“Our Hands Are Stained With Blood”

Published by Destiny Image

 Chapter 12

Has God Forsaken His People?

 Some things are non negotiable.  God’s covenant with Israel is one of them.  How could he have made himself more clear?

 He gave his oath to Abraham and reiterated it six more times to Abraham, to his son Isaac and to his grandson Jacob.  On one occasion,

           When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for Him to swear by, He swore by Himself (Heb. 6:13).

           Why did God speak so decisively?  It was because He wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, [so] He confirmed it with an oath (Heb. 6:17).

God who cannot lie bound Himself by an oath!

His covenant with Israel was reiterated through Moses,  repeated by the prophets and reharsed by the psalmists.  Jesus himself affirmed it (Matt. 19:28), Paul articulated it (Rom. 9-11) and the gates of the New Jerusalem announce it forever (Rev. 22:11-12).  God has chosen Israel as His covenant people.

What if Israel broke the covenant?  What would then happen to them?  Listen to these unmistakably clear truths:

…Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you.  I will discipline you but only with justice;  I will not let you go entirely unpunished (Jer 30:11).

The exact same words are repeated in Jeremiah 46:28.  God will completely destroy other nations, but He will not completely destroy Israel!  He treats His people differently from other people; they are judged more strictly, but they will never be wiped out.

          No matter what Israel does, God will never forsake them as a distinct people.  In Jeremiah 31:31-34, the Lord declares that He will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah.  But he doesn’t stop there.  It’s as if He’s saying “Now, don’t get Me wrong!  Don’t think that this new covenant means that I’m abandoning My people.  No!”

This is what the Lord says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that it’s waves roar – the Lord Almighty is His name: “Only if these decrees vanish from My sight,” declares the Lord, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me.” This is what the Lord says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the Lord (Jer. 31:35-37).

          As long as there is a sun, moon, stars, earth and sea, there will be a distinct people of Israel – no matter what they do.  It’s God’s promise!  It’s true!

Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight?  Though I often speak against him, I shall remember him.  Therefore My heart yearns for him, I have great compassion for him,” declares the Lord (Jer. 31:20)

          Look at how relevant God’s prophetic word is to our day and age.  For centuries the Church, in arrogance, because of ignorance, claimed that she alone was the true Israel, that she had replaced the ancient covenant people.  He church taught that it was the Christians alone who were the true Jews.  (How strange that these Christians were not claiming to be Jewish during the Holocaust!)  The Church taught emphatically that the physical people of Israel (those who were ethnically Jewish and those who joined the nation through conversion to Judaism) were eternally rejected.  

          This is not some worn-out old doctrine.  It is on the increase again in our day.  Yet the Lord is not surprised.  Twenty-five hundred years ago, He already addressed this issue:

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “Have you not noticed that these people are saying, ‘The Lord has rejected the two kingdoms He chose?’ So they despise My peoiple and no longer regard them as a nation.  This is what the Lord says: ‘If I have not  established My covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David  my servant and will not chose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them’” (Jer. 33:23-26).

          People are still murmuring against Israel and despising the people and the nation.  God’s answer is still the same:  “I will never regect them!”

          What exactly did God promise Abraham and his descendants?  How long are His promises good?  Psalm 105 has the answer for us.

 He remembers His covenant forecer, the word He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the oath He swore to Isaac.  He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant:  “To you i will give the land of Canaan as the portion you wil inherit” (Ps. 105:8-11)

Did God make Himself clear?

The scriptures speak of God’s covenant, the word He commanded, His oath which He confirmed as a decree forever, for a thousand generations, as an everlasting covenant.  The Lord is trying to make a point!

          Not only did He promise to bless Abraham and make him into a great nation, not only did He promise to multiply his seed, not only did He promise to make him the father of many nations, not only did He promise to bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him; He also promised Abraham the land of Canaan, with clearly defined borders, as an everlasting inheritance to his natural descendants – until this earth is no more. 

          Amazingly, some teachers have tried to get out of this perpetual land promise to Israel.  They claim that in the New Testamant, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever reiterate this particular aspect of the covenant.  But why should they reiterate it?  When almost all of the New Testament was being written, about one million Jews were living in the Land, Jerusalem was the spiritual and national capitol and the Temple was still standing.  And Jesus made it clear that, despite Jerusalem’s soon-coming destruction – a destruction that would last “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” – He would come back to a Jewish Jerusalem (Luke 21:24; Matt. 23:37-39).  Obviously Jews would be in the Land!

But there is another reason why Jesus and the apostles did not explicitly stress the land promise to their people.  The specifics of God’s covenant with the patriarchs were so clearly stated in the scriptures that it would have been a waste of words to repeat them all!  David Brown, the respected nineteenth century Bible commentator, was correct when he said:

What is permanent in the kingdom of God under the Old Testament is PRESUMED in the new. 

And let all believers who question Israel’s right to the Land, based on the New Testament, take note of this:  The New Testament doesn’t state that Israel would be exiled from the Land either!  Both of these Old Testament truths, Israel’s scattering and Israel’s regathering, are presumed in the New.

The covenant God made with Israel is just like the covenant He made with David.   The Lord declared to David that He would establish a lasting dynasty for him:

When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom… I will be his father, and he will be My son.  When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with the floggings inflicted by men.  But my love will ever be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.  Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16).

 What a wonderful word!  In spite pf David’s terrible sin, and Solomon’s tragic backsliding, inspite of the godlessness of David kings like Ahaz and Manasseh, the kingdom would never be taken from his physical descendants.  

          When the kingdom was divided and God gave Jeroboam the ten northern tribes, He did so to humble David’s descendants, but “not forever” (1 Kin. 11:39).  He still left one tribe with the sons of David,

So that David My servant may always have a lamp before Me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put My Name (1 Kin. 11:36).

           God offered a lasting dynasty to Jeroboam and his offspring on the condition that he keep the Lord’s statues as David had done (1 Kin. 11:38).  But when Jeroboam failed to obey, his dynasty was wiped out completely, while the kingdom of David lived on.  And it continues to live on today:  The King of kings and the Lord of lords is a direct descendant of David!  God was faithful to keep His word.

           He is just as faithful to keep His word to Israel.  His covenant with Abraham is just as unconditional and everlasting as His covenant with David.  Read Genesis 15 carefully.  In ancient days, that is how covenants were made.  Sacrificial animals were cut in two and their severed bodies placed in two lines.  Both parties entering into the covenant would then walk between the carcasses.  By doing so they were symbolically saying, “ If I break this binding agreement, if I fail to uphold my side of the pact, then let me suffer the same fate that these animals have suffered.” But something was different in Genesis 15.  Only God passed through the pieces!  This was a one-way deal! 

         When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.  On that day Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites” (Gen. 15:17-21).

The Land belonged to other nations.  But at the proper time it would be given to Abraham’s seed.

        If they violated the terms of the covenant – especially as expressed through Moses – then they would be punished and even driven temporarily from the Land.  But just as God’s word to David stands firm, His word to Abraham endures, no matter what Israel does.  This is what He said through Moses.  When the Israelites are

…in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking My covenant with them.  I am the Lord their God.  But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God.  I am the Lord (Lev. 26:44-45).

 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you… When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey Him.  For the Lord y our Godf is a merciful God; He will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which He confirmed to them by oath (Deut. 4:27,30-31).

          Even today, when

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on [our] account; [yet] as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable (Rom.11:28-29).

Could anything be more clear?

          Right now the great majority of the Jewish people are our “enemies,” “as far as the gospel is concerned.”  They reject our message (the Orthodox Jews reject it most strongly), and some even actively oppose it.  As individuals, they forfeit their covenant blessings when they turn from Jesus the Messiah.  But as people, they are still elect and loved “on account of the patriarchs.”  Otherwise, God’s promises have no meaning and election has no significance.  “Abraham, I’m swearing by Myself, I’m putting My reputation on the line.  I will bless your offspring always – no matter what.  (But I may replace them with someone else one day!)”  That is not the Lord that we serve. 

          God’s covenant with Abraham is just as unconditional and everlasting as His covenant with the Church. The Lord “saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy” (Titus 3:5).   Praise God we were chosen by grace! But we are not only recipients of the Lord’s unmerited favor. To Israel, Moses said:

The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all the peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt (Deut. 7:7-8).

Sound familiar, doesn’t it? God’s covenants with Israel and with the Church are based on His promise, not our performance.

          Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church both stood, and still stand, by grace.  Both received God’s eternal promises.  Together we make up the family of God:  The faithful ones of Israel and the chosen ones from every nation become one new man out of the two, one body, one people. 

For through Him [Jesus!] we both have access to the Father by one Spirit (Eph. 2:18).

Great is the wisdom of God.

           This is not what the Muslims believe.  It is a fundamental tenet of the Koran that both Israel and the Church failed.  Moses was a prophet.  Jesus was a prophet.  But Muhammad was the seal of the prophets, the messenger of the final revelation.  The Jews are not the people of God – they failed!  The Christians are not the people of God – they failed!  It’s the Muslims who are the people of God. 

         Of course, this is preposterous.  But in the event that you are still uncertain about the calling of Israel, consider this simple truth:  If God could forsake Israel, in spite of His unconditional, everlasting promises, then He could forsake the Church!  If God could replace Israel, in spite of His unconditional, everlasting promises, the He could replace the Church!  So if you hold to a theology that says, “God has forsaken physical Israel,” of “The Church has replaced Israel,” you had better be extremely careful.

 Maybe the Koran is right!

“Isn’t It About Time?”

by Dr. Jeffrey L. Seif

Human beings are fascinated with time and have developed creative ways to keep track of it. We have developed calendars to track what we call days, weeks, months and years, much as we have manufactured various sorts of time pieces to track seconds, minutes and hours, that adorn both our wrists, our dressers and our walls.

Did you know that our interest in time isn’t unique to us? Though we homo sapiens have utilized our savvy to measure it and keep track of it it, even without the capacities and technologies, it seems that the whole of the animal kingdom is wired to times and seasons. Driven by inbred impulses, some creatures know when to hibernate and when to mate, along with where and when to go and die.

Thinking that it’s about time that we reflected on our interest in time, this magazine contains a variety of timely contributions. For my part, I simply want to underscore that—with al the rest—the Bible takes note of time, and appropriates it for theological purposes.

The divisions of “days” is noted immediately in Scripture (Gen. 1:1-31), as is the demarcating of a special “Sabbath” day (Gen. 2:1-3). In Leviticus 23, Moses harks back to the Sabbath (v. 3), which he lists as the head of a “feasts of the Lord” list in v. 1. Thereinafter, the Passover is noted with Unleavened Bread in vv. 4-8, followed by “First Fruits” in vv. 9-14. “Weeks” is then noted in vv. 15-23, followed by “Trumpets” in vv. 23-25. Trumpets, itself, heralds the “Day of Atonement” in vv. 26-32, following on the heels of which is “Tabernacles” in vv. 33-44.

At one level, it is to be observed that the festivals coinciding with sowing, reaping and assorted harvest-related moments. This fit rather neatly with ancient Israel’s agrarian economy and culture, and prompted Israelites to look heavenward to find success with the earthly and material aspirations. More importantly for our purposes, however, is how the various feasts correlate with major events in the New Testament.

Jesus’ death can be correlated with the Passover and His burial with Unleavened bread. Similarly, His resurrection coincides with “First Fruits,” much as the Pentecost experience does with the feast of Weeks. Trumpets beckons individuals to look to the rapture—when the trump shall sound—much as Atonement and Tabernacles reference assessments and rewards for those who are beckoned to God’s presence after the trumpet sound.

Mindful of how both nature and scripture make use of time, isn’t it about time that you made time for your Maker? I hope you’ll say “Yes,” and be diligent to better know His will and ways.

Here it is, the middle of December already and Hanukah and Christmas are fast upon us; in fact, you may be reading this after the fact. No worries! Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas, and a Blessed New Year!

How do you like the new website design? I think it’s very cool, and it works even better than it looks. More pictures on Flicker, the store is great, updates and whatnot; really cool. Please be sure to check out all the new DVDs and things available to you now.

Well, we have just completed a very hectic but very amazing travel schedule. I should have written you from Israel, or the Dominican Republic, or at least from Germany during our first international Days of Elijah conference…shame on me! Well, I promise to be more regular here to give the details from the field and keep you ahead of the curve from here on out.

I will be doing the Sid Roth radio program, Messianic Vision, soon so listen for that on a Christian radio station near you. In January I will also appear on “It’s Supernatural” with Sid and that will air in the spring. I taped programs with Jewish Voice to be seen in January, and also did a series of programs on the Life of King David with Zola Levitt Ministries that will air in February.

In a couple days, Greg and I leave for a one-night stand in Helsinki, Finland. That’s right, all that way for a New Year’s Eve celebration…but with 10,000 Lutherans! We were there last spring to help kick off a new ministry along with our dear friend Chuck Pierce. This time we are solo, but I am believing we will impart a huge download from the Holy Spirit of power and glory that will change that nation forever!

Lots to report from the road this New Year so stay tuned and keep up. We begin in Finland and move right on to Honduras and more. Blessings and grace!

Paul

Dear friends,

Blessings and grace to you from very wet and soggy Jacksonville! Tropical Storm Fay sat on us for four days and dumped over 15 inches of rain on a landscape that was already wet. The flooding streets came up to within 15 feet of our front door and about the same distance from our back door. I learned today that we did not have flood insurance, so the advancing waters could have had a devastating effect on my home should they have continued to move forward.

            As with all storms and threats we ventured into the yard and declared our home and neighborhood ‘off limits’ to the weather system, commanding the rains to cease and the floodwaters to abate. For more than ten years we have watched the hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires and draughts come and go without any damage or even power losses to our home. One recent hailstorm did catch me off guard however as I was traveling. I called home after the fact, to find out that my screening in the back yard was full of holes and my roof was damaged, needing some major repairs. That one snuck up on me when I was not at home!

            I relay this information to you in order to remind you that God himself has given you authority in this life. On the very first page of the manual for living (the Bible), the Lord spoke to Adam and told him to reign over the earth and subdue it. Yeshua ruled over the creation in such a way that the disciples marveled and wondered,” what kind of man is this that even the wind and waves obey his voice?” I am not preaching here, I am simply reminding you that we don’t use the power and authority we have been given to declare and show forth the glory of God and the Kingdom!

            We are making the final preparations for the new recording in Jerusalem next year and I am anxious to get that information to you as soon as we have agreed on dates and places. I am also planning to be in Israel this fall to do some taping with Zola Levitt Ministries on the life and times of King David. That will be aired some time late this year and I will give you a ‘heads-up’ on that as well. Don’t forget to keep checking back on the website for my weekly update to get some more news on the ministry and where we have been.

            We have just agreed to return to Finland for a New Years Eve celebration with our Lutheran friends outside of Helsinki. It seems that the fire of the Holy Spirit has continued to burn since our last visit and they are expecting over 10,000 hungry worshipers to join us for that evening of worship and impartation; glory to God! We are finding hungry souls all over the world, and I am anxious to get to the Dominican Republic next month as well. Spanish speaking peoples seem to be some of the hungriest people I meet, and this will be my fourth trip to that island in five years.

            On a more personal note, my dad has been cleared of all signs of prostrate cancer; praise the Lord! Our dear friend Ruth was just cleared of all signs of cancerous tumors in her eyes, and our Tuesday morning intercessors group is seeing many more victories in prayer. By the way, if you would like to join us from your home or workplace, we get together for corporate prayer every Tuesday morning at 11:00 AM. You can spend several minutes or more with us during that time and pray in agreement by the power of the Holy Spirit. You don’t need to know what we are praying, simply pray in the Spirit during that 90 minutes and the Lord will show you what to pray!

            I want you to know how important your prayers and financial gifts are to us here at Wilbur Ministries. You are sending us to the Dominican Republic to encourage the believers there; your gifts enable me to travel to Israel for some very valuable TV taping and concerts to encourage our friends in the Land; Germany is anxiously waiting for us and the ‘Days of Elijah’ conference in November to ignite the light of the gospel in Europe again; and Finland will thank you for your support as we bring in the New Year with prophetic worship and release the fires of revival over that nation.

            You are a most important part of this ministry and we are very grateful to God that you have answered the call to partner with us during these days of Elijah. I pray that your house is filled with peace and that you know the joy of walking with the Lover of your soul every day. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you and give you shalom; in the Name above all others…

Yeshua the Messiah!

Paul 

I am in the Seattle airport waiting for the Delta flight that will carry Luanne and me back home through Atlanta. You know what they say about that city, don’t you? Even Yeshua will have to connect through Atlanta when He returns to rule from Jerusalem!

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Well, I know it has been some time since my last posting, but…I’m back! Too much to catch you up on here so, I’ll simply give you the most current details.

Last week we found ourselves back in very familiar and comfortable company with our friends at Beth Israel Messianic Fellowship in northern NJ. They are long-time friends, and Jonathan Kahn and his staff are some of the most able and anointed leaders in our movement. One thing changed this trip, however, and that was the facility. For many years they have been in a building that was not adequate for their size and needs. But, God is good, and they are now in a huge building in the city of Wayne, just minutes from the place I grew up and graduated high school.

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Hi everyone. If you follow this column, then you know I have been remiss in keeping you updated here for several weeks now. Please forgive the slack!

Just after Passover we made a long journey up to the frozen North of Winnipeg, Canada and found out why they call it “Winterpeg”. At the beginning of May it was freezing cold and snowed every day we were there. The conference was poorly attended which I consider to be quite a shame as the Lord thought it was worth showing up for! We need to keep our neighbors to the north in prayer as their spiritual zeal and their weather have way too much in common.

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Passover is coming!

How often I have heard the feasts referred to as “the feasts of the Jews”. Actually, if we read our Bibles a little more carefully we would discover they are in fact, “the feasts of the Lord!” (Lev. 23)

I have heard it said that timing is everything. If we try to reconcile the two calendars this year, our Greek and Biblical calendars, that is, we have quite a dilemma. What dilemma is that? Quite simply that we celebrated the resurrection (Easter Sunday) almost a month before the crucifixion!

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So you really enjoy traveling? Well, you should shadow us for a couple weeks and see if that is still your idea of a good time! Three weeks ago was Korea, then a short three-day trip to Virginia, a long ride to Finland for five days and now three days of meetings and recording in Mobile. Don’t get me wrong, these have all been very fruitful and rewarding times, they just seem to come in bunches!

Speaking of Finland let me catch you up on that one. After some very hassled travel with delays, miss-connects and no luggage for three days, we landed in Helsinki. The people were very excited and so were we. Chuck Pierce joined us for about 12 hours before returning to the US and a conference in Colorado Springs. Now that man travels!

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Here we are in the middle of March already; man this year is going faster than 2007! It must be all the travel that keeps the months short!

This past weekend in Virginia was an interesting journey. It is a very rare thing for me to be out of commission and a very strange feeling to say the least. Friday night went very well and I went to bed at 12:00 after a nice breakfast with the pastor and Greg. Saturday morning brought a weird revelation as I could hardly speak, much less sing!

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