Ex 3:7-10 And the LORD (YHVH) said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey. . . Now, therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me. . . .
Ezek 20:33-36 As I live, says the Lord GOD (YHVH), surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you, says the Lord GOD (YHVH).
Is 53:3 He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And He hid, as it were, His face from us; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Shabbat shalom,
Another broken cease-fire, which this time included the temporary capture of a mortally wounded Israeli soldier, whose status at this time is uncertain. Fewer rockets fired at Beer Sheva, but we were wakened this morning at 6:00. A brother in the Lord has been among the soldiers killed in this war. Shai Kushnir, who was part of the Tents of Mercy congregation, was among a group of soldiers killed by a mortar on Thursday. His funeral was yesterday.
I don’t know how long, once the Israelis in Egypt began to feel that they were really slaves being worked to death by their taskmasters once the Pharoah who did not ‘know Joseph’ began to rule, that they began to moan and groan. Until then, their lives weren’t really so bad, and they did not think to return to their homeland. But the time came that they began to feel the pressure, and the suspicions, and the dislike of the Egyptian rulers towards them as Hebrews. Only then did they begin to cry out for deliverance, and at some point the crescendo reached God’s ears. And He called to Moses in the desert that the time had come to act to bring His people out of Egypt and their enslavement, and to bring them into His land which He promised to their fathers to give to them. Things got worse, much worse, before they became better; but the deliverer and the deliverance were ‘activated’ and on the way.
Israel today is again being encountered by YHVH their God face-to-face in His controversy with Zion. He will not allow them to fully become idolaters like the Gentiles that they so much emulate. He WILL rule over them, and He will purge out the rebels as He does so. The despite of the world towards Israel and her leaders is increasingly evident as leeway is given towards terrorists dedicated to Israel’s and the Christianized world’s destruction, and pressure is constantly put upon Israel and upon God-fearing Christians to yield ground/territory/principles and integrity in the name of ‘peace and social order’.
The ‘world’ is more prone to listen to the lies of the evil one, and to fall as prey to his schemes, than to give, at least, the benefit of the doubt to the information and explanations of those who are God’s instruments in this world — whether it is Israel in the continuous war against terror and terrorists, or whether it is Bible-believing disciples of Jesus who seek to maintain the salt of the covenants and the light of the truth of the gospel and of Messiah being Jesus in an increasingly antichristian (read, anti-YHVH God-and-His-Son) and ungodly, unholy world, which lies under the power of the evil one. The ‘world’ is one thing, but allies and believers should be giving greater weight towards Israel for what is the ‘story behind the story’, and not to terrorists and their allies. Don’t we as believers want unbelievers, and even other believers, to believe our side of things as it relates to ‘suffering and life’ in the world, and not listen to those who simply oppose any explanation given by Christians? Here is a parody that shows the pressure of ‘group think’ against what we know to be true:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTezdMLJoyE
For those of you who love and support Israel and the Jewish people, make no mistake: both rabbinic Judaism and Islam are against the truth of who the true God and Yeshua/Jesus/Yasu is. The time will come that that lying and antichrist spirit will agree to direct their despite and hostility towards those who identify with Jesus, whether we are Jewish, Arab, or any other national and ethnic group.
This current outbreak of war in Gaza of Hamas against Israel has again brought to the surface all of the natural and partisan feelings by believers within the Body of Messiah here (and elsewhere). There are plenty of words and analyses (including by yours truly) from all ‘parties’, and some of you may receive much of them. God’s moralism is not like ours; nor does He force it upon anyone, but He will eventually require every one to acknowledge that His way and His thoughts alone are right, good, and holy — and His judgments are all righteous and true. There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel; but neither is there any moral equivalence between Israel’s own justification to fight against her enemies, and between God’s righteousness in bringing the Jewish people to submit to His case with them regarding Jesus. And as long as we, as those justified through our faith in the resurrection of Jesus, are unable to express with one voice the sovereign wisdom and righteousness of God in times of severe crisis, then it can also be said of us in a practical way that our righteousnesses are as filthy rags when compared with God’s purity.
In Romans, Paul writes that we are saved by God’s mercy because we, even as believers, have all been disobedient to Him, in whatever degree or measure. I pray and wonder whether believers in the Ukraine are seeking to express their unity in Christ, or are they mostly defining themselves by being either pro-Ukraine or pro-Russia? What about Christians in Ireland? Whatever those cases are, there is the unique element in the battle for minds and hearts in Israel and the Middle East because of the COVENANT of God with Israel among the children in the flesh of Abraham, that is not so with any other nation or people (in the flesh) on the Earth.
If wanting to re-vote in the UN to eradicate Israel as a legal nation-state, which was intended and determined through post-WW1 decisions by the victorious powers, then all the Arab states established through those same victors’ decisions and agreements also need to be nullified. This is what the Islamic caliphate aims to do as it seeks to restore the Muslim empire, at least over the entire Middle East, if not throughout the world. Hamas, with its underground evil empire war factory, reminds me of the Orcs in Lord of the Rings, as they, empowered by evil, planned their war to the death and destruction of all that represents what is good. Satan works in the dark; Jesus is Light, and in the light.
There is plenty of impurity and uncleanness still in us, and we must find a way here for the Jewish and Arab believers to overcome our natural tendencies, and demonstrate and proclaim our unity in Christ/Messiah; to put all of our words and thoughts at the cross, and let the Lord do His will and have His way. We have to trust Him, be willing scapegoats with Him, be called bad names with Jesus, be despised and rejected with Him. Without the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit, we surely will not be capable of doing so in true and spiritual worship.
This Tuesday is the ninth of Av, a day of historic tragedy in the Jewish people’s annals. We, as believers in Yeshua, are not mourning the destruction of the Temple, which was destroyed because of Israel’s sin. We should focus, maybe, on the sins within the Body of Christ, the living corporate Temple of God, which are weakening our own witness and testimony to the world for the gospel, and of the holiness and righteousness of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are having a prayer and fast day in Beer Sheva at the Bible House.
Our challenge in living in tension: love the brethren; love our enemies (we do pray for the salvation of even terrorists); bless those who curse us; pray for those who persecute us; but the natural nation of Israel, or any other country and government, is not born-again to be living by such supernaturallly, Holy Spirit enpowered standards of God’s sons and daughters in Messiah. To expect that of them is both hypocritical and unrealistic.
Is God hearing the voice of the Bride for her Bridegroom?
