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Thank you to Israel Pochtar of Beit Hallel in Ashdod
for this photograph with the Isaiah 40:1
& Issachar
by Donna Diorio
There are 3 specific verses that are on my heart after my ‘Israel
watching’ the past week.
One is the beautiful verse in Israel Pochtar’s picture of the oasis in the
desert. Isaiah 40:1 is a verse that has
found a landing spot in Christian hearts toward Israel for many decades now.
Many Christians have dedicated themselves to this command of God and have
served Israel in the most profoundly practical ways by pouring resources,
expertise and support Israel needed at every step of the way toward
establishing and securing the State of Israel. They did as God called them to do in His own timing.
But that is not all Isaiah 40 has to
say; it advances specifically, like verse 3: “A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the
Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." It speaks to
me that comforting the people of Israel is in itself preparing the way for the
LORD – but it is only the first part. Verse 6 through 9 begins to tell us to
cry out “all people are like grass …the
grass withers and flowers fail.” The
Good News of Zion is for Jerusalem and Judah too – not just for the nations to
know: “Here is your God!” this
Messiah, Yeshua. “Salvation exists in no one else” Acts 4:12
Many Christians who have responded
to the first part about comforting and supporting Israel have not been able to hear or comprehend that Israel is to hear the
Gospel, the Good News of Israel’s Messiah. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God
is One God. Jesus said “I and the Father
are one.” (John 10:30)
I think it is probably not the lead role
that Christians want to play of making Israel “jealous” of our faith. I
also believe that Christians are to play a support role in Israel’s Remnant of
faith in Yeshua by supporting the Messianic Jews who are the witness to their
own people. We already see how jealous that makes the Orthodox and
ultraOrthodox. But Israel is more secular than religious and many more secular
Israelis are drawn to the Israeli believers, honestly longing for what they see
in the Israeli believers – all of the spiritual love, joy, hope, grace,
overcoming power that is only found in the people who fully invested in Yeshua
for their fulfillment in life.
The
second verse that is on my heart is 1 Chronicles 12:32, "From Issachar, men who understood the
times and knew what Israel should do: 200 chiefs with all their kinsmen at
their command." The men of Issachar were men who not only had
practical professional wisdom, but they clearly had prophetic insight. This is
the only way to know how a nation should go to be in accord with God’s will in
the events of men and nations.
I believe this speaks to spiritual
leadership too, not just governmental counselors. After seeing the wonderful
response from Christians all over the world to the Isaiah 62 prayer and fasting
event for 21 days last month, to me this
is an example of spiritual leadership stepping into the modern day mantle of
the sons of Issachar. Those who recognized this was something more than we have
been seeing and experiencing in pro-Israel Christian circles is clear in the
overwhelming response to the call.
Since the May 28th
culmination of the prayer call on the Southern Steps of the Temple in Jerusalem
I have kept the IHOP Prayer Room running in the background all day as
I work on my computer. I can tell you that prayer for Israel’s salvation has
not ceased. It continues on. I do believe May 2023 marks a turning point
spiritually. I do believe an Issachar awakening throughout the world has begun
and will continue to grow. But there are still many in Christian prophetic
circles who have not yet shown any understanding of the times we are in. An example of this is the report this week
in the Jerusalem about Pastor Paula White’s visit to Israel:
"Rather than take a traditional
Christian tour, however, she opted to travel with Orthodox Rabbi Tuly Weisz of
Israel365, an organization that builds bridges between Jews and Christians. She
ascended the Temple Mount with former MK Rabbi Yehudah Glick; studied with
Religious Zionist Rebbetzin Shani Taragin; walked through the streets of Jewish
Hebron with Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, director of tourism for the Hebron Fund; and
visited Arugot Farms in the Judean mountains. She even spent a morning studying
Torah at Nishmat – The Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for
Women.
“There is a new movement of Christians and Orthodox Jews coming
together,” White told the Post. “We need each other. It is vitally important we
continue to build these bridges.”
That is not a prophetic Issachar response to the moment we are in. I have to agree with David Silver of
Out of Zion whose comment in Kehila News Israel was, Do They Read Their Bible?
“Last week the Jerusalem Post published an interview with a
pastor of a mega-church in the USA. She was here in Israel for her 20th
plus visit, but instead of connecting with local Messianic leaders, she is
spending her entire time in Israel with an orthodox rabbi who is extremely
opposed to Messianic Jews. This is a very dangerous thing for Christians to do
as the non Messianic Judaism is strongly influenced by the spirit of
Anti-Christ, and there is a growing number of people, both Jewish and Christian,
who were once followers of Messiah Yeshua, who have been deceived by the spirit
of Anti-Christ to turn their back on Yeshua, and the promise of eternal life in
the Kingdom of GOD.
“As
far as I know the pastor I mentioned above has not renounced her faith in
Yeshua (yet), but she was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying the Christians
must learn from Jews, and that they should stop trying to convert Jewish
people, and that Christians should stop encouraging Jews to make Aliyah to
hasten the Rapture.”
If you need proof of those claims that
you can find it in the news reports of the increasing violent protests that
targeted the May 28th prayer gathering in Jerusalem, and then last
week another targeting a Jerusalem Messianic Worship event.
I
don’t say this for anyone to direct hatred toward these lost souls in Israel, but you do need to recognize they are lost. They
have not been saved and are as dangerous as Saul was before Yeshua apprehended
him on the road to Damascus. Saul
was so hell bent against them he went out of the country to pursue Jewish
believers in Jesus who fled Israel because of him and others like him hell-bent
to throw them in jail and convict them of heresy. Believe it or not, there are
organizations that continue that same strategy today! We are to pray for them
to be saved, as God saved Paul with a revelation of whom it really was that he
was persecuting. Persecute the believers and you are persecuting Yeshua. We are
His body in the earth now. That rule is
not suspended because the country is Israel.
Finally,
I want to bring up the final verses that are from both Jeremiah and Ezekiel,
God saying exactly the same thing 4 times – twice in Jeremiah and twice in Ezekiel: "They dress the wound of my people as though it were slight.
‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace." To comfort God’s
people Israel without bringing the restoration to relationship with God through
Yeshua’s salvation is crying “Shalom, shalom” to those who do not have the true
shalom. Jesus alone is the Prince of Peace.
When
Christians go to Israel encouraging Israel that she does not need the Messiah
who is Yeshua-Jesus, it also hardens the religious opposition and persecution
of Israeli Messianic Jews. To continue to support all the causes of Israel
EXCEPT the body of the LORD in Israel is exactly like if we had gone to Israel
to encourage Saul to keep pursuing the believers with wrath. It is one thing to comfort God’s people
Israel, but it is another to enable their boldness to persecute Yeshua’s
brothers in Israel. Those brothers are Israel’s Messianic Jews. It is time we
progressed in this moment to recognize that.
*In
fuller context, read the 4 Jeremiah (6:13-14 / 8:8-11) and Ezekiel (13:1-12, 16) verses
that give the reasons God says is why the prophets and priests would say Peace,
peace when there was not peace: #1
greed for gain; #2 lying about what the law of the Lord actually says because
they reject the word of the Lord; #3 practicing deceit; #4 prophesying out of
their own imagination not the word of the Lord; #5 false visions and
divinations; #6 building flimsy spiritual walls covered in whitewash.
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