Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news, and messages by Steve Martin.
When my oldest sister got engaged, I jumped right in to help. I was happy that she was so happy and eager to share in her joy.
But what I saw as helping, my future brother-in-law viewed as interference. Our relationship went from bad to worse; my pride had been stepped on and I was hurting. I was treated like the scum of the earth, which only served to fuel my anger at his arrogance.
The more I thought about him, the angrier I became. Soon it was all I thought about. I was angry, bitter and stressed. My thoughts turned to revenge—surely there was some way I could hurt him back. I would have been perfectly pleased if he would have just dropped dead.
I'm not happy to admit how far I had gone over the edge, but I am happy to report that I found the freedom that repentance brings.
It wasn't easy. I had to make a deliberate decision to forgive this man for the way he treated me—even though he continued to do it for some time. I discovered forgiveness is not a one-time deal. I have had to repeatedly forgive him, even though he has never asked for forgiveness.
Most importantly, I discovered my own part in the fiasco—and my own need for repentance. It wouldn't have done any good to forgive him and not repent for the part I played. I told him I was sorry, and then I got things right with God. My relationship with Him had suffered greatly during this time and my repentance quickly restored our fellowship.
I discovered that repentance is like a recipe—it has several ingredients that are necessary for the desired result to come about. Leave an ingredient out of a recipe—or repentance—and the outcome can be hard, bitter, or downright disastrous.
The first ingredient of repentance is choice. I had to make a conscious, deliberate decision to repent. In essence, repentance is an act of the will involving change in thinking (not feelings) with a resulting change in conduct.
When God convicted me for the part I played in the situation with my brother-in-law, I made a determined decision to repent, which led to a change in thinking, then reflected in the way I responded to him. Ultimately, my change in conduct, brought on by repentance, relieved the growing tension in our relationship.
The second ingredient of repentance is inward change. This is where the rubber meets the road. Feigned repentance will not bring inward change and no one will be fooled for long—and God won't be fooled at all!
Humility is what makes inward change possible. "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you" (James 1:21, NIV).
Once I changed my thinking about my brother-in-law, I was surprised to find myself actually praying for him—not to change but to find Christ. The inward change in me self-sacrifice,enabled me to develop a concern for him that I had never had before.
The third ingredient of repentance is godly sorrow. The lives of Judas and Peter clearly illustrate the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. Judas felt guilt and remorse, but his suicide was the result of worldly sorrow, not of spiritual brokenness. Unlike Judas, Peter was grieved in his spirit and wept bitterly over his sin. He was a broken man. The difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow is brokenness.
I knew I had truly repented for my part in the damaged relationship when I cried over my behavior. Here was a fellow creation of God and as a self-proclaimed Christian I had treated him as though he wasn't fit to be alive. I had truly sinned against God, and I had finally realized it.
The final ingredient in repentance is self-sacrifice.Simply being sorry for the results of sin is not repentance. In confessing openly and admitting our guilt we forcefully have to cast off wrong motives. Sometimes physical restitution is also needed.
True inward repentance is often demonstrated in the sacrificial steps taken to abandon sin. Repentance without meaningful action is like a cloud-filled sky with no rain.
After I repented and got things right with God, I went to my brother-in-law and openly apologized. Our relationship is better than it ever was.
There really is freedom in repentance.
Prayer Power for the Week of November 9, 2015
This week ask the Lord to help you restore broken relationships caused by your attitude and actions. Pray for the willingness to forgive those who have hurt you and ask God to bless and prosper them. Thank Him for the freedom you'll enjoy when you embrace true repentance. Continue to pray for revival to ignite in our churches and spread across the nation and around the world. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the persecuted church, and the leaders He has placed over us in our homes, churches, communities, state and nation (Matt. 5:22-24; Matt. 5:38-48).
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It's time for God's prophets to arise and defeat the deception of darkness in our culture! It's time for another move of God! Jennifer LeClaire teaches how to walk in prophetic revelation in this segment of her series on prophecy.
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In King David’s beautiful words, God looks down from His heavenly abode to find a ‘reflective person’ amongst mankind. The Lord is looking for those who challenge the conventional wisdom and defend what is right, even if it is unpopular. A truly ‘reflective person’ is one who supports Israel when she is attacked, at all costs. This perfect describes the actions of Judah the Maccabee and his followers, who rose up against Greek oppression to take back the Land of Israel and the Holy Temple from those who had overrun and defiled it. This year, Hanukkah is coming up in just a few weeks. It's the perfect time to start your holiday shopping at the Israel365 store, which has all your Hanukkah needs, including beautiful menorahs, candles, and dreidels, all made in the land where "a great miracle happened"!
One night of the year, the illustrious Israel Museum in Jerusalem turns into a hub of wild nighttime encounters during which art peels itself off the walls and into the souls of the thousands of visitors!
Defying the threat of terror and the stormy weather, thousands of Jews are will join the annual Be A Righteous Defender of Israel! ✡ "God Gazes Down Upon Mankind" festivities in Hebron, a celebration of the purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs by Abraham which is recounted in this week's Torah portion.
This simple and elegant 9-branched hanukkiah, or menorah, has a sleek and unique style with slightly curved vertical branches emanating from the main central branch. It will be perfect for your Hanukkah holiday candle-lighting ceremony!
Today's photo features children playing dreidel at the Western Wall. These spinning tops were used by children as an alibi during the times of the Greeks, when children hid in caves studying the Bible; when soldiers approached, the children pretended to be playing with these tops!
It’s great to hear from you and make new friends from all over the world. Please send mean email and let me know how you are enjoying Jerusalem365 (don’t forget to say where you are from!).
Seventy-seven years after kristallnacht – the night of officially sanctioned vandalism of Jewish businesses in Germany – the unprovoked persecution of God’s ancient people continues.
Anti-Semitic attacks are occurring all over Europe, but even in Israel, the supposed safe haven which rose from the ashes of the Holocaust that followed November 9, 1938 (also known as Reichsprogromnacht), individual Jews and their families innocently going about their daily lives are being mercilessly stabbed and shot at close range by terrorists justifying their cruelty on the basis of fighting a ‘holy war’.
I was reminded of historic events in Europe last month as I shared time in prayer and conversation with a German nun, Sister Thekla, who has previously spoken of her shame at the suffering caused by her nation through the Holocaust and warns that today’s church is in danger of repeating history.
“In the not-too-distant future we Christians will all be challenged about our relationship to Israel,” she told a conference last year. “Will we once more be silenced? Israel is once again hated by the nations, which is a picture of our Lord Jesus, who was despised and rejected of men. We are called to pray for Israel. They need love, born out of repentance, the only kind that will open their hearts. We have often not presented the true image of Jesus to them.
“It grieves me what my nation has done, especially to the Jewish people. We had touched the apple of God’s eye and saw God’s judgment poured out on our nation as a result,” she said, referring to the repeated bombing of Darmstadt which prompted Basilea Schlink, a local resident, to found the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, dedicated to reconciliation with the Jewish people. One 1944 attack on Darmstadt killed 10 per cent of its inhabitants and made 60 per cent of its population homeless.
Mother Schlink and a group of fellow Christians wept as they came under deep conviction of the terrible sin committed by Germany and subsequently went to Israel to volunteer their services as nurses while seeking forgiveness for the persecution of their people dating back to the time of the Crusades.
“It is a painful memory, but I confess these crimes,” Sister Thekla told the York conference. “If the German community had stood up as one man, the Nazis would not have been at such liberty to pursue their schemes. Where was the Christian church?”
I also renewed acquaintance in London last month with Sister Glory, a British member of the order with a Methodist background, who has said that Britain had blood on their hands concerning Israel. A massacre of Jews took place in York in 1190 and Jews were expelled from Britain a century later before being welcomed back at the time of Oliver Cromwell through the influence of the Pilgrim Fathers, a radical Christian group who were themselves hounded out of the country before emerging as the founding fathers of the United States.
I have previously mentioned how evangelical (Bible-based) Christians like the Pilgrim Fathers and their spiritual successors have been consistent friends of Israel, playing a pivotal role in the return of God’s chosen people to the Holy Land.
But following Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising support for a Jewish national home, the government reneged on its pledge during the time of the British Mandate by dividing the land and acting treacherously to appease the Arabs while forcing the Jews to disarm. And many trying to escape the Holocaust were turned back.
“We betrayed the greatest trust ever given to a nation,” Sister Glory said.
In experiencing the fulfillment of Genesis 12.3 (that those who bless the seed of Abraham will themselves be blessed while those who curse her will come under judgment), Britain has suffered the loss of her empire along with increasing decadence in the nation itself.
As former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said: “The Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews.”
In an address on this subject given in Berlin in 2006, the order’s Sister Joela said that, from his birth to his death, Jesus was inseparably linked with his people, the Jews. “We have been happy to take his mercies and blessings for ourselves, and have left the judgments and curses for his people,” she said.
The New Covenant in Jesus’ blood was originally made with Jews, not with Gentiles (Jeremiah 31.31), she pointed out, adding that many had been blinded to important issues by selective interpretation of the Bible. There was little acknowledgement or recognition, for example, of chapters 9 to 11 of Paul’s letter to the Romans, which deals with God’s wonderful long-term plan for the Jewish people.
And now, not just one nation, but a number of Israel’s neighbours, have unequivocally declared their intent to pursue a ‘final solution’. “And this time no-one can claim not to have known anything about it.”
Sister Joela is convinced that, even after all these years, God is still waiting for the repentance of many Christians in Germany.
In a speech to the German parliament on January 27 2006, holocaust survivor Professor Ernst Cramer summed up the horrors he witnessed with the statement: “The thing that shocked me most at the time was the almost total silence of the Christian churches.”
Various initiatives have in recent years uncovered further details concerning the active involvement of many sections of the established Protestant Church in Germany (Landeskirche) with a ‘De-Judaization Institute’ in Eisenach. They published a People’s New Testament, hymn book and catechism from which every trace of the Jewish roots of Christianity had been eliminated.
Echoing the question of the Wise Men following the star to Bethlehem, Sister Joela asked: “Where is the King of the Jews?” And, very prophetically in light of current events, she answered: “With his people! With his people in the thick of war, terrorism and disaster; in the midst of sin and injustice; at the focal point of world interest; at the centre of the hatred; in the midst of slander and contempt – that is where we will find him.
“The worldwide hatred towards God will be increasingly vented on those who have a living relationship with the God of the Bible and want to remain faithful to him. Therefore, in the final stages of world history, Jews and Christians will come under fire together. So let us give Jesus, our Lord and King, the answer born of our love for him, and join together in making the commitment: ‘Your people will be my people.’ (Ruth 1:16)”
The quotes from Sister Joela have been taken from the booklet Where is the King of the Jews? published in Darmstadt, Germany, by the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. Seewww.kanaan.org
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When the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) declared same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right, it was a slap in the face to the laws of God and man. It was a direct frontal assault on both religious freedom and the Constitution of the United States, undercutting the very foundations on which they stand.
This is a brief on the consequences of this momentous decision using "The Three Questions" from the U.S. Army Manual for addressing a crisis. Those questions are:
1. What is happening?
2. What is not happening?
3. What can we do about it?
As we address these, we will begin with the natural first and then the spiritual.
1. What is happening? As the four dissenting justices pointed out, the Supreme Court does not have the constitutional authority to make this decision. First, even though SCOTUS has taken this authority upon itself, it is a usurped authority and nowhere does the Constitution give it this authority. The authority to determine the constitutionality of laws was given to Congress, not the courts. We are now suffering under the very tyranny that the founders warned about if the courts ever presumed this authority. Regardless of our position on same-sex marriage, every American should be deeply troubled by the actions of SCOTUS that this case is just the most recent and dramatic.
Creeping Tyranny
The first reason this crucial authority was given to Congress instead of the Executive branch, or the courts, is because the Congress is elected every two years, and therefore would be the most accountable to the people who, in the U.S., are the sovereign. The courts were for deciding whether or not individual cases had been tried fairly and justly. But nowhere is any court, including the Supreme Court, given authority to determine if a law or action is constitutional.
Congress does have the authority to designate specific cases to the court for this purpose if it chooses to, but if Congress does not give this authority in a specific case, SCOTUS has no legal authority for such a decision, and it is therefore not valid.
The second reason why this was an unlawful decision is that the Constitution states that any authority not specifically given to the Federal Government is reserved to the states and the people. Nowhere is the Federal Government given authority to give definitions or policy on social issues such as marriage and the family. The hubris of the Supreme Court to change the definition of marriage that has been universally accepted in civilized nations for six thousand years of recorded history is not only shocking, but an unprecedented level of arrogance by the Supreme Court.
Because Congress' accountability to the people would be the most direct, it was designed to be the most powerful of the three branches of government. It was given "the power of the purse" to maintain their ultimate authority. Because of weak leadership in Congress, both the Executive and Judicial branches have usurped Congress' authority in recent times to the point where it is now almost powerless, and the predicted tyranny is now a reality.
Without the constitutional authority to do what it did, the SCOTUS has violated its oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States from enemies both foreign and domestic. It is against every principle of a republic to have five un-elected officials determine the law of the land. This is why Justice Scalia declared this decision "a threat to democracy." This was not an overstatement. If this is allowed to stand, we no longer have a Constitutional Republic in America.
What the Federal Government has become is proof that you can have the best form of government and still have bad government if you put bad people in it. The whole system by which we nominate our leaders has become distorted in order to favor incumbents and the establishment so that it is nearly impossible for the will of the people to prevail now.
The government of the United States was not established to be the all-powerful authority over everyone, but rather to be the servant of the people. We, the people, are the sovereign and everyone who works in government is supposed to be working for us. It has now become a runaway monster that is consuming everything in its path. If the people do not rise up to take their authority back, then it will very soon require another revolution to recover democracy in America.
The Foundation of Our Union
The Constitution is the foundation upon which our Federal Government is based, and without the Constitution, our Federal Government no longer has legitimate authority to govern. There has been a long and continuous erosion of the links between the laws and actions of the Federal Government and the Constitution. This decision on same-sex marriage may seem innocuous and even frivolous to most Americans, but it represents such a radical decoupling the Federal Government from the Constitution that it will destroy the legitimacy of the Federal Government if allowed to stand.
The overreach of our Federal Government has put itself in great jeopardy, and in recent years it has divided Americans into factions instead of uniting them. A growing chorus of states is talking seriously about secession, and this is a very real possibility.
Paul the Apostle wrote to Titus that even false prophets can sometimes tell the truth (see Titus 1:12-13). Pravda, the Moscow daily newspaper, has been predicting for years that the United States would break up into several pieces just like the Soviet Union. Their reasoning was not based merely on sour grapes, but on the historically proven consequences of the kind of direction in which our government has been going. To date, we have most alarmingly followed the pattern predicted. We really are close to breaking apart.
Worldview
Islamists consider America "the great Satan" because of our moral and spiritual debauchery that has made us "a homosexual nation"—so perverted that the only remedy is to wipe us off the face of the earth. Their belief about the U.S. has now been affirmed by this Supreme Court decision. This decision will likely make their recruiting to this cause much easier. This is not the only issue fueling these groups, but it is a major one.
This is not to imply we should ever base our laws or domestic policy on what other nations think, but we should understand how we are perceived by the nations and how it will affect our relations with them. This has also been a major wedge driven between the U.S., Russia, and China, as well as Africa and South America. To much of the world, the U.S. and Western Europe now look like Sodom and Gomorrah.
What is Happening (Spiritually)?
All devout Christians, Muslims, and Jews base their faith on the written word that they hold to be the revelation of God's will for those who serve Him by seeking to obey Him. These three major religions have a clear definition of marriage in their written word, and all three agree that homosexuality is a sin. To compel devout Christians, Muslims, and Jews to accept homosexual marriage as marriage forces them all to decide if they will obey God or men.
The very first lie of Satan that was used to cause the fall of man was "Did God really say that?" This remains Satan's most deadly strategy against mankind—to get us to doubt the clear Word of God. If we are true Christians, we must establish in our hearts and minds what God says about these issues and resolve to stand on His Word. He said that if we do not obey Him, then we are not really following Him. This is an obvious demarcation point that will force many to choose if they will follow God or man.
Just as the devil attacked Adam and Eve by trying to confuse them about what God had really said, he begins this same attack on every believer. He knows that if he can get us to doubt God's Word, then he can keep us deceived our whole lives. The devil continues to use this strategy because it has been so successful, and it has been successful in our own time with many Christians. This is why studies of even conservative evangelical Christians who are supposed to be the most devoted to The Bible revealed that less than 10 percent of them had a biblical worldview.
The Lord gave us His written Word so we could see the world, mankind, and ourselves as He does. To see as He does is to see the truth. As the Lord said through Isaiah the prophet, those who do not speak according to His Word do not have the light in them (see Isaiah 8:20). Of the Christians I have discussed the Supreme Court decision with, only one used Scripture for their perspective. Most of the Christians that I talked to were parroting the world's perspective, which is based on a humanistic philosophy that stands in direct conflict with God's will as revealed in His Word. According to His Word, these have already fallen away and do not have the light.
A primary reason for this has been the dumbing down of The Great Commission to merely making converts instead of disciples, which is defined as teaching them everything the Lord commanded. Lacking this solid foundation of biblical truth has made it very easy for the devil to deceive and confuse Christians about what God really said in His Word. Now we must ask from what were these saved?
God made His opinion on homosexuality very clear. In the Book of Revelation, we see that one of the final and ultimate conflicts is between the Lord's messengers and "the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt" (see Revelation 11:8). This issue will be a demarcation point that will determine who will walk in His truth.
Because of the shallowness of believers to even know what is in His Word, it is likely that not many will be standing at all very soon. Of one thing we can be sure, if any are standing, it will be enough. If just one is standing on the truth, the truth will ultimately prevail. Even so, for a time we can expect that those who will be standing on the truth and wholly following the Lord will be paired down to a very small number.
The increasing persecution against Christians in America is already having the positive effect of having many Christians' worldview challenged. Some are waking up to the profound differences between what the Scriptures actually say and what they have been told they say, often even by their own compromising pastors. This will be fuel on the fire of another Great Awakening. Regardless of how small a number the faithful become, their faithfulness will ultimately turn the tide. There will be a Third Great Awakening in America.
All devout Christians, devout Muslims, and devout Jews have been thrown into the same boat on this issue. Already many non-religious Americans who care about freedom and the Constitution are beginning to also speak up. It will be most interesting to see how this plays out.
As the divisions in our country become more clear and pronounced than ever, look for the greatest unity and fellowship to grow in the small and persecuted company of the faithful. It is always worth it to stand on our convictions without compromise. We will also find out that those we did not think we had any common ground with are standing together with us.
Rick Joyneris the founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries in Fort Mill, South Carolina. For the original article, visit morningstarministries.org.
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“Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel.” (Amos 5:6)
In response to a request by Arab states, UNESCO recently passed a resolution declaring holy Jewish places to be sites of Islamic heritage. The significant exception is the burial site of Joseph, which they have chosen to destroy rather than usurp.
The Arab’s treatment of the Jewish holy site should not be attributed to any hatred Islam has towards the Biblical character of Joseph, who is held in high esteem in the Koran. His story is told in great detail in the Muslim holy book. Why would Muslims choose to burn the burial site of one of the major characters in the Koran? The answer lies in the special significance of Joseph’s burial site to the Jewish redemptive process.
Rabbi Zechariah Wallerstein explained the special significance of Joseph’s burial site in a recent lecture, noting that it is the only holy site that the Arabs chose to burn. He explains the severity of their actions by saying that the worst type of person, someone God will not forgive, is a person who is ungrateful for something that was done for him.
The rabbi taught that this is learned from the story of Adam. When God confronts Adam for eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Adam passes off the responsibility onto Eve. The Rabbi quoted Rashi, a medieval French rabbi renowned for his incredibly influential commentary on the Bible, who wrote that by blaming Eve, Adam rejected the good that was done for man when God by created woman. It is specifically for this ingratitude that man was ejected from the Garden of Eden.
Rabbi Wallerstein went on to explain that this is precisely the sin Arabs are guilty of when they try to eradicate the memory of Joseph. In the Bible, it is written that Joseph actually saved all of Egypt by foreseeing the future and storing food to last through the famine. In that sense, the entire Arab world owes the Jews a debt of gratitude.
“Burning down the gravesite of Joseph is an attempt to deny or cancel out that debt. It is the highest level of ingratitude, an unforgivable sin for which they should be thrown out of the land,” Wallerstein said.
Rabbi Wallerstein gives another reason for the Arab desire to wipe out the name of Joseph. He quotes the Zohar, an important Jewish workwhich states that before the Messiah comes, while he is in heaven, God dresses him in a robe on which every name of every Jew that was ever killed would be written. God tells the Messiah, ‘When you reveal yourself, this is the robe you will be wearing, and every name will be revenged’. The fire that will be used to burn those who killed Jews is Joseph’s fire, as expressed in Amos 5:6: “Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel”, and again in Ovadiah 1:18: “Then the house of Jacob will be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame; But the house of Esau will be as stubble, And they will set them on fire and consume them”.
Rabbi Wallerstein explained the special significance of Joseph’s fire to Breaking Israel News.
“Joseph’s fire that burns them is Moshiach ben Yoseph (the Messiah from the House of Joseph), which is the battle that comes before Moshiach ben David (the Messiah from the House of David). This conflict over Joseph’s Tomb is just one more step before Moshiach. This never happened before,” he explained.
According to Rabbi Wallerstein, the Arabs, who are responsible for many of the names on that robe, are trying to extinguish the fire before it appears in its full glory to burn them. They are attacking fire with fire, which is why burning it once simply was not enough.
When asked what was at stake in this battle, Rabbi Wallerstein was very clear. “In kabbalah, Joseph is yesod, the foundation. He is the foundation of all creation, just like Adam. That is what’s at stake at Joseph’s Tomb.”
