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You are my disciples

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and [so prove to] be My disciples” (John 15:8).

This is quite an odd verse and the words in brackets are not in the original Greek. The verse literally reads, “so that you will be my disciples.” Wait a minute. Yeshua is speaking to those whom he had personally chosen to be his disciples (see 15:16).

Does this mean they would be on probation until they had produced enough fruit to finally qualify to become real disciples? How much fruit would they need to produce in order to earn the title? The text does not say.

The larger context helps us understand the meaning of this verse. Yeshua is about to leave his disciples (13:33) and he longs for the world to realize that he isn’t really gone. He desires the world to see him through the disciples’ humility one towards another (13:13-15), their love one for another (13:35; 15:9, 12, 17), their answered prayers (14:14; 15:7), their commitment to Yeshua’s teachings (14:15, 23; 15:10), and the Spirit’s activity in their lives (14:26).

We do great damage to this verse and also to our spiritual lives when we live as if we need to earn enough points to make the team, to truly be saved. The point of producing fruit is not to prove anything to God, but for the world to recognize the True Vine. When people see us, I pray they will know we are disciples and recognize the Savior!

“Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Good News Coming Through the Water in Gaza!

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

In the war-torn Gaza Strip, God is reaching into the strangest of spaces to make Himself known. One lady in Gaza was deeply perplexed to encounter the words of Jesus… in her bathroom!

Her husband had become a believer. Both are professionals from Muslim backgrounds, and while he had taken steps of faith and was receiving discipleship, she was more cautious. She saw her husband’s new faith and was intrigued. She would listen in during the discipleship calls to find out more, but it was not until she was eight months pregnant that she decided to make her own decision about Jesus. Despite what she had been told about her baby being cursed if she left Islam, she took the brave step to follow Jesus just before her son was born. Needless to say, they were both relieved and delighted when their baby boy was born healthy and in one piece, proving the threats empty and void. Jesus is stronger.

Not long after trusting in Jesus, she had a strange dream. She woke her husband in the early hours, and they called Carlos Damianos to ask what it meant. They were both afraid.

She had dreamt she was washing in the bathroom, dipping her jug into the hot water tank (in the absence of running hot water) and pouring it over her hair. Water is a matter of great importance in the Middle East, and particularly in Gaza. As she was showering in this way she noticed that the water was turning into verses from the Bible – the water seemed to be the words of God, falling all over her and washing her. In Islamic culture, God and the bathroom do not go together. The two should never be mixed in any way – was it a bad sign? Should they be worried?

Carlos was amazed and invited them to go with him on a journey through the Bible.

First, he showed them how God’s Spirit is likened to water:

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

Then he showed them how water washes the church:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

Lastly Carlos explained that Jesus actually said that He would clean us with His word:

You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. (John 15:3)

He assured the Samaritan woman at the well:

Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

God uses the metaphor of life-giving, cleansing water repeatedly in His word. Carlos assured the couple that they need not be afraid, but rather encouraged – God is involved in every detail of our lives, the presentable and unpresentable. The clean and the dirty. He comes to wash, to cleanse, to heal and give life, and He makes this plain in His word over and over again.

God meets us in the strangest places – nowhere is out of bounds for Him! He gave this precious couple a great encouragement to strengthen them in their new-found faith. His word is alive and active in the everyday routines of life in Gaza. Even in the bathroom.

God is Working Powerfully Among Israel’s Muslim Neighbors

Photo by mrjn Photography on Unsplash

“God revealed His truth to me through you”

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

 

My story

Hello to you. I thank God for bringing me to your videos. Thank you for the patient and in-depth explanations, for your time, for your sacrifice, for the risk you take on yourself and those close to you, and for all the work of the father wherever you go.

Thanks to the grace of Yeshua, I came to watch your informational videos and God revealed to me his truth through you.

I do not have enough words to thank you, so I wanted to know if there is a possibility to help you financially or voluntarily or in anything you need whether it is prayer or encouragement or anything! You do the work of God and I would be grateful to have a place to be a part of your service.  In infinite love and gratitude in the name of Jesus from me to you.

What to know

  • Jews who accept Yeshua as their Messiah are often outcast from their family, with their family going so far as to pray the “Kadish” over them, a prayer said for those who have passed away.
  • The concept of a Messiah is not foreign at all to Orthodox Jews, with the Lubavitcher Rabbi, Menachem Schneerson, being one of the more popular ones (even though he fulfilled very few of the messianic prophecies).
  • There are about 30,000 Messianic Jewish believers in Israel, where there are just over 9 million people, about 7 million of which are Jewish. However the number of believers may be much higher.
  • Observing Jewish (oral) law is far more important to Orthodox Jews than to other Jews. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten Orthodox Jews (79%) say observing Jewish law is “essential” to what being Jewish means to them, compared with just 19% among Jews overall.

 

How to Pray

  • Pray for protection around this new believer and all those that decide to follow Yeshua.
  • Pray that he may be a light in the darkness to those around him, sharing the truth.
  • Pray that he would make good connections with other believers in his area.
  • Pray that all Israel, regardless of background, may be saved!

“One day I was searching for Jesus on YouTube…”

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

 

My story

About a year ago I was about to join a Hassidic sect and my father told me all kinds of things about rabbis and all their strange wisdom. I kept hearing about their laws and that I could only please God if I obeyed them. Even though on the outside I felt good, on the inside I was disappointed and empty, and really worried all the time about God’s Judgement.

One day I found out that my sister believes in such a strange belief of forgiveness and I asked her about it and she told me that there is a man named Yeshua and that there is forgiveness of sins with Him. I was so happy when I found out, and shortly after I also found out that even my mother believed in Yeshua! I told myself that it was something that was very worth exploring. 

One day I was searching for “Jesus” on YouTube and came across you. Every video of yours relieved me, washed away any pressure from me and made me happy in faith. Instead of thinking of God as a dictator seeking to punish if I do something bad and that he is cold and distant from everyone, I felt God so close! That I even felt that he was like a really loving Father, one that I do not have. Today I believe in Jesus, the most Jewish Messiah, who came especially for humanity to pay the price – forgiveness of sins.

What to know

  • The concept of a Messiah is not foreign at all to Orthodox Jews, with the Lubavitcher Rabbi, Menachem Schneerson, being one of the more popular ones (even though he fulfilled very few of the messianic prophecies).
  • There are about 30,000 Messianic Jewish believers in Israel, where there are just over 9 million people, about 7 million of which are Jewish. However the number of believers who follow Jesus in secret may be much higher.
  • Observing Jewish (oral) law is far more important to Orthodox Jews than to other Jews. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten Orthodox Jews (79%) say observing Jewish law is “essential” to what being Jewish means to them, compared with just 19% among Jews overall.
  • Jews who accept Yeshua as their Messiah often become outcasts, sometimes with their family going so far as to pray the “Kadish” over them, a prayer said for those who have passed away. It is not unusual for Jewish believers to keep their faith in Jesus secret – even from family members.

 

How to Pray

  • Pray for protection around those that decide to follow Yeshua.
  • Pray for this family – that they would all be saved!
  • Pray for Jewish believers to have the boldness to talk about faith with others
  • Pray that all Israel, regardless of background, may be saved!

“I got to know some Messianic Jewish believers”

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

 

My story

I used to be ultra-Orthodox, but I walked away from religion several years ago. I got to know some Messianic Jews about six months ago and since then I spend my best times in a Messianic environment. It’s a pleasure to be around every believer I have met, and I admire many things in their behavior.

I was recently exposed to your materials, related to Oral Torah and truth claims you made in the videos. You managed to paint a very clear and detailed picture about many things in contemporary rabbinic Judaism and also in the past. By the way I appreciate your work – you do a really amazing job, great quality content and videos.

Anyway I would love to talk to any of you, to ask questions about what you’re saying. I want to hear from you how I can help my family and those around me understand what I’m going through and where my opinions come from, so that I will encounter less hate and violence – at least from my family. My family loves me and they are open to hearing what I have to say so all I need is to know is what to say to them. Anyway I would love to have a conversation with someone with a brain!

 

What to know

  • Jews who accept Yeshua as their Messiah are often outcast from their family, with their family going so far as to pray the “Kadish” over them, a prayer said for those who have passed away.
  • The concept of a Messiah is not foreign at all to Orthodox Jews, with the Lubavitcher Rabbi, Menachem Schneerson, being one of the more popular ones (even though he fulfilled very few of the messianic prophecies).
  • There are about 30,000 Messianic Jewish believers in Israel, where there are just over 9 million people, about 7 million of which are Jewish. However the number of believers may be much higher.
  • Observing Jewish (oral) law is far more important to Orthodox Jews than to other Jews. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten Orthodox Jews (79%) say observing Jewish law is “essential” to what being Jewish means to them, compared with just 19% among Jews overall.

 

How to Pray

  • Pray for protection around those that decide to follow Yeshua.
  • Pray that he may be a light in the darkness, and be able to explain what he believes.
  • Pray that he would continue to meet with other believers and come to know Jesus himself.
  • Pray that all Israel, regardless of background, may be saved!

Emergency Prayer for Israel, 24th February

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

Dr. Erez Soref, president of ONE FOR ISRAEL, joined together with the Board of the National Conference of Congregation Leaders in Israel to call the nation to prayer. The date chosen was 24th February, right before the Fast of Esther when Israel was called together to pray for deliverance thousands of years ago. At the close of the day, Dr. Soref hosted a zoom meeting where some thousand participants joined together in prayer. Erez shares the current situation which has brought us to our knees:

“We will soon get to a point of somewhat ‘back to normal’ and we don’t yet know what it will look like, and which challenges it will bring, so we wanted to call everyone together to pray for that. And not just for that, but for our country, our people, our leaders. We will soon have a fourth election, so we should unite, at least through prayer and fasting.”

Emergency prayer time

Together with ONE FOR ISRAEL, two alumni of our Senior Pastor’s MA Program, Meno Kalisher and Yossi Ovadia, were the main instigators who helped get the initiative off the ground. Pastor Ovadia explains:

“The idea had been discussed for a while, and we were thinking of when and how we wished to announce it. As we were praying and thinking about it, Erez Soref called me and suggested we call for a day of fasting. We agreed on some theological basics, and I brought it up before the board. Then we elected a suitable date and how to phrase the invitation. Just as we were doing this, Meno Kalisher called me and suggested the same thing, and I told him we are already working on it.”1

Pastor Meno Kalisher from the Jerusalem Assembly House of Redemption adds:

“I called Yossi Ovadia and suggested it, and they were already working on it. It doesn’t surprise me that the idea comes up independently with different people at a time like this,” he said. “I believe that within two months most congregations and synagogues in the country will be back to almost normal. The politicians are doing everything they can to reach a herd immunity and 70% vaccinated before the elections in March.”2

There is much turmoil in the nation and also in the wider Body of Messiah regarding the issue of vaccination and all the chaos caused by the pandemic and political upheaval.

It is a real time of crisis for our nation, and we urgently need to turn to God for help.

Here is the letter they jointly sent out to believers across the land:

Shalom Everyone,

“And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it…” (Ezekiel 22:30)

Fasting and Prayer Day: Wednesday, February 24, 2021

A year of plague …

We have already reached thousands of dead …

Children at home and not at school for almost a year …

Many without work and livelihood …

To get vaccinated or not to get vaccinated …

Divisions in the state’s leadership and between sectors in the nation …

Fourth election in two years …

In all of this, the Lord is sovereign and His Word stands forever.

Therefore, we invite all the Messianic congregations in Israel to join a day of prayer and fasting to intercede for our people and our country at this time. We call on congregations’ leaders to encourage the members to join as one body in this time of prayer and intercession. It will be clarified that this is not a day of national confession (although everyone is invited to do so in person or as a congregation, of course) but a day of prayer for intercession for our country and our people at this time – before the Lord’s throne of grace to receive mercy from Him.

In addition, we are trying to arrange a zoom meeting (s) according to geographical location at 7pm for about an hour of praise and joint prayer. Notice of this will follow. Next week we will also send suggestions for specific prayer points.

Best regards,

The board of the National Conference of Congregation Leaders
Israel College of the Bible (ONE FOR ISRAEL)

If you would like to join us, we would be so glad!

Please pray:

  • For those grieving loved ones and livelihoods in the wake of Covid
  • For Israeli children after being out of school and society for so long
  • For wisdom wrestling with the vaccination issue and the practicalities
  • For God’s hand in the elections and choosing our leaders
  • For help and salvation for our nation in crisis as we get back on our feet

The Effect of Covid on Israeli Families

  1. All Israel News
  2. Kehila News Israel

Covenants: God’s Building Blocks of Redemption

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

Guest blog by David Herron

 

By looking at the covenants of the Bible we see God has a plan of redemption that works in time and space, history and geography. And it is not finished!

A typical believer might think it goes like this:

God chose Abraham and his descendents, there was the people of Israel, the land of Israel, the law, the prophets and poets which summarises the Old Testament, all culminating in Jesus – the cross, resurrection, ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church. Now it is the role of the Church to evangelise and become more like Jesus in this darkening world. Then Jesus will come back. 

Prevalent as it may be, the outline above is incomplete. It misses the vital component of the continuing place of the Jewish people in God’s redemptive strategy, their ongoing connection with the Land of Promise and the dynamic synergy with the nations. The key to addressing this issue lies in our understanding of the Biblical Covenants.

This view typically sees the Bible as a story of two covenants – the old covenant given to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai, and the other which replaced it; the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus.

But the problem is that there are actually five major covenants in the Bible, not just two. 

Each covenant is a building block

Covenants are the building blocks of God’s purposes, and each one has a part to play in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan. Understanding the framework that God chose to hang this story upon is critical to understanding God and his story. The framework he has chosen is Israel – four out of the five covenants are with the people of Israel, and the fifth was given within the people and land of Israel too. What many do not realise is that most of these covenants with Israel are still in action as God’s plan continues to unfold.

We will never understand the ongoing significance of the Jewish people and the Promised Land if we simplistically break the Bible down into two covenants. 

In order to understand all these covenants it’s important to ask the following questions:

  • Who is the covenant with?
  • What is offered?
  • Is it conditional, or unconditional?
  • Temporary or permanent?
  • What is its purpose?

When we answer these questions about the first four main covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, we can much better understand God’s grand purposes and the new Messianic covenant.

Only the third covenant – the Mosaic covenant made with the people of Israel at Sinai – has been fulfilled and superseded by Jesus’ first coming. Hebrews chapter 8 explains it this way, quoting the prophecy from Jeremiah 31:

But now Yeshua has obtained a more excellent ministry, insofar as He is the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises. For if that first one had been faultless, there would not have been discourse seeking a second. For finding fault with them, He says,

“Behold, days are coming, says Adonai, when I will inaugurate a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not remain in My covenant, and I did not care for them, says Adonai. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Adonai. I will put My Torah into their mind, and upon their hearts I will write it. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no more will they teach, each one his fellow citizen and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know Adonai,’ because all will know Me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.”

In saying “new,” He has treated the first as old; but what is being made old and aging is close to vanishing. (Hebrews 8:7-13)

Which is the “Old” Covenant?

When the writer of Hebrews talks about the “old” covenant, is he referring to the covenant that God made to Noah (Genesis 8:20 – 9:17)? God promised he would never flood the earth again, and produced a rainbow to seal the deal. Nope. That covenant is still in place – it will last for all generations.

“I will remember My covenant that is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (Genesis 9:15)

Could it have been the covenant that God made with David (2 Samuel 7:12-16)? God promised that there would always be a descendant of the House of David on the throne, for all time. Well, we know that Jesus was from the House of David, and that He now rules and reigns at the right hand of the Father. This covenant is still standing today.

Don’t you know that Adonai, God of Israel, has given kingship over Israel to David forever—to him and his sons by a covenant of salt? (2 Chronicles 13:5)

Perhaps it was the covenant that God made with Abraham? God promised Abraham firstly that he would be the father of many, secondly that he would inherit the land of Israel, and thirdly that through him the whole world would be blessed. He made the very same three promises to Abraham’s son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5), and then again to his grandson Jacob (Genesis 28:12-15) father of the twelve tribes of Israel, just to be sure. This covenant still stands according to Psalm 105:8-11

He remembers his covenant for ever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.”

How about the Mosaic covenant? The covenant God made with Moses at Sinai had a specific purpose – it was to show us how far we fall short of the standards of God. According to Galatians 3:19, the Law is like a “schoolmaster” to help lead us to the Messiah by showing us our need for him, and our incapacity to live how God wants us to. It shows us how we need the law to be written on our hearts, and we need forgiveness and supernatural power to live a life that pleases him.

This law was a temporary and conditional covenant, and the New Covenant does not erase it, but fulfills it. Jesus completed the law for us, because we could not.

So which covenant has been replaced by the coming of the Messiah? Only one. The Mosaic covenant.

The coming of the New Covenant radically changed how we understand the Mosaic covenant today, but it did not change God’s promises to Noah, Abraham or David.

The crucial question now is, are God’s purposes in the Abrahamic Covenant (creating the people of Israel, placing them in the land of Israel, and making them a blessing to the whole earth) supposed to continue on for some reason? 

The ongoing Abrahamic covenant

When we look at the promises that God makes not only to Abraham, but that he reiterates to Isaac and also to Jacob, we can see that there is no sense in which the promise to inherit the land has a time limit. Quite the opposite. But why was it important to give them that land?

We start to see that there are things foretold in the Bible concerning places and events that have simply not happened yet, but they will come to pass – not only in a spiritual sense, but also in a real, geographical and historical sense. He used a real nation and a real land to bring us our very real Messiah in a specific location and time in history. In the same way, his purposes are continually being unfolded and fulfilled, just as he promised.

Whole areas of scripture are transformed and come alive once we recognise that the Abrahamic covenant has not been terminated by Messiah’s coming. This particularly applies to huge amounts of prophecy about God’s dealings with the Jewish people through exile for disobedience and then restoration and blessing. God means what he says.

When we see the Bible in this manner – reading it as if it really means what it says – we see familiar passages in an amazing new light. The twentieth century saw the fulfilment of several promises prophesied in scripture – the regathering of Israel, the revival of the Hebrew language, restoration of the shekel as currency, the speeding up of global travel and an explosion of knowledge to name just a few. There is much yet to come, but are we ready for it? Do we know what the prophets have said? Or did you think that the Old Testament was not important any longer?

Photo by Marcos Mayer on Unsplash

“I am an ultra-orthodox Rabbi, but I also believe that Yeshua is the Messiah of the people of Israel!”

By
Yair Harel
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0

 

My story

I’m so happy that there is a channel like yours on Facebook, I am an ultra-orthodox Rabbi, but I also believe that Yeshua is the Messiah of the people of Israel.

I found him while studying in the yeshiva and knew it was true and started to see all that was said (in Rabbinic Judaism) about Yeshua is a lie, because there is nothing tangible in the Scriptures to say he was not the Messiah. Even the Gemara itself says He is the Messiah!

Today my entire family including my parents who are also ultra-orthodox , and my brothers are now following Yeshua. We still live in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.

Everything I learned in the Torah has given me strength to speak about Yeshua with a language that the ultra-Orthodox can understand. My little brothers study the Talmud, and I still have my rabbinic authority, they (rabbinic authority) could not take it away from me.

I ask that you pray for the health of my newly believing family. Thank you very much and many blessings in the name of Yeshua the Messiah we know is true!

What to know

  • Observing Jewish (oral) law is far more important to Orthodox Jews than to other Jews. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten Orthodox Jews (79%) say observing Jewish law is “essential” to what being Jewish means to them, compared with just 19% among Jews overall.
  • Orthodox Jews primarily study The Talmud, not the Torah. The Talmud often contradicts the Bible.
  • Jews who accept Yeshua as their Messiah are often outcast from their family, with their family going so far as to pray the “Kadish” over them, a prayer said for those who have passed away.
  • The concept of a Messiah is not foreign at all to Orthodox Jews, with the Lubavitcher Rabbi, Menachem Schneerson, being one of the more popular ones (even though he fulfilled very few of the messianic prophecies).

 

How to Pray

  • Pray for protection around those that decide to follow Yeshua.
  • Pray that they may be a light in the darkness around them.
  • Pray that they would be able to meet other believers and enjoy fellowship together.
  • Pray that all Israel, regardless of background, may be saved!

What Happens When an Arab Preaches Jesus in Israel?

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

Compelled by the Holy Spirit, he jumped up on the table, microphone in hand, and began to preach about Jesus. But what happened next amazed us all!

In Haifa, northern Israel, there’s a multicultural neighbourhood called Wadi NisNas. Each year they throw a “Holiday of Holidays” for all three faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam and believers make the most of the golden opportunity to share the good news of Jesus. And so it was that Carlos Damianos, an Israeli Arab, was presented with an unmissable chance to make Jesus known.

Filled with love for the Israeli crowd, Carlos spoke with earnestness about the Messiah in a way Jewish people could understand, pleading with them to accept Yeshua as their Lord and Savior.

Here’s what he said:

Moses. The most revered prophet in the Bible. Moses, when he went and killed the Egyptian, someone came and asked him, “Who are you? Are you going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian yesterday?” After that, Moses ran away for forty years. They rejected Moses, but he became the leader of the entire Jewish people.

Joseph. They sold Joseph, but he became the leader not just of the Egyptians but the savior of many nations. Brothers and sisters, this picture recurs throughout history also in our days.

Jesus. Yeshua who is called today “Yeshu” (a curse: “May His Name and Memory be Blotted Out Forever) is Jesus is the Messiah! He’s the Son of God that has been rejected by you. He’s been rejected for 2000 years. And today we, as a people – today the one thing that unites us is that we all oppose Jesus!

We sold Jesus. But Jesus is like Joseph. He is our Savior. He’s our blessing! And so like the ten brothers who went to Egypt to be saved from death they were horrified to see the person standing before them was the brother they sold years ago – Joseph. And the day will come.

Jesus the Messiah will be revealed before the whole house of Israel.

Don’t get caught out like Joseph’s brothers!

So that you won’t be ashamed on the Day of Judgement put your trust in Jesus so you won’t be caught out. Because now there is grace all who believe in Him will be saved. Everyone who puts their trust in Him will be saved on the basis of the blood that was shed for us on the cross.

Brothers and sisters, I implore you read the New Covenant – the New Testament. Jeremiah the prophet said that God would make a New Covenant different to the Old Covenant. The Sinai covenant judges us. It judges you! Because no one can measure up to its standards. The New Covenant was also given by God’s grace. A gift we didn’t deserve. The first covenant was given at Sinai and was written in blood, but in the blood of animals. The New Covenant also had to be written in blood – not the blood of animals, but the blood of the Messiah, the Son of God – because through His blood we can become children of God. And this is not just for Jewish people also for Gentiles!

A New Covenant was made for us – as promised by the prophets

Today I bring good news. Friends, brothers, we all live here and we face the same future, but the good news is that through this blood that was shed on the cross, we can receive God’s promise to our Fathers and receive status as his children and receive God’s Spirit as Ezekiel the prophet promised. 

We are accepted by faith. Dear brothers and sisters, come, through Jesus we have eternal life peace with God. Not to be religious, but to have a living relationship with God. We’re not asking you to become religious – just to repent!

Check out the prophecies for yourself and return to the God of your fathers. Put your trust in His sacrifice for you who was slain on the cross 2000 years ago, and then you will receive forgiveness for your sins and also status as God’s child. Give him a chance – he’s been pursuing you for 2000 years! Don’t harden your heart or rebel against him as our fathers did.

Give him the chance – accept him.

Don’t turn your back on this good news!

Look at the prophecies so that you can enter into the blessing that the Patriarchs yearned for. They longed for this blessing: the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. So this Covenant is given to you and to your children through the Holy Spirit that was given after Yeshua gave Himself on the cross and rose on the third day.

Today we bring good news in his name.

Do not harden your hearts!

Don’t rebel against him!

It’s time to stop being stiff-necked the way the Bible has described us!

Let’s change our hearts, our attitude, back towards the God of our Fathers.

Several Israelis accepted Yeshua on the spot, right then and there, including a prominent member of a local synagogue.

Another Jewish man cried out, “I feel my heart burning with fire! What can we do to fix all the injustice we’ve done to Yeshua?” Here is Carlos explaining the answer to that question after his bold message.

 

Royal Purple Fabric from Biblical Era Discovered in Israel

By
ONE FOR ISRAEL
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0

“The colour immediately attracted our attention, but we found it hard to believe that we had found true purple from such an ancient period”.

Professor Erez Ben Yosef from Tel Aviv University and an expert in Iron Age was thrilled to share what they’d found recently here in Israel.1 

The ongoing excavation work has been revealing all sort of treasures in the Timna Valley, which lies between Jerusalem and the Red Sea. Timna hosts ancient copper mines, thought to have belonged to King Solomon at one point,2 and today you can visit a life-size model of the Tabernacle there. Which turns out to be not an insignificant detail, as we shall see.

When purple is more precious than gold

Professor Ben Yosef said there was real excitement when they got the results from the lab – it showed the ancient fabric was dyed with what is known as “true purple”, and was the oldest evidence of it in Israel.

Indeed it is the only example of this extremely precious dyed fabric from David and Solomon’s era.

This ancient dye costs $2,700 per gram and was once 15 times more valuable than gold.3 Why so costly? The pigment is extracted in a complex and time-consuming process from the gland of a particular sea snail (it takes 120 pounds of Murex molluscs to make just one gram of the dye). This labour-intensive process was developed by the ancient seafaring Phoenicians, making them rich traders around Israel and the Mediterranean.

Dr Naama Sukenik explained, “until the current discovery, we had only encountered mollusc-shell waste and potsherds with patches of dye, which provided evidence of the purple industry in the Iron Age… Now, for the first time, we have direct evidence of the dyed fabrics themselves, preserved for some 3,000 years.”4

Thanks to the extreme dry, desert climate that preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls for thousands of years, we now have a fragment of purple cloth from the era of David and Solomon in remarkably good shape.

The biblical significance

Professor Erez Ben Yosef said that the discovery helps to verify the historicity of the biblical text. For example, we are told that the kings of Midian wore this purple in the story of Gideon (when he received booty after their victory over the Midianites – see Judges 8:26). This might have seemed unlikely given the fact that the Midianites came from so far south in the Arabian peninsular and Tyrian purple was traded in the Mediterranean area, with trading centers in Lebanon, Syria, northern Israel, but most importantly Tyre. However, having found the 3000 year old fragment all the way down in Timna, not far from Midian, the account in Judges becomes very credible.

We also read of this dye many times in relation to the Tabernacle and the priestly outfits. The first mention is of the contributions received from the Israelites to construct the Tabernacle:

“Gold, silver and bronze; blue, purple and scarlet cloth” (Exodus 25:3-4)

These colors are mentioned repeatedly throughout the descriptions in Exodus:

blue, purple and scarlet.

Interestingly, the blue and the purple both come from the same shellfish dye, but are exposed to different amounts of light. In Hebrew, they are called Techelet (blue) and Argaman (purple).

Techelet (תְכֵלֶת) – azure, a bright blue colour, found on the flag of Israel. Techelet is made with Tyrian dye that has been exposed to more light. It signifies the divine, the heavenly.

Argaman (אַרְגָּמָן) – true, royal purple, also made with Tyrian dye but with less exposure to light. This color represents royalty, wealth, and status.

The Hebrew word for red is from the same root as man and blood (adom, Adam, and dam), however when these three (blue, purple and scarlet) appear in the description of the Tabernacle, a different word for red is used:

Sheni (שָׁנִי) – a scarlet red. This word for red, or scarlet, is also used in the description of Zerah’s ankle cord, ancestor of the Messiah, and in the color of Rahab’s rope. These connections help us understand that this red has to do with God’s plan to redeem mankind.

Red represents mankind, blue the heavens, and purple…

The tricolour combo is mentioned over and over again in Exodus concerning God’s tabernacle and priestly garments. In Exodus 28:33-34 we read some of the requirements for these three colors along with bells and pomegranates alternating:

On its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet yarns, around its hem, with bells of gold between them, a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, around the hem of the robe. 

The three colors were to be used in all of the curtains, the hangings, and the all-important veil dividing the inner Holy Place from the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. However, there are some occasions where one pure color is called for. The ark itself, for example, had to be covered only in blue:

Whenever the camp is about to move out, Aaron and his sons are to take down the shielding curtain and cover the Ark of the Testimony with it. Then they are to cover this with porpoise hide, then spread over it a cloth of solid blue. (Numbers 4:5-6)

Similarly, we read further down in the chapter, that the altar outside the tent, where all the sacrifices were slaughtered and offered, had to be covered in pure purple:

They are to remove the ashes from the altar, then spread over it a purple cloth. (Numbers 4:13)

So this argaman purple was the color not just of royalty, but also priesthood. In antiquity it denoted significance, status and wealth. In fact there were times historically where you were not permitted to wear it, because it was reserved only for rulers! As well as being used in the Tabernacle and holy raiments, we see Argaman purple connected to kings, such as in the story of Esther, and the carriage of King Solomon himself:

King Solomon has made for himself
    a carriage from the trees of Lebanon.
He made its posts of silver, its back of gold,
    its seat of purple cloth,
its interior fitted out with love
    by the daughters of Jerusalem.
(Song of Solomon 3:9-10)

Jesus was draped in pure argaman purple

Today it still carries connotations of royalty and priesthood. Some churches use it at the time of year leading up to the crucifixion, remembering the royal purple robe that Pilate mockingly had Jesus draped in before He was led out to die:

Then Pilate took Yeshua and had Him scourged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and dressed Him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and slapping Him over and over. (John 19:1-3)

Clothes are a symbol of identity, and this robe signified so much about who Jesus is at that pivotal time.5 Though done with evil intent, this action shouts loud and clear about the significance of the wicked act Pilate tried to wash his hands of.

Purple was draped on the sacrificial altar, pointing to that moment in front of Pontius Pilate over a thousand years before it happened. It showed us that Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, shedding His own blood for our sin, so we could enter the Holy Place of God’s presence.

  • Purple is both blue and red together, expressing the divinity and humanity of our Messiah.
  • Purple shows that He is our High Priest.
  • Purple shows that He is King.

Jesus deserves the highest honor, all the praise, and all glory.

 

  1. BBC, Israeli archaeologists find ‘Biblical royal purple dye’ 29th January 2021
  2. Holy Land Uncovered – i24NEWS
  3. https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/colour-purple-dyeing-techniques-phoenician-sea-snails
  4. The Independent, Purple dye ‘more precious than gold’ found in Biblical-era fabric by Israeli archaeologists, Andy Gregory, Saturday 30 January 2021
  5. Thomas Fretwell, Theology & Apologetics: Biblical Archaeology: The King’s Robe
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