Shalom from Zion

 

God’s Word is our rock, especially as He seems to be shaking everything (Isa. 2:19-21; Joel 3:16; Hag. 2:6-7). The reason we trust in His Word is because it comes from Him. If we receive an e-mail from someone we know to be truthful, we tend to trust what is written. If the person has a history of lying, we would scan the e-mail much more judiciously – and rightly so.

Most English Bibles translate Psalm 138:2b this way: You have magnified Your Word above all Your name. Yet the Hebrew is better translated, for You have magnified Your Word upon all Your name. His Word is founded on His name, His identity and character. He is the Truth and so is His Word (John 14:6; 17:17). He is trustworthy, as is His Word (Deut. 7:9; Psa. 119:86, 138; Isa. 25:1). Both He and His Word are light (John 8:12; 9:5; Psa. 119:105; 2 Pet. 1:19) and life (John 14:6; Phil. 2:16) and eternal (Deut. 33:27; Psa. 119:89; 1 John 5:7).

The one sure way to discern what is happening in the world today will not be by reading the headlines – but by reading and meditating and praying on His lines found in His Word!

 

Israel has a new government

In a miraculous and very sudden turn of events, a unity government was formed between Prime Minister [PM] Bibi Netanyahu and the main leader of Blue & White, Benny Gantz. This led to its break-up, with the remaining parties now the head of the opposition, and it left Avigdor Liberman’s party out of the government. Please remember that to keep up-to-date on Israel’s current situation, sign up to receive IFI’s Friday Prayer Alerts, or read them online every week. [www.ifi.org.il]

 

The Land and God’s Word

Speaking recently in Ma’aleh Adumim, Netanyahu stressed that “without Judea & Samaria, our existence is in danger.” He called Israel’s biblical heartland, “our homeland…our identity and our legacy,” and said that Israel’s “future is here. Therefore, our enemies are trying to uproot us from the heart of our homeland…

“After the great euphoria of the Six Day War, a dangerous perspective became entrenched in the Left…Instead of fighting for Judea & Samaria,” they said that if we just “give these lands to our enemies, they will do us a favor and make peace with our existence.” So the the Left said give “land for peace” and when Israel tried that, it received terror instead.
If the Jews believed this, why should the nations have believed anything different? So the world pressed Israel to retreat to the 1967 lines. Yet from the late 1980s Bibi stood against this, fighting “against Oslo, the expulsions, and withdrawals.” As the demands grew for Israel to withdraw, he had to resist the last two US administrations who worked against Israel with the “support of the left and Israel’s media…”

After former PM Shimon Peres’ funeral, a senior US figure told Bibi, “If you want such a great funeral…start giving in.” Netanyahu replied, “I’m not worried about my funeral; I’m worried about preventing the funeral of my country.”
When Trump, Bibi’s personal friend of many years, became US President, he took this “opportunity to move from the defensive to the offensive,” working closely with the new administration. He influenced Trump to leave the Iran deal, to accept Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy to it, and to state that the Golan Heights is sovereign Israeli territory. Backed by prayer, Bibi had a huge impact on Trump’s subsequent decisions. (“Netanyahu: ‘I’m worried about preventing Israel’s funeral’,” Arutz 7, 9 Feb. 2020)

Speaking to children at a religious school in the settlement of Mitzpe Yericho, Bibi said he was determined to “extend Israeli sovereignty to Judea & Samaria,” as in Trump’s plan, because he, Netanyahu, “believes in the Bible.” He exhorted the children to study the Bible and to pray.

Bibi added, “Every Shabbat I read the weekly Torah portion… with my son, Avner. I don’t just say the words. I live it. I breathe it! I believe it!” (“Netanyahu: I believe the Bible!,” Israel Today, Feb. 10, 2020)

 

The increase of anti-Semitism today

Jeremiah 16:16 is happening now; the hunters have been sent forth. “American Jewry is under attack:” anti-Semites assault Jews with weapons or verbally, in the streets, or synagogues, and on social media, “simply because they are Jews.”

And this is only the beginning. The story of Jewish life in exile is clear. “We start at the bottom, reach an apex,” and then sink “into an abyss of terrifying violence.” This historical pattern was seen in Egypt, Persia, Spain, Portugal, England, Poland, Russia, Germany, Iran, Iraq, etc. “After the golden period, comes the period of hatred.” This is what we see in America today.

US Jews thought “this time would be different,” and followed in their forefathers’ footsteps, who also said “this time will be different,” that, with “all we contributed to the host nation, it won’t reject us.” Then reality hits with “its inevitable, sobering wake-up call.” Jews are in real danger, and aliyah – the return to Israel – is their only hope! (“On the precipice of a volcano – history repeating itself for US Jews,” Ariel Kahana, Israel Hayom Op-ed, 30 Dec. 2019)

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations VP, Hoenlein, and CEO Daroff, interviewed by The Times of Israel, said, “rising anti-Semitism in the US is sowing fear among Jewish communities, changing the nature of what it means to be a Jew in America, and shaping a new discourse on US Jewish identity.”

FBI statistics reveal that “Jews were again the victims of the majority of hate crimes based on religion in the US in 2019,” including fatal attacks which continue in 2020. Hoenlein sees the deadly violence as “the end of the age of innocence for American Jewry,” and Daroff notes that security is now the central issue for American Jews.
Are US Jews afraid? Hoenlein: “Yes …there’s a higher level of fear than I remember from any time.”

Asked about American Jewry’s future, he said, “it will be much more Orthodox or traditional,” and smaller. “The only place where” there is “a burgeoning birth rate is here in Israel,” with an average of three to four children per family, while in the US and Europe families are shrinking. (“‘People are afraid,’ says Hoenlein, as anti-Semitism changes US Jewry,” TOI Interview, 10 Feb. 2020)

 

The European war against Israel

Italian journalist Giulio Meotti wrote that in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council released “a blacklist of more than 100 companies” it accused of “violating Palestinian human rights by operating in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.” This is the first “attempt by the UN to literally boycott and strangle the economy of a democracy.”

In The Hague, the ICC’s chief prosecutor’s decision to begin “war-crimes investigation into [Israeli] settlement policies,” is the first that Court will try “to legally shame and indict Israeli policies and presence in its Biblical lands…” The International Court of Justice, also in The Hague had already said that Israel’s security fence is illegal, although it stopped many “Palestinian suicide bombers” who wanted to kill thousands of Jews.

Last fall in Brussels, the EU’s Court of Justice “ruled that products made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria” must not be labelled “Made in Israel.” Add to that Europe’s media who refuse to call terrorists, “terrorists,” but instead calls them “militants,” and one sees that Europe is now “the epicenter of a political and legal war against Israel…”

In today’s Europe, what “remains of Jewish community life… takes place behind bulletproof doors and barbed wire,” and the end of the existence of Europe’s Jews is discussed calmly and fatalistically. How is it “that Molotov cocktails can be detonated against a synagogue in Gothenburg and Europe stays silent?”

Yet European Muslims “are encouraged to manifest their anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, legitimated by Europe’s journalistic and political speech which always demonizes Israel,” while EU leaders take every opportunity to publicly express their “enmity towards the State of Israel throughout the international arena.”

After WW II, Europe’s foundations were “placed on three fundamental values of Judeo-Christian culture: democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” the same values of the State of Israel. Yet today’s Europe has been re-infested with “its ancient hostility towards the Jewish people… But this mass anti-Semitic European psychosis has far-reaching symbolic dimensions,” especially as it rejects its society’s biblical foundations. “It is a Europe submerged by self-hatred. Its days are numbered.” (“… Europe puts Israel under siege,” G. Meotti, Arutz 7 Op-ed, 14 Feb. 2020)

 

Thoughts on Coronavirus

The global panic seems media driven, being always in the headlines. Often its dangers are reported without any comparison or percentages of age groups or physical conditions of those most at risk, or who have died. Could this be part of what was spoken by Yeshua in Luke 21:25-26a? There shall be signs in the heavens and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity… Men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking at those things which are coming on the earth… With access to the internet, most people have a front row seat to watch in real time all “those things” that hit our world.

Coronavirus has also negatively impacted the global economy. Since the Anti-Christ will be allowed to use the economy to control people and nations (Rev. 13:17), is this the time for his entrance? If not, we now see how sudden his rise could be.

Israel is blessed to have Netanyahu who immediately took this threat seriously and declared war on it. Many nations then followed his lead. Necessarily, the topic of health and security vs. personal liberty has come to the fore. For people living in a nation that exalts personal liberty – it will be harder for their leaders to make hard decisions and take timely actions. Israelis have been through so many national crises – like Saddam’s scuds or suicide bombings – that most of us understand if our personal liberty must take second place to the survival of our nation.

For believers to make personal liberty their top priority is a misunderstanding of our position in God’s kingdom. Though we are redeemed, set free from slavery to sin, it is so that we can be bond-slaves for Messiah. To see personal freedom as our ultimate goal prevents us from serving God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30).

Recall that ‘believers’ who said to Yeshua that they had done this and that in His name, heard Him reply, Depart from Me workers of lawlessness. I never knew you! (Matt. 7:22-23). They were doing only their own thing and not serving the King.

The day of salvation is our “Dependence Day.” Set free from the power of sin, we now depend on and try to obey our Master – in everything. We are part of a spiritual Kingdom – not a democracy – and one does not vote for their king; one only serves Him or not.

 

Be still and know that I am God.Psa. 46:10a

Chuck & Karen Cohen, May 2020.