He Will Not Deny Himself
The philosopher George Santayana (1863–1952) famously quipped, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I thought of that when Israel’s head of state Benjamin Netanyahu handed the scroll of Esther to America’s head of state Barack Obama back in 2012. In Israel’s case, the implications are existential: life and death are playing out on the world stage.
We need to get in “sync” with the timing of God’s purposes
We know from Scripture (Ecclesiastes 3:1) that “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” This is the time for our intercession for Israel (and America!), perhaps more than ever before. We need to get in “sync” with the timing of God’s purposes. His timing is brilliantly displayed through the Moedim, the appointed times of the Lord.The Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) marks the birth of the Church (Acts 2). The Jews were all in town (Jerusalem) because Shavuot is one of the three pilgrim feasts—the other two being Pesach (Passover) and Sukkot (Tabernacles)— when Jews are commanded to travel to Jerusalem to meet with God in ritual festival and worship at the Temple. The Feast of Shavuot commemorates Moses bringing the Ten Commandments from the top of the mountain, and the birth of the Jewish nation at Sinai. That miraculous event was accompanied by thunder and lightning and the death of 3,000 sinners (Exodus 19, 31, 34).With impeccable symmetry and cosmic mathematical precision, the Church was born at the same feast season. While Jews were in the Temple celebrating Shavuot, tongues of fire appeared, the law was written on the hearts of the Believers, and a rushing, mighty wind of the Holy Spirit caused the rebirth of 3,000(!), and began the season of the Church as a nation of priests (Acts 2:2–42, 1 Peter 2:9).We are 2,000 years into this Age of harvest from the nations, and we are watching expectantly for Yom Teruah (the day of “blowing”)—the Feast of Trumpets, when the trumpet will sound and the Lord will return! (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17)The Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, is returning to a Jewish Jerusalem to rule and reign for a thousand years. It is notable that Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Bible and not once in the Koran! Jesuit Father Michael Naud stated in 1674, “Jews prefer being prisoners in Jerusalem to enjoying the freedom they could acquire elsewhere. … The love of the Jews for the Holy Land which they lost … is unbelievable.”In spite of the wars and rumors of war, the Jewish people will prevail by the grace of God. In 1898, Mark Twain said, “The Greek and the Roman…are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out. … The Jew saw them all, [survived] them all. … All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces passed, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”The answer, Mr. Clemens… is the God of the Jews.