Jacob: “To declare the name of YHVH in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem, when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to worship YHVH” (Psalm 102:21-22).

Isaiah 60 describes the restoration of the Jewish people back to the land from which they were scattered (see also Jeremiah 31:10-14): “The sons of foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you. For in My wrath I struck you, but in My favor I have had mercy on you. Therefore your gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day or night, that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations, and their kings in procession. For the nation and kingdom which will not serve you shall perish, and those nations shall be utterly ruined” (Isaiah 60:10-12).

The crumbling of an Empire

The nation of England has been mightily used in history. Waves of world evangelization and the dissemination of the Scriptures came from the shores of Great Britain to nearly every country on the face of the globe. At one point the United Kingdom was the most powerful in the world. The sun never set on the British Empire, it was said (though the phrase has its origins with Xerxes and Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_empire_on_which_the_sun_never_sets).

Yet Britain’s perfidious treatment of the Jewish people during WWII, and its collusion with the Arab world to crush the nascent Jewish state (see The Secret War against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish people; https://www.amazon.com/Secret-War-Against-Jews-Espionage/dp/0312156480) led to its empire sudden crumbling and its gospel and imperial torches being passed to the United States of America.

Though many are not aware of this, modern Britain is one of the most ardent advocates of Replacement theology and Christian anti-Israel activism. The bitter and poisoned vines of these positions have wrapped themselves around the history, religion and theology of the British church.

As we note the wonderful biblical references in the Royal wedding hymns (the allusions to the Jewish people, their wilderness wanderings, divine guidance and provision; their divine mandate to conquer and settle the Promised Land as an eternal inheritance; the centrality of Jerusalem and the priority of the Jewish people’s calling), we also note Paul’s prophetic warning to all nations (including England) not to boast against or be prideful towards the Jewish people and their priority calling and gifts (Romans 11:18-29).

Windsor and David – football scrum or divine court order?

How could it possibly be that a nation like England which has seen itself as the international purveyor of the truths of God, simultaneously sing about the biblical promises given to the Jewish people while appropriating these covenant promises only for itself, for King Arthur and for Glastonbury? How can that nation at its high feasts and most joyous celebrations treat the promises of God to the sons of Jacob (the apple of His eye; see Deut. 32:8-10) as unimportant or no longer valid – an irrelevant and arcane theological quibble? (Jeremiah 30:16-17; 33:17-26; Gen. 12:3).

A spiteful but genteel jealousy has infiltrated much of the body of Christ in Britain. It has subtly but strategically cast its soiled shadow over even England’s happiest and brightest occasions of joy. Heaven forfend that the glories of the House of Windsor should ever compete with the House of David, whose throne shall be established forever (1 Chronicles 17:14).

As we pray for the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Prince William and his lovely bride Catherine), let us also beseech the God of the Hebrews for this once great nation – 

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

Something is happening here, Mister Jones

At the onset of the youth revolution in 1965, Bob Dylan penned “Ballad of a Thin Man” (© Special Rider Music). The most famous line in that song was “Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?” Mr. Zimmerman’s reference may have been a snipe at music critics who misunderstood or belittled his art, but most audiences understood it to refer to an older generation who had little sympathy for rock music, counter-culture lifestyles or revolutions of any kind.

So much is changing so quickly these days, that many of us daily feel something like Mister Jones. Business is no longer business as usual, and no one even knows exactly how to keep up with the Joneses any more. Physical shakings (New Zealand) morph into tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns (Japan), while Arab street riots turn into inconclusive revolutions (Egypt) or start-stop warfare (Libya). Western economic fears multiply while the U.S. government nearly grinds to a halt. Something is happening here for sure, and we are not at all sure what it is.

Freeze-frame in the Middle East

Street protests have spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East. From west to east Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen find the specter of popular uprising haunting the casbahs of the Arab world. In two cases (Tunisia and Egypt) this has led to an interim change of government. Corrupt pro-Western police states which kept a lid on Islamist revolutionaries have had their dictators summarily removed.

In Egypt’s case the armed forces have stepped in, men from the same background and standing as President Hosni Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood is waiting in the wings for the right moment to transform Egypt into a Shari’a-compliant Islamist state dedicated to the destruction of the West and Israel (www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/03/egypt-muslim-brotherhood-west-democracy).

In Tunisia, similarly, the secular dictatorship of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was overthrown in the Jasmine Revolution of January 2011, to be initially replaced by Mohamed Ghannouchi (who was then forced to resign for being too close to Ben Ali).  At this point Rashid al-Ghannouchi (no relation), Islamist leader of the Muslim Brotherhood-related al-Nahda (renaissance) party (www.hudson-ny.org/1838/rachid-ghannouchi-islamist) has returned to Tunisia after 22 years in exile (www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12318824).

In many countries the stage is being set for an Islamist takeover. In Jordan the stridently Islamist Salafi movement (led by people like Jarrah al-Rahahla and Sa’ad al-Hunaiti) is actively leading protests against King Abdullah (www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=216710), causing great consternation to the powers that be.

The Shi’ite unrest in Bahrain (where the U.S. bases its Fifth Fleet) has generated grave Western concern as to Iranian involvement in events. Iran calls itself a Shi’ite republic, yet its form of democracy is quite different from that of, say, the Netherlands (www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1367020/Bahrain-protests-Oil-militant-Islam-terrifying-dilemma-facing-West.html). Saudi Arabia’s recent pre-approved invasion of Bahrain indicates that it sees Iran-linked developments there as threatening Saudi and Sunni security in the Gulf.

The country of Yemen is also faced with much popular unrest. The overthrow of its government, however, would remove one of the few erstwhile allies that the U.S. has in the Middle East, and allow the burgeoning al-Qa’eda related forces sequestered in the Hadramaut deserts to go from strength to strength.

The combined weight of these various riots, rebellions and political instabilities is not occurring in a vacuum. Islamist jihadi forces are actively struggling for control of one of the world’s most strategic areas – whether in terms of oil geopolitics or of anti-Israel and anti-Western military goals.

How to pray?

“They got him outnumbered about” fourteen to one…

A recent vote at the U.N.’s Security Council (Friday, February 18, 2011) showed 14 out of the 15 members declaring that Jewish restoration and rebuilding on  its own God-given land is illegal and “a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace” in the Middle East and the world. These nations were backed up by 80 countries in the General Assembly that co-sponsored the resolution (BBC says 130 countries – www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12512732).

The fourteen countries of the Security Council who voted in favor of the resolution are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Columbia, France, Gabon, Germany, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, Russian Federation, South Africa and the United Kingdom (www.un.org/sc/members.asp). The United States was the only Security Council member that vetoed (and blocked) this declaration.

Before the veto, however, Susan E. Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. offered to endorse a U.N. declaration affirming that the United States also does “not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity.” After the veto she declared that the U.S. rejects “in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity” (https://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2011/156816.htm). The U.S. veto had simply to do with putting the brakes on a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood – it was a question of politically correct timing and not of support for Israel.

So there you have it. The majority of the world (130 out of 192 countries) is on record as opposing what God is doing in restoring His Jewish people to the mountains of Samaria, to the Golan, to Hebron and to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 30:3, 8; 31:5-24; Amos 9:11-15; Micah 4; 7:14 etc.). Even the one country that vetoed the resolution took pains to declare that it also was opposed to the principle of full Jewish restoration.

The stage has been set by the nations. Declarations against Israel are on their way to becoming boots on the ground. The prophesied rebellion of the nations in Psalm 2 has moved up a notch, and is closer to final fulfillment than at any previous time in human history. But it is important to remember – though hunting season may have been declared by the nations à la Jeremiah 16:16, it is the God of Israel who always has the last word in these encounters (Jeremiah 30:13-17).

The calm before the storm

Rioting streets in the Arab and Islamic nations are hogging most of the TV chatter. But only a few inches underneath the surface of the Middle Eastern “lake,” a quieter and more menacing hum is heard – the intense preparation for another all-out war against Israel.

Iran is doggedly sending advanced Chinese missiles (as well as Iranian variants) through Syria, Turkey and Egypt to Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip (https://china-defense.blogspot.com/2011/03/chinese-designed-c704-on-displayfor-all.html). Iran has also been sending weapons through Sudan, some of which were recently intercepted by Israel (www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12986864). Occasionally it seems that even the Islamist arms-smuggling kingpins are eliminated in bold and unattributed cloak-and-dagger operations (www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1970586,00.html).

According to a recent WikiLeaks document, Hezbollah in Lebanon has re-armed with close to 40,000 rockets (www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2011/me_iran0442_04_14.asp) and can fire an average of 500 a day at Israel in the next round of hostilities (including 100 per day at Tel Aviv). Syria has at its command an arsenal of advanced SCUD missiles armed with chemical warfare ability, while Iran is expected to have atomic-tipped cruise missiles in the very near future.

How to pray?

Shake it to the East

The gospel singer Sam Cooke had a hit in 1963 called “The Wobble.” This song was one of the first to use the phrase “shake it to the east, shake it to the west.” In light of recent events in Japan, it could well be that these words have a prophetic aspect to them as well.

Back in 1989 a gentleman with prophetic gifting named Bob Jones revealed that the Lord had given him a vision of a future big earthquake in Japan. This mighty quake would lead to a tsunami touching America, and following that would come another major earthquake (www.morningstartv.com/prophetic-perspective-current-events/japanese-earthquake-prophesied-20-years-ago-part-1?utm_source=blast) and strong economic shakings. Other prophetic voices have come out since August 2010 with similar revelation.

Each one of us needs to seek the Lord’s face regarding these matters, for the safest place to be is always when one is close to the Lord. Acts 11:26-30 shows how a similar prophetic word in New Testament times was treated seriously by the apostolic leadership in Antioch and in Jerusalem, and how Paul and Barnabas were instructed to take certain practical measures in response to that prophetic word of warning.

The evil and rebellion against God in this world is certainly great, and some of its greatest expressions involve the taking of human life, the destruction of the family, and the targeting of Israel.

The time has passed, I believe, for hoping against hope that this planet can still dodge the silver bullet of judgment. But the time is now, I also believe, to call out to God for the lessening of that judgment (Genesis 18:17-32), for repentance which can lessen the blow (Jonah 4:2, 11) and for the saving of many lives (2 Peter 3:9).

How to pray?

Double portion to the point man

In the armed forces, the point man is the one who scouts ahead of the main force as it presses in to the enemy’s territory. He is the first to trip the land mines, the first to get shot at. Nations can have that cutting edge role as well. Israel is God’s first-born nation (Exodus 4:22; Romans 9:4), His point man in this world.

In some ways the United States is also a point man. It is still the only superpower on the scene. Its culture is the envy of the world, and its music, films, television and fashion set the lead that most of the Western world follows. The U.S. was the first country to recognize the State of Israel de jure, and has been its most decisive friend in international politics and in military matters. But all this is rapidly changing.

Double blessing and double discipline are Israel’s biblical portion (Deuteronomy 21:15-17; Isaiah 40:1-2; 61:7; Romans 1:16; 2:5-11). This spiritual principle may apply in a secondary sense to America as well, for to whom much is given much is required.

How to pray?

The choice is up to you

The Apostle Paul tells us that mature love when it is fully formed casts out all fear (1 John 4:18; Luke 12:4-12). That which we fear is that which we place on a high pedestal. Some would say that which we fear is that which we worship. From that perspective we must fear God alone, and only Him should we worship (Deuteronomy 6:13; Matthew 4:10)!

In days to come and even now, mankind has a choice to make, my friend Bob Jones would say. We can choose to exercise faith – or to embrace fear. We can choose to rest in God’s character, His promises and His word –  or we can run in panic.

Let us be like Mary (or Miriam, her Hebrew name) who chose to sit at Yeshua’s feet and hear His words of life (Luke 10:38-42), rather than get caught up in the pressures and concerns which would turn our relationship with Yeshua into a burdensome and loveless obligation leading to death.

May you have a joyous Passover!

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

Jews and Arabs: one big happy Abrahamic family?

The past twenty years have seen a rise in Israel-related spiritual focus among enthusiastic believers. Concepts like the “One New Man,” the “Restoration of David’s Tabernacle,” and the “Isaiah 19 Highway” have all come into their own, and are currently in vogue. New concepts are exciting, yet sometimes need gentle tweaking to come into godly balance.

In Ephesians 2:14-3:6 Paul teaches on the One New Man, the unique fellowship of Jews and Gentiles in one Messianic body. For many this is a wonderfully rich revelation. At the same time some have not sufficiently grappled with other biblical teachings regarding Israel specifically, that the Jewish people have an irrevocable calling and gifts (Romans 11:28-29), some of which require the Jewish people (including Messianic Jews) to remain “a people who dwells alone, and is not numbered among the nations” (Numbers 23:9). A balanced view on the One New Man requires serious grappling with God’s strategy behind the Jewish distinctive.

The “Restoration of David’s Tabernacle” movement focuses on the heart of David in worship, often with a 24/7 emphasis. The burning renewal of passionate worship and Bible based intercession is a real work of God. Yet the passage often used to bolster this awakening (Amos 9:11) does not refer to worship and intercession at all, but to a physical regathering of Israel to her ancient land, and the restoration of Davidic political government out of Jerusalem extending over the entire globe (see https://davidstent.com/words/, “A Messianic Perspective on the Restoration of David’s Tabernacle”). A balanced view on David’s tabernacle here needs to focus on speeding God’s last-days restoration of His Jewish people.

A third example concerns the “Isaiah 19 Highway” – a prophecy which describes ultimate (but not present) peace between Egypt, Israel and Assyria. A clear reading of that text describes upcoming agony and chaos in Egypt, with Israel somehow involved in that event (Isaiah 19:16-17). Peace is not quite ready to break out in the Middle East, in spite of what seems to be a birth of democracy in Egypt. The opposite is actually true (see “The Bad News from Egypt,” Barry Rubin, www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=208741). A balanced view on the Isaiah 19 highway needs to discern that much turmoil is still yet to come in the Middle East, and that the prophesied peace will only happen after all nations mentioned in that chapter turn to the God of Israel and His anointed Messiah Yeshua.

The Middle East: one big happy Abrahamic family?

The focus in this newsletter is a fourth subject that needs tweaking, Suggestions are rising in various circles that:

For many believers the Middle East is a faraway, romantic and dangerous region. Camels and date palms morph into Armageddon-tinged colors and Shi’ite cruise missiles. Political intrigues, shifting alliances, Arab street riots and the rising price of oil confuse even the most earnest observers.

Many see Arabs and Jews as the original dysfunctional family, one which has perversely devolved into internecine warfare. “Arabs and Jews deserve each other,” is the PC wisdom, “and we really don’t want to get involved.”

For Bible believers neither rose-colored spectacles nor spiritual apathy are the safest response at this time! In order to touch biblical bedrock on this Arab/Abraham/Isaiah 19 issue, we need to remind ourselves of some basic Middle Eastern realities. Three questions need to be asked, and the answers will help us to find our way through the Abrahamic minefield:

“Muslim” is a religious and not an ethnic definition

A Muslim is someone who believes in the principles of Islam, either by virtue of having been raised in a Muslim religious culture or a Muslim country, or who has converted to Islam by having spoken aloud the shahada declaration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada) confessing Allah as deity and Muhammad as Allah’s anointed messenger. A Muslim can be of any ethnic background; his primary identity involves a confession of Islamic faith.

Most Muslims are not Arabs

The Muslim world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisions_of_the_world_in_Islam#Dar_al-Islam_.28House_of_Islam.29) includes a belt of predominantly Islamic countries stretching from Western Sahara to Bangladesh and from Sudan to Kazakhstan. Many followers of Islam are also found in Western Europe, in England and in the former Soviet Union. The biggest Muslim countries in the world are not populated by Arabs.

The top ten Islamic countries in size are Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Morocco (https://pewforum.org/Muslim/Mapping-the-Global-Muslim-Population(18).aspx). Only one of these countries – Egypt – can be considered only partly Arab. Other ethnic streams in Egypt include Copts (Egyptian Christians who lived in Egypt prior to the Islamic conquest in 640 AD) and Black Sudanese.

The conservative estimation is that between 12%-15% of all Muslims are Arabs (https://islam.about.com/od/muslimcountries/a/population.htm). This means that 85-88% of all Muslims are not Arabs.

Only some Arabs are descended from Abraham

The modern term ‘Arab’ is rarely used and not defined in the Scriptures. Instead, tribes associated with specific regions are described. For example, one tribe could be called “the Arameans of Damascus” (2 Samuel 8:5), while another as “the Amorites who reigned in Heshbon” (Numbers 21:34).

The linguistic origin of the term Arab may be related to the word Arava or Arabah – an uncultivated desert wasteland (Deuteronomy 1:1). If that is the case, then the term ‘Arab’ would mean someone who dwells in a desert wasteland (see Genesis 16:12; 25:18; 27:39-40; Isaiah 42:11; Jeremiah 9:26; 25:24; 2 Chronicles 21:16).

The term ‘Arab’ appears in the Bible for the first time in 1 Kings 10:15 to describe Arabian kings who paid tribute to Solomon. In Isaiah 21:13 a prophetic word is spoken against Arabia.

The first extra-biblical use of the word ‘Arab’ is found in an Assyrian inscription from 853 BCE, where Shalmaneser III mentions King Gindibu of mtu arbi (Arab land) as among the people he defeated at the Battle of Karkar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Arabian). This king was a contemporary of Ahab King of Israel.

Ezekiel 27:21 mentions Arabs living in Kedar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qedarite), an area in Saudi Arabia.  Ezekiel 30:5 distinguishes between Arabs and the people of Egypt, referring to them as two different ethnic groups.

Some Arab tribes pre-date Abraham

The original Syrians (the Arameans of Paddan Aram) were a pre-Abrahamic group that many would call Arabs (Genesis 25:20; Deuteronomy 26:5). These Arameans lived in Syria a long time before Abraham was born. The Arameans were pre-Abrahamic Arabs (www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201102048893/Related-news-from-Syria/syrian-archaeologists-3000-year-old-aramean-gods-go-on-show-in-germany.html).

Biblical Egypt was not an Arab country

A dear Egyptian pastor friend told me something that most Egyptian Christians only discuss freely in the privacy of their homes – that the original Coptic Egyptians were actually not Arabs at all. The Bible backs up my friend’s assertion, calling that area ‘the land of Ham.’ “Then Israel entered Egypt; Jacob resided as a foreigner in the land of Ham” (Psalm 105:23, 27; Psalm 78:51).

Ham was one of Noah’s three sons, the others being Shem (father of the Semitic peoples) and Japheth. The land of Ham/Egypt is where some descendants of Noah’s second son Ham dwelt (“The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan” - Genesis 10:1, 6-20). Modern Ethiopia is Cush. Modern Libya is Put. Canaan refers to the Canaanites who settled temporarily in Israel until YHVH sent Joshua in to drive them out (Genesis 15:21; 17:8; Exodus 23:23; Joshua 3:10).

According to the Scriptures Egypt was not an Arab land, but a land given to the sons of Ham. The word ‘Copt’ (used to described these original Egyptians) is most probably an Egyptian mispronunciation of the Greek word for ‘Egyptian’ (the GPT morphing into KPT or Kupti). Egyptian Copts believe that they are the descendants of the original native Egyptians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts).

When jihadi forces conquered Egypt in 640 A.D. they forcibly converted many Copts to Islam, and Copts had to adopt the Arabic language. The Coptic Church continued to use the ancient Coptic language in their liturgies. Centuries of Islamic oppression involved rape of Coptic women as well as forced intermarriage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_Eastern_Christianity:_From_Jihad_to_Dhimmitude). As a result modern Egyptians are a mixed blend – part-Copt, part-Arab and part-Sudanese.

Biblical Assyria was not an Arab country

According to the biblical Table of Nations in Genesis 10:11, Assyria was founded by Nimrod, a descendent of Ham (though see 1 Chronicles 1:17, which suggests a Semitic but pre-Abrahamic origin for Assyria). Nimrod was the son of Cush and the grandson of Ham.

Only part of the Arab nation is descended from Ishmael

The Scriptures tell us that Ishmael’s descendants would become twelve Ishmaelite tribes (Genesis 17:20; 25:13-18). Their dwelling place would be east of Egypt toward Assyria (the area between the Sinai desert, the Great Syrian Desert, the Hejaz and modern Mosul in northern Iraq). They are part of what is today called the Arab nation.

In Genesis 25:1-4 other Arab tribes are mentioned who are not descended from Ishmael but claim Keturah as their matriarch.

Only part of the Arab nation is descended from Esau

The descendants of Esau are listed in great detail in Genesis 36. These tribes are of course descendants of Isaac and not descendants of Ishmael. But since they are not descended through Jacob, they have no claim on the promises to Jacob.

Genesis 36:6 says that Esau moved some distance away from his brother Jacob, to another land called Se’ir (which is southern Jordan today, known as Edom or Idumea is the past).

Many Arabs are descended from Shem and not Abraham

First Chronicles 1:17-27 says that one of Shem’s sons was Aram (perhaps the father of the Arameans) while another was Arphaxad (whose grandson was Eber). Eber had two children – Peleg and Joktan. Joktan is described as the patriarch of many Arab tribes, many of whom can be traced to the Saudi Arabian Hejaz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hejaz) and Hadramaut (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadhramaut) peninsula today.

The Arabic language as a form of linguistic colonialism

When the jihadi forces of Muhammad conquered the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Asia and Central Europe, they enforced a slave status on all those who would not convert to Islam – the dhimmi class (www.dhimmitude.org/). The Arabic language was forced on millions in conquered nations. That is how the whole Middle East came to be predominantly Arabic speaking. Today many confuse Arabic speakers with Arab ethnicity.

Though PC wisdom accepts that Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Libya, Lebanon, Syria and Iran are all Arab countries, historical realities are quite different.

The original peoples west of Egypt were mostly Berbers, a non-Semitic ethnic group which had been conquered by the Romans and had embraced Christianity. Saint Augustine of Hippo was their most famous son (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_people).

Lebanese Christians proudly affirm their origin as a non-Arab and non-Semitic people – as descendants of the great Phoenician culture  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia). Genetic chromosomal markers tie these people in to ethnic groups in Malta and Spain.

The original Syrians, as mentioned above, are Arabs who existed before Abraham, probably descended from Shem through Aram.

The Iranians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_peoples) are a non-Semitic Indo-European people group which settled in Persia (modern Iran). They are predominantly Shi’ite Muslim, but have no Semitic or Abrahamic connection.

A plea for greater biblical care

This short study has a purpose: it is a plea for believers to move up into greater accuracy and discernment when handling the prophetic Scriptures, especially concerning Israel and the Arab world.

Preserving God’s heart for Jews and Arabs

God’s heart for healing in the Middle East

Isaiah 19:23-25 is one snapshot of many that the Scriptures present regarding future international relationships in the Middle East. In this passage land routes between the two countries of Egypt and Assyria (present-day northern Iraq) will buzz with activity. Of course, these roads will go straight through Israel, as did the ancient Via Maris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Maris).

Egypt and Assyria were once the two main Middle Eastern superpowers, especially at the beginning of the first millennium BC. Isaiah prophesies that there will not only be travel between these two countries who were once at loggerheads, but they will also worship YHVH together. This indicates a latter-day revival in both countries.

At the same time Isaiah 19 refers to Egypt going through a future period of oppression and suffering under cruel dictators. The text refers to an Egyptian city which will suffer unusual destruction (verse 18), as well as a very real terror that Egypt will have concerning the Jewish people (who will be used by YHVH to severely discipline the country of Egypt – verses 16-17).

After these severe mercies, there will be peace in the western Middle East. The whole world will acknowledge a worldwide blessing that will flow from these three countries (verse 24). God blesses the three countries of Egypt, Assyria and Israel jointly (verse 25), declaring that Egypt is His people, Assyria is the work of His hands, and Israel His special inheritance and His first-born nation (see Exodus 4:22)!

Isaiah’s vision and God’s heart for the Middle East are huge. They encompass strategic nations in this region. But they also fiercely maintain the distinctive gifts, calling and land borders of Israel, and insist that the entire Jewish people will be regathered home, to be the exclusive and sovereign possessors of their own Promised homeland.

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

Tampering with Abraham’s Last Will and Testament

Even as Egypt was shaking in the throes of revolution last week, spokesmen for Western powers insisted that the real danger to Middle East peace had nothing to do with the numerous demonstrations raging throughout the Arab world (either targeting military dictatorships or advocating Islamist dictatorships) in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait and Iran. The real danger, said some influential Western politicians, lay in the holding up of the so-called ““peace process” – the one dealing with shrinking Israel’s borders and establishing a Judenrein Palestinian state.

Some voices among believers in Messiah Yeshua are sounding amazingly in tune with the above trends. One group in Israel sees no conflict between true biblical reconciliation (between Jews and Arabs) and advocating the establishment of a Palestinian state.  The numerous Scriptures dealing with God’s judgment on those who divide the land are casually dismissed as simply differing theological and political opinions – and not unchanging guidelines in God’s word.

It is certainly true that the issue of ownership of the land of Israel is the world’s hot button today, and the Scriptures declare that this button will turn molten red in the days immediately preceding the return of Israel’s Messiah Yeshua, the Son of David to Jerusalem.

Perhaps the Scriptures can help us move to a biblical solution, What were Abraham’s own intentions for the future of the land of Israel? Did he intend for his different children to share that land, or that only one of his children would receive the promise of  the land as an inheritance? If we discover Abraham’s intentions, does that mean that Jews and Arabs will be willing to carry out Abraham’s last will and testament concerning the land of promise?

In the name of the Father?

Recent comments by President Obama’s former National Security Advisor, Marine General James Jones, at the annual IDC Herzliya Conference (www.herzliyaconference.org/Eng/) show a curious theological slant, even if spoken by the mouth of a Western secular politician.  Jones said, “I’m of the belief that had God appeared in front of President Obama in 2009 and said if he could do one thing on the face of the planet, and one thing only, to make the world a better place and give people more hope and opportunity for the future, I would venture that it would have something to do with finding the two-state solution to the Middle East” (www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=207259). General Jones added that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the “knot that is at the center of mass.”

With all due respect to the theological convictions of the USMC General on this matter, a military man knows that no one can speak in the name of the Father – in the name of the Lord of Armies – without properly delegated authority. An appeal to Presidential political power or even to chic and fashionable words like “reconciliation” – none of these can substitute for real spiritual authority, the kind that can only be found in the word of God.

Go East young man!

When a man is about to die, in most cases his mind is surprisingly focused. His paramount desire is to make absolutely sure that his last will and testament will be carried out to the letter. No fudging, no compromise, no playing favorites (Romans 2:11; 9:7-14). Genesis 25 describes Abraham’s impending death and his preparations for departure (verse 8). It notes that “Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac.  But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east” (Genesis 25:5-6).

Abraham had married another woman, Keturah, after Sarah had died. He had six sons through her, and yet the text calls them “the sons of the concubines.” Though they were physically descended from Abraham, Abraham distinguished between them and his son of promise Isaac. When he gave them parting inheritance gifts, he sent them “east of Eden” – far away from the land of Israel. That inheritance had been promised to Isaac alone.

Dedan and Sheba, Jokshan and Midian – these sons of Keturah settled as Arab tribes scattered across the deserts of Arabia.

Abraham’s purpose was clear – only Isaac and his children, the people of promise, would have Abraham’s blessing to live in the future land of Israel.  

Abraham’s blessings are Isaac’s

The Scriptures tell us that the choosing of Isaac as the sole inheritor of the land was not an accident. It was part of God’s original plan. God had told Abraham repeatedly that this would be so. Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him for righteousness.

The first recorded communication between YHVH and Abraham concerns the land as an inheritance to the Jewish people: “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you…To your seed I will give this land” (Genesis 12:1,7).

Later YHVH said to Abram … “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your seed forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you” (Genesis 13:14-17).

When YHVH cut the covenant with Abraham, the land as an exclusive inheritance to the Jewish people was again at the center of the revelation:

He also said to him, “I am YHVH, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”  But Abram said, “YHVH Adonai, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” …As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then YHVH said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day YHVH made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites” (Genesis 15:7-8, 12-20).

No longer Canaan but Israel

The Scriptures tell us that the land promises to the Jewish people are for the whole people for time and eternity.  Even the name of the land will no longer be called “Canaan” and the previous Canaanite inhabitants will have no claim to the land or live there again. Those who are attempting to name parts of the land of Israel “Palestine” in honor of the Arab Palestinians (though the term actually comes from an ancient Roman attempt to curse the land by renaming the land after the Philistines, the biblical enemies of David) should consider YHVH’s prophetic precedent here.

“I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7-8).

What about Ishmael?

The Scriptures tell us unequivocally that Ishmael and his seed will never inherit the land of Israel:

“Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.” The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your seed will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring” (Genesis 21:10-13).

Even the Angel of the Lord’s prophecy in Genesis 16 makes it clear that Ishmael’s seed will live “opposite from,” or “facing” or “in hostility to” the Jewish people – in common speech, not sharing the same land with Isaac, and not kindly disposed to Isaac either!

“The Angel of YHVH also said to her, ‘You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for YHVH has heard your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers’” (Genesis 16:11-12).

What started out as the mocking of Sarah and Isaac by Hagar and Ishmael (Genesis 21:9; 16:4) ends up as hatred of the Jewish people. Yet God can even heal this in Messiah Yeshua! Nevertheless, this need for healing among Ishmael’s seed needs to be squarely confronted and resolutely handled.

Borders are God’s idea

The prophetic word known as the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 31:30) transmits much important revelation. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Moses declares that “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided all mankind, He set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For YHVH’s portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; He guarded him as the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:8-10).

In this passage God makes it crystal clear that it is He alone who establishes national borders. He describes Israel’s borders in great detail in the Bible (e.g., Genesis 15:19-20, etc.).

Deuteronomy 32 teaches that He actually sets the borders for all nations based on His priority purposes for the Jewish people. There is even a mystical connection between the borders of all countries and the amount of Jewish people on the face of the earth!

To restate this point more clearly, it is not the Arab world, the EU, the USA, the Quartet or political chic that has any authority to pontificate about the borders of the Jewish state. According to YHVH, the matter is decided, the case is closed, and it is His theological and political opinions which win the debate. What will actually change is the borders of all other nations, based on their treatment of the Jewish people and their state (Genesis 12:3; Jeremiah 30:16-17, etc.).

Abraham’s blessings are mine

The Scriptures are clear regarding Ishmael. They are equally clear regarding Esau (also known as Edom or Se’ir), Isaac’s first-born son through Rebekah. Esau/Edom and his seed will never inherit the land of Israel.

Esau’s potential inheritance of the land was decisively blocked not once but twice – once through God’s prophetic word (Genesis 25:21-23) and the second time due to his apathy and unbelief concerning the promises – which led to his abdication of his own firstborn right of primogeniture (Genesis 25:29-34).

Ezekiel brings a prophetic rebuke to the Edomite people regarding their evil last-days attempts to claim the land of Israel as belonging to the Arab nations. Though the matter was closed as far as the promises of God are concerned, there remained (and remains) an active Arab movement attempting to violate God’s express will in the Bible, by attempting to wrest control of the Jewish state (in part or the whole) from the Jewish people.

In the last-days scenario of Ezekiel 36 the God of Israel calls the Edomite people “His enemies” – those who are attempting to “make the ancient heights their possession” (verse 2). YHVH declares that the heart motives behind these actions are “glee and malice” (verse 5), and that their treatment of the land of Israel has been to “ravage” and “plunder” it with “scorn” (verses 3, 5-7). He also faults the nations who stand with Edom’s claims, accusing them of “malicious talk, slander, ridicule and scorn” towards the Jewish people and their state (verses 3-7).

Ezekiel’s prophetic word is simply not what many would expect as being sufficiently “PC” or “politically correct.” Perhaps British Foreign Minister Hague might even call Ezekiel’s tone a trifle “belligerent” – a term he recently used to rebuke Prime Minister Netanyahu for questioning Egypt’s reliability in light of the civil disturbances (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/8312527/William-Hague-calls-on-Israel-to-drop-its-negative-stance-on-Egypt.html).

To speak plainly, those who advocate for a Palestinian state to be set up on the land of Israel violate the spirit and letter of Ezekiel’s prophetic word. To advocate for a division of the land between Jew and Arab will ultimately bring down God’s burning zeal and judgment when He comes to judge the nations in Joel 3 and Zechariah 14.

May the Lord keep all of His beloved children far from such a fate! But may the Lord also help us to treat believers with whom we disagree with love and honor, even if they somehow behave like enemies.

One last thought – is it not ironic that the Arab nation, many of whom believe that they are descended from Abraham, take pride in that claim while simultaneously denying Abraham’s express will and testament – that he bequeathed the Promised Land to Isaac alone. To honor the father is to honor his will. And to honor the Father is to honor His will as communicated in His holy word.

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

“You say you want a revolution”

The year was 1968. The thought on everybody’s mind was revolution.

The Vietcong’s January Tet Offensive had triggered demonstrations throughout the United States and Britain. In March London’s Grosvenor Square hosted a riot across the street from the American Embassy. Paris was convulsed by general strikes and student riots in May ‘68. President de Gaulle had even been helivaced to Baden-Baden in Germany on May 29, fearing a storming of the Elysée Palace.

These events were the matrix which gave birth to two rock n’ roll anthems – “Revolution” by the Beatles, and “Street Fighting Man” by the Rolling Stones. Though communist revolution never went over in a big way in the West, one can easily agree that revolutionary vision was a heady drug that even today has the power to inspire mass movements.

Think the time is right for Palace revolution

Mick Jagger declared that everywhere he heard “the sound of marching, charging feet, boy!” Over the past few days the TV screens of the world have fixated on the streets and squares of Cairo and Alexandria. The West’s TV “talking head” news commentators – most who speak no Arabic, are ignorant of Middle Eastern history and who really are “new kids on the block” – have found themselves waxing eloquent about the meaning and direction of racing developments.

In a grand total of eighteen days, the leader of the Arab world’s largest country has been forced to resign the presidency and flee his palace in Cairo (Egypt’s capital city) for the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. From CNN to Al Jazeera, BBC to Sky News, there is universal agreement that this street revolution is rapidly whisking Egypt into the modern pro-Western democratic era. PC perspective is that Cairo is experiencing what the Thirteen American Colonies underwent in April 1775 during the Battles of Lexington and Concord, or what Paris experienced in May 1789 during the French Revolution.

The revolution that failed

There are other historical paradigms, though, and they are far less cheery.

The Russian February Revolution of 1917 (centered in Petrograd – modern Saint Petersburg) turned sour.  It achieved stunning short-term goals, including the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the collapse of Imperial Russia and the end of the Romanov dynasty. Yet the revolution (like the present Egyptian demonstrations) seemed to have no clear leadership or formal planning. Alexander Kerensky quickly became Chairman and Prime Minister of this Russian Provisional Government, until he was overthrown on November 6-7 1917 by the Bolsheviks in their Great October Revolution. The rise of a cruel Communist dictatorship led first by Lenin and then by Stalin insured that democracy and free elections would be banished from Russia for over 70 years.

The popular riots in Iran in 1978-79 led to a national referendum on March 29-30 1979, with 98.2% voting for the immediate establishment of an Islamic Republic, whose constitution would be determined at a later date. But the rise of a cruel Shi’ite dictatorship led by Ayatollah Khomeini insured that democracy and free elections would be banished for the foreseeable future.

Egypt – a long roster of military dictatorships

In 1881 Egyptian Colonel Ahmed Urabi attempted a national-military revolt against the British. His efforts were soundly defeated, but the successful Free Officers Revolt in 1952 looked to Urabi as their prophetic prototype.

In July 1952 a group of nine military officers led by Gamal Abd el-Nasser (including Lieutenant-Colonel Anwar al-Sadat) overthrew King Farouk I (a British puppet), abolished the constitutional monarchy and established a military dictatorship called a “republic.” Since 1952 Egypt has been ruled by military dictatorships. President Nasser died in 1970 and Sadat replaced him, yet the military dictatorship remained. When Sadat was assassinated on October 6 1981 by jihadi terrorists (whose movement was birthed out of the Muslim Brotherhood), he was replaced by Hosni Mubarak, a former Soviet-trained commander of the Egyptian Air Force. Yet once again the military dictatorship remained solidly in place.

What most newscasters have not figured out so far is that, at this moment, though the head of government has resigned, Egypt is still being controlled by a military dictatorship. Yet the world crows about the new democracy in Egypt. The present military junta may lead to real democracy. But it could even more easily lead to a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) takeover – as happened in Gaza with the MB group Hamas in January 2006.

“Pharaoh is dead!”

The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist underground organization dedicated to re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate world empire and shari’a law through jihadi revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood; also see https://davidstent.com/words , February 2006). It was founded in 1928 in the town of Isma’iliya Egypt by Hassan al-Banna. Its credo remains, “Allah is our objective; the Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”

During WWII the Muslim Brotherhood had extensive links with Nazi Germany, while planning for the overthrow of Egypt’s British-controlled government. In November 1948 the organization was banned while planning a military putsch. In response a Muslim Brotherhood agent assassinated Egypt’s Prime Minister Nukrashi Pasha on December 28, 1948.

Thirty three years later, on October 6, 1981 Egyptian Lieutenant Khalid al-Islambouli (a man strongly influenced by the MB offshoot Egyptian Islamic Jihad) assassinated Egyptian President Sadat during a military parade celebrating the October (Yom Kippur) War. As he threw grenades and fired his assault rifle, he yelled out, “Death to Pharaoh!” At his murder trial he again proclaimed, “I have killed Pharaoh and I do not fear death!”

On June 22, 1995 Islambouli’s younger brother Showki nearly succeeded in assassinating President Hosni Mubarak during a state visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

According to Koranic thinking Pharaoh symbolizes a cruel and ungodly ruler, whose rule opposes that of God (www.mediamonitors.net/harunyahya40.html). According to Islamist thinking, secular-leaning military dictators who are not sufficiently committed to Koranic Islam are like the evil ruler Pharaoh. They may be overthrown or assassinated at will (https://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1999/issue3/zeidan.pdf).

Egyptian Prime Minister Nukrashi Pasha and President Sadat were both assassinated by Islamists who believed that they were ridding the world of evil Pharaohs. This is the Islamist context that explains the meaning of the cries heard in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday February 11, 2011 that, with Mubarak’s resignation, “the Pharaoh is dead.” Posters of Mubarak as either a dead Pharaoh or as an Egyptian mummy also abounded during these rallies.

Egyptian anchor Amr Nassef (once imprisoned in Egypt for Islamist ties) declared this Friday on al-Manar (Lebanese Hezbollah TV) with great emotion, “Allahu Akbar (Allah is great)! The Pharaoh is dead! Am I dreaming? I’m afraid to be dreaming!”

Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood adherents believe that their shock troops have managed to cut down three mighty rulers in Egypt (1948, 1981, and now 2011). They are greatly encouraged at recent developments, and see these events as a foretaste of total Islamic revolution in Egypt.

Pharaoh’s army got drownded?

In the old Black gospel hymn Mary is told to cease weeping “cuz Pharaoh’s army got drownded.” But that event at the Red Sea occurred more than 3,400 years ago. Today of course the Egyptian army is very much in the picture! It is not yet clear what role the Egyptian generals will play in upcoming and fast moving Middle Eastern events. As we pray for Egypt, its people and leadership, let’s remember:

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

Riots on the Highway to Egypt

 The land of Egypt is going through convulsions. The Middle East’s most populous country and the cultural center of the Arab world is experiencing riots in the streets. Media spin is trying to describe these events as a domino effect due to Tunisia’s recent “jasmine revolution” – when President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali succumbed to 29 days of popular demonstration and uprising against harsh economic conditions in Tunisia, fleeing to Saudi Arabia for asylum (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011405084.html).

Though the world’s media is trying to prognosticate patterns in these different outbreaks of rioting, most commentators tend to mumble when it gets to the spiritual aspects of modern events. Middle Eastern analysts usually sidestep the perspectives of biblical prophecy as well as the anti-biblical aspects of jihadi Islam. As a result, their investigative reporting lacks the cutting edge that only the word of the Lord can bring.

What is transpiring in the street riots of Tunisia. Jordan, Yemen and Egypt? What is weighing in the balance from a spiritual perspective? How will this influence the Jewish state, and can the Scriptures shed any light on these events?

Smoldering volcanoes

Europe and the Americas have had centuries to stumble into democratic political frameworks, but the Middle East has never truly assimilated these values. Strong secular dictatorships (often led by military generals) rule most of the Arab world, while in a significant amount of countries Islamist tyrants rule with shari’a’s (Islamic law) iron hand.

Syria presents a good example of the former. Its Alawi Islamic leadership (considered a heretical form of Islam) has honeycombed the country with a cruel and ruthless secret police network (mukhabarat), throwing poets and political opposition into fetid torture chambers and prisons. President Bashar Assad came to lead the country by a plebiscite in which there were no other candidates, while his father Hafez came to the presidency through a military coup. Assad’s Ba’ath party regularly wins stunning election victories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Syria), since opposition parties are routinely jailed and tortured, but in any case are not allowed to win more than 30% of the legislature.

The strongest opposition in Syria is the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), an Islamist underground organization dedicated to re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate world empire and shari’a law through jihadi revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood; also see https://davidstent.com/words/,  February 2006). Out of the hothouse of the MB came such streams as the PLO, Hamas and al-Qa’eda. One of the MB’s main centers is as an underground movement in Egypt.

In February 1982 Syrian President Hafez al-Assad directed his military to destroy large portions of the city of Hama with artillery, tank fire and chemical warfare, in order to crush a small band of MB rebels holed up in Hama. Between 17,000 and 40,000 civilians were killed as a result of this military operation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre). Since then Syria has continued a crackdown on MB adherents, for whom the death sentence is legally applicable in Syria.

Democratic oppositions

Though in the Western world democratic opposition parties are the norm, one can better understand the Arab world’s perspective on such matters by recalling the former USSR’s approach. Prior to the collapse of the Communist Party’s hegemony in the Soviet Union, a one-party Marxist state was the only option. In totalitarian regimes (like former Nazi Germany, present-day China, North Korea etc) legal opposition parties do not exist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-party_state).

Whereas Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Jordan officially hold elections, no opposition group can ever come to power through the ballot box. This is a simple fact of life for nearly every Middle Eastern country except Israel. The largest organized opposition within Egypt today is the underground Muslim Brotherhood movement, biding its time during these riots while waiting expectantly in the wings.

The economic frustration in Egypt (where the average salary is less than $2 USD per day) is great. Due to corruption in government and business on the one hand, and a third world infrastructure on the other hand, no immediate improvement in conditions is foreseeable in the near future. These pent-up frustrations in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Algeria etc., have nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinian issue – yet they are like the bubbles and smoke portending an imminent explosion of a volcano – one which can set the whole Middle East on fire.

Democracy – the graft that didn’t take

Western countries tend to approach Middle Eastern politics with a naiveté that borders on being criminally foolish. Ignoring the fact that democracy has never flourished in Arab Islamic countries, the West has been urging dictatorships to hold free elections. One recent example involved strong American pressure on Israel (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012600372.html) to allow transparent elections in the Gaza Strip.

The result of that pressure was seen on January 26, 2006 when the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist party known as Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawima al-Islamiyya, or ‘The Islamic Resistance Movement’) swept to power. In a few short months it orchestrated a violent putsch, kneecapping Palestinian Authority loyalist and throwing key PA people off five-story high buildings.

The Islamist principle here is often described as “one man, one vote, one time.” American attempts at foisting democracy on Gaza resulted in the establishment of a jihadi state on the border of Israel, the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit (still held in an Islamist prison in Gaza), Hamas rocket (1,571) and mortar (1,531) attacks on Israeli cities, towns and farms up to December 26 2008 (and thousands more after that time) and the resulting Israeli military Operation Cast Lead (www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=52&x_article=1581) which began on December 27, 2008.

So far Western efforts at catalyzing democratic elections in the Middle East have backfired, and instead have brought about the rise of Islamist dictatorships.

Choosing between terrible options

The Middle East seems to be caught between military dictatorship and Islamist despotism. One striking example (which still smarts in the West) involves the country of Iran. Once a pillar of American and Israeli strategic planning, this loyal ally of the West was also a despotic secular-leaning dictatorship propped up by a vicious secret police organ known as SAVAK. Secular street riots of students and businessmen in August and September 1978 led to the hasty departure of the Shah, but six months of anarchy eventually led to the establishment not of a democracy but to the rise of the nearly unimaginable cruelty of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic dictatorship.

Highway under construction

One of the clearest passages concerning Egypt’s role in the last days is found in Isaiah 19. The phrase “in that day” is used six times (verses 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24) to describe an end-of-days scenario involving (among other subjects):

As we prayerfully ask God for intercessory strategies concerning the present trembling in Egypt, let us ask God for His mercy on the nation that He calls “Egypt My people” (Isaiah 19:25a), especially as they recognize and bless “Israel My inheritance” (Isaiah 19:25b).

“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the earth. YHVH or armies will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance” (Isaiah 19:23-25).

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

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN  37212-1971 USA

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

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