Revival of the Hitler spirit

The prophet Daniel had no idea what forces would be unleashed when he interceded to God about the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. Major spiritual warfare exploded, with the Archangel Michael and Gabriel wrestling with demonic forces known as the “princes of Persia and Greece” (Daniel 9-10). After the dust settled, Daniel was given revelation of end-time strategies and battles surrounding the sons of Jacob, including one of the clearest prophecies concerning the coming of Messiah, His atoning death and the resurrection of the dead.

The angel Gabriel explained to Daniel that powerful demonic princes control and influence superpowers. The world-shaking empires of Persia (modern Iran) and Greece were not simply mighty kingdoms; they were superpowers “under control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Demonic princes actively influenced Haman’s Persia and Antiochus IV’s Greece. They also influence modern superpowers today.

We need to keep reminding ourselves: the spirits behind Stalin’s atrocities, Hitler’s genocide and jihadi Islam’s terror are not dead. They are very much alive. And they are actively influencing modern superpowers, attempting to turn them against Israel and the Jewish people.

Out of touch with Middle Eastern realities

“East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in the 1890’s. Kipling spoke with authority. He had spent 12 years in India and had a good grasp of both British and Indian cultures.

On the other hand, most Westerners do not have anything close to a realistic grasp of Middle Eastern culture, worldview and logic. One striking example of this – post-Christian secular Westerners find it hard to believe that hatred and violence directed at Israel and the West could be due to spiritual reasons or religious beliefs.

The usual explanations given in the secular media is that poverty, unemployment, lack of “progress” on the Palestinian front – these are the supposed reasons for jihadi violence and anti-Western actions. Since many Westerners have abandoned belief in the personal God of the Scriptures, it is nearly impossible for them to imagine that Middle Easterners could really be motivated by jihadi teachings and worldview.

The Bible and the Iron Lady

A recent release of official papers by the British National Archives reveals a 1980 conversation that British PM Margaret Thatcher had shared with French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing regarding biblical perspectives on Israel’s borders (https://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britaindiplomacyisraelunrestnuclearweapons).

The Iron Lady had told Israeli PM Menahem Begin that his policies on Jewish people repopulating the West Bank through building settlements were “unrealistic” and “absurd.” Thatcher told Giscard d’Estaing that Begin’s “response was that Judea and Samaria had been Jewish in biblical times and that they should therefore be so today.” She then added that she “had never had a more difficult man to deal with.”

The same sentiments expressed by Thatcher could well be spoken by many Western world leaders today. When a society casually dismisses biblical promises as unrealistic and absurd, it is no wonder that superpower leaders simply pooh-pooh Islamist threats of unending jihad and mass murder against the Jewish people and their state.

Looking through a glass darkly

Western media tend to respond with secular disbelief when confronted with Quranic teachings on jihad and genocide. Islamic leaders who issue those calls are dismissed as “radical,” “extremist,” “militant” and “primitive.” In the West there is a stubborn unwillingness to be intellectually honest, and to grapple with this uncompromising and unappetizing message found in the source texts of Islam.

Western intellectuals often create a false dichotomy involving “good” and “bad” Islamic streams. “Fundamentalist” Islam (perhaps like secular views on “fundamentalist Christianity”?) is labeled reactionary and bad, while a virtual reality called “progressive Islam” is pushed as the antidote to all the West’s problems. The truth here is that this Unitarian-like form of “progressive Islam” is purely a Western creation, and not at all an accurate reflection of the Quran and the Hadith (Islam’s two central sources of law and theology).

In these times, when the Middle East is trembling on the precipice of an Islamist-energized world war, to behave like a Western secular ostrich is a modern form of “fiddling while Rome burns.”

A picture tells a thousand words

We would like to make you aware of the following 23 minute on-line video (https://vimeo.com/16779150), called “New Trends in Arab Anti-Semitism” and published by MEMRI (https://www.memri.org/), the Middle East Media Research Institute. MEMRI translates Arabic language media (print, TV, film etc.) and makes the fruit of their research available in real time to governments, think tanks and even the UN.

This video was presented to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland on September 28 2010. It is a collage of clips taken from Arab TV stations in Egypt, Hamas-controlled Gaza, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries in the Middle East. Islamic religious teachers, preachers and media commentators openly communicate their perspectives on jihad and genocide against the Jewish people.

No holds are barred. Even rare Nazi film footage of torture and murder of Jews is presented approvingly by top Islamic clerics. This video will help you to understand better what the spiritual forces opposing the Jewish people and their state are actually propagating. Caution should be used for young or sensitive viewers regarding this video.

The spirit of Hitler is on the move

This astounding video presentation reveals that the anti-Semitic propaganda and murderous call for mass murder of the Jews used by the Nazis in the 1930’s are commonplace in modern Middle Eastern media. Hitler would feel right at home watching Egyptian, Saudi or Gaza TV programs.

During WWII the famous intercessor Rees Howell led a small band of praying people. This intercessory community prayed for the Allies’ military success on a battle by battle basis. They interceded for the protection of the Jewish people from Hitler’s murderous hands, and for the restoration of the Jewish people to their Promised Land of Israel.

Were Rees Howell alive today, he would be mobilizing world prayer –

for the protection of the Jewish people from jihadi Islam’s murderous hands
for the restoration of the Jewish people to Israel
for the full salvation of the Jewish people through Yeshua the Messiah.

Pray with us in this new year of 2011 for these same burdens which are on God’s heart (Romans 9:2)!

Thanks for standing with us. 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

Propping up Ahab – False positives and the prophetic

“Where seldom is heard a discouraging word”

“Home on the range” is a famous American folk song (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_on_the_Range). Known as the unofficial song of the American West, as well as the state song of Kansas, it describes a pastoral scene where deer and antelope frolic, where buffalo still roam, where there are no clouds in the sky, and where nothing discouraging is ever said.

This idyllic dream of America’s heartland is no more, though great herds of buffalo can be found roaming on Ted Turner’s 152,341 acre Montana ranch (www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1599697,00.html). Rugged beauty can still be found in the American Plains and at the foothills of the Rockies, for those who have the love and the time.

Correcting our focus

Idyllic dreams are not only found in wistful folksongs about days gone by. Sometimes those same perspectives pop up like Indian paintbrush wildflowers – in what is known as the prophetic movement. Some of these rose-colored blossoms roam the internet like the buffalo of yore, and occasionally can be observed frolicking at conferences. Here are three “prairie fire” species whose claims bear thoughtful evaluation:

Some suggest that prophetic words should only be positive, and should steer far away from controversy. The result seems to be a predominating focus on words concerning personal peace and prosperity.

Though 95% of the Scriptures focus on Israel and the Jewish people, it seems that in actual practice, most of the publicized prophetic words avoid these subjects. As a result, Scriptures dealing with the Jewish people’s restoration are being applied nearly exclusively to individual personal needs.

Some folks are now saying that through prophetic revelation and ministry, ever increasing manifestation of the kingdom of God will decisively eclipse even suffering and martyrdom. This eschatological emphasis is one-sided, and again has the unintended result of relegating the Bible’s focus on end-time events (vis-à-vis the Jewish people and the Middle East) to the deep background.

Positive thinking versus God’s thoughts

“The one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort” (1 Corinthians 14:3). Paul’s words have been a scriptural guideline for sound ministry over the centuries. Those who speak what God has on His heart should make sure that these abovementioned emphases are also their own.

At the same time, Paul’s brief description here is not exhaustive. The rest of the Scriptures also have something to say. They teach us that prophetic ministry also involves exhortation, visions of future events, rebuke – as well as many other facets.

With the spread of awareness about the prophetic since the mid 1980’s (mostly centered in America), and with the desire to make the prophetic user-friendly, there has also come a desire to make the prophetic politically correct. Extreme makeover is not only a TV concept; the spirit of the age can also blunt the edge of the prophetic.

Is the God of Old Testament prophecy still the same today?

Bible believers accept that YHVH split open the waters of the sea and drowned Pharaoh’s anti-Jewish army. They accept as true that the finger of God caused agony to the Egyptians through the Ten Plagues (Exodus 8:19), and that God brought disasters of nature against Israel or Egypt (Joel 1; Isaiah 19; Ezekiel 29-30). Believers even acknowledge that God has raised up warlike nations who commit atrocities in battle against His Chosen People (Isaiah 10; Ezekiel 38:4; Joel 3:2).

Yet some of these same believers find it hard to believe that the God of Israel would get involved in our day – either in defense of His people Israel (Jeremiah 30:10-17), or to shake up an unbelieving world. They may have no problem believing that God will judge Israel, but do have a problem believing that God judges and will judge anti-Israel attitudes and actions.

The God of the Bible is the same yesterday, today and forever. He continues to do His mighty deeds (Judges 6:13) and His “strange, unusual and extraordinary deeds” (Isaiah 28:21) in our day as well. It is not especially wise to limit God, in an attempt to either neuter Him or tame Him. The Lord of Armies cannot be stymied by human straitjackets. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, Aslan is not a tame lion.

Here is a biblical story that illustrates the above teaching.

Marriage – is what brings us together today

David’s descendant King Jehoshaphat of Judah (873 -849 BC approx.) made a strategic political pact with Ahab the evil King of Israel, marrying off his son Jehoram to Ahab’s daughter Athaliah (2 Kings 8:18), and binding his nation to a spiritual alliance with Ahab’s Lebanese wife Jezebel. In a short span of time Baal worship became a stumbling stone for the Jewish people, and only the zealous prophetic hammer blows of God’s triumvirate (Elijah, Elisha and Jehu) would cleanse the land.

Spiritual compromise and sacred prostitution became widespread. Even prophetic ministry (exercised in concert with prophetic guilds/schools known as “sons of the prophets” – see 2 Kings 2, 4, 6, 9) was completely co-opted. Clear-eyed courage was overshadowed by the desire to have access to power-brokers, and by the hunger to be pleasing to the monarchy.

Second Chronicles 18 describes a chilling situation where 400 court-supported prophets ministered in the name of YHVH (18:5, 10-11, 23), enthusiastically backing up King Ahab’s military schemes. These prophets were ‘within the camp.’ It’s important to remember that all 400 ‘carried union cards.’ They had bona fides. They represented YHVH’s officially recognized prophetic guilds, and not the Canaanite demonic priesthoods of Baal Zephon, Baal Shamin or Baal Zebul.

400 Jews, 1 opinion

Let’s zoom in on the biblical story: King Ahab of Israel (the ten Northern tribes) is about to wage war against Syria (the King of Aram). Feeling the need for more boots on the ground, he turns to the Davidic dynasty – to King Jehoshaphat of Judah (the two Southern tribes) – and asks him to join in planning and fighting.

Jehoshaphat is already in up to his neck. He is being called on to honor his military-political alliance with Ahab. His son has married Jezebel’s daughter. And now even his public machismo is on the line. Ahab has gathered 400 prophets of YHVH to a public rally in his capital city of Shomron (Samaria in English). They are parading around and prophesying ecstatically of Aram’s imminent defeat.

Nevertheless King Jehoshaphat feels a bit uneasy. As it is said in Yiddish, “Epes shmeckt nisht gut” – something doesn’t quite smell right. He asks Ahab if there happens to be one more prophet of YHVH who somehow had not made it to the public event – a minority opinion. Ahab ruefully acknowledges that there actually is one more prophet of YHVH who was deliberately not invited. His name is Michayah (“who is like YAH?”) son of Yimla.

Is the prophetic always positive?

Ahab had a good reason not to invite Michayah. “I hate him,” says Ahab, “for he never prophesies good concerning me but always evil” (2 Chronicles 18:7, 17).

Rule one: a politically correct prophet wants to be accepted, and as a result his words aim to please man and not God. But a truly successful prophetic ministry in God’s eyes speaks the truth regardless of human threats or social pressures.

Is the prophetic always encouraging?

When Ahab’s delegation comes to fetch Michayah, they plead with him to bring a politically correct word (18:12-13): “Behold, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king.” The Hebrew says that they speak “with one mouth.” “So let your words be like one of them and speak favorably.” The New KJV says, “Speak encouragement!” The Hebrew says “Speak good.” In Ahab’s day good news was evidently at a premium! This was not due to God’s basic inability to bless. The unfavorable words were God’s response to Ahab’s continuing disobedience and willful rebellion. Michayah’s prophetic words here were a response to a rotten and evil political system.

Rule two: a politically correct prophet tends to stay far away from touching on exhortation, rebuke and the “heavy three” – sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8). His words try to be “uniformly encouraging.” But a prophet who finds favor in God’s sight, communicates God’s heart even if in the short term some feathers get ruffled – and they may be his own (Matthew 14; Mark 6)!

Ahab’s complaint

When Kings Jehoshaphat and Ahab heard Michayah’s prophetic word, Ahab burst out, “Didn’t I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, only bad!” (18:17). It is clear that Ahab had received many words from the prophet of God, and that most of them were not encouraging. Again, the prophetic words were not because God was having a bad hair day. These words were God’s response to Ahab. They are what God thought about Ahab’s evil choices.

Rule three: don’t let anyone do plastic surgery on your prophetic words. Don’t adulterate what God wants to say in order to win friends and influence people. The world is desperately hungry to hear from God. They want to know about coming judgment, about YHVH’s ability to protect those who trust in Him, and about His rewards for all who honor Him. Don’t pollute God’s words by soft-peddling His truth. Speak His truth in humility, in kindness, without ungodly rage or bitterness, with wisdom, court etiquette and encouragement – but DO SPEAK IT (Amos 3:8)!

God plus one is a majority

Mark Twain once said, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” Michayah was one man facing down four hundred prophets of YHVH – real prophets who had lost their courage and cutting edge. These were prophets who had lost their anointing, but had gained national credibility. 400 to 1 are pretty daunting odds. That is one quarter of one percent. Yet it was Michayah’s prophetic word that won the day. His prophetic words even got enscripturated!

Sometimes being faithful means that you will feel lonely. It happened to Moses. It happened to Elijah and Elisha. It happened to David and Paul. It certainly happened to Yeshua. Consider yourself in good company when it happens to you. It is part of “the lonely walk of the man of faith.”

Propping up Ahab

The final scene in Ahab’s life was tragic. He ignored Michayah’s prophetic word. He went into battle as a coward, concealing his real identity, while forcing the King of Judah to draw fire. An arrow shot “at random” (1 Kings 22:34) penetrated between the scales of Ahab’s armor, fatally wounding him. He withdrew to a commanding hill – supposedly hale and hearty – where all could see him, and had himself propped up in his chariot as the lifeblood drained from his body onto the floor (1 Kings 22:35).

The men who helped prop Ahab up and guarded his chariot as he gasped for breath were eyewitnesses to the truth of Michayah’s prophetic words (1 Kings 22:17, 28, 36).

Our calling as those who would prophetically communicate God’s heart is really not to prop up Ahab, but to speak as it were the very words of God to those who need to hear them (1 Peter 4:11).

Here are two closing thoughts:

The lion’s share of God’s prophetic word in the Bible contains huge amounts of revelation, strategy, heart and encouragement concerning Israel and the Jewish people. Yet so many public prophetic words issued today stay far away from this subject that is so close to God’s heart. So many modern publically issued prophetic words focus on personal fulfillment, peace and prosperity. This is a spiritual imbalance and it needs to be corrected.

Though the Lord God of Israel cares about the smallest details of each one of our lives (Matthew 6:27-34), His word is crystal clear – He cares deeply about Israel His firstborn chosen people (Isaiah 63:9) and sets them as an international and spiritual priority (Romans 1:16; 11:28-29). Last days theology in the Bible overwhelmingly focuses on the Jewish people’s regathering, purification and restoration. Last days prophecy should cleave to this biblical plumbline. Let us prophesy according to the heart of God, neither fearing man nor loving ourselves more than God. For the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32).

Thanks for standing with us. 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 peace process and the Prince of Peace

Christmas cheer fills the homes and shopping malls of the Western world, and the words of the angelic chorus echo softly in the background – “Peace on earth to those with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14). The year 2011 is nearly upon us. As the world stumbles further into World War Three, here is a short Messianic meditation on Middle East peace, God’s pleasure and spiritual preparedness.

Peace and the Prince of Peace

Politically correct wisdom declares that establishing a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians is the key to overall Mid-East tranquility. This wisdom was trumpeted in recent weeks by Senator Hilary Clinton (her address to the Brookings Institute www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/12/152664.htm). It was proclaimed by the EU’s Foreign Ministers (www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/118448.pdf for the full text of the “Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process”). And it was expounded by former President George W. Bush in his recently release “Decision Points” pp. 403-410).

In order to ensure such a profound peace, it is argued, Israel must also be forced or cajoled into shrinking its borders and into empowering a Palestinian entity which either supports full-out jihad (Hamas in Gaza) or terrorism and the destruction of Israel through a wave of seven million Palestinians “refugees” (Palestinian Authority in the West Bank). For reasons that can be readily understood, Israel does not see either one of these options as a deal clincher.

Truth is, there is no peace process and no soon likelihood of friendship or cessation of hostilities between the Jewish state and the Arab/Islamist block of nations. The desperate and deceived attempts to define dead-end discussions as “the key to world peace” are basically a cover for international pressures to “reduce Israel’s size to the point where it will be struggling for existence and having no influence in the Arab world” to paraphrase Henry Kissinger’s words to the Iraqi Foreign Minister in 1975 (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB107/iraq04.pdf).

According to the Hebrew prophets, Middle East peace and world peace are indeed connected. But the pieces cannot fall into place without the breaking of Islam’s anti-Christ claims, Israel’s salvation, and world repentance. Since most international peace initiatives do not focus on any of these areas, these political fig leaves have no chance of success.

Is God well pleased with our Mid-East attitudes?

In President Bush’ new book (see above), he explains that his attempts to divide the land of Israel by shrinking its borders came from a desire to see lasting peace in the Middle East. He honestly believed that shrinking Israel’s territory would result in Palestinians pacifism and acceptance of a Jewish state. His strategies were humanistically well meaning but biblically weak.

The Bible is not lacking in instruction about God’s strategies vis-à-vis Israel. Over 95% of the pages of Scripture talk about God’s heart, plans and future for the Jewish people and their state. Yet over 95% of all sermons in Christianity today try to keep such topics at arm’s length, and avoid any mention of the calling and restoration of Israel.

Some of the basic decision points that God has laid out in Holy Writ as pillars of a God-pleasing foreign policy include Genesis 12:3 (blessing Israel and not disparaging her); Romans 11:28-29 (cherishing God’s abiding love, calling and gifting of the Jewish people); Joel 3:1-2 and Zechariah 14:1-2 (not dividing the land of Israel or shrinking her borders); Ezekiel 36, Psalms 2 and 83 (a pro-active awareness of pan-Arab last days attempts to attack, destroy and replace the Jewish state).

Based on these decision points, God is not well pleased with most nations’ attitudes and actions regarding Israel. As a result, peace on earth is more a prayer than a present reality. And the clear and present danger is not Israel’s tenacious pluck in holding on to Jerusalem – rather, it is the nations’ desire to weaken and destroy the Jewish people’s sovereign existence in their own Promised Land.

A virgin’s perspective

Yeshua’s parables on the last days have much meat on their bones. One of them concerns the season and time of the coming of the Messiah, the Son of Man. In Matthew 24-25 various parables are given which describe differing aspects of the advent season. In the day immediately preceding the Lord’s return, Yeshua says that the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins, all officially awaiting their Lord’s return (Matthew 25:1-13).

Though all of them were aware that His return was imminent, only half of them actually had matched their actions to their beliefs. Only five had prepared their oil lamps, readying wicks and sufficient oil. When the midnight cry rang out, only the five who had prepared were able to enter into their full reward. Yeshua’s words hang heavily on our ears: “Therefore stay alert, for you do not know the day or the hour” (verse 13).

Staying alert means discerning the season in which we live, and not being swept along by the currents of political correctness (1 Chronicles 12:32).
Staying alert means groaning in intercession so that the purposes of God would be birthed first in Israel (God’s priority people according to Romans 1:16 and 11:28-29) and then in our nation as well.
Staying alert means preparing to put your life and means on the line to protect the Jewish people, share the gospel with them, and speed them on their way to physical and spiritual restoration (Isaiah 62:1-7).

Thanks for standing with us. 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 politically correct blasphemy of Replacement Theology

PC, or political correctness, is a modern term referring to the shaping of one’s speech according to a certain political dogma. Though some would champion PC as a means to minimize offense in regard to race, gender, occupation, culture, disability and age-related issues, others believe that PC involves suppressing free speech because some consider certain opinions offensive or controversial.

When thought, speech and practice are suppressed in order to make everything ‘fair, equal and just,’ the result can be described accurately as ‘linguistic fascism’: “I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism” (Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park).

Here are some brief quotes on the subject:

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners” (Charlton Heston, speech at Harvard Law School, 1999)
“I got a feeling about political correctness. I hate it. It causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think” (Hal Holbrook)
“Political correctness is simply a speed bump in the traffic of truth, free thought and speech” (anonymous)
“Political correctness doesn’t change us, it shuts us up” (Glenn Beck)
“The root cause of our contemporary cultural poverty is intellectual dishonesty. First, the intellectuals have destroyed the foundation of culture, and second, they refuse to acknowledge it by resorting to the caves of political correctness” (Theodore Dalrymple)

A slightly longer philosophical quote from Dalrymple connects PC with the Communist practice of ‘doublethink,’ ‘doublespeak’ and ‘newspeak’ described in George Orwell’s 1984:

Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

A mouthful of lies

One of the marks of anti-Messiah, according to the Book of Revelation, is that his speech will be full of blasphemies: “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies” (Revelation 13:5).

He got a sweet gift of gab, he got a harmonious tongue
He knows every song of love that ever has been sung
Good intentions can be evil
Both hands can be full of grease
You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Out of the fullness of the heart

The Oxford English Dictionary describes blasphemy as an “action or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.”

The Greek origin of the word ‘blasphemy’ comes from the root meaning “to injure a reputation”. It is used to describe gross irreverence toward any person or thing worthy of exalted esteem.

One of the Hebrew words for blasphemy is “na’atza”, meaning “to deride, spurn or reject.” It can refer to men spurning God (Psalm 10:3) or scorning His prophets (Nehemiah 9:26), men despising the Jewish people (Isaiah 60:14), or even God rejecting rebellious men (Deuteronomy 32:19; Jeremiah 14:21).

Yeshua described blasphemies not as some rare sin found in unusually evil people, but as the normative fruit of an unregenerate heart: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies…” (Matthew 15:19).

Yeshua also declared that God’s mercies are so huge, that they can cover any blasphemer who repents: “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter” (Mark 3:28).

The blasphemy of Replacement Theology

Though definitely not PC, the Bible teaches that Replacement Theology is blasphemy. In the Book of Ezekiel, YHVH comments on those Arabs who have occupied the Promised Land and have claimed it for themselves as an ancestral homeland (as did the Edomites in ancient times and as do the Palestinians today): “And you will know that I am YHVH, and that I have heard all your blasphemies which you’ve spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid waste, they have been given to us to devour” (Ezekiel 35:12). For similar striking passages read Ezekiel 35:5-6, 10-11; 36:1-5; Psalm 83:1-2.

Replacement Theology teaches that the Jewish people are no longer God’s chosen people, that their land has been given to other nations, and that the covenants and promises cut with Israel no longer apply to her as a nation (but read Numbers 23:8-9; 1 Samuel 12:22; Deuteronomy 7: 6-8; Jeremiah 31:35-37; 33:17-26; Romans 11:28-29).

The clear words of the God of Israel are forever engraved in the Biblical record – anyone who tries to separate the land of Israel from the people of Israel, the Jewish people, is committing blasphemy in God’s eyes. To claim the land of Israel (which was covenanted by YHVH to Abraham’s descendants through Jacob) in whole or in part for any other people, is classified as blasphemy by the God of Israel.

These prophetic words will be hard for some to accept. But please realize that the Scriptures are not just a book that we read – it is a book that reads us!

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

A divine encounter is coming between mankind and the God of Israel. And some of what may seem PC today will be clearly labeled as blasphemous in Heaven’s Supreme Court (Daniel 7:10; Revelations 20:12).

“For all have synod”

The Vatican recently sponsored a synod (a church council convened to decide on issues of doctrine, administration or application). The synod met for two weeks in Vatican City and was composed of Catholic and Greek-Catholic bishops from the Middle East. At the conclusion of the synod, a statement was issued championing Replacement Theology – denying that the Jews are God’s chosen people, and rejecting any divine restoration of the Jewish people to their Promised Land (https://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-52401320101023).

In the document’s section on cooperation with Jews, a declaration is made : “Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable.” In order to make sure that the world clearly understands what the bishops are getting at, Greek-Melchite Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros explained at the synod’s news conference: “We Christians cannot speak about the promised land for the Jewish people. There is no longer a chosen people. All men and women of all countries have become the chosen people … The concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians… The justification of Israel’s occupation of the land of Palestine cannot be based on sacred scriptures.”

Today is later than we think

Activity targeted against the Jewish people’s restoration to their land is increasing. The tempo is picking up, and the melody is becoming more strident. Daniel 11:32 offers us all some comfort and encouragement here: “And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.”

Ø Pray that God will engrave the truth about His heart for Israel, a revelation of awareness concerning His restoration of the Jewish people, and a passion to obey His word – among believers in the Middle East and in your own country.

Ø Pray that your country’s leaders and your spiritual leaders will have the courage to follow their prophetic calling to be divinely obedient, even if it means being politically incorrect!

“And they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. And in controversy they shall stand in judgment; and they shall judge it according to My judgments” (Ezekiel 44:23-24).

Thanks for standing with us. 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

Dekosherizing Israel

One day in the not too distant future the armies of the world will attack and invade Israel. The Hebrew prophets clearly stress that in the days immediately before Messiah’s return, an international assault on the Jewish state will occur, a last-ditch attempt to vanquish her (Zechariah 14:1-2 etc).

God declared through the prophet Ezekiel that He will have an active hand in setting up this up. He will summon the nations for a battle royal – causing them to do an about face, putting a hook into their jaws, and pulling them down to Israel for war (Ezekiel 38:4, 8). In fact, He says that many prophecies about these anti-Israel attacks have already been given through His “servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years” that He would both catalyze this invasion and bring judgment to the nations who raise their hand against the Jewish people (Ezekiel 38:17).

As we attempt to discern the times in which we live (as did the sons of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32 – men “who discerned the times and knew what Israel should do”), let us peer through the present fog and make out the shape of the road leading us toward this prophetic encounter.

The old shell game

Carnival hucksters (or carnies) have been known to swindle gullible customers out of hard-earned cash through a sleight-of-hand game involving three coconut shells. Under one of the half-shells lies a hidden object. The “mark” (the naïve customer) needs to guess under which shell the hidden object is concealed. As the carny moves the shells rapidly back and forth, the mark loses concentration for a split second, and ends up losing the game as well. Distracting the customer is the means to winning a game of confidence.

An enemy as adroit as Satan also goes in for sleight of hand. Though the Bible is clear – Satan wants to totally destroy the Jewish people (Zechariah 3:1-2; Revelation 12:4, 9) – he does not always go for a frontal attack. Often he prefers to distract his customer (which is the world, according to 1 John 5:19) from his ultimate genocidal goal.

Of course, it is also true that the enemy appreciates a flat out call for genocide (as Iran’s Ahmedinejad continues to do in word and deed). Such calls to wipe Israel off the map may motivate and mobilize many in the Islamic world. But sometimes brazen Persian chutzpa bows before a more subtle, silky, diplomatic and Western approach. This satanic strategy is our subject today, and it is a tactic which is being swallowed hook, line and sinker by the majority of the world’s population.

Delegitimizing Israel

Satan’s current strategy is an all-out attempt to delegitimize Israel. Though at first this may seem like only another political buzz-word, the enemy’s ultimate goal involves using this scheme to lead the world toward ”a final solution of the Jewish question,” to paraphrase Hitler’s call for genocide. And to a large extent his strategy is enjoying a large degree of success. Across the globe politicians and media are being seduced into first tolerating and then joining in on declarations invalidating the Jewish state (see helpful articles by Michael Oren, Tony Blair – www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/seven-existential-threats-15124; www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/tony-blair-welcomes-re-start-of-direct-peace-talks-during-herzliya-speech/).

Little by little, line upon line, an international movement is capturing world opinion, effectively portraying Israel as a sinful, renegade, maverick threat to world peace. From trade unions to the United Nations, from “peace movements” to “peace flotillas” – the initial goal is to boycott Israel, her universities, her agricultural produce, the free travel of her citizens, etc. Its penultimate goal is a total shunning of Israel as a “pariah state.”

Once again, Europe is targeting Jews for “special treatment.” Once again Jews visiting Europe or living there feel as if they are suddenly “wearing yellow stars.” This time, however, it is not the forces of the right who are the instigators of this new outbreak of an age-old anti-Semitic virus. It is the so-called “progressive” groups who are on the forefront of this battle line.

Sad to say, even one or two Messianic leaders in Israel have unwittingly become fellow travelers on the fringes of this movement, participating in educational attempts in Christian and Messianic circles to delegitimize and downplay God’s hand in restoring the Jewish people, their state and renascent army. They speak publically of Israel as a failing, unrighteous country – while simultaneously supporting one or two Israeli Arab Christian ministries which brazenly undermine and delegitimize God’s restoring of the Jewish people to their own promised land.

Pray that God will increase discernment and courage for Messianic leadership in Israel and for Christian leaders internationally regarding these issues.

Stoning the Neighborhood Bully

Many years ago a gem of a Jewish movie came out of Montreal titled “Lies My Father Told Me.” In one scene an old Orthodox Jewish grandfather refers to “a great rabbi” who spoke to a lynch mob intent on stoning a Jewish prostitute (John 8:7). “A great rabbi?” asks another Jewish man in the scene. “And what was He, if not a great rabbi?” answers the grandfather.

Some of the nations of the world may feel, like that lynch mob, that Israel deserves a good stoning. But a great Rabbi named Yeshua has totally different plans for Israel (Jeremiah 30:11; Amos 9:8). He will not condemn the people whom He is restoring to their own land – His Jewish people for whom He bled and died (Isaiah 53:4-6).

The nations of the world have swallowed a double standard regarding the Jewish state. No one bats an eye when Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia forbid Jews from travelling to their country, or taking up residence there, or even building synagogues in Mecca or Medina.

Yet Israel is expected to allow Muslim Brotherhood jihadi terrorists free access to Gaza on Turkish ships like the Mavi Marmara, part of the “Free Gaza” flotilla (www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo). It is supposed to allow thousands of Islamist rockets to fall on Israeli farms and cities without ever retaliating – whether from Gaza’s Hamastan or from Lebanon’s Hezbollahstan. It is supposed to negotiate with Palestinian leaders who will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state and openly call for its destruction. As Bob Dylan wryly comments in “Neighborhood Bully,” it seems that Israel is just “supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.”

In each case the delegitimizers insist that Israel’s “evil nature” is the root cause of all problems, and that Islamist responses of violence are understandable and even justifiable. Herein lies the soft evil underbelly of the delegitimization movement – it winks knowingly as it justifies jihad against the Jewish state.

Every nation must get stoned

Yet the Lord God of Israel has a very different perspective. He prophesies in Jeremiah 50 that He is the One who is returning Israel the people to Israel the land. He vows that this process will result in Him cutting a new and everlasting covenant with the Jewish people. And He points out that He Himself will judge and punish the nations of the world who devour Israel – those nations who frantically plead innocence before God and argue that “wicked Israel had it coming” – that the Jews deserve the nations’ hatred and abuse.

“In those days, at that time, declares YHVH, the people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears to seek YHVH their God. They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to YHVH in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten. My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place. Whoever found them devoured them; their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they sinned against YHVH, their true pasture, YHVH, the hope of their fathers’” (Jeremiah 50:4-7).

Rebuking the devourer

Israel’s failings do not change or block God’s covenant love for the Jewish people, nor does Jewish sin stymie the fulfillment of YHVH’s promises to them. Though God’s enemies may try to point an accusing finger at Israel (as they also do on the stages of today’s world), God Himself warns Israel’s accusers that His day of reckoning is at hand – and on that Day the devourers will in turn be devoured (Romans 2:5-11)!

“But all who devour you will be devoured; all your enemies will go into exile. Those who plunder you will be plundered; all who make spoil of you I will despoil. But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares YHVH, because you are called an outcast, Zion ‘for whom no one cares’” (Jeremiah 30:16-17).

With this Scripture in mind, consider the recent quote from Iran’s President regarding the Jewish state: “‘Any offensive against Iran means the annihilation of the Zionist entity,’ Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. ‘Iran does not care much about this entity because it is on its way to decay’” (AP, June 9, 2010).

Devourers past, present and future should put the following Scripture on their laptop screensavers: “Israel was holy to YHVH, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her were held guilty, and disaster overtook them, declares YHVH” (Jeremiah 2:3).

Pray for a revelation of God’s heart concerning Israel to be imparted to the leaders of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Remember to pray for your own country’s leaders as well in this regard.

Boycotting Israel

Many years ago my Stalinist mother instructed me in the finer arts of boycotting German vehicles as a partial response to the Holocaust. My older brother (who later became a lawyer) wryly commented at the time that our family also owned a Citroen, and that in revolutionary Algeria these vehicles were also seen as “vehicles of oppression”…

For years the Arab world has prosecuted a boycott against Israel, but for most of those decades their attempts were internationally seen as a fanatic expression of rabid regimes. Recently, however, boycotts specifically targeting the Jewish state are coming into a vogue that has not been seen since brown-shirted Nazi thugs patrolled the Reich’s streets armed with heavy truncheons.

The year 2010 has not quite come to an end, but already she has witnessed the following foreboding aktions of the delegitimization movement:

British and Scottish trade unions and universities have linked arms with Swedish and Norwegian dockworkers in boycotting Israeli foods and cargoes, research students and teachers.

Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu recently praised Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott of Israeli foodstuffs, as did Irish Nobel Prize recipient Mairead Maguire (a recent arrestee on the Turkish terror flotilla to Gaza).

The Presbyterian (PCUSA) and British Methodist churches have come out in favor of boycotting Israeli products.

Even the famous pop reggae band Boney M was told on July 22, 2010 not to sing the Bible-based hit “Rivers of Babylon” at the Palestinian International Festival in Ramallah, due to its quotation from Psalm 137 calling for the return of the Jewish people to Biblical Zion (King David’s capitol city), which today is considered by the world as part of Palestinian Jerusalem!

Pray for revelation and conviction to sweep over the Christian leaders and congregations of Western Europe regarding God’s heart for Israel and His strategies for them and their land..

Hang together or hang separately

In a courageous article José María Aznar (former Prime Minister of Spain 1996-2004) responds to boycott calls, exhorting the world to “support Israel; if it goes down, we all go down.”

“Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbors using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathizers, it faces a campaign of delegitimization through international law and diplomacy. Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival” (www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/main/showNews/id/9401).

Arrested development?

Certain Palestinian and radical leftist groups in Europe have tried to use EU laws to summarily arrest Israeli politicians, generals and soldiers who come to visit European countries on official or even private business. The honors list of those who narrowly evaded arrest include:

former IDF Major-General Doron Almog (https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7251954.stm);
Kadima party chairwoman Tzipi Livni (www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/14/tzipi-livni-israel-gaza-arrest);
Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (https://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/09/2009928181312543279.html);
former GSS Director Avi Dichter (www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3479583,00.html);
former COS Moshe Ya’alon (www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/14/israeli-moshe-yaalon-visit-arrest).

It is becoming dangerous for Israeli civil servants, politicians and security personnel to travel in Europe due to the efforts of the anti-Israel delegitimizers. In Genesis 12:3 the God of Abraham promises that those who curse Israel will be cursed directly by Abraham’s God.

Though the ramifications of His word may eventually come as a surprise to some, those who believe Holy Writ need to remain prayerfully “on our toes” in the Spirit.

Pray for God to raise up champions for His people and defenders of righteousness among the nations – people who will lift up banners of truth and equity in defense of the Jewish nation and their restoration to their Promised Land.

Thanks for standing with us. 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

Biblical truth versus political declarations

Truth is considered a somewhat flexible commodity today, something like warm toffee. In a post-modernist world it is not chic to raise the subject of unbending truth. Once upon a time Western societies lived, fought and sacrificed their well-being over beliefs, over spiritual convictions, over matters of conscience and freedom, and over rejection of dictatorships and oppression.

As the sun sets on Western civilization, the former solid pillars of Biblical truth are being washed away by the rising tides of political correctness, cynicism and cold-heartedness. Though Europe and North America were founded on adherence to biblical principles, today a tidal wave of uncertainty, unbelief and skepticism characterizes much of the modern worldview.

It is of world-shaking importance that humanity return to an awareness of the truth, and a repentance before God for having spurned truth and embraced lies.

Yeshua described Satan in this manner: “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

One of God’s descriptions of a world in rebellion is that they reject His truth and instead embrace and worship lies: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen” (Romans 1:25).

The Apostle Paul sketches out how the majority of humanity living at the end of days will choose the lies of anti-Messiah over the truth of Yeshua, and his description is right on target: ”They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2 Thess. 2:10-12).

Truth is important. It is not optional, and it cannot be bought or sold. It does not bow and scrape before emperors or politicians. The same applies to what the Bible teaches about YHVH the One True God, about Yeshua the Way, the Truth and the Life, and about God’s irrevocable gifts and calling vis-à-vis the people of Israel (Romans 11:29).

Satan is a thief

Lies are tools of the trade for Satan. They are one of his “black ops” – demonic psychological strategies that he uses in spiritual warfare. He uses lies in order to steal – hearts, souls and bodies of men and women: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

One of the ways that Satan steals is by offering “truths” other than God’s truth. The serpent in the Garden of Eden whispered the seductive question, “Has God really said …” (Genesis 3:1).

Israel’s bold trumpet blast – “YHVH – He is God” (1 Kings 18:39) – pronounced judgment on the demons of the Canaanites and on the Baal worship of the Phoenicians. Today that same exclusive and true confession excludes any other lying offer of salvation that counterfeits the Biblical message:

“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber ... I am the good shepherd; I know My sheep and My sheep know me ... and I lay down My life for the sheep” (John 10:1,14).

The uniqueness of the Bible is connected to the uniqueness of its Author. The truth of the Bible is connected to the truthfulness of God. “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged” (Hebrew 6:18).

“All Scripture is breathed out from God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The denial of Yeshua as the Son of God (His deity and humanity), the denial of His atoning sacrifice on the cross, the denial of His resurrection – all of these are denials of the truth. Any religious system which has these denials as part of its spiritual and original foundations, is not a Biblically kosher alternative. It will not be able to stand on the same platform as biblical faith without drastically losing its balance.

Biblical truth confronts politicians’ declarations

Ever since 9/11, it has become commonplace for world leaders to make defensive declarations regarding which expressions of Islam are theologically “kosher.”

Former President George W. Bush declared on September 17 2001 at a Washington mosque that Islam is a religion of peace, and that jihadi attacks “violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith” (https://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/17/gen.bush.muslim.trans/).

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair stated in 2007 that “To me, the most remarkable thing about the Koran is how progressive it is. I write with great humility as a member of another faith. As an outsider, the Koran strikes me as a reforming book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, much as reformers attempted to do with the Christian church centuries later. The Koran is inclusive. It extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance” (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62271/tony-blair/a-battle-for-global-values).

Blair has declared on many occasions that jihadi Islam is “an extreme and misguided form of Islam;” that those who stress Mohammed’s teachings on jihad are disseminating “hardline dogma,” and that their “cultural and theological credentials were often dubious;” and that “fundamental Islam is actually the opposite of what the extremists preach” (www.tonyblairoffice.org/speeches/entry/tony-blair-speech-to-chicago-council-on-global-affairs/).

President Obama has declared many times that Islam is a religion of peace, that “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace,” and that support for jihad comes only from a group of “violent extremists (who) have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims” (www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31102929/). On the recent commemoration day of 9/11, President Obama declared that “we’re at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam to engage in their destructive acts.”

In each case the question is raised: are these world leaders speaking “the gospel truth?” By what authority do they make their affirmations about Islam? Do they have a clear understanding of the Scriptures’ teaching about Yeshua, the Bible, the atonement and the Jewish people? If so, why are they not confessing biblical truth? Is it because they don’t themselves believe the Scriptures, or because it is required of them as politicians to champion political correctness even if it is biblically in error?

Why not allow Islamic authorities to define themselves?

Evangelical Christians do not accept Mormon teachings or Unitarian doctrine as Scripture. Catholics would probably not grant apostolic authority to Martin Luther. Each faith system has its systematic body of teaching, its holy writings, and it is these which ultimately must define what is orthodox or heterodox within that religion.

Every honest and clear-thinking individual who values the truth, should consult the religious scriptures of Islam in order to make up his or her mind on what is taught there. Not even a President or a Prime Minister has the authority to make that decision for you.

For a more detailed analysis of Islam from a biblical perspective, see “A Perspective on Islam” available on https://davidstent.com/words/

Declarations by politicians as to whether or not Islam agrees with the Torah or New Testament are simply political declarations which are out of these men’s spheres of authority. Their comments only place a spin on the whole subject, and only obfuscate the pursuit of biblical truth.

To the law and the testimony!

When God wanted to settle an argument He was having with Israel, He told Isaiah the prophet, “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn” (Isaiah 8:20). For believers in Yeshua, that appeal still stands the test of time.

When a religious system (such as Islam) denies the accuracy of the Biblical Scriptures; denies the Incarnation, deity, crucifixion and resurrection of Yeshua; cancels the Jewish people’s gifts and calling; prophesies a bloody destruction of the Jewish people (and Christians as well) who refuse to accept Islam; and declares war forever as the acceptable and blessed jihadi way of spreading the Quranic message, it would be a lie (theologically and ethically) to say that these teachings are progressive teachings of peace.

It would be preposterous for non-Muslims to insist that Islamic jihad is not a bona fide expression of Islam. To speak plainly, jihad is not an extremist and violent distortion of Mohammed’s teachings and practice; it is exactly Mohammed’s teaching and practice.

From a biblical perspective, it would be more than accurate to say that Islam’s teachings on these abovementioned subjects stand apart from and against Biblical faith.

Two living witnesses

In the past few days two news items have circulated which forcefully challenge us to look unblinkingly at the unvarnished nature of Islam – as it is lived in the Middle East.

On August 25 2010 a Hamas TV station in Gaza aired a children’s cartoon which depicts Allah punishing Jews (called “the followers of the Book” [the Bible] in Islamic terminology) by changing them into apes (www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4586.htm). This racist teaching comes directly from the Qur’an: “O followers of the Book ... whom Allah has cursed and brought his wrath upon, and of whom he made apes and swine, and he who served the Shaitan (ed., Satan); these are worse in place and more erring from the straight path” (Surah 5:59-60).

Front page news on Monday September 20 2010 describes how the Hamas Sunni Islamic government had recently closed down the Crazy Water Aqua Fun Park in Gaza because its owners allowed women to smoke nargilas (hookas) in public. Last month the Hamas police raided the resort and expelled customers because men and women gathered in the same room to celebrate a fast-breaking meal during Ramadan. Finally between 25 and 40 armed gunmen set fire to the complex early Sunday morning, destroying the resort completely (www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=188602).

If there were no geopolitical factors involved concerning Middle-Eastern oil supplies, and if there were no superpower desires to wield strong military and economic influence in an area close to Iran, Russia and China, the whole matter of Islamic theology might have taken on much humbler proportions. But as the world moves closer to its Middle Eastern climax, these are part of the bread-and-butter issues facing our “last days” world.

Pray for truth to prevail in the hearts and minds of your country’s leadership, at every level – politically, spiritually and militarily.
Pray that the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah would grant a gracious revelation of Himself and His Son to the leaders of the nations, and also to many precious people held in bondage by false teachings found within Islam.
Pray for the courage to embrace revealed truth, even unto death (Revelation 12:11)

Thanks for standing with us. 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

True and False Reconciliation

Certain buzz words are guaranteed to tug at people’s hearts – words like ‘motherhood’ and ‘patriotism.’ Who could possibly stand against motherhood, or betray one’s true and native land? Obviously – only a villain!

The word ‘reconciliation’ has a similar strong pull. Who could conceivably be opposed to reconciliation? Only a warmonger or a racist, most would say.

Today in Israel the term ‘reconciliation’ is being used by a few small Christian groups to describe ministry which advocates a strong Replacement theology agenda coupled with a invalidation of Jewish restoration. This is a twisted use of the term ‘reconciliation’ and its outcome is twisted results.

This twisted understanding of reconciliation is confusing some Messianic Israeli believers, as well as some good friends of the Jewish people. It is leading to uncertainty and muddy thinking regarding God’s restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. It has caused some dear believers to hesitate and stammer concerning the biblical teaching on Israel’s irrevocable gifts and calling (Romans 11:28; 3:1-2). Some are even reconsidering their whole theology vis-à-vis the Jewish people’s national restoration.

Many believers want to be used as agents of reconciliation in Yeshua’s name, but are unsure as to what this would look like. Fruitful reconciliation – reconciliation in the truth – must be biblically based. And especially in the Middle East it is essential that it be illuminated by Scriptural teaching regarding God’s gifts and calling to the Jewish people.

Today a theologically skewed distortion of reconciliation is making the rounds in some Middle Eastern circles. Only Spirit-led and biblically solid foundations will keep the elect from being fogged by it.

Peace is made between enemies

Reconciliation is something that happens between enemies. Enemies usually have a highly developed awareness of who their own adversaries are. But when God steps into the arena, something happens which radically transforms enemies into friends. Suddenly warring is substituted by peace, anger is replaced by love. But let’s not forget – reconciliation only begins between enemies.

“The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’” (Acts 7:26)

Ephesians 2:14, 16 twice refers to hostility between Jews and Gentiles (“… the dividing wall of hostility; His purpose was … to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility”). Paul tells us in this context that Yeshua’s death on the cross has two purposes: one, to destroy the enmity between God and man; and two, to destroy the enmity between man and man. Paul is not generic here, but very specific. He says that God purposed to eliminate Gentile hatred of Jews (and biblically speaking, Arabs are Gentiles), as well as to eradicate Jewish hatred of Gentiles. Reconciliation means taking God’s enemies and transforming them into friends of God and then friends of each other – through the power of the blood of Messiah.

Reconciliation does not mean “ignoring the enmity” or sidestepping it – it means facing that enmity “with eyes wide open,” and seeking a biblical solution.

Until enemies stop being enemies, reconciliation has not happened.

Talking heads on TV sometimes call on Israelis to surrender tangible land in exchange for flitting ‘declarations” (in English) of peace from Palestinian leaders. Usually another Palestinian declaration (in Arabic) comes out a few minutes later by other Palestinian leaders calling for continued armed struggle. Nevertheless, TV interviewers continue to lecture Israel, saying that one must remember that “peace is made between enemies.” This is true. But though peace can be made between enemies, every now and then one of the enemies does not want to make peace. In such an eventuality, of course, peace won’t be established.

One must remember that it is also true that war is made between enemies.

Real peace is not some fantasy-based sprinkling of magical Hollywood stardust on ‘the bad guys.’ It does not mean being exceptionally polite or politically correct to someone you hate or fear, or being forced to call your enemy “friend.” It is not a name-change that is needed; it is a heart change.

Biblical reconciliation happens when God’s mighty power causes our hearts, thoughts and spirits to come into alignment with God’s own heart, purposes, strategies and Spirit.

Reconciled to God but not to each other?

A quick survey of the New Covenant Scriptures dealing with reconciliation shows that the primary biblical stress of reconciliation is that people get reconciled to God. In other words, reconciliation is when people who turn to Yeshua are changed from being God’s enemies into being His children (e.g., Romans 5:10; 2 Corinthians 5:18, 20; Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:20, 22). Real reconciliation begins with a change of heart and spirit toward God. When reconciliation is mixed with healthy obedience, it then percolates upward into relational fruit.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11)

Not all believers walk in reconciliation all the time. Some people are reconciled to God, yet continue to nurse a degree of anger or bitterness in their hearts toward other people (Matt.18:21-35). This is not healthy, but it does happen. This can happen between nations too!

Not everyone walks in fullness of love all the time. Ideally, certain spiritual failures should not exist. Nevertheless, pastors find themselves working with this exact scenario – failing human beings – on a regular basis.

“With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be” (James 3:9-10)

What happens when a believer is my enemy?

During the American Civil War, Jewish people were soldiers in both the Union and Confederate armies. A document from that time describes a Confederate Jew who shouted out the Jewish ‘last rites’ – the Shma Yisrael (Deut. 6:4) prayer – every time he fired his musket. The logic was simple: perhaps his bullet would kill a Jew on the enemy side, one who would not have the time to utter the final prayer. So he prayed for his enemy even as he shot in his direction.

During times of war one has to shoot at enemies, and occasionally those enemies may also turn out to be brothers.

If Arab believers in Yeshua who live in Israel or on the West Bank stand with terror groups or organizations in their activities – whether by seeking approval from Islamist religious authorities by stressing one’s anti-Israel credentials; by allowing snipers to shoot at Israeli soldiers from atop Christian-owned buildings; by teaching Christians to abandon their love and biblically-based support for Israel and the Jewish people; or by campaigning among international believers for a Palestinian state (which would ultimately be ruled by terrorist dictators) – the uncomfortable fact must be stated without frills: these Arab believers are siding with active enemies of the Israeli people.

How are believers supposed to relate to believers who are at the same time enemies? Is it enough to declare that enemies aren’t really enemies because we are really all one in Messiah? Is it enough just to sing “Kumbaya” together and to ignore the malodorous detail that some of our Arab believing brothers and sisters are at the very least cooperating with the forces of Islamist jihad which call for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people? Both the covenants of the PLO and of Hamas are unambiguous in this regard.

Here’s something worthy of even more serious consideration: one of the hidden agendas of this false message of reconciliation is to sow doubt among Israeli Messianic Jewish believers and in the larger body of Messiah as to the moral and theological rightness of Jewish restoration. This tactic, in military and strategic terms, is what is called a “fifth column” approach.

Biting the reconciliation bullet

“Pseudo-reconciliationists” sidestep the biblical teaching about God restoring the Jewish people back to their land (e.g., Isaiah 11:11-16; Jeremiah 30-31; etc). They teach that there are many differing views on eschatology, and that mature believers simply disagree on these points. What is needed, it is said, is not to defend “divisive viewpoints” but to sidestep the issue of Jewish restoration as a minor and nonessential detail.

According to the above scenario, Messianic Jews who believe that God is restoring the people of Israel to the land of Israel according to the prophetic Scriptures simply need to bite the bullet, and warmly embrace without reservation Arab believers who believe that Israel’s existence is a sin against humanity and God. This, it is said, is what true reconciliation is about.

Various conferences have been held in Israel by those influenced by false reconciliation teachings. I have seen Arab believers encouraged to get up and declare (often with great anger) how Israelis have sinned against them. Then a Jewish Israeli representative comes forward and confesses sin and asks for forgiveness. At that point everyone applauds and the conference moves on.

Certainly, since all have sinned, and since a war is going on between jihadi Palestinian groups and the Jewish people in Israel, there are undoubtedly sad instances of cruelty, racism and evil on all sides. But these conferences rarely witness any balancing statement that God is restoring the Jewish people to their own land, that jihadi goals are not biblical goals, and that believers must wrestle with the ramifications of God’s land promises to Israel. Rarely does an Arab brother get up and declare that hating the Jewish people is a sin, and that he repents of rejecting God’s gifts and calling to Israel.

How can it be called reconciliation when Jewish people repent for sins of their nation, while Arab believers are treated with kid gloves and given a wide berth regarding their rejection of God’s word and promises concerning Israel? Foreigners could serve as a helpful bridge here, and not allow such events to drift into cosmetic and ‘politically correct’ directions.

Both firefighter and arsonist deal with fire on a regular basis. But they are not morally on the same level. In the same way, those who side with a nationalistic Palestinian movement which legitimizes and uses terror, are not on the same moral level as those who are being restored to their own Promised Land by the hand of God.

Is Jewish restoration “just one more opinion?”

But is it really true that belief in Jewish restoration is simply one option of many on the theological smorgasbord? Not according to YHVH! Hear the word of the Lord to the Jewish people:

“I am with you and will save you, declares YHVH . Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you . . . But all who devour you will be devoured; all your enemies will go into exile. Those who plunder you will be plundered; all who make spoil of you I will despoil. But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares YHVH, because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares” (Jeremiah 30:11, 16-17).

Those who would attempt to market a false reconciliation – one which invalidates or ignores Jewish restoration – are crossing the line and aligning themselves with the enemies of the Jewish people.

Who is my enemy?

Years ago Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy about the End of Days. He was given a message straight from God’s passionate heart which was enscripturated in Ezekiel 36. In this passage YHVH the God of Jacob looks across the sands of time and sees that Arab nations (including Edom and surrounding nations) would invade Israel with malice of heart – conquering and ravaging the land, and claiming it as an exclusively Arab possession. This process indeed reached a pinnacle in 637-38 AD when the armies of Mohammed invaded Israel, and then declared the whole Promised Land to be “waqf” or Muslim territory for all eternity. Read YHVH’s perspective on these Arab invasions:

Son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of YHVH. This is what YHVH Adonai says: The enemy said of you, “Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession.” Therefore prophesy and say, This is what YHVH Adonai says: Because they ravaged and hounded you from every side so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations and the object of people’s malicious talk and slander, therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of YHVH Adonai: This is what YHVH Adonai says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, to the desolate ruins and the deserted towns that have been plundered and ridiculed by the rest of the nations around you – this is what YHVH Adonai says: In My burning zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, for with glee and with malice in their hearts they made My land their own possession so that they might plunder its pastureland. Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: This is what the YHVH Adonai says: I speak in My jealous wrath because you have suffered the scorn of the nations. Therefore this is what YHVH Adonai says: I swear with uplifted hand that the nations around you will also suffer scorn (Ezekiel 36:1-7).

God laughs at ‘political correctness’ (Psalm 2:4). He calls these invaders “the enemy” – “those who ravage, plunder, ridicule, slander and scorn” the Jewish land and the Jewish people. From God’s perspective, it comes as no surprise that Muslim Arabs who see Mohammed as a true prophet would oppose the promised restoration of Israel.

Those who accept the Bible as God’s book know that the Muslim conquest and Arab occupation of the land of Israel are not a fait accompli. God will have the last word on the demographic makeup of the land of Israel. The effects of that jihadi invasion will one day be reversed, and the people of Israel will fully possess the land of Israel (Isaiah 62:4-5).

Believers cannot allow this very serious biblical issue to be swept under the carpet and to be blithely dismissed as “a simple theological disagreement among reconciled brothers.”

Love your enemies

Years ago Yeshua said “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:43-44). Part of the good news is that in Yeshua we can love our enemies. God promises to help us to love those who do us evil, even those who seek our destruction. Yet at the same time, we need to realistically remember that a time is coming when those who work for the destruction of the land of Israel and of the Jewish people will be decisively and forcibly stopped in their tracks.

True reconciliation between Jewish and Arab believers in Yeshua can never fly until both sides hit biblical bedrock. Both sides need to recognize that God has covenanted that land to the Jewish people alone, and that those who try to hold onto that land (the Arabic word for this attempt is summud) and establish a Palestinian state within the biblical borders of Israel are defined clearly by God’s prophet Ezekiel in chapter 36 as enemies.

Reconciliation in the truth between Jews and Arabs can only move forward when people repent for siding with the destroyers of Israel, and choose to no longer curse or do harm to God’s chosen people (Genesis 12:3).

Sad to say, but some Arab believers (although definitely not all!) are actually enemies of the Jewish people. When they stop being the enemies of the Jewish people, there will be room for new buds of reconciliation between us.

Some very good news today is that there are a growing number of Arab believers and former Muslim believers who grasp these truths, who stand with the Jewish people and with Jewish believers in blessing our restoration to the land. May their tribe increase!

Biblical reconciliation between Jewish and Arab believers in Yeshua really isn’t chanting ‘politically correct’ mantras with glazed-over eyes. Biblical reconciliation begins by calling things by their correct names. This means that we need to start calling an enemy “an enemy.”

But it moves way beyond that. It calls believers into repentance for racism and hatred of Jews (and hatred of Arabs too). It insists that believers embrace without reservation the biblical truth that God has a biblical priority with the Jewish people (Romans 1:16; 2:5-11; Number 23:8-9) and has granted the land of Israel by covenant to the Jewish people exclusively and eternally. Biblical reconciliation causes both Jewish and Arab believers to humbly looks for ways to bless that Jewish restoration process with the minimum of suffering created for all sides. And God has called Jew and Arab to be friends in truth – beloved participants in His community of reconciliation.

Yeshua has prophesied in Ezekiel 37:9-14 that He is calling the Jewish people back to their ancient homeland in order to make them into an exceedingly mighty army in Him.

Those who would weaken, confuse, fog or sideswipe this army are not involved in true reconciliation, but are pushing a counterfeit manifestation. In this area they are sowing doubt and trying to impede the strategies of the Holy One of Israel. Caveat emptor!

Pray with us that YHVH the God of Israel will grant a revelation of true reconciliation to many Jewish and Arab believers throughout the Middle East – one not based on denial of God’s promises to Israel, but affirming His calling on the Jewish people; His holy and high standards required from Israel; and the centrality of Jewish restoration in Yeshua’s end time strategy.

Thanks for standing with us. 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

Aldersgate or Ichabod?

Charles Wesley (1707-1788), one of England’s most prodigious hymn writers (over 9,000 total) was the younger brother of John and Samuel Wesley (John and Charles together are considered the founders and spiritual forefathers of Methodism). Charles’ songs were the spiritual rails upon which the Methodist revival crossed Britain. His pen was used by God to author classics like “And can it be that I should gain,” “Christ the Lord is risen today,” “Come Thou long expected Jesus,” “Hark the herald angels sing,” “Jesus Lover of my soul,” “O for a thousand tongues to sing,” and “Rejoice the Lord is King.”

Truly an amazing legacy came through this man, who was known in his day as a “sweet singer of Israel” (https://www.stkimbrough.com/page_3a.htm). Some have said that people today are more familiar with Charles Wesley’s hymns that with John Wesley’s sermons!

Three of Charles Wesley’s bejeweled gifts to the body of Messiah are three intercessory hymns that touch upon God’s heart for the Jewish people and God’s many biblical promises to restore Israel to their own promised land. Here are excerpts from two of these hymns.

Calling the Hebrews home

“O that the chosen band might now their brethren bring
And gathered out of every land present to Sion’s King.
Of all the ancient race not one be left behind
But each impelled by secret grace his way to Canaan find!
We know it must be done for God hath spoke the word
All Israel shall their Saviour own to their first state restored.
Rebuilt by His command Jerusalem shall rise
Her temple on Moriah stand again, and touch the skies.
Send then Thy servants forth to call the Hebrews home
From west and east, and south, and north let all the wanderers come.
Where’er in lands unknown Thy fugitives remain
Bid every creature help them on Thy holy mount to gain”.

(Almighty God of Love, words & music Charles Wesley, 1762, based on Isaiah 66:19-20)
(https://www.ccel.org/w/wesley/hymn/jwg04/jwg0452.html)

Praying softly for Jerusalem

“Father of faithful Abraham, hear our earnest suit for Abraham’s seed!
Justly they claim the softest prayer from us…

Come then, Thou great Deliverer, come! The veil from Jacob’s heart remove;
Receive Thy ancient people home! That, quickened by Thy dying love,
The world may their reception find life from the dead for all mankind.”

(Father of faithful Abraham, words & music Charles Wesley, 1762, based on Romans 11:15-27)

(https://www.ccel.org/w/wesley/hymn/jwg04/jwg0451.html)

Methodism’s Jewish foundations

Wesley’s revelation concerning the last days restoration of the Jewish people to their patrimony in the land of Israel (including today’s West Bank and East Jerusalem) was coupled with an evangelical heart for Israel’s salvation. He boldly declared that “life from the dead” would come to all mankind as a result of Israel’s warm embrace of Messiah Yeshua.

Wesley therefore instructed his Methodist followers that they must “speak tenderly to” (the literal Hebrew reads “speak over the heart of”) the Jewish people (see Isaiah 40:1-2). The softest and gentlest prayers from Christians are the key, Wesley said, for God to bring life from the dead to Israel, and then through them both to the Church and to the entire globe.

The honorable Chairman of the Wesley Fellowship, Rev. Herbert McGonigle (commenting on Almighty God of Love) said “This hymn, which can be said to represent the views of both John and Charles Wesley, is well worth studying relative to how the Wesleys read scripture in terms of Israel’s future in God’s plans” Herbert McGonigle (https://www.wesley-fellowship.org.uk/Zionist_Hymn.html).

Apostolic warnings for a last days church

The Apostle from the tribe of Benjamin, Paul offers Gentile believers a prophetic warning in his revolutionary statement of Romans 11:18, 20-22, 29-32:

Do not boast over those (Jewish) branches. If you (Gentile believers) do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you… Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God … For God’s gifts (to the Jewish people) and His calling (on Israel) are irrevocable. Just as you (Gentiles) who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their (Jewish) disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may nowreceive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all.

Paul warns generations of Gentile believers that their attitude to the Jewish people – their expressions of mercy, kindness and honor to Israel – all will affect, indeed have eternal ramifications on the very future of the worldwide body of Messiah, as well as on the ultimate spiritual state of all the nations of the world.

The apostolic teaching is plain: Christian attitudes and expressions of mercy to the Jewish people will bring divine mercy on the Church, while coldhearted Christian condemnation of Israel will bring quite coldhearted divine treatment on those who curse or disparage Israel.

“Utzu etza” (taking counsel) in Portsmouth (à la Isaiah 8:9-10)

The Methodist Conference for the United Kingdom was held June 24 – July 1 2010 in Portsmouth, England (https://www.methodistconference.org.uk/). Though the Methodists represent a relatively small and declining community in Britain, they are considered to be the fourth largest English Protestant denomination. According to the conference website, “Methodist Conference first met in 1744 under John Wesley, who gathered together his assistants (both ordained ministers and itinerant lay preachers) to confer together about ‘what to teach, how to teach, and what to do, i.e. how to regulate our doctrine (ed.), discipline and practice.’ … The Conference is the body that agrees policy for the Methodist Church”.

At the conference, a vote was taken and passed on June 30 2010 to boycott Jewish goods and services produced in Judea and Samaria, on the other side of the Green Line – what modern media calls the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Up to this point, the Methodist Church has never boycotted any country; Israel has the distinction of being the first.

Islamo-fascist boycott history

Though the term “Islamofascist” has fallen into disrepute lately in America, this term is cutting edge in explaining a historical context for the “Portsmouth Putsch.”

The two outstanding examples of anti-Semitic boycott in the 20^th century were, indeed,

fascist (Hitler’s boycott of Jewish owned businesses in Germany started on April 1 1933)
https://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/documents/part1/doc7.html
https://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/boycott.htm)
and Islamic (the Muslim Arab boycott of all Israeli products from circa 1922 until the present day)
https://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/65777.pdf

Hitler began with a limited boycott – not of all Jews and not of all Jewish produce – merely of Jewish owned shops, banks, offices and stores in the territory of Germany. The end result, however, was made clear from the beginning by Dr. Josef Goebbels (Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda), “The boycott will be resumed … until German Jewry has been annihilated” (https://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=230).

Hitler gradually moved to a total disenfranchising of all Jewish people from full citizenship in Nazi Germany, and declared on January 30 1939 that his primary goal was genocide of all European Jews: “Today I will once more be a prophet…the result will be … the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe”

Goebbels later clarified that Hitler’s comments referred not just to Europe’s Jews but to the entire Jewish race: “None of the Führer’s prophetic words has come so inevitably true as his prediction that if Jewry succeeded in provoking a second world war, the result would be not the destruction of the Aryan race, but rather the wiping out of the Jewish race” (https://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb37.htm).

What began with a selective boycott of certain Jews in certain territories ended with a total anti-Christ onslaught against the Jews, known today as the Holocaust.

Boycotting Israel before it existed

The Arab boycott was formally declared on December 2, 1945 by the Arab League Council: “Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered undesirable to the Arab countries.” All Arab “institutions, organizations, merchants, commission agents and individuals” are called upon “to refuse to deal in, distribute, or consume Zionist products or manufactured goods” (https://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-gersten-f03.htm; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_League_boycott_of_Israel).

Note that the terms “Jewish” and “Zionist” are used synonymously by the Arab League – their boycott was of all products produced by Jews – and all this in 1945, before the establishment of the State of Israel and while Jewish survivors of Hitler’s death camps were struggling to regain their broken health.

Israel was being boycotted by the Arab world even before it ever became a nation. This Islamic boycott was up and running in 1945 when Jerusalem and the West Bank were still being occupied and patrolled by British paratroopers (and some of them were undoubtedly British Methodists)! Then, as now, the very existence of a Jewish state was anathema, and its stillbirth or destruction was the Arab boycott’s goal.

“Kairos Palestine” – Israel is a sin

In Portsmouth the Methodist conference was called upon to embrace the “Kairos-Palestine” (hereafter KP) document, a manifesto strongly influenced by both Liberation Theology and Replacement theology. Its Israeli Christian co-signors include the Catholic Patriarch, the Greek-Orthodox Archbishop, the Lutheran Bishop, the former Canon of the Anglican St George’s Cathedral and other non-Evangelical notables (https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/60512/sec_id/60512).

A bold one-sentence summation of the entire article by its authors is starkly clear: “In this historic document, we Palestinian Christians declare that the military occupation of our land is a sin against God and humanity” (https://kairospalestine.ps/?q=node/2).

The KP document condemns those who believe that the Scriptures champion the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient land. Of course, Charles and John Wesley ardently believed in that restoration. Were they to have appeared at the Portsmouth conference like Dickens’ “the ghosts of Christmas past,” and attempted to sing “Almighty God of love”, they would have found themselves booed or shouted down, accused of violating democratically approved Methodist doctrine! “O tempora! O mores!” (“O, what times we live in! O, what customs we have developed” free translation of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Second Oration against Verres). Incidentally, the Latin word for ‘time’ is tempora, while the Greek word for time is kairos.

KP: Wesley’s views “bring death and destruction”

In KP’s own words, herein lies “precisely the error in fundamentalist Biblical interpretation that brings us death and destruction . . . This dead letter is used as a weapon in our present history in order to deprive us of our rights in our own land” (https://www.oikoumene.org/gr/resources/documents/other-ecumenical-bodies/kairos-palestine-document.html). Abandoning the biblical teaching of a Jewish return to a land promised to the Jewish people alone, one could say that the KP runs roughshod over the Hebrew prophets like a hit-and-run driver – and then reverses direction and backs up over the Wesleys for good measure!

The KP document does not even call for an end to terrorism. Indeed, it refuses to call terrorism by its unvarnished name. Instead, the document merely makes a blithe reference to the fact that Palestinians engage in armed attacks against Israelis (using the preferred Communist euphemism “struggle” to describe terrorism) while off-handedly admitting that Palestinians are also engaged in “peaceful struggle”. KP then describes the first Intifada (where Palestinians rioted, murdered and tortured their way into a cul-de-sac) as a wonderful example of peaceful struggle. “The Palestinian people has gone the way of the peoples, particularly in the first stages of its struggle with the Israeli occupation. However, it also engaged in peaceful struggle, especially during the first Intifada” (KP. ibid.).

For the authors of the KP document, it seems that rock-throwing and Molotov-cocktail-pitching Palestinian ‘peaceniks’ are an acceptable option, right along with the “first stages of its struggle” – which include (as a fact of history) sniping against soldiers and civilians, improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers in cafés and pizza parlors.

Showing an ideological numbness so prevalent among today’s “politically correct”, both the Methodist declaration and the KP document simplistically mouth the words “peace,” “justice” and “evil,” naively assuming that the God of Israel is on the side of the Palestinian ‘angels’ and against the Jewish state.

Indeed, KP’s declaration that the State of Israel “is a sin against God and humanity” is treacherously close to three of Adolf Hitler’s famous quotes:

“By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord” (Mein Kampf)
“...The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew” (Mein Kampf)
“Even when we have driven the Jew out of Germany, he remains our world enemy” (Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction: Conversations with Hitler 1940, p. 237)

The ox, the ass and the Methodist

Years ago the famed Messianic Yiddish writer Haim (Henry) Einspruch authored a wry book based on Isaiah 1:2-3 and titled “The Ox, The Ass and the Oyster.” His focus was on Yeshua as the Messianic Jewish pearl of great price. Isaiah’s emphasis in the 700’s BC was that the majority of his own Jewish people should have been listening to the prophetic promises and obeying them, but instead they had rebelled, running headlong into the wall of their God-given spiritual foundations.

“Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For YHVH has spoken: sons I have reared and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, My people do not understand” (Isaiah 1:2-3).

John Wesley commented on this verse in his “Explanatory Notes”: The Lord “directs His speech to those senseless creatures, that He might awaken (them…), whom He hereby proclaims to be so dull and stupid that they were past hearing, and therefore calls in the whole creation of God to bear witness against them”

(https://www.christnotes.org/commentary.php?com=wes&b=23&c=1).

Wesley’s comments (regarding those in Israel who were disobedient to YHVH in Isaiah’s day) have unfortunately come home to roost today among the flock that the Wesleys themselves once had reared. The recent vote at the Portsmouth conference would be absolutely anathema to the founders of that august denomination. Can it be truthfully said today that the Methodist Conference of England is the spiritual descendent of the Wesleys, especially as it concerns God’s heart and promises for Israel?

The Glory has departed

For centuries the saints of God have gazed upon the machinations and deceptions of world leaders and ruefully (and rightfully!) placed their ultimate hope in the justice and righteousness that Messiah Yeshua will bring when He returns to judge the earth in the Valley of Jehoshaphat (Zechariah 14:1-3).

Years ago Percy Bysshe Shelley composed a sonnet titled “Ozymandias.” In that poem the ruined statue of a once mighty king and empire now lay covered by swirling desert sands (https://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/). The inscription on the king’s broken statue boasted that he was “king of kings; look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” Yet in spite of the now-silent boasts, “round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away” (Ozymandias).

Fire once swept through Aldersgate. Under the ministry of the Wesley brothers (among others), trembling crowds of people came into the kingdom of God, weeping under heavenly conviction and crying out with joy. This amazing revival became known as the Methodist revival.

Today, some of God’s distant grandchildren from various Christian denominations, in cooperation with Middle Easterners straight out of Ezekiel 36:2-5, have arrogantly and methodically taken it upon themselves to aid in the dismantling of what God Himself is restoring – the Jewish people to their ancient Promised Land.

What began as a mighty flame and a strangely warming fire at a Moravian prayer chapel in the London Ward of Aldersgate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldersgate) seems now to be a barely flickering flame. Sometimes it even seems to be strange fire at that.

“And she named the child Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory is departed from Israel’ “ (1 Samuel 4:21). In John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on 1 Samuel 4:21 it is written, “The glory – that is, the glorious type and assurance of God’s presence, the ark, which is often called God’s glory, and which wast the great safeguard and ornament of Israel, which they could glory in above all other nations” (https://www.christnotes.org/commentary.php?com=wes&b=9&c=4). What was once spoken over Israel in the days of Samuel is now being spoken over others.

Who will intercede with the God of Jacob so that “Ichabod” will not be written over the archways and entranceways of the churches of the United Kingdom?
Who will get up on the wall and pray that vintage evangelical fire, courage and commitment to biblical truth will again fall in power upon the pulpits and conference podiums of England?
Who will again raise up a Wesleyan standard of burning love, tender intercession, courageous vision and meaningful practice towards the Jewish people and their state?

Thanks for standing with us. 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

Blessing Israel in a ‘post-Christian’ world – the ‘anti-Israel’ lobby

One of the hallmarks of the last days (according to Isaiah 60:1-3) is an increase in spiritual darkness among the nations, as well as an increase of light upon Israel.

“Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of YHVH has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and heavy darkness the peoples, but YHVH will rise upon you, and His glory will be seen on you. And the Gentiles will come to your light, and kings to the dawning of your shining”.

There are many biblical watchmen who are sounding a trumpet regarding last days evil in areas such as the value of human life, personal purity, sexual wholeness and godliness. In all these areas a rise in wickedness is manifesting itself in increasing measure. We bless those brothers and sisters who are exposing evil deeds of darkness (Ephesians 5:11, 16) and who are offering biblical alternatives to a vision-impaired world.

The biblical focus that God has given us homes in on Israel as God’‘s priority people (Romans 1:16; 2:9-10; 3:1-2; 9:4) – and we call the body of Messiah to intercede and labor with fiery passion for Israel’s spiritual salvation, physical rescue and benefit. Isaiah 60 prophesies that though darkness will blind the nations at the end of days, God also promises that His shekinah light will blaze upon the face of Israel – and the nations will be drawn to the God of Israel through that divine radioactivity.

This e-letter throws a spotlight on two targets – the rise of a virulent mutation of mainstream political anti-Semitism, and some helpful intercessory encouragement from the prophecy of Isaiah 60.

As we peer into the swirling and approaching darkness, we can draw strength from the words of Winston Churchill: “These are not dark days; these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.” (speech at Harrow School, Oct 29 1941). As this was true in England in WWII, so it is true for Israel and those who bless her right now.

Blessing Israel in a ‘post-Christian’ world

Every nation that has blessed the Jewish people has received divine favor. From Abimelech (Gen. 21:22) to Potiphar (Gen. 39:1-6), from the Queen of Sheba (2 Chron. 9:1-8) to Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1-4), from Na’aman (2 Kings 5:15-18) to the Roman centurions (Luke 7:4-5; Acts 10:2, 22) – the principle of Genesis 12:3 (“Those who bless you will be blessed”) is active, living and sharper than the two-edged tongue of any politician.

The converse is also true: the one who disparages, mocks, ignores or belittles the Jewish people and their calling (ed., this is the Hebrew sense of the verb meqalelecha - “He who curses you”) will be cursed by the direct hand of God Almighty (see Genesis 12:3b).

We live in what many call a ‘post-Christian world’. The Bible as a source of light, life, wisdom and truth is often mocked or brushed under the rug of political correctness. The wise men of today’s world – the sages of political science, military history and intelligence organizations – often sneer ever so slightly when reference is made to God’s hand in the affairs of men, and of His restoration of Israel to their promised land of Israel.

The ‘anti-Israel lobby’

A new attack has surfaced in the past few years, claiming that the Western world in general, and the USA in particular, are being controlled by an ‘Israel lobby.’ According to these spokesmen, the ‘Israel lobby’ has forced America into unhealthy choices which bring great damage to the USA. This concept of a supra-national Jewish cabal which secretly controls individual countries (or even the world) has historical origins in Greek and Latin paganism, in medieval Europe, as well as in the anti-Jewish Tsarist Russian forgery of the late 1800’s “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.”

One recent American book (The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy; John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007) has attempted to influence public opinion, in order to diminish US support for the Jewish state. Since its writers are respected professors at the University of Chicago and Harvard, we feel that it is important for you to be able to consult some cutting-edge analyses and critiques of their book:

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Gelb-t.html?_r=2&ref=books&oref=slogin (Leslie H. Gelb)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401282.html (Eliot A. Cohen)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/04/AR2007100402101.html (Samuel G. Freedman)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092001959.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR (Michael Gerson)
https://politics.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2007/09/09/the-israel-lobby-myth.html (George P. Schultz)
https://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=8&x_nameinnews=190&x_article=1446 (Alex Safian)
https://jewishworldreview.com/0306/wisse_israel_loby.php3 (Ruth Wisse)
https://www.americanthinker.com/2006/03/stephen_walts_war_with_israel.html (Richard Baer, Ed Lasky)
https://www.comw.org/warreport/fulltext/0604dershowitz.pdf (Alan Dershowitz)
https://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=376&PID=0&IID=1795&TTL=Understanding_the_U.S.-Israel_Alliance:_An_Israeli_Response_to_the_Walt-Mearsheimer_Claim (Dore Gold)

Professors Mearsheimer and Walt were interviewed on a Muslim website a few years ago, and Walt targeted Evangelicals in a disparaging way, stating that “the Israeli Lobby … has been strengthened by the Christian Evangelicals who believe, and I’m oversimplifying a lot here, but their view of Israel is shaped by their interpretation of Old Testament prophecy. They believe the re-establishment of a Jewish state in all of Palestine is foreordained in Biblical prophecy, and it is a key sign leading up to the Second Coming, the End of times” (https://www.altmuslim.com/a/a/n/2673 – Altmuslim website. February 14, 2008).

To state their general point more succinctly – these professors feel that Americans who believe in the biblical restoration of Israel are promoting activities which are contrary to America’s best interests. In light of such voices gaining ground in the courtyard of public opinion, believers need to wake up and smell the coffee on this one.

Hubris versus Hutzpah

Former CIA officer and Head of the Bin Laden Unit ‘Alec’ from 1996-1999, Michael Scheuer has recently authored two books “Through our enemies’ eyes: Osama bin Laden, radical Islam and the future of America” (Potomac Books, Washington DC, 2006) and “Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror” (Brassey’s, Washington D.C., 2004 – ed., referred to as IH). Having studied Bin Laden for some time, Scheuer’s insights and even appreciation for the man are quite interesting. His comments on Israel, however, do reflect a strong anti-biblical current within the larger American intelligence community.

Scheuer refers to Bin Laden’s “clear, focused, limited goals” which include “the end of U.S. aid to Israel and the ultimate elimination of that state” (IH, xviii). He approvingly quotes a Gazan Muslim professor who stated that “Israel and the Zionist Christian movement have played a major role in steering U.S. policy … by misinterpreting Bible verses … (and recruiting) large numbers of Christian extremists who are more loyal to Israel and Judaism than they are to the United States and Christianity” (IH, p, 3).

According to Scheuer Israel is a “faraway theocracy-in-all-but-name”. Its “diplomats, politicians, intelligence services, U.S.-citizen spies, and the retired senior U.S. officials and wealthy Jewish-American organizations who lobby an always amenable Congress … (are) binding the American Gulliver to the tiny Jewish state and its policies”. Scheuer quotes from al Qaeda, stating that “al Qaeda does not seem too far off the mark when it describes the U.S.-Israel relationship as a detriment to America. ‘The close link between America and the Zionist entity is in itself a curse for America’ “ (IH, p, 227).

Scheuer wants all Americans to participate in “silencing” the ‘Israel lobby.’ In the meantime he wants all Americans to know that the USA’s foreign policies are being set by “elites with their guidance, lobbying, money, and machinations of oil companies, weapons makers, evangelical preachers, and Israel and its acolytes” (IH, p. 259).

Though Scheuer describes himself as an ardent Catholic, his understanding of St. Paul’s teachings in Romans 9-11 regarding the irrevocable calling and gifts of Israel are less than apostolically based. The CIA’s motto, incised into its main entrance in Langley, may offer Schneuer some help here: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).

‘Bizarre Judeo-Christian support’

Robert Baer was a case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations from 1976 to 1997. He spent much time in Beirut, northern Iraq and Dushanbe. The movie Syriana starring George Clooney is based on experience he gained as a spy. Baer has stated in various forums that he supports American dialogue with Iran and with its Lebanese proxies, including Hezbollah.

Baer shows a grudging respect for Israel in his books and interviews, though sometimes his conclusions regarding Christian support for Israel sound rather close to those of Scheuer, Mearsheimer and Walt. The following quote is from an e-interview (https://www.chronogram.com/issue/2006/02/news/index.php).

“RB (Robert Baer): I think it’s bizarre, in a very pragmatic sense, that America would be so strongly behind Israel. Simply in economic terms, it costs so much. I’m not just talking about direct aid, the billions we’ve given the military.

LT: So why are we supporting Israel so strongly?

RB: I just don’t know, I guess the Judeo-Christian idea. If it’s true that we have 60-90 million Evangelicals that believe that Israel has to exist at the end-times, that’s probably part of it. A part of it is guilt for the Holocaust.

LT: Jewish Israeli Zionists lobby in the US?

RB: Well, they play on courts that are already there”.

In all three cases mentioned above, it is strikingly clear that all of these men are not speaking from a deep belief in the Bible, or an understanding of the Biblical teaching regarding Israel. By and large, they see the Biblical perspective as being simply one small troublesome gear in a huge secular-political machine. Their perspective is ‘post-Christian’ and their sentiments or convictions are that America would be better off not standing with (or at least standing at a safe distance from) the Jewish state. Their perspectives range somewhere between “cool,” “cold-hearted” and “cruel.”

Sinking in a historian’s Quicksand

Another recent book, “Quicksand: America’s Pursuit of Power in the Middle East” by Geoffrey Wawro; Penguin Press, NY, 2010; hereafter QS) is the attempt by a military historian to advance three themes:

America should not be supporting a corrupt regime in Saudi Arabia;
America should dialogue and work with Shiite Iran;
America should inhibit or severely impede the pro-Israel lobby, as their activities (says Wawro) harm US interests (https://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/34612/not-so-fast-2/).

Wawro’s factual errors, selective and occasionally twisted quotes, and often incorrect generalizations are surprising in light of his training. Nevertheless, what follow are some quotes which clarify his perspectives and attitudes.

Wawro utilizes quotations from sources not only to illustrate a historical point, but also in many cases to convey his own strong feelings about a matter, it seems. One example is from a British General, who says of the Jewish people, “Their superior intellect and communicative abilities are feared by all alike” (QS, p. 54). In another example Wawro refers to a U.S. Secretary of State who “could barely keep his anger at the Jewish lobby in check” (QS, p.99). Such comments are editorial in nature, and reveal mountains about the emotional presuppositions of the author.

Wawro accuses Israel of vicious ethnic cleansing (QS, p.108, 118). He castigates “U.S. compliance with even the most outrageous behavior” of Israel (QS, p. 115), and refers to America as “the only nation that could really crush Israel” (QS, p. 123). At another juncture he seems to draw a historical parallel between Truman’s day and our own through the unsubtle use of a tendentious quote, saying, “The United States is jeopardizing the good will of 30,000,000 Arabs and 220,000,000 Muslims” because of support for Israel (QS, p. 109).

Wawro occasionally reveals his own attitudes regarding Scriptural perspectives on the restoration of Israel to their promised land. He presents a sarcastic quote from a British official (with whom Wawro seems to heartily agree) describing biblical references as “sickening jargon .. developed by Israelis to describe their country’s consolidation .. the overworked Biblical tags like ‘the desert shall blossom as the rose’ and ‘if I forget thee, O Jerusalem.’ It was noisome to the British embassy but music to Ben-Gurion’s ears” (QS, p. 120).

These comments reveal a certain cold-heartedness to the God of Israel, to His word and certainly to His Jewish people. The scorn and cruelty that these comments reflect is rapidly increasing in our day.

The spiritual dynamics behind such utterances need to be made a matter of prayer, for it is these thoughts and heart attitudes which predominate in the corridors of military, intelligence and political leaders of the great nation known as America (as well as in many other Western European nations)!

Pray for the leadership of your country on all these levels, that revelation and a spiritual impartation of God’s heart will be given to the men and women who lead and make decisions – that they would be led according to God’s word and heart.

Shine Your light on me

Isaiah’s last days vision of Gentile darkness simultaneous with future glory on Israel is actually a prophetic invitation to us personally – we are being challenged (like Daniel in Daniel 9:1-3) to pray over the prophetic promises given by God, and to help birth them into their physical manifestation. Hear the words of the Prophet:

“For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly ruined. The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the pine, the fir and the cypress together, to adorn the place of My sanctuary; and I will glorify the place of My feet. The sons of your oppressors will come bowing before you; all who despise you will bow down at your feet and will call you the City of YHVH, Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Although you have been forsaken and hated, with no one traveling through, I will make you the everlasting pride and the joy of all generations” (Isaiah 60:12-15)

Bob Dylan refers to the judgment seat of Messiah in his song “Precious Angel.” The refrain keeps pleading, “Shine Your light, Shine Your light on me! You know, I just couldn’t make it by myself, I’m a little too blind to see…” (words & music Bob Dylan, © Special Rider Music, 1979).

In the same way, pray for God’s light to shine down on the Jewish people – whether in Israel or scattered across the face of the globe in the Exile, and that God would take away our spiritual blindness decisively.

Pray that we in Israel would turn our hearts toward home – that we would seek the Lord our God and Messiah Yeshua with all our hearts, and that He would reveal Himself to us as the Pierced One, as our Eternal Atonement, Redeemer and Restorer.

We appreciate you. 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. Thanks again!

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

Surfing the Tidal Wave of Anti-Semitism

One of the hallmarks of the last days is a worldwide spike in anti-Semitism. Revelation 12 connects this directly to the final thrashings of the red dragon known as Satan. His war in the heavenlies against Michael, the archangel who holds the Israel portfolio (Daniel 12:1; 10:21), also has ramifications on earth. The enemy attempts to destroy Israel God’s chosen people, because he is painfully aware that their prophetic role is key in the return of Messiah, in world revival, in bringing in the times of refreshing and in the restoration of all things (Acts 3:19-21; Romans 11:12, 15). The devil knows that his own fall and destruction are directly connected to the Jewish people’s coming into their promised inheritance.

As a result, the enemy is increasing his attempts to wipe out Israel. Part of his recent strategies include Hezbollah’s terror rocket attacks against Israel from Lebanese soil in the 2006 Lebanon War, and Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israel from Gazan soil in December 2008/January 2009. In each case Israel had previously pulled out of each territory as a step toward potential peace. In each case Israel’s withdrawal was interpreted by the enemy as weakness, and their murderous desires to attack and destroy Israel grew rather than lessened.

What was astounding is that in each case, Israel’s justified wars of self-defense against her Islamist enemies were met by virulent worldwide media condemnation, descending even to anti-Jewish rioting, physical attacks against Jewish synagogues and cemeteries, and ultimately to thuggery against Jewish and Israeli individuals. The violent Islamist genie has escaped from his bottle. He will not quickly return to his previous prison.

The devil is God’s devil

The Bible teaches that Satan himself is a creation of God, subject to His sovereignty, and ultimately to be crushed under the feet of the body of Messiah (Romans 16:20). Satan’s anti-Messiah in the end will also be slain with the breath of Messiah’s mouth when Yeshua returns (2 Thessalonians 2:8). Whatever power and activity the devil is allowed to exercise up to that point, we should bear in mind that he is very much tethered by a tightly held divine leash.

The rise of demonized anti-Semitism may indeed be one of the last vomits of Satan. Its meteoric rise in our day has a clear meaning – that the devil is panicking. The international explosion of Jew hatred (the German word Judenhass is even clearer than the term anti-Semitism) is an eschatological warning flag, letting all passengers on the Last Days Bus know that we will soon be hitting the last bit of rocky road before arriving at our final destination.

Betting on the horses

Lee Smith’s penetratingly astute analysis of Middle Eastern political realities “The Strong Horse: Power, Politics and the Clash of Arab Civilizations” (Doubleday, 2010) draws its name from Osama Bin Laden’s dictum “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse” (transcript of CNN interview December 13 2001, https://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/tape.transcript/). This “strong horse” philosophy guides the Islamic and Arab world more than Western appeals to material prosperity, technological advancement or even the allure of peace. Middle Easterners have spend the past 4,000 years perfecting their political radar for, historically speaking, survival in the Arab and Islamic world depends on spotting the rising dictator (the strong horse) and siding with him.

The strong horse in the Middle East right now is Iran. It alone is succeeding in thumbing its nose at the world greatest superpower. It alone is stinging and goading Israel (the Middle East’s most deadly army). And it alone is stirring up the Shiite masses of Iraq and the Gulf States, where much of the West’s oil lounges in Babylonian luxury.

One by one, the cruelest dictators of the Middle East have “come to Canosa” to kiss the Persian ring. Syria, Sudan, Iraq and now Turkey – all have recently made their way to Teheran, making sure that they are photographed and noted as ardent aficionados of the up and coming Iranian strong horse.

Playing chess with the big boys

Iran (modern Persia) has arranged its Near Eastern chess pieces with consummate skill, surrounding Israel on all sides. The Islamic Republic of Iran supplies Shiite jihadis on Israel’s northern border (Hezbollah) with advanced weaponry. Over the past years Israel has intercepted and captured many Iranian weapons ships just before they docked in Lebanon – such as the Francop (www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/134235). Iran also supplies chemical warfare and delivery missiles to Syria in the Northeast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2007_Syrian_arms_depot_explosion); https://abcnews.go.com/International/scud-missile-shipment-hezbollah-raises-mideast-tensions/story?id=10361973). Iran has continued to smuggle rockets and missiles into Islamist Gaza – first to Gaza’s PLO (Israel intercepted the Karine A weapons ship – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_A – and then the Santorini, www.waronline.org/en/analysis/pal_weapons.htm). Today Iran smuggles weapons into Gaza by ship, but also through Egyptian tunnels based on truck convoys through Sudan (Israel recently launched long-range air strikes against these Iranian convoys in Sudan; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sudan_airstrikes).

Iran’s strategy is simple – threaten Israel from all sides; then any attempt to degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons production line can be slowed down or stopped by triggering attacks on Israel by any or all of these above proxies – her client states.

Pray that destructive Iranian strategies will be overturned and turned against their originators; that God would save and protect His chosen people; and that strategies and great discernments would be given to those entrusted with safeguarding the security and survival of the Jewish people (read Psalm 121).

Hiding behind the skirts of useful idiots

Recently a flotilla of naïve and “politically correct” Westerners tried to run the Israeli Navy blockade of Gaza, attempting to sneak 7 ships into Gaza without undergoing Israeli vetting. In light of the above noted history of terrorist weapons smuggling, these Westerners are guilty of foolish negligence at the very least. They are also guilty of unwitting cooperation with Islamist terror strategists (whether from Gaza, from Turkey or from Iran) and attempting to severely downgrade security for Israel’s civilian population.

The largest of these ships (the Mavi Marmara) held more than 560 passengers. At least 50 of them were Turkish terrorists funded and equipped by a Turkish group IHH connected with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and al-Qaeda (www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/06/ihh-terrorist-ties-confirmed). Twenty of these terrorists had already taped al-Qaeda style Islamist suicide videos, in preparation for a violent death fighting Israeli soldiers (www.nypost.com/p/news/international/truth_behind_the_harm_ada_CgqfVG9KrAUT4mQeO335fO). Though world television and newspaper headlines screamed of “brutal Israelis invading peace ships” and “attacking humanitarian aid flotillas”, the truth was shockingly different. Islamist terrorists quite happily hid behind a politically correct “humanitarian” cover as they planned the lynching and murder of Israeli Seals who came to investigate and neutralize any threats that these ships might contain.

On May 31 2010 at approximately 0415 hours Israel’s Navy Seals (Shayetet or Flotilla 13) rappelled down onto the ship from Blackhawk helicopters, expecting to be greeted by Western protestors displaying mild civil disobedience. Instead they were immediately attacked by a murderous Turkish terror mob equipped with iron bars, axes, stun grenades, firebombs, hunting knives, slingshots, night vision equipment and firearms. The Shayetet team was equipped with paintball guns used primarily for moderate riot control. Each Israeli commando was carrying only one Glock 9mm pistol for personal self-defense.

Documented video clips show the Turkish terrorists preparing for and initiating premeditated violent attacks, and their attempted lynchings of Israel’s Shayetet 13 Navy Seals (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2duPV9MQIc&feature=channel; www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvS9PXZ3RWM&feature=channel; www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6sAEYpHF24&feature=channel; www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfWUlNBnwyg).

Why do the nations rage? (Psalm 2)

The world media instantly portrayed Israel’s self-defense as a bloody massacre of innocent humanitarian peaceniks. TV and newspapers followed the story line established by the terrorists themselves, while concealing the terrorist connections of the Turks who tried to lynch the Israeli special forces. Nine Turks were shot at close range by Israeli Seals in hand to hand combat, but nearly all news media perverted these plain and documented facts. Instead they unleashed a huge tidal wave of anti-Semitism.

As a result, may countries are boycotting trade connections with Israel, boycotting Israeli goods, withdrawing ambassadors, cutting off diplomatic relations, etc (three examples include Norway - www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3899094,00.html; Sweden - www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=177545) and Malaysia.

The behavior of the nations to Israel is stunningly close to Bob Dylan’s ascerbic and prophetic description of Israel and the nations in his song “Neighborhood Bully” :

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully

This newest wave of anti-Semitism is a serious development. From a biblical perspective, the nations are filling up their own cup of judgment and are facing their day of reckoning (Isaiah 31:9; 34:1-8). Israel is being painted into a corner by the hatred of the nations, and God will use this pressure to purify a remnant in Israel (Isaiah 4:4; 10:20-25).

Pray for the Jewish people in Israel and in the Exile, that the pressures and troubles facing Jacob will move us to seek God’s face and heart through Messiah Yeshua.

Prophetic change in the Middle East

For the past 50 years Israel’s strategic defense strategy involved making alliances with non-Arab and non-Islamic neighbors on its periphery. These allies have included Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, the Shah’s Iran, the Kurds of northern Iraq, the Maronite Christians of Lebanon and the non-Arab secular government of Turkey.

Over the past 35 years Israel has witnessed the rise of Marxist revolutionaries in Ethiopia, Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shiite putsch in Iran, Syria’s smothering takeover of Lebanon through Hezbollah, and the weakening of the Kurds through Shiite and Sunni terror in an Iraq now aflame. The last strategic linchpin now crumbling is the country of Turkey.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister, has been slowly pulling his country away from a close alliance with Israel and America, and coddling up to Teheran, Damascus, Khartoum, Caracas, Beirut and Gaza. He has moved his country into the position of cursing Israel on a daily basis, aiding Israel’s mortal enemies, and most recently encouraging the terror flotilla to violate Israel’s sovereignty and security.

Students of the prophetic Scriptures know that the Bible points to a Turkic role in the end-time battle with Israel known as the war of Gog and Magog (see Ezekiel 38-39). Countries turning against Israel mentioned in that battle include present day Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, many of the Central Asian “Stans” – and Turkey. Turkey’s about-face regarding Israel seems to be another decisive step towards that final frontier.

Born-again Caliphate or Ottoman windbag?

Turkey has the historic honor of being the last center of the Islamic Caliphate, the Muslim Empire’s once-capital city, so to speak. Koranic Islam looks to a rebirth of the Caliphate as a center for international jihad and Islamic world control. Every Turk is aware of this past historical glory, and some do harbor dreams of future grandeur or delusions of revived Ottoman glory. Erdogan himself sees that the road to Islamic leadership leads directly through the gate labeled “hatred of Israel.” His policies and tactics are taking Turkey out from under the NATO umbrella and far away from Europe and the USA – straight into the arms of Iran, Syria and radical Islam.

Israel and Turkey once shared close ties in trade, intelligence, military matters and tourism. As a result of Erdogan’s shenanigans, the chill in Turkey-Israel relations is more than marked.

Pray for the leadership of Turkey – that God would grant them a revelation of His heart and plans for Israel; that they would no longer curse but bless the Jewish people and their state (see Genesis 12:3); and that any evil plans and alliances would be broken and thwarted by the Holy One of Israel Himself (see Isaiah 8:9-10).

We appreciate you. 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. Thanks again!

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