“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” (Proverbs
25:2)
The Big Picture
by Reuven Doron
Those who are standing in the place of
intercession while pleading with God for “The
Peace of Jerusalem,” may grow weary treading this difficult
and long road. The boiling, ongoing conflict in and around Israel is hard to
bear. In addition, the turbulence that the entire world is experiencing can
also take its toll on the hearts of the intercessors, causing confusion and
discouragement. Questions and doubts may arise: What is really going on?
What is God doing in the midst of this turmoil? And above all, what does He
want me to do about it?
Today, we want to highlight an often
unaddressed CENTRAL ISSUE, and bring to mind the BIGGER PICTURE apart from the
shifting news-bites of the day that clamor for our attention.
The Mystery of the Two Sticks | “Behold,
I tell you a mystery…” The apostle Paul used these words
when he shared the revelation of the future resurrection of the dead with the
Corinthian disciples (I-Cor. 15:51). Something that was kept hidden beforehand
was now brought into the light for the equipping and edification of the saints.
The following is shared for your
discernment and prayer as “a biblical mystery;” a prophetic unfolding that has
not been often discussed so far.
Following the epic vision of the
“Dry Bones”
coming to life, Ezekiel continues to prophesy about God’s final work of
redemption as he addresses the
mysterious TWO STICKS becoming ONE in God’s hand. (Ezekiel 37)
. . . .This mysterious prophecy of TWO
STICKS becoming ONE in
God’s Kingdom is a picture of the 10
northern tribes (who tore away from Jerusalem) when God reunites them with
the Tribe of Judah (and Simeon). This is God’s work and not the work of man
as it points to the “Restored Kingdom” that the disciples inquired about
when they asked, “Lord, will You at this time
restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).
The Lord replied and told these
disciples that “It is not for you to know times
or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
(Acts 1:7-8). We are in the birth pains
of Messiah, and this is the heart of the Feast of Pentecost which we just
observed. We all truly need God’s Holy Spirit to work in us and through us
more powerfully than yesterday in order to live and thrive and bear good fruit
for the glory of His name during these complicated times.
However, there is another aspect
of this prophecy that is higher yet. Exhaustive
research of the 10 tribes’ historic
movements indicates that the tribes that went into exile (about
600 years before Messiah was born) never
returned to the homeland. They migrated over time into remote regions
including Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas where their presence has been
preserved over many centuries. Was their
presence among the Gentile nations only natural, or did they also influence the
nations spiritually?
Seeding the Nations | Moses blessed
the Tribes of Israel just before his death. His blessing to the Tribe of
Joseph carried a unique international air. Moses prophesied over Joseph, “…
his glory is like a firstborn bull, and his horns like the horns of the wild
ox; together with them he shall push the nations to
the ends of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they
are the thousands of Manasseh.” (Deuteronomy 33:17).
Ephraim and
Manasseh were Joseph’s sons….They
survived, populated new lands, and
“pollinated” the pagan world with God’s seeds in preparation for the advent of
the Gospel. As mixed of a bag as these Israelite tribes were, they nevertheless introduced the witness of
the One True God wherever they went even if by virtue of His judgment over
them. God’s judgments are His witness, as well as His blessings.
In the epic Song of Moses, the
servant of God prophesied over the nations of the world, saying, “…
When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated
the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the
peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the
LORD’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.”
(Deuteronomy 32:8-9). Moses declared
that God set up the global stage in advance, long before the Hebrew nation was
formed, in order to prepare for the exiled Israelites. He knew beforehand, and included
their failure as part of His work of salvation, a work that was
conceived before the foundations of the world.
Our God is sovereign over all, and
He will use a crooked stick to draw a straight line. This principle appears
many times in the Bible, and is expressed clearly in Joseph’s revelation. When facing his family’s dysfunction and
betrayal, he concluded the matter from heaven’s perspective when he told his
guilty brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God
intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many
lives…” (Genesis 50:20).
The
pagan world, lost in darkness, was waiting for the time of God’s intervention.
That intervention started with the creation and eventual dispersion of Israel
under divine judgment. Israel’s historic
inability to be God’s “super nation” that was “supposed to” serve the world as
a “Priest Nation” (Hosea 4:6), served
better yet under God’s judgment since “Mercy (always) triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13). In her failure, Israel became a catalyst of change,
preparing the world for the Gospel.
The
ten tribes were scattered and sown as spiritual seed among the nations just as
Moses foretold. Judah, the tribe that was likewise exiled but returned to the
Land (since Judah repented of his sin against Joseph and Jacob and defended
Benjamin), became the WOMB that gave
birth to God’s Messiah. As Jacob prophesied, “The
scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.”
(Genesis 49:10).
Judah,
today’s Jewish people, was the womb from which the Savior was born and grew up.
Having accomplished everlasting atonement for sins in His sacrificial death and
resurrection, Jesus extended His reach by the working of His Spirit, and from
that cradle of family and tribe and nation, the Savior spread His Kingdom of
faith across the earth even as the Jewish people headed into another long and
painful exile. But what happened to the ten tribes?
Who & Where Are the Tribes? | It
is clear from Scripture that during the
early centuries AD the location of those dispersed Israelite tribes was public
knowledge. The writer of the Epistle of James introduces himself, saying, “James,
a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus The Messiah, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad …” (James
1:1).
Research
shows that the bulk of the tribes migrated into western and northern Europe as
tribal units which further split down through the centuries. They integrated into local populations and
reinvented their ancient Hebraic culture as the distant memories remained
embedded in their subconscious. Many believe that over time, these migrating
tribes combined their identity and customs into the core of what predominantly
became the Christian nations of the West.
These
nations gave rise to the Western Civilization that became fertile ground to the
Good News of God’s Salvation through Jesus. They are the nations which
embraced the Christian Faith and upheld the biblical principles of justice,
equity, compassion and care over God’s creation. It was this Western
Civilization that eclipsed all previous ones in recent centuries under the
blessings of the God of Israel.
Many scriptures allude in mystery to
this prophetic perspective of the tribes’ natural and spiritual presence among
the nations which eventually became Christian. Bible scholars, Jewish and
Christian alike, consider this view and
anticipate its final chapter when the “Tribes of Israel” unite with the “Tribe of Judah” in a last-days' global movement
of revival and healing.
Scripture assures us
that all those who are joined to the Messiah and are born again by His Spirit
are also joined to “the commonwealth of Israel.”
(Ephesians 2:12). Yet, only a flood of heaven’s love and power will be able
to bring Jewish Israel and the Christian Eklesia into the kind of oneness that
the “two sticks becoming one”
speak of. Yet,
only God can dismantle the ancient wall of partition, and He does so ONLY in
the Messiah. (Ephesians 2:12).
Speaking of the future reign of King
Messiah on earth, Isaiah prophesied that
there is a time coming when the historic animosity between Judaism and
Christianity will be over. Using the prophetic meaning of the names Ephraim
and Judah, Isaiah said, “…the envy of Ephraim shall
depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim
shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim.”
(Isaiah 11:13). The Apostle Paul, seeing this promised spiritual oneness
between Jew and Gentile in The Messiah called it the “ONE
NEW MAN.”
This
fullness and completion of God’s plan for Israel appears many times in the
Bible. The Apostle shed light on it when writing to the Romans, “…
I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest
you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to
Israel until the fullness of the nations has come
in. And so all Israel will be saved …” (Romans
11:25). Who are these “fullness of nations” that are supposed to come in? And
what does “all Israel” mean?
This term, “the fullness of the nations,”
is a quote Paul used taken from God’s promises to Jacob when he returned to the
Land of Canaan. God said, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful
and multiply; a nation and a company of nations
shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body.”
(Genesis 35:11). The same thought of “fullness of
nations” or “company of nations”
appears in Jacob’s prophecy over Ephraim, saying that “…
his descendants shall become a multitude of
nations.”
This divine “global outreach” was
always in the cards. God prophesied to Abraham, “No
longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I
have made you a father of many
nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations
of you, and kings shall come from you.”
(Genesis 17:5-6).
To make matters clearer yet, God
spoke over Sarah, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall
not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And
I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she
shall be a mother of nations; kings of
peoples shall be from her.” (Genesis 17:16). Sarah was
married to only one man and had only ONE CHILD, Isaac. It is through Isaac,
therefore, that God’s promise of “many nations” will be
fulfilled.
Saying “all
Israel” in his letter to the Romans, the Apostle broadened his view
beyond the territory of Canaan as he saw, by the Spirit, the “Israel
of God” emerging from among the nations of the world. According to Paul’s
revelation, “ALL Israel will be saved”
(Romans 11:25) ONLY when “the fullness of the nations has
come in.”
A Changing World | Viewing current global events
through this lens, one can see the
battle lines being drawn and the separation of nations becoming clearer as
“Jewish Israel” is fighting for her life in the midst of a rising global
controversy. Will the Spiritual “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16)
come into oneness with “Jewish Israel” in these tumultuous times? And if so,
how will it take place?
The
past foretells the future. The historic forces of Ishmael
and Esau are uniting and rising against the 12 Tribes of Israel once again as
the ancient offences never die. The final confrontations may already be on the
horizon. It was not many years ago that the radical Islamic Mufti (religious
leader) of Jerusalem worked closely alongside Hitler to speed up “The Final
Solution” of the Jews during WW2. And most recently, IDF units have discovered
an abundance of Nazi propaganda in many “civilian” homes in Gaza. As Solomon
wrote, “Whatever is has already been, and what will
be has been before; and God will call the past to account.” (Ecclesiastes
3:15).
The results of the recent
European Union elections tell the story well as conservative, patriotic, and
Israel-supporting political parties and leaders are crushing the fast
shrinking, Israel-blaming, progressive parties of the Left. The youth of
Europe have had enough of pro-immigration, Islam catering, Israel-hating
politics, and we pray that this dramatic shift will become permanent and expand
throughout the West.
The Return | The question is, is the West able
and willing to pay the price and make the needed spiritual changes to “RETURN”
to the Faith of the God of Israel?” The battle over western civilization is rooted in
spiritual principles, not ideologies or politics. Without the
presence and the protection of Jehovah, YHVH, the God of Israel, the West does
not stand a chance to recognize, resist, and overcome the spiritual,
ideological and demographic invasion it faces.
The West needs revival. Nature
abhors a vacuum, and spiritual emptiness
will always invite invading spirits. In a sense, the RETURN of the “LOST
TRIBES” to the God of Israel and to their heritage as “spiritual Israelites” is
the West’s ONLY HOPE.
Teaching the Ephesian disciples
about their new Faith in Messiah, Paul admonished them, “…
remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh who are called Uncircumcision by
what is called the Circumcision … that at that time you were without Messiah,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants
of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Messiah Jesus you who
once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah … For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one,
and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His
flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so
as to create in Himself one new man from the two,
thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body
through the cross … For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the
Father…”
(Ephesians 2).
This oneness will not necessarily
be a uniformity or a conformity one to another; rather it can be better
understood as the oneness of husband and wife. While remaining individually
true to themselves, they create in their oneness a new form of life, a
family in and of themselves under God’s hand. The two sticks which were
separated for so long are coming back to each other as they come back to God.
As we RETURN to Messiah,
Jew and Gentile are also returning to
one another, and the end result will be glorious.
Much of our labors, sacrifice, and
prayers over recent decades (even unknowingly) have been to awaken the “LOST TRIBES” and position those who find this
treasure in their hearts for the coming UNION with Judah. This hidden hope is
also alive in the heart of the Jewish nation today which, while being Jewish,
has chosen to be called by the name “ISRAEL”
(and not JUDAH as some suggested) in expectation for the coming fullness. They
don’t know it yet, but they cannot help but prepare for it.
The early stages of this miracle
of oneness and rebirth are upon us, and most of you who read these words
already have this witness in your hearts. Know that the struggles and
perseverance of this present season of conflict, trial and hardship are
providing the stage for this coming great and final reunion of the TWO
STICKS becoming ONE in
God’s hand.
God creates and loves variety,
and His purpose for His redeemed is inclusive, generating a genuine oneness of
spirit and of purpose. Our response to variety and diversity, due to fear
and selfishness, has often been racism by default. God’s heart for variety and
diversity is reflected in the heavenly vision, “And
they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open
its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of
every tribe and tongue
and people and nation …’”
(Revelation 5:9-10).
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Reuven: We are grateful for friends who
share in our labors during this season of war and harvest. The needs are
substantial, as are the opportunities to minister to those who dwell in Zion,
reach out to many Israelis, and serve God’s purposes in these last days. To
learn how you can support our work in Israel, or to join our mailing list,
email us at reuvendoron@ gmail.com
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