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Millions of Jews Searching for Messiah

A big, untold story: Since last Yom Kippur, millions of Jews have begun searching for the Messiah, and for atonement for their sins. The media isn’t reporting this. But it’s worth examining.

In Uncategorized on September 22, 2015 at 12:24 pm

Over the past year since the last Day of Atonement, millions of Jews around the world have begun a quest to find the Messiah.

At sundown, we begin Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This is the highest holy day on the Jewish calendar, and one of great Biblical and historic and cultural importance to my people.

I so wish I was home with Lynn and our sons in Israel tonight. Instead, I am in the U.S. speaking at a number of events, from Dallas to San Luis Obispo to Washington, D.C. to Toronto. I am speaking about the darkness that is falling in our world. But I am also explaining to people about a fascinating phenomenon that I’m observing.

Since last Yom Kippur, millions of Jews have begun a quest to find the Messiah. For reasons I cannot fully explain, Jews are suddenly searching for answers to the deepest and most important questions concerning life and death and God and atonement and eternity, in numbers unprecedented in history. Some are searching through the Hebrew Scriptures for answers. A stunning number are actually reading the New Testament, most for the first time. They are searching on Google for information about the Messiah. They are even watching a new series of videos by Jews who claim to have found the answers. The videos — some of which have gone viral — were produced and posted on a new website called www.imetmessiah.com.

To me, these are fascinating developments. They certainly aren’t being reported by the media. But they are worth examining. That said, more on all that in a moment.

First, a few thoughts about Yom Kippur itself.

In the Scriptures, the Israelites were commanded by the Lord to fast and pray and bring their sacrifices to the Temple in Jerusalem, and then to ask for the Lord’s forgiveness for all the sins they and their nation had committed that year. And the Scriptures were clear: only the sacrifice of a perfect animal — a sacrifice performed with a humble, repentant, sincere heart, and with faith in God’s mercy and grace — could bring about forgiveness of sins.

• “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” (Leviticus 17:11)
• “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22)

But here’s the problem we Jewish people have face since the destruction of the Temple: What does one do to receive atonement in the modern age, without a Temple?

How can one make sacrifices, and thus receive forgiveness of sins — and thus the right to enter the holiness of heaven and live with the Lord in heaven forever and ever — without being able to sacrifice a perfect lamb at the Temple in Jerusalem, where the Lord designated all sacrifices to occur?

The destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. was a huge blow to Judaism for many reasons, but chief among them because it deprived us of the one place to receive atonement from God.

The good news was found in Daniel 9:24-26. The Hebrew prophet Daniel explained to us that:

• someday the Messiah (or “Anointed One”) would come to us
• when the Messiah came, his purpose would be “to atone for wickedness” and “to bring in everlasting righteousness”
• the Messiah would then be “cut off and will have nothing”
• after the Messiah was “cut off,” then Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed
• Daniel specifically noted that foreign invaders “will come and will destroy the city and the sanctuary”

Think about that. Daniel told us something extraordinary — that a coming Messiah would bring atonement for our sins before the Temple would be destroyed. That, in retrospect, makes sense, right? Why would the God of Israel take away the Temple before providing a new way for atonement?

Now, add in what the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah explained to us that not only was the Messiah coming to the Jewish people, but that He would bring a “new covenant,” a new and exciting and God-ordained way by which we would have a personal relationship with the Lord our God.

The Hebrew Prophet Isaiah gave us still more details about this coming Messiah. He explained that the Messiah would serve as King of the world eventually, but first the Messiah would be our “Suffering Servant.” That is, He would be rejected by the people, would suffer, and then die as our atoning sacrifice.

Consider these extraordinary passages from Isaiah 53:

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.

13 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Who does that sound like to you?

When I was younger, I tried to process these and other Hebrew prophecies of the Messiah. Among them:

• the Messiah will born in Judea, near Jerusalem, in Bethlehem Ephratah (Micah 5:2)
• the Messiah will live and minister in the Galilee (Isaiah 9:1-2)
• the Messiah will teach in parables (Psalm 78:2)
• the Messiah will enter Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9)
• the Messiah will be the Savior of the Jews but also a “light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:5-6)

These were fascinating, specific, detailed clues as to the identity of the One the Lord was sending to save and rescue our people. Each piece of the puzzle was helpful, but two clues I found especially interesting — first, that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem Ephratah, the city of David; and second that the Messiah absolutely had to come to bring atonement and righteousness to His people before the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed in 70 A.D. Why? Because the God of Israel told us so through the Hebrew prophets.

I came to the conclusion that Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth is, in fact, the Messiah that Moses and the prophets spoke of. His death and resurrection were foretold by the prophets, and they prove that He is who He said He is: the “Way, the Truth and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him” (John 14:6). Jesus’ shed blood provides the only atonement for sins for Jews and Gentiles today. Jesus brought us the “New Covenant” — the new deal, as it were, between God and man — that the Hebrew Prophet Jeremiah told us to wait for.

True, many Jewish people have rejected Jesus over the centuries. But have we really stopped to examine what Moses and the prophets said, and how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled every single one of those prophecies?

By God’s grace and kindness, my eyes were open. I received Jesus as Messiah, Savior and Lord when I was young. I humbled myself, confessed my sins to God the Father, believed in my heart by faith that Jesus died on the cross, and was buried, and rose again, according to the Scriptures. I confessed with my mouth that Jesus is the Lord. And so, as He promised, Jesus atoned for my sins. He washed them away, all of them, never to be remembered or held against me for all of eternity. He gave me eternal life. He — the King of the Universe — adopted me into His royal family. He gave me peace that passes all understanding. He gave me hope as an anchor for my soul. He gave me a purpose and a meaning for me life.

Why? Because I deserved it? No. Because I earned it? No. Because I could buy it? No. He gave all this to me for free, because He loves me, because He wanted to rescue me. And so I received Him into my heart by faith. For as the Scriptures explain so clearly, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12)

When my father, who was raised an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, discovered in 1973 — after a careful study of the Gospel According to Luke — that Jesus of Nazareth is the long-awaited Jewish Messiah, and received the Messiah by faith, my father thought he was one of the first Jews in history who believed this. He had never met a Jewish believer in Jesus. He had never heard of such a person. And in 1973, there were fewer than 2,000 Jewish people on the planet who were followers of Jesus.

But today, some 300,000 Jews around the world are followers of Jesus. And millions of Jews are searching for the Messiah and thus reading the Hebrew prophecies, and comparing them with the writings of the New Testament, and trying to decide whether Jesus really is the Messiah we have desperately longed for over so many centuries.

Today, on Yom Kippur, you can watch short videos of Jewish people explaining how they met the Messiah.

More than 10 million people have watched these videos just in the past few months.

Remarkably, more than 900,000 Hebrew speakers have watched the Hebrew-language versions of these videos in just the past four months. Given that there are only about 7 million Hebrew speakers in the world today, this means that nearly 1 in 7 of them have recently watched videos by Israeli Jews explaining how they came to discover that Yeshua is our Messiah.

The website is www.imetmessiah.com. Please visit, watch the videos, share them with family and friends, think about them and discuss them. And then I encourage you to humbly pray to God and ask Him to show you whether Jesus — Yeshua — is, in fact, the Anointed One who came to rescue and redeem us and atone for our sins and write our names in the Book of Life.

It is my earnest hope you will discover — or rediscover — Jesus for yourself this Yom Kippur and the days that follow. I’m praying for you to find His amazing love, grace and forgiveness, and the hope and joy that only He can give us.

May the God of Israel and His Anointed One bless you and your family beyond what you can hope for, dream of, or imagine.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GOSPEL:

• “My Spiritual Journey” — audio and text versions of how  my parents and I became followers of Jesus the Messiah
• Would you like to know God personally? (a simple explanation of the Gospel in English)
• Read a simple explanation of the Gospel in Hebrew. …. or in Arabic. …. or in other languages.
• Watch on-line videos of Jewish people from all walks of life who came to know Jesus as Messiah. (over 10 million individuals have watched these videos so far)

WORD STUDY – TO SAY TO TELL לנגד לאמ

 

Exodus 19:3; “And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying: ‘Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the sons of Israel.’”

 What is the different between the house of Jacob and the sons of Israel? Moses is to relate the commandments of God to both groups.  Now Moses is to say  to the house of Jacob. The word say in Hebrew is ‘amar which is just to simply speak. However, to the sons of Israel he is to tell them.  This word tell in Hebrew is negad which also means to speak.  The Talmud teaches that there are no synonyms in the classical Hebrew. So if you have two words which means the same thing you need to examine these words to discover what the nuance of difference is between the two.  In this case to ‘amar is simply to speak, to declare as to get an emotional response, but  negad  is to make extremely clear, spell it out very clearly so there is no misunderstanding.

 The difference is sort of like the difference between poetry and science.  In poetry you have to experience the word to understand it. This would be like the word ‘amar which carries an emotional element to it.  In science you have to put the word under a microscope and examine it, this would be equivalent to the word negad.  The house of Jacob is only to be given the Word of God for an emotional response.  However, the sons of Israel are to be given the Word of God to examine it, put it under a microscope and take it apart. Both ‘amar and negad are needed to come to a complete understanding of the law or the Word of God.

 In our culture there seems to be such a division among Christians.  You have those who study the Word of God scientifically, they will analyze it in seminaries and graduate schools and take every word apart and put it together again. This is sort of like the Baptist or mainline denominations in the church. They are the ones who negad the Word of God.  Then you have those who  reject any scientific study and just want to experience the Word of God and not get hung up on the minute details.  This seems to fit the Charismatics. It would seem Exodus 19:3 is encouraging both, yet they must come together to be complete.  Sort of like what Chaim Bentorah Ministries is trying to do. We are trying to both ‘amar and negad the Word of God and find some sort of balance between the two.

 Of course at the time of the Exodus there were no Baptist, Charismatics or Chaim Bentorah Ministries. In a sense the Charismatics would be the house of Jacob and the Baptist would be the sons of Israel.  But obviously this passage is not speaking of the Baptist or Charismatics, so who are the house of Jacob and who are the sons of Israel?

 In Jewish tradition, it is man who studies Torah in the synagogue, but yet it is the women who are more important than men in religious training.  The women are to be taught first by their husbands, and then they pass this on to their children. The spiritual future and fate of  the children lies in the mother.

 The sages draw this from the word in the Hebrew for mother  which is em.  This is the same word im for if. If the mother is pious, in all probability the children will take after her and be pious. It is taught in Jewish tradition that if a mother is pious but the father is not, the children will still be pious.  However, if the father is pious and the mother is not chances are the children will not be pious. It is taught that the mother must devote her time to her children and thus she does not have the time to study Torah like the father. So the mother or women are given a special understanding of God that men do not have to compensate for their inability to study Torah due to their responsibility for raising their children.  The mother is the big if of family life.  In Jewish religious law, a child takes after the identity of his or her mother.  For a child to be considered Jewish, it is the maternal genealogy that is primary.  As the mother goes, so goes the child.

 Hence, the Talmud teaches that the house of Jacob represents the women and the sons of Israel represent the men.  Women by nature tend to guided more by their emotions than men.  Show me a church where there are more men in the congregation than women, it is rare. Usually it is the women who dominate the numbers and the men who dominate the teaching.

 Thus, Moses was to say to the women, in other words, let the women experience the law, feel it, enjoy it and understand it emotionally and pass it on to their children, while the men were to be told the law, or to analyze it and understand it from a scientific analysis.  The men will analyze the kashrut or dietary law in the synagogue and conclude what is kosher and what is not. Then they tell their wives who take this cold, scientific kashrut system and turn it into something that is tasty, wholesome, memory building, loving etc.  It is the men who study and understand the law, it is the women who turn it into something beautiful.

It is the role of the husband to help his wife understand the Word of God and it is the role of the wife to help her husband experience the Word of God.  The two must work together, hand in hand (yadiyad), heart to heart to enter into a completeness in their relationship with God.  The woman is the gateway to the presence of God, but it is the man who must led her through that gate.

 Proverbs 18:22: “Whoso findeth a wife finds a good thing and finds favor with God.” Sounds like finding a wife is like finding a decent used car.  Well over half our modern English translations follows the KJV and calls a wife a thing. Let’s get one thing clean, a wife is not a thing. The word thing is not in the Hebrew, just the word tov which means good. The Semitic understanding of tov, what we render as good means to bring into harmony, to be in tune.  So whoever finds a wife finds someone who can bring him into harmony with God.  As a result he will find favor with God.  That word favor in Hebrew is ratson which means to bring delight and pleasure.  Finding a wife who can bring a man into harmony with God brings delight and pleasure to God.

http://www.chaimbentorah.com

Mark of the Beast or Seal of the Feasts?

Hollisa from Creation Gospel does a good job connecting the prophetic fulfillment of the importance of keeping the Shabbat 

Yah bless you on this glorious Shabbat day!

Linda Rose

Mark of the Beast or Seal of the Feasts: Can We Leave the Gates Open on Shabbat and High Sabbaths?

Do Shabbat and the High Sabbaths of the moedim really provide a seamless connection between the six days of work and the Seven? In a fallen world, the gates must be closed in order to stop the fires of commerce from burning within. Review Nehemiah 10, and the precedent for the thematic sevens of Revelation are presented with the problem of Shabbat commerce.

The mark of the beast in Revelation is one that strikes fear even in the hearts of many believers. They fear that without some visible mark, they will not be able to buy or sell...at all. The precedent, however, is more sensible and based on a moed as old as Genesis One: six days to work and a Shabbat. The key words are "buy" and "sell."

Nehemiah notes and reprimands the Sabbath breaking workers and merchants:

In those days I saw in Judah some who were treading wine presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of loads, and they brought them into Jerusalem on the sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they sold food. (Nehemiah 13:15)

Then I reprimanded the nobles of Judah and said to them, 'What is this evil thing you are doing, by profaning the sabbath day?' (17)

Nehemiah still has a problem. The Sabbath-breakers simply will not cease from their commerce! Hearts have not changed. His solution:

It came about that just as it grew dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and that they should not open them until after the sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the sabbath day. (19)

And I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come as gatekeepers to sanctify the sabbath day. For this also remember me, O my God, and have compassion on me according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness. (22)

In order to stop the unholy mixture of six working days bleeding into Shabbat, the Levites had to become gatekeepers of Jerusalem. The six and the seven are consecutive and have a relationship to one another, but they are not identical. They are knit together, yet separate! Six is the number of preparation, but seven is the number of celebration in completion. The fabric of the week is beautifully seamless, yet set-apart to achieve the holiness in unity.

Nehemiah reiterates the holiness of Shabbat to the Jews, reminding them that it is not a day to buy and sell. John's symbolism of the 6s and 7s in Revelation is a repetition of this warning, and John's woe to the merchants of Babylon is even longer and more detailed!

Shabbat Dweller or Shabbat Rebeller?

Beast worshipers do not observe Shabbat, for rest is what defines the Sabbath.:

And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name." (Revelation 14:11)

However, the children of the Woman who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Yeshua persevere in the holiness of the Word. They rest when the Father teaches them to rest. Mitzvot keepers in Yeshua observe Shabbat:

Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, "Write, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!'" "Yes," says the Spirit, "so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them." (Revelation 14:12-13)

Read these three verses carefully, and the importance of Shabbat in Revelation emerges. Shabbat is the preparation of the saints to rest from their labors, for the Shabbat-keeper is followed by his deeds the same way that the week is a preparation for Shabbat, and on Shabbat one enjoys all that has been prepared. It is not a time to create more, but to enjoy and take pleasure in the prepared things.

For the unrepentant Shabbat-rebeller, the deeds never cease, and the torment is no rest day and night. In a thorough search of Scripture, it is plain that the characteristic of the unrestrained nefesh (soul) is desire that is never satisfied, especially after the body of flesh dies. The nefesh continues to have existence, but not life.  Only the satiety of the Ruach brings satisfaction to the nefesh in this world or the next. The deeds in which the wicked put trust become a torment, not a pleasure; however, a saint dedicates his daily deeds toward the observance of Shabbat, a sign of a whole transformation of spirit. The perseverance of the saints is rest from their labors according to the mitzvah.

Nehemiah takes it a step farther and includes the shmittah Sabbaths of the Land:

As for the peoples of the land who bring wares or any grain on the sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the sabbath or a holy day; and we will forego the crops the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. (Nehemiah 10:31)

Although Nehemiah had to resort to the drastic measure of setting the Levites as gatekeepers to shut out the merchants on Shabbats and high Sabbaths, Isaiah prophesies of a time when there has been a significant change in the hearts of those who go to Jerusalem. Any wealth brought in the gates will be directed toward the worship of Adonai and to beautify His Temple. Those who enter the city are sealed with the seal of the four-vav shin on the shel rosh tefillin, which represents the Ruach (Holy Spirit), along with the three-vav shin (666) of the outward deeds on the arm.

The Seven Spirits of Adonai go throughout the earth with the four horseman to separate those who are "stagnant in Spirit" (Zechariah) from those who keep the mitzvot in Ruach AND in deed.  A mere 666 is only the letter of the Torah.  It is the number of both man and beast who are created on the Sixth Day.  Man, however, is made in the image of Elohim, not the Beast, and he worships in the Spirit, not merely the appetites that feed the self.  A man was created to be more than 666, for because The Holy One ceased from Creation on the Seventh Day, man, too, transforms from six to Seven in order to prepare for the Eighth Day beyond the Seventh Millennium, a time of perfection beyond the veil of flesh. The Ruach sets the man apart from the beast.  The nefesh of one who worships Elohim longs for the desire of the Ruach, not the desire of earthly flesh.

In a city filled with the Light of the Torah, a city where the Lamp is the Lamb, no gatekeepers are needed:

Your gates will be open continually;

They will not be closed day or night,

So that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations,

With their kings led in procession. (Isaiah 60:11)

No longer will those who build Jerusalem's walls have to build and fight their enemies simultaneously, for:

Foreigners will build up your walls, and their kings will minister to you; (10)

John again teaches thematically with Nehemiah and Isaiah:

The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Revelation 21:24-27)

Wow! What a city! Those who live and enter there will need no gatekeepers, for they have conspired with The Holy One to guard and remember His Sabbaths and moedim. They have power of the Ruach HaKodesh invigorating their physical strength and directing their nafshim to keep the mitzvoth. They are the clean seed of the Woman, and they don't rely or wait on a feeling of obedience; instead they got tefillin. Leave the gates open forever, for their hearts are transformed.

No wonder those merchants are weeping over Mystery Babylon, for she has been purged and the City of Good Gold restored to her place in the Garden. She won't buy any more stories from a beast of the field.

Seeing that we have so great a resurrection of ruach, nefesh, and guf (body) in our Messiah Yeshua, let us strive to give the Light of Shabbat to the world. Invite someone in to taste and see that El Shaddai is Good, and instead of buying and selling, feeding appetites of desire that will never be satisfied apart from the Ruach, "sell" the gospel. If it is a joy to you, it is a Light to others!