MessianicMusings.com

I’ve never understood anti-Semitic thought, even long before I became messianic. I think my messianic Rabbi, Stan Farr, said it best recently.

“I don’t believe you can be a real believer and hate the Jews. Yeshua was one, and Yeshua loved the Jews! The Father loved the Jews. They still do.”

And yet anti-Semitic thought does not reside solely in Iran. If anything, it’s been on the rise for the last several year, especially after September 11.

One would think that the Jews would be the last folks people would blame for an act of terrorism committed by Islamo-Fascist terrorists, but liberal logic always finds a way. Here’s the thought process:

1) We were attacked because Muslim terror extremists hate us.
2) We support Israel.
3) Muslim terror extremists hate Israel.
4) Therefore, we’re hated for our support for Israel.
5) Resolved: it’s all Israel’s fault.

Of course, there’s a simpler logic to be followed here, one that has nothing to do with anti-Semitic thought.

1) The Islamo-fascist terrorists are maybe a few hundred idiots.
2) Those few hundred idiots were looking to breed terror; they don’t need a reason, it’s what they do.
3) Resolved: It’s not Israel’s fault … the only fault lies in the hands of the terrorist idiots.

See how much simpler that is?

And truer.

Of course, it’s been a long time since anyone thought rationally about Israel and the Jews. Even within the church.

Last I checked, Martin Luther provided the theological basis, and some frighteningly prophetic descriptions, for the Holocaust Hitler enacted in the 1930s and 1940s, when between 5-7 million were locked up in steel buildings to await their extermination.

It comes to this, especially if you’re a believer in Messiah Yeshua (Jesus).

1) Yeshua WAS (and is) a Jew.

2) He LOVED the Jewish people.

3) He was crucified by Roman authorities, at the urging and manipulation of a handful of Jewish religious leaders… not the Jewish people as a whole. It was an act of individuals, not a nation or an entire race. Do you blame all white people, or at least all Germans, for the acts of Hitler and his Nazi Party Members? Or even all Muslims for the acts of al-Qaeda? Of course not.

4) Yeshua’s death was a blessing to all the world, or did a little thing called the resurrection escape your notice?

Sorry, that’s pretty much directly confronting the anti-Semites out there. Yeesh, it just makes no sense at all…

One wonders briefly why Moshe feels the need to retell the entire history of the journey of Yisrael through the desert once again at the start of D’varim. But a bit of logic and memory can fix that discomfort up rather quickly.

At least once and perhaps twice, the children of Yisrael were so disobedient and rebellious to the will of Adonai that a large number of them were allowed to perish before the survivors were permitted to move forward toward the promised land.

The first incident happened in relation to the golden calf; Adonai considered wiping out the entire people and starting over again with Moshe. Yet Moshe intervened on Yisrael’s behalf, calling on Adonai to do nothing to defame the name of the L-RD before the nations. While Adonai never followed through on that, he did vow that no one of that generation who bowed down before the golden calf would be allowed to live to see the promised land.

A similar incident may have occurred later on, following the evil report of the spies, though it is sometimes difficult to trace the exact timeline of events in the books of Moshe. Suffice to say that by the time we reach D’varim, many of those standing before Moshe were younger folks who may not have even been old enough to remember the Exodus from Egypt for themselves. They were kids and young men and women wearing the vintage fabrics their parents had worn and yet never seen wear out during much of the Exodus.

That’s why I think Moshe goes into such long-winded repetition here. He’s attempting to merely do what all good leaders of nations do; remind folks “why we’re here and where we need to go next.”

As Moshe addresses the people of Israel at the opening of the book of D’varim, he recounts for the people all events since their arrival at the mountain of the L-rd. He detailed each incident of the L-rd’s faithfulness and Israel’s rebellion.

Was Moshe doing this to put a guilt trip on the people of G-d? If not, what was his purpose, because it certainly wasn’t to earn some golf equipment for his retirement.

No, what we must remember here is that Moshe is by now an old man. He knows his time to return to Adonai is near, and he desperately wants the people to thrive in obedience to Adonai once he is no longer there to guide them.

I believe with this message, guilt was not the goal. It was a final for of encouragement, tinged with a note of warning, to finally live up to what Adonai wanted from them all along: being an obedient people who act when the L-rd speaks.

What a world it would be if we all merely listened and obeyed, with no theological filters.

In every walk of faith, there comes a time when comfort - or at least routine - becomes the enemy of progress. That’s the situation facing the Jewish people as D’varim opens.

As it is written:

“Adonai spoke to us in Horev. He said, ‘You have lived long enough by this mountain. Turn, get moving and go to the hill country of the Emori and all the places near there in the ‘Arevah, the hill country, the Sh’felah, the Negev and by the seashore - the land of the Kena’ani, and the L’vanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates River. I have set the land before you! Go in, and take possession of the land ADONAI swore to give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya’akov, and their descendants after them.” - D’varim 1:6-8 (CJB/Stern)

There’s not much need to pound this one to a fine dust. No need for ionamin or some other nutritional supplement to grasp the meaning.

The principle for our own lives is clear. The Jewish people never liked living in the desert near Mount Sinai. They endlessly and foolishly wished to return to Egypt. The complained about their situation. But they were also stuck where they were. To make progress… and Adonai wished for them forward progress, not a return to Egypt, the time came for them to finally get up off their lazy rears and start moving toward something.

In the same way even today, we often fail to appreciate what Adonai has provided for us and if we’re not complaining, as the saying goes, we’re not living.

But even discomfort can become a kind of comfort. As the saying goes, “better to battle the devil you know than the one who is unknown to you.”

That’s where the Israelites were; stuck in the comfort of what’s familiar, even when what’s familiar isn’t comfortable. Just as Adonai called his people to arise and move on, so too is He willing today to place the same call on our lives.

What mountains do you need to flee and leave behind to get closer yo your promised land?

Recently we reached the home stretch in the yearly Torah cycle. Our tie in B’Midbar (Numbers) is over at long last! Only one more book to sojourn through before we being all over again at B’resheet (Genesis). D’Varim (Deuteronomy) is a much more accessible book, somewhat like B’resheet, in that there is more of a narrative flow to the book, rather than an obsession with mitzvahs and how many of everything there was.

So, the journey ahead should be more enjoyable again. Although the book covers the final days of Moshe, as a messianic I can’t quite help of recognizing the shadows of Messiah Y’shua hanging heavily over these final proceedings. So cozy up in a couch or your favorite piece of office furniture and allow me to be your guide the rest of the way.

We’re almost home now. Relax and enjoy.

Entering the promised land was no trip to a bed and breakfast for the Jewish people. Another example of this is detailed in B’Midbar (Numbers) 25:10-19.

Following in the mold of Moshe, and before him even Abraham, Yitzak and Ya’akov, Pinchas, son of El’azar, son of Aahron, steps in between the children of Israel and deflects G-d’s zealous anger at Yisrael’s sinful rebellion and convinces him to forgive and restore the people of Yisrael to right-standing before Adonai.

This thought, therefore, occurs to me.

When is the last time anyone has stood between Adonai and a rebellious group of Adonai-fearers and contended for them. I’m not talking about a five-minute prayer for “those pour unfortunate souls in the church down the street who don’t agree with us on this doctrine or that.” I’m talking about having the L-rd make you aware of his holy and righteous anger at someone and, rather than meekly standing by and saying, “Whatever you say, you know best, L-rd,” actually stepping out before Adonai in holiness and confidence granted to you by Y’shua the messiah, and saying, boldly, “Shall not the L-rd do right?”

That is an admirable kind of courage that many in the books of Moshe seem to possess. Are modern believers so weighted down with the guilt and shame of their own failings that we miss out on the chance to be enough of a friend to G-d that we could turn his wrath against someone else by loving both G-d and those in mortal danger of G-d’s wrath enough to say, “Shall not the L-rd do right?”

As I continue my messianic studies, the work of Michael L. Brown is becoming of increasing focus and interest. While well-known for his apologetics series, “Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus,” soon to release its fifth volume, he has written many other works and is not just in the business of taking on the task of educating Jewish believers.

In fact, in once of his more classic works, “Our Hands Are Stained With Blood: The Tragic Story of the “Church” and the Jewish People,” first released in 1992, takes so-called “Christians” to task for being deadened and nearly blind to anti-Semitism in all its forms - including teaching from the pulpit of many of today’s most influential “Christian” ministers.

It’s not a simple case of crossed network cables, but a solid, analytical, and tragic trace of the history of anti-Semitism in the “Christian” church that has taken the lives of so many. And it’s a much-need shot of honesty into a “Christian” void full of self-satisfied, blind to the truth, deluded into apathy aposty that has dragged even the best-intentioned “Christians” from pure, Biblical truth for far longer than any would feel comfortable believing.

Highest recommendation.