The war for truth in the inward parts

Schools here have begun the new academic year, and there are real challenges as to what they will be taught in a world increasingly parting from believing and knowing that there must be absolute truth and righteousness and love. Without that, nothing can be certain, and no one can stand on a firm foundation that is always sound against any and every storm and disaster. The three Fall appointed times of YHVH given to Israel begin in just a few weeks, and they call for the regathering, and ingathering, of the Jewish/Israeli people to the God of their covenants, to be prepared for the atonement provided by God’s Lamb on the cross about 2000 years ago, and, upon that foundation, for the Kingdom to be restored to Israel, as the apostles asked just before Yeshua/Jesus ascended back to His glory at the Father’s right hand.  We await that most momentous “appointed time” which the Father has set, the day and hour of which that no one can figure out in advance. 

We have issues — like many do — with people in Nachaat Yeshua/Yeshua’s Inheritance Cong. whose lives are shaky in their pursuit of life opportunities offered, in their marriage relationships, in their understanding of the gospel and the new covenant. When people ask me (and they often do): “How is your congregation?”, my answer is usually, “Outwardly everything seems fine, but I do not know what is going on in their hearts and minds.” We judge by appearances; God knows the thoughts and intentions of each of our hearts.  Glory to Him!  

The ongoing war here is taxing, and wearing people down. This is part of the enemies’ strategy in order to have us “quit the fight”, and stirring up all kinds of “complaints in the wilderness/desert”. This is not only with respect to natural Israel in its wars against those surrounding her with the hope to eradicate her from being a nation anymore, and to take her land of inheritance; but, also with respect to the Body of Messiah, bringing in all manner of opinions, disputes, doubts in view of how long the war is lasting, the plight of the hostages, the continued threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the “disputed territories” of Judea and Samaria, Iran, the UN, the EU, the US, the media — much of it concerned with world “opinion” and the revising and re-writing of history. Ignorance and indifference are the soils of deception. World opinion is very fickle at best, and always ready to “blame the Jews”. 

It is because YHVH God has chosen the Jews, this land, the city of Jerusalem, the nation of Israel to represent Him — to be His witnesses — to the world regarding His sovereignty and reality. Whether the Jewish people and nation “get it”, or “like it” does not alter at all what God Himself has spoken and had written for our learning and admonition. The devil does know it, and does what he is good at to turn people away — as he turned many angels away — from accepting and agreeing with the Creator’s and Redeemer’s choices and ways. To accuse the brethren — of which much is true! — but it is Messiah Yeshua/Christ Jesus who died for us, and rose again for our justification, and to confirm all that the triune God has purposed and done, and will yet do to fulfill that purpose. 

Wishful thinking is not going to change God’s Word, or His own plan and wisdom regarding the times that He has set to both save all whom He wills, and to condemn all who reject His offer of salvation and the forgiveness of all our sins against Him. If He listened to us too much, Yeshua/Jesus would possibly never come back in anyone’s lifetime; and, somehow, evil would never get so bad that we should feel the need to change our mind about that. There would never be a “last generation”. Praise God that HE is faithful to Himself and to His Word! After all the years of hard labor slavery building up, how long did it take for the Israelis to cry out to the God of their fathers for help and deliverance — feeling the real need — to the level that YHVH God “to hear them”, and sent Moses back to Egypt to deliver His people for His redemptive plan? And, it got worse for the Chosen People up to the judgments powerfully came against the oppressors, and the deliverance of the Hebrews came, even though the deliverer/redeemer was present and acting in obedience to the LORD. This is a paradigm for what will take place leading up to the return of the Lord. 

I am thankful when I am asked good questions (for which I do not always have a satisfying answer) from Jewish believers, and I want to address a couple of them here “for a clearer record”, since these questions are also in the thoughts of many others, including non-Jewish believers: 

Concerning aliyah/immigration for those Jewish people whose life circumstances may not lend themselves for immigrating to Israel, I believe that first of all it is the issue of the heart that is paramount: Ps 137 speaks to the heart of every Jew regarding the place and priority of the promised land of Israel and the holy city of Jerusalem, whether or not one lives here/there. “Next year in Jerusalem!” is “toasted” every year at Passover, but is it something genuine in one’s connection and longing, or “just a tradition”? There are some Jewish believers who do not promote or encourage aliyah, since Jacob’s Trouble is going to be focused here, in the land. In other words, it is not a “safe house” from suffering and serious persecution, even unto blood. These last two years of war have made that much clearer than before, since we had always said, and assumed, that “never again” is in our power to prevent. 

Be a witness of the gospel truth wherever you live, to the Jews and to all the “others”. But the Word of the Lord says that He will send hunters after His people in order to get more of them back to the land which He covenantally promises to give them. Fishers have caught some to bring them “home [on Earth]. What is the will and purpose of God, and do we agree with Him about it? Hunting season has opened! 

The other question for us believers living now in Israel, concerns praying for our enemies.  There are times when we do consciously — even out loud — pray for the enemies, loving them enough to want them to become brothers and sisters whose sins are forgiven and inheritors of eternal life. Normally though, the closeness of the war and its atrocities — and their clearly stated intent, both in writing and in speaking — doesn’t always bring that front-and-center, and we can fall into taking primarily a “natural” position rather than a “supernatural” one. I suppose that this general statement is my covering for the question raised: “our calling, our mission, is to take the gospel of salvation and the Kingdom of God to whomsoever wherever, that as many as will can enter the family of God our Father  through spiritual new birth, just as we have, by repenting and believing that Yeshua/Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, with all that that confession means”. 

I agree that there is a difficulty for pastors and teachers to deal with the issue in a consistently proper way (me included):  on the one hand, Israel is a sovereign nation by the righteousness of God carrying out His plan of redemption, as He has said and had written for our instruction. There is an incessant war against that — both spiritual and carnal — and Israel has every legal justification for both defending itself, and taking necessary offensive means to seek to prevent her enemies from continuing to try to carry out their stated raison d’etre of destroying the people and nation, and taking the land for themselves. Since it is a dilemma beyond human resolution, being in agreement on strategies and tactics and risks and consequences is probably not to be expected; therefore, the gospel goes out to anyone, everyone, on whatever side of the conflict, and also to those on the sidelines.

But Judeo-Christian westerners (my cultural milieu growing up) are loathe to “see people suffer and die”, and can therefore be controlled and ruled more easily by emotions rather than by truth and righteousness. So we can too easily take the side of the actual oppressor-become-victims of their own belief system and values, and blame their plight on the easy scapegoat — the Jews and Israel. Jews will continue to suffer and die as long as our people persist in denying the truth of who Jesus is, and refuse to believe in Him, blaming HIM — the Scapegoat — for the historic Christian persecution for our “justifiable-in-our-own-eyes” unbelief. We have been brought up with that sin as being truth to never let go of. So Israel-supporting Christians need to also be praying for the salvation of individual Jews, without erasing Jewish identity and God’s redeeming purpose for them:  it is good, and has a future, for the benefit of the whole world. 

(I am still a Jew, but I don’t follow or practice anymore a religion — way of life based on faith in that way — that rejects the truth of the gospel. I say sometimes that I was born Jew-ish, seeking man’s approval, and born-again a Jew, for the praise of God. So, for Judaism, I am an apostate and an outcast, even though I live in Israel, have children serving in the military,  and seek to love my neighbor as myself, loving the Father and His beloved Son above all. Yeshua says that this is the essence of the Law and the Prophets. For the God of my fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I have believed unto salvation, being forgiven of my sins, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, and of everlasting life. The Messiah/Christ, and His Apostles, were all Israeli Jews in the flesh, and spoke to us Jews/Israel first. He gave the apostles — especially to Paul — to take the truth of the gospel and salvation to the Gentiles. The changes, differences, newness which the gospel has brought in applies to all of us who believe — to the Jewish believers first, and not only to the non-Jews. There is one new man in Messiah/Christ.) 

Reading Revelation, it’s interesting to me, and scary, how people are going to blaspheme the true and loving God when He righteously judges the nations in His wrath — the Lion who is also the Lamb that was slain — (not to mention how horrible it will be during the Antichrist’s all-out assault), and huge numbers of people are going to be killed and die. It is going to be way “disproportionate/out of proportion” to anything we have ever encountered or even imagined. We are not prepared for that. The blessed hope that we have is the resurrection and rapture of the believers just before the time of God’s wrath. Death by whatever means is not the real issue; but, who will be granted everlasting life with the Lord, or not, after death, the last enemy.