For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.

Exodus 33:16

How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced? For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him; There! A people dwelling alone, not reckoning itself among the nations.

Numbers 23:8-9

From the very beginning of Israel's existence as a nation, God wanted us to be separate from all the other nations. His purpose was and still is to reveal Himself through Israel. The fact that we failed to be the people that He created us to be has not changed God's desire and purpose to show Himself Holy in the sight of the nations through us.

And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.

Ezekiel 36:23-24

Throughout her long history the Jewish people have been a nation dwelling alone. Before the mid-19th Century when Jews were ghettoized (by law or choice), both in Europe and in the Arab World it was obvious who was a Jew.

Although not every Jew was a religious Jew, yet most lived and dressed in a religious lifestyle. Who could imagine in those centuries a Jewish man without a full beard and a hat on his head? How strange and frightening it was for the nations to know that kosher butcher shops did not sell pork and that Jews did not work on Shabbat? During times of great persecution like the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were forced to convert - one of the tests of their conversion was to demand the public eating of pork and publically working on Shabbat.

Even though Israel has not been a Kingdom of Priests, or a Holy Nation she has remained a unique, basically an unassimilated people till recently, even when she tried her best to assimilate.

As hard as she tried to assimilate and just be one of/with the peoples she lived in the midst of, she could not succeed. Even if the Jews thought they had succeeded, the people they lived amongst would continually remind them that they were still Jews.

This was true in Spain during the times of the Inquisition. Jews who had converted (as a result of a great wave of persecution 100 years before) were not called Spaniards, they were called New Christians. They were New Christians for many generations and they had to live in their own ghetto, right next to the Jewish ghetto. They were still not entitled to work in many occupations that Spaniards were allowed too. In the end it was not conversion/religion that mattered, it was blood.

The Jews of Germany are another example. When they were warned about Hitler by messengers from the small Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, they reacted by saying: "We are more German than the Germans, this too shall pass".

We remember how it passed: in the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz.

Now for the first time in Israel's long history, assimilation - becoming one with the world - is working and the Jewish people are disappearing. When I was growing up in New York City, there were 4 Million Jews in New York City alone. Now the whole Jewish population of the USA is 5.3 million and 500,000 of them are Israelis.

What Pharaoh and Haman, the Inquisition and Hitler could not accomplish, Jews, with no Jewish identity, running away from God, from Israel and their destiny are succeeding in doing to themselves. Trying to become a nation like any other nation; a people like any other people.

As a nation we continue to chase after the love, affection and support of the nations - especially the United States. We want to be one with them, we want to be like them and we want them to like us.

After the latest Gaza war and the violent demonstrations around the world - not just anti-Israel but openly anti-Semitic we should realize the world doesn't like us. It often hates us.

It is going to take much suffering to separate us from the nations. We read it in His Word and we see it already happening in front of our eyes.

If we remember the Exodus from Egypt it is clear in the Scriptures that God Himself hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he would not let the Children of Israel leave Egypt. Despite the suffering this entailed for perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people, this was the Lord's will. His purpose was not the suffering or the death of all those Egyptians who drowned in the Red Sea, His purpose was for the entire known world to know that He, He alone is the LORD.

And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the (Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD), when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.

Exodus 7:3-5

God's purpose then and now is clear; that He would be exalted in all the earth, that He would show that He is a covenant keeping and a miracle working God that His signs and wonders would be apparent for all to see - undeniable.

Some months ago Defense Minister Ya'alon speaking at a private gathering said that the American Secretary of State Kerry not only didn't understand the Middle East but he was obsessed and had a messianic urge to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This past week on an official visit to the USA, the Obama administration punished him (by refusing him meetings with the administration) for speaking the truth. Some people are questioning the American fixation on an impossible Israel - Palestinian agreement as not just delusional and ignorant of the situation but, at its root, anti-Semitic.

In an article published yesterday by Jeffrey Goldberg, an American Jewish writer who has been used often by the White House to show its displeasure with Israel and especially Netanyahu, he quoted unnamed administration officials saying that Netanyahu was a coward, a coward in relationship to attacking Iran's nuclear project and in coming to an agreement with the Palestinians.

This vicious attack on Netanyahu was in response to Netanyahu's announcement that Israel would be building 1000 new apartments in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem. No one in their right mind thinks that Israel will ever abandon those neighborhoods but as they are on the wrong side of the 1967 Green line, to the world they are settlements in occupied territory. Netanyahu made it very clear that for Israel, these neighborhoods are part of Jerusalem the capital of Israel. As he said We have built in Jerusalem, we are building in Jerusalem and we will continue to build in Jerusalem. He continued, I have heard a claim that our construction in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem makes peace more distant. It is the criticism which is making peace more distant. These words are detached from reality. The French build in Paris, the English build in London, the Israelis build in Jerusalem. Should we tell Jews not to live in Jerusalem because it will stir things up?

Netanyahu said the world's criticism represented a double standard. When Abbas incites murders of Jews, the international community is silent, but when we build in Jerusalem, for that they jump up, I think we all need to reject this. It's not true, it's not right and it goes against any concept of peace.

If we go back six years to the beginning of the Obama Presidency, it was Obama himself who made building in Jerusalem an impediment to peace. After that how could Abbas be any less critical of a Jewish Jerusalem? The Obama administration's reaction to Netanyahu's stand on Jerusalem was the Jeffrey Goldberg article.

It really is quite amazing that the death of 200,000 Syrians and the displacement of more than 9 million Syrian people (3 million have fled the country and 6 million are displaced in Syria), does not make Obama enraged. It is amazing that Putin's annexation of the Crimea and possibly eastern Ukraine does not make Obama enraged. Obama also seems willing to allow Iran to be a threshold nuclear power but when Israel announces building in Jerusalem he is reportedly in a red hot rage against Netanyahu.

Could God be hardening US President Obama's heart toward Israel for the same reason that He did to Pharaoh - that HIS plans would be accomplished? The implications of this - IF it is true, are truly momentous and would indicate a severe judgment on America. What is waiting for America if they come against the apple of His eye?

For thus says the LORD of hosts: He sent Me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye.

Zechariah 2:8

What will happen if the USA does not veto the Palestinian plan for the U.N. Security Council to demand an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem by 2017?

Is this God's timing or is it the enemy trying to bring something to pass before its appointed time? At this time I'm just not sure, but something is happening here.

We need to understand that when God hardens someone's heart it is because there is already an opening in that heart for this hardening. God does not overrule our heart or our nature.

IF a severe judgment is coming on America, please do not think that it will spare the rest of the world, it will not. The consequences of that judgment will be felt throughout the earth. Perhaps another earthly kingdom will arise to take the USA's place as the "world leader" for a season. Perhaps it will be the herald of the coming of the anti-Christ - coming to "rescue" a world in chaos and violence?

I am NOT speaking these things as Thus says the Lord, but I have a strong impression on my heart that this is very possibly what is happening. We need to consider that we might be on the edge of momentous changes in the world we live in. It will affect how we pray and what we pray for.

And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.

Daniel 2:21

Certainly something is happening with the USA-Israel relationship. God brought Israel out of an Egypt that was a world Super Power in its day. They were sent out to the desert from the lush fields of Egypt, on their own but for God.

Today most Israelis believe that Israel's very existence depends upon the support of the USA. Israelis believe that without the USA we will be destroyed. This is a dangerous and sinful attitude that denies the power of God to keep us and bring us through the difficult times ahead.

There is no doubt in my heart that God desires for us to break the dependency we have on the USA. He wants us to stand alone as the nation He has brought back to life in order to show His glory amongst the nations.

Look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, (USA) on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh King of Egypt (Obama President of the USA), to all who trust in him.

Isaiah 36:6

He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

To walk humbly with our God is to lay down our preconceived notions of how things are going to happen. We need to handle the Prophetic Word gently and hold it loosely.

We are in times of shaking, of encroaching darkness and getting closer - even much closer to the return of the Lord.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Matthew 24:6-14

We are in fast moving and cataclysmic times.The Lord wants us to walk with Him, hear His Word, do His will and with Intercession and action, prepare the way for His return. If we cannot be flexible we will not be able to survive and do His will.

God has a purpose for Israel that shall be fulfilled. It shall come to pass despite all the power of the enemy to destroy Israel and bring God's plans to a stop. It shall come to pass despite the hatred and indifference of the world toward this little nation Israel. It shall come to pass even if the Church ignores God's Word and covenant relationship with Israel and, like the nations, is indifferent or opposes Israel's survival.

There will be a move of God in Israel, not just a move toward Rabbinic Judaism which may very well happen, but a move of God that will bring many Israelis into the covenant that our Lord made with us through His blood - His sacrifice upon that cross in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. It will be a glorious day but it will not come easily. Israel is in for a very difficult time.

He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Revelation 22:20-21

Pray for:

• The Lord's people to have an ear that is tuned to Him. (Revelation 3:22) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

• The Lord's people to know the times and the seasons we are living in. (1Thessalonians 5:1-6) But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

• Prime Minister Netanyahu to remain resolute in his commitment to building in Jerusalem.

• P.M. Netanyahu to be a man of courage and wisdom as he leads Israel at this critical time. (2Chronicles 32:7-8) Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him; for there are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.

• The people of Israel to stand with P.M. Netanyahu and not with Obama and for them to begin to trust in God in a new way. (Proverbs 3:5-6) Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

• Obama's real purposes (and if possible the intent of his heart) to be revealed to all. (Luke 12:3) Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.

 

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace

Numbers 6:24-26

Eliyahu Ben-Haim, Jerusalem

29 October 2014

P.S. The invitation to next January's International Prayer Conference (19-26 January 2015) has been mailed. The theme will be: (Psalm 3:3) But You, O Lord are a shield for me, my glory and the One who lifts up my head. If you didn't receive one you can find it on the IFI website www.ifi.org.il. There you can also sign up for IFI's Friday Prayer Points.