Pray for the peace of Jerusalem?

Psalm 122:6 tells us to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” – or does it?!  An Israeli ministry to widows and orphans shares that the more accurate translation is, “Ask how Jerusalem is doing.”  In this teaching article, we are challenged to inquire about how the people of Israel are doing, not just the political state.  “For their sake” – the house of the LORD in Israel – I will pray for your peace, Jerusalem.


This is a guest column by Orna Greenman of A Sign & A Wonder Ministry to orphans and widows in Israel. 

Throughout the ages, many Christians have been praying for peace in Jerusalem and for security within Israel’s borders, based mainly on Psalm 122:6. And yet, peace and security seem to be so far away.  Are we praying amiss?

A more accurate translation from the Hebrew is, "Ask how is Jerusalem doing."

Jeremiah uses the same phrase when he describes the fatal situation in Jerusalem, and then stops and cries out, "Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Who will mourn for you? Who will stop to ask how you are doing?" (Jer. 15:5).

This last phrase - "Who will ask how you are doing?" - is the same as the one in Ps. 122:6. But for some reason, in Psalms it is wrongly translated as a command to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, rather than inquire about her situation.

The text does not command us to pray automatically for peace, it does tell us to get involved, to develop a relationship with the land and the people, so we know how they are really doing and why is there no peace.

Is it possible that those of us who have been praying for peace within Jerusalem may be working against God's will? I know this is a radical statement, but you see, peaceful borders are not the core issue with God. It has never been the core issue throughout the Bible. Wars and swords and exile - all those horrors that He inflicted upon us - have been His way to attract our attention, to turn us back to Him. Our borders were never in the hands of men, no matter how powerful the leader was. Borders are always in the Hands of God alone. He is the only one who determines and establishes them.

Whenever God warned us of war and lack of peace, it was not because we gave away land. It was for two main reasons: 1) idolatry - looking elsewhere for help other than to Him; 2) Injustice and oppression of those who live in the margins: the needy, the aliens, the orphans and the widows.

So you see that our prayer focus has been in the wrong place. We have been praying about the results and forgetting the cause. We are asking God to fix the judgment instead of praying that the reason for the judgment would be rectified.

From day one the Israelites failed to inherit the entire Land and to drive out the local inhabitants (Jud. 1:27-33). God did not punish them for that, but for the influence these inhabitants had on the nation, for the idol worship that was brought in (Jud. 2:2-3). Israel should focus on returning to her Husband and on her moral condition, if she wants to enjoy secure borders.

As I traveled the States during the summer, I was surprised to find out that the very people who dedicate time to pray for Israel, do not really know how she is doing. Most people were only interested to hear about foreign affairs and the upcoming UN resolution concerning the statehood of the Palestinian authority. They did not have a clue that multitudes of Israelis, hundreds of thousands, were spending the entire impossibly humid summer months in tents all across the country, pleading for social justice, being fed up from the impossible living cost in the land.

Most of the Christians I met also did not know that the former president of Israel, the number one citizen, Mr. Moshe Katsav, was about to go to jail for raping his secretaries. They never heard of other Knesset members who are already in jail for corruption or for sexual harassment. Almost all prayer warriors I had met were clueless about all these matters. And those who knew about it, considered it as marginal. They did not pay much attention nor invested prayer into it. They knew a lot about border issues, about the Iranian nuclear system and about military issues concerning the Middle East, but very little, if anything, about the two main reasons for which God judges His nation with restless borders.

If Israel will settle these two issues, peace will be the automatic result. When we pray that there will be peace, and ignore the reasons for lack of peace, we are somewhat resisting God's method of pulling Israel back to Him.

How than shall we pray for Israel, so that she will eventually be able to enjoy peace?

Our prayers must focus on the root issue, on the pain of the widow and the needy in society, who is weeping for someone to manage them, someone to lean on. We need to pray that the leadership of Israel will develop jealousy for righteousness, to a loathing of all forms of corruption, and for the ability to trust God to fulfill His promises concerning the borders.

The word “widow” in the Old Testament does not refer only to a woman without a husband. It means a woman, a city or a nation who is in ruin, who has no provider and no one to manage her life.  The OT refers to Israel as a widow (e.g. Lam. 1:1; Isa. 54:4) not because her Husband died, but because she does not consider Him as her provider.

How typical of God's system.  Just like His blood can cleanse (where any other blood only defiles), and His death can give us life, so also do the weakest and seemingly most unnecessary members of the Body are the ones we need the most (I Cor. 12: 22). We consider them as shameful members, but God sees them as vessels of great glory (v. 23).

The last verses of Ps. 122 speak about our brothers and companions, about the house of the Lord. "For their sake", the psalmist says, "I will pray for your peace". This brings up another important point to focus on in prayer, a focus that many Christians neglect.

Do you know how your Israeli brothers and sisters in the Lord are doing? Or how are the 150+ houses of the Lord across the land are managing? Are you aware of the persecution that goes on here, or our daily struggle to establish righteousness and to survive? Do your prayers focus on the wellbeing and needs of your family in the Lord in the land, or on mainly on our borders?

The former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meier, once said that Israel is easy to love from afar, that is to say, uninvolved. To truly love Israel, like loving anyone, even a country, one must be familiar with her goings on and the issues she must deal with.

My prayer is that this update will encourage you to love truly, to become familiar with our real issues. I hope it will refocus your prayers for us, so that we will truly be able to enjoy peace and prosperity within our walls.

Teaching widows to establish the borders of the Land

In a couple of weeks our team will join hands with another ministry in the south of Israel, in an attempt to see how this fresh understanding of Scripture can be best applied.  We invited a group of widows and broken women to join us, and we plan to teach them how quickly God hears their cry and about the amazing effect their prayers can have, if they will learn to bless those in authority, versus constantly complaining about them.

We covet your prayers for that weekend (March 23-24). If you feel led to pray for us as we prepare and run this weekend, please email me back. 

Disconnections from Rightly Connecting

by Donna Diorio 

from whom the whole body, joined and knit together
by what every joint supplies,
according to the effective working
by which every part does its share,
causes growth of the body
for the edifying of itself in love.
Ephesians 4:16

One of the greatest blessings of my connectedness with the Israeli Body of Messiah  is that many meanings in the Bible that I unconsciously skipped over because I didn't understand, or just adopted a misconstrued, non-Hebrew-thinker conclusion about, does not happen so readily anymore.

Now I listen to those who understand the Hebrew mindset behind the writings of the Bible.  The result is that the scripture has been broken open by my Hebrew-thinking friends like a loaf of bread shared among family members sitting around a table.  The fuller meaning and texture has been freely given and it is a great gift that I treasure from the Jewish Body of Messiah.

I believe, this is why the New Testament book of Hebrews tell us we are not to "forsake the assembling of ourselves together."  All of us have something to contribute to the betterment of the rest.  Every part of the Body of Christ contributes to the whole well-being of the Body - including the vital Jewish part.

My mother used to warn against not 'cutting off your nose to spite your face.'  This is how much of the Church has been in refusing what the Jewish believers in Jesus have to bring to the table as we break bread and share the Word of the LORD.

I don't understand why anyone would be content to run with an assumed meaning instead of being teachable and open to learn what God has given Jewish believers to bless the rest of the Body. Christians encourage each other all the time that God has given each of us a unique gift with which to bless the rest of the Body. Rightly so. Then how is it that so many willingly dismiss one of the greatest gifts the Jewish believers have to share with us? 

Accurate context is not just another among many potential considerations, it established the primary intent of the writer. How can we ignore the writer's intent and content ourselves with our own conceptions?  Our assumed applications might have a valid secondary meaning, but why would we willingly ignore the main purpose for a Spirit-inspired statement in the Word of God?

With the exception of Luke, the whole rest of the Bible was written by Jews steeped in Hebrew thinking and using Hebrew idioms that were not known or understood by non-Jewish translators or theologians. Why would we purposely refuse knowledge of context, meaning and intent?  Pride, maybe?  Not wanting to admit that we don't have it all already?


Almost the whole New Testament was written by the apostle Paul who was not one of the untrained apostles. He was not a fisherman but was a religious scholar, highly trained in the scripture. 

This should give us a clue that Paul was able to connect-the-dots of the deep mysteries of God the Holy Spirit gave him because he was trained in a foundational knowledge of God's Word.  The Holy Spirit can reveal mysteries to us, but even prophets understand that the fullness of God's mysteries require familiarity with scriptural facts.

The foundations of God are laid in the Hebrew Old Testament. This foundation is what the apostle Paul used to connected the dots from the revelations that he received from the Holy Spirit.  Paul understood the prophetic revelation like Daniel before him: "I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet."  

The apostle Peter drew attention to Paul's wisdom that came from training in the scripture combined with revelation, in  2 Peter 3:15-16 saying Paul's wisdom excelled in "things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures."  Untaught people and unstable people.  Not untaught, unstable people - but two categories.  The untaught refers to those who were untaught in the Old Testament scriptures.

Even Peter was teachable when it came to receiving understanding from Paul. Peter who had walked side-by-side with Jesus, understood that Paul's foundation in understanding the Bible is what opened up the mysteries of the kingdom to him, when combined with what the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul.  Peter and the other common folk Yeshua chose as disciples and raised up as apostles could astound the Pharisees with their command of the kingdom of God, yet it was the apostle Paul, religiously-trained in the scripture who excelled above even the apostles in expounding the deepest mysteries of the kingdom of God.  Selah.


I have never undertood Christians who dismissed the whole of the Old Testament as something that was not necessary to their understanding of their faith.  Crazy. It is the foundation of their faith!  In Ephesians 2, Paul says that Jews and Gentiles in Messiah are being built as a Holy Temple together in Him "on the foundation of the apostles and prophets."  We can't build on anything but the foundation for a lasting structure.

As someone who has spent the last couple of decades diving into trying to understand what's what and who's who among the Jews, I can tell you that as a Christian, if you refuse what the Jewish believers have to add to your comprehension of the whole Word of God, then you are seriously out of the loop of understanding what God is doing and where all this is heading.

That "forsake not" verse I referred to earlier is not just about going to church - it is about all of the parts being rightly connected with the other parts of the Body of Christ. Selah

Excuses for remaining disconnected

And the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."
1Cr 12:21

Some Christians have told me that they refused to get involved with Messianic believers because they have seen people fall off the deep end into legalism, and what I have to say to that is, BALONEY.

All we have to do is hold EVERYTHING up to the Word of God and use our God-given gift of discernment. Don’t cut off the gifts that God has given through the Jewish parts of the Body to share with the Church just because someone else was led astray.  There are false prophets and false shepherds everywhere - including in the 'cutting edge' prophetic circles that reject the Messianic movement as a valid expression of faith (and especially in those that reject that Israel has any ongoing significance in the purposes and plan of God!)  


One Christian marketplace minister told me that he watched what happened to Reggie White when White got led into a Torah-focus that began to ruin him, so the marketplace minister let that incident and example become a blanket condemnation of the whole of the Messianic movement.  That is just wrong and more reflective of prejudice than of 'Berean' vigilance.


Recently I found out that the Messianic Jew that led Reggie White down the wrong path was rabbi Ralph Messer - the guy who caused such an uproar among Jews (saved AND unsaved) in the past few weeks by wrapping a Torah around Eddie Long.  He had previously done the same with Paula White.

Do you see a pattern here? If we are spiritually unguarded - and perhaps full of secret sins - then we don't have protection in detecting the false prophets or false shepherds that are everywhere. 

There are those in the Messianic movement that I would not follow and do not endorse, but the vast majority of those that I do know are a wonderful blessing to me.  The Messianic Jews I'm most familiar with are in the Israeli Messianic community because that is where my exclusive focus has been in the past decade.  Whether charismatic or not, I find the majority of them to be Biblically stable and spiritually sound in faith. The bread they break each week in their prayer letters and teachings are heaping blessing upon blessing of understanding the Word to me.

This is an aside, but personally I look to the Israeli Messianic Jews as those who have been freed from many of the Jewish-identity issues that plague Messianic Jews in the Diaspora because of the rejection from the Jewish community.  There is such an alienation from family, friends and community that happens to many Jews who come to faith in Yeshua/Jesus, that it would be good if the Church demonstrated more empathy.   However, when a Messianic is a citizen residing in the Jewish state the need to prove they are 'still Jewish' is not as great a personal issue. A Messianic Jew in the Jewish state of Israel is confirmed in the continuing identity that they are still very much "real Jews."

Some Christians say that the problem with Messianic Judiasm is that they preach Israel, not Jesus. I think I know what they mean about this and among some ministers, that may be so. however it is hard to ignore GOD'S focus today because His purposes organically include Israel.

It is impossible for Messianic Jewish ministers NOT to break open the Word of God concerning Israel precisely because the Jewish State is key to God's plan and that has put it in an existential fight for life seemingly against the whole world. Those who do not grasp GOD'S plan and purposes for Israel would tend to downgrade the need to teach out of the WORD OF GOD regarding ISRAEL. That's another "selah" point.

While it is true that the enemy cannot completely destroy Israel because God has purpose for Israel in these last days, it is also true that without the Body of Christ standing up WITH Israel that the enemy WILL be able to cut off many Jews from the land of the living before they can receive Messiah into their lives.  We must stand with Israel to limit the death toll that the demonic opposition CAN achieve.  The enemy may not achieve wiping Israel off the map, but demonic-inspired opposition can kill many Jews before they come to the knowledge of their own Messiah.

This precedent in the Bible is easy to see:  We need only to look at all the Jewish babies who were killed in Moses’ and Herod's times as the devil sought to thwart the plan of God.

Or the contemporary examples of Haman:  Hitler and any of the other forerunners of those antichrist spirits that are all-out opposing the LORD's purposes toward His "Chosen People".   Iran now stands in that leading role.

Don't get in a huff, Christian, over the Jews being known as "the chosen" by God because it has put a target on their backs that demons seeks out.  Israel was singled out to be a blessing not only in providing the bloodline for the birth of Jesus, but also to be the key to the great last harvest of international souls. Like any individual who has been singled out by God to fulfill something for the kingdom of the LORD, the JEWS have paid a steep price for being "the Chosen People" of God.

One can see this clearly in the prophetic word of the LORD to Zechariah, (v.2) “The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers….(v.15) But I am very angry with the other nations that are now enjoying peace and security. I was only a little angry with My people, but the nations inflicted harm on them far beyond my intentions.


Zechariah's prophecy that has proven historically true and Isaiah 61:7 records the promise of God to Israel that is to come as a result:  "Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; Everlasting joy shall be theirs."  

As a Christian, if you don’t know the history of the persecution Jews have endured all over the world, you should since a great deal of it has been at Christian hands.  A great book to bring you up to speed is Dr. Michael Brown’s classic, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood. 

Here is the caveat:

Many Christians who learn our shameful history of how Christians have dealt with the Jews over the past 2,000 years make the mistake of camping out in that place forever.   

That‘s what we do, isn’t it? We camp out in the place of the last downloaded understanding of God and fail to move on.  We have to repent of our shameful history and then move on to a productive connection with the Messianic parts of the Body. 


The Messianic community should not stop teaching about Israel, and it cannot stop enlightening Christians who are NEW to the discovery of Jews who believe in Jesus of the shameful history of Christian persecution of Jews.  What we cannot allow is indulging the so-called “Messianic Christians” to set up a permanent camp at being incensed over Christianity’s shameful past with the Jews.  


No! It is wrong to allow Christians joined to the Messianic movement to stay in that mode of righteous indignation over the shameful past because it turns into SELF-righteous indignation which destroys anything we have gained in learning the truth!  


This shared bitterness devoid of grace becomes a quicksand graveyard for many Christians to moving forward into more meaningful connection with the JEWISH MEMBERS of the BODY of MESSIAH. 


God wants to establish the coming together of the whole Body in a connectedness that works together from the instruction of its Head.  From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.  Eph 4:16

What happens when the Christians who are stirred by God to care for the Jewish people or to join themselves to the Messianic community stay in a graceless bitterness over the past is that God’s purposes are thwarted. If we, as Christians associated with the Messianic movement, remain in the place of anger and unforgiveness, it will divert us from the purposes of God to connect with the other parts of the BODY of the LORD together under one Head - that is Yeshua/Jesus.   

Just moving into a connectedness with unsaved Israel is a booby-trap for Christians that will imprison us.   

When we have been hurt, human nature is such that we like it when others join into our offense.  It makes us feel vindicated.  To live in the kingdom of God, we have to put a halt to living in the place of offense.  We cannot allow ourselves to live there and cannot invite our spiritual relatives to move in to that place of bitterness where we continue to live in it vicariously through them.


If the Messianic leadership allows the Christians among them to remain in the place of bitter, unforgivness over Christian history with the Jewish people, instead of urging them to move on into a more productive relationship and connection with God’s purposes in raising up the believing Remnant in Israel, then we will continue to see the great numbers of Messianic Jews and Christians default from the faith, opting into traditional Judaism that excludes Jesus.  This is the high price we pay for not keeping the Messianic House in order. Selah.

And lastly, as much as it is a disconnect for the Church to ignore the Divine significance on the worldwide explosion of salvation among the Jews and of their existence as a impacting Remnant in Israel, IT IS ALSO A DISCONNECT for the Church to bypass the Body of Messiah in Israel in order to CONNECT with unsaved Israel.  Christian Zionists need to take this word to heart more urgently than ever before. 

There are many ways to leave the path of God’s purposes.  Those I’ve addressed here are a few that I see working in the Church and in the Messianic movement.  Both sides can be guilty of slowing down the LORD’s purposes to make “in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace.”

Between the Rock and hard place

by Donna Diorio

I just read an Op-Ed on one of the most popular Israeli newspapers. Online it is Ynet. The article is Israel and the Christians and it discusses why the ultra-Orthodox Haredim are wrong to oppose all Christian help for Israel saying,

"...devout Protestants were advocating the restoration of a Jewish State with Jerusalem as its capital long before Theodor Herzl." And, "...to label all pro-Israel Christians as “missionaries”, as haredi group Yad L’Achim is saying, is not accurate."

But here is where this 'liberal' Jewish attitude puts pro-Israel Christians between the Rock and the hard place:

"Certainly, some US Evangelicals would like to convert Jews, and Israel must fight them. However, the vast majority simply wants to bless Israel because that is what they believe is the right thing to do."

The Jewish writer goes on to conclude:

"Israel’s leaders urgently need to set up a moral platform rejecting the “Judeo-Christian” blend, which theologically fuses Jews and Christians together without protecting the Jewish faith and maintaining Israel as an independent single-faith Jewish community. But the Bible teaches also that if there is the “gentile” who is jealous and aggressive (Amalek), there is also a “Righteous gentile” who is admiring and willing to help (Jethro.)"

So what is the dilemma for Christians who love Israel? You are being asked to reject "Jewish Christians" or Messianic Jews to retain good standing with Israel.

This writer and many of the Jewish organizations that work with Israel-supporting Christians say they will not work with anyone who supports evangelism among Jews.

I personally believe that it is not the biggest issue at stake for Israel-supporting Christians to say they will not attempt to evangelize Jews in Israel because Israeli Jewish believers are the best witness of Messiah Yeshua anyway, not Christians.  It is illegal for non-Jewish Christians to act as missionaries in Israel, but Jewish believer-Israeli citizens are free to share their faith.

What is the important issue at stake is the willingness of pro-Israel Christians to deny relationship with the Jewish believers in Jesus in order to maintain their relationships with Israeli organizations. That decision puts such Christians at odds with the Head of the Body of Messiah in Israel, who is, of course, Jesus.

Do you understand that it is a popular teaching that the Messianc Jews of Israel and the Christians who support them are enemies of Jews? They are called "Amalek," a hated enemy of Israel. Exodus 17:16 notes that, "Because the LORD has sworn: the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."  Additionally, it was King Saul’s failure to “utterly destroy” Amalek that triggered God to tear the kingdom out of Saul’s hand and to anoint David for kingship.

For Jews of our day to equate Messianic Jewish believers and the Christians who support them as “Amalek” is an extremely serious sign of the depth of anti-christ (anti-messiah) spirit at work.  The apostle Paul was not just using hyperbole when he said that those who think in this way are “enemies of the gospel.”

In contrast, Christians who are willing to "bless Israel" without understanding that salvation is the ultimate blessing for ALL, including Jews, these are called "righteous Jews" by unsaved Jews.

The Rock and the hard place decision here is summed up in this: "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." John 12:43

Too many Christians tell themselves that their good works are making Israel jealous of the Christian faith, but isn't that just wishful thinking?  I've seen enough comments of the anti-missionary activists in Israel to know that what really makes them jealous is any type of Christian support of the Jewish believers in Messiah Yeshua in Israel, and any kind of favor among men that God grants them whether in the courts, on the job, among their neighbors, in the military, in the media and in the public opinion.  These are the ONLY places I have witnessed "jealousy" of the faith emerging in unsaved Jews.

I relate to the desire of non-Jewish Christians to be a part of blessing Israel as the scriptures mandate.  Finding the narrow path that truly does bless Israel is where we end up between the Rock and the hard place.

The apostle Paul staked out the narrow way that we must walk between the Rock and hard place with the Jewish people:  As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. Romans 11:28

We have to comprehend the election of God is still in force upon the Jewish people – and many will ultimately respond by receiving the gift of salvation in Yeshua.  At the same time it is a NECESSITY to grasp that this people we love in conscience toward God – namely Israel – are also enemies of the gospel.  

If the narrow path between the Rock and the hard place was easy to find everyone would be walking it.

A Worthy Word from Israeli Messianic Jew, Arni Klien

This word was sent out in the prayer letter of Arni and Yonit Klien, who have a prayer and worship ministry in the Judean Hills, called Emmaus Way. There are so many many good words in this writing that I asked permission to share it more publicly than just to my subscribers. Be blessed as you read.



Three lies were planted in the Garden of Eden.
They sit at the root of every spiritual struggle of faith we face in life.

by Arni Klein
July 2011
Israel

Receiving Our Gift

From time to time we read about breakthrough discoveries in science or technology that end up making a real difference in people’s lives. Sometimes researchers work for years and years in search of such keys. Other times we seem to just stumble onto great things…by the providence and promise of God. Israel continues to be a light and a blessing to the nations in so many ways.

You would think that with all the contributions and discoveries made by Jews that have dramatically affected the quality of life of so many, the people of the nations would be grateful, and we (Jews) would have a deep sense of accomplishment. Well, at the moment this is not our present reality.

While thinking about this, it occurred to me that many of us don’t recognize the gift we have to give, or perhaps to say, the gift we have been made to be. The system of this world conditions us to think so competitively and comparatively that unless we are the greatest something or other, we often tend to think we have nothing to offer.

This thought come out of a personal moment I find myself in concerning the seminars I have been presenting over the past year in Germany. I am amazed and blessed by how deeply people are being touched by the Lord.

As some of you know, I have been working on these teachings and sharing them in bits and pieces for a long time – about twenty-five years. In one part of me I am convinced that the insights that make up these messages are from God. But another part of me has had a struggle to accept having something that is not common to all and is really a blessing to others.

Can you relate to this? Having the feeling I am not alone in this, I felt to share this bit of my process.

A Piece of the Puzzle

On my last trip (to Germany), a new piece of the puzzle concerning the teaching came into view.

Three lies were planted in the Garden of Eden. They sit at the root of every spiritual struggle of faith we face in life.

In speaking out against God so openly and freely, the serpent insidiously came against God’s omnipotence. (Let us not forget that the serpent was more subtle or cunning than any beast of the field). By the fact that God did nothing to stop the serpent from implying such a negative thing about Him, Adam and Eve were subtly given the sense that God is not over the serpent and therefore not all-powerful.

Next came the not-so-subtle implication about God’s word. The serpent said, “He said you would die, but you won’t.” In other words He is not to be believed.

Lastly, in that He won’t let you eat from that one special tree, He is withholding from you the best part.

The three lies are: God is not all-powerful, He is a liar, and He doesn’t love or really care about you.

Here comes the new part: Each module of the seminar rests on the revelation Name God gave along with each of the three covenants He made with Israel. These names, and the characteristic demonstrated through each, are His answer to satan’s three attacks against His character and nature.

• El Shaddai is almighty, all-powerful, all Abraham would ever need.
• Moses received the Torah from Yahweh – I Am That I Am – the unchanging One Whose word never fails.
• The new covenant reveals Yeshua, the savior, who held nothing back, proved God’s love, in Whom we have the Kingdom.

When we come to know God in each of these three dimensions, there is nothing satan can do to shake us from our foundation. The seminars are designed to help us see - in the light of God’s ways - where He is and where we are, so that we can become all He has called us to be, unto the revelation of His glory in Israel and the nations.

I don’t know if this adequately conveys to you our amazement at the completeness of this picture we are looking at.

While the process remains a lifelong endeavor and there are still no short cuts outside of embracing the Cross, the simplicity and clarity of it all blows our mind. The fullness of life is to be found in knowing God according to these three covenant Names.

The Going Forth

Seven years ago we began writing and speaking about the special calling on the third/fourth generation (after the Holocaust).

Since then we have been waiting for the Lord to release His heart cry to the youth of Germany. We sense the time has come to gather together the different groups and individuals from around Germany with whom we have been in touch, for a time of fellowship, exchange, and impartation.

To that end, our friends at TOS Ministries in Tubingen will be hosting a gathering on February 4th-5th of next year (2012). We will be writing more about this in the days to come, but wanted to alert all who might be interested to mark these dates on their calendars.

We are excited about this being in Tubingen for several reasons. Firstly, we have been bonded with TOS since our first days in Germany and deeply admire the depth and sincerity of heart they walk in. They have invested heavily in the relationship between Israel, the Jewish people, and Germany and have been true pioneers in the quest to bring reconciliation and healing to those affected by the Holocaust in Israel, Germany, Europe and the rest of the world as well.

The university in Tubingen was the womb for the marriage between religion and secular humanism and was consequently foundational to the formation of Nazi ideology. Please pray for this generation to take their place in God’s plans and purposes.

Calling to the Men

We have recently come in contact with a group of men that are regularly gathering throughout Germany to spend hours and sometimes days simply adoring the Lord with no agenda. (We trust you realize how uncharacteristic this is of the German soul structure, and especially among men).

In May, while they were with us in Nes Harim, I had a dream. In it I had been ministering in another land (which I understood to be Germany) and was on my way to return home to Israel when I was approached by a multitude of men wanting to relate about the word I had just shared. Their number was simply astounding. It reminded me of the hidden seven thousand in Elijah’s day.

The Lord impressed me that there are many men in Germany ready to walk in a new way...to come before the Lord with no agenda… to wait on Him and relate with one another in a new way. Please pray for the call of the Spirit to be heard that men no longer walk according to the spirit of the sons of Greece but become true sons of Zion.

Grass Roots

More and more we are convinced that the change we long for – the release of the Spirit – the abiding manifestation of the Lord's Presence – will be the result of a grassroots movement of simple people committed to laying their hearts and lives before the Lord and one another.

For decades the western church has looked to big ministries and large conferences for the long-awaited breakthrough. Since we moved to Israel nearly twenty years ago, our perceptions, expectations, and understandings have been dramatically altered. Coming from a thriving congregation of over two thousand in the US, it took awhile for us to understand that bigger was not better, and that as nice as gifts were, they were not what drew God close.

As we wrote above, our minds are being blown by the simplicity of the Lord’s ways. It is hard to grasp how little we need to do to fulfill the desires of His heart.

In the face of ever-encroaching darkness, many are desperately searching for an answer. Are we in fact searching for something that is right in front of us? Could it be we know it so well that we no longer see it? Might we speak it so often that we no longer hear it? It was there when Moses lifted his hands in the midst of the battle. It was there when Jehoshaphat turned his face away from the enemy. It was always before King David. It cannot be learned, it cannot be taught or given from one to another. It’s not a purpose to be accomplished. It’s not a system to be replaced or a structure to be renewed. It’s not new. We talk about it, write about it, and sing about it. When we really find it we lose all our questions. The 'it' of course, is Him.

There’s an infinite difference between looking for something to do and being the dwelling place of God.

Do we know? Do we really know what it means to enter and abide in His http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifreshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift? How long can we wait? How long can we be still? http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

The answer to these last questions might be a good measure of how well we know Him.

Arni & Yonit Klein, Emmaus Way in Nes Harim in the Judean Hills
Kleinfax prayer letter
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When the love of many waxes cold

I wrote this on a Facebook NOTE this morning but for some reason it has been blocked so no one can see it but me. Must be something worth reading.

I was arrested by the words quoted by Messianic Evan Thomas this week in his prayer perspective from Netanya, Israel.

Referencing the current Israeli housing demonstrations, Etgar Keret, one of Israel's leading journalists recently wrote in HaAretz,

"The fight will be 100-percent Israeli, blue and white. And it, as many of the signs at the demonstration noted, is the battle over the home – not just in the sense of the mortgages and housing prices, but also in the deeper sense of the word, "home," as the place where you feel wanted and valued and to which you feel connected. Our country has long since lost all sense of solidarity and mutual responsibility, replacing them with the only common denominator that remains – the primordial fear of all that is different, the other. And each time a few lazy days of steamy summer go by without missiles, flotillas and any other existential angst-provoking events, we are forced to look at each other and rediscover that we forgot long ago what it is to be one people."

Kachol lavan - blue and white.

I just learned that Israeli motto-to-live-by recently, although I have seen the effects of it in operation for many years. Kachol lavan means Jews depending upon themselves alone. As one author explained it, it was a lesson learned from the Holocaust when the world stood by and saw Jews marched into the fire and did nothing. So instead of ever trusting anyone again to help them, many Israelis operate under the "kachol lavan" way of thinking: Israel can depend on no one to help but Israelis.

It is not so different from the thinking of any other person that has been abused in life. The capacity to love and trust others shrinks more and more as the years go by hardening into bitterness and unfulfilled revenge. No one - no matter how they might try to help is allowed to penetrate the hard shell that forms the encased heart of a wounded soul.

That is one reason that circumcision is a sign of the covenant - not just the circumcision of the foreskin, but the circumcision of the heart which is a sign of our spiritual covenant. In order to become a spiritual people of God, we have to allow the circumcision of our hearts. It is a process where the old, hardened encasing that we have wrongly believed will protect us from further hurts and wounds, is cut away so we can become human beings again - created in the image and likeness of God.

Most of the world is in a state of uncircumcised heart, and most of us who believe have parts of our hearts that still are in need of the hardness being cut away. Where there is no circumcised heart, there are people full of wounds and bitterness who believe they can't trust anyone to look out for them and it's every man for himself. Dog eat dog.

This is the lawlessness of the streets - and I don't condone it in the least, but I am saying that if we could allow a little compassion to creep into what we are seeing in the world today, as spiritual people we could begin to speak to those hardened hearts with new hope. They need salvation. They need Yeshua and the promise of a new heart whereby we are transformed from glory to glory.

I began this note talking about how Evan Thomas' prayer perspective this week was like a critical piece of a puzzle that was working in my spirit already. What Thomas saw in the journalist's statement he deeply identified with. As he wrote to me in a follow up, the journalist "had 'captured' something very important if we want to truly be able to intercede for this nation's peoples right now. I actually believe that there is something very similar going on in the hearts of people all over the Middle East at the moment." Evan was urging us in our intercession over Israel to consider how in the terrible rioting of the Arab nations surrounding Israel, many people are suffering greatly. He wrote:

"The third area of national focus of course is steadily rising tensions leading up to the unilateral declaration in the United Nations General Assembly of an independent Palestinian State. This is supposedly about to take place next month in September. The implications of this of course are huge. The nation is divided in its political position as is the Body of Messiah. ...
"Many voices in the Messianic Jewish community are deeply concerned about the theological implications of dividing the Land. Notwithstanding, Evan is concerned about the social implications of an independent State. Is it economically sustainable? What will it look like? Will it have its own armed security forces and will they represent a realistic threat to Israel's security? Will the Fatah party be strong enough to maintain a political balance or will the new State move towards radical Islam and Sh'ria law?

"How then shall we pray? Firstly, of course, as the Spirit of God leads. Nevertheless, please take into account that amongst our neighbors in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt there are many people suffering extreme hardship. Pray for the children, grieving the loss of fathers (and all-too-often mothers). Pray for families that have lost homes and fields and are struggling to put food on their tables. Pray for the general populations of these countries who are suffering from the sense of betrayal from their own governments.

"Remember that what happens across our borders affects Israel also. Destabilization can quickly lead to rapidly spreading conflict and in the Middle East we are all highly militarized nations with very little love for one another."

Whether we are speaking of embattled nations or spiritually embattled individuals, it is true that so much of the anger manifesting itself around us is simply because people are hopeless and without a saviour. They have given up on love in a very real sense and decided that whatever they get in this world they are going to have to take it for themselves. No one else can be counted on.

What the Israeli journalist Keret wrote about the Israeli housing demonstrations is as true applied to the chaotic streets of Arab nations and London even as it is also true of a troubled young relative of mine locked up in a hardness of heart from the wounds of a lifetime. Not that a lot of bad personal choices haven't been made along the way contributing to the state of such a person, but sometimes in order to catch a glimmer of compassion for those who are creating chaos, we need to consider those much closer to our hearts. We need to think in terms of someone we love who is also fighting futilely to depend only on themselves to survive in a harsh world.

Yeshua made it clear that He did not come into the world to save only the good, whole and righteous people who 'deserved' the blessings of His salvation. He said He came for the distressed, the abused, those whose hearts were sick with the hardness of life's wounds. Doesn't that sound like anyone you know, or maybe have read about or heard about in news reports?

One of the In Christ's Image Training teachings of Francis Frangipane is an interpretation of Matthew 24:12, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." His reading of the verse is that it is possible for Christians to allow their hearts to grow cold because of exposure to so much wickedness and iniquity in the world. Isn't it so? Can't you think of several people in your life that you feel cold toward? Be honest with yourself.

We are certainly living in days where love has waxed cold in our world. This is cause and effect of iniquity, or lawlessness, that is abounding. It is a viscous circle. Not only does the abused become an abuser, but as people of God just being exposed to so much rampant lawlessness is able to rob us of our greatest defense - a warm, open and loving heart.

We have to guard our spiritually circumcised hearts from growing cold in love. How does a heart grow cold? It begins to harden. It may not harden against everyone, but begins to shut down warmth toward others. It begins to qualify who deserves our warm heart and who deserves only a serving of icy coldness. To keep our hearts circumcised with warm, living love these days, we have to have Yeshua's vision of people, not our own.

I am not saying we are suckers and that we do not take a realistic view of people. I'm not proposing that we excuse lawlessness, or the abused one that is abusing - but spiritually, we have to find the compassion to appeal to Heaven on their account. We have to become the good Samaritan who cannot just walk around the wretched, beaten up lives we encounter on the road.

I will also confess that I am saying this every bit as much to myself as I am to anyone who reads this note. The truth is that we are all being battered by the harshness of life. If it is not touching you, then it is likely touching someone that at one time you had a very warm heart for. The continual 'seduction' of harsh living conditions is the temptation to harden our hearts is always there.

The seduction is that when we harden our hearts toward someone that it will protect us from further receiving any further hurt from them. That's not the way it really works, but in fact that is the simple process of how an abused person becomes an abuser. Little by little the whole heart is taken over by hardness and the lack of love, that it morphs the person from being a victim into being a predator.

What is the answer then? Only Yeshua, only Jesus can cut away the hardness of our hearts, giving us a new heart. This was a major theme of the prophet Ezekiel:

Eze 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

Eze 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

Eze 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

If Yeshua's mission is our mission, then we too are in the world to seek that which is lost - that which is beaten down, hard-hearted and helpless to change anything in their rotten lives. Clearly our spiritual challenge is to make sure that we have not allowed hard heartedness to creep back in. Talk is cheap. It is easy to repeat all the Christianese love mottos; it is another thing to guard your heart with all diligence to keep a vision for the salvation of the world.

It is like the Ha'Aretz reporter said, "the battle over the home – not just in the sense of the mortgages and housing prices, but also in the deeper sense of the word, "home," as the place where you feel wanted and valued and to which you feel connected."That's the yearning every every human heart - whether they find it or not - to feel wanted and valued and connected in love.

One final thing keeps springing to memory in relation to these things and I think it is an great example of how we can let our hearts grow cold again even after Yeshua has given us a new heart.

Several years ago a prophecy was circulated that made its way to me. It was more pathetic than prophetic, but the prophet had many who defended this word.

The 'prophecy' was based on the biblical story of Abigail who was at first married to the rogue Nabal, who was struck down with a heart turned to stone. Abigail was then legally free of him and then married to David who was to become King. (1 Samuel 25) The prophecy was a word to encourage many women (and some men) that God was about to answer their desire for a godly spouse by striking down their own Nabal - a name that means "fool" or "folly" - so they could move on to a godly spouse worthy of them.

It is such a perfect example of cold love in a believer to me. Good grief - just get a divorce already! Do you honestly think that God is any more pleased with you sitting around fantasizing that your spouse is going to die so you can move on to a worthy, godly mate? That is a heaping helping of cold love - and the people who defended the prophecy could not discern the cold heartedness of it. I'm sure you can think of examples from your own experience. We know what cold love is, even though we don't want to recognize it in ourselves. It is much safer for us to get real about the cold love we still harbor in our heats because cold love is a real enemy to us in these days. Let's keep it real, but let's keep our hearts warm, too.

Blind Spots in the Body

When Martin Luther emerged as a groundbreaking man of faith after nailing his 95 Theses on the door of the Church in 1517, he also believed that God would return salvation to the Jews. In 1514 Luther wrote:

"Conversion of the Jews will be the work of God alone operating from within, and not of man working — or rather playing — from without."

He had that partially right. We can't make anyone see if God has not given them eyes to see. God has to give the revelation to every man - Jew or Gentile - before they can see Jesus.

Luther was completely right that God would return salvation to the Jews. The last nine years of his life though, Luther had become a bitter Christian anti-Semite, penning his infamous treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies.

Apparently Luther came to resent the Jews for not appreciating his position advocating for them. I guess he expected the Jews to be more responsive to him because he was not antagonistic toward them for their rejection of Jesus.

He understood that salvation comes by a revelation of Yeshua that only God can give a person, but what Luther did not understand is that there is a plan of God in operation. In other words, a plan that has a specific time table.

The apostle Paul laid it out very clearly in Romans 9-11, but this plan is also a revelation that must be given by God. We cannot make anyone in the Church or elsewhere see what the plan of God is concerning the Jews, or the timing He has put on His plan which will ultimately see "all Israel" receive the revelation of their Messiah's identity.

What happened to Martin Luther is a little scary, isn't it?
He knew God was going to save the Jews, but allowed himself to become bitter over the Jews not doing so in his timing.

In his turning bitter toward the Jews in the last decade of his life, he really fulfilled the word of wisdom in Hebrews 12:15, "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled."

How much of Christian history has been defiled by the bitterness that took root in Martin Luther against the Jews? He started out well, with an open heart but ended up bitter because his open heart did not unlock the closed hearts of the Jews. The time was not yet, but Luther did not have that revelation.

I wish I had a dollar for every time that after I shared my connection to praying with the Israeli Messianic Jews, and a Christian responded to me in alarm, "What about the Palestinians?" 'Yes, I know,' I explain. 'We pray for both the Jewish and the Arab believers in Israel.'

What I don't say is, 'Your exclusion of care and support for Israeli Jews is not my exclusion of care and support for the Palestinians believers. It isn't either/or, it is one new man in Messiah. Not that there isn't a lot of Palestinian-hatred expressed among Christian Israel supporters. That position is wicked too.

This is the fine line we walk as Christian supporters of Israel. Always a fine line because we are walking through one heck of spiritual minefield in every way. Israel is the center of the storm because the plan of God is being consummated here.

Some Christians don't believe God intends the salvation of Israel on a national scale. Other Israel-supporting Christians do not believe they have a part to play in the salvation of the Jews. The latter is a belief that Jewish salvation is something that God alone will accomplish - much like Martin Luther's quote in this opening - and that it will not occur until after all the Christians have been removed from the earth in the Rapture.

That is not what I believe because I see God is already pouring out the revelation of salvation by Yeshua to Jews. The salvation of the Jews has been occurring in an increasing manner that parallels the return of Jews to the Promised Land, the re-establishment of the State of Israel and the reunification of the capital, Jerusalem. It continues to increase even in the present as those radical enemies of God's Israel in neighboring states are being loosed from the short leash of secular dictators.

The Ezekiel vision of the Valley of Dry Bones was the prophetic picture God gave for what He has been doing in the return from exile of the Jews, as well as the spiritual restoration of Israel. It is a progression that unfolds as it is prophetically commanded on earth. (Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven) When the Church sees that this is the will of God and begins to speak into it like Ezekiel did.

There is a timing of the salvation of Israel and we are moving swiftly now through the rapids in the stream of time toward it.

Despite all that, half of the Christian church does not even believe God even has a plan that includes Israel's salvation. They do not view current events as the fury of the demonic unleashed upon the center of God's will in this season.

How they miss that is a mystery but they cannot recognize it as it is clearly imparted in the Scripture, nor are they able to see it in its fulfillment in real time. It is a revelation that is given by God. Don't let that word revelation scare you. It just means that God shares a nugget of His wisdom, knowledge and understanding with us so we can begin to grasp His love, His Word or His plan.

If God does not give us understanding, then no amount of teaching, preaching or debate will awaken us to the truth of the matter. And it does not matter if Christians are activists working exclusively for the plight of the Palestinian people, or if they are just apathetic toward the Jews denying there is any special purpose that God still has for them - classic replacement theology - there is no way "to make them" see His continued purposes for Israel. Only God can give a heart to see.

Deuteronomy 29:4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

This was the state of the children of Israel in Moses time and throughout biblical history. God knew from the beginning that when the Messiah would walk among them, they would not be able to perceive Him BECAUSE God had foreordained it to be so. Romans 11:30-32:

For as you in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

Jesus also confirmed what Moses had declared of the children of Israel from the beginning:

Mat 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

Do you get that? Paul also said in Romans that "blindness in part has befallen Israel." Why? So through the Jews' unbelief, God could widen the net of His catch to salvation of all the nations. Yet, it is so clear that He intends to return with mercy to the Jewish people, "that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy."

Mercy. That's what Martin Luther ran out of and it defiled generations of Christians toward the Jews.

We have to be careful that we don't run out of mercy too because in America, Jews often vote for Liberal humanistic values and that doesn't set well with many a Christian-Zionist. I see it expressed in political blogs that I frequent and it really irritates even the most conservative of Republican Jews to see a 'more Zionist than thou' attitude from Christian Israel-supporters.

We also have to be careful that we don't run out of mercy in the face of persecution of Messianic Jewish believers in Israel. Not that we have un-sanctified mercy toward their persecutors, excusing or ignoring the aggressions as if they didn't exist. (Or toward the Islamist terrorists for that matter! Terrorists are terrorists.)

Rather, we must stand up and condemn persecution - even when it comes via religious Jewish zealots. We must keep the understanding before us that the apostle who wrote the lion's share of the New Covenant was a persecutor of the Jewish believers just like the anti-missionaries are today.

Spiritually, we have to join in with the Israeli Jewish believers in appealing to Heaven for God to send their persecutors a light from heaven - the same as He sent understanding to the apostle Paul so long ago. The anti-missionaries of modern Israel are EXACTLY like the anti-missionary of the Book of Acts. We are living in the days of Acts chapter 29.

Likewise, we cannot make Christians see who do not have a heart to perceive what God is doing among the Jews in our time - restoring Jewish spiritual eyes to see Yeshua and to hear the good news of His salvation. Blindness in part has befallen them. God is not a respecter of persons. Blindness in part befell Israel and now blindness in part has befallen the Church. In the end though will emerge one new man from the two in Messiah.

This is a great mystery of God to me. On one hand many of those Christians who deny the return of God's purposes to Israel in these last days, are among those portions of the Church that have had so many other truths restored - like the truth that God is still healing and delivering people today and the other miraculous gifts we see the first century believers walked in.

It is a mystery to me that many of the most ardent Christian Israel-supporters do not much believe in the spiritual gifts of the Bible still operating in our day, but they do get the revelation of the salvation of Israel. The only way I can understand this mystery is that God is going to humble both segments of Christians with the understanding at some point that neither of them has it all, and they both need each other for a more complete expression of who He is.

As the apostle Paul broke out in praise after explaining the mystery of God's blinding the Jews to Messiah in Romans 11:33: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!

On a personal note, a couple of years ago I set out to try to discover how to address the spiritually cutting edge Church that did not understand that God is currently pouring out upon the Jews a heart to perceive Yeshua/Jesus is Messiah. I had been immersed in Messianic Judaism for two decades and felt like I needed a refresher course on how the Church generally regarded the Jews and Israel.

I'll be honest, I've had to struggle with anger and disillusionment at what I've heard. Even though I know only God can open the eyes of their hearts, it has been very hard for me to hear the statements and bear with the attitudes. It so permeates some sectors of the church and they do not even know how offensive some of the expressions are.

On the other hand, I have grown really impatient with much in the Messianic movement, like what I consider too much emphasis on the traditions that are more rabbinic than scriptural. Or, how Christians who join with the Messianic movement not being encouraged to celebrate their own identity in Yeshua rather than adopting a "Jewish lifestyle". That is not how Yeshua makes one new man in Messiah. We can learn to appreciate our Jewish roots without starting to dress like the Frum in Mea Shearim.

I think these things which are not scripturally balanced make for the pitfall of so many in Messianic Judaism falling from faith because they prefer to return to Judaism. We have to be vigilant against providing conditions that make it easy to lose our way.

Not that I am perfect, not by a long shot, but I am longing for the manifestation of the authentic one new man in Messiah. Less than that has become increasingly unsatisfying to me. So I have been living one foot in the Messianic movement and one foot in the Church that doesn't perceive that salvation of the Jews is happening right now - and it is a bona fide prophetic fulfillment of the scriptural plan of God.

What would one new man in Messiah look like?

To me it would look like Jews and Gentiles who are as different in expression as a man and a woman, a husband and wife. Not competing with each other, but complimenting each other in the life the walk together. One, but different; mutually respectful. Equal before God, but serving separate callings before Him, too. The freedom of a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman. A Messianic Jew to be a Messianic Jew and a Christian to be a Christian.

The reason I began to write this note was to encourage us, you and me, not to become bitter over those who are still blind to God's purposes in Yeshua/Jesus. We all have blind spots and mercy is clearly the antidote God intends us to use to help others overcome their blind spots.

No Weapon Formed Against You Shall Prosper

There is a reason “no weapon formed against you shall prosper”. The reason is our inheritance in Yeshua gives us the delegated authority to pass judgment on the condemning words beamed at us. Weapons may form against us, but we do not have to allow the weapon to prosper against us. This is our inheritance when our righteousness is of Him and not of our own.

"Refiner's Fire," watercolor by Jana Winters Parkin, 2007

Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by Me:
whosoever shall gather together against you shall fall for your sake.
Behold, I have created the smith that blows the coals in the fire,
and that brings forth an instrument for his work;
and I have created the waster to destroy.
No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper;
and every tongue that shall rise against you in condemnation
you shall pass judgment upon.
This is the inheritance of the servants of the LORD,
and their righteousness is of Me, says the LORD.
Isa 54:15-17


This is a remarkable passage of scripture explaining so many things that we wrestle over in our faith. Understand that it is first addressed to Israel, yet we who are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel by faith in the Messiah of Israel, also enjoy the inheritance promised by God to Israel – the servants of the Lord whose righteousness springs from the LORD.

Sunday morning as I began this article, it was at first to talk about all the things God revealed through the prophet Isaiah in these three short verses – but it quickly began to unfold as I wrote. Surprisingly, the Purim story of Esther figures into explaining this passage in spiritual warfare terms, and naturally the greater context of Isaiah 54.

In my Bible program the heading on Isaiah 54 is “A Perpetual Covenant of Peace” and verse one begins by describing the state of Israel today,

“Sing, O barren, you who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman,' says the LORD."

The prophet is speaking of the time when God will return to Israel in salvation, or you could say, to save her from her enemies. When that takes place it will come in a way that is probably different than how we have been thinking, in that we will play a much more active role in the deliverance from enemies than we think.

“Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by Me,” God says of that time.

Even though He says He has “created the (black)smith that blows the coals in the fire, and that brings for an instrument for his work” – a weapon formed against you – God tells His servants that those gathered together are not sent by Him, and “whoever shall gather together against you shall fall for your sake.”

That is a pretty severe warning, and the wars against Israel since her rebirth in 1948 are testimony to the fact that God is serious in this declaration. The fact is that those who have gathered against Israel have fallen for her sake – but not without Israel fighting.

We too have to fight for our deliverance from the weapons that form against us and those that gather against us. We have to fight, but even with overwhelming odds, the promise of God is that no weapon formed against us has the legal right to prosper. This is our inheritance – to fight back in His power.

In the Purim story of Esther, the evil Haman was able to get the king to make an irreversible decree against the Jews, but that did not mean this weapon could actually prosper. It could be formed, but it could not prosper. Of course, our 'inheritance' described in Isaiah 54:17 doesn't mean we are nonchalant about the weapons that form against us either.

In trying to convey truths about spiritual warfare today, and to convince us that it is part of our inheritance in Messiah/Christ that "God is in control," at times it seems we communicate too much nonchalance about the battle.

In Esther we do not see Mordecai taking a nonchalant attitude about Haman's plan to annihilate the Jews. He didn't say, 'Well, God is in control! We win. I read the back of the book.'

No rather, he did the classic Jewish grieving and despair thing, "Mordecai tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry." Mordecai was not going to go quietly and neither should we.

“So Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them.“ Esther 4:4

Esther was in a good place, so good that others had to come and tell her what the state of her closest relative was. Mordecai had secured this good place for Esther which removed her from the street level view of what was happening among her people.

In Romans 9-11, the apostle Paul explains how God used laying aside Israel for a season to open salvation beyond the Jews. In the story of Esther, it is a parallel situation to the state of Christianity today which has also been secured in a “good place” that removes us from seeing the street level view of what is happening to our people, Israel.

“I say then, have they (Israel) stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.” Romans 11:11

“For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?“ Romans 11:15

The Gentile Church is like Esther, situated in a good place by our ‘uncle Mordecai,’ the saved remnant of Israel, the chosen nation that has been temporarily set aside by God so salvation could be opened to all the nations, not just to Israel. So the inheritance of the servants of the Lord that Isaiah speaks of, the righteousness which Israel, and now we, walk in, is of God, not of our own righteousness.

This right here is enough to end the argument that Israel failed so God withdrew from them and bestowed salvation on a people more deserving. Do we just give lip service to the idea that none of us deserve the salvation of God? Not Israel and not the Church. Yet He has given us both the opportunity to receive His righteousness as our own.

The apostle Paul could not have laid it out more clearly in Romans that the time would come when the opportunity to receive salvation by faith in Yeshua would return to Israel, and in reality it was never fully lifted. There have been saved Jews throughout the ages since Yeshua was lifted up from the earth.

God did not replace Israel with a people more deserving of salvation, and His promise of salvation to Israel has never been withdrawn. In not understanding this simple truth – that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance – much of the Church is like Esther, who was made a queen, was situated in a palace, but became 'out of sight, out of mind' in what was happening to uncle Mordecai and her people.

Do you see this? Esther was so far removed from the realities of the rest of her spiritual family, that her servants had to come tell her that her uncle was on the street, crying bitterly in torn clothes – sack cloth and ashes.

Esther's reaction at first is a little like Marie Antoinette’s famous line when told that the people had no bread to eat, “No bread? Then let them eat cake.” So removed from the reality of the street these queens were that they could not even grasp the desperation of the situation. For Esther, the focus was, 'Mordecai is out there in torn clothes, so the answer is send him some new duds.'

I don’t want to belabor a story we all know, but only to get you thinking how much the Church is like Esther the queen, installed in the palace and insulated from the threats bearing down on her uncle and her people.

Many Christians do not regard Israel as related to them but this does not change the fact that we are grafted into Israel, we have been made the commonwealth of Israel, and that God has promised clearly to return His salvation to Israel.

Salvation is by no other name than Yeshua, so to participate in the salvation of Israel is to help bring the gospel to them. That's why 'uncle Mordecai' is among them. The saved remnant will sure be facilitated by the Esther church to bring salvation to all Israel.

"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12

It is true today, as it was when the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans (11:5) “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.”

Today, that remnant according to the election of grace is destined by the purposes of God to come to know the salvation by faith in the Messiah Yeshua.

"And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is My covenant to them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as in times past you have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now have not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all." Romans 11:26-32

The Church today has the same role as Queen Esther in helping Israel by heeding the distressed cry of her closest relative Mordecai to act on the behalf of her people before the king.

Can you see that “uncle Mordecai” is the saved Remnant of believers in Israel? These are the Jews who by faith in Yeshua, like the Church seated in the inheritance of faith, are standing still in the streets in order to bring the gospel to all Israel.

Whether it is in the salvation of Israel, or in terms of our own personal, individual spiritual warfare in our lives, Queen Esther went through several stages to secure deliverance for her people.

1. She had to become aware of the distress that she herself was insulated from in the palace. She had to identify with her people even though she was personally unaffected in a good place that had been secured for her by her uncle Mordecai.

2. She had to receive the bad news that not only were her people under severe threat, but that she was in a position to intervene, though it meant sticking her neck out and possibly having it chopped off!

3. She had to make herself ready to hear from God and she did that by fasting and praying – not to change God, but to ready herself to hear His direction to her.

4. At the completion of the third day of her fast, Esther then had to act by faith on the plan she been impressed in the Spirit to take to undo an irreversible decree of her husband, the King.

These are the steps before the Church to play the part that we are called to play in the return of God’s salvation to the people of Israel.

As Mordecai warned Esther, "Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

In other words, the participation of the Church in the deliverance/salvation of Israel is not optional. We have a choice, but if we refuse to stick out our necks for them, we are surely going to lose our necks and God will use others who are willing.

As I wrote last week, we have two majority extremes in the Church of how to relate to Israel. One extreme is in denial about God’s faithfulness to His promises about the calling upon Israel. They have concluded wrongly that Israel is tossed overboard so a Plan B replacement can reign in Christ. The other extreme acknowledges God’s eternal covenant for the salvation of Israel, but they gravitate towards unsaved Israel and amazingly ignore the existence of saved Israel. They are trying to be as Esther to her people while flat out ignoring her closest relative, uncle Mordecai. Both are crazy positions.

But the Church that not only embraces ‘uncle Mordecai’ in the face of the Jews who believe in Jesus, and who are also moved with compassion to stick their necks out – to get out of the comfort zone of the palace of their inheritance in Christ for the sake of the salvation of Israel – these are the Esthers that God has brought forth for a time such as this.

All of these things can be understood as part of the big picture – the salvation of Messiah being released to all Israel – and also in our own individual lives as we contend with our inheritance to neutralize the weapons formed against us, as well as every word that rises to condemn us.

The weapons of spiritual warfare are not passive, we must know they exist, why we can use them effectively and then we must contend with active participation.

The Jews would not have survived Haman’s plans for them if all Esther did was fast and pray. We fast and pray to position ourselves to hear the plan from God’s own lips. Then we must move forward with confidence that our righteousness is of Him, and that the weapon-forming blacksmith and the destroyer are on God’s leash. That understanding will give us the courage to stick our necks out when He says, You are going to secure this deliverance for My people.

I hope this will help us in our personal battles, as well as to contend for the salvation of all Israel.