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Shortly
before he died, Moses uttered an amazing prophecy:
"So it shall be when all of these things have
come upon you, the blessing and the curse which
I have set before you, and you call them to mind
in all nations where the Lord your God has banished
you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey
Him with all your heart and soul according to
all that I command you today, you and your sons,
then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity,
and have compassion on you, and will gather you
again from all the peoples where the Lord your
God has scattered you. If your outcasts are at
the ends of the Earth, from there the Lord your
God will gather you, and from there He will bring
you back. The Lord your God will bring you into
the land which your fathers possessed, and you
shall possess it; and He will prosper you and
multiply you more than your fathers. Moreover
the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and
the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your
soul, so that you may live. The Lord your God
will inflict all these curses on your enemies
and on those who hate you, who persecuted you"
(Deuteronomy 30:1 7).
Moses,
who lived around 1500 BC, declared that in the
future, Israel would experience both the Bracha
the Blessing, and the K'lahlah the Curse, based
on our obedience or disobedience. Moses had already
detailed the blessing and the curse in Leviticus
26 and Deuteronomy 28. In the five centuries that
followed the Exodus from Egypt and entrance into
the Land, the people of Israel were, for the most
part, close to God and experienced His blessings.
To be certain, there were times when we abandoned
the Lord, and the Holy One allowed our enemies
to conquer us. But then in our distress, we turned
to Him once again. The times of blessing reached
their zenith under the reigns of David and Solomon.
After
Solomon's death the nation was divided by civil
war. From the beginning, the Northern Kingdom
of Israel was faithless to the Lord, and experienced
the full measure of the curse, culminating when
we were taken into captivity by the Assyrians
around 722 BC. In the Southern Kingdom of Judah,
there were still times of blessing - during the
administrations of the good kings, but also times
of terrible unfaithfulness under the evil kings.
As the age of the kings drew to a close, the Kingdom
of Judah had degenerated into wickedness, disobedience
and lawlessness and, as promised, God sent the
curse. The Babylonians invaded, killed many of
our people, carried away thousands into exile
and captivity, and destroyed Jerusalem and the
Temple, thus ending the sacrifices that enabled
us to draw close to God.
In accordance
with His nature and in fulfillment of the word
spoken through Moses, the Lord was merciful, and
after 70 years He allowed the captivity to come
to end. Many Jewish people returned to Israel,
and we rebuilt the Temple and Jerusalem. The next
several hundred years, during the reigns of the
Persians and the Greeks, were generally good ones,
although very difficult times returned in the
time of the Maccabees. In the time when the Romans
were in control, the most significant and amazing
event in the history of the world happened! In
His desire to bless us to the utmost, God sent
into the world, not just another prophet, but
His Son who is Immanuel God With Us in human form.
The long anticipated Messiah, the anointed Ruler
and Savior of Israel, came from Heaven to Earth,
bringing us good news, offering us entrance into
the Kingdom of Heaven, providing blessing, salvation,
help, wisdom, understanding, happiness and peace!
Sadly,
the majority of the people and the leaders were
far from God. Spiritually, we were like a desert.
We had eyes, but couldn't see the amazing things
happening right in front of us; ears, but couldn't
hear and understand the glorious truths spoken
to us. And in our spiritual bankruptcy, we rejected
the Savior and the Prince of Life, and thereby
broke our covenant with God, and turned away from
Him. The Lord, being gracious, gave us an additional
40 years of testing, sending us apostles and prophets
who did mighty works of power, demonstrating that
Yeshua whom they served was indeed Israel's true
Messiah. Some believed, but most did not. So,
at the end of 40 years, as God had warned, came
judgment and the curse. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem
and the Temple, killed hundreds of thousands,
and sold many into a life of slavery. Many were
exiled to the nations, where for most of the past
two millennia we have suffered anti Semitic persecutions,
the confiscation of our property, banishment,
crusades, pogroms, all culminating with the Holocaust.
Almost
5.5 million of us are now back in our ancient
homeland, but we have had to fight war after war
with implacable enemies, intent on destroying
us, greatly outnumbering us, and who are enriched
with immense oil wealth. We face demonically inspired
adversaries who infiltrate our cities, our cafes
and restaurants, our buses, our neighborhoods
to commit mass murder. Anti Semitism is growing
around the world, and the majority of the nations
of the world have no love for us, and show little
support for us. We have been without a Temple
and without the sacrifices that help us draw near
to God, not just for 70 years, but for 1,933 years,
more than 27 times as long as the Babylonian Captivity!
Rather than approach God His way, through the
salvation and atonement that Messiah Yeshua offers,
the majority of our people have invented a Judaism,
not based on the truest principles of the Torah,
but on man made teachings which cannot save, cannot
bring us near to the Lord, cannot reconcile us
to the God from whom we are estranged. The
true believers among the Chosen People the Messianic
Jews, like Messiah, are despised and rejected,
barely tolerated or acknowledged by the majority.
Remaining in defiance against Messiah, the nation
of Israel is still very much under God's curse!
Truly, as a people, we have experienced the blessing
and the curse, just as the Lord told us we would!
Moses
continued this amazing prophecy by telling us
that, even while still experiencing the curse;
while banished to the nations, if we would yet
turn again in genuine faith to the Lord, and obey
Him with all our heart and soul, the Almighty
would end our captivity, and enable us to return
to the Land of Israel in peace. It won't matter
how distant we are from the Land of Israel; the
Lord will be compassionate and bring us back from
there to the Land of our ancestors, since He intends
that this Holy Land be the land of the physical
descendants of the ancient Jewish people that
it be our land as well! Once we are fully
restored, both to the Land of Israel and the God
of Israel, obeying His word and fulfilling His
will, and participating in the New Covenant made
by the Messiah, then the Lord will be very pleased
with us, and we will once again experience the
blessing great physical and material prosperity.
And, though
the Lord allowed us to be persecuted among the
nations, He will yet punish those same nations
that mistreated us! You see, the Lord used their
anti Semitism and hatred toward us to judge us.
But though they ultimately served God's purposes,
their motives were not pure, and their intent
was to destroy us, and what they did was wrong,
and so they will be punished in their turn. So,
this prophecy of the curse provides no justification
for anti Semitism!
Where
are we in this prophetic history of blessing and
cursing? We experienced the blessing long ago.
We've been experiencing the cursing for almost
2,000 years. We have witnessed the initial returnings
of the Jewish people to our ancient Land, and
a small minority of us are turning to the Lord.
I believe that the reestablishment of the State
of Israel and the growth of the Messianic Jewish
movement is the beginning of the fulfillment of
this ancient prophecy given by Moses so long ago.
If I’m right, we will see more and more Jewish
people turn to Messiah, along with growing anti-Semitism
and pressure on the State of Israel, until Yeshua's
Return, when all Israel turns to Him and acknowledges
that He is indeed our Messiah whom God sent. We
will enter into the New Covenant, and then we,
and the whole world, will experience God's greatest
blessing. What an awesome time that will be! May
the Living God use us to help accomplish His purposes!
Shalom!
Rabbi Loren
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