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Israel, Is Your God Unjust?
The words of Paul the apostle, an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin
and former religious zealot of the sect of the Pharisees, to the
Gentile believers in God at Rome, regarding the Jews:
“There is a secret truth, my friends, which I want you to
know, for it will keep you from thinking how wise you are. It is
that the stubbornness of the people of Israel is not permanent,
but will last only until the complete number of Gentiles comes
to God. And this is how all Israel will be saved. As the Scripture
says, ‘The Savior will come from Zion and remove all wickedness
from the descendants of Jacob’” (Romans 11:25-26 GNB).
Your presence
on this planet today is a living proof of God's
existence.
Many Jews have complained that they have been the ongoing victims
of hostility from those that call themselves Christians. They say
that this hostility, if not overtly physical and life-threatening
(the Holocaust and pogroms), is manifest in proselytizing that
belittles their faith. Jews have been told, for centuries now,
that they are missing something, that their faith is lacking, that
they are wrong regarding Jesus Christ. Because of a TV program
that calls into question the resurrection of Christ, Gerald Honigman,
a Jew, poses this question to Christians in his article, “So,
My Friends, How Does It Feel… to at least partially walk
in another man’s shoes?” presuming Christians have
now been given a reason to doubt, the shoe being on the other foot.
What I want to tell the Jews and the nation of Israel, my brothers
and sisters in the flesh, is that you have indeed been wrong about
God and Jesus Christ, all of you, whether you claim to have faith
or not. You have been wrong, it has been hurting you, it
has been hurting God, and you need to know it, for your
sake and His. You need to turn away from seeing yourselves as the
victims, from looking
to men for approval and justice, and look to God your Creator,
Who has been responsible for everything that has happened
to you.
Whether you believe in God or not, your presence on this planet
today is a living testament and proof of His existence, omniscience,
and omnipotence. He foretold, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures
by your forefathers, that because of your wicked ways He would
scatter you to the four winds, casting you out of the land of Israel.
Your fathers foretold it and He did it. Yet He also said He would
keep you as a people and bring you back into your own land, in
unbelief, through no righteousness of your own. He has done that,
too.
No one else could do these things, and you certainly could not
do it to yourselves, nor would you. Would you have chosen to be
evicted from your homes to wander the world in danger of your lives?
No. But you chose what led to that, as God warned you. He said
it would happen to you if you did not listen and commit yourselves
to Him as you should have, seeing that He was your faithful Creator,
Husband, Father, God and Savior.
But you would not have Him. You chose to serve yourselves rather
than the One Who made you. Therefore, you do not have a leg to
stand on complaining about the consequences that followed. You
have received the wages of your choice, seven times over now, even
as Moses said. Is that enough? Yes, according to Him that purposes
all things, it is enough. It is not because you are now different
or have changed. You are still insufferably stubborn and set on
justifying yourselves. The times, however, are set by God, Who
rules over all. He can turn you, and will. That is why He sends
us to tell you truth about yourselves and Him.
You will be His people, no
longer in ignorance of Him and His ways.
Do not think for a moment that your efforts to be religious please
God, or that your “Torah-observance” will win the day.
You were not able to keep the Torah before, and you do not and
cannot keep it now. When God brought you back into the land of
Israel, it was not because you were religiously observant. Ben
Gurion was not putting on tefillin and davening every day (not
that God ever asked for that; He did not). Israel was brought back
from the dead as a secular country, one that did not profess God
or know Him, unreligious, but tolerant of all religions of men.
To this day Jerusalem is an unholy mess, religious Babylon.
No, it is not because you are “Torah-observant,” or “Torah-unobservant,” that
God has brought you back as a nation. He has kept you, even though
you have not known Him, and has brought you back to deal with you,
not as you deserve, but so that He might yet reveal Himself to
you, show you mercy, and show His power and glory to the world.
You will be His people, no longer in ignorance of Him and His ways.
You turned your back on Him and became strangers to Him, but He
has not forgotten you, just as He promised your fathers He would
not.
God has determined your fate all along, so you can forget about
what others are saying and doing to you, and can stop complaining
about them and to them. In fact, not only can you do this, you
must do it. Your complaints have been against your Maker. Both
directly and indirectly, you have accused Him of injustice. You
have done this in pride and foolishness, as though you have been
pure and free of offense towards Him. Yet it is He, God, and not
you, Who has the legitimate complaint:
“The ox knows who's boss, the mule knows the hand that feeds
him, But not Israel. My people don't know up from down. Shame!
Misguided GOD-dropouts, staggering under their guilt-baggage, Gang
of miscreants, band of vandals-- My people have walked out on Me,
their GOD, turned their backs on The Holy of Israel, walked off
and never looked back” (Isaiah 1:3-4 MSG).
You are in
your situation you are in because you have forsaken God.
“Has any nation ever made a change in their gods, though
they are no gods? But My people have given up their glory in exchange
for what is of no profit. Be full of wonder, O Heavens, at this;
be overcome with fear, be completely waste, says the Lord. For
My people have done two evils; they have given up Me, the fountain
of living waters, and have made for themselves water-holes, cut
out from the rock, broken water-holes, of no use for storing water” (Jeremiah
2:11-13 BBE).
You are not the victims you have thought yourselves to be. You
are the perpetrators. Do not avert your eyes from this fact. Not
acknowledging this reality is the source of your great tribulations
as a people. I will show you. You are in the situation you are
in because you have forsaken God, not because He forsook you. He
is the Victim, and has chosen to be so for your sakes. The day
is coming and now is when you will be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves
for blaming Him for what you have chosen.
Why should anyone feel sorry or listen to you when you have not
been willing to listen to those God sends to lead you? Moses had
this to say about you at the end of his life:
“You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day
that I knew you” (Deuteronomy 9:24 HNV).
“For I know your rebellion, and your stiff neck: behold,
while I am yet alive with you this day, you have been rebellious
against the LORD; and how much more after my death?” (Deuteronomy
31:27 HNV).
Moses also foretold the kind of complaint Honigman has made of
the Christians, those who tell you that your faith is incomplete:
“They [Israel] have moved Me to jealousy with that which
is not God. They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities.
I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people.
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation” (Deuteronomy
32:21 HNV).
Is that not what you have been expressing, an anger and jealousy
towards those who profess Christ, the King of the Jews, the very
existence of such a people shouting out to the Jew and the rest
of the world that your faith is lacking? Certainly it is! If you,
a Jew, were walking with the God of Heaven and earth, who could
anger you with a charge, or even the appearance of a charge, that
your faith is deficient? Who could make you feel jealous, as though
you are missing something? Would not others be found to be insecure
and jealous in light of your relationship with the Almighty, Whose
Presence would be with you and would justify you? Would you not
have decent, irrefutable and holy answers to silence the mouths
of those in error and to enlighten the ignorant? Should not you be leading the nations in faith, teaching them of God, as God said
you would, rather than having them tell you how you have missed
your Messiah and Savior?
“And now if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant,
then you shall be a peculiar treasure to Me above all the nations;
for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6 MKJV).
Rejecting the Messenger of the covenant,
you rejected His covenant.
There is only one reason this has not happened and that is because
you have not obeyed His voice or kept His covenant. He has, therefore,
removed the instruments of the covenant from your midst, forever.
You have no temple or priesthood to offer your sacrifices to make
atonement for your souls, according to the Law of Moses. You rejected
the One Whom Moses and all the patriarchs and prophets foretold:
“Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way
before Me; and the Lord, Whom you seek, will suddenly come to His
temple; and the Messenger of the covenant, Whom you desire, behold,
He comes! says the LORD of Armies” (Malachi 3:1 HNV).
Rejecting the Messenger of the covenant, Who came suddenly to
His temple, you rejected His covenant. The old covenant of sacrifices
and temple ordinances was made obsolete, and is no longer available
to purge you of your sins. To the new covenant of Messiah, which
fulfills the former, you have been blinded:
“The LORD says, The time is coming when I will make a new
covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although
I was like a Husband to them, they did not keep that covenant” (Jeremiah
31:31-32 GNB).
Instead of having the knowledge and wisdom of God, you
know nothing about Him, and those who speak on your behalf make
small-minded, stupid and evil objections against the good news
of the Messiah of Israel, such as Jeff Neckonoff and Tovia Singer
in The 76 Questions, which we, those
who do have the mind of God, answer with truth that none can challenge.
How long will you continue
to deny God’s judgment? When will you turn from your wickedness
and rebellion? You will be turned, but only by God’s grace,
and not by your righteousness, because you have none as no man
does:
“As a sweet savor will I accept you, when I bring you out
from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries in which
you have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you in the
sight of the nations. You shall know that I am the LORD, when I
shall bring you into Eretz-Yisra'el, into the country which I swore
to give to your fathers. There shall you remember your
ways, and all your doings, in which you have polluted yourselves;
and you
shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that
you have committed. You shall know that I am the LORD, when I have
dealt with you for My Name's sake, not according to your
evil ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, you house of Yisra'el, says
the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 20:41-44 HNV).
Gerald Honigman writes that there are “hundreds of television
and radio programs all across America and elsewhere dedicated to
converting Jews and proclaiming that their faith is lacking and
deficient.” If your faith is not deficient, how is it that
a foolish nation frustrates you so and makes you angry? Ought you
not to be happy that anyone bothers to talk about you, and that
you have such a large and wonderful opportunity to answer for yourselves?
Are you not aware that you do not have an answer? Is that not evident
by your sickly whining, which fans the flames of those who actually
do hate you? How far removed you are from being the people of God
who bring truth, light, peace and healing to the world!
Why doesn’t God
speak to you anymore? Consider.
Where is your
God? If you have faith, why are you not answering for Him? Why
are you, Israel, explaining and trying to justify
yourselves to men, looking for support, whether from the United
States or the United Nations? If your faith is so adequate, why
must you have the support of those who persecute you, the “Christian” nations,
those who find your faith to be inadequate? Are you not proving
your critics right? Your ways serve to bring even more on your
heads.
Is not the borrower servant to the lender? Why are you in the
inferior position? Why is everyone telling you, Israel, what to
do, and what they tell you tends to your annihilation? Why are
you listening to them? Will it not be different, and will you not
know it when God blesses you? It will be clear as day:
“For the LORD your God will bless you, as He promised you:
and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and
you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over
you” (Deuteronomy 15:6 HNV).
Where are your prophets and men of God, as in days of old, when
Israel was led by such? Why doesn’t God speak to you anymore?
Consider.
In all beggarliness, you search for some rabbi or wise man, who,
at best, can only give you scraps to eat, yet you take him as a
possible Messiah. You listen to the “sages” of long
ago who gave their opinions but did not hear or report the Voice
of God, Who gives simple Truth, not considered opinion, wise counsel,
or studied speculation.
While it has been His choice that you be, above all nations of
the earth, His glorious and peculiar treasure, you instead have
chosen to be taken out with the garbage. Yet you blame Him
and those who carry you out. It is your doing. As He has said, “Contrary
are your ways.” The first step to a sure and complete reversal
is to confess it so.
Christ came to give us
the nature of God, by which we can fulfill the Law.
Honigman complains about forced conversions. Who has been forcing
you? The work of the Catholic Church has nothing to do with God
or Jesus Christ. Anyone reading the New Testament will see for
him or herself that, far from being forced, every person professing
faith had his or her own conviction and, if pressure was applied,
it was done so by those that did not believe, not by those that
did. The first believers were Jews who believed in Messiah, not
because of pressure to conform, but despite it, some suffering
even to death because of their belief. These children of Israel
laid down their lives, as did Messiah Himself, for your fathers,
those who did not believe, but who compelled and even took
the lives of those who believed. Their rejection of Messiah is your
inheritance today.
The conversions spoken of in the New Testament were not from Judaism
to Christianity, that is, from one religion to another, but were
from one nature to another. Jesus Christ did not come to start
a religion, but came to fulfill the promises of God through Abraham,
Moses, and the prophets, by giving the power of a new nature to
those who receive Him, from carnal and self-serving to spiritual
and life-giving. He came to give us the nature of God, by which
we can fulfill the Law of God. That is what the Messiah
comes to do – He is the Bridge to God by Whose power we are
made anew in His likeness.
Religious practices do not change men, but the resurrection power
of God through Jesus Christ does. The sacrifices of clean animals
did not change the nature, being necessary year by year, but the
blood of Messiah does once and forever. This is what God promised
through the prophets of Israel:
“The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel
will be this: I will put My law within them and write it on their
hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. None of
them will have to teach a neighbor to know the LORD, because all
will know Me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their
sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the LORD, have
spoken” (Jeremiah 31:33-34 GNB).
But before this will happen to you, you must face yourselves,
Israel, and see yourselves for the culprits you have been. You
cry foul at attempted conversions, whether by force or subterfuge
or honest preaching of the gospel, but what about your record of
force, intimidation, and murder, from long before there was a Catholic
Church or phony TV evangelists? How about how you have treated
your own brethren who did the works of God?
The Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious counsel, conferred amongst
themselves about what to do with the Jews who were disciples of
Christ:
Acts 4:16-21 MKJV
(16) Saying, What shall we do to these men? For that indeed a notable
miracle has been done by them is plain to all those dwelling
in Jerusalem. And we cannot deny it.
(17) But, so that it spread no further among the people, let us
strictly threaten them, that they speak to no man in this name
(18) And they called them and commanded them not to speak
at all, nor to teach in the name of Jesus.
(19) But Peter and John answered and said to them, Whether it is
right before God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.
(20) For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and
heard.
(21) So when they had further threatened them, they let them go,
finding no way as to how they might punish them, because of the
people. For all glorified God for that which was done.
Verbal threats not sufficing, they resorted to physical punishment:
Acts 5:16-42 WNT
(16) The inhabitants, too, of the towns in the neighborhood of
Jerusalem came in crowds, bringing sick persons [to the apostles
of Christ] and some who were harassed by foul spirits, and they
were cured, one and all.
(17) This roused the High Priest. He and all his party--the sect
of the Sadducees--were filled with angry jealousy
(18) and laid hands upon the Apostles, and put them into the public
jail.
(19) But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison
doors and brought them out, and said,
(20) "Go and stand in the Temple, and go on proclaiming to
the people all this Message of Life."
(21) Having received that command they went into the Temple, just
before daybreak, and began to teach: So when the High Priest and
his party came, and had called together the Sanhedrin as well as
all the Elders of the descendants of Israel, they sent to the jail
to fetch the Apostles.
(22) But the officers went and could not find them in the prison.
So they came back and brought word,
(23) saying, "The jail we found quite safely locked, and the
warders were on guard at the doors, but upon going in we found
no one there."
(24) When the Commander of the Temple Guards and the High Priests
heard this statement, they were utterly at a loss with regard to
it, wondering what would happen next.
(25) And some one came and brought them word, saying, "The
men you put in prison are actually in the Temple, standing there,
teaching the people."
(26) Upon this the Commander went with the officers, and brought
the Apostles; but without using violence; for they were afraid
of being stoned by the people.
(27) So they brought them and made them stand in front of the Sanhedrin.
And then the High Priest questioned them.
(28) "We strictly forbad you to teach in that Name--did we
not?" he said. "And see, you have filled Jerusalem with
your teaching, and are trying to make us responsible for that man's
death!"
(29) Peter and the other Apostles replied, "We must obey God
rather than man.
(30) The God of our forefathers has raised Jesus to life, Whom
you crucified and put to death.
(31) God has exalted Him to His right hand as Chief Leader and
as Savior, to give Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.
(32) And we--and the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who
obey Him--are witnesses as to these things."
(33) Infuriated at getting this answer, they were disposed to kill
the Apostles.
(34) But a Pharisee of the name of Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law,
held in honor by all the people, rose from his seat and requested
that they should be sent outside the court for a few minutes.
(35) "Israelites," he said, "be careful what you
are about to do in dealing with these men.
(36) Years ago Theudas appeared, professing to be a person of importance,
and a body of men, some four hundred in number, joined him. He
was killed, and all his followers were dispersed and annihilated.
(37) After him, at the time of the Census, came Judas, the Galilaean,
and was the leader in a revolt. He too perished, and all his followers
were scattered.
(38) And now I tell you to hold aloof from these men and leave
them alone--for if this scheme or work is of human origin, it will
come to nothing.
(39) But if it is really from God, you will be powerless to put
them down--lest perhaps you find yourselves to be actually fighting
against God."
(40) His advice carried conviction. So they called the
Apostles in, and--after flogging them--ordered them not to speak
in the
name of Jesus, and then let them go.
(41) They, therefore, left the Sanhedrin and went their way, rejoicing
that they had been deemed worthy to suffer disgrace on behalf of
the NAME.
(42) But they did not desist from teaching every day, in the Temple
or in private houses, and telling the good news about Jesus, the
Christ.
The physical threats and punishments did not diminish the faith
of those persecuted, but served to increase it. The Jewish believers
in Messiah did not fight back or complain of abuses to Rome. They
did not react in kind, but looked to the Messiah, Jesus Christ,
and continued to testify of Him:
Acts 6:8-15 MKJV
(8) And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and
miracles among the people.
(9) Then there arose certain of the synagogue which is called the
synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and
of those from Cilicia and from Asia, disputing with Stephen.
(10) And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit
by which he spoke.
(11) And they induced men to be saying, We have heard him speak
blasphemous words against Moses and God.
(12) And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes.
And coming on, they seized him and brought him to the Sanhedrin.
(13) And they set up false witnesses, who said, This man does not
cease speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the
Law.
(14) For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall
destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered
to us.
(15) And looking intently at him. All those sitting in the Sanhedrin
saw his face as if it were the face of an angel.
Stephen, after speaking of all the wonderful things God had done
for the Jews in their history, told them the truth about what they
had done to Him, for which they murdered him:
Acts 7:51-60 MKJV
(51) O stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always
resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so you do.
(52) Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And
they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of Whom
you have now been the betrayers and murderers;
(53) Who received the Law through disposition of angels, and did
not keep it.
(54) And hearing these things, they were cut to their hearts. And
they gnashed on him with their teeth.
(55) But being full of the Holy Spirit, looking up intently into
Heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right
hand of God.
(56) And he said, Behold, I see Heaven opened and the Son of Man
standing on the right hand of God.
(57) And crying out with a loud voice, they stopped their ears
and ran on him with one accord.
(58) And throwing him outside the city, they stoned him. And the
witnesses laid their clothes down at the feet of a young man named
Saul.
(59) And they stoned Stephen, who was calling on God and saying,
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
(60) And kneeling down, he cried with a loud voice, Lord, do not
lay this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell
asleep.
Saul continued the persecution with great zeal:
Acts 8:1-3 MKJV
(1) And Saul was consenting to his death. And in that day there
was a great persecution on the church at Jerusalem, and all were
scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except
the apostles.
(2) And devout men buried Stephen and made a great mourning over
him.
(3) But Saul ravaged the church, entering into every house. And
dragging men and women, he delivered them up to prison.
Believing he served God, Saul continued, until God stopped him:
Acts 9:1-6 MKJV
(1) And Saul, still breathing out threatenings and slaughter against
the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest
(2) and asked letters from him to Damascus to the synagogues; so
that if he found any of the Way, whether they were men or women,
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
(3) But in going, it happened as he drew near to Damascus, even
suddenly a light from the heaven shone around him.
(4) And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying to him, Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute Me?
(5) And he said, Who are you, lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus
Whom you persecute. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.
(6) And trembling and astonished, he said, Lord, what will You
have me to do? And the Lord said to him, Arise and go into the
city, and you shall be told what you must do.
Saul, also known as Paul the apostle, went on to bring the message
of the good news of God’s salvation in the Messiah, Jesus
Christ, to the nations, being sent of God to preach Him. As much
as he desired to preach the Messiah to his people, the Jews, and
did, it was not yet your time to believe, seeing you had rejected
Messiah and thrust Him from you, as God had hardened your hearts:
Acts 22:17-21 GNB
(17) "I [Saul] went back to Jerusalem, and while I was praying
in the Temple, I had a vision,
(18) in which I saw the Lord, as He said to me, 'Hurry and leave
Jerusalem quickly, because the people here will not accept your
witness about Me.'
(19) 'Lord,' I answered, 'they know very well that I went to the
synagogues and arrested and beat those who believe in you.
(20) And when your witness Stephen was put to death, I myself was
there, approving of his murder and taking care of the cloaks of
his murderers.'
(21) 'Go,' the Lord said to me, 'for I will send you far away to
the Gentiles.' "
And what did his fellow Jews who heard Paul’s testimony,
say to this? How considerate were they about not insulting his
faith, treating him as you wish for men to treat you, though he
forced not one soul to believe his way? How did they react when
told that their faith was inadequate, and because of this God was
reaching out to others?
“The people listened to Paul until he said this; but then
they started shouting at the top of their voices, ‘Away with
him! Kill him! He's not fit to live!’ They were screaming,
waving their clothes, and throwing dust up in the air” (Acts
22:22-23 GNB).
You have not changed, have you? Tell me, Jews, are those Christians
telling you about Jesus acting this way towards you? You did not
want Paul to preach to them, but he did, and now that the whole
world knows about your God, the God of Heaven and earth, how gracious
are you to hear about Him from them? How great the disparity between
what you desire from others, and what you have done to them! Ungodliness
is expecting others to treat you as you wish to be treated, while
you have treated them however you please. Do you not see yourselves
in the mirror?
Paul, the arch persecutor, turned from his evil ways, became the
persecuted. Do you disagree? It seems you are caught between
a rock and a hard place, because you do not want to appear to sanction
his murders, but you deplore his free speech about what God did
for him. You want others to respect you, but you cannot respect
others. As a result of his testimony to you, his countrymen, Paul
reports on some of the things you did to him:
“Five times the Jews gave me forty blows but one. Three
times I was whipped with rods, once I was stoned” (2 Corinthians
11:24-25 BBE).
If
you were beaten or stoned, did you forgive your persecutors?
Let me ask you, Gerald, and all you Jews, those who complain that
your faith has been insulted, how many times have you been beaten
by Christians for your profession of faith in God to
them? How
many times have you been whipped or stoned, even if verbally, for
your profession? And can you tell the difference between valid
criticism and verbal stoning? No, you cannot, because insecure
in your victim mentality. You cry foul when someone says you do
not have faith, whereas those who do have godly faith see a golden
opportunity and are thankful to give an honorable defense and testimony
of it.
If you were beaten, whipped, or stoned, did you forgive your
persecutors, and not return in kind, even in thought, as Paul and
other believers in Messiah did (and do), laying down their lives
for you?
If you were to be beaten, and put in stocks in prison for your
testimony, would you be found singing praises to God at midnight,
Who brings an earthquake on the prison and opens the doors, your
jailor falling at your feet asking, “What must I do to be
saved?” (Acts 16) What is your testimony of God before the
nations, besides crying foul about how you are treated?
When you, the Jews, were forced by the Catholic Church to convert
or suffer death, or were persecuted and forced by others, such
as the Muslims, into servitude, and found yourselves helpless against
the power of evil men, you should consider that it was you, by
dint of your ancestors, who sowed for this by persecuting those
whom God had sent to you to turn you away from your sins that you
might have life in Him. Of the One manifesting all the Character
and Virtue of God Himself, Whom your ancestors called on the Romans
to crucify, you said:
“His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew
27:23-25 EMTV).
His blood has been on you, not to salvation, as He means it, but
as condemnation, as you chose it. Death and suffering were chosen
for you, as God is witness and has happened to you. Nevertheless,
every person reaps as he or she sows.
Do you really think the Jewish people have been suffering without
cause? Is your God an unjust tyrant, or too wimpy to protect and
keep you? Of what do you presume to accuse Him? Do you think it
was merely coincidence that Jerusalem fell within a generation
of crucifying the Messiah, with so many crucifixions taking place
around the city that Josephus, the Jewish historian, reported that
during the final siege of the city the Romans ran out of wood for
the crosses? To this very day, you, Jews, and Israel are still
unsure and insecure about your place in this world, just as God
foretold through Moses:
“The LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from the one
end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; and there
you shall serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your
fathers, even wood and stone. Among these nations shall you find
no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot:
but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, and failing
of eyes, and pining of soul; and your life shall hang in doubt
before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no
assurance of your life” (Deuteronomy 28:64-66 HNV).
Israel, you have insisted on being like
other nations.
You have been living in fear of man because you chose to serve
man, whether being religious or not, and your life has indeed been
hanging in the balance ever since. God has brought fear on you
because you did not remember or fear Him, and then lied, saying
that He forgot you. It was the other way around. You left Him,
and He let you have your choice, but not forever.
Israel,
you have insisted on being like other nations, partaking
in their ways, even leading them in their worldliness and sins.
You epitomize the Diaspora Jew among
the Gentiles, a nation that lives in a hostile world, no matter
how friendly or assimilated you think yourself to be.
You find yourself surrounded in a sea of murderous, insane
Muslims, who are aided and sympathized with by the rest of the
world, including two-faced “Christian” America. (Do
not think that “Christianity,” the man-made religion
that comes in a wide variety of sectarian forms, is representative
of Messiah, your Savior, any more than rabbinic Judaism is representative
of the ministry of Moses and the prophets of Israel. All of men’s
religions are bogus, unacceptable substitutions that are born of
self-righteousness and create hell, not Heaven.)
On top of this, you are divided from within, every man or woman
exercising his or her right to an opinion considered equally valid
(an impossibility), but never knowing the will of God and coming
to a unanimous agreement in Him, the Bedrock Truth. In God alone,
your Savior, will you become invulnerable and prevail. How can there be peace or security otherwise? The
prophet said:
“There is no peace for the wicked, says my God” (Isaiah
57:21 GW).
Which says that there is peace for the righteous.
You have been unrighteous. There never will be peace for you,
Israel and the Jew, until you confess that you have been against
God, and that He has been against you. There will not be peace
until you stop playing the victim and start admitting you have
been the perpetrator, firstly against your God, Who has been judging
you. Hear what Moses said of you, along with instruction
of what you need to do and of the sure promise held out if you
obey:
Leviticus 26:40-45 HNV
(40) "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity
of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against
Me, and also that, because they walked contrary to Me,
(41) I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the
land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled,
and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity;
(42) then I will remember My covenant with Ya`akov; and also My
covenant with Yitzchak, and also My covenant with Avraham; and
I will remember the land.
(43) The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths
while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment
of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected My ordinances,
and their soul abhorred My statutes.
(44) Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies,
I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them
utterly, and to break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD
their God;
(45) but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors,
whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the
nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.'"
You say you are waiting for your Messiah.
Is not your God your Messiah?
You have declared that you know better than God and will do it
your way. Your way has not been working. If your way has been working,
what is failure? But if your way has not been working,
and you look to God your Savior, what happens when He succeeds?
You say you are waiting for your Messiah. Is not your God your
Messiah? Your forefathers also wanted a man to save them from their
enemies. They asked the prophet Samuel to give them a king. You
are no different today:
“But Samuel was not pleased when they said to him, Give
us a king to be our judge. And Samuel made prayer to the Lord.
And the Lord said to Samuel, Give ear to the voice of the people
and what they say to you: they have not been turned away from you,
but they have been turned away from Me, not desiring Me to be king
over them. As they have done from the first, from the day when
I took them out of Egypt till this day, turning away from Me and
worshipping other gods, so now they are acting in the same way
to you” (1 Samuel 8:6-8 BBE).
What you are awaiting is not your Messiah, but your
God, because He is your Messiah. Only God can
save you. When you are saved from yourselves, your true and worst
enemy within, your
God-hating, self-serving, miserable selves, you will then also
be saved from your external enemies.
Then your eyes will be opened, and you will be thoroughly ashamed
of the way you have been and what you have done to God your Savior.
You will loathe yourselves for your selfishness and pride in which
you killed Him and put Him away.
Your Creator has loved you, and
was faithful to you, but you have been contemptuous and unfaithful
to Him. When you admit that it is your fault, not His or anyone
else’s, then you will be on your way to restoration and peace.
He has not forgotten you, but you will not see Him until you say, “Blessed
is he that comes in the Name of the Lord.”
A testimony of Moses, quoting God:
“He said, ‘I will make all My goodness pass before
you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on
whom I will show mercy’” (Exodus 33:19 HNV).
He is not a liar that He should not bestow mercy on those to whom
it is due. Again, Moses records in the Torah:
“The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, 'The
LORD! the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and
abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and
that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of
the fathers on the children, and on the children's children, on
the third and on the fourth generation'” (Exodus 34:6-7 HNV).
Consider on which side of that equation you stand. Is your God
unjust, Israel?
Is your God unjust? Complaining as if you are
only the victim, and have not been the perpetrator, would say so,
would it not? How can you escape the continuation
of what you
complain about, if you do not confess and repent of the acts and
attitude that brought those things upon you?
The time of estrangement
from your God and Savior draws to a close.
The world, full of troubles, turns its eyes to the Jews and Israel,
and says, “Get rid of them; they are the problem!” Do
not fear those who kill with the sword, Israel. Fear your God.
He is over the nations that threaten you.
Consider that you have no leg to stand on, that the nations
are right, you are the problem. Confess it wholeheartedly,
and God will stand for you. Stop blaming Him, whether directly
or indirectly,
by complaining about your enemies that He sends to you. You are
actually standing with your enemies that also blame Him for
their circumstances by blaming you. You have earned and deserved
them,
all of you standing against God. Admit it. Thank God for them,
that He would send them to turn you to Him, as you so greatly
need to do, finally putting your trust in Him and committing
yourself
to Him as your faithful Judge.
Stop looking to men for approval and help:
“The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in GOD protects
you from that” (Proverbs 29:25 MSG).
“Do not trust influential people, mortals who cannot help
you” (Psalms 146:3 GW).
Lift up your eyes, Israel. The time of your estrangement from
your God and Savior, the Messiah, draws to a close. It is the most
terrible and wonderful of times:
“The LORD will judge His people and have compassion on His
servants when He sees that their strength is gone and that no one
is left, neither slaves nor free people. Then He will ask, Where
are their gods? Where is the rock they took refuge in? Where are
the gods who ate the fat from their sacrifices and drank the wine
from their wine offerings? Let them come to help you! Let them
be your refuge! See, I am the only God. There are no others.
I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal, and no one can rescue
you from My power. I raise My hand toward heaven and solemnly swear:
As surely as I live forever, I will sharpen My flashing sword and
take justice into My own hands. Then I will take revenge on My
enemies and pay back those who hate Me. My arrows will drip with
blood from those who were killed and taken captive. My sword will
cut off the heads of the enemy who vowed to fight. Joyfully sing
with the LORD'S people, you nations, because He will take revenge
for the death of His servants. He will get even with His enemies
and make peace for His people's land” (Deuteronomy 32:36-43
GW).
The promises of God are all true and not even your unbelief can
stop Him from fulfilling them:
“The rest of Israel will do no evil and say no false words;
the tongue of deceit will not be seen in their mouth: for they
will take their food and their rest, and no one will be a cause
of fear to them. Make melody, O daughter of Zion; give a loud cry,
O Israel; be glad and let your heart be full of joy, O daughter
of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away those who were judging you,
He has sent your haters far away: the King of Israel, even the
Lord, is among you: you will have no more fear of evil. In that
day it will be said to Jerusalem, Have no fear: O Zion, let not
your hands be feeble. The Lord your God is among you, as
a strong Saviour: He will be glad over you with joy, He will make His love
new again, He will make a song of joy over you as in the time of
a holy feast. I will take away your troubles, lifting up your shame
from off you. See, at that time I will put an end to all
who have been troubling you: I will give salvation to her whose steps are
uncertain, and get together her who has been sent in flight; and
I will make them a cause of praise and an honored name in all the
earth, when I let their fate be changed. At that time I
will make you come in, at that time I will get you together: for I will make
you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth when
I let your fate be changed before your eyes, says the Lord” (Zephaniah
3:13-20 BBE).
Who is your God? Jesus
Christ: the root and stem of Jesse.
This is what we are sent to tell you:
“Go up a high mountain, Zion. Tell the good news! Call out
with a loud voice, Jerusalem. Tell the good news! Raise your voice
without fear. Tell the cities of Judah: ‘Here is
your God!’” (Isaiah
40:9 GW)
Who is your God? The One Who has always been: Jesus Christ, the
root and stem of Jesse, Yehoshua HaMashiach:
“And I will pour on the house of David, and on the people
of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of prayers. And they
shall look on Me Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for
Him,
as one mourns for his only son, and shall be bitter over Him, as
the bitterness over the first-born” (Zechariah 12:10 MKJV).
Isaiah 11:1-10 KJV
(1) And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse,
and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
(2) And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, the spirit
of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the
spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
(3) And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the
LORD: and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither
reprove after the hearing of his ears:
(4) But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove
with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth
with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall
He slay the wicked.
(5) And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness
the girdle of His reins.
(6) The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the
fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
(7) And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall
lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
(8) And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and
the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
(9) They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for
the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters
cover the sea.
(10) And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall
stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek:
and His rest shall be glorious.
He is here to judge you, Israel, to save you, and to bring you
peace. The will of the Lord be done. Amen.
A Letter of Promise, Hope, and Exhortation
to the Dispersed and Oppressed Uncircumcised-in-Heart Seed of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob
We witness the ungodly and unjust hatred for Jews
everywhere and consider there is something important going on. We are
also in awe of the marvelous historical developments and events, knowing
very well, by God’s grace, that man cannot do what has developed
concerning the Jews at any time, perhaps especially in this last century.
Here is a letter of promise to God's chosen in the flesh, based on
His faithfulness and awesome power:
“I, even I, am He Who comforts you: who are you, that you are
afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made
as grass; and have forgotten the LORD your Maker, Who stretched forth
the Heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth…?” (Isaiah
51:12-13 HNV)
Israel, Is Your God Unjust?
“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,
but the LORD weighs the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2 HNV).
Israel, come hear the Word of God, and let your
hearts be revealed; know the Truth and be reconciled to Your Father.
It is time. Of what value is it to continue in darkness, not knowing
Him and His heart towards you, Who has loved you from days of old and
draws you with lovingkindness?
Israel, your God knows and sees what you suffer. He is not remote,
unfamiliar, or unaffected by what is happening with you. There is a
reason for your predicament, however, a reason that holds the key to
the solution for all. There is an answer from God, which you need to
hear and know.
Jews, you have tried everything to be at peace, to have
dialogue with, and to appease, the world. You have tried everything,
and nothing has worked, because you lacked the simple solution. Here
is the key for Israel, the Jew, and the whole world.