Is Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration Fulfilling of Prophecy? - CBN News Chris Mitchell

Is Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration Fulfilling of Prophecy?

12-19-2017

CBN News Chris Mitchell

President Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel continues to reverberate throughout the Middle East and the world.  But some see the decision as one more step towards Jerusalem fulfilling a prophecy.   

The United Nations Security Council met on Monday to reverse President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  It’s the latest development in a long history involving the holy city. 

 In 1980, Israel passed the Jerusalem Law, designating the city as the united, eternal capital of the Jewish State.  In protest, most nations moved their embassies from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. 

But later that year a group of Christians founded the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) and firmly planted themselves there. 

“They said we need to act and we need to establish an International Christian Embassy Jerusalem in order to show the whole world that no matter what our governments are doing, there are Christians around the world that do believe in God’s covenants and faithful promises to the Jewish people and that was our founding hour,” said ICEJ Executive Director Juergen Buehler. 

In 1995, ICEJ Vice President David Parsons helped write legislation known as the Jerusalem Embassy Act, destined for the US Congress. 

“We said three things:  recognize Jerusalem as the capital; move the Ambassador there immediately and then worry about building a building,” Parsons told CBN News.  “But as the bill went through Congress, it got changed to build the building first and now 22 years later and all these delays and waivers it is back to our order." 

Both men see Jerusalem as being on a fifty year cycle known in the bible as jubilee -- where every fiftieth year marks a year of liberty and restitution. 

One hundred fifty years ago, British archeologist Charles Warren discovered the original City of David.  Fifty years later, in 1917, general Edmund Allenby captured the city of Jerusalem ending 400 years of Muslim Ottoman rule. In 1967, Israel re-captured the Old City and Temple Mount for the first time in more than 2000 years.  Then came 2017.

“We believed God would do something significant this year in Jerusalem and lo and behold at the end of the year your government Donald Trump, the American government decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital and also move the embassy here,” Buehler. 

“Something new and exciting is happening for Jerusalem itself that propels it, releases it further into its prophetic destiny,” Parsons said.

“Redemptive history is unfolding here in Israel.  I do believe this has to do not only with you know embassies being relocated here but you see another level of God’s restoration processes, reaching another level,” Buehler said..

“The greatest outstanding promise that the Bible gives us regarding this nation here is the spiritual restoration of Israel,” he said.

Buehler said all the prophets prophesied the return of the Jewish people to the Land and God also said through them He would give the Jewish people a new heart.  

Now, there’s the hope more nations will follow America’s lead and move their embassies.   

“What the US and President Trump was doing was, he was in a way shooting the starting shot for the race and I believe there will be many other nations that will follow the United States,” Buehler said.

“We’re hearing word Guatemala may come back, Tanzania, the Philippines, you can start listing off some of these countries that we hope have the courage to follow the lead of the American administration now to return to Jerusalem,” Parsons.

They feel it’s critical for Christians around the world to pray for Jerusalem. 

“That the violence that’s been threatened, that God in a year of favor and in a year of Jubilee that He would take care of that, that maybe some dust up but by His sovereign Hand that it would be completely and quickly over.  We’ve been praying here in Jerusalem that any fire, any anger would be doused,” Parsons said.

“But also I do believe we need to pray for the Arab world.  You see all the unrest that from the Arab world … In a way, you see the sense of delusion and deception you have to say in the Arab streets where they feel that this city has no connection to the Jewish people.  I believe we need to pray that God is doing His work among the Arab peoples,” Buehler said. 

“We need to keep praying this would be a unified city,” Parsons said.

ICEJ Outlays Masssive Funding for Ethiopian Jewish Aliyah - DAVID PARSONS/ICEJ CHARISMA NEWS

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem continues to be instrumental in helping bring Ethiopian Jews back home to Israel. (ICEJ)

ICEJ Outlays Masssive Funding for Ethiopian Jewish Aliyah

10/6/2016 DAVID PARSONS/ICEJ  CHARISMA NEWS

Following the Israeli government's recent decision to renew the aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem recently handed over to the Jewish Agency the funds needed to sponsor the first wave of over 500 new immigrants arriving from this ancient African community.

Last month, the ICEJ handed over $500,000 to Keren Hayesod to cover the aliyah flights of the first wave of 523 Ethiopian Jews, as well as to sponsor flights for another 104 Jewish immigrants coming soon from France and the Ukraine. The first families of Ethiopian Jews are expected to start arriving in Israel by Sukkot, in time for the ICEJ's annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration in mid-October. Over the coming months, the Christian Embassy also is aiming to raise enough funds to sponsor the entire first year of renewed Ethiopian aliyah, set at some 1,400 persons, as well as additional monies to assist with their absorption into the country.

"Our Christian supporters have always been generous and enthusiastic in giving towards our aliyah projects, especially when they take on such a humanitarian mission as this renewed Ethiopian return," said Dr. Jürgen Bühler, the ICEJ executive director. "These are people who are endangered by tribal conflicts and unrest while also suffering through times of severe drought and flooding. But now they will be lifted out of difficult and impoverished conditions, and finally be reunited with their families already in Israel."

Dr. Bühler also noted the ICEJ's commitment to the absorption phase for Ethiopian Jews, since it has proven to be as important as the actual move to Israel due to the large adjustments in language, culture and education these communities must make. Bühler said the cabinet decision to bring home the last of the Ethiopian Jews also is a further sign that Israel is not a racist or apartheid state. He added that even African Christians have been responding generously over recent weeks to contribute towards this aliyah effort from their continent.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the ICEJ has assisted nearly 120,000 Jews in making their way home to Israel from all over the world. This represents an investment of over $50 million in aliyah efforts, with most of the assisted Jewish olim coming from the former Soviet republics but also thousands from Western Europe, North and South America, the Bnei Menashe from India, and the Kaifeng Jews from China.

David Parsons is a spokesperson for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

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Christians Rediscovering Passover - DAVID PARSONS/FOR JNS.ORG

More and more, Christians are embracing their Jewish heritage. (Facebook)

Christians Rediscovering Passover

4/14/2014 DAVID PARSONS/FOR JNS.ORG - charisma magazine

For Jews and Christians, the Passover season is a special time for reflection on the rich spiritual truths contained within this remarkable holiday. Indeed, we can all observe the command to remember the incredible Israelite deliverance from bondage in Egypt.

For Christians, the events of a momentous Passover some 15 centuries later have given added meaning to this holiday, so that the truths of the first are reinforced in the latter. Deliverance from Pharaoh’s taskmasters became freedom from slavery to sin. The blood of a lamb on the doorposts became a typology of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Yet the parallels between Pesach and Easter were lost for centuries to most Christians when the early church fathers deliberately severed our faith from its Jewish roots. In time, this hostility to Judaism produced vicious blood libels against Jews at Passover.

Today, however, multitudes of Christians are rediscovering our Hebraic roots. Indeed,Time magazine recently identified growing Christian interest in our faith’s Jewish heritage as one of the 10 top trends of our day.

Even respected Jewish scholars have started joining Christian theologians in rediscovering the “Jewishness” of Jesus and the Hebraic origins of Christianity. One notable expert in this regard is the late Prof. David Flusser of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, considered the leading Orthodox Jewish expert on the Second Temple era and Early Christianity.

Flusser placed Jesus within the Pharasaic tradition and viewed Him as among the great sages of his time, such as Hillel and Ben-Shammai. But Flusser concluded that the Galilean preacher went boldly beyond the classic Judaism of that day, for instance by proclaiming the advent of the kingdom of God and espousing a radical ethic of loving one’s enemy.

As a result of such groundbreaking scholarship, the Feast of Passover is one occasion when the lineage and cultural identity of Jesus as a “son of the covenant” now holds so much more meaning for Christians. In fact, nothing reattaches Christians to their Jewish roots faster than realizing the Last Supper was actually a Passover seder meal being led by a Jewish rabbi.

Thus, we can now see in the Gospel narratives just how closely Jesus held to Jewish traditions in presiding over the Passover meal with His disciples—or rather, His talmidim.

For instance, He followed the custom then developing in first-century Judaism of serving four cups of wine at the Passover meal to mirror the four great “I wills” of Exodus 6:6-7. When Jesus took the third cup—considered the “cup of redemption”—He used it to seal a new covenant with His followers.

Interestingly, He also used customary Jewish words of betrothal at that same moment, promising to go build them all mansions in His Father’s house and to come back for them one day as a bridegroom for His bride (John 14:2-3).

In serving them wine and unleavened bread, Jesus further played off the command to remember the Passover by instructing His disciples to always partake of it “in remembrance of [Him].”

Then one of the most extraordinary moments of the Last Supper came when He washed the feet of His disciples.

Like other great rabbis of His day, Jesus had developed a unique preaching style by telling parables, many of which are universally known to this day, such as the parables of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son. But He was different in the way He also practiced what He preached. In washing the feet of His disciples, the rabbi Jesus taught by deed and not just words what it means to be a servant in His kingdom (John 13:14-15).

And finally, Jesus demonstrated tremendous grace that evening when He gave the place of the guest of honor to His immediate left to Judas, even though He knew this was the one about to betray Him. What a difference it would have made down through history if Christians had understood that Jesus was never bitter toward Judas.

Sadly, it is too late to change that history. But we are witnessing a sea change in Christian attitudes towards the Jewish people today as we understand better the Jewish matrix of our faith. This historic shift is helping to build Christian support for an embattled Israel at a critical hour. And just as importantly, it is shielding multitudes of Christians against modern-day blood libels and other anti-Semitic lies now being hurled at the Jewish state.

David Parsons is an ordained minister who serves as media director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (www.icej.org).

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Lost Tribes of Israel Make Aliya

Lost Tribes of Israel: Indian Families Make Aliya

By Chris Mitchell

CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief

Friday, January 10, 2014

JERUSALEM, Israel -- For nearly 2,700 years, a tribe called the Bnei Menashe in India has maintained their Jewish roots. They believe they're part of the lost tribes of Israel, and now many are returning to their ancient homeland.

Several Indian families recently reunited at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. Michael Freund, with Shavai Israel, has worked for years to help bring about these moments.

Freund believes the Bnei Menashe return fulfills biblical prophecy.

"We're watching as prophecy comes to life before our eyes," Freund said. "God remembers His promises to His people Israel. God is faithful. He is gathering His children in from all over the earth."

This is the second part of a long awaited migration. Nearly 2,000 tribe members live in Israel, but five years ago the government stopped their return.

Now, the government will permit all the Bnei Menashe - about 7,000 - to return.

"After 2,700 years of exile, the Bnei Menashe is coming back," Bnei Menashe organizer Zvi Halvei said. "Of the 10 lost tribes, the Bnei Menashe will come back the first. So we did it!"

The Assyrian Empire exiled the tribe of Manassah almost 3,000 years ago. Although they settled in Northeast India, tribe members kept their Jewish roots for more than 2,000 years.

Several Christian organizations helped bring them home.

"I'm grateful to our partners out there, Jews and Christians who stand with us, pray for us, and help to facilitate this miracle," Freund said. "I'm grateful to CBN, to Gordon Robertson, to Michael Little and the whole team there." 

"We support the aliya of the Jewish people because we believe it's the hand of God," David Parsons, with the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, told CBN News. 

"The Lord said He scattered the Jewish people, but He would never leave them scattered among the nations," he continued. "He would always come and find them even if they were scattered to the ends of the earth."

"And He said, 'I'm going to bring your sons from the east' in the book of Isaiah," he said. "And these are certainly Jewish people, ancient Israelite tribe that are coming home from the east."

Freund agreed.

"It's something their ancestors dreamed about for 2,700 years," he said. "And despite being cut off from the rest of the people of Israel for so long Bnei Menashe never forgot who they are."

"They never forgot where they came from and they never forgot where they dreamed of one day returning," he said. "And now, thank God, they're back home."

Watch here: CBN News Benei Menashe video

Palestinian convert to Christianity hosts Evangelical TV show.

‘Ex-Muslim’ preaches the Gospel

By LINDA GRADSTEIN/THE MEDIA LINE02/04/2013

Palestinian convert to Christianity hosts Evangelical TV show.

When Hazem Farraj was 15, he became a Christian. But as a Palestinian Muslim living in east Jerusalem, he couldn’t tell anyone, especially his father. “For almost three years I was an underground believer,” Farraj told The Media Line during a visit to Jerusalem. “I would go to the local mosque and to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and pray Islamically, but in my heart I was praying to Jesus.” Today Farraj, 27, is very public. He lives in California and hosts Reflections, a Christian TV show in English and Arabic. He is grateful for everything in his life, he says, but he has also made sacrifices for his faith. Farraj was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1984. Like many immigrants, his father insisted the children speak Arabic at home. An observant Muslim, he worked hard to teach his children about Islam. When Farraj was 12, his father moved the family back to Beit Hanina, a middle-class  east Jerusalem suburb. The large family of 13 siblings studied Islam, and many of them became more committed Muslims. “Islam says to pray five time daily – I only prayed four times, because I was too lazy to get up for the early morning prayer,” Farraj recounts. “Do the prayers. Memorize the verses from the Koran. Go to Islamic class and the mosque. It was all just actions to me. The deeper I got into Islam, the more depressing it was for me.” Farraj decided the solution was to convert some Christians to Islam. He approached his upstairs neighbors, Christians, and they began a discussion that lasted more than a year and a half. “I said to them, ‘What if I told you that God can answer your prayers in the name of Allah,’” he recalls. “Now, he wasn’t answering my prayers, but I needed something to hold onto. They told me things I was searching for, like ‘Cast your worries upon Jesus, who cares for you’ and ‘God so loved Hazem that He gave His only son for him.’” When Farraj was 15, he attended an east Jerusalem church with these neighbors. He does not want to name the church, fearing it could become a target of attacks. “I sat in the last pew in the back corner, and I saw something I had never seen,” he recalls with a wistful smile. “I saw a guy named Steve singing with a guitar and smiling as if he knew Jesus. I saw people at the altar raising their hands and loving God, and it made me mad because I wanted it to be the God of the Koran.” He fled to a downstairs room, where he lay a piece of carpet on the floor and prayed facing Mecca in Saudi Arabia, according to Islamic rules. Nothing happened. He went back upstairs to the church, and, he says, became a Christian. “I started to pray in the name of Jesus and something happened on the inside that transformed me,” he remembers. Soon afterward, the second intifada broke out, and his father moved the family back to the US. Farraj continued to practice as an underground Christian. Finally, just before his 18th birthday, he told his father that he had become a Christian. His father cut off all contact with him, and Farraj has not seen him since. The pain hurts even 10 years later. “You don’t ever get over it, you just get through it,” he says. “It has left me wounded even today.” He also has no relationship with his stepmother or his siblings. At age 18 he followed his former neighbors to Alabama, where they had moved. “I slept for six months, and when I wasn’t sleeping I was eating – I weighed 225 pounds and I was so depressed,” he recalls. “Then one day I came across a Christian TV station, and there was this preacher. This voice inside me – I believe it was the voice of God – said, ‘I’ve called you to this.’ I knew it meant that I was called to tell people about Jesus and to help them come to prayer.” His TV show, Reflections, reaches millions of viewers around the world. Farraj says there are “many” underground Christians in Arab countries today, and that he gets emails thanking him from around the Arab world. He also gets death threats. David Parsons, the media director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, says there are “hundreds” if not “thousands” of underground Christians in the West Bank. “There’s a lot of upheaval in the Arab and Muslim world right now,” Parsons told The Media Line. “Some are saying ‘Islam is the answer,’ but there are a lot of Muslims who know they tried it for hundreds of years and it’s not the answer. As a Christian I would attribute it to the movement of the Holy Spirit. People are looking for different answers.” Parsons says the International Christian Embassy has opened branches in “several North African countries.” Farraj says his recent trip to Jerusalem was to recharge his own batteries and to meet underground Christians. “I love Jerusalem,” he said with a grin. “I’m here to enjoy the spirituality of Jerusalem and to encourage the believers. I thought I was the only ex-Muslim in the world, but they’re really everywhere.” http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=308463