Bible

September 25, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Holocaust and Pandemic: Common Points and Differences!

I am not going to deny that the current handling of our global pandemic is strangely reminiscent of the 1930s in Europe. I even recently wrote an article about that very fact. It frightens me to see how people are being handled and even categorized based upon their decision to receive medical help or not. This is even becoming more divisive than the current political climate that has already become a tragic tear in the fabric of America.
Yet, if we simply state that this reminds us of the Holocaust and how the Jewish people were treated, we are not doing justice to the current situation and we run the risk of minimizing the Holocaust and trivializing its legacy. There are some common points between the two but there are also some differences that need to be recognized.

COMMON POINTS
• People are being stigmatized: There is a feeling of disgrace and even disapproval of those who differ in opinion from both ends of the issue. What happened to having an opinion, sharing it with others and simply and cordially agreeing to disagree? I fear that that ship might have sailed.

• Privacy is being infringed: In our age of information, instant communication and “smart” everything, our privacy is constantly shrinking. We gladly give away information for the added convenience of speaking orders to a machine and waving our hand in front of a scanner or our smart tech at a pay station. This is not going away anytime soon, if ever. The current crisis invades our privacy as it demands that we divulge private information about ourselves for “our safety” or “the safety of others”.

• The authorities are checking identity documents: In some countries, the government is trying to enforce a verification process that demands people have an ID document with their current health status.

• People are exposing their own neighbors: We are starting to see people exposing those they don’t agree with or those who they feel do not comply with what is in force. Trust is becoming a very rare commodity.

• People are being conditioned: It is not just about those who do not wish to receive medical attention, but also about those who do and who are being conditioned for further compliance to whichever organization, government or individual that will come in our future. They are also being conditioned to view other people with different opinions as potentially dangerous

• People are being separated: In some countries and in various cases, people are being placed in facilities for quarantine. There is a positive aspect of keeping infected people away from healthy ones; yet, in the current case, it would seem that healing is less important than being separated and ostracized. Some see it as a modern Ghetto, but I wouldn’t go that far.

DIFFERENCES
• Property is not being confiscated: During the Holocaust, Jewish property was being confiscated. I remember my father’s stories about his father having to relinquish his radio set, his bicycle and any other means by which he could connect and/or communicate with the outside world.

• People are not being singled out for race or ethnicity: Outside of some minority groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Gypsies and mentally impaired people, the Holocaust primarily and wrongly targeted the Jews as a subhuman race in need of extermination like vermin.

• People are not being placed in forced labor: During the Holocaust, people were being forced into camps, first for internment, but they rapidly became labor camps so that the Nazi regime could get free labor during wartime. That was just temporary before the camps became death camps.

• People are not being killed: Although emotions are running high and misinformation is coming from both sides of the medical care debate today, people are not being killed for disagreeing. During the Holocaust, there was only misinformation coming from one side and it was always against the Jewish People. Placing them first in the camps for “labor”, was only temporary. They quickly became the death camps where six million were lost.

Those are the main commonalities and differences, and we should be very careful before we claim that this situation is similar to the 1930s and the Holocaust. Am I concerned? Absolutely! Could it get worse? Of course it could – and it very well might!

As Bible students and modern-day disciples of Yeshua the Messiah, the one aspect about all this that we do not want to miss, is the coming of the Antichrist on the world scene. That event is a sure thing and when it takes place, all of the points made above will become a reality beyond what anyone could fathom right now. Following are some scriptural truths about the Antichrist.

• The Antichrist is a coming global human ruler – Daniel 7-12
• He will be a Gentile – Revelation 13:1
• He will be revealed after the departure of the Holy Spirit (after the Rapture) – 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7
• He will rise to absolute power – Daniel 7:8, 20; 8:23
• He will sign a seven-year treaty with Israel – Daniel 9:27
• He will break his treaty/covenant in the middle of the seven-year Tribulation – Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:21; Revelation 13:14-15
• He will claim that he is God – Daniel 11:36
• He will persecute the Jewish People (and all those who take the mark of the beast) – Daniel 7:21
• He will set up and start “the abomination of desolation” – Daniel 12:11
• He will invade Israel – Daniel 11:40-45; Ezekiel 38-39
• He will conquer – Daniel 11:38-44
• He will be defeated – Daniel 7:11, 26; 9:27

Let’s not jump the gun, but let’s be diligent about the current events. There are obvious similarities and they are frightening. Things will eventually go south for mankind and get a lot worse, but we also must remember that our hope is and should continue to be in the Messiah of Israel, His redeeming atonement for us all (Isaiah 52:13-53:12) and His imminent return. It is those who have placed their trust in Yeshua of Nazareth who will join Him before it gets to the point of “the abomination of desolation”. Are you in?

August 30, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Differences Between the Church and Israel – Part 2

At a time when nearly two-thirds of all Christians believe that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s program, it is very important to define who is Israel and what makes the Church or Body of Messiah. Are they the same? Does one eventually replace or supersedes the other? Are they the same but during two different eras of humankind? Last time, we looked at the first five differences. Let’s look at five more:

6 Israel will be judged on earth
Ezekiel 20:34-36 I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; 35 and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. 36 As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord God.

6 The Church will be judged in Heaven (Bema Seat)
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Messiah, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

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7 Physical Birth is required to be part of Israel
Genesis 35:10-12 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; You shall no longer be called Jacob, But Israel shall be your name.” Thus He called him Israel. 11 God also said to him, “I am God Almighty; Be fruitful and multiply; A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, And kings shall come forth from you. 12 “The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, And I will give the land to your descendants after you.”

7 Spiritual Birth is required to be part of the Church
John 3:4-6 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

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8 The Holy Spirit indwelt OT Jews temporarily
Joel 2:28 It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions (SELECTIVELY)

1 Samuel 16:14 Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him (TEMPORARILY).

8 The Holy Spirit indwells believers permanently
1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (CORPORATELY)

John 14:16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;(PERMANENTLY).

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9 Israel’s priesthood is only from the tribe of Levi

Numbers 18:1-3 The Lord said to Aaron, “You, your sons and your family are to bear the responsibility for offenses connected with the sanctuary, and you and your sons alone are to bear the responsibility for offenses connected with the priesthood.²Bring your fellow Levites from your ancestral tribe to join you and assist you when you and your sons minister before the tent of the covenant law. ³They are to be responsible to you and are to perform all the duties of the tent.

9 The Church includes the priesthood of all believers

Revelation 1:6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

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10 God directly ratified several covenants with Israel

Jeremiah 31:31-32 Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

10 The Church partially benefits from the covenants

Romans 11:11,17 I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous… 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree.

Additionally, there is a verse that I like to point people to that speaks of three distinct groups of people.
1 Corinthians 10:32 Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God;

If the Church replaced Israel, why does Paul speak of the Church of God AND the Jews in that verse? In reality, the Church comprises two groups Jews and Gentiles (nations.) There are unbelieving Jews part of Israel and believing Jews part of Israel and the Church. It is the same for the Gentiles. There are unbelieving Gentiles (from all nations) and believing Gentiles from all nations, part of the Church. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

There is another important distinction that must be made regarding the appearance of Yeshua both at the time of the Rapture and at the time of the Second Coming which two completely different events separated by at least seven years.

ISRAEL INITIATES THE SECOND COMING OF THE MESSIAH

Matthew 23:39 For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Zechariah 12:10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

THE CHURCH RETURNS AT THE SECOND COMING OF MESSIAH

Revelation 17:14 These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”

So, from these differences found in the Scriptures, we can deduce with certainty that:

ISRAEL IS NOT THE SAME AS CHURCH
THE CHURCH HAS NOT REPLACED ISRAEL
ISRAEL WILL USHER IN THE SECOND COMING
ALL ETHNIC ISRAEL WILL BECOME BELIEVING ISRAEL
SOME OF ETHNIC ISRAEL CAN INCORPORATE INTO THE
CHURCH
ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH ARE BOTH IN GOD’S PROGRAM.

KEEPING ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH SEPARATE IS CRITICAL BECAUSE IT IS BIBLICAL AND HAS MAJOR PROPHETIC IMPLICATIONS.

August 21, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Differences Between the Church and Israel – Part 1

At a time when nearly two-thirds of all Christians believe that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s program, it is very important to define who is Israel and what makes the Church or Body of Messiah. Are they the same? Does one eventually replace or supersedes the other? Are they the same but during two different eras of humankind? First, let’s look at a few definitions before we can explore the topic because our conclusion will depend greatly on how we view the Bible and how we read it AND interpret it.

Exegesis is of great import. Exegesis means “exposition or explanation.” Biblical exegesis involves the examination of a particular text of Scripture in order to properly interpret it, and as such, is a part of the process of hermeneutics.

Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. One can have a literal approach to the Scriptures or a more allegorical approach, leaving room for different interpretations over time, by various people. I don’t understand how one could possibly look at the Bible and allegorize passages right and left, simply because at first glance they don’t seem to make sense. If the Bible is God’s love letter and instruction to us, it has to mean the same thing to all people, otherwise, the relative truth found on its pages will vary greatly and chaos will proceed from that confused approach. The key is in our interpretation and good interpretation requires study–something that many people are not properly equipped to do or simply do not want to take the time to do. This being said, there is still room in the Bible for figures of speech as long as they are interpreted methodically and consistently.

Years ago, theologian David L. Cooper (1886-1965) came up with a definition that has become known as “the golden rule of interpretation.” He said, “When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.”

From that, we can safely say that A TEXT WITHOUT A CONTEXT IS A PRETEXT. Furthermore, it is when we look at the Bible out of its historical/grammatical context that we derive this faulty theological approach to the Scriptures known as Replacement Theology, transferring all blessings and promises made by God to physical, ethnic Israel to the Christian Church, often seen as the “New Israel.” Keeping the proper approach, we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions about the Church and Israel: Is there biblical proof that the Church has replaced Israel? Are the Church and Israel two separate entities? If so, what are their individual purposes? Is Replacement Theology Dangerous? How different are the Church and Israel?

Let’s look at 5 differences between the Church and Israel, found in the Bible. Let’s allow the word of God to speak for itself.

1a. Israel is the Wife of Jehovah
Isaiah 54:5-6, 17 “For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. 6 “For the Lord has called you, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,” … No weapon that is formed against you will prosper.

1b. The Church is the Bride of Messiah
Ephesians 5:22-25, 32 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Messiah also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Messiah, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Messiah also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, …32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Messiah and the church.

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2a. Israel Gave Birth to the Messiah
Revelation 12:1-5 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2 and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. …5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.

2b. Messiah Gave Birth to the Church
Matthew 16:18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

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3a. Messiah Rescues Israel at the End of the Tribulation
Matthew 23:39 For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

3b. Messiah Rescues the Church at the Rapture

John 14:1-3 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 For if we believe that Yeshua died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

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4a. God’s Program with Israel Started in Genesis 12
Genesis 12:1-3 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

4b. God’s Program with the Church Started in Acts 2
Acts 2:1-4 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

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5a. Israel is a Nation
Deuteronomy 4:6-8 So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? 8 Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

5b. The Church is Made of many Nations
Acts 2:5, 9-11 5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven….9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”

These are five biblical reasons why we must keep the Church and Israel separate in the Bible and in God’s program. Doing otherwise is not doing justice to the Scriptures, and when we start looking at Israel and the Jewish people as having been replaced by the Church, it is a very short road to anti-Israel sentiment, and it ends up making believers feel like they are justified in ostracizing and even demonizing Israel. A non-literal approach to God’s counsel leads to Replacement Theology which is very fertile soil for antisemitism. Christians beware!

Next week we will look at five more biblical reasons.

July 22, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

It is Time to Boycott the Boycotters!

I often write about the danger of the BDS movement. It has officially been going on for 16 years. It was started by Mahmoud Abbas (current leader of the Palestinian Authority), and Omar Barghouti. Abbas and Barghouti didn’t invent the boycott of Jewish people, products or inventions; they simply revived an age-old practice that was used in Europe in the 1930s. In my research and writing about BDS, I usually present a few ideas on how to fight that antisemitic concept. I have told people repeatedly that one of the best ways to fight BDS is to go to their website and buy and support the very products and companies they list as who should be boycotted. They did all the leg work for us, so let’s use their list.

Another way to fight BDS, and a very powerful one at that, is to educate those who are being fooled by its “social justice” agenda. We need to be informed about the real issues plaguing the Middle East and we need to be able to debunk the Palestinian narrative built on a false premise. Israel is not an apartheid state. It is the safest most productive place for Arabs to live in and work from. Israel is not committing ethnic cleansing since there a much more Arabs within the land today than there were prior to 1948 when it was reborn as a modern nation. Israel is not killing Palestinians indiscriminately, but carefully warning Gaza civilians about upcoming attacks on sites that Hamas specifically selected for their civilian population such as schools and hospitals.

Now, allow me to introduce you to one more way to fight BDS. Instead of just buying what BDS proponents say we should boycott–which is definitely a great start to counter BDS–we should seriously consider boycotting the boycotters. The principle is rather simple. Whichever company, organization, or personality supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement against Israel and the Jewish people, should in turn be boycotted by those who support Israel’s right to exist. It is simple in theory but requires three things: Sacrifice, commitment and integrity. Keep in mind that we should always pass everything through the very helpful “3D test” established by Russian refusenik and now in charge of Immigration to Israel, Nathan Sharansky. He posits that antisemitism can be defined by any combination of the three Ds: Demonization, Double-Standard and Delegitimization. He explains, “we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test – I call it the “3D” test – to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. The first “D” is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz – this is anti-Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel. The second “D” is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among the world’s ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross – this is anti-Semitism. The third “D” is the test of delegitimization: when Israel’s fundamental right to exist is denied – alone among all peoples in the world – this too is anti-Semitism.”
Now, let’s look at the need for sacrifice, commitment and integrity:

• Sacrifice
We all have a long list of products, companies and personalities that we support and enjoy. Imagine finding out that your favorite actor or musician supports BDS and shows some serious signs of being anti-Semitic. Maybe your favorite product that you have bought for years is making wrong choices about boycotting Israel. Now you have to decide, should you look the other way, or should you stop sending them your money? This is not a trick question, because I constantly ask myself the same question, and unfortunately, more and more recently.
Take for instance the recent decision by Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream to stop selling their ice cream to the Israeli settlements in Judea/Samaria (improperly labelled the West Bank), or all of Israel if they could. It is entirely within their rights to do so, but it is also entirely within ours to stop buying Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Is it possible to say that it is also our duty as bible believing followers of Yeshua and supporters of Israel to “defund Ben & Jerry”, to use a term that everybody can relate to? Now, apply that principle to other areas in your own life where BDS is infringing, and we can start making an impact by using the boycott principle where justified. I personally stopped eating their products last year when that went crazy against the police, and I kept it private, but I feel that now is the time to start spending our money more wisely. I could give you more examples of who to boycott, but I do not wish to unnecessarily be accused of character assassination by those who might miss my point. Instead, I will invite any of you to Google a specific brand, organization or personality with the word “boycott” or “BDS” and see the results. It is not complicated for anyone to find out who is against Israel. When in doubt, contact me privately. All this will require commitment on our part.

• Commitment
So, now that you have decided to boycott a product or a personality, you have to remain committed to that boycott, at least until they show that they have revised their position. We cannot boycott a TV channel on Monday through Friday, but look the other way on weekends because our favorite show is running at that time. We cannot boycott an actor or actress on some movies, but not others because they are part of our favorite movie list. We cannot boycott Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream except for one flavor because we cannot live without it. I get it, it would be a lot easier to boycott a brand of water and switch to another than to sacrifice and stop eating our favorite ice cream. We either boycott or we don’t, but there isn’t such a thing as a partial boycott. Once we commit, we commit. I have boycotted every single movie of one of my all-time favorite directors since 1988 when he directed a very blasphemous and offensive movie graphically portraying Yeshua in terrible sexual relationships. He has since come up with many movies that I would have loved to watch, but I am committed. Think before you commit or don’t commit because you will need to proceed with integrity.

• Integrity
A good definition of integrity from the Merriam-Webster dictionary is, “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values” or “an unimpaired condition” or “the quality or state of being complete or undivided.”
Integrity has to do with being consistent according to a set of set values. Taking it to an extreme, we could argue that Hitler had integrity because he was very consistent in following his code of ethics or values which happened to be the destruction of all Jews. To be fair, this is not the way we think of integrity today. It is more related to morality and character. The point of integrity is that once we make a decision based on what we think is the best course of action, we have to be consistent. When I look at those who support and promote BDS, I see a lot of hypocrisy. They are willing to sacrifice for what doesn’t really hurt them, but they absolutely will not boycott what they cannot live without. Let us not be too quick to judge, because we might be partially guilty of the same at times. The idea is that if you accuse Israel of being an occupier, colonizer and apartheid state, and that you call for its complete boycott, then it should be a complete boycott. It’s easy for anyone to stop buying Jaffa oranges or Sabra® hummus, but it is a different story to refrain from using technology that was invented or co-invented by Israelis like cell-phone technology, thumb drives or even the Intel® chip for computers.

Looking at sacrifice, commitment and integrity, we all come to the realization that boycotting is easier said than done. Let the BDS promoters be inconsistent, hypocritical and without integrity, but for those of us who claim to love Israel and the Jewish people, the time has come to sacrifice and boycott the boycotters. If you decide to do so, why don’t you let your Jewish community leaders and synagogues know that you are boycotting the boycotters? That is, of course, after you have taken a minute to email the organization or product that you are boycotting to let them know that they are losing customers and why.

Time to speak up, time to act and time to stop eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!

June 12, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Survivalists, Escapists and the Rapture in the Prophetic Future!

There are not that many topics in the Bible that cause so much controversy as the Rapture does. Some people believe in it, some don’t. From those who believe that the Rapture is a real event that will be fulfilled literally–and I belong to that group–many positions exist. The Rapture might happen before the Tribulation, during or after. I personally believe that the Rapture will occur before the Great Tribulation, leaving behind all those who have not placed their trust in the atoning death of Yeshua the Messiah for their sins. So, on the spectrum of end-times events, we find many markers representing doctrinal positions. At each end of that spectrum, we find groups that I will identify as the survivalists and the escapists.

The survivalists, that we can also call preppers, are a group of people convinced that mankind will go through the Great Tribulation and suffer greatly. They are right that the Tribulation will be a horrible, bloody carnage. They believe that it will include unbelievers and believers together for seven years of unprecedented turmoil and persecution resulting in the greatest death toll of all human history. Preppers prepare. They buy food, supplies, weapons, ammo and some even build remote bunkers hoping to put all the odds in their favor for surviving the Tribulation. Preppers also have a tendency to succumb to the latest conspiracy theory. On the mind of most preppers is the inevitable end of the world that must be avoided at all costs

Am I saying that believers should trust the Lord in all things and not prepare for difficult times? Absolutely not! In fact, the Bible advises us to prepare and be ready in many ways:

• Be ready for Messiah – Matthew 24:44
• Be watchful and strong – 1 Corinthians 16:13
• Prepare supplies of food – Proverbs 28:19-20, 20:4
• Prepare with faith – Hebrews 11:7

Now, what I am saying is that our preparedness should not consume us to the point that we are ignoring other aspects of life. Preparing is good and necessary. We need to prepare for the future and, to an extent, we also need to prepare for the unknown and the unexpected, but I find many preppers being so obsessed with stocking up supplies in anticipation of doomsday, that they completely miss their many opportunities to be witnesses of the love and compassion of Messiah to the lost. God provides and protects His children. He does it directly through circumstances and indirectly through people. So, we need to be wise about preparing for the future, using common sense mixed with wisdom and discernment. We must not succumb to the temptation of overstocking and over-preparing. Satan loves to keep people busy with whatever people deem necessary, and in the meantime, nobody is sharing the Good News. Some even think that they are smack in the center of God’s will by over-prepping for the end. A balance must be achieved.

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Now, on the other side of the same spectrum, we find the escapists. Who are these people? Escapists are people who believe in a pre-tribulational Rapture as I do, but they are fixated on their imminent departure more than anything else. They believe that the Rapture will occur prior to the Great Tribulation and that they hold their ticket and reservation for the ultimate ride upward. Escapists look forward to the Rapture and are often heard pleading for Yeshua to come now and snatch away the believers immediately. Escapists are not only “Rapture-ready”, but they also are “Rapture anxious”. They are chomping at the bit for the Rapture to take place.

This reminds me of a pet peeve of mine. It really rubs me the wrong way when I hear people use the word Maranatha all the time. I have nothing against this beautiful Aramaic word meaning “The Lord is coming” or “Come, O Lord”! We shouldn’t dismiss or ignore the beautiful hope that we have in Yeshua and His return. He will return as the Lion of Judah to rule the world from Jerusalem. What a glorious day this will be! What troubles me, is the many believers who constantly say Maranatha as they express their strong desire for Yeshua to return NOW! The question that usually comes to my mind is: “Are all the people you care about saved for you to be so anxious about Yeshua’s return?” When could such a question be answered in the affirmative without any doubt by anyone? Never!

I find the escapist approach to be selfish. It is as if people are thinking, “I’m saved, I’m in and who cares about others”? Again, and as always, I do not wish to paint with broad strokes, but I am greatly concerned with the escapist mentality found across the Body of Messiah. So where is the healthy balance between the escapists and the survivalists? I believe it is found in the person who trusts the Lord day-by-day, moment-by-moment, as they also prepare with common sense for possible financial, physical, political and spiritual difficulties. Planning is necessary, prepping is over-reacting. Trusting the Lord is critical to our spiritual health and growth, but blindly trusting God for all things without any planning is irresponsible.

We need to expect His return at any moment because it can happen at any moment, but we also need to wisely prepare as if He will not return and/or rapture us immediately. Nowhere in the Bible does it mention that believers will not suffer prior to the Rapture. So, prepare, trust, obey and anticipate His return. If we combine all that wisely, we will find plenty of time and opportunities to witness the good news to those who have no hope, so that when He indeed calls the believers to be raptured, more people will join in this glorious departure. Until then, let us all gather in the center of that spectrum and get busy sharing with the lost.

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