Israel Prayer com

 

Purpose of the Web site:

1.   To provide a connecting bridge to the Messianic body in Israel for the Church. 

2.  To make known to the Church what are the ministry needs of the body of Messiah in

Israel.

3.  To detail the specific precedent set in Scripture by the apostle to the Gentiles for the Gentile Church to specifically meet the material needs of the Israel believing community.

 

 

Israeli Politics
for Christian Intercessors


Up to this point in prophetic time, a great many Christians whom God has stirred to have a heart for Israel have not also held a realistic and accurate assessment of the ‘players’ upon which to base their God-given desire to support God's Chosen People, Israel.  

While it is true that as Christians we are to love and support
Israel, we are also have our eyes wide open in the practical means we express our support and to whom we extend it We are to be aware that our first responsibility in any show of support for Israel lies with “the household of faith” (Gal 6:10).  As Christians we must become more aware that there are already thousands of Messianic Jews who live and minister in the Land of Israel

While many in the Body of Christ demonstrate their support of
Israel through a variety of good and benevolent works toward both the Israeli government and toward representatives of traditional, Orthodox Judaism, the sad fact is there remains a great ignorance of, and support of, the authentic body of Christ in Israel.  We are not speaking of the great numbers on non-Jewish Christian ministries who lovingly minister in Israel, but we are speaking specifically of those Jews in Israel who know and follow Israel's Messiah, Jesus.

Another sad fact
is that much Christian support funneled into
Israel goes directly into the coffers of the very religious groups that relentlessly persecute their countrymen who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.  

Whether the religious parties such as Shas, Yahadut Hatorah, or the National Religious Party, or religious groups such as the Temple Mount Faithful, who seek the rebuilding of the Temple (an endeavor that intrigues many Christians unaware of the ramifications of this religious project that is not under God's direction), Christians need to grasp that these groups represent “enemies of the gospel” just as much today as in the day Paul penned Romans 11.  

Yet they are “beloved for the sake of the fathers.”   As Christians to whom God has imparted a love for and vision for the salvation of “all Israel,“ we must walk the fine line of understanding that these traditional religious Israelis operate in the same mindset as those who dragged Peter and John before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4.

Today the Israeli religious factions are represented by their own political parties in the Knesset (parliament) and because of the Israeli system of government they exercise power far beyond their actual numbers of representation in the Israeli population.  The more power these traditional religious groups are able to broker, the more pressure they are able to place upon Israeli Messianic Jews, and the more the gospel is impeded from flowing freely from the Israeli Messianic ministries and community.

As only one example of how the religious political parties are in a very practical sense “enemies of the gospel,” we can look at the Interior Ministry. The religious parties have exercised a stranglehold over the Interior Ministry through an exchange of power that has held every prime minister in recent memory hostage.  This ministry is critical because it oversees who is allowed or denied Israeli citizenship.    In exchange for joining a prime minister’s coalition government (in order to make up the necessary number of Knesset seats to form a viable government), the religious party demands control of the Interior Ministry. These religious/political factions consider Jews who believe in Jesus as non-Jews, and therefore disqualify them from receiving the full benefits of Israeli citizenship under the Israeli Right of Return laws.

The religious party domination of the Interior Ministry has created crisis after crisis for Messianic Jewish believers over the past few decades.  Some have been denied citizenship or had citizenship revoked because of their profession of faith in Jesus.  This is but one of the ways the religious/political parties have exerted significant threat and pressure upon the Messianic Jewish community of
Israel.

As Christians, we must understand that the picture of persecution against Messianic believers that we see in the book of Acts—the same ill-will we see that Saul carried toward Jesus’ followers before the Lord revealed Himself to Saul on the road to Damascus—is being played out once again today against Israeli Messianic Jews. 
 
As Saul, in God’s own timing, was transformed from a persecutor of Messianic Jews to one of the foremost apostles of the Lord, so also many Israeli Jews who are currently “enemies of the gospel” are destined to receive the revelation of the true Messiah of Israel. 

 

Nevertheless, in the meantime, we must with wisdom and discernment first recognize and then support the authentic “faithful” in Israel--the Messianic Jews in Israel who are “of like precious faith.”

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“For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things,
their duty is also to minister to them in material things.”
Romans 15:27
 
The apostle Paul has been second-guessed and criticized for his
insistence on returning to Jerusalem, past all warnings by the Spirit
that he would be arrested there.   In fact, the offering he was
determined to deliver in Jerusalem was Paul’s way of fulfilling the
commandment to bring a Shavuot offering to the Lord.   This is the
reason Paul could not be turned back from his mission and the timing of
the offering delivery is not coincidental.  It is in accordance with the
prophetic timetable contained within the biblical Feasts of the Lord.
 
Paul placed the greatest of importance—laying his life on the line—to go
up to Jerusalem with the commanded Shauvot offering.  He understood what
we must come to understand about this offering, for God’s command is
clear:  “And they shall not appear before the Lord empty handed.” (Deut.
16:16).
 
Paul’s own testimony was that he was “bound by the Spirit” to deliver an
offering before God on this feast more commonly known to Christians as
Pentecost.  While the Church has embraced the significance of Pentecost,
as significant as the Pentecost event was, the giving of the Holy Spirit
did not constitute a fulfillment of the Shavuot offering God required in
response!
 
Paul understood the type and shadow signified in the Shavuot offering of
two leavened loaves as symbolizing Jew and Gentile in the Messiah—from
two, one new man in the Messiah (Eph. 2:15).  His practical application
of the offering was made in terms of financial support, collected over
four years and delivered with an accompaniment of representatives from
the churches (Acts 20:23). This collection of alms, this offering
symbolizing the two loaves of Jew and Gentile united in the Messiah, was
long in the making and even more significant than we have ever
comprehended!
 
Early in his ministry, God made Paul aware of the significant need
Messianic believers would always have.  At the same time, God was
orchestrating events so that Paul would participate in the first Gentile
outreach to meet the need.
 
The events that awakened Paul occurred as the Antioch church sent Paul
and Barnabas to the believers in Jerusalem with alms in response to a
prophesied worldwide famine. Their arrival in Jerusalem coincided with
Herod’s execution of the apostle James and his subsequent arrest of the
apostle Peter, “because he (Herod) saw that it pleased the Jews”  (Acts
12).
 
We must believe in Divine timing when we see it!  Here Paul looked
plainly into the eye of both the spiritual indebtedness of the Gentile
believers to the Jewish believers (Romans 15:27) and also to the
persecution of believing Jews by unbelieving Jews (Romans 11:28).  These
events took place during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the first of the
three prophetic Feasts of the Lord that portray the salvation harvests
of Israel. How could Paul escape what God was dramatically speaking to
him through these events?
 
Acts records that the believers in Jerusalem, shocked by the execution
of James, were terrified of what would happen to Peter, and what these
actions against their leaders would surely also mean to all believers in
Israel.  Intercession for Peter was going on day and night in
Jerusalem.  This is the scenario that Paul and Barnabas came upon when
they arrived in Jerusalem with alms from Antioch. How it must have
impacted them!
 
Paul was in a unique position to understand God’s purposes through his
own past failings. He understood that the mindset which thought itself
to be in full compliance with God’s will to persecute the “unfaithful”
Messianic Jews would never change until the appointed time that God
reveals His Son corporately to Israel.   These powerfully connected
events surely brought Paul to a mighty awakening that how the Gentile
members of the body of Messiah relate to the Jewish members will be
critical to the survival of Messianic Jews. He was experiencing first
hand how the Jewish brethren in Israel were suffering without any
practical assistance from believers outside of their borders.
 
The Antioch church was prompted to send relief to the brethren in Israel
not because the Jewish brethren were “special” in themselves, but
because they lived and ministered in a more gospel-hostile environment
than most Gentile believers.  To keep the Jewish brethren from suffering
excessively for the sake of the gospel, Gentile believers must minister
special care towards their needs.  The situation for Messianic Jews in
Israel remains the same to this day.
 
Today in Israel, Messianic Jewish congregations have been fire bombed by
ultra-orthodox religious persecutors—people just like Paul before his
Damascus road experience. Messianic Jewish evangelists are often beaten,
street witnesses threatened, and congregations surrounded by angry mobs
of religious zealots.  Employment is especially challenging for
Messianic Jewish believers, and congregational shepherds often must hold
secular jobs alongside their full-time pastoral ministry due to a lack
of adequate financial support.  And because of their faith, the 5,000
Messianic Jews of Israel must continually fight attempted legislative
restrictions leveled against them by religious-political groups.
 
Although persecution comes in many forms, Messianic Jews love their
people and their nation.  They understand they are in a spiritual battle
and hold the same vision for the salvation of Israel as the apostle
Paul.  (Romans 9:3)
 
Scripture makes it plain that Gentile believers are spiritually indebted
to Israel.  In his final trip to Jerusalem, Paul modeled for us the
practical means of repayment of this debt.  We see from his letters that
he repeatedly urged the churches to contribute to this need—a need that
continues to exist.  As he told the church at Corinth in direct
reference to their collection of funds earmarked for the Jewish
brethren, “And in this I give my advice:  It is to your advantage….”
 
This practical expression of love and unity is a fundamental ingredient
to the witness that will bring the national salvation of Israel!  If you
have ever wondered what would make unbelieving Israel “jealous” of our
gospel, wonder no more.  This is the witness of love and unity—the
evidence of the sincerity of our gospel—that unbelieving Jews must see
to believe our gospel.  When the Gentile Church releases such care and
concern for the Messianic brethren the latter harvest will abound.
 
When God sees the required Shavuot offering made—the Gentile believers’
expression of love and unity toward their Jewish brethren—a great
blessing will be released on the harvest of salvation among the Jews.
Just as the original Jewish believers of the first century went out to
preach the gospel among the Gentiles, so now the Gentile believers must
provide resources for the proclamation of the gospel among the Jews, by
Jews.  When this Shavuot offering to Lord of the double loaf is made
ready, it is then Yeshua can return to take up His Throne in Jerusalem.
 
Do you desire to hasten the return of the Lord?  Fulfill the spiritual
debt of the Gentile loaf to the Messianic Jewish loaf!