What will the Jewish people's acceptance of Yeshua result in but life from the dead?
(Romans 11:15)
If I forget you, O Jerusalem
The last few weeks have seen
Islamist rioting and civil unrest break out like root fires on the seams
between Jerusalem’s Jewish and Arab populations. Calls for violent opposition
to Israeli rule on the part of Palestinian radicals have come from –
·
jailed terror leader Marwan
Barghouti (www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Jailed-Barghouti-to-Palestinians-Continue-armed-resistance-against-Israel-381454)
·
Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas (www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Abbas-calls-on-activists-to-prevent-Jewish-settlers-from-entering-Temple-Mount-379153;www.breakingisraelnews.com/24232/abbas-vows-to-end-jewish-contamination-of-temple-mount/#OrTCRSUSRJOARe6b.97).
These calls to incitement have
thrown liquid gasoline onto barely concealed local Islamic expressions of
violence (http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2014/Pages/PM-Netanyahu-remarks-following-Security-Cabinet-meeting-11-Nov-2014.aspx).
The same calls are being seditiously echoed by some Israeli citizens who are
also Arab members of Knesset (www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Police-seal-off-Temple-Mount-after-Palestinian-rioters-hurl-stones-380825).
The instigators of this violence are
the same people with whom the international community is pressuring Israel to
negotiate with. Whether it be EU, UN or USA, these irresponsible forces
are advocating that Israel relinquish control over ancient Jewish Jerusalem and
hand it over to Palestinian advocates of violence.
Immediate fallout
Over the past three weeks, rioting
has erupted in –
·
the Mount of Olives (A-Tur and Ras
al-Amud)
·
Mount Scopus (Issawiya)
·
the northern Jerusalem suburb of
Shu’afat
·
the Kidron Valley suburbs of Wadi
Joz and Silwan (of Pool of Siloam fame)
·
the southeastern Jerusalem ridge
(Abu Tor and Jebel Muqaber).
Burning Molotov cocktails are being thrown
daily at police forces, army patrols and civilian motorists. Deadly stone
throwing occurs round the clock at cars and pedestrians, with special focus on
the Jerusalem light rails train system which equally serves Jerusalem’s Arab
and Jewish populations in north Jerusalem.
Attempted lynchings of Jews by
Islamist youth rioters on the Mount of Olives and at the abovementioned
flashpoints have aggravated an already extremely tense situation.
Over the past three weeks there have
been three motorized terror attacks against Israelis with fatalities, and two
knifes attack causing two fatalities (one at a Tel Aviv train station, the
other at a hitch-hiking stop south of Jerusalem). The perpetrators were
affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad, and had spent time in Israeli prisons
for previous terror activities. One had been recently released in the
Hamas-Shalit prisoner exchange.
In each terror attack not only Jews
were killed. A Druze Border Patrol officer in the Israeli Army, Jed’an Assad
age 38, was killed leaving behind a pregnant wife and a three-year old son. A
South American woman in the process of converting to Judaism was murdered in
that attack as well.
When news of one of these terror
attacks against Israelis circulated in the Palestinian communities, the
Palestinian response was not shock but rather further violent attacks against
Israeli police, IDF forces and Israeli civilians.
In a town just northeast of Nazareth
an Arab teenager attacked a police manwith a knife, attempting to kill the
police. He was shot and mortally injured, Arab riots ensued as a result.
Public reaction and media spin
A quiet and grim determination has
settled on Jerusalem’s Jewish inhabitants. They have been through these
scenarios before. Watchful eyes roam on the lookout for potential terror-cars.
The amount of Jerusalem pedestrians using the light rail system has gone down.
The tension near the Jewish-Arab seams is more palpable.
Arab media has unfortunately been
crowing victory, pasting up terror cartoons which glowingly compare the
car-terrorists to ISIS fighters, and advocating a jihad for Jerusalem by
stabbing and running down Jewish residents of the City of the Great King (www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Nazareth-billboard-supports-car-terror-attacks-while-alluding-to-ISIS-381257).
The majority of media in the Jewish
sector are fearfully asking if this unrest is the start of a third intifada – a
third spate of terrorist violence and Islamist rioting. There is a defeatist
slant on much reporting of the news rather than a clear-eyed appraisal of the
nature of the enemy Israel needs to deal with decisively.
·
Pray for the God of Jacob to
bring a blanket of quiet to Jerusalem, to guide security forces to thwart
terror attacks, to preserve human life on all sides, and to give Israel’s
leaders divine counter-strategies for dealing with jihadi plots
Historical patterns
During the British Palestine Mandate
in the 1920’s through the 1940’s, the Arab leadership was actively involved
with the Nazi High Command. Haj Amin al-Husseini was a personal friend of
Himmler and Hitler, and he also fostered street riots against Jewish residents
and British Mandate troops and police. His goals were twofold and very similar
to Abbas’ and Hamas’ goals today –
·
to sap the strength, hope and
resolve of the Jews returning to Zion
·
to weaken British willingness to
support the restoration of the Jewish people to their homeland
The same strategies lurk behind
Palestinian riots in our day. Unfortunately a chink has been found in Western
armor, and Western powers are advocating Jewish compromise to Islamic Jihad,
and pressing for political collapse in the face of Islamist irredentism.
Islamist anti-Semitic
stereotypes
Western media are unwittingly
following the Palestinian media campaign of stereotyping the Jewish return to
Zion as a foreign incursion. Today world media is buying into the Islamist
anti-Semitic stereotypes that paint the Jews as a satanic dajjal (Islamist
equivalent of anti-Christ), while ignoring or justifying the murderous attacks
on Israeli civilians.
The new Anti-Semitism
European media is particularly
perverse in spinning its negative media descriptions of Israel. Since
anti-Semitism is officially passé, anti-Zionism
is the new anti-Semitism. The same nasty language and malevolent intent is
being published, but in the 21st century it
is now being incorrectly labeled anti-Zionism. Thus has anti-Semitism changed
its garment, but all the while its pustulent flesh remains virulently
unchanged. The world consensus opposing Jewish resettlement of its own homeland
and of Jerusalem its own capitol city, shows how advanced this spiritual
disease is, and how deadly is the spiritual prognosis.
Eyeless in Jerusalem
The vast majority of Israel’s media
is in the lap of PC leftist editors. The Prime Minister is routinely mocked and
dishonored. Any independent media outlets are attacked, while recently a law is
being attempted to be pushed through the Knesset which would silence the one
pro-Netanyahu paper Israel Hayom (Israel Today).
Most editorial and media analysis of
the riots declares that the fault is entirely Israel’s and that she should give
up land and allow for the creation of a Palestinian state (to be ruled by Hamas
in short thrift, of course). That would make Europe, the USA and the Arab world
friendly to Israel again, it is believed.
As it was in the days of Ezekiel 16,
so are some influential Israelis lusting after international acceptance – quite
prepared to allow the Promised Land to be despoiled by those whom YHVH calls
“My enemies” (Ezekiel 36:2-7; Psalm 83:2-8) as the price of admission
to the international party. Truly, there are many who are eyeless in Jerusalem,
and not only in Gaza (see Judges 16:21-30; Isaiah 56:10).
As some in Israel move from
‘post-Zionist’ to ‘anti-Zionist’, from settling the land to opposing
settlement, we need to pray for a recovery of sight to the blind:
·
Pray that Messiah Yeshua will
restore the pioneering spirit, the warrior spirit and the spirit of repentance,
grace and supplications to the nation He has called to be His mighty army on
earth (Zechariah 12:10; Ezekiel 37:9-14).
Rock-solid focus
As the nations are in turmoil, as
super-powers slip quietly into the sea, as evil raises its green-tinged head
across the face of God’s planet, we need to stay on target and remember some
rock-solid truths that will serve us well in the coming days as guiding stars:
·
The finger of God is catalyzing and
instigating the Jewish people’s return to their Promised Land (Jeremiah 30:10-17; 16:14-15)
·
The God of Jacob is in the process
of bringing about the eclipsing of Islamism and the collapse of Islamist
control in the Middle East, and especially in Zion (Zechariah
13:2)
·
YHVH is ardently determined to bring
about the repentance and salvation of the nation of Israel (Isaiah 4:2-6; 62:1-9)
·
Through great trials God will bring
about the resurrection and the victory of the Jewish people, both in the
physical and the spiritual (Hosea 5:14-15; Isaiah 66:7-16;
Isaiah 41:14-16)
·
God will bring about the total
defeat of all the nations who will turn against the Jewish state, and will
bring judgment on all the countries who press for the dividing of Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:2, 12; Joel 3:2, 9-17)
·
God will establish Jerusalem as the
capitol city of His Messianic rule, and re-instate the Davidic dynasty as the
Royal Family of His earthly kingdom (Isaiah 2:1-4; Jeremiah 3:17;
17:25; Jeremiah 33:19-26; Amos 9:11-12)
Rabbit trails
As the world’s focus zooms in on
Jerusalem, we can be sure of two things – one, this is the Lord’s doing, and
two, the enemy is trying to do whatever he can to distort the truth and to skew
clear biblical emphases. Here are some minefields to avoid stepping on:
·
There is a move afoot to rebuild the
Temple, to construct the Third Temple. Though the Scriptures speak positively
about a Fourth Temple in Ezekiel 40-48 and in Isaiah 56:4-8, it also describes
a prior temple of iniquity on the same spot which will be the stage for the
manifestation of great evil (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-31;
2 Thessalonians 2:3-12; Revelation 11).
·
Some Evangelicals who are greatly
excited about fulfilling prophecy, are advocating that Evangelicals support
such efforts to rebuild. The logic here is similar to that of buying shares in
“Antichrist Projects,” in order to help “move prophecy along.” We cannot afford
to be “one big happy Temple family” on this decisive and portentous issue
·
There are some believers in Yeshua
who are getting fogged about the need for Israel’s repentance and clear turning
to Messiah Yeshua. But even if the Ark of the Covenant itself is to be found,
it will not in itself bring Israel to repentance and salvation in Messiah Yeshua.
For that, the outpouring of Zechariah 12:10 is absolutely essential.
The real and the counterfeit –
How shall we then pray?
·
Pray for the revelation of
Messiah Yeshua to Israel and to her leaders
·
Pray for the protection and
victory of Jerusalem and her Jewish leaders
·
Pray for the soon return of
Messiah Yeshua
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
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BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971
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