28/12/2023
2023 Torah Class Newsletter
I am amazed that each year that I pen this newsletter to you, things are happening on this little planet that could not have been imagined or predicted even months earlier, most of it revolving around Israel as prophesied in the Bible about the End Times. Unfortunately, these things are not of the good nature. Rather, evil continues its tireless onslaught.
It is critical that we all understand the important junction in redemption history upon which we stand. On October 7th, Israel experienced their 9/11 moment. The government leadership of Gaza (Hamas) ordered their soldiers to attack Israel and to do it in ways that are nearly unfathomable to people of the West; ways that have not been seen since the Holocaust. The barbarity cannot be captured in mere words. Jewish civilians who were asleep in their beds had their babies taken from their cribs and beheaded, small children rounded up and taken hostage, women hauled into the streets and gang r***d, and over 1200 Israelis shot and stabbed to death… many at a music concert in the desert. A few days later Israel responded in deadly fashion against Gaza, and much of the world has… you guessed it… condemned Israel for what has happened. How can rational people think this way? Because it is a spiritually based mindset and the world follows Satan. So, the world hates the Jewish people simply because they are God’s set-apart people.
To help understand what is happening, I want to offer a few brief explanations. For instance: what is all this talk and vitriol about that comes from the media and from the Palestinians of “occupation”? It is best summed up in the now well-known battle cry of Palestine and their supporters: “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free”. The river they are referring to is the Jordan, and the sea is the Mediterranean. From the Palestinian and Arab world viewpoint, and that of most nations of the UN, the state of Israel ought not to exist, its existence being based on an illegitimate handing over by the UN to Israel in 1948 of these supposedly Muslim lands that now forms the State of Israel. I will debunk this falsehood. First, the land handed over was British held land (called at that time the British Mandate) and not Muslim held. However, it is a basic Muslim tenet that any land that any Muslim every steps foot on is now Muslim land. Do you have Muslims living in your nation? For them, you are occupiers. Second, Israel does not occupy Gaza. Not one Jew has lived in Gaza, and no Israeli military presence has existed in Gaza, since 2005 when Gaza was officially handed over to the Palestinian Authority. Third, the Hamas leadership of Gaza was put into office by free elections supervised by the UN. So, the people of Gaza have no excuse, and are anything but innocent, for the result of this devastating war. They did not have Hamas forced upon them… they chose to have them as their leadership because the bulk of Palestinians agreed with the basic Hamas Charter principle and goal to wipe Israel off the map and to murder Jews wherever they could be found.
I tell you this because Israel has the righteous right to defend itself, to remain in existence as a Jewish State, and to pursue its enemies until they are destroyed. Israel has shown remarkable restraint over the years, as scores of thousands of rockets have been fired towards Israel since Gaza became independent. But, with this massacre of Jews, Israel had no choice but to take harsh action to stop it once and for all. There is a right side and a wrong side to be on in this conflict; there is no middle ground or evenhandedness. Torah Class, and all 5 Seed of Abraham Ministries, stands firmly with Israel and Israel alone, and hopefully so do you. We are doing all we can to aid Israel and Israeli Jews.
It is prescient that all during 2023, I have been teaching on the Minor Prophets, which deal with what Israel can expect to face for their centuries of disobedience and lack of faithfulness to the God of Israel, and what the nations that will attack Israel over the centuries can expect to happen to them for harming God’s people and land. We see this playing out (at least in its early stages) before our eyes. I invite you to follow along as we study more of the Minor Prophets in 2024 since it is my firm belief that we have crossed over the historical threshold into the End Times.
Because this is the case, then it is imperative that we expect the unexpected to happen. Yeshua warns us that violence will only increase. More natural disasters, more wars, more scarcities of food and water. Covid taught the Western world that we can no longer escape these harsh realities.
