The Most Dangerous "Enemy of the Gospel" in Israel is not even Jewish

The most dangerous "enemy of the Gospel" in Israel is not even Jewish, except by her entanglement with Rabbi Tropper who oversaw her conversion to Judaism. (It's a long story I won't go into here). Her name is Shannon Nuszen, and she considered herself an evangelistic minister. Her family was a part of a somewhat Messianic congregation. She was on a mission to get Jews to know Jesus until she ran into Tovia Singer who she worked for and eventually followed to Israel. Now Shannon is a celebrated "anti-missionary" crusader among the small percentage of religious Jews who are most "enemies of the Gospel" especially towards Messianic Jews in the faith of Yeshua.

In the May 2022 Messianic Times I wrote about Shannon in an article called "Between Us O Troubler of Israel." Between Us is the translation of Beynenu, Shannon's anti-Messianic organization. "O trouble of Israel" is what Ahab called Elijah in 1 Kings 18:17. The article pictured above features a benign-looking Shannon and her mentor the rabid anti-Messianic Rabbi Tovia Singer.

Shannon is the reason for this Jerusalem Post article on December 30th accusing Messianic Jews of gross exploitation of the war by helping Israelis just for the purpose of trapping them into the faith of Jesus.

It is actually insane how many Christians fall for that line of viewing Messianic Jews. It is slander, but as we all should well know by now, if big lies are told often enough they will be accepted. Don't fall for the slander against Messianic Jews. Messianic Jews love their people as much as any Jew, and I often think, even more most if actions speak louder than words.

The humanitarian efforts of the Israeli Messianic Jews are far better than that of the most anti-Messianic religious sects. The view of those Jews is so twisted against Yeshua, that don't even care how many people Messianic Israelis are easing the burdens of fellow Israelis with no strings attached! They just want to make sure Messianic Jews can't help any Jews and they don't mind slandering them in the process of that.

It has always chapped my hide how many Christians fall for the slander made by unsaved religious Jews, telling Christians they must not donate to Messianic ministries. That only donations made to the unsaved Jews by Christians being "respectful" of Jewish "sensitivities." The lie has been put out there that only Christians who donate to UNSAVED rabbis or government agencies are welcome. If you put your donations to the Israeli Messianic ministries who share the same faith as YOU in Jesus, your money is not welcomed by those who oppose the faith of Yeshua for Jews. Of course it is welcomed by every needy family or IDF soldier on the receiving end. The anti-Messianics like to guilt trip Christians claiming that if Christians donate to Israeli Messianics that it is a form of "antisemitism" to share the faith of Jesus with a Jew.

Is that what you believe, because it is sure not what I believe. I believe Yeshua is for Jews too and this is the season they will come to faith. Sad the deceptions spun around the Messianic Jews - especially those in Israel who are open about their faith and love their people.

Shannon Nuszen stirred the pot to get this Jerusalem Post article without regard for the truth or for her former belief in Jesus. He is out, Tovia Singer is in. What a sad choice in life to make.

The very first graphic in the JPost article is a photo ID'd as: "TRAINING MATERIAL for missionaries on how to convince Jews to accept ‘salvation’ through Jesus (photo credit: Beyneynu). What they don't tell you is that Manny Brotman who created "A Training Manuel on How to Share the Messiah" has been dead for over 20 years. In fact, "On July 4, 1999, Manny was in the middle of writing an MJMI (Messianic Jewish Movement International) newsletter entitled, “Jerusalem, The Most Important City in the World!” when he was felled by a massive brain hemorrhage. He died a few days later."

The flier is presented as if Manny Brotman just created it for distribution after the October 7th massacre of Jews by Hamas. The truth matters little to the anti-Messianics. Also it is worth noting that there are enough Jews who have come to faith for there to be an international organization for them, not to mention all the national organizations in the U.S., Israel and other nations of the world!

Instead of seeing how Messianic Jews are aiding their people out of great compassion for those traumatized by the Hamas massacre and outbreak of war, the anti-Messianics chalk it up to a calloused "taking advantage" of Jews when they are vulnerable. Speaking of being vulnerable, the #1 focus of all the Israeli ministries I know from the get-go has been raising funds to supply life-saving ceramic bullet-proof vests to the 300,000+ Reserve units who had been called up to fight but did not have proper gear.

The Fellowship of Israel-Related Ministries in Jerusalem is criticized in the article for seeking to “transform lives in Israel through Gospel-centered ministries." The article thinks it scandalous that the FIRM website doesn't "hide its targeting of Israeli soldiers during wartime by donating military equipment." Hamas is targeting IDF soldiers, not the donations of Christians through FIRM. Shannon Nuszen thinks it is an example of "Christian missionaries are weaponizing war to convert Jewish people to Christianity,” because Curt Landry gave IDF soldiers copies of his book, "Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage: How Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity Can Transform Your Faith" in Hebrew. Sold on Amazon, the book is described as "Curt Landry's personal story of finding power, purpose, and covenant from his Jewish heritage." Kind of a stretch to call our personal testimonies "weaponizing" the Gospel.

Maybe now you understand why Messianic Jews don't want to be called Christians, because it is seen by Jews as if they have departed their Jewish roots to "convert" to "Christianity." Christian persecution of Jews for almost the whole last 2,000 years is a major obstacle for Messianic Jews to leap over.

Once again Shannon attacks Ron Cantor of ShelanuTV, because he is raising funds for the ceramic bullet-proof vests for Israeli IDF soldiers who need them. Cantor is kind of special favorite of Shannon's to slander.

I could go on with all the lies and twisting of what Messianic Jews are doing in Israel found in this article, but I won't. I will just end this by saying: Don't believe those who call our good "evil." Isaiah 5:20-21 says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet with bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight."

 

Fruit of the Fig Tree

 

Fruit of the Fig Tree comes from Proverbs 27:18, it is the promise of God to those who keep (tend) the Fig Tree, shall eat of its fruit.

     Israel is represented in the fig tree according to its fruitfulness. Some suppose that Jesus cursed Israel for lack of fruitfulness forever in Mark 11: 13-14, but that is not the truth. "Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to find out if it had any fruit. When He reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then He said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”  

     As soon as a fig tree begins to bud, fruit buds even before the leaves. So the season of fruitfulness had passed for the year is only leaves were found. Jesus was not cursing Israel forever, but the season for Judaism to bear the fruitfulness that God is ultimately looking for had past. Only the sacrifice His Son Yeshua was to make could bring forth the kind of fruitfulness God was teaching Israel in all those years before the appearance of His Son. Many Israelis believed at that time, but for a season most of Israel would be set aside: “so they too have now disobeyed, in order that they too may now receive mercy through the mercy shown to you.” Romans 11:31  

     Did you know a fig tree down to the ground and it will still come back to life and bear fruit? God built that resilience into Israel too.  It is in God’s timing, according to His plan and in the season of His choosing. Fig trees only produce fruit on new wood; Israel will bear fruit in the “new wood” of the modern restored  State of Israel.

      Yeshua told us in Matthew 24:32-35 “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! 34 Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away."

     Israel has been budding fruit spiritually since 1948 fruitfulness and will bear even more as the war for Israel’s salvation has begun to intensify.  That is what we are nurturing in this elist, tending to Israel in prayers and practical aid of Israel’s Messianic Jews, so she will bear ALL the fruit of salvation.  

The Real NEVER AGAIN

Jerusalem Sunrise by Erin Cunningham

The Jews are being brought back to Israel by God. It may seem that their haters are driving them away from their homes, but it is God making sure they get out of their comfort zone and get back to the homeland HE assigned to them. This is His PLAN, not the antisemites' plan! Because now that God has restored the national HOMELAND of the Jews, not only will they never again be removed but in this place He will spiritually restore a national number of Israelis back to relationship with Him by Messiah Yeshua.

Amos 9:15 is the REAL NEVER AGAIN: "I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them,” says the LORD your God.

 

2024: The Year of Generations

An answer from God on Christmas Day 2023
about what to expect in the New Year 

A few days ago I wrote that I was anticipating hearing from God about what is ahead for 2024. Afterwards for a few days now I have been getting one word that in my mind connects to the assignment for 2024 and that is GENERATIONS. I don't think it is just me. I believe most people my age, a Baby Boomer, have deep concerns about the generations behind us, from the perspective of spiritual relationship or understanding of the LORD.

You know, just being at this age is a reality check on the hopes and desires we have for all of our younger generations. We don't have that much time left to pray for them, that is just the reality.

I don't know about you, but I have deep concerns that the generations behind us cannot have a healthy relationship with the LORD when we see how "51% of Americans between the ages of 18-24 believe that Israel should be ended and given to Hamas." It is not only the lack of biblical understanding about Israel, this carries over into many of their social justice issues. Like Jesus said, "Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

It is a bit difficult to teach past generations much at this age. Our official generation name is "Baby Boomer" but I think in the eyes of younger generations in reality it is "Back Burner." But that does not mean we cannot spiritually impact all of those who don't have inclination listen to an old Boomer. We have lived longed enough to learn the lessons the hard way, that what God wants from us is mercy. He is well able to deliver justice and when He does, it if perfect justice, untainted by pride and misguided standards. He's got this.

Our part is to put the generations behind us in merciful prayer before Him. Angels are dispatched by merciful prayers, but demons are dispatched by prayers full of anger, resentment and revenge. God doesn't answer the bitter prayers but evil spirits do answer. This is an essential element of spiritual warfare. Which is why the apostle Paul warned us, "The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another."

I believe there is going to be much more God speaks about 2024: The Year of Generations. If you aren't sure how they break down, it is all over the place. People reference the various generations delineations. It is almost like a division of people that puts everyone in a descriptive box - one that separates people, and doesn't encourage people of all ages to come together as a whole. That in itself is not God's desire to draw us into "one new man" in Messiah.

To show you how people are divided up now in generations:

"The Pew Research Center periodically updates the age ranges it uses to define the generational groups, and that includes the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. In 2019, the organization officially added the birth years for Gen Z. Since then, other sources have weighed in on the suggested age ranges for Gen Alpha. Check out the latest definitions for each generation below:

The Silent Generation: Born 1928-1945 (78-95 years old)

Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964 (59-77 years old)

Gen X: Born 1965-1980 (43-58 years old)

Millennials: Born 1981-1996 (27-42 years old)

Gen Z: Born 1997-2012 (11-26 years old)

Gen Alpha: Born early 2010s-2025 (0-about 10 years old)

Yeshua/Jesus said in Revelation 22, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Only He can join all generations in Himself. But we are to come in agreement with God's desire to answer such a prayer.

 

The Book of Hebrews in the Days of Hebrews

 

Early Christmas Day 2023 morning
I honestly can't figure out why Bible scholars would argue that Hebrews wasn't written by the Apostle Paul. Who else would it be? He was the only one of the apostles trained in the Hebrew scriptures and this was necessary for the Holy Spirit to teach him the deep mysteries of God that are revealed progressively through the Scriptures. These are things that would have escaped the other apostles because they didn't have understanding of Scripture. We can get far without knowing the Old Testament, but we cannot get into the deeper mysteries of God that were entrusted to Paul. Yeshua hand-picked Paul for this job appearing to him after the resurrection. If these mysteries of God were not ultimately important for Christians for the fulfillment of God's plans, then Jesus would have no need to add to the Apostles and Apostle specifically to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Someone had to give the nations a contextual understanding of God's ways that is only found by starting at the beginning, with the understanding that was laid among the Jewish people. Jewish people can give us that contexual understanding, but really only those that have a Spirit filled life in Yeshua. You can't get that from just any unsaved rabbi, you must find the saved rabbis, filled with the Holy Spirit and in active process of being transformed in the likeness of God's Son Yeshua. 

Paul wrote almost the whole New Testament scriptures and scholars are telling me God called in Mr. Anonymous to write the book of Hebrews instead of Paul? handpicked by Jesus to lay out the teaching to the Gentiles? The other apostles admitted the advantage Paul had in both biblical training and in revelation of the mysteries that run from Genesis to end. He understood better because of his training of the Hebrew Scripture and even the other apostles learned from his teaching. I think one would just have to overlook the obvious and accept the least likely premise to say someone other than Paul wrote Hebrews. But I'm simple like that.

Early the Morning after Christmas Day 2023 
PART II: The Lord is continuing to speak to me about the apostle Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. He was unrivaled among all the other Apostles with a capital A, in understanding the mysteries of God. He was personally chosen by Yeshua after resurrection to declare the Gospel and the Mysteries of God's plan to all the Gentiles...but also to the Jews. I think it is fair to say that what Paul taught, the other apostles learned from. He wrote most of the New Testament, so there is that, but there are other things God is showing me about Paul, worth paying attention to. 

     Just right off the bat I am going to challenge you on the criticism of Bible scholarship who have claimed that Hebrews was not written by Paul. The apostle to the Gentiles wrote to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Romans and many others. Why in the world would we think he didn't write to the Hebrews? 

     I propose that the scholarship that claims Hebrews was not written by Paul, is rather a deep manifestation of Christian rejection of God's continuing love and plan for the Hebrew nation of Israeli Jews. It is a manifestation of supersessionism (replacement theology).

     Paul never turned his back on the Jewish people and he wrote much to make non-Jewish Christians to know that the temporary setting aside of Israel is one of the greatest mysteries of God, because they were set aside temporarily in order to open the door of salvation to all the people of the nations. Paul even argues in Romans about how Christians should not fall into the pride and arrogance that boasts and gloats over the Jews as forsaken by God. 

     In Hebrews, Paul's authorship is never mentioned. That is not enough to conclude he was not the author. Considering the things he wrote about in Hebrews, he is addressing precisely the kind of issues that needed to be addressed to Jewish believers. He addressed the same things that Jewish believers pointedly need to be addressed to non-Jewish Christians.

    That is the same thing he did in letters to the the Corinthians who were getting so charismatic that they ignored sin in the camp without addressing and correcting it. Or, like the Galatians, who became so fascinated with Jewish believers teaching the laws rather than the Gospel he had taught them of faith by grace. (If you are a Christian who thinks grace did not exist in the Old Testament, you just don't know the whole Bible! Grace still existed because it was ALWAYS impossible for even the best believers not to break the law and sin! Bathsheba, and many other prime examples of God's grace even under the Law.)

     In the Galatians letter Paul  he said he even had to rebuke the Apostle Peter in front of everyone in Antioch: “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

     Paul had bona fides (authentic credentials) for being accepted among the 12 Apostles because Paul was even chosen by Jesus after resurrection on the road to Damascus. He was halted from pursing Jewish believers to punish them for believing in Yeshua.

     Paul called himself "one born of undue time" which was a way to  say a premature baby. But I believe it is a spiritual reference to the premature birth of religious Jews to faith in Yeshua. Paul was one of them, completely unlike the other apostles - trained in the Hebrew Scriptures. 

     Maybe Paul's authorship being left out of the letter to the Hebrews has more to do with that than with anything else. Why did Jesus pick a trained expert in the Hebrew  Scriptures only after His resurrection instead of when He was walking throughout Israel preaching to the Jews? 

     One, because the Gentiles were going to need to understand what God was saying in the Hebrew Scriptures and the continuity of God's mysterious plans that can only be apprehended by someone who has studied the Old Testament enough to know what God spoke to Israel. There have been many ridiculous assumptions of what God was saying by Christians precisely because we reject what only the Jewish believers in Yeshua can inform us about.

     God sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies. At this table are marvelous things He has developed among Christians. But also at that table - a table set for the Last Days - there is a great banquet that has been prepared by God among Yeshua's Messianic Jews.  We are invited to sit down at that table - in the presence of our enemies - and partake of good food presented by Christians and Messianic Jews who are ready and willing to follow the Holy Spirit in to God's mysterious plan to make of two -Jew and Gentile- one in Messiah. The apostle Paul taught with authentic credentials he spelled out in Galatians 1 and Philippians 3, and many trials which he spelled out in 2 Corinthians 10. 

     Paul never lost his earnest desire to see the Jewish people join Him in faith in Israel's Messiah. He always went to the synagogue first to speak in any city he entered - but he also knew as the Spirit had instructed him, that until the season determined by God, he would not see a mass of Jewish people coming to faith. Individuals would come, but "all Israel" was reserved to a specific time frame - the return of Israel from exile to a reestablished physical nation, then spiritual restoration would also begin. That would happen in the last of the last days. Paul never stopped preaching the Gospel to seek the ones like himself who did come into faith after Jesus time walking among them had ceased.  

     All of the signs spoken of by Jesus Himself point to the time of God's mercy arising for Israel to be here and now. First the physical restoration of Israel as a nation, then the spiritual restoration to God by faith in Israel's own Messiah, Yeshua. The banquet table we are invited to sit at - in the presence of our enemies - that is at a table of Jews and Gentiles who opened their heart to each other as God intended in His Son. Short of that, and you will find your spiritual food more and more scanty as the trials continue to increase.

* One other thing is Jesus telling us that we must pray for our enemies. After Shaul had been blinded by the radiance of Yeshua appearing to him on the road to Damascus, the Lord spoke to Ananias in a vision, “Ananias!” 

     “Here I am, Lord,” he answered. 11“Get up!” the Lord told him. “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Shaul, for he is praying. appeared to Ananias, a believer in Damascus. 

     13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, many people have told me about this man and all the harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. 14 And now he is here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on Your name.”

     15 “Go!” said the Lord. “THIS MAN IS MY CHOSEN INSTRUMENT TO CARRY MY NAME BEFORE THE GENTILES AND THEIR KINGS   AND BEFORE THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

     Being chosen by God also comes with suffering for His name. We can pray for those who persecute us because they are deflecting the Word of God we carry for them.  Their eternity stands in the balance.