WHOSE LAND DID YOU SAY IT WAS?

Can Christians herald the new nation of Israel since 1948 as the resurrected and re-gathered “last days Israel” prophesied in the Bible, the Israel to return to the land, blessed by God olam v’olam (“forever and forever”)? Modern Israel is opposed to God’s authentic King and Messiah, Yeshua, and the son of the Landlord, the divine King and Messiah had quite a lot to say about who inherits His kingdom estate! God has not covenanted the blessings and privileges of Avraham, Ytzack, and Yacov to the physical descendants who resist YHWH, refuse His New Covenant, discard His Messiah, and snub their nose at Yeshua, while continuing to live secular lives in opposition to God in the Holy Land.

Can modern Israel, living in noncompliance to God’s decree concerning His Son, dictate the terms of their proprietorship or tenancy in the land according to political and/or national laws of military conquest –and while disregarding the Lordship of Yeshua? When one stops to regard the seriousness of Yeshua it is not a hard question, really. The Bible is simple and direct concerning the only begotten son of God, the Way, Truth, and Life, and the Landlord’s son. 

Zionists, both secular and religious claim the land belongs to the Jews, that the land is Israel’s. Period. Fundamental Christians and Christian Zionists join in promoting Israel’s entitlement to the land due to God’s unconditional covenant He made with Avraham, Ytzack, Yacov, andYacov’s dozen. The “Zionist” logic goes, that the Jews are descendants of the twelve tribes, they survived the Holocaust, they are back in the land, therefore, they are the heirs of the land. The unconditional aspect is lifted so high that they miss the conditional part of the individual participant who may inherit and enjoy the land IF he/she is truly a son or daughter of Abraham by faith. From Adam and Havvah to the New Jerusalem, no one gets the land or can even abide in it for every long without the spirit of YHWHshua.

Evangelical prophecy connoisseurs interpret Israel’s presence in the land today as the prophetic fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) and other OT prophesies that speak of Israel’s return to the land in the acharit hayomim, or, the last days. Those prophecies are true, and in the last days Israel has and will continue to return home as dry bones –but to receive the land they must receive His breath! Zechariah 13:8 says that two-thirds of last days Israel who return home will perish, and only one-third come through the fire or judgment –perhaps the Great Tribulation. We cannot lie to Israel, comforting them to believe they are the chosen people and the land is theirs, especially if they are without Yeshua. 

The Arabs also allege a legal inheritance to the land, advocating that Allah made His covenant with Ishmael, that Ishmael’s birth order was preeminent to Isaac’s, Esau’s birthright was stolen by Jacob, and that the land was first inhabited by their Canaanite cousins before Israel’s entry. The Israeli Palestinians who are Arabs claim that the land belongs to them due to tenure, and that the 84 percent majority Jewish Israelis of modern Israel are merely immigrants to Palestine since the Holocaust. Middle-Eastern Muslims argue the land belongs to Islam vis-à-vis Allah. But, Allah is a devil, and his prophet Muhammed was a false prophet and is now in the hell compartment of Sheol, awaiting the lake of fire (gehenna)in the last of the latter days. Muslims need Yeshua, too! 

Our Lord did not promise Nahor or his descendants, Lot or his two sons and their seed, Ishmael, or his twelve tribes, Esau or the Edomites, or the boys of Avraham and Keturah to inherit The Promised Land of Israel. The Bible is clear. Neither does the Bible promise any blessing to the non-remnant of Avraham, Ytzack, and Yaaqov except the blessings that rain upon all man. Shaul/Paul made this a certain warning in the NT Scriptures. It is the sons of promise that inherit the blessings and not the sons of the bondwoman, Haggar, and he was not talking about Jews and Arabs in Galatians 4:22-31. Shaul/Paul was talking about the spiritual birth in contrast to those who born only in the flesh. Jerusalem and the Jews of Shaul/Paul’s day were likened to Haggar in verse 25 ("present Jerusalem"), not born miraculously like unto Ytzack, but born by a natural fleshly birth, in the flesh, walking in the flesh, fleshly –like Ishmael. 

In Romans 9 Shaul/Paul is clear that it is the remnant who inherit the blessings, and “all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11). This is the last days remnant Israel. Today, God is gathering His remnant. This is what CMI is all about, the Father’s work of gathering all that the Father has given to the Son. Those the Father has NOT given to the Son do not get the land, be they Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, Irish, Dutch, Asians, African-American, and etc. etc. The Landlord remains Lord of Israel!

WHAT A BIBLICAL NATION LOOKS LIKE

Should our country have walls, border patrol, free entrance for refugees, and rights for any/all minorities, faiths, and ethnicities? Is there a biblical model or biblical precepts of a Godly prototype? That would help!

We are living in apocalyptic times, so why not have a look at the Apocalypse, the Revelation, the only book that says it is Yeshua's disclosure (Revelation 1:1). It is also the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing to the one who reads, hears, and obeys (Revelation 1:1-3). Interestingly, many Christians are citing Jesus these days, but they have not read Him in His book, and they do not know Him. They are citing Him in the context of His OT appearance (Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), but not regarding His NT words inaugurated at Pentecost, Acts 2. His grand finale in the Holy Scriptures is His own book that He gave Yochanonon Patmos, the scroll of Revelation. 

So, can anyone come into His nation? Yeshua did say, “come,” but there is a context to His invitation. The character of the heirs must match the character of His nation! Also, note that there is a wall, a great wall, and a high wall, all the way around the ‘holy nation.’ Is that to keep someone in or out? Ask Adam! 

There are twelve gates in that wall, three on the north, south, east, and west, and note there are twelve angels as border patrol. His ‘nation building’ book, the Apocalypse goes on to say, no refugees get in without their having the same character as that kingdom. Like Kingdom, Like Son! Outside the walls are those not allowed in. Their character doesn’t fit the spirit of the kingdom. These are “dogs” (the unclean), “sorcerers” (demon spirited), “immoral persons” (without Godly impetus), “murderers” (killers of babies in the womb, killers of parents, neighbors, others, even those who hate, Yeshua said), “idolaters” (lovers of other than the Bible-God), and “liars” (those who speak and live other than truth). Yeshuacontinues to say, that many nations will exist and all will demonstrate the same character of Himself. They will walk/comply to the light that beams forth out from His kingdom, and these nations will regularly send their ambassador-kings to visit.

America is not that kingdom, but neither is modern Israel or any other present nation. Yet, I like very much the idea of forming our country in the shadow of the coming messianic kingdom, don't you? His is a perfect model! This is what David did. This is what Solomon did. This is what Yeshua says in His book that He will do. 

Interestingly, the character of Yeshua and His father, God is maligned by religious humanists and leftists, today, who caricature our nation of America to be ‘godly’ only when we allow everyone to do what’s right in their own eyes. “Sound familiar? It should. It happened to Israel!

IS MODERN ISRAEL UNDER GOD'S BLESSING (OR, A CURSE)?

“Are the Jewish People under God's Blessing or God's Curse,” asked Boaz Michael, Founder and Director of Messiah Magazine. His premise is that “…the Jewish people are under an enormous blessing...for Judaism is not a religion of curses. Judaism is a religion of blessings. The Jewish people and the Jewish religion are a blessing to the whole world.” 

What? Jewish believer, Baruch Moaz has colossal disagreement with Michael’s view. Moaz ventures to totally deconstruct modern Judaism in his book “Judaism is not Jewish,” saying modern Judaism (actually, since AD 90) is reinvented Judaism and is not the Judaism of Yeshua! The Jewish rabbis and leaders met at Yavne about 60 years after Yeshua was crucified, in AD 90 (which was also the time Yochanan was incarcerated on Patmos and given the Apocalypse or Revelation). They met for several reasons. First, the Jewish leaders met in reaction to the Jewish revolution cause by Yeshua, Who claimed to be God’s Son, and Who was turning the Jewish world upside down and causing it to splinter. Second, the Jewish leaders met at Yavne in response to the myriad and myriad Jews coming to faith in Yeshua. Read the biblical New Testament book of Acts and record the number of Jews who came to faith in Yeshua; thousands! Third, the Jewish leaders met to rival the myriad messianic Jews called Nazarenes, Christians, Ibionites, the Way, and the Branch. These Jewish believers in Yeshua were considered to be apostate Jews by mainline Judaism at that time. Finally, the Jewish unbelievers in Yeshua met to restore and console misplaced Jews expelled from Israel under Roman General Titus and Roman Emperor Hadrian. 

The outcome was a [literal] reinvention of Judaism, to shape a ‘faith’ that could exist and would exist outside Israel, no longer needing to lodge within the holy city, Jerusalem, no longer needing the once sacred Temple, no longer needing sacrifices (at least not the bloody ones), remaining quite alright without all the biblical rituals, and yet remaining Jewish even though in the diaspora. This rabbinic Judaism IS NOT a blessing to world Jewry. It is a modern Baal, a Judaism of unbelief in Yeshua, and Jews who embrace this unregenerate disbelief in Yeshua will continue to be under the curse of the law, and therefore, the wrath of the Almighty (John 3:18, 36). Yeshua is the plumline regarding one's favor with God (Amos).

When God blesses some one or some thing, He declares His good will toward that man or thing. Outside Yeshua there is no good-news, there is no good will of God, there is no Gospel. Yeshua is the Gospel! He is the ONLY GOOD NEWS! There is no blessing to anyone who rejects God’s only begotten Son Who is His only sequestered way to blessing! This applies to the Jew, first, and also to the Gentile says Shaul (Paul), “there will be tribulation and distress upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jews first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 2:9,10). God is moving in the Middle East, but His movement is in relationship to the only truth, way, and life for mankind, His son, Yeshua! Israel returning to the Holy Land from the ovens of Auschwitz is not the Gospel. Israel becoming the greatest airfare in the world is not the Gospel. The land of Israel becoming rich and growing to become the breadbasket of Europe is not the Gospel. These 'miracles' are true, but by the hand of God to turn the Jewish nation -one last time- to Yeshua.

Shaul does not mince words when he writes to the church at Thessalonica, “you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of our own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are NOT PLEASING [my emphasis] to God, but hostile to all men, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But WRATH HAS COME UPON THEM to the utmost. (1 Thessalonians 2:15,16). What is Shaul  saying? Yeshua is the Epicenter! Not Israel, not Jerusalem, not the Temple, not being Jewish, not Judaism, not the Holy Land, not the Law!

Michael’s premise in his article is that the Jews are blessed because they continue to obey the Sabbath and obey God’s Laws, and because of that, they have a religion of blessings. That is not what the Holy Scriptures teach! The epicenter of the Law was Yeshua whom the Jewish people as a majority worldwide continue to reject? The Law was foremost a tutor to lead Israel to Yeshua. The epicenter of the Torah was Yeshua! The epicenter of the Prophets was, Yeshua? The epicenter of the Kevutiim was Yeshua! In fact, belief in Yeshua was the natural and expected  expectation of OT Judaism! 

NT faith in Yeshua [still] is the fulfillment of OT Judaism! OT Judaism led true believers to Yeshua and His new covenant. That is what Jeremiah says (Jeremiah 31:31), a covenant "not like that covenant YHWH made with you at Sinai!" Yeshua was a High Priest of another order, the Melchizedekian order and not the Aaronic order. Yeshua was the son of a Judahite mother. 

Lets be clear! Yeshua is the hallmark, the locus, the zenith, the bulls-eye, the epicenter of the Holy Scriptures. In fact Yeshua's hermeneutic or how He interpreted the Holy Scriptures was that all the scriptures were about Him (Luke 24:27, 44)! The same Holy Scriptures that the Jewish sages, rabbis, and teachers -then and today- say they believe and practice, are the exact same Holy Scriptures that Yeshua says are all about Him, although the Jewish leaders and rabbis discredit and discard Yeshua.

Yeshua is Himself, the ONLY way, the ONLY truth, and the ONLY life. He is therefore, the ONLY medium of blessing! He, Yeshua is our identity. If any one of us, the Jew first, and then the Gentile, does not die and become a "new man in Christ" (new birth is KEY!) that man or woman remains under the curse of sin and is destined to be eternally cursed! 

Jewish people, first, and also, the Greek, are already, now under the curse and the wrath of God; man is already separated from God, and without eternal life. Man must be "born again!" He must be birthed into a new kind of man.  Without that new beginning and being placed in the family of believers in Yeshua, they are then not known by Yeshua. He will therefore say one day, “I will say, I never knew you”). Such a condition is a curse. And, be forewarned believer, for you to declare any different is to preach heresy! To believe any different is nearing apostasy. 

For this reason, in 1944 a coterie of believers here in Chattanooga, TN came together in great sympathy for the Jews being exiled from Europe. With great empathy, they formed a mission board to take to the Jewish people Yeshua, the ONLY Good News, the ONLY Gospel! These founders may have been interested and even helpful to Jews of getting citizenship at Ellis Island into America, but the foremost interest was that the Jews worldwide become citizens of heaven. The founders of our ministry that was then called The Southern Hebrew Mission, did not think for one moment that Jews were ok in their Jewishness. Their focus was to their real need, not being rescued from the Holocaust. They needed Yeshua, the rescue from the eternal Holocaust! 

Remain a Jew and a Gentile without Yeshua? You are cursed and destined for ghenna[fire]! We MUST all be born again, not born over, for there is no good thing in you/us! We can't be fixed. We don't pray, God help me change! We pray Ohh God come into my life and let me have your life! 

Beloved, the blessed man and the blessed woman, is not one who is a Jew, or because he/she is an American, nor because one is an Asian, or a priest, pastor, bishop, Levite, Baptist, or good person. The blessed man and blessed woman is the ‘new man’ in Messiah Yeshua. We are His body, bride, book, and building! Remain outside of Yeshua and you are cursed and will remain cursed!

ARE THE JEWS BEING CALLED 'HOME' TO ISRAEL FOR JUDGMENT?

The Jewish Exodus from Egypt was a deliverance. However, entry of the Jews to the Promised Land is always preempted by God bringing them out to test them to see what is in their heart, and, in disobedience He judges them, with the intent always to redeem them, in order to make the Jewish nation worthy ‘Adams’ to reenter His Holy Land that man lost in the fall recorded in Genesis 2, 3. 

How severe are the tests? The conditions in the desert were so unbearable the nation cried out in their unbelief for delivery. But, they cry was to go back to the land of Mizraim, rather than endure the wilderness to inherit God’s land. That generation never made it ‘home.’ only Y’hoshuaand Calev entered the land of milk and honey. It that scenario going to happen for Modern Israel?

The second generation of Israel entered and occupied the holy land, the first generation that left Egypt never saw Paradise! When second generation Israel entered the Promised Land, there were commands given to them by YHWH how to treat the land. They were to plant the land, harvest the land, rest the land, purify and holify the land, and prepare themselves and the land for the coming Messiah. There were laws given to Israel they were to obey and rituals they were to observe. “Going up” to Israel was a visual of “going up” to heaven, for the Jewish people.The Hebrew word Aliya meaning “going up” to the land was a lesson on aliya to heaven. 

There have been a number of aliyas occurring silently over the past 10-15 centuries. 

1. The first aliya was 1880-1904 when Jews made exodus from Russia due to the pogroms of the Czar, the Dreyfus Affair in France, and the circulation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 

2. The second aliya was 1904-1914 prior to World War I, when Jews made an exodus from Russia due to the failed Russian Revolution and continuing pogroms by Russian officials. 40,000 Jews exited Russia, and inspired by socialism and nationalism the first kibbutz was formed in Israel, Kibbutz Dagania and the kibbutz where our Mission/Tour teams always enjoys lodging when in Israel.

3. The third aliya was 1919-1924 with 35,000 Jews coming from Russia. Once in Israel they created a sustainable Jewish agricultural community. A door was wide-open to Jews because of the Balfour Declaration, and the Hagganah or Israeli Defense was formed in Israel.

4. The fourth aliya was from 1924-1929 mostly of Polish Jews due to economic discrimination and anti-Semitism in Poland and Hungary. 70,000 Jews came to Israel.

5. The fifth aliya took place from 1930-1939 due to the persecution of Jews in Poland, and German Nazism spreading in Europe. Nearly 225,000 Jews came to Israel and many professionals, doctors, lawyers, and artists came to make Israel helping to make it an even more thriving economy.

Other aliyas have occurred, like the Ethiopian or Falasha Jews who came to Israel in the mid 1970s. In 2015 the highest number of immigrants to Israel in the former twelve years occurred, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine and the anti-Semitic climate, the rise of neo-Nazi fascist groups, and also those accusing Ukrainian Jews of masterminding the downfall of the government of Ukraine. Jewish people are still “going up” to Israel. The Russian financial crises was the primary reason for Jews leaving in 2015, a 40% spike in Jews exiting the country. 

In France anti-Semitism has been a catalyst for French Jews to undertake aliyah to Israel. French Jews have been the target of terror attacks and fears exacerbated by the recent influx of refugees into France are the reasons for emigration. At present some 200,000 Jews are considering making aliya from France. 

Yemen also has seen a dramatic emptying of its Jews due to a covert operation by the Jewish Agency for Israel. More than 50,000 Yemenite Jews have immigrated to Israel since 1948 (Operation Magic Carpet in 1949 and 1950). 

Chinese Jews are attempting to make aliya for the purpose of formally converting to Judaism and becoming Israeli citizens. “Lost tribes” [their words] in India are attempting to come ‘home’ and 2,000 have already made aliya. 

Even American Jews are leaving the US for Israel to lay the foundation for the future ‘history’ of their nation. This exodus of Jews from around the globe is only a beginnings of what is going to occur in the future according to the prophets, but the modern exodus of Jews is one in unbelief (i.e. of Yeshua) and into a country of unbelief. Of Israel’s 8 million population only near 20,000 are believers –way less than 1% of the population. Oy Vey!

Israel’s population increase due to immigration is may be applauded by some, especially Christians considering this to be prophecy fulfilled. But their exodus from other nations to come to Israel may be for judgment. Our great God has given and is now giving Israelis a space to repent during this present ‘Church age’ and turn to their Messiah, Yeshua!  

What follows Israel's disobedience of accepting God's only begotten son, is what the Bible calls The Great Tribulation. It is the judgment itself for those who intentionally reject God’s only begotten son, Yeshua, the only way, truth, and life of salvation.  

Israel has designated the 7^thday of the Hebrew month Chesvan(corresponding to our November) as AliyaDay with Torah readings and recognition of immigration, but the dire need for all Israelis, all Jews, and all Gentiles across the earth is recognition of Yeshuaand calling upon His name for salvation.                             Continued on page 3