Revealing the Hearts of Many

Revealing the Hearts of Many

I write this just a few days before I am to fly to the United States. Our trip was delayed and was to have taken place in mid-May but our flight was finally scheduled by El Al for Thursday night. As I was praying today, the words spoken about John the Baptist were given to me, “So that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.” I saw immediately the application to Donald Trump and this election season. Facebook now is a great revealer of those thoughts. I am only speaking of professed believers.

Read this as a phrase introducing each point. The thoughts of many show . . .

disdain for their fellow believers who do not agree with them about voting for Donald Trump. That is troubling. They belittle others.
that they really have succumbed to a humanistic spirit and have gone soft on the LGBT agenda and its danger to religious freedom.
that they really have gone soft on abortion and are willing to support those who have a radical abortion agenda.
that they really do not see the centrality of Israel and the progress that has been made with Iran, the new peace agreements and moving the embassy to Jerusalem.
that they almost idolize Donald Trump and will take any criticism of him as illegitimate.
that they are narrow in partisanship and do not see that some ideas from the Democrats are important and right.
that they are narrow in partisanship and do not see that some ideas form Republicans are right.
that they are weak in defending the importance of law and order when parts of the U. S. cities are burning.
that they are weak in their passion for civil rights for all and making more progress against racism.
that they will accommodate radicals and their agenda or ignore that agenda to show they support black lives.
that they dismiss evidence with a back of the hand brush off without seriously looking into the evidence.
they have fallen into the partisanship of those who deal with the COVID crisis and dismiss either the consensus or those who are credible and disagree.
that they live in information bubbles and do not fairly take into account narratives and evidence that disagree with their favored narrative.
that there is backsliding form Biblical Law as the norming norm that should determine our orientation to everything in life, including political and social issues.
That they really want acceptance from the mainstream society; to look reasonable and with it.

I think it is the intention of God that all will check their hearts and repent where they have fallen into sub biblical orientations. I again note Mike Brown’s book on Will Evangelicals Pass the Trump Test. As a revivalist, you can imagine that Mike is very good on many of these points. I hope and pray that many are seeing these points; I know several who are. May it lead to deeper prayer and the revival we all seek.

Is Belief in God Necessary to Maintain Morals and Ethics?

In a recent survey, only 46% of Americans said that belief in God was necessary to maintain morals and ethics. In the Philippines, 98% said it was necessary. In an interview, the famous Christian theologian at Yale, Miroslav Wolff, argued that affluence produces a sense of self-sufficiency and idolatry and is part of the reason for the survey results. Canada and Western Europe were much lower than in the United States. Two generations ago, the results would have been very different.

I have written before on the proposition that all historic cultures grounded their moral, social, and ethical laws in their religious world view. A transcendent grounding was universally embraced as necessary. Western culture and communist societies (China) are the first in history to think they can produce a lasting ethical order without this transcendence. The great German philosopher at the end of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant, argued that maintaining a civilized order requires belief in God, freedom, and immortality (and afterlife). God as the judge is crucial since if our behavior will not be ultimately judged, and there is no fear of God, then morals will decline. We must see humans as free to be responsible or morals will not be possible. Finally, life after death is a crucial belief that all might get their just reward or punishment. That is good insight from someone who was not a Christian.

Some who answer the survey are not indicating that belief in God is not important, but only that there are moral or ethical people who do not so believe. Some unbelievers maintain faithful marriages, act in ethical ways in business, and give to those in need. Some believers do not. This is true. However, the larger issue is the drift of the culture over time. The famous Christian philosopher, D. Elton Trueblood, in his book a generation ago, Philosophy of Religion, argued that a moral life is possible without the fear of God, but only for one or two generations. He looked at the United States and saw that the country was going to be a cut-flower civilization. Cut a flower from its roots, and it looks like nothing has changed. However, it will wither. Civilization will also wither.

Today the atheist and agnostic argue that God is not necessary to maintain morals and ethics. However, there is one slight of hand. Since Trueblood’s time, and more than in his time, people are redefining what is moral and ethical. Since he wrote his textbook, abortion has been accepted, living together in a sexual relationship before marriage is now seen as ethical, as is same-sex relationships and marriage. Sexual relationships between consenting adults even without commitment is not considered unethical. And amazingly the new standards are a new orthodoxy used to vilify and cancel those who disagree as haters. In the 1960s Jack Wyrtzen, the known youth evangelist, argued that the new morality is really the old immorality. If one defines immorality as moral, then the slight of hand is very disturbing. A recent survey also found that we now approach 50% of children born out of wedlock. We know what that will lead to in maladjustment and crime. This is no longer a problem of the poor.

The problem is intensified due to a weak and compromising Christianity. Thankfully there are many who are not weak and compromising. However, the compromisers have lost confidence in the Bible, Yeshua as the only way to salvation, and to Biblical morals as the only legitimate way to live Yet, there is hope. I have never seen so many gatherings for prayer for revival, in person, and on Zoom and worldwide. Some prophets are hoping for a great third awakening. I hope they are right.

Why are Secularists so Interested in Life from Outer Space?

We frequently read news article about life from outer space. This is presented with great excitement. It is not that life has been found. Rather, the scientists have found planets that have conditions that are thought capable of supporting life. In addition, scientist have found pre life chemical constituents that are considered by evolutionists to be the building blocks that could evolved into life. These discoveries are then linked to the idea that inorganic matter in the right circumstances will of course produce life because naturalistic evolution is true.

At this point, no one has yet shown how inanimate matter can give rise to even the lowest forms of life and not even close to the massively complex organization of a simple living cell. The massive unproven additional assumption and propaganda is that if life is found, it establishes evolution. Yet, the central issue with evolution and life as pointed out by many, like Orthodox Jewish scientist Gerald Schroeder, is that there is no scientific explanation that shows the remotest possibility that life could evolve form non-life or that a cell could evolve from pre- cell components. The complexity of the cell is like a whole city and could never be explained by naturalistic evolution. This is pointed out as well in a book by America’s possibly leading philosopher, Thomas Nagel in his book Mind and Cosmos. Therefore, if life were found, it would only prove that God, for reasons known only to him, had created life on other planets. The great literary giant and apologist C. S. Lewis accepted this possibility.

The same orientation is found in those who are caught up in the quest for information on unidentified flying objects, UFOs, with the exciting idea that earth has been visited by intelligent beings from outer space. Classified information about this is now being released. For the secularist again, somehow this would be an evidence in favor of naturalistic evolution. This is a non-sequitur, that is something not logically entailed. There is simply no connection between evidence for naturalistic evolution to visitations from outer space beings. All of the massive objections to naturalistic evolution remain. God may have created life on other planets. The Bible also teaches that God created other intelligent beings called angels or messengers. We know very little about such beings, how they operate or fallen angels and where they live and how they operate.

The way such issues are presented is self-delusional, based on assumptions and not on evidence at all. The human quest to refute the conclusion that life is a product of intelligent design is futile quest that is bound to fail forever. The way these issues are presented is often propaganda for naturalistic evolution.

The Talmud Part One: The Mishneh

As a new leader in the Messianic Jewish world, 1972, I wanted to learn much more about Judaism. I began reading many books. One project still amazes me, and that was going through the Soncino English version of the Talmud. How deep was my understanding? I cannot evaluate it. I will say that such an exercise does give a person much more of a sense of Talmudic Judaism than many would think possible without years and years of study with Rabbis. Some years later, I studied other books on Rabbinic Judaism and especially Rabbi Jacob Neusner’s large volumes summarizing Rabbinic literature. Neusner, in my view, was the greatest scholar of Rabbinic Judaism who was not an Orthodox Jew (he was conservative). Then some months ago, I began to ask if I needed a review of the original source and decided to go through the Mishnah. I wanted to refresh my memory. The English version can be read and is just over 800 pages.

The Mishnah is the first part of the Talmud. It was passed down orally until written down by Rabbi Judah the Prince at the end of the second century. It is amazing for us moderns to realize how much was memorized and passed down, and this includes the Talmud part two. The second part of the Mishnah which covers more than 300 years after the Mishnah, is called the Gemara. It explains and expands on the content of the Mishnah.

The Mishnah is invaluable for describing both the Judaism of the first century Pharisees, but one has to be careful here and not read too much back into the first century. It also gives the consensus of practice from the end of the second century. It provides details on Israel’s Temple services, sacrifices, Feast celebrations and practices, Sabbath laws, and the basic practices of Synagogue prayer from that time. It also gives us applications of Torah, the laws of Moses, and how Rabbis of the time sought to apply the Torah including tort law, penalties, and capital offenses. Sometimes the applications are very wise and sometimes I scratch my head.

The largest amount of material in the Mishnah deals with laws of purity and holiness. This was a major emphasis of the Pharisees and sometimes was a source of conflict with Yeshua. The details of law upon law are stunning. It is building a fence around the Law so the law will not be violated, but then it builds a fence around the fence. So many of the decisions as to what counts as making one unclean and to what degree seem arbitrary and cry out for the greater explanations given in the Gemara. The level of legal hair-splitting in the Mishnah astonishes anyone who looks at it objectively without an overarching ethnic prejudice. Surely much in the Jewish heritage is good and beautiful and true, but in these legalistic pages upon pages, the question naturally arises. Is this what God wanted for our people: to give their primary attention to pages upon hundreds of pages of legal arguments and conclusions over matters that do not seem consequential and go way beyond the text of the Torah. The arguments often focus on what if questions? The Biblical law on what makes one clean and unclean and hence qualified for Temple involvement can be readily understood for 98 or 99% of the cases. The genius of the Rabbis is to focus on those 1% or 2% of questions of possible contamination with arguments of what does and does not contaminate. They want to cover every possibility of contamination even if remote. Once a conclusion is given, then the new question of a new 1% or 2% that arises from that can continue a new argument.

It is hard to not ask a question. Is this really what God is concerned with and what he really wanted our people to spend untold hours studying and arguing about, day after day, year after year, and century after century. Of course, outside of Orthodox Judaism, now a minority of Jews, Jews today take a much more flexible approach to these traditions and generally do not live by the strictures of the centuries past. Certainly, this did produce a great separation of our people and was used by God to preserve our people. But was this the necessary way of preservation? I do not believe that this reflects the ideal will of God. Is such focus a result of the failure to recognize Yeshua and his approach to Torah in the first century and the failure to recognize the post-resurrection apostolic witness? That is my conclusion. When Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel or America say they are studying Torah, they mean the Talmud and the Rabbinic traditions that continue the debate to this day. Rarely is Torah studied, though it is read through every year.

Hoshana Rabba

The seventh day of Sukkot is called Hoshana Rabba in Judaism. I am sending this out to you since this day begins. I previously sent a post on the meaning of Sukkot in general. Now I want to concentrate on this Seventh-day. Remember the 8th-day celebration that follows, a day of new creation. This is also an important Sabbath day.

This Feast is connected to prayers for rain and good crops for the coming year. As we have just celebrated the end of the year’s harvest, we look forward already to the new harvest that will come at Shavuot or Pentecost. The key to that harvest is rain and hence the prayer for rain with the hope that the early rains will start soon after the Feast and then continue into the Spring where we will see the latter rains. We are so much more conscious of this living in Israel. It is was on this very day of the Feast that Yeshua stood up and said,

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Now He said this about the Ruach whom those who trusted in Him were going to receive; for the Ruach was not yet given since Yeshua was not yet glorified.”

As rain produces fruitfulness and both satisfies our thirst and brings increase, so the Spirit satisfies our spiritual longing and brings increase, for by the Spirit we are able to see the harvest of people into the Kingdom. It is again fitting to remember the harvest themes of this season.

Scholars tell us that this might have been spoken in the context of the water-pouring ceremonies at that time. The priest would draw water from the pool of Siloam and put this out in the Temple as an offering, signifying both giving our lives and calling for rain as well.

A great miracle was also connected to this time; the healing of the blind man in John 9. We again have a Sukkot theme, namely that Yeshua is the light of the World. This statement of Yeshua in John 8:12 promises those who follow Him will have the light of life. Thus the blind man is healed as an illustration of the physical of being healed of our spiritual blindness. His words, “I was blind, but now I see.” John 9:25. The context is the glory of the lamps that were lit in the court of the women that produced a grand glory over the Temple and the City.

As we celebrate Hoshana Rabba, let us remember these wonderful themes and renew and pray for the renewal of the power of the Spirit in us so that we may have inner satisfaction, walk in His light, and be part of the great harvest. It is fitting to pray for revival indeed.

That They May be One: A Primer in Church History and Restoration

I wrote this book that people might have a very brief introduction to Church history. Why? Because it is important for all followers of Yeshua to know of their roots, not only in Israel, but in the history of the Christian Church. However, I also wrote it because I think there is a great pattern of the working of the Spirit where one can see both God’s preservation of truth as well as the losses and restorations of truth and emphases. I believe we are in an ultimate period of restoration that that began with the Reformation. That restoration is two steps forward and one step back. It would be a great mistake to think that due to the terrible shortcomings and sin in the institutions of the Church that we are to write off the historic churches and think that what is important is only with us today. It is foolish to think we do not learn from the best of the history of the churches. It is as Peter Hocken wrote, The Glory and the Shame. The book is also written with the hope that in the final times before Yeshua returns, He will bring us to the unity for which he prayed in John 17:21, that we may be one “that the world might believe.” The book answers many questions.

What great truths were preserved and written down in the early Church, its declarations and creeds? How did they come to believe in the role of bishops?

Where did the early Church go astray?
What were the great developments during the history of the domination of the Church by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
What was restored in the Reformation? Where did they get it right and where did they miss it? Who discovered the continued election of Israel? How the Puritans fit in.
What was restored through John Wesley and Methodism? How did this prepare the way for Pentecostalism and its restoration?
How did the 19th century British Church come to believe in the restoration of Israel and to prepare for it?
What was restored in the Latter Rain Movement? Where was it off? What was restored in the Charismatic movement and in Five Fold Restoration Movements? Where has it been good and where not so much?

And finally, where is all this going as we see all coming together, all the truths from the historic churches, the Reformation, to recent restorations unto the unity and blessing of the last days harvest and the return of Yeshua.

This book is an easy read. It will help you!

Sukkot (Tabernacles) is Coming

Friday evening begins the Feast of Sukkot. In some ways, it will be sad here because the wonderful joyful harvest feast will be nothing like normal due to the virus shut down. Sukkot has great meaning, not only for Israelis and for all Jews, but for all committed Christians.

The command in Lev. 23 notes that this is to be a 7 day festival with the 8th day as a special assembly, Shimi Atzeret. Historically we recall the time in the wilderness before Israel entered the promised land. This was a time of supernatural provision despite the judgment. Those who experienced that judgment who were under 20 years of age when it began, would have survived that judgment of almost 40 years and would have had great memory. There was supernatural manna, meat, and water. Their clothes did not wear out. The Feast, therefore, is the supreme testimony from this memory that the LORD is our provider. This is why the directions for remembering the desert period were given for the largest and final harvest festival of the year. Can you imagine being a parent and not having your kids’ clothes wear out? Israel in the Land, now living in stable houses, with stable seasons and harvests, is not to think that their provision is any less from the LORD. To drive this truth home, Israel is to dwell in tents as she did in the wilderness, to know that all provision is from God. It is a testimony of the New Covenant Scriptures that for those who walk with God and live in generosity that “God will supply all your needs according to His riches in Messiah Yeshua.” (Phil 4:19)

Probably, Yeshua was born during this Feast. The evidence is not absolute. If so, according to the calculations from the division of Abijah’s time to serve in the Temple, the division of the father of John the Immerser, one probable calculation leads us to the time of Sukkot. Since this is a pilgrim festival and families traveled to Jerusalem, it would explain why there was no room in the Inn. It indeed, would be so fitting and appropriate for Him to be born on the first day of Sukkot and then circumcised on the 8th day, Shmini Atzeret. He tabernacled among us.

The Feast is chosen by God to be the Millennial Feast for international celebration, for all nations in that age will send their representatives to celebrate the Feast. Therefore, it is the Feast of the Kingdom of God. In wonderful anticipation, organizations like the Christian Embassy, bring representatives of the churches from the nations in anticipation of that Age. It is therefore in Judaism and should be in Christianity, the Feast of the Kingdom of God International under the rule of the Messiah. If one adds the idea of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb that takes place after his return, which is rooted in the symbolism of the High Holidays, Rosh Hoshana to Yom Kippur, then it could well be that the Feast is the reception gathering of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. We also cannot overlook that the largest and final harvest is a fitting symbol of the great harvest of the nations at the end of the Age.

The celebration of this Feast by all believers in Yeshua therefore is a prophetic act of intercession in longing for its fulfillment.

Black Lives Matters Demands

The Black Lives Matter organization demands are less about saving black lives and more about enforcing a socialist ideology. I believe it is a pretext and front organization for a Marxist revolution. They are using the blacks intentionally through false narratives to foster the revolution. The BLM leaders in the national organization have exposed this and the local chapter leaders are indeed on board. What do they seek? Do the protestors know what the BLM organization is seeking? I doubt many do. The more violent ones may know their demands. I have printed their demands as they listed them. Here are a few responses.

End the war on black people

Because there is not a war against black people, you can never meet the demand. This is a demand leading to never-ending conflict. There are about 7,500 blacks killed by black on black crime per year. President Trump and the Congress already passed sentencing reforms to remove unfair sentences for blacks. The police caused about 12 unarmed black deaths per year that are questioned and some do lead to police convictions. However, there is no war on black people. However, there is systemic black racial disparity in achievement and life positions. This can only be solved by restoring the black family, incentivizing welfare to do this with workfare so poor blacks have stable jobs. It is by restoring the black family which BLM rejects as a goal. One huge issue is black education through charters and private schools that delivers the funds to the black parents instead of some very well-funded failing schools. And of course, for us, the Gospel and the Church are the most important keys.

Reparations for past and continuing harms.

Reparations mean that the guilty pay. Who should pay for this? Most Americans were immigrants after the period of slavery and had no relationship to slavery or Jim Crow. Should they pay? Only if being white makes one guilty by skin color which is a BLM theme. Or should Hispanics pay? They are a larger and larger portion of the citizens. Should the Asian immigrants pay for it in their taxes? It is fair to them? Should black immigrants from Africa pay? Who receives and who pays? Do the African immigrants pay or receive? This is another demand that can never be met. New programs to lift the poor in education, job training, enterprise zones, mentoring programs can and should be paid for. Programs for the poor cannot be racially based, but programs for the poor will most impact blacks. There is no clarity on this demand and just giving money away will end doing more harm than good. Yes, we want to lift the poor and the Church has a key role in this.

2. Divestment from the institutions that criminalize, cage, and harm black people; and investment in the education, health, and safety of black people. (Invest-Divest)

This is another vague and impossible demand. Prison reform has taken place under President Trump, not Obama. Investing more in public education will be a failure. Baltimore has the third most funded education per pupil. BLM does not mean to call for private vouchers or charter schools, but socialist public education being given more money. As communists, they would be against private religious schools. The issue is not money but the family and competence in the schools If their solution was tried, they would end up being just as frustrated. Little progress would be made.

3. Economic justice for all and a reconstruction of the economy to ensure our communities have collective ownership, not merely access. (Economic Justice)

What does this mean? The founders of BLM are Marxists. They are demanding socialism. Collective ownership is socialism. Or are they wanting to have communal ownership by ethnic groups? This will never pass and would be unconstitutional, that is to force private property into communal ownership structures, either centralized or decentralized. This is essentially calling for the end of free enterprise. Knowing these folks are Marxists, they probably are talking about equal income schemes. They could create companies or corporations that would buy businesses and real estate owned by the community as stakeholders. I don’t think they are thinking of doing this. That would be an interesting idea

4. Community control of the laws, institutions, and policies that most impact us. (Community control)

What does this mean? Does it mean fragmenting Federal, State, City, and County governments and having new definitions of political boundaries defined by race or ethnicity or neighborhood? It will not happen. Cities and states will not disband and give up their authority. Yes, neighborhood associations can have input to the city and state and act, make petitions, and work to change laws for the city. They can have local neighborhood bodies that do a lot. But there is no constitutional power to make laws, unlike cities and states.

5. Independent black political power and Black self-determination in all areas of society. (Political power)

This will never happen. What does this mean? They are asking for segregation in political power so that blacks make their own laws through their own separate votes. This is a recipe for separatism and turning back the clock on integration. Since Brown vs. Board of Education (I think in 1954) there has been a steady move in law that justice requires equal treatment and integration. They are now asking for special benefits and re-segregation. Amazing!

The BLM platform and demands is a recipe for continued poverty for blacks, for increased crime, and more blacks dying. The BLM organization and its platform is said by some to not be the platform of the protesters who ware seeking police reform. However, the leaders of the protests in the cities are usually official BLM leaders of the various cities that do embrace the platform and the demands. They support the Marxism. Again, it is a cover and pretext for Marxist revolution. They are using the black community for their ends and have hijacked the legitimate protests for reform.

The High Holidays

People connected to the Messianic Jewish movement and Evangelicals with passion for Israel often have a significant understanding of the High Holidays in the Bible and in Judaism. This is the period between Rosh Hoshana and Yom Kippur. Some have a depth of understanding. However, it amazing how many have no significant understanding at all, maybe the majority.

The High Holidays are the holiest time of the year on the biblical Jewish calendar. Sadly, in my view, the name Rosh Hoshana and part of the theology of the day in Judaism obscures some important meanings. It was not wrong for Israel to adopt the New Year date of the ancient Near East just as we in the West celebrate January 1st. However, the idea of that the date is really the anniversary of the creation of the world is speculative. By calling this the first month, we obscure the meaning that stems from Nissan, Passover month, being called the beginning of the year in the Torah. So yes, we can have new year meanings for the 1st of Tishri, but this should be secondary, and the emphasis should be on Tishri being the seventh month, the primary meaning. Seven is the time of perfecting.

In the seventh month on the first day, we hear the sound of the shofar, hence the Biblical name Yom Teruah, or the blowing of a trumpet. Teruah is the sound of that blowing. The Bible also notes silver trumpets at this time, but this has also been obscured. We do have a new beginning due to the meanings of these holidays. The blowing of trumpets means that we are to get ready, for we are entering into a time judgment by God and seeking forgiveness and atonement whereby we will not fall under God’s judgment but his mercy, forgiveness, and grace. This is why we have the trumpet emphasis in the book of Revelation, and the last trumpet emphasis in I Cor. 15 that is sounded at the return of Yeshua. Rightly, in Jewish tradition for this season, we are reminded of the last judgment and the Age to Come. The day is fraught with eschatological meanings. The trumpets are connected to Passover and exodus as well, the trumpet was heard at Mt. Sinai. Therefore the book of Revelation includes both meanings. Following this day, a Sabbath, we have the intermediate days leading up to Yom Kippur on the 10th of Tishri. The Sabbath in that mid-period is called Shabbat Shuva, the Sabbath of return and repentance. Repentance is a daily exercise but is especially emphasized now so that all will repent.

The holiest day, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is a time or fasting, of self-searching, repentance, recommitment, and receiving of forgiveness/atonement. The prayers of the synagogue are mostly corporate. We pray for the sins of Israel since the sin of any is part of the corporate sin of the nation. Lists of sins are comprehensive. Unless one understands this corporate dimension, he or she will not think that all of it is relevant to them, though the lists can point of individual sins. Westerners are so individualistic. We need to learn the importance of corporate intercession. We especially thank God for the book of Hebrews which shows us the great fulfillment of the meaning of Yom Kippur in Yeshua. He is both our High Priest and our sacrifice. He enters into the most holy place in heaven with his own blood procuring the fullness of our forgiveness and the perfecting of our conscience. The sacrifices of old in themselves could not take away sin. Their meaning is participation in the sacrifice of Yeshua who is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World. We can see an anticipation of this in the Jewish teaching that all the sacrifices were only efficacious because they participated in the sacrifice of Isaac who was offered in the place where the Temple would be built. However, Isaac is not divinity and is only a type, a foreshadowing of the great antetype, Yeshua our High Priest and Sacrifice. All the images of atonement in the Torah find their fullness of meaning in him.

There are also last days (eschatological) predictions of atonement that show Yeshua’s sacrifice will be provided for the sins of the whole world. In John, we read, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World.” The vision of the conversion of the nations who all go up to Jerusalem in Isaiah 2 is only possible if the sacrificial atonement of Yeshua is applied to them. In Zechariah 13 we read that a fountain will be open to Israel for her cleansing. From this text we get the famous hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.” I also believe optimistically in interpreting Rev. 1:7 when all the nations see the returning Yeshua and morn. I think they mourn for their sins and rebellion against Yeshua, the King. This is why the survivors of the last wars can go up to the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem to worship the King every year, a fitting parallel to Isaiah 2. Yom Kippur looks toward the future application of the blood of Yeshua to all the nations on earth.

Foreign Policy

President Trump’s statement America First does not mean America only. Foreign policy is a very difficult area of challenge for American leaders and Israeli leaders. We deal with what is in the national interest of the United States or Israel. When one studies foreign policy, altruism is rarely front and center. President Jimmy Carter professed a commitment to put the furtherance of human rights in the nations as a top priority, and that the United States would favor relationships with those making progress in human rights. At that time there was criticism of past policies that engaged in partnerships with authoritarian regimes in South America for the purpose of resisting communism when these regimes tortured political opponents. Others would see such policies as Carter’s as not realistic and that we have to live on the basis of national self-interest, and if this means working in unity with harsh authoritarian regimes, then so be it. One historic figure stated that nations do not really have friends but common interests. Then the pendulum swings again. George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives promoted the idea of seeking to bring democracy and its transformation to the nations. His first experiment in this was in Iraq. Some of us observing the Iraq war (Bush and others really did believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) did not think that Bush’s plan was realistic. I thought that he could remove Saddam but should leave the Baathists in power. Their removal and the attempt at elections would lead to a Shiite majority, and the Shiite Muslims would then turn around and persecute the now Sunni minority that previously that had oppressed them. (That led to ISIS.) It would also give power to Iran in Iraq. Previously a Sunni ruled Iraq was a buffer against Iran. Bush argued that promoting democracy in the nations was a matter of national self-interest since democracies do not attack their fellow democracies and this would lead to a safer world. Looking at all this history, President Trump now seeks to withdraw from foreign adventures and rejects the neo-conservative views of military involvement, nation-building, and fostering democracies thereby. Under President Obama, there was hope for democratic progress in the Arab Spring uprisings. Again, others of us observing this concluded that this would lead to a radical take over since they had the weapons and motivation to turn these revolutions for freedom toward the furtherance of radical Islam.

Generally, nations will enter into trade and military alliances for their mutual benefit. Tyrants will seek power and sometimes like in China and Turkey to dominate and take over other nations.

Are there some guidelines that come from the Bible that can be a guide to foreign policy? The Bible does not promote a democratic governmental ideal (democratic republic). It is skeptical to a centralized monarchy in the book of I Samuel. The Bible does hold national governments accountable for basic law, justice, and treating their citizens well. The first chapters of Amos make this very clear. All nations are accountable to God. However, I do argue that fostering human rights and movement toward democratic norms is valuable but has to be done with realism.

The first thing is to recognize the sad truth taught by Mao of China that authority comes from the barrel of a gun. If this power is held by tyrants and they are willing to use it to slaughter their opponents (for example, Tiananmen Square, China), the movements for democracy will fail. What is to be done?

We can work with the leaders of the nations who want a relationship with the United States or Israel to encourage them to move toward greater freedoms and human rights. Maybe it will be a long slow process after their leaders become convinced of the values of human rights and checks and balances. But it would take decades to really attain the education of a populace and to change a culture to move forward. I recently studied a large tom on the history of China. The idea of regimental order is not foreign to Chinese culture and partially explains how the control by the Communist party is accepted by the population.
We can give greater favor to nations that really seek mutual cooperation and mutual benefit.
We can also give greater favor to nations that make steps toward greater human rights. We can show them greater favor in free trade, development help, and more.
We can distance ourselves from nations that are cruel and belligerent. It is not necessary to act in ways that empower them.

In all this, we have to realistically access the possibilities of revolutionary change when those seeking massive change do not have the guns to bring about their take over and those with the guns are willing to liberally use them. Those seeking to overthrow tyrants can also succeed if the tyrants are not willing to use their full power to defend their regimes or if they do not have the full power to do so. So, some say that the U. S. should have supported the Iranian protests during the Obama administration, but it is difficult to think that it could have succeeded when the regime is so fanatical, ruthless, and responds with no reservation. However, we can always speak out for freedom.

I am not in favor of using military power to overthrow evil regimes unless there is really good potential for good results and sufficient power in new leadership to come forth to really attain the leadership of the nation. We saw this in Granada in Reagan’s time and might see it again in Venezuela.

We do want to foster freer societies but only when it is realistic. We have to stop thinking that deep down everyone in the world is a Jeffersonian democrat and would prefer to live under our values. This is just not true. It will be a long educational process for many decades for many people of the world to embrace those values.

However, there is one text that is a mandate for us. Proverbs 24:11, 12 says,

Rescue those being led away to death;
    hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
¹²If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
    does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
    Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

I apply this to genocide. When a nation or nations together have the power with little risk to themselves to stop a wholesale genocide and then do not act, I think this brings the judgment of God. I here give three examples of this. The first is the failure of President Roosevelt to order the bombing of the trains to the Auschwitz death camp and maybe other camps. This could have saved countless Jewish lives. Then when the Clinton administration failed to use air power to stop the horrid genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda, it was a terrible failure of responsibility. One of President Obama’s foreign policy team said that the Rwanda failure was a terrible failure that should not be repeated. Finally, and yet the President failed in Syria when gas attacks and military genocide was being practiced against the Sunnis by Bahir Assad in Syria. 500,000 are estimated to have been killed, innocent civilians! I think President Trump could have had a more rigorous policy to rid Syria of this criminal.

Also, one more thing is important. That is that we do not betray partners who sacrifice with us in that partnership. I think the Kurds are now being abandoned and that is really very painful.

So, here are some thoughts on foreign policy.