LaVrai – The Truth

I am disappointed with the information revealed in this article, but I am not very surprised. It is ashame that people would treat each other this way, but even more so that Jews would treat each other this way — that one people of two different viewpoints cannot agree to disagree. Religious Jews pride themselves on their faith and that GOD gave father Abraham the Covenant, and they seem to have such a zeal for GOD…yet would such a Jew burn a holy book, set fire to a place of worship or place an explosive at a child’s home?

TEL AVIV, Israel – Safety pins and screws are still lodged in 15-year-old Ami Ortiz’s body three months after he opened a booby-trapped gift basket sent to his family. The explosion severed two toes, damaged his hearing and harmed a promising basketball career.

Police say they are still searching for the assailants. But to the Ortiz family the motive of the attackers is clear: The Ortizes are Jews who believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

Israel’s tiny community of Messianic Jews, a mixed group of 10,000 people who include the California-based Jews for Jesus, complains of threats, harassment and police indifference.

The March 20 bombing was the worst incident so far. In October, a mysterious fire damaged a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews, and last month ultra-Orthodox Jews torched a stack of Christian holy books distributed by missionaries.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry and two chief rabbis were quick to condemn the burning, but the Ortiz family says vigorous police action is needed.

“I believe that it will happen again, if not to us, then to other Messianic believers,” said Ami’s mother, Leah Ortiz, a 54-year-old native of South Orange, N.J.

Proselytizing is strongly discouraged in Israel, a state that was established for a people that suffered centuries of persecution for not accepting Jesus and has little tolerance for missionary work.

At the same time, Israel has warm relations with U.S. evangelical groups, which strongly support its cause, but these generally refrain from proselytizing inside Israel. Even the Mormon church, which has mission work at its core worldwide, agreed when it opened a campus in Jerusalem to refrain from missionary activity. Read the rest here…

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When the Holy Bible says every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is LORD that means it’s a fact. When it says they shall look upon HIM whom they have pierced and be ashamed, it’s a fact. So I pray that as many as the LORD calls will accept HIS Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, Messiah and Savior of the world — before HE returns to separate the wheat from the tares, which some see as being perhaps only just a few years away.

And for those who want to assume that I am anti-Semitic, you are quite wrong. I am not racist in any way, shape or form. I respect all peoples. What I write here I write with love, for I know what the LORD has written and HE hides nothing from HIS people (read the book of Isaiah, for example).

Isaiah 45:14-25 (New King James Version)

18 For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: “I am the LORD, and there is no other. 19 I have not spoken in secret, In a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, ‘ Seek Me in vain’; I, the LORD, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

20 “ Assemble yourselves and come; Draw near together, You who have escaped from the nations. They have no knowledge, Who carry the wood of their carved image, And pray to a god that cannot save. 21 Tell and bring forth your case; Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, A just God and a Savior; There is none besides Me. 22 “ Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.

23 I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath. 24 He shall say, ‘ Surely in the LORD I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him. 25 In the LORD all the descendants of Israel Shall be justified, and shall glory.’”

Zechariah 12:10-14 (New King James Version)

10 “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. 11 In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; 13 the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; 14 all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

Revelation 1:4-8 (New King James Version)

4 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen. 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Further Reading:

Orthodox Jewish Youths Burn Bibles

Why Shouldn’t We Evangelize The Jews?

Challenging Judaism

Just seeing the headline on this story made me want to do as this little girl in the photo is doing. This is just madness. Are they going to start demanding Christians and Messianic Jews be handed over to the state for execution?

Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.

Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.

After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it.

The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue, he said.

The Israeli Maariv daily reported Tuesday that hundreds of Jewish religious school students took part in the book-burning. But Aharon told The Associated Press that only a few students were present, and that he was not there when the books were torched. Not all of the New Testaments that were collected were burned, but hundreds were, he said.

He said he regretted the burning of the books, but called it a “commandment” to burn materials that urge Jews to convert.

“I certainly don’t denounce the burning of the booklets,” he said. “I denounce those who distributed the booklets.”

Jews worship from the Old Testament, including the Five Books of Moses and the writings of the ancient prophets. Christians revere the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, which contains the ministry of Jesus.

Calev Myers, an attorney who represents Messianic Jews, or Jews who accept Jesus as their savior, demanded in an interview with Army Radio that all those involved be put on trial. He estimated there were 10,000 Messianic Jews, who are also known as Jews for Jesus, in Israel.

Police had no immediate comment.

Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.

Earlier this year, the teenage son of a prominent Christian missionary was seriously wounded when a package bomb delivered to the family’s West Bank home went off in his hands.

Last year, arsonists burst into a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews and set the building on fire, raising suspicions that Jewish extremists were behind the attack. No one claimed responsibility, but the same church was burned down 25 years ago by ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists. (Source)

Note on the photo: It is totally unrelated to the story, but it illustrates my reaction to this article. Photo details here.

All throughout the Book of Isaiah, the prophet writes of the future Messiah, savior of Israel and the whole world. Isaiah describes his birth, his name, his ancestry, his personality and how the world will react to him. I don’t believe any other book in the Bible gives such a clear picture of who this man is and will be. Next in my on-going study called Challenging Judaism, I examine the Book of Isaiah, chapters 7, 9 & 11. Please read it, question it and give input–and take the poll.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whoever wrote this scroll seems really lost…and may need to give the New Testament a thorough, Spirit-led reading to fully understand “what the prophets have foretold.”

This ‘leader of the west’ may just be the next Nebuchadnezzar and plans to use ‘the guise of peace’ to subdue many more nations.

What I’d really like to know, is who this ‘prominent political and social figure’ is who will most likely present the scroll to this ‘leader of the West.’

From IsraelNationalNews.Com:

A historic document is planned to be submitted to visiting U.S. President George Bush upon his arrival this week, calling upon him to choose to be remembered like Cyrus, and not like Nebuchadnezzar. Read the rest of this entry »