The Israel of God

Joy to the World

2011-12-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

Always thought this was a beautiful hymn, but apparently like so many modern songs, not consistent with His Word: the Savior does not now reign or rule the world with truth and grace, and thorns still infest the ground!

Searching for the words on the internet tonight, discovered something strange. Found almost a dozen lyrics; each one different. Some politically-corrected the word men. Some changed the tense from is to was. Some deleted or added verses in entirety. The words below are from a disintegrating hymnal in the organ.

Searching further, discovered the name of this song is not Joy to the World, but rather The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom! This is both the intended meaning and the name that author Isaac Watts originally pined.

Hope you will think about the words of this song, and of "the twinkling of an eye" when “heaven and nature” will LITERALLY sing for joy at His coming "while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy": "For you will go out with joy, And be led forth with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12).

The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom

Joy to the world! The Lord is come;

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns;

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods

rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, Repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes and make the blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, and wonders of His love.

A Jewish Christmas Story

2011-12-24T21:40:00.001-08:00

Phantomizing Scripture

2011-09-04T23:57:00.001-07:00

After the Dream

2011-08-29T23:19:00.001-07:00

Jerusalem

2011-06-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

The Auschwitz Borders

2011-05-26T23:25:00.001-07:00

As Netanyahu pleaded, that Israel cannot "go back to the 1967 lines, and that "these lines are indefensible," our president burned in silent rage. Never had anyone transgressed a photo opt by "disagreeing" with the master of the (white) house and forgoing his due reverence. That is, except for this Jew. One can only imagine the wrath, were it not for the cameras. And before the Israeli Prime Minister had finished speaking, the lot had been cast!

Amazing how things never really change: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun" (Ecclessiastes1:9).

"After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him. And all the king's servants, that were in the king's gate, bowed, and reverenced Haman: for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence. Then the king's servants, which were in the king's gate, said unto Mordecai, Why transgressest thou the king's commandment? Now it came to pass, when they spake daily unto him, and he hearkened not unto them, that they told Haman, to see whether Mordecai's matters would stand: for he had told them that he was a Jew.

And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had shewed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai. In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of king Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, to the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar. And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them. If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasuries. And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave it unto Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews' enemy.

And the king said unto Haman, The silver is given to thee, the people also, to do with them as it seemeth good to thee. Then were the king's scribes called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and sealed with the king's ring. And the letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.... And the king and Haman sat down to drink...." (Esther 3:1-15).

Obama's Green Light for Genocide

2011-05-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Do not pretend to know the thoughts and intents of our President's heart, but after his Thursday Mideast outline for "peace," it became painfully obvious that the plan as imposed would facilitate a Post-WW2 genocide. Discounting the ceding the fertile West Bank to Arabs and the Negev to Jews, the abandonment of the Hebron graves of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and most unthinkable, the "forgetting" of Jerusalem, Obama's proposed Palestinian State would literally cut the heart from Israel, and as Netanyahu strategically assessed, leave her an "indefensible" "nine mile" corridor.

Obama was not the first president to "befriend" Jews:

"At the French resort of Evian on the shores of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1938, President Roosevelt initiated a nine-day international conference, supposedly to facilitate Jewish immigration from Germany and Austria.

Very important people were here and all the delegates had a nice time. They took pleasure cruises on the lake. They gambled at night at the casino. They took mineral baths and massages…some of them took the excursions to Chamonix to go summer skiing. Some went riding, some played golf. Meetings. Yes, some attended the meetings. But, of course it is difficult to sit indoors hearing speeches when all the pleasures that Evian offers are waiting right outside" (Rene Richier as quoted in Peggy Mann, When the World Passed by on the Other Side, Manchester Guardian Weekly, 7 May 1938).

Here are the recollections of an uninvited delegate, Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel:

"… sitting there in that magnificent hall and listening to the delegates of thirty-two countries rise, each in turn, to explain how much they would have liked to take in substantial numbers of refugees and how unfortunate it was that they were not able to do so, was a terrible experience, I don't think that anyone who didn't live through it can understand what I felt at Evian – a mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration and horror" (As quoted in, The Evian Conference - Hitler's Green Light for Genocide, Annette Shaw, 2001, Quoted by permission of Stephen D. Smith, Director, Beth Shalom, (Letter 15/3/2000), Perspective, Vol. 1, Issue 1, July 1998, "Nobody Wants Them,” p. 21).

"At the end of the nine-day conference, Hitler had his Green Light" (Annette Shaw, The Evian Conference - Hitler's Green Light for Genocide, 2001):

"Nobody wants them' claimed the German newspaper Völkischer Beobachter after the Evian Conference in July 1938 and Hitler gloated, saying, 'It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them." (Perspective, Beth Shalom, p. 21).

After Obama's Thursday Mideast outline for "peace," it became painfully obvious that the plan as imposed would give, Fatah, Hamas, and the Arab League a "Green Light for Genocide."

Sennacherib Once More

2011-05-19T23:43:00.000-07:00

"And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up unto the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed unto the LORD, saying, O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline thine ear, O LORD, and hear; open thine eyes, O LORD, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God. Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries, And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them. Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD, even thou only.... Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD. For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword...." (Isaiah 37:14-38).

The Destruction of Sennacherib

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen:

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd,

And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Lord Byron, 1815

Come Saturday

2011-05-19T23:38:00.001-07:00

The Congregation of the Dead

2011-05-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

For a almost a decade the world has been asking: "Where is Osama"? Now the world is asking every other question but "Where is Osama now"?

Under our feet this very moment is a subterranean world. The Hebrew Scriptures refer to it as the pit, the abyss, the nether parts of the earth, Abaddon.... No, it is not Hell. Hell is not yet. The Judgment must come first. The name of this present shadow land is called Sheol. And within it a place reserved for those who "caused terror in the land of the living."

"Asshur is there and all her company... all of them slain, fallen by the sword... which caused terror in the land of the living" (Ezekiel 32:22-23).

"There is Elam and all her multitude... fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living" (Ezekiel 32:24).

There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude... they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen... which are gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living" (Ezekiel 32:26-27).

There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit" (Ezekiel 32:29).

"There be the princes of the north... with their terror they are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword...." (Ezekiel 32:30).

"Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee" (Isaiah 14:9-11).

The Wicked Witch is Dead

2011-05-01T22:27:00.001-07:00

A celebration continues outside the White House; Osama bin Laden was killed today. Similar revelry, no doubt, is occurring at night spots across the country. Message boards are percolating with tasteless exuberance at the announcement. And the president and his aides are rushing to claim credit for the assassination. But something does not seem right.

It is right to affirm the covert assault force, who risked their lives to protect our own. It is right for the one who cursed Israel (cf. Genesis 27:29), himself be cursed this day: Yom Hazikaron L'shoah U'l'gevurah (Shoah Remembrance Day). But is it right to "delight" in the death of another?

"... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you..." (Mathew 5:44). Yet this must be reconciled with His other words: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man" (Genesis 9: 6).

"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth" (Proverbs 24:17).

"... I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezekiel 33:11).

If God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, should we?

Goddess of the Dawn

2011-04-24T06:55:00.001-07:00

A Cry in the Night

2011-04-18T23:52:00.001-07:00

Obama’s recent Passover message to "Jewish families and their friends" was a contrived example of historical revisionism, an ill-disguised "Trojan horse" endorsing the Muslim Spring, and an affront to those familiar with the narrative of Jewish escape from an earlier genocide:

"And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river..." (Exodus 1:22).

"And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more" (Exodus 11:6).

"... Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the Passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses.... And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead" (Exodus 12:21-30).

"... For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us (I Corinthians 5:7).

King David

2011-04-07T23:24:00.001-07:00

The Expedient for Jerusalem

2011-03-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

“No,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bluntly stated when asked on “Face the Nation” if the U.S. would intervene in Syrian unrest as in Libya. She defended her position by saying that the situations in Syria and Libya are respectively "unique." Yes, each are unique, but not for reasons mentioned:

Syria's human rights record is among the worst according to Human Rights Watch. Syrian secret police detain, torture, and are suspect in the disappearance of an estimated 17,000 political prisoners. Libya, by comparison, is not even in the ball park.

Syria, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), supports the following terrorist organizations: Hezbollah, the Iraqi insurgency, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Libya of course is culpable for Lockerbie, but even here Gaddafi personal sanction on the matter is debatable.

Iran and Syria maintain a mutual defense agreement, while Iran and Libya are enemies with the former encouraging the West to arm their anarchist allies.

Syria possesses weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological) and the capability to deliver them according to U.S.defense and intelligence reports. However, a September 2007 Israeli air strike is generally credited with putting Syria's nuclear program on hold. Libya, in stark contrast, has complied with the "world community," and what was her reward, "decimation":

"On December 19, 2003, Libya announced it would dismantle its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs. Since then, U.S., British, and international officials have inspected and removed or destroyed key components of those programs, and Libya has provided valuable information, particularly about foreign suppliers. Libya’s WMD disarmament is a critical step towards reintegration into the world community.... " (Sharon A. Squassoni and Andrew Feickert (Specialists in National Defense Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division), CRS Report for Congress, Disarming Libya: Weapons of Mass Destruction, September 22, 2006).

Clinton's unsubstantiated preference of Syria over Libya is not an error in judgment, but rather something more sinister:

Frank Gaffney, a columnist at the Washington Times and unlike the media, recently made the obvious connection in an analysis titled “The Gadhafi Precedent.” Gaffney indicates that the hostilities initiated against Libya might soon be used to “justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.” Actually, Gaffney was too restrained in his analysis. The coalition's assault on Libya was a test run or perhaps a dress rehearsal of the "Expedient for Jerusalem":

Palestinian preparations for the opportune moment to initiate anarchy in Israel are complete, pending Secretary Clinton's affirmation of the Gadhafi Precedent. However, the situations in Libya and Israel are respectively "unique". Secretary Clinton and her coalition are unaware "the LORD hath chosen" Israel (cf. Deuteronomy 14:2), and has "chosen Jerusalem" (cf. 2 Chronicles 6:6) and unto Abraham has promised: "... all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever" (Genesis 13:15).

Secretary Clinton and her coalition are also unaware the LORD doesn't settles His accounts on Friday, but has chosen one DAY in all eternity to judge the earth. Yet as that DAY draws ever nearer "the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us" (Psalms 2:2-3). And as Secretary Clinton and her coalition covertly prepare ambush for Israel, the LORD bates the pit: "... I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people... and in that day will... make Jerusalem a burdensome stone... And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem" (Zechariah 12:2-3).

http://theisraelofgod.blogspot.com/2011/03/expedient-for-jerusalem.html

Justified of Her Children

2011-03-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

Our president so time ago affirmed that he is " a Christian by choice" and that his public service is part of an effort to express that "faith," but how can we know if his unilateral decision to initiate war with Libya is of God?

There is a very disturbing video circulating on YouTube, of a nature I cannot bring myself to watch. Reportedly, it graphically displays our Libyan "allies" committing atrocities against Gadhafi regulars clothed in dark green standard issue. War is war, but this savaging of Islamic brother by Islamic brother is something far more barbaric than war.

So, how can we know if Our president's unilateral decision to initiate war with Libya is of God? Mathew chapter seven provides the litmus test:

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.... every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Mathew 7:15-23).

"... wisdom is justified of her children" (Mathew 11:19 ).

Not About Libya

2011-03-23T23:37:00.001-07:00

The Last Days

2011-03-01T23:55:00.001-08:00

Popular Insurrection

2011-03-01T23:54:00.003-08:00

Kingdom

2011-01-17T22:35:00.001-08:00

Blood Libel

2011-01-12T23:15:00.001-08:00

The Time of Jacob's Trouble

2011-01-01T23:41:00.001-08:00

Partners in "Peace"

2010-12-31T23:50:00.001-08:00

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

2010-12-24T23:57:00.001-08:00

Hitler’s Shadow

2010-12-19T19:35:00.003-08:00

WikiLeak Curse

2010-12-05T23:45:00.001-08:00

Wikileaks

2010-11-28T22:49:00.001-08:00

A Banned Book?

2010-11-27T23:58:00.001-08:00

"Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?" "Describe your organization's religious belief system toward the land of Israel" was representative of questioning posed by IRS agents to a Jewish group as documented in a federal court filing earlier this week. The interrogation was uncomfortably reminiscent of Himmler's SS agents and the haunting legacy of the Roman church's questioning of Jews: "Be baptized"? or "Burn"? However, IRS agents have yet to compete with Himmler or Rome, but that affords little consolation long term.

Of immediate concern is the current administration's spiritual "profiling" and the legal precedence it sets; a precedence affecting not only Israel but also the church. The Bible is the Book of the church, and provides "support" for not only the "existence of the land of Israel" but also establishes an unrivaled "belief system" affirming the Israel of God (Yisrael). Peter, to Jews of the Diaspora (dispersion), writes: "ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people" (cf. 1Peter 2:9). The Bible explicitly and implicitly ascribes promise and blessing to Israel as a people and a nation in hundreds, if not thousands, of passages. If it is not politically appropriate for Jews to support the "existence of the land of Israel," then their Book must be far less appropriate, as well as those who read and believe it.

Reichskristallnacht

2010-11-24T23:58:00.001-08:00

For the Land is Mine

2010-11-13T20:04:00.001-08:00

Anathoth

2010-11-01T23:47:00.001-07:00

Another Annual Mission Conference

2010-09-26T23:29:00.001-07:00

The Olive Branch

2010-09-26T22:34:00.001-07:00

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pleaded:

"Despite the historic injustice that has been inflicted upon our [Palestinian] people, our wounded hands are still able to carry the olive branch from the rubble of the trees that the occupation [Israel] uproots every day"

However those familiar with middle eastern affairs could hardly keep from wondering if his comments were any more serious than the ludicrous Colber "testimony" entertained by Congress the day before.

During the mid-1970s when Yasser Arafat's PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) exploitatively provoked conflict between Lebanese Christians and Muslims, hostilities also broke out between Sunnis and Shiites:

"In the corners of the streets of Beirut, small children exhibit bottles which contain human ears dunked in acid, like pickles or artichokes in vinegar. Bodies are lying in the streets immersed in their coagulated blood, some lacking their procreative organs, which were cut off and put in acid for exhibition by children..." (Patrick Sills, London Observer, 1976)

With such Palestinian animosity toward their Muslim brethren, how are we to be convinced that their "wounded hands are still able to carry the olive branch from the rubble of the trees that the occupation uproots every day"

Yom Kippur

2010-09-19T07:59:00.001-07:00

A Covering

2010-09-17T23:56:00.001-07:00

From the Page of Time

2010-08-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

On October 26, 2005 Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech at the "World Without Zionism" conference regarding the elimination of a "disgraceful stain from the Islamic world," affirmed that the "regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" (word for word, Persian to English, translation, by Arash Norouzi).

Since that day, Ahmadinejad has been consumed with the passion of developing nuclear weapons to remove Israel "from the page of time." But the God of Israel has determined "from the foundation of the world" to preempt that plan:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel (Psalms 2:1-9).

A short time after the 4th day of the 9th month (Chisleu), in the forth year of Darius (534 B.C.), during an era when warfare consisted of little more than "sticks and stones" Zechariah prophesied a conflagration rivaling that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... and what will "vanish from the page of time":

And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth (Zechariah 14:12).

Harvard

2010-08-15T20:44:00.001-07:00

Changing Truth into a Lie

2010-08-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

I am always confident that the media, given opportunity, will change "the truth... into a lie" (c.f. Romans 1:25):

Suspected serial killer Elias Abuelazam (an Arab), linked to multiple unprovoked deaths and stabbings, most African-American, was identified today by a CBS news broadcast as "Israeli" without qualification.

Helen Thomas Tells Jews...

2010-06-04T23:16:00.001-07:00

The Samson Option

2010-05-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

Washington decided on Friday to join 188 other nations in singling out Israel’s purported nuclear capability for special censure....

Israel Against the World

2010-05-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it (Zechariah 12:1-3).

And Then There Were None

2010-04-11T17:27:00.001-07:00

A Friend of Israel

2010-04-10T10:27:00.001-07:00

A Friend of Israel

2010-04-10T10:26:00.001-07:00

Dresden

2010-02-14T22:56:00.001-08:00

Lest We Forget

2010-01-27T21:40:00.000-08:00

Today

2009-11-05T22:20:00.001-08:00

Fifth Day of Iyar 5708

2009-05-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

A nation born in one day, in the midst of the valley of dry bones, in the land of the graves of the fathers. One called the Son of man speaks unto the bones the Word of the L-rd. As he prophesies there is a great noise and a terrible shaking as bone comes to bone, and then sinew and flesh and skin! Like a newborn child struggling for breath yet without breath, there is no breath in the whole house of Israel. Walking corpses, they cried out: “our hope is lost”, “we are cut off” … cast away of the world, smitten of the L-rd. Abiding “many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim” (cf. Hosea 3:4). “Thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron” (Deuteronomy 28:23).

“Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the L-rd G-D; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live” (cf. Ezekiel 37:9).

He has opened your graves, and brought you up out of your graves, but has yet to put His Spirit in you, that ye shall live. “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).

The hand of the L-RD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the L-RD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O L-rd G-D, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the L-RD. Thus saith the L-rd G-D unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the L-RD. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the L-rd G-D; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the L-rd G-D; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the L-RD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the L-RD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the L-RD (Ezekiel 37:1-14).

Called by My Name

2009-05-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, Shirley Dobson will attempt to persuade Americans that they are the people “of whom it is written”:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (II Chronicles 7:14).

But are Americans a people "called by His name"? And did He promise to hear our penitence from heaven, and forgive our sin and heal our land? The answer is obvious.

There has been only one people “called by His name” (cf. 2 Chronicles 7:12-14), only one city “called by His name” (cf. Jeremiah 25:29), only one house “called by His name” (cf. Jeremiah 34:15), and none have to do with America.

And what is the name by which He is called? The Holy One of Israel (yiśrâ’êl) (cf. 2 Kings 19:22, Psalms 78:41, Psalms 89:18, Isaiah 1:4, 5:19, 5:24, 10:20, 12:6, 17:7, 29:19, 30:11, 30:12, 30:15, 31:1, 37:23, 41:14, 41:16, 41:20, 43:3, 43:14, 45:11, 47:4, 48:17, 49:7, 54:5, 55:5, 60:9, 60:14, Jeremiah 50:29, Jeremiah 51:5).

The promise of II Chronicles 7:14 has never come true for any people. But one day it will, but not for America:

The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the L-RD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the L-RD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the L-RD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy G-d thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the L-RD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever (Isaiah 60:14-21).

Purloined Passover

2009-04-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’S passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever (Exodus 12:1-14).

Last Night

2009-03-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

Last night as you espoused the Covenant position, I had opportunity to say little more than “I disagree.” I love you as a brother and more than a brother; as one “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.” Yet, I must not let this moment pass; Covenantalism is always delineated by an indelible trail of blood, particularly for His chosen nation. I hope you have opportunity to examine the examples compiled herein.

His Moment in Time

2009-02-28T22:55:00.001-08:00

It was wonderful to hear that familiar voice reverberating through the sanctuary during The 50 Years of Valley Church commemoration. His words were once a significant portion of our corporate witness to the world.¹ As others today have shared, here are some of my fondest memories:

I remember a pastor who labored among us with preparations consistent with such words as wisdom; doctrine; discernment. He would construct each phrase with theological precision, and expound each verse in context, i.e., in context of all of Scripture. He even used a stopwatch to time the allotted time, but as he stood before us each Lord’s Day morning, he would forget his notes and the Spirit would simply overflow. That joy returned each evening, as he soon forgot the hour... Did I say, “expound each verse”? That is so cold a word, rather the Spirit within gave each one life.

He once told of a child in a garden “helping” his mother, and of the rose bud he brought her with all its delicate layers prematurely unfolded. He warned of the evangelical exuberance that attempts to force some soul before his time rather than just sowing seed and relinquishing to the unseen power of the Spirit: “…So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how” (Mark 4:26-27).

For those committing children to the Lord, he always seemed to find some Godly virtue in every name. And there was always that letter not to be opened until a thirteenth birthday; a “time capsule” containing spiritual admonition to a maturing child, but perhaps more important, a subtle reminder of a parent’s vow.

Undercharged at a store, most would have been on their way, but he went back begging to repay. The clerk essentially said it was no big deal, but for him it was. Then he had the manager involved; it was not just a matter of a dollar, but of a witness, perhaps the eternal destiny of a soul, or perhaps compromise in the eyes of a watching child.

Upon receiving a significant opportunity to serve the Lord in another church, he immediately brought the matter before us for prayer… for His will and glory.

He loved basketball and playing it with his fellow workers in the Truth, but for some unexplained reason he felt convicted. Most would not have given a second thought. But “transgressing” conventional “Christian” wisdom, he opted for a still small voice.

And how fervently he encouraged us to love His first love Israel whose covenants he taught were the very “fingerprints of God.”

When personally convicted in a trivial matter regarding 1 Timothy 3:4, he did not compromise, but tendered his resignation.

When things done in secret caused ignominy to descend upon the church, these things were confronted in the presence of all… but with love and tears and the humbling realization: if the Apostle Paul regarded himself the “chief” of sinners “then who am I”?

In the final days of his affliction when a friend came to console, our brother coveted assurance that His little "AWANA" ones would continue to receive His Word.

And like the man for whom he was named, he fought the good fight, he finished the course, he kept the faith. “And he was not; for God took him.”

I remember him testifying that for each of us there is an opportune moment in history, a moment in eternity, to bring glory to the Living God. I remember how he used his opportune moment. How during our frequent times together, he would forget the lectern and perched on the edge of the platform, seeming to curl his toes around it, attempting to get closer still. And in messages filled with excitement and joy, he shared his most recent discoveries from the Word. In his words: “There is nothing in this world more exciting … then to know and do God’s will”!

¹ Have long regretted the loss of this man’s witness to The Valley Church and the world i.e., the thousands of recorded messages purposed for salvation of the lost, maturing of the faith, and a tribulation witness to a world spiraling into the ultimate apostasy. Have long prayed that some remnant of this, our corporate witness, would one day be restored. Preparing this remembrance, I was overjoyed to learn that some messages have eluded loss:

http://www.sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=hilltopaudio

The Center of the Universe

2009-01-23T23:39:00.001-08:00

Hermeneutics and Honor

2009-01-22T23:20:00.000-08:00

A Dream

2009-01-20T21:40:00.001-08:00

"... one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places plains, and the crooked places will be made straight... and before the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." With this crudely transcribed misappropriation of Scripture (cf. Isaiah 40:4-5). Martin Luther King initiated the conclusion of his "I Have a Dream" Black Liberation treatise.

"Misappropriation" is not an over statement, King plagiarized liberally and habitually from a variety of eloquent and high-minded sources in so much that Ralph E. Luker, King Papers Project researcher and civil rights historian, comments:

"Moreover, the farther King went in his academic career, the more deeply ingrained the patterns of borrowing language without clear attribution became. Thus, the plagiarism in his dissertation seemed to be, by then, the product of his long-established practice" (Ralph E. Luker "On Martin Luther King's Plagiarism" 2004-12-21).

It is one thing to misappropriate the words of men, but quite another to misappropriate the words of God to support a social [socialist] gospel i.e., the precepts of men.

King in typical Black Liberation eisegetical fashion "spiritualizes" i.e., reads into the Isaiah passage any idea he chooses rather than allowing the literal contextual messianic meaning to pervade:

"Every Valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God" ( Luke 3:5-6).

King learned too late that there are consequences for misappropriating Scripture even to end that blacks are liberated from real or supposed economic, political, or social, subjugation. Black America is learning still:

"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:22-23).

Israel’s Messiah

2008-12-25T22:19:00.000-08:00

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Rosh Hashanah, 29 September 2008?

2008-09-29T00:04:00.000-07:00

“And the L-RD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets” (Leviticus 23:23-24).

There is mystery surrounding what is commonly called Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets). Unlike the other six Messianic feasts, it has no name in Scripture. It is simply referred to as Yom Teruah (תְּרוּעָה: Day of alarm, or shouting, or trumpet blast). It is a memorial, but what is being memorialized is uncertain. Jewish liturgy describes it as Yom HaDin (Day of Judgment). Although it is to be on the first day of Tishri, the seventh month of the Hebrew year, ascertaining the day is dependent on atmospheric conditions that sometimes obscure the delicate crescent of the new moon. It could be said: “of that day and hour knoweth no man.”

Paul writes of another trumpet blast in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

And again in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Yearning for Zion

2008-04-13T23:10:00.001-07:00

On These Truths We Stand

2008-03-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

God’s Last Words

2007-02-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen (God’s Last Words).²⁸

²⁸God’s Last Words, Revelation 22:18-21.

Our Covenant with Each Other and the Lord

2007-02-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

Many have forgotten the seven Epistles of Jesus Christ, His letters to the seven churches regarding false doctrine e.g., “the doctrine of Balaam,” “the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes,” “that woman Jezebel,” “them which say they are Jews, and are not,” and “them which say they are apostles, and are not.” These letters composed for our edification included one church without commendation, a church that was beyond doctrine:

Now this church was neutralized, it was useless … petrifying. This church was the kind of church that would say lets all get together in one big happy family. Doctrine divides so let’s not discuss doctrine. Let’s just love each other. And this church is guilty of redefining truth in order to affect a compromise … They sit on the fence. They water down the gospel, then they jazz it up a little bit, then they spoon feed it to a pampered generation. And that’s precisely what this church was involved in doing (The Valley Church, Laodicea, emphasis added).²⁶
A person who is truly regenerate, a person who truly believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will not tamper with the Word of God. If you really trust Christ you won’t tamper with it … there are some people today who come dangerously close. … Going to cut it [Revelation] out of here? Only an unregenerate person could do that. Only a person who has denied the Word of God itself and the fact that it is the Word of God could tamper with this book. These things written here are intended to be understood literally. And God is going to bring them to pass literally. … If Jesus Christ came literally the first time and if Jesus Christ did the things that were literally prophesied the first time, He will do the things that are literally prophesied the second time and all the related events. And you can be absolutely dead certain that the things we have studied … in the book of Revelation, these things will come to past! They are absolutely certain (The Valley Church, God’s Last Words, emphasis added).²⁷

I still remember the summer evening my wife and I found Valley with cross silhouetted against the sky and the witness of a parking lot overflowing. And how we joined others that night in mutual affirmation of the covenant of marriage, a covenant we had made only months before. Hopefully, this letter will be an opportunity to affirm again our doctrinal statement¹, our statement of faith, our covenant with each other and the Lord, and to honor the Last Will and Testament of those of our brothers and sisters who served and gave and prayed for this church and are now with the Lord. This is our heritage and their reward.

¹Paul E. Steele, ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, (Published by The Valley Church, Cupertino, California, 1978).
²⁶The Valley Church, Laodicea, 4/28/74, (audio tape).
²⁷The Valley Church, God’s Last Words, 8/22/76, (audio tape).

A Hundred and Forty Four Thousand of Israel

2007-02-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

The great commission was given to Jews to be witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And according to The Valley Church, we may have a part in bringing it to completion by putting “tools in the hands of a hundred and forty four thousand of Israel.”

A ministry God has given to Valley Church. … The thing that will bring individuals to Jesus Christ after the church is gone is what we leave behind. … Sure there will be men out trying to destroy them. … Who’s to know where a little pocket size cassette may go? … Can the Anti-Christ and his forces go into every nook and cranny? … Sure, they can recognize a Bible. … Certainly, Satan and all his forces can’t listen to all the tapes … such a great opportunity as the opportunity that we can have to leave behind even if the church is raptured today … We have over twelve hundred tapes setting out in that library … and after the church is raptured, some of you who have been witnessing to people in the community … [They will] probably storm that door to find out what kind of a message it was. … Some of those people may listen to tapes and find Jesus Christ. ... Maybe this one. … We have today one of the most fantastic opportunities to get this message out to all quarters, and then leave it behind when we are raptured so it can be perpetuated through seven years of awful tribulation. … There will be a hundred and forty four thousand of Israel that will be spared. Most of the rest... will die. … We may be able to put tools in the hands of a hundred and forty four thousand of Israel right here (The Valley Church, emphasis added).²³

There are some of course who have claimed that we are the one hundred and forty four thousand. … It is very necessary that we recognize this to be literal as we see it here in the book of revelation. One hundred and forty four thousand could not be a representative number for we have the hundred and forty four thousand divided very carefully into twelve thousand from each of twelve tribes of the nation of Israel specifically named by God. And when they were named in the Old Testament, no one doubted that they were literal. But when they are named here in the book of Revelation, a great many people try to say … there must be some spiritual meaning to this rather than taking it in its natural form that which God intended… The Greek is very clear, it should be taken literal (The Valley Church, emphasis added).²⁴

When Gentiles come to Christ, Jews get jealous. … And some of the remnant of the people of Israel were seeing this and seeing the reality in the lives of those people and the result was that they were turning to Jesus Christ and proving that they were a remnant according to God’s choice. And someday the day will come, particularly at the rapture when people are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, the church is gone and the Jews say: you know, that should have been us. One hundred and forty four thousand will be saved in a day and become evangelist during a seven year period of the tribulation… and their immediate result will be that they will be a blessing to the world. But it all came because the Jews rejected and the Gentiles didn’t. So the Jews were a blessing to the Gentiles in giving them the gospel, because when they rejected it, it went to the Gentiles. The blessing of God that was theirs went to another, and having gone to another, now that same blessing is going to come back to the Jews and then together there is going to be a great movement of the Spirit of God (The Valley Church, emphasis added).²⁵

²³The Valley Church, The Dispensation of Judgment, 11/10/74, (audio tape).
²⁴The Valley Church, Salvation of a Multitude, 11/24/74, (audio tape).
²⁵The Valley Church, Let’s Make People Jealous of Jesus, 3/8/87, (audio tape).

Rachel Weeping for Her Children

2007-02-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

In an Eilat mall, I saw a girl barely five foot tall in camouflage fatigues and with the semiautomatic weapon suspended from her shoulder almost dragging the ground as she walked with her six-foot something boyfriend. In the Negev I saw young people on a Sunday picnic with side arms and automatic weapons in hand. In Jerusalem I literally saw the Daughters of Zion armed and paroling the city of peace. And in the dark stone hewn chamber of Yad Vashem, a candle’s eternal reflection and a wailing not unlike the wind aroused the somber remembrance of “Rachel weeping for her children.” “… they have cast lots for my people and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink” (Joel 3:3).

On Eagles’ Wings

2007-02-24T13:48:00.000-08:00

Early Sunday morning, July 4, 1976, before America awoke to her 200th year of independence, the lead Hercules flew low over Eilat, the southern most city of Israel. The crew, returning from a covert and still classified mission, was both apprehensive and amazed to see people in the streets waving and embracing and welcoming them home. Seven days earlier Air France 139, in route from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport to Paris via Athens, was hijacked in air. Within minutes, Israeli Defense Force (IDF) operatives implemented pre-planned procedures and alerted army units. In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Rabin convened a congruous assortment of defense ministers as the France Airbus flew unexpectedly toward the African continent, eventually landing in Dictator Idi Amin’s Uganda. Shortly after arrival, a list of names was compiled, and as the passengers were separated according to the list “the German word Selektion was muttered around the room - a reminder of Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz choosing those who would live and those who would die” (Maj. Louis Williams, Raid on Entebbe: Entebbe Diary)!

IDF Senior Press Officer Maj. Louis Williams documents the true "mission impossible" that was to follow. He describes the small but elite force of twenty-nine Israeli commandos, a gauntlet of “insurmountable” challenges, and flying into the "heart of Africa" and back again with the logistical precision of seconds. And in the excerpt to follow how even the forces of nature opposed the eventual return of Israel’s children “on eagles’ wings.”

Turning westward, the four Hercules headed into the African continent over Ethiopia. The weather was stormy, forcing the pilots to divert northwards close to the Sudanese frontier…. On the approaches to Lake Victoria, they hit storm clouds towering in a solid mass from ground level to 40,000 feet. There was no time to go around and no way to go above-so they ploughed on through. Conditions were so bad that the cockpit windows were blue with the flashes of static electricity.

The only assault force causality was the young commander of the Hercules squadron Lt. Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu. As his second in command exited the lead Hercules, Rabin and Peres inquired: “How was Yoni killed?” The succinct response: “He went first, he fell first.”

“a female El Al ticket agent…”

2007-02-24T12:46:00.000-08:00

The major news media rarely if ever mentioned the name of “a female El Al ticket agent” who was the first to die in the July 4, 2002 LAX “incident” U.S. authorities refused to acknowledge as terrorist attack. Though it occurred on the anniversary of the day Israel, in another airport of the world, wrote the definitive word on counter terrorism, federal intelligence agencies have yet to classify the incident as terrorism.

Victoria Hen’s family had planned a surprise party for the following day when her boyfriend, Yaron Cohen, was to propose. That day was replaced with dreary funeral preparations that had to be completed before sunset (the beginning of the Shabbat). Although Yaron, a Cohen (descendant of Aaron), was not allowed by Scripture (Leviticus 21:1) to even be at her graveside, he confided to a friend: "Vicky was my whole life. I expect that at any moment she will walk through the door with her beautiful laugh and smile."

Rachel’s Eyes

2007-02-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

I arrived at my LAX gate after almost two hours in El Al security just in time to be evacuated to the corridors. Female counter attendants were quickly reaching under every seat. Others hurriedly but carefully removed every trash container from the immediate area. Then out of no where, a striking young woman. She resembled another young ticket agent who was the first to die in a terrorist attack three years before. She analyzed each passport while asking a dozen different questions in a dozen different ways, but always punctuating each question with a smile. Some were readmitted. Others scanned for nitrogen-based residues. And some were sent to disrobe; those deviating from single file quickly recognized the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) connections of this twenty-something crowd. Then as I handed her my passport, I noticed her eyes, beautiful eyes, Rachel’s eyes … but in them, the weariness of four thousand years.

My Brethren, Literally the Jews

2007-02-24T00:45:00.000-08:00

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Thenshall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these MY BRETHREN [LITERALLY THE JEWS] ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal (Matthew 25:31:46, emphasis added).

The twenty-fifth chapter of Mathew talks about the fact that there will be separated at this time the sheep from the goats and a lot of people misunderstand this. The sheep and the goats speak of those nations, particularly individual people. The sheep are those that have followed the Lord Jesus Christ and evidenced that fact by being kind to the nation of Israel during those tribulation days. And the goats are those that have refused and rebelled against God (The Valley Church, emphasis added).²¹

²¹ The Valley Church, Invasion From Space, 5/16/76, (audio tape).

The Valley of Jehoshaphat

2007-02-24T00:30:00.000-08:00

On Judgment Day, the Judge of all the Earth will have a litmus test, The Jew:

For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again [turn back (shûb; שׁוּב)] the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead [execute judgment (shâphaṭ; שָׁפַט)]with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. … they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink (Joel 3:1-3, emphasis added).

At the French resort of Evian on the shores of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1938, President Roosevelt initiated a nine-day international conference, supposedly to facilitate Jewish immigration from Germany and Austria.

Very important people were here and all the delegates had a nice time. They took pleasure cruises on the lake. They gambled at night at the casino. They took mineral baths and massages…some of them took the excursions to Chamonix to go summer skiing. Some went riding, some played golf. Meetings. Yes, some attended the meetings. But, of course it is difficult to sit indoors hearing speeches when all the pleasures that Evian offers are waiting right outside (Rene Richier as quoted in Peggy Mann, When the World Passed by on the Other Side, Manchester Guardian Weekly, 7 May 1938).

Here are the recollections of an uninvited delegate, Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel:

… sitting there in that magnificent hall and listening to the delegates of thirty-two countries rise, each in turn, to explain how much they would have liked to take in substantial numbers of refugees and how unfortunate it was that they were not able to do so, was a terrible experience, I don't think that anyone who didn't live through it can understand what I felt at Evian – a mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration and horror (As quoted in, The Evian Conference - Hitler's Green Light for Genocide, Annette Shaw, 2001, Quoted by permission of Stephen D. Smith, Director, Beth Shalom, (Letter 15/3/2000), Perspective, Vol. 1, Issue 1, July 1998, "Nobody Wants Them,” p. 21).

"At the end of the nine-day conference, Hitler had his Green Light" (Annette Shaw, The Evian Conference - Hitler's Green Light for Genocide, 2001):

'Nobody wants them' claimed the German newspaper Völkischer Beobachter after the Evian Conference in July 1938 and Hitler gloated, saying, 'It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them.’ (Perspective, Beth Shalom, p. 21).

"Mashiach is Near"

2007-02-23T23:46:00.000-08:00

Jews as a nation, in the most majestic passage of Scripture concerning their Mashiach (Messiah), have yet to recognize the suffering Servant of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah as their Yeshua Ben David, they spiritualize it.

Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits writes: "God's chosen people is the suffering servant of God. The majestic fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is the description of Israel's martyrology through the centuries" (Prager & Telushkin, 1975, p. 89, emphasis added).

Rabbi Morris Kertzer writes: "Today, only the extreme orthodox still cling to the literal belief in the coming of a Messiah. … Most Jews, however, have reinterpreted the age-old belief in a Messiah, not as an individual Redeemer, but as mankind collectively, who by their own acts can usher in a Kingdom of Heaven" (Morris N. Kertzer, What is a Jew, 1953, p. 39, emphasis added).

Shneeraleh, Peraleh
Strings of pearls, and banners made of gold
Mashiach Ben David is coming we are told
Holding a goblet in his right hand
Making a blessing, blessing all the land

Amen and Amen, this is true,
Mashiach is coming, through me and through you
Amen and Amen, this is clear,
Mashiach is coming, Mashiach is near.
(tr., Shirona, emphasis added)

After Birkenau and Treblinka and Ravensbrueck and Camp David and Oslo and a never ending “Road Map” to "peace," Israel has conceded. She has joined the world in spiritualizing His Word; yet it matters not, their Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, will keep His Covenant:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn (Zechariah 12:9-10, emphasis added).

The Land of Israel
O land where the Shekinah shone,
Whose hills by One Were trod,
Writ in the volume of the Book—
The promised One of God:
Rich blessings will from thee proceed
To earth’s remotest bound
Wen thy lost sons, at home again,
Immanuel have found.
(Max I. Reich, Sweet Singer of Israel, Moody Press: Chicago, 1948, pp. 152,159).

A Zvika Force of One

2007-02-23T22:29:00.000-08:00

On Yom Kippur, Israel’s most holy Shabbat (1973), the forces of 13 Arab nations, and Cuban and Palestinian troops converged on Israel to destroy her.

On that fateful Day of Atonement, the Israelis were outnumbered and outgunned by staggering margins. In Sinai, for example, exactly 450 Israeli troops faced an invading force of 100,000 Egyptians, who enjoyed a superiority in artillery of 40-1 and a force of 1,350 tanks against Israel’s 91. On the Golan, the Syrians had eight tanks for every Israeli tank, and even higher ratios of troops, guns and planes; later the Syrians would be bolstered by contingents of Iraqis, Jordanians, Palestinians, Saudi Arabians, Kuwaitis and Moroccans. In addition, the Arabs were equipped with the latest in Soviet rocketry, against which Israel had virtually no defense (Matt Nesvisky, The Lessons We Learned in 1973, The Jewish Journal, 2004-09-24).

Of those young men who stood between Israel and death, Golda Meir later recalls, ‘They fought and fell like lions’ (Peter Colon, The Yom Kippur War, Israel My Glory Oct/Nov 1997 p.15, emphasis added).

After the first day, the enemy in the Golan with tactical, logistical, and numerical superiority, the element of surprise, and Soviet supplied night-vision virtually destroyed Israeli resistance and was headed toward a strategic crossroads and Israel’s divisional headquarters. During the night, Lieutenant Zvika Greengold, a young blond son of Holocaust survivors, unattached to any unit, hitchhiked to the conflagration. Removing the dead from a Centurion tank, he took command.

For the next 20 hours, Zvika Force [koach Tzvika], as he came to be known on the radio net, fought running battles with Syrian tanks—sometimes alone, sometimes as part of a larger unit, changing tanks half a dozen times as they were knocked out. He was wounded and burned but stayed in action and repeatedly showed up at critical moments from an unexpected direction to change the course of a skirmish (Abraham Rabinovich, Shattered Heights, The Jerusalem Post, September 25, 1998).

His and a few remaining Israeli tanks succeeded in stalling the enemy who apparently thought they were confronting a superior force. Concurrently Prime Minister Golda Meir, conceding the Golan, began implementing the Samson Option (Judges 16:30):

During the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Israel came close to making a nuclear preemptive strike when it seemed to be facing defeat at the hands of Syrian armor, according to a half dozen former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials familiar with the still-classified incident…. According to a former senior U.S. diplomat, by Oct. 8, Israel's northern front commander, Maj. Gen. Yitzak Hoffi, had informed Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that he couldn't hold out much longer against the 14,000 Syrian tanks rolling through Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Dayan was ‘attacked by acute panic’ and declared to advisers: ‘This is the end of the Third Temple.’ But if Israel was to perish, it would take Damascus and Cairo with it. According to a former senior CIA official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, Dayan sought an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir and secured her authorization to arm 13 intermediate-range Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads. Eight F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft were also to be given nuclear arms, former senior U.S. officials said (Richard Sale (UPI Terrorism Correspondent), Yom Kippur: Israel's 1973 nuclear alert, United Press International, 9/16/2002, emphasis added).

Unlike the Army of One recruiting ploy, the day is coming when every Jew of Israel will literally be a Zvika Force of One:

In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first,that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah. In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them (Zechariah 12:6-8, emphasis added).

The Covenants of Israel

2007-02-23T21:57:00.000-08:00

The... fingerprints [of God] are this … the covenants of Israel… a reference to the unconditional covenants that constituted them as a nation. Make no mistake about it; there are four covenants that stand out as unique. They are unconditional and they are everlasting. The first is a seed called the Abrahamic Covenant. The second is a land called the Palestinian Covenant. The third is a throne called the Davidic Covenant. And the Forth is the New Covenant which is a restoration of the people of Israel and the final Kingdom. God gave to them these four unconditional covenants. They were unconditional; there was nothing that Israel had to do in order to have those covenants. They were theirs lock, stock, and barrel, and they are eternal. They will never change. Every one of them is everlasting: an everlasting seed, an everlasting land, an everlasting throne, an everlasting kingdom. … God yet has a future for Israel. … But understand this, these people had in the Old Testament the covenant that their seed would remain forever, the covenant that their land would always be theirs, the covenant that they would always have a throne and they would always have a kingdom. Ultimately God will fulfill all of that (The Valley Church, emphasis added).²⁰

²⁰The Valley Church, The Fingerprints of God, 2/23/86, (audio tape).

A Nation Born in One Day?

2007-02-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children (Isaiah 66:8).

On Sabbath Eve, the 5th Day of Iyar 5708 (14 May 1948) David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel and appealed “to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel … in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream — the redemption of Israel.” President Truman, an outsider unexpectedly elevated to the Oval Office a few years earlier, was immediately notified. Quickly hand correcting a two sentence response without notifying officials of contrary opinion in the State Department or a Special Session of the UN General Assembly, the United States, in the person of Harry S. Truman, was the first to recognize “the provisional government as de facto authority of the new state of Israel.” In the eleven minutes it took Truman to respond, the two thousand year justification for SPIRITUALIZING Israel's covenants, promises, and blessings vaporized! The children of Israel were in the land.

The first person of course is the radiant woman which was none other than the nation of Israel. And fighting against the woman was the great dragon and this dragon is none other the person of Satan in his great diabolical work in trying to destroy the nation of Israel because by that he could make God a liar... Of course he ultimately fails because God will yet proclaim His purpose for Israel. He will yet reveal that purpose. It will yet be unfolded in time to come and the very fact that Israel is a nation today is indicative of the fact that God is going to keep His Word as if there was any doubt (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹⁹

There was dancing in the streets, and then the realization that Israel’s rebirth would be through the fire. Arab forces of Lebanon, Syria, Iraqi, Egypt, Tran Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Yemen converged within hours to annihilate the fledgling nation, which in the estimation of British Field Marshall Montgomery would occur within two weeks due to the imbalance in training and ordnance: “1 tank w/o gun (Arabs 40 tanks), 0 war planes (Arabs 74), 5 artillery pieces (Arabs 140), 3 armed ships (Arabs 12)” (Yosef Ofek, Not on a Silver Platter: From National Home to Sovereign State, 1939-1949, 1984). Israel did have access to a few Piper Cubs, from which Jews tossed empty seltzer bottles modified to mimic the sound of falling bombs. They also had a few other small planes where the bombardier, legs strapped to the door, would chuck improvised bombs (some with sewer pipe casings) between his legs football style. Like David in the valley of Elah they had little more than sticks and stones, but they were fulfilling His purpose “that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel” (cf. 1 Samuel 17).
¹⁹The Valley Church, Chapter 13, 9/14/75, (audio tape).

A Preeminent and Venerable Delusion

2007-02-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most preeminent and venerable delusion today is that the New Covenant was promised to a Gentile church. Contrary to this myth perpetuated by Origin, Chrysostom, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and the winds of doctrine that currently abound, Jeremiah has literally hard-coded the primary recipients:

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more (Jeremiah 31:31-34, emphasis added).

And this is confirmed virtually verbatim after He poured out the New Covenant in His blood:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more (Hebrews 8:8-12, emphasis added).

Thankfully when some of the natural branches were broken off there was provision, a cautionary provision, for Gentiles to be grafted in:

And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins (Romans 11:17-27, emphasis added).

The Jewishness of Our Faith

2007-02-22T21:56:00.000-08:00

Many fail to realize the Jewishness of their faith and when they encounter it they spiritualize it. Many have forgotten that the Lord was “not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24); that the apostles were Jews; that the three thousand souls baptized on the day of Pentecost (cf. Acts 2:41) were “Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven (Acts 2:5); that those in the temple at the hour of prayer (cf. Acts 3) which heard the word and believed “the number of the men was about five thousand [Jews]” (Acts 4:4); and that Acts 21:20 acknowledges the “many thousands of Jews there are which believe.”

James wrote “to the twelve tribes” (James 1:1), Peter to the Diaspora (cf. 1 Peter 1:1), and Hebrews, contrary to popular opinion, was written to the Hebrews!

But most significantly, the Goyim have forgotten that “Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross” (John 19:19 ), “ in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS” (Luke 23:38).

The Promises of Israel

2007-02-22T21:51:00.000-08:00

The promises of Israel were one of their greatest assets: they had promises concerning the Messiah, they had promises for human problems in time, they had promises that related to future blessing, the return of the Messiah, the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, and finally the complete fulfillment of all the unconditional covenants. They were all promised to them and their failure to appropriate by faith the promises did not nullify the promises. What it did was get them to the place where they could not appropriate what God had promised and it went on to another generation. And if that did not response there will be another and there will be another and there will be another and there will be a Jew to the end of time and beyond. There will always be the people of Israel because God promised an everlasting seed and the very fact that they exist thought all the adversity is an indication that God has not forgotten, and … some day God is going to RESTORE THEM (The Valley Church, no emphasis added)!¹⁸

¹⁸The Valley Church, The Fingerprints of God, 3/2/86, (audio tape).

The Unpardonable Journalistic Sin

2007-02-22T20:47:00.000-08:00

“In the year 2002,” an Open Letter impugned those who embrace the verbal inspiration of Scripture and share His love for Israel with the phrases: “a serious misreading of Holy Scripture”; “false claims”; “[compromising] the Gospel”; “bad Christian theology”; and “a violation of the Gospel mandate” (R. Fowler White, Ph.D., Knox Theological Seminary; R. C. Sproul, Ph.D., President & Ligonier Ministries, first and second signatories respectively), An Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties…, 2002). This Open Letter is reminiscent of the inaccurate, undocumented, and inflammatory “yellow” journalism of the 1890s when newspaper giants Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst competed for market share. In January of 1887, Hearst’s foreign correspondent telegraphed: “Everything is quiet. There is not trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return.” Hearst is alleged to have replied, “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” In the months that followed, as Hearst repeatedly committed the unpardonable journalistic sin of misquoting a source, America found herself at war. But in matters of more apocalyptic consequence, this Open Letter commits the unpardonable journalistic sin of misquoting God:

The Open Letter states: “The entitlement of any one ethnic or religious group to territory in the Middle East called the ‘Holy Land’ cannot be supported by Scripture.” However, the “Source” indicates otherwise:

He said unto him [Abram], I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. … to thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates (Genesis 15:18).

The LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God. … And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God (Genesis 17:1-8).

… I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee [Jacob] will I give it, and to thy seed (Genesis 28:13).

For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again [turn back] the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it (Jeremiah 30:3).

Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place,and I will cause them to dwell safely: And they shall be my people, and I will be their God… And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that theyshall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul (Jeremiah 32:37-41).
… Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel (Ezekiel 11:17).

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel. … And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever (Ezekiel 37:21-25).

Saith the LORD … I will bring again [turn back] the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God (Amos 9:13-15).

Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. … And the LORD shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation (Zechariah 2:10-13).

… and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. … Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified (Isaiah 60:16-21).

The Open Letter states: “The worship of God is no longer identified with any specific earthly sanctuary.” But the “Source” has announced a future earthly sanctuary over twenty times (Ezekiel chapters 41 through 49). And He is very specific about this tabernacle and where it will reside: the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel … and bring them into their own land … I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore (Ezekiel 37:21-28).

The Open Letter states: “… all who bless him [Jesus] and his people will be blessed of God, and all who curse him and his people will be cursed of God. These promises do not apply to any particular ethnic group, but to the church of Jesus Christ, the true Israel.” But the “Source” is very specific regarding these promises and the particular persons or ethnic group to which they apply:

Now the LORD had said unto Abram … I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee (Genesis 12:1-3).

And his father Isaac said unto him [Jacob], Come near now, and kiss me, my son. … Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. (Genesis 27:26-29).

How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel. … Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee (Numbers 24:5-9).

And the authors of the Open Letter are detached from reality in attributing Israeli culpability for “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” If Israel’s enemies would lay down their arms, there would be peace, but if Israel would lay down her arms, there would be NO Israel:

On Sabbath morning, April 27, 2002, a terrorist infiltrated the community of Adora and broke into the Shefi family home. He burst into the children’s room where he found the mother, Shiri, trying to protect her three small children – Danielle, 5; Eliad, 4; and Oriel, 2. The terrorist certainly saw the fear in their eyes. He shot them all. Daneille was killed on the spot; her mother and two brothers were wounded (Target: Israeli Children, [Israeli] Ministry of Education).

JERUSALEM, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Israeli Hani Avrahami phoned her husband to check that he was safe as he travelled through the West Bank on the way to the army base in which he served as a reserve soldier. But instead his killer answered the call. 'We are now slaughtering your husband,' said the voice that answered Yossi Avrahami's mobile telephone…. Vadim Novesche had been married only a week to his wife Irina when he was killed by the mob. She too, was trying to reach him by phone in the last moments of his life. ``I said 'Vadim?' and they hung up the phone,'' she said.

After using the unpardonable journalistic sin of misquoting God to strip Israel of every covenant, promise, and blessing, the signatories of the Open Letter, with verbiage consistent with the UN, EU, WCC, Oslo Accord, and Road Map to Peace (sic), cast their lot with the world. And as a consequence, they recklessly impugn Israel and those who love her with complicity in a “vicious cycle of atrocity and displacement,” “violent seizure and occupation,” and “a divine mandate to conquer and hold.” Sadly, the Open Letter blesses those who curse Israel and curses those who bless Israel.

The “Yellow” Star of David

2007-02-21T23:26:00.000-08:00

“In 2001, the WCC [World Council of Churches] Executive Committee recommended an international boycott of goods produced in illegal (sic) settlements on occupied territory, and the WCC-related APRODEV agencies in Europe are now working to have Israeli settlement products fully and properly identified before shipment to the European Community. … The Central Committee takes note of the current action by the Presbyterian Church (USA) which has initiated a process of phased, selective divestment from multinational corporations. … This action is commendable in both method and manner” (World Council of Churches - Central Committee News Release, Geneva, 21 February 2005, emphasis added).

So you have the picture that we have today forming, and has formed, and will continue to form of the World Council of Churches and all of its cohorts, because they have merged themselves together in an unholy union made sort of a spiritual smorgasbord so you can kind of pick and choose your own doctrine. Whatever you want to believe is fine but it all comes out in the wash as long as you are a member of our organization. … In order for a person to hold fast to the doctrine and the truth of the Word of God today it is many times necessary for him to leave the apostate system. … ‘I will put on you no other burden.’ Look if you have apostates running your church, you have enough problems. If this has become the dominate factor in your church, you have big problems. … ‘hold on to what you have’ (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹³

“On July 2, 2004, the 216th General Assembly of the [Reformed] Presbyterian Church (USA) approved several measures … including a call … to begin gathering data to support a selective divestment of holdings [approximately $8 billion] in multinational corporations doing business in Israel” (Alexa Smith, GA04121: Assembly Endorses Israel Divestment, July 2, 2004, emphasis added).

On April 1, 1933, Germany’s newly elected chancellor initiated what was to be a 1000 year millennium of the Third Reich with a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses. The Star of David was scrawled in yellow and black across doors and windows: “our studio, like the other Jewish businesses in Karlsruhe, was plastered with signs during the anti-Jewish boycott: ‘Don't buy from Jews’” (Johanna Hirsch, child Holocaust survivor, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.).

¹³The Valley Church, Thyatira, 3/24/74, (audio tape).

No Greater Anti-Semitism

2007-02-21T22:18:00.000-08:00

Keith A. Mathison, director of curriculum development for Ligonier Ministries, initiated a firestorm of controversy within the preterist community with the book he edited: When Shall These Things Be? (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing Company, 2004). One reader leveling charges of inaccuracy and slander writes: “What Mathison does … is absolutely disgusting and twisted and … a deliberate attempt to prejudice the reader…” A defensive Mathison responds: "Although the view may have been held at an earlier date by some obscure individual or group, one of the first open proponents of hyper-preterism was John Humphrey Noyes (1811–86), the founder of the Oneida Community. … This is significant because it means that not only was John Humphrey Noyes an early proponent of hyper-preterism, but that his hyper-preterist doctrine also influenced the eschatological writings of another hyper-preterist author (Hampden-Cook) whose book continues to influence hyper-preterist authors to this day. Modern hyper-preterists do not seem to have any difficulty acknowledging Russell or Hampden-Cook as early proponents of hyper-preterism. The fact of the matter is that Noyes was another early proponent of hyper-preterism, and an influential one at that” (John Humphrey Noyes and Hyper-Preterism, Keith A. Mathison).

Preterists of every variant are attempting to distance themselves from Noyes. But they have a problem; they share a common hermeneutic: “70 AD.” Convinced that The Kingdom of God has come, they spiritualize or ignore Scripture as required to support that presupposition. And like Noyes, all who replace His Word with the apocrypha of “70 AD” will, without exception, suffer loss. As wisdom is justified by her children, so too Preterism:

In the nineteenth century there were innumerable attempts to set up ideal societies, often based on heretical versions of Christianity. So John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the Oneida community, convinced himself from his devoted reading of scripture that the teachings of the Old Testament had been abrogated since the year A.D. 70 (The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, University of Virginia Library).

…Noyes was licensed to preach in August, 1833. At about the same time, he made a sensational discovery: Jesus Christ had announced that He would return during the lifetime of some of His disciples. Jesus could not have been mistaken; therefore the Second Coming of Christ had taken place in A.D. 70. The "Jewish cycle" of religious history then ended and a “Gentile cycle” began. … We live no longer in an age of prophecy and promise, but in an age of fulfillment. Perfect holiness is attainable in this life, as well as guaranteed deliverance from sin (The Great Oneida Love-in, American Heritage Magazine, February 1969 Volume 20, Issue 2).

At the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews as a nation were judged. Then the kingdom of heaven passed from the Jews to the Gentiles. Matt., 21: 43 (Hand-Book of the Oneida Community, Wallingford, Conn: Office of the Circular, Wallingford Community, 1867, emphasis added).

Communism, as held at Oneida, cannot for a moment be dissevered from its theology. … the doctrine of, Complete Regeneration, or Salvation from Sin, and the truth that the Second Coming of Christ, and the founding of his heavenly kingdom, took place 1800 years ago (Hand-Book of the Oneida Community, Wallingford, Conn: Office of the Circular, Wallingford Community, 1867, emphasis added).

Noyes' teachings were practiced here by the community. The main teaching which received the most criticism was that of "Complex Marriage." In Complex Marriage, every man was married to every woman and vice versa. … no two people could have exclusive attachment with each other because it would be selfish and idolatrous (Randall Hillebrand, “The Oneida Community,” New York History Net, emphasis added).

The rumors of strange sex practices roused the righteous and … churches demanded action against “the ethics of the barnyard,” and sought enabling legislation from the state (The Great Oneida Love-in, American Heritage Magazine, February 1969 Volume 20, Issue2, emphasis added)

Within the commune, there was a debate about when children should be initiated into sexual rituals, and by whom. Noyes (who was very old at the time) thought he should be the person to initiate sexual intercourse with girls as young as fourteen (Wikipedia, Oneida Society, 4/1/2005, emphasis added).

It is distasteful to write of such things, even as it was for Paul to write of a similar circumstance in a letter to the Corinthians: “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.” And this Paul wrote in the Spirit! But one thing is even more distasteful: the wind of doctrine that regards the One who spoke light and every other created thing into existence and continues to uphold them by the power of His Word as incapable of expressing Himself in literal words! The Bible contains thousands of promises and blessings, the majority regarding Jews as a people and a nation.

Yet, Mathison and Noyes and Gentry and Sproul and Preterists of every variant who replace His Word with the apocrypha of “70 AD,” enthusiastically affirming every literal curse of those called by His name and spiritualizing every literal blessing conferred upon the apple of His eye, will without exception suffer loss! There is no greater anti-Semitism, nor could there be, than what Preterism teaches: that God keeps all His promises except those regarding Jews and their nation

God made His covenant with the nation of Israel and He made promises to them that are absolutely, totally, and entirely unconditional. … it was the most binding of all covenants. … when it came time to walk between the pieces of the slain sacrifice, God put Abraham to sleep! When He did that, He voided any part of the people of Israel in the covenant. They had nothing to do with it, absolutely nothing. God said I will make my covenant with my people alone and He swore by Himself rather than anyone greater because there was no greater and he made a covenant with the nation of Israel that is absolutely unconditional. There is only one way that covenant could be broken and that is if God were dethroned or God was dead. Obviously He never will be (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹⁴

¹⁴The Valley Church, Conflict of the Ages, 5/11//75, (audio tape).

Medieval Alchemy and Israel

2007-02-21T21:51:00.000-08:00

One morning in a Phoenix motorcycle shop many years ago, the service manager tried to share his “faith.” Sorting through the work orders for my next job, he began to explain how Jesus Christ had "spiritually" returned in 1914. Paul cautions Thessalonian believers regarding such a spiritualized returned “be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means.” Jehovah’s Witnesses no longer teach a spiritualized return, however, another prevailing wind of doctrine does: Preterism. The root word for Preterism, in the Latinity of the Roman Catholic Church, means past. Preterism, consistent with its 70 AD premise of prophetic fulfillment, teaches that the rapture has taken place, the dead have been raised, the tribulation is over, Christ has returned, Armageddon is history, the Day of the Lord has past, Satan is bound, the Kingdom is here, the Millennium is almost two millennia old, and the church, through some medieval alchemy, has become Israel. Like Covenant Theology, Preterism is muddled in covenant confusion, spiritualizing His return. Like Replacement Theology, Preterism teaches that God keeps all of His promises — except those regarding Jews and their nation. Like Israel’s enemies who desire to drive her into the sea, Preterism desires to drive her from her promises. And like those who desire to destroy her life, Preterism desires to destroy her soul.

The majority of churches in America are essentially preterist in teaching and doctrine, yet the majority of people in those churches have never heard the word Preterism. Those who hold a plenary view of Scripture are generally unaware of preterist animosity. They are unfamiliar with preterist books with titles like Misplaced Hope, End Times Fiction, Last Days Madness, Eschatological Evil, and ‘Left Behind’ Delusion. Preterist internet content, regarding those who affirm the verbal inspiration of Scripture, includes phrases like “dispensational dementia” and “prophetic paranoia.” Those of us who anticipate being caught up together to meet the Lord in the air are increasingly referred to as the rapture cult. The premillennial believer’s “reward,” pictured on one preterist internet site, is an outhouse equipped with a roll of toilet paper blowing in the wind.

The Word of God is being denied and decried today. There are all kinds of gimmicks that people use to water down the truth of the message of the Word of God. We are to keep it … we must believe it, we must obey it. We must be those who are willing to die for it if need be. We preach the Bible. Believe it and obey, not apologize and criticize and explain it away (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹⁷

¹⁷The Valley Church, Philadelphia, 4/21/74, (audio tape).

The Aryan Israel of God

2007-02-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

“EVERY PROMISE IN THE BOOK IS MINE, EVERY CHAPTER, EVERY VERSE, EVERY LINE … EVERY PROMISE IN THE BOOK IS MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE.” Unfortunately, the refrain of this old hymn exemplifies the error of essentially every “Christian” cult i.e., spiritualizing His Word, particularly in regard to the "promises" given to Israel. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe they are Revelation’s hundred and forty and four thousand chosen from all the tribes of the children of Israel. Mormons believe they are the ten lost tribes of Israel. British Israelism teaches that Britain is Ephraim and America Manasseh. Searching the internet for the phrase New Covenant, I inadvertently accessed a church of that name that “professes” the Lord Jesus Christ; they believe they are the new white Aryan Israel of God.

The Little Flock of Israelites

2007-02-21T21:15:00.000-08:00

And for a time, Catholics and Reformers achieved a common unity in that “it was easier to burn Anabaptists than to refute their arguments” (Anabaptists, The Encyclopedia Britannica, Thirteenth Ed., V20, p. 904, 1926, emphasis added). The greatest affliction of modern scholarship, regarding “Anabaptist” biography, is the animosity of those who recorded it. Fortunately, there is one surviving record laboriously compiled by T. J. van Braght that maintains the integrity of their testimony, a "reflection" of something altogether lovely: the Martyrs’ Mirror, the following is but a brief excerpt:

[TESTAMENT] WRITTEN TO JANNEKEN MY OWN DEAREST DAUGHTER, WHILE I WAS (UNWORTHILY) CONFINED FOR THE LORD'S SAKE, IN PRISON, AT ANTWERP, A. D. 1573

The true love of God and wisdom of the Father strengthen you in virtue, my dearest child; the Lord of heaven and earth, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the Lord in Israel, keep you in His virtue, and strengthen and confirm your understanding in His truth. My dear little child, I commend you to the Almighty, great and terrible God, who only is wise, that He will keep you, and let you grow up in His fear, or that He will take you home in your youth, this is my heart's request of the Lord: you who are yet so young, and whom I must leave here in this wicked, evil, perverse world. …

Hence, my dear lamb, I who am imprisoned and bound here for the Lord's sake, can help you in no other way; I had to leave your father for the Lord's sake, and could keep him only a short time. We were permitted to live together only half a year, after which we were apprehended, because we sought the salvation of our souls. They took him from me, not knowing my condition, and I had to remain in imprisonment, and see him go before me; and it was a great grief to him that I had to remain here in prison. And now that I have abide the time, and borne you under my heart with great sorrow for nine months, and given birth to you here in prison, in great pain, they have taken you from me. Here I lie, expecting death every morning, and shall now soon follow your dear father. …

I must now also forsake all this for the Lord's sake, which the world is not worthy to suffer; for if we had continued in the world, we would have had no trouble. For when we were one with the world and practiced idolatry, and loved all manner of unrighteousness, we could live at peace with the world; but when we desired to fear God, and to shun such improper ways, well knowing that this could not please God, wherefore we sought to shun all this, and turned from idolatry to the worship of the living God, and sought here in quietness and gentleness to practice our ~3ith, then they did not leave us in peace; then our blood was sought; then we had to be a prey to everyone, and become a spectacle to all the world. They seek here to murder and to burn us; we are placed at posts and stakes, and our flesh is given as food to the worms. …

As I am soon now to offer up my sacrifice, by the help of the Lord, I leave you this, That you fulfill my request, always uniting with them that fear God; and do not regard the pomp and boasting of the world, nor the great multitude, whose way leads to the abyss of hell, but look at the little flock of Israelites, who have no freedom anywhere, and must always flee from one land to the other, as Abraham did; that you may hereafter obtain your fatherland. …

I leave you here; Oh, that it had pleased the Lord, that I might have brought you up; I should so gladly have done my best with respect to it; but it seems that it is not the Lord's will. And though it had not come thus, and I had remained with you for a time, the Lord could still take me from you, and then, too, you should have to be without me, even as it has now gone with your father and myself, that we could live together but so short a time, when we were so well joined since the Lord had so well mated us, that we would not have forsaken each other for the whole world, and yet we had to leave each other for the Lord's sake. So I must also leave you here, my dearest lamb. …

Hence, my dear lamb, cease not, because of the cross, to fear God, for a Christian is not made meet except by much tribulation and persecution upon this world, and we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God; … For His kingdom was not of this world; had His kingdom been of this, world, the world would have loved Him; but because His kingdom was not of this, world; therefore the world hated Him.' So it also is now, since our kingdom is not of this world, the world will hate us.’ …

O my dearest lamb, that you might know the truth when you have attained your understanding, and that you might follow your dear father and mother, who went before you; for your dear father demonstrated with his blood that it is the genuine truth, and I also hope to attest the same with my blood, though flesh and blood must remain on the posts and on the stake, well knowing that we shall meet hereafter. Do you also follow us my dear lamb, that you too may come where we shall be, and that we may find one another there, where the Lord shall say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning." …

And now, Janneken, my dear lamb, who are yet very little and young, I leave you this letter, together with a gold real, which I had with me in prison, and this I leave you for a perpetual adieu, and for a testament; that you may remember me by it, as also by this letter. Read it, when you have understanding, and keep it as long as you live in remembrance of me and of your father, if peradventure you might be edified by it. And I herewith bid you adieu, my dear Janneken Munstdorp, and kiss you heartily, my dear lamb, with a perpetual kiss of peace. Follow me and your father, and be not ashamed to confess us before the world, for we were not ashamed to confess our faith before the world, and this adulterous generation; hence I pray you, that you be not ashamed to confess our faith, since it is the true evangelical faith, an other than which shall never be found.

Let it be your glory that we did not die for any evil doing, and strive to do likewise, though they should also seek to kill you. And on no account cease to love God above all, for no one can prevent you from fearing God. If you follow that which is good, and seek peace, and ensue it, you shall receive the crown of eternal life; this crown I wish you and the crucified, bleeding, naked, despised, rejected and slain Jesus Christ for your bridegroom.

This I wish you for a perpetual testament, and for a perpetual adieu and farewell my dearest lamb.

Remember thereby your dear father, and me, your dear mother, who have written this with my own hand, for your edification; and always keep this gold real with you, with this letter, for a perpetual testament: I herewith bid you adieu and farewell; I hope to seal this letter with my blood at the stake. I herewith commend you to the Lord, and to the comforting Word of His grace, and bid you adieu once more. I hope to wait for you; follow me, my dearest child.

Once more, adieu, my dearest upon earth; adieu, and nothing more; adieu, follow me; adieu and farewell.

Written on the 10th of August, A. D. 1573, at Antwerp.

This is the testament which I wrote in prison for my daughter Janneken, whom I bore and gave birth to here in my bonds.

By me your dearest mother, imprisoned for the Lord's sake.

JANNEKEN MUNSTDORP.

(Martyrs Mirror (http://www.homecomers.org/mirror/contents.htm), T. J. van Braght, 1660, p. 984-988, emphasis added).

Like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azaria

2007-02-21T21:08:00.000-08:00

After Münster, “Anabaptists” suffered even more persecution by those who used this debacle as justification. Like the martyrs of Revelation “that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony they held,” these lowly Brethren “loved not their lives unto the death.” They were literally “killed all the day long” and were “counted as sheep for the slaughter.” Their enemies, attempting to mute their testimony, often killed them in secret or darkness. More Anabaptists were martyred in the sixteenth century then suffered under Rome during the first three centuries of the early church. And yet many walked through the valley of the shadow of death rejoicing and singing Psalms and praying for their enemies and, like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, communing with each other and the Son of God in the midst of the flames. Their witness astounded even those who hated them:

They are far readier then followers of Luther and Zwingli to meet death, and bear the harshest tortures for their faith. For they run to suffer punishments, no matter how horrible as if to a banquet; so that if you take that as a test either of the truth of doctrine or of their certitude of grace, you would easily conclude that in no other sect is to be found a faith so true or grace so certain (Stanislaus Hosius (Polish cardinal and bishop of Warmis), Opera (Venice), 1573, p. 202).

“The City of Zion”

2007-02-21T20:43:00.000-08:00

These new believers did not forget their first love even as the Swabian League authorized a thousand horsemen to hunt down those whose only sword was the Word of God. But in their exuberance and lagging maturity of faith and weariness of persecution some trusted the untrustworthy to be shepherds of their souls: shepherds who forever blighted the name Anabaptist, first by spiritualizing His Word and then by making it say anything they wanted it to say.

Johann Matthiesen, a baker who inherited an Anabaptist following from his imprisoned predecessor, suddenly spiritualized that he was a latter day “Enoch,” the walled German city of Münster the “New Jerusalem,” and his followers the “Israel of God.” He instituted a variant of Old Testament “theocracy” and his prophets preached a New Testament “gospel” of apocalyptic signs and wonders. Those who valiantly contended that this was NOT of the Word or Spirit did not contend for long. Declaring from the pulpit that his City of God must be “cleansed,” he mandated the re-baptism of all and the execution of any who declined or opposed. Catholics and Lutherans fled, and on Easter Sunday some months later, the exiled Bishop of Münster advanced to retake the city. Matthys, now spiritualizing that he was a second “Gideon,” sallied forth with a band of thirty against a vastly superior Catholic and Protestant coalition in an attempt to bring in, by human effort, the Kingdom of God. His spiritualizing mania was perpetuated by his successor.

Johann Bockholdt, a tailor's apprentice, renamed Münster “The City of Zion,” appointed Elders to judge “The Tribes of Israel” (Ältesten der Stämme Israels), and ascended the throne of his “forefather” David. He also mandated the transgression of some Old Testament patriarchs: polygamy. Perhaps the most regrettable circumstance of the Münster episode were the individuals caught up in it, the vast majority women. Most were modest and of godly virtue. And also a number of nuns, having endured the abuse of Romanism, had come to know the Lord. The One who takes sins of scarlet, making them as white as snow. How ironic to require these women, under penalty of death, to accept the polygamous propositions of any who would ask; Bockholdt asked 16. How poignantly contrary was Münster from that formerly prayed for and intended? Many fled the city, many others died trying. And perhaps it was God’s mercy that eventually allowed the Bishop to advance and reclaim the city, ending the depravity with two days of slaughter. How regrettable the faithful witness of so many before and after that brief episode will forever be tainted by the word Münster.

A Moment in Time

2007-02-21T20:31:00.000-08:00

The true reformation wasn’t a consequence of 95 theses posted on a Wittenberg door for debate, but rather it was the revelation of the light of His Word. For a thousand years it had been encrypted in Latin and sequestered in cathedrals and seminaries and monasteries while untold masses perished. But at an opportune moment in time Tyndale, and others who translated His Word into the languages of the lost, caused even the “boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scripture than” those who inhibited the cathedrals and seminaries and monasteries of that world. The Scriptures, replicated by a revolutionary technology, quickened multitudes to be “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). These new believers were the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, those who desired to be called the children of God. Because believers only baptism was an easily identified act of obedience, they were often referred to as Anabaptists (re-baptizers). However, they never regarded themselves in this way, preferring instead to be called the Brethren: those who obediently followed His plain and simple and literal Word.

And they were not a just another sect, they spring up everywhere in a moment in time.

Want to be Israel?

2007-02-21T20:27:00.000-08:00

So why does everyone want to be Israel? For over a century Strong’s has been the definitive word on words Hebrew and Greek. This revered reference gives the answer: Israel (yiśrâ’êl; יִשְׂרָאֵל): “he will rule as God” (James Strong, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible: Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words of the original with references to the English words, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, MacDonald publishing Company, Mclean, Virginia, p. 53; 3478).

Zion in Blood

2007-02-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

While Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and the Romanists consented to the deaths of those who would not deny the Word of their Lord, some voicing restraint, struggled to invoke conscience e.g., Balthasar Hubmaier in his work Concerning Heretics and Those who burn Them. But predictably he also was burned, and his wife, who encouraged his faithfulness, was drown in the Danube:

One should overcome them with holy knowledge, not angrily but softly If they will not be taught by strong proofs or evangelic reasons, then let them be and leave them to rage. The law that condemns heretics to the fire builds up both Zion in blood and Jerusalem in wickedness This is the will of Christ who said, 'Let both grow together till the harvest, lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them.'

The inquisitors are the greatest heretics of all, since, against the doctrine and example of Christ, they condemn heretics to fire, and before the time of harvest root up the wheat with the tares. For Christ did not come to butcher, destroy, and burn, but that those that live might live more abundantly.

(Hubmaier, Balthasar, Concerning Heretics and Those Who Burn Them (September, 1524). In Anabaptist Beginnings (1523-1533): A Source Book, edited by William R. Estep Jr., 47-54. Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica, vol. 16. Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1976)

But sadly this man, who opposed building “up both Zion in blood and Jerusalem in wickedness,” like the reformers spiritualized "the Israel of God.” And consequently in 1519 Regensburg, the city where he ministered, Hubmaier was instrumental in destruction of the synagogue, plundering the Jewish ghetto, and expelling the Jews. This is a sad commentary on his work that consistently included the motto Die warheit ist untödlich (Truth is Immortal).

Hear, O Israel

2007-02-20T23:23:00.000-08:00

John Calvin, commonly regarded as the “Father” of Presbyterianism, was 6 when Luther nailed his grievances to a Wittenberg door. Supposedly endorsing a strict grammatical—historical hermeneutic, he clung to Luther’s Augustinian arrogance (cf. Romans 11:17-27) spiritualizing God’s promises for His first love Israel. Although grudgingly conceding in commentary that God will fulfill His Word for a “sanitized” remnant of the Jews, Calvin perpetuates Gentile arrogance toward the root of our faith, teaching that the Church has inherited the title: “The Israel of God.”

Their [the Jews] rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone (John Calvin, Ad Quaelstiones et Objecta Juaei Cuiusdam Responsio, The Jew in Christian Theology, Gerhard Falk, McFarland and Company, Inc., Jefferson, NC and London, 1931).

As the angels of God ascended and descended upon a ladder set up on the earth, God made promises to Jacob and to his seed before it came to be (cf. Genesis 28:12-15). However, Calvin spiritualized these promises, using them to justify his doctrine of “infant baptism.”

God pronounces that he adopts our infants as his children before they are born, when he promises that he will be a God to us and to our seed after us. This promise includes their salvation (Institutes IV xv 20, emphasis added).

Calvin’s Gentile arrogance continued, making Geneva the headquarters of his “New Israel.”

The Genevan Confession was credited to John Calvin in 1536 by Beza who said Calvin wrote it as a formula of Christian doctrine suited to the church at Geneva. … The Confession of Faith which all the citizens and inhabitants of Geneva and the subjects of the country must promise to keep and hold (The Library of Christian Classics; Volume XXII; Calvin Theological Treatises; Translated with Introductions and Notes by the Rev. J. K. S. Reid; The Westminster Press: 1954. pp. 26-33, emphasis added).

And what was the consequence for those who would not submit to the "holy (sic) doctrine which no man might speak against" of Calvin’s Protestant “Papacy”?

Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church (John Calvin, as cited in: Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, Volume VIII: Modern Christianity, The Swiss Reformation).

Servetus, a physician condemned to death by the papists, fled to Geneva for refuge. Thought he had criticized Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion through prolonged correspondence with the author, he apparently trusted Calvin’s honor if not his “Christian” affirmation. Their differences predominated in regard to two theological principles: Servetus correctly challenged the absurdity of Calvin’s doctrine of infant baptism. And Calvin was incensed by Servetus’ rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity determined by the Catholic Council of Nicaea. So incensed, he confided to a friend: "si venerit, modo valeat mea autoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar" (If he [Servetus] comes here, if my authority is worth anything, I will never permit him to depart alive). And opportunity presented its self. While preaching, Calvin recognized Servetus among those of his congregation and as “worship” concluded, he had his nemesis arrested.

At eleven o’clock on the 27th of October, Servetus was led from the prison to the gates of the City Hall, to hear the sentence read from the balcony by the Lord Syndic Darlod. When he heard the last words, he fell on his knees and exclaimed: ‘The sword! in mercy! and not fire! Or I may lose my soul in despair.’ He protested that if he had sinned, it was through ignorance. Farel raised him up and said: ‘Confess thy crime, and God will have mercy on your soul.’ Servetus replied: ‘I am not guilty; I have not merited death.’ Then he smote his breast, invoked God for pardon, confessed Christ as his Saviour, and besought God to pardon his accusers. On the short journey to the place of execution, Farel again attempted to obtain a confession, but Servetus was silent. He showed the courage and consistency of a martyr in these last awful moments. Champel is a little hill south of Geneva with a fine view on one of the loveliest paradises of nature. There was prepared a funeral pile hidden in part by the autumnal leaves of the oak trees. The Lord Lieutenant and the herald on horseback, both arrayed in the insignia of their office, arrive with the doomed man and the old pastor, followed by a small procession of spectators. Farel invites Servetus to solicit the prayers of the people and to unite his prayers with theirs. Servetus obeys in silence. The executioner fastens him by iron chains to the stake amidst the fagots, puts a crown of leaves covered with sulphur on his head, and binds his book by his side. The sight of the flaming torch extorts from him a piercing shriek of ‘misericordias’ in his native tongue. The spectators fall back with a shudder. The flames soon reach him and consume his mortal frame in the forty-fourth year of his fitful life. In the last moment he is heard to pray, in smoke and agony, with a loud voice: ‘Jesus Christ, thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me!’ … The tragedy ended when the clock of St. Peter’s struck twelve (Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, Volume VIII: Modern Christianity, The Swiss Reformation).

Perhaps the most disconcerting part of this affair was Calvin’s apparent lack of remorse:

Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that (they allege) I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face (John Calvin, Against the Errors of Servetus, Daniel-Rops, 46:191).

However questionable the doctrine contained in the book bound by his side, that was so soon reduced to ashes, Servetus strove to evangelize those who received the admonition: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deut 6:4).

The Israel of God

2007-02-20T23:17:00.000-08:00

The Reformation sprung alive from the plain and simple and literal truth of Scripture. And began to die as the reformers returned to the spiritualization of Augustine, declaring themselves “The Israel of God.” Like that Catholic “Father,” they had forgotten that His Kingdom is not of this world. And after “offending” tens of millions had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held, the “Reformation” was little more than a schism within the papal order with Protestants building a new church on the ruins of the old.

The Jew

2007-02-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

The Jew today is the purest blooded and proudest descended people in all the world. … The temple went up in smoke in 70AD. … But the Jew is still today what he was then, he is still the woman. His language, his literature, his customs are much the same. He has been persistently hated and hunted by the Gentiles. …He tried to find asylum in one nation only to be driven out. To try to find asylum in another nation only to be driven out. … to be tromped upon, to be stoned, to be burned in ovens. Canute banished them from all England a thousand years ago. Edward I drove every last one of them from England’s shores. In France and Germany they were blamed for the Black Plague and they were terribly treated. That same year that Columbus discovered America, Spain drove all the Jews from the kingdom. Then came the Spanish inquisition that wreaked their cruelties upon them, GET THIS, in the name of Christ. … Nations have hounded and persecuted and hated the woman. But God loves her. … God loves her. Oh yes, she has become a prostitute. The book of Hosea reveals that the nation of Israel prostituted itself to idolatry. But just like Hosea brought back his wife Gomer, and loved her in spite of her harlotry, God loves the nation of Israel today. And God will bring them through victorious. They will rule and they will reign with Christ as a national entity (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹⁶

¹⁶The Valley Church, The Man Child, 5/25/75, (audio tape).

The Endl"sung

2007-02-20T22:18:00.002-08:00

“A mighty fortress is our God never failing…” I love that song and the passion for the Word the man who wrote it professed: “My conscience is so bound and captivated in these Scriptures and the Word of God. … Hereupon I stand and rest: I have not what else to say. … turning to the emperor and the nobles … confirmed …’I am tied by the Scriptures.’... Before the Diet of Worms was dissolved, Charles V caused an edict to be drawn up … that Martin Luther be … henceforward looked upon … separated from the Church, a schismatic, and an obstinate and notorious heretic” (John Foxe, William Byron Forbush ed., Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, IX).

Despite Luther’s alleged passion for the Scriptures, he often compromised them: Regarding The Epistle of James, Luther writes: “Therefore St. James’ epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it” (Luther, M., Preface To The New Testament, 1522, emphasis added). Regarding The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Luther writes: “I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it. … Christ is neither taught nor known in it” (Luther, M. Preface to the Revelation of St. John, 1522, emphasis added). However, regarding Paul’s love for his Jewish brethren in the book of Romans: “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises,” from Luther, there is only silence. Although Romans is the crux of his “by faith alone” theology, in his commentary (Romans 9 through 11), an affirmation of Paul’s kinsmen according to the flesh is neglected entirely. Luther translated thousands of His promises and blessings for Israel as a people and a nation into the German tongue. However, consistent with his Augustinian order, Luther spiritualized them all, and consequently composed perhaps the most anti-Semitic work ever written:

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? … First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord. … Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. … Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. … Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. … Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. … Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them. … Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow (Martin Luther, Martin H. Bertram, tr., The Jews and their Lies, 1543).

Almost five hundred years later another German read and implemented Luther’s seven step program, but added one step more: The Endl"sung (Final Solution: Wannsee Conference, Berlin, January 20, 1942).

Every Day Remembrance Day

2007-02-20T22:18:00.001-08:00

“Onward, Christian solders, Marching as to war, With the Cross of Jesus Going on before”! Years ago my wife recounted how our pre-school daughter marched up and down the driveway that separated us from our neighbors singing that song. She quickly brought her in! Our neighbors were Jews, and as Jews, very aware of the “Cross of Jesus” and its historical significance. Simon Wiesenthal, Holocaust survivor, Nazis hunter, and author of numerous books including Every Day Remembrance Day: A Chronicle of Jewish Martyrdom recounts the history and "witness" of the professing Church. He also seems to unconscientiously explain the reason Jews (including himself) have yet to recognize their Messiah:

As this calendar shows, the story of the persecution of the Jews has always been directed by Christians: first of all by the Roman Catholic Church, then by the Orthodox Church. These Churches plunder the Bible, the most precious element of Jewish life, the unique treasure of Jewish identity, and use it for their own ends. … The official theology of the Catholic Church considers Rome “the true Jerusalem” and the Church “the true Israel.” In the eyes of the Church the Jews forfeited their history and their means of salvation by killing Jesus. … The history of the persecution of the Jews is — as will become clear from this calendar — at the same time a history of Christianity. The acts of persecution against the Jews were from the very beginning acts of revenge against that part of the Jewish community which refused to recognize Jesus (even though the first Christians were actually Jews) (Simon Wiesenthal, Every Day Remembrance Day, p. 9, emphasis added).

The aged author stared back at me from the cover of the Jerusalem Post, September 22, 2005. As I scanned the front page in a Jerusalem book store, I insensitively recommend Wiesenthal’s chronicle of Jewish martyrdom to the young girl who, only moments before, had been so courteous and helpful. In a passionate but precise Oxford intonation, she blurted out: “I DON’T NEED THE BOOK, I’VE LIVED IT!” For one brief moment, I saw what lies latent in every Jewish soul.

Raiders of the Lost Menorah

2007-02-20T22:01:00.000-08:00

Rome’s Arch of Titus depicts the triumphant return of Roman’s legions from the destruction of Jerusalem. Titus, on horse drawn chariot, accompanied by the winged goddess Victoria leads a laurelled procession carrying the temple menorah, the symbol of the Nation of Israel. Biblical Archeology Review (July/August 2005), with cover featuring that relief, recounts a meeting between Israel’s Minister of Religious Affairs Shimon Shetreet and Vatican officials: A “tense silence” was reported when Shetreet suggested that Israel’s golden menorah may be in a Vatican storeroom and requested the Pope’s assistance in its location. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains why this and similar requests have met with a similar response:

The requests by Shetreet, the president, and the chief rabbis reflect the long-held belief that the Catholic Church – as the inheritor of Rome, took possession of the empire’s booty – as documented by the Arch of Titus. … This is not to say that 2,000 years or so have been enough time for the [Vatican’s] Foreign Ministry to formulate a policy on the matter. Unofficially at least, we look forward to the restoration of the treasures of the Jewish people … but do not anticipate this will occur before the coming of the Messiah.

After almost 2000 years of erecting monuments on every “holy” site, launching crusades to recapture the “holy” land, and instigating negotiations to declare the “holy” city an international city under the papal control, it is obvious that the raiders of the lost menorah want more than Israel’s symbol, they want “ISRAEL”! Therefore, we should not anticipate that the Roman Church – as the self proclaimed inheritor of Israel’s promises, will ever consider themselves other than “THE ISRAEL OF GOD” before the coming of the Messiah.

The purpose and the primary emphasis of Romanism has always been and will be to the end, a desire for total world dominance. Now they have laps where they are not as influential as at other times. But their goal as clearly stated by the dogma of the church is a total dominance of the religious world (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹³)

¹³The Valley Church, Thyatira, 3/24/74, (audio tape).

The Other Holocaust

2007-02-20T21:46:00.000-08:00

The image of an endless line before St. Peter’s Basilica this last spring was etched in the minds of those who watched around the world. However, few noticed an adjacent building, now euphemistically called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was previously the infamous Palace of the Inquisition where our “heretical” brothers and sisters clothed in rags, swarming with vermin, but refusing to deny His Word suffered tortures born of the abyss. From this command post , the Popes coordinated the inquisitions of Europe. In a world gone mad with papal interrogation, with believers disenfranchised of worldly possessions and left to wonder in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, with those refusing to deny Him enduring torment, sword, and flame, or watching those they love endure the same, it was not unreasonable to identify “the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” as a contemporary fulfillment of Revelation 17.

In 1543, the archbishop of St. Andrews made a visitation into various parts of his diocese, where several persons were informed against … for heresy. … Helen Stark was accused of not having accustomed herself to pray to the Virgin Mary, more especially during the time she was in childbed. On … respective accusations they were all found guilty, and immediately received sentence of death; the four men … to be hanged; James Raveleson to be burnt; and the woman, with her sucking infant, to be put into a sack and drowned. … The martyrs were carried by a great band of armed men (for they feared rebellion in the town except they had their men of war) to the place of execution, which was common to all thieves, and that to make their cause appear more odious to the people. Every one comforting another, and assuring themselves that they should sup together in the Kingdom of Heaven that night, they commended themselves to God, and died constantly in the Lord. The woman desired earnestly to die with her husband, but she was not suffered; yet, following him to the place of execution, she gave him comfort, exhorting him to perseverance and patience for Christ’s sake, and, parting from him with a kiss, said, ‘Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful days; but this day, in which we must die, ought to be most joyful unto us both, because we must have joy forever; therefore I will not bid you good night, for we shall suddenly meet with joy in the Kingdom of Heaven.’ The woman, after that, was taken to a place to be drowned, and albeit she had a child sucking on her breast, yet this moved nothing in the unmerciful hearts of the enemies. So, after she had commended her children to the neighbors of the town for God’s sake, and the sucking bairn was given to the nurse, she sealed up the truth by her death (John Foxe, William Byron Forbush ed., Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, XV).

The endless line before St. Peter’s Basilica this last spring consisted of many who had “been fooled into thinking that if they take communion they … are saved, if they go to mass they are saved. And my friend, THEY ARE LOST! … But let us never forget that if it could happen at Thyatira it could happen here. Let’s never bring paganism into our midst.”¹³

¹³The Valley Church, Thyatira, 3/24/74, (audio tape).

The New Jerusalem

2007-02-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

“Jesus loves me! This I know, For the Bible tells me so.” Those experienced in early childhood development are aware that children are essentially incapable of abstract thought. Yet “Jesus called a child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said: Verily I say unto you: Except ye turn, and become as children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:2-3). A child, like this one, couldn’t understand Augustine’s spiritualization of the New Jerusalem in his City of God. But he could comprehend a city coming down out of heaven from God with a wall great and high with twelve gates, each a pearl, and streets of pure gold. He could remember a place where there shall be no night and the only people, those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Such a child could understand virtually anything in the Word because he understands it the only way he can: LITERALLY. And I know that Jesus in His love for children and for those who must become as children planned it that way: “For the Bible tells me so.” And Matthew continues: “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

There is a story of a six-year old girl who had just a simple faith in the Lord Jesus. She was working like a beaver cleaning up her room. A guest in the home came in and complimented her by saying, “My! Why do you have your room all so spick and span?” “Oh,” said the little girl, “I want to get everything in order, because Jesus may come today” (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH).¹⁵

¹Paul E. Steele, ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, (Published by The Valley Church, Cupertino, California, 1978).
¹⁵Steele Op. cit., p. 196.

Sermon Against the Jews

2007-02-20T21:14:00.000-08:00

The “wisdom” of the early Church Fathers eventually culminated in “Fathers” of yet another tradition. Augustine, commonly regarded as The Father of Roman Catholicism, exerted unparalleled influence over what many describe as “Christianity.” His early years were consumed in youthful lusts culminating in adherence to a Gnostic sect. Although trying in later years as a Doctor of Doctrine of the Roman Church to distance himself from this heretical system, his works suggest an affinity with the Babylonian mystery religions so characteristic of Gnosticism:

Image worship, the worship of a virgin, the mass, priest craft, all of these things were related, inseparably related, to the pagan custom of the day. … Baal worship goes clear back to the tower of Babel. It was at that time that there was a system created that when you read it and realize that God condemned it you will recognize the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. … The teaching of purification by priestly absolution found its origin and its roots in paganism, not in Scripture. The power of men to forgive sin found its origin in paganism, not in the Scripture. The mediation of a woman found its origin and roots, not in Scripture, but in pagan origin (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹³

Augustine, lacking the Hebrew and Greek skills of a scholar, continued to build on the sinking sand of Origen’s “Spiritual Israel.” Augustine spiritualized virtually everything: no literal Kingdom (the Church is the Kingdom), no literal Millennium (Christ’s reign within the Church is the Millennium), and according to his work The City of God, no literal New Jerusalem (the Church is the New Jerusalem). Dismissing the literal interpretation of Scripture, he fathered a doctrine subsequently referred to as amillennialism. And as an apparent consequence of Augustine’s handling of the Word of Truth, almost a billion people are involved in what The Valley Church describes as paganism:

You know it … as the dark ages. Here you have the [Roman] Church at its peak of dominance in the world. And what do we have? We have superstition. We have spiritual, moral, and intellectual darkness. We have apostasy with all of the occult and the corruption of that period of time. This was the time of the rise of a church hierarchy, the time of the inquisition where under … the sigh of the cross, thousands of people were slaughtered in the name of Christ. … There is a true remnant within the Catholic Church who will be raptured. And God loves your Catholic friends, and your Catholic neighbors, and your Catholic relatives. He loves them like He loves the rest of the world. But these people have been bowing before an image that has its origin and roots in paganism, a priesthood that has its origin in paganism. And they have forgotten the centrality of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And because of that God warns against this. How did it begin? It began with compromise. It began with allowing the social factors of the land in which the people lived to become a part of the worship of the church, God forbid that Valley Church should ever go that way (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹³

And Augustine, perpetuating the anti-Semitism of the early Church Fathers in his Sermon against the Jews, casually but consistently misappropriates a sanitized rendition of Israel’s Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, for the Church. He seems to have forgotten that there is salvation in none other then the Mashiach (Messiah) Yeshua Ben David (Jesus, Son of David), or perhaps he never knew.

¹³The Valley Church, Thyatira, 3/24/74, (audio tape).

The Crucified Jew

2007-02-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

Chrysostom, an early Church Father of the more literal (common-sense) Antiochian school, opposed Origen's unbridled interpretation of Scripture. Unfortunately, he made one regrettable exception: the literal brethren of our Lord and their nation:

The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy, rapacious. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jews must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews. It is incumbent upon all Christians to hate the Jews (Chrysostom, Cohn, Sherbok D., The Crucified Jew, Harper Collins, London, 1992, p. 33).

There is a troubling dichotomy between Chrysostom’s words and the words of The Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

Thus saith the LORD; if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD (Jeremiah 31:37, emphasis added).

Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: if those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever (Jeremiah 31:35-36, emphasis added).

But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands (Isaiah 49:16, emphasis added).

It’s a tragic thing that there are people … who on the basis of their very weak interpretation of Scripture believe that God has no place for the nation of Israel. … And that His covenants are invalid because Israel made the mistake of becoming an apostate nation that God has written them off. Unfortunately they don’t know what the Bible clearly teaches … concerning that covenant but concerning many other things as well. God has made absolute unconditional covenant. But you see that covenant then speaks of the plan for God’s people because God will not break His covenant. … The unconditional covenants with Israel are going to come to pass (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹⁴

¹⁴The Valley Church, Conflict of the Ages, 5/11//75, (audio tape).

Strange Fire Before the Lord

2007-02-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

Although some early Church Fathers attempted to refute Gnosticism, they often applied their own spiritualizing hermeneutic to make Scripture more contemporary. The more radical were Alexandrian academics intent on a syncretism of Christianity with the mysticism of Hellenist philosophy and the rationalism of Greek science. Preeminent among early Church Fathers was Origen of Alexandra, the first to compile a comprehensive systemization of theology: Origen de Principiis (On First Principles). Origen writes: “for sins to be visited upon the heads of children to the third and fourth generation … By us, however, such things are not understood literally” (Origen, Origen de Principiis, Book II.V.2, emphasis added). “But when we read either in the Old Testament or in the New of the anger of God, we do not take such expressions literally, but seek in them a spiritual meaning” (Ibid, Book II.IV.4. emphasis added). Origin instructs that “discrepancy between John and the other three Gospels … must be interpreted spiritually” i.e., by “mystical interpretation” (Origen, Roberts-Donaldson English Translation, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book X.2, emphasis added). Applying this interpretative principle, Origen misappropriates Israel’s identity as evident from the title of the first chapter of this work: “How Christians are the Spiritual Israel” (Ibid., Book I.1). Origen’s mystical rendering of Scripture, conveniently spiritualizing the same passage in different ways on different occasions, propagated many unorthodox doctrines e.g., reincarnation, universalism, denial of a flesh and blood resurrection of the body. Consequentially in 553 AD, Origen was posthumously condemned as a heretic, his teaching proclaimed anathema, and virtually all of his work in the original Greek systematically destroyed. “We have more in the Latin translation of Rufinus; but this translation is by no means trustworthy” (The Encyclopedia Britannica, Origen, V20, p. 271, 1926). A fragment from a translation by Jerome is extent and more representative of his teaching:

At the end and consummation of the world, when souls and rational creatures shall have been sent forth as from bolts and barriers, some of them walk slowly on account of their slothful habits, others fly with rapid flight on account of their diligence. And since all are possessed of free-will, and may of their own accord admit either of good or evil, the former will be in a worse condition than they are at present, while the latter will advance to a better state of things; because different conduct and varying wills will admit of a different condition in either direction, i.e., angels may become men or demons, and again from the latter they may rise to be men or angels (Origen, op. cit., Book I, emphasis added).

“On this method [spiritualization] the sacred writings are regarded as an inexhaustible mine of philosophical and dogmatic wisdom; in reality the exegete [Origen] reads his own ideas into any passage he chooses” (The Encyclopedia Britannica, Thirteenth Ed., V20, p. 271, 1926, emphasis added). Unfortunately, the influence of Origen’s undisciplined method of interpretation extends from his day to our own. His subversion of a literal exegesis of Scripture laid the foundation for a number of theologies e.g., Replacement Theology, Reformed Theology, Covenant Theology, and their contemporary counterpart, Preterism. It is sobering to realize that the world’s most prolific writer, a man who opposed Gnosticism (Origen against Celsus), affirmed the authority of Scripture, and literally meditated day and night on the "spiritual,” like Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before the Lord.

Certain Men Crept in Unawares

2007-02-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

Peter, in his second epistle, warns: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord.” Notice, Peter doesn’t say there “may” be false teachers among you but there “shall” be false teachers among you! A few years later Jude in confirmation writes: “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” These men spiritualized the Word. They spiritualized the rapture. They spiritualized the humanity of His birth, resurrection, and return. They spiritualized His kingdom and coming reign. They spiritualized away Israel and her Scriptures. They spiritualized sin to their own shame. They spiritualized Truth, writing their own Gnostic gospels and crediting them to the apostles and our Lord e.g., The Gospel of Peter, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Truth ... (cf. Gal 1:8-9). And they went about preaching another Jesus encouraging many to receive another spirit and accept another gospel.

Christianity, even our Christianity, is more pagan than we realize. And if we do not get back to the primacy, the teaching of the Word of God, then we too can be sweep into grave and even complete error (The Valley Church, emphasis added).¹³

¹³The Valley Church, Thyatira, 3/24/74, (audio tape).

The “Father” of Spiritualization and Lies

2007-02-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of Genesis we are introduced to the “Father” of spiritualization and lies as he subtly questions the Word: “hath God said …”? As Eve feebly replies, he spiritualizes: “Ye shall not surely die…. Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And Eve, desiring the spiritual aberration, chooses the lie and paradise is lost, the curse is cast, and thorns infest the ground.

The Premise of Eternity

2007-02-18T16:01:00.000-08:00

Our doctrinal statement¹ begins with the premise of eternity, the Word:

‘Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name.’ Psalm 138:2 indicates that God has staked His reputation upon the authority, the accuracy, and the infallibility of this Bible (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).³

The Word is literal:

We believe the Bible to be literally true, every word of it, every jot, every tittle. We also believe that God is immutable. He makes no promise that He will not literally fulfill (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).⁴

The Word is to be interpreted literally, not spiritualized or explained away:

If language means anything, we must interpret that literally. So we believe that the second coming of Christ is a literal, future, historical event. It is not to be spiritualized. It is not to be explained away. It is not a mater of His coming into your heart at salvation, although that truly is a coming of Christ into your life, but that is not what prophecy speaks of when referring to the second coming of Jesus Christ. In that same literal body with which He ascended, He will literally return again to earth (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).⁵

We are not to spiritualize or toy with the prophetic Word making it say something other than exactly as He said:

We believe that the interpretation of prophecy should be a literal interpretation. We believe that when God said something, He meant just what He said. He meant it in clear and unmistakable terms; and though it has to be put into its historical setting in order to understand it fully, nevertheless, we believe that when God spoke of Israel, He meant Israel. When He spoke of the Church, He meant the Church. When He spoke of individuals, He meant individuals. When He spoke of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, He meant those characters literally. … There are some people who interpret the Scripture literally concerning everything but prophecy, which they want to spiritualize. That is because prophecy speaks of events to come. Some peopled toy with it and say it really doesn’t mean what it says; for instance, when the words earth, church, or Israel are used, they say these terms aren’t really meant to be taken literally, but are symbols of something else. That is very confusing. The only way one can really understand prophecy in its broad sweep is to believe that when God called something something He meant something exactly as He said (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).⁶

The Word is to be understood literally:

There are symbols in Scripture but they are explained symbols. And if they are explained then obviously, they are symbolic. But everything that the Word of God gives is to be understood literally, and when God said to Abraham that you are going to have a kingdom for ever and ever and ever and ever it will be an eternal kingdom, it will be an earthly kingdom, we believe that it’s exactly that. It will be ultimately in the new heavens and new earth that God will fulfill His covenants to the Nation of Israel and we can be certain that He will be faithful, that He will be true. … And He will fulfill in future Israel what He could not fulfill in past Israel (The Valley Church, emphasis added).⁷

The Word will really, literally come back again:

Christ’s first advent was a literal, historical event. His second coming is going to be just as literal. When Christ was born, angels appeared unto the shepherds and they said, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Now, those were real shepherds, and those were real angels; they were talking about a real birth in a real city, a city which had been named earlier in the Book of Micah. It was a real geographical location. The one born was really the Savior, and it really happened. When Christ ascended into heaven, a real angel appeared to His disciples. They were real people. The angel said, “This same Jesus, (that same real Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and is now in a resurrection body) which is taken up from you into heaven, (He was really taken up) shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). He will really, literally come back again (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).⁸

God could not have given us absolute revelations of Himself in giving His thoughts; He had to give His Word:

God did not give His thoughts to men. He gave His words. That is why the Bible is not called the thoughts of God; it is called the Word of God. … Words are concrete, thoughts are more abstract; God could not have given us absolute revelations of Himself in giving His thoughts. He had to give His Word (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).⁹

God has given His Word, and it is final. There is no other Word:

You may not like it. You may not be willing to put your life in accord with it, but God is not going to change His mind. There is no way that we can send this Word back for a second opinion from God. God has given His Word, and it is final. There is no other Word” (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).¹⁰

Not the word of men but the very breathe of God:

It was not just the truth of God, not just the word of God, but the very breathe of God. For that reason we can say with Hebrews 4:12, ‘The Word of God is alive.’ It cannot be alive if it is the word of men (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH).¹¹

His Word will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents:

God’s holy, inspired Word … reveals the mind of God. … It should fill your memory. It should rule your heart. It should guide your feet. Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully. … It is given to you in life. It will be opened at the judgment. It will be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility. It will reward the greatest labor. And it will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents (ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, emphasis added).¹²

But what happens when men trifle with the sacred contents of God’s holy inspired Word? What happens when they spiritualize it to conform to the wisdom of men? And what happens when they disregard the verbal plenary inspiration of His Word, the essence of our doctrinal statement¹? History provides the reverberating answer: spiritual confusion, shipwreck of the faith, hatred of His chosen nation, and an indelible trail of blood.

¹Paul E. Steele, ON THESE TRUTHS WE STAND: The Doctrinal Statement of THE VALLEY CHURCH, (Published by The Valley Church, Cupertino, California, 1978).
²Op. cit., p. 7.
³Op. cit., p. 31.
⁴Op. cit., p. 185.
⁵Op. cit., p. 186.
⁶Op. cit., p. 185.
⁷The Valley Church, The Second Coming of Christ, 3/28/76, (audio tape).
⁸Steele Op. cit., p. 186.
⁹Op. cit., pp. 19-20.
¹⁰Op. cit., p. 22.
¹¹Op. cit., p. 21.
¹²Op. cit., p. 24.