Shalom from Jerusalem

Israel's kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is home - but at the cost of over 1,000 terrorists released. Libya's dictator Gaddafi is dead. Syria's President Assad kills multitudes of his people. The US will pull troops out of Iraq by year's end leaving an opening for Iran to exploit. Iran also moves closer to developing nuclear weapons while making credible threats against Israel's existence. In November, the UN Security Council might decide to divide God's land to create a Palestinian state. The EU banking crisis heats up along with waking volcanoes. The world's economic situation destabilizes, and earthquakes do their demolition. Anti-Semitism increases, as does anti-Christian persecution.

Where is peace found in this time of shaking? In Israel's God and Messiah Yeshua. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters…be troubled, though the mountains shake… (Psalms 46:1-3) We trust His revealed Word on who He is and what He does and will do. And that is the Enemy's target.

Today's real battle

God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and shall He not do it? Has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?

Num. 23:19

The battle - which will surely continue until Messiah's return - is over the Bible's validity. Is it the inspired Word from the Creator of all, or is it no more "God-breathed" than Shakespeare?

The Adversary's first attack was a success. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which YHWH God had made. And he said unto the woman, Has God said…?  (Genesis 3:1a) His strategy is to show the Bible as unreliable, or a hoax - or even better - just a wonderful book. After all, says he, there are other ways of looking at reality, such as the Koran, New Age texts, philosophy, etc. If believed, he has taken ground from his foe, the Bible's Author.

Lawfare - the battle over the legitimacy of modern day Israel's right to exist - is also a battle over God's Word. The Bible has little importance to an unbelieving world - but to Yeshua's followers? He must be grieved that many in His Body reject the restoration of His people to His Land for His glory (Ezekiel 36:16-36)! God has promised over 200 times to give the land of Israel to the people of Israel. I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it. (Ezekiel 36:36b) How can believers question or ignore it?

Do they think He either meant it then changed His mind, or He never meant it in the first place? They really are saying, Yes, God swore by an oath over 40 times to give this land to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - the Jewish people, but that was before the Cross. This false theology wipes out all Old Testament [Tanach] promises - except, of course, those that are gutted and then spiritualized to apply to the Church.

The faith of the Church is damaged when she loses a unified understanding of the Bible. If one rejects pre-Matthew scripture as the Word of God (rejecting God's promises to His people is just that), then in what God does one believe? By denying Messiah's ties to Israel and God's promises to them, what remains is "another Yeshua and another gospel" (2 Corinthians 11:4)!

For Yeshua to be the world's Savior, He must also be Israel's promised Anointed King. If He has not confirmed the promises made to Israel's forefathers, including the promise of the land (Romans 15:8), then He is not the Lion of Judah, the Root and Offspring of David (Revelation 5:5; 22:16). Who is it, then, that some Christians are serving?

Such a degrading of the Tanach opens a door for all kinds of deception. With 75% of God's self-revelation undermined, or seen as less valid than the New Testament, how can one judge truth from error? If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psalms 11:3)

Also, what we call "theological dyslexia" develops. Instead of interpreting Tanach prophecies as God the Son interpreted them, the "dyslexic" Church gets it backwards. Yeshua always insisted on a literal fulfillment of the prophetic word. Yet today, many are like His disciples whom He chided with, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: (Luke 24:25).

This verse's context applies a literal fulfillment of the Tanach prophecies in relation to His first coming, as opposed to any symbolic or "spiritual" interpretation. To "spiritualize" the prophetic word in preparation for His literal second coming is to fall back into the same error. This "dyslexia" is encouraged by Satan to hinder the restoration of Israel - physically and then spiritually, so as to subvert the Lord's Return.