Greetings,
Below is a letter I wrote to a Jewish organization in response to their latest newsletter. What many of them are feeling and saying in their hearts is a major sign of the end times. For according to Revelation 7&11 there is coming to the natural descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob a great awakening and love for their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, which will spread around the nations during the coming 70th Week of Daniel. This week of seven years will also be the time of Jacob’s trouble when Jews will once again be the targets of another holocaust. If after reading this you have any comments please make them in our “guestbook” for all to read.
Sincerely,
Jack
P.S. The current Russian invasion of Georgia is all part of a sinister angelic plan to elevate Russia once again to the status of an equal with the United States. For America and Russia are the two “Little Horns” of Daniel 7&8. Once this has been achieved the Russian leadership will begin their prophesied offers of unity with American and Europe to establish world peace, especially in Israel and with the Jews.
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My Jewish friends,
Thank you for keeping me on your mailing list for I am extremely interested in what natural Jews are thinking and teaching. You and the land of Israel that God gave to your fathers are the centerpiece of world history and prophetic events to come that are written in the scriptures.
After reading this latest newsletter, which to me is a cry for the Messiah to come and bring peace to all the nations beginning with Israel, I have only one question for you. How can you not see that Jesus Christ is that Messiah you look and long for, who came the first time to offer his blood as the atonement for and the washing away of our sin nature? For both of us, Jew and Gentile, inherited the pride of life, love of money, love of self, and hatred and deceit from the fall of Adam and Eve which is sending us to Hell. This includes people of all religions as well. Ever since that falling in the garden, the fallen angels led by Satan have ruled the nations through this sin nature in men and are at this very day and hour preparing the nations for the coming of the false Messiah, whose arrival will distort and counterfeit that which Jesus Christ has already done and will do at his second coming.
The Lord Jesus Christ is coming the second time so I now plead with and beg you to reconsider him as your Messiah. For after he was crucified he rose bodily from the grave placing his pure and spotless blood in the Holy place in Heaven, and promising his followers he would return at the end of this age. That end is now upon us as we witness the nations being brought to the brink of a nuclear nightmare coming to pass in the Middle East by hate-filled Moslems in Iran and other places. This perilous environment is just what the fallen angels have prepared to then offer through reformed Russian-led Moslems a Peace Covenant so grand that even many Jews and Christians will think the Kingdom of the Messiah is at hand. Ironically, this is all part of God’s judgment upon the nations, and even Israel, for rejecting the Messiah of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, and accepting his counterfeit.
Know this my Jewish friends. Your yearning for salvation can only be truly satisfied by the person of Jesus Christ, who came to you as God in the flesh. Remember, the combined power of the precious blood and second coming of Jesus Christ is the “only” permanent solution to the deception, death, and destruction that men and governments inflict upon one another to the hideous delight of their fallen angel masters.
The God who created and loves you wants you to soften your heart and experience sorrow of a Godly kind that works repentance unto the salvation of your heart, mind, and body, 2 Corinthians 7:10. He will replace your genuine sorrow with his joy by giving you a new heart full of his faith and truth! He will live within you! This is the heart of the New Testament teachings from which all things become new in our inner man. Once this happens you will desire to obey the God of Israel because you love him, knowing that he first loved you and sent his Son to save you from your sins and the bondage of Satan and his fallen angels.
Your eternal friend,
Jack D. Hook
—– Original Message —–
From: Root & Branch Association, Ltd.
To: rb@rb.org.il
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 2:10 AM
Subject: YEARNING by Yosef Ben Shlomo HaKohen
Zion and the Yearning for Salvation
Copyright © 2008 by Yosef Ben Shlomo HaKohen
Mr. Yosef Ben Shlomo HaKohen
Editor, “Hazon: Our Universal Vision”
http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/publicat/hazon/
“My Search for the Soul of Zion” Series, Essay #9c
Excerpt: “There is a danger that a person can become overly involved in the material pursuits of this world and thereby forget that the goal of our journey on earth is to enter the Messianic Age, when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Compassionate and Life-Giving One. As a result of this spiritual enlightenment, there will no longer be injustice, violence, and disunity on earth….A person who forgets about this spiritual goal can therefore become indifferent to the injustice, violence, and disunity which are found within our unredeemed world. To avoid this forgetting, we are to anticipate the ultimate salvation. I learned from my teachers that to anticipate this salvation also means that we should strive to bring the age of salvation closer through Torah study, praying, improving our character traits, and doing good deeds. This process is known as tikun olam – the perfecting of the world – including our inner world”.
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YERUSHALIYIM, Israelite Tribal Territories of Judah and Benjamin, Kingdom of David and Solomon, United Israelite Kingdom of Judah and Joseph, Seventh Day (Hebrew Month of “Av”), (Shmittah/Sabbatical Year) 5768; Erev Shabbat (Eve of the Sabbath), Yom Shishi (Sixth Day of Week/”Fri”-day, August 8, 2008), Root & Branch Information Services [ mailto:rb@rb.org.il ] [ www.rb.org.il ]:
The following teachings are dedicated to the memory of those who were murdered by a terrorist in the recent attack in Jerusalem:
Introduction:
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a noted 19th century sage and biblical commentator, writes:
“The whole earth is thirsting for deliverance. Sorrow and misery, in hovels and palaces, in cities and states awaken a yearning and hope for the Messiah in every human breast. It is not the Jewish salvation alone which depends on the resurrection of Zion”.
[ Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Volume 1, Av 1, published by Feldheim, page 347]
Dear Friends,
When I began to discuss with you the Six-Day War in June, 1967, and the subsequent spiritual searching, I suggested that the amazing events of that period may have been the Redeeming One’s way of preparing us for the future Messianic Age. This may be why the Six-Day War evoked among many Jews a renewed yearning for the birth of this age when, “They will neither injure nor destroy in all of My sacred mountain, for the earth will be filled with knowledge of HaShem as water covering the sea bed” [Yeshayahu/Isaiah 11:6-9]. In this age, “Torah will go forth Zion” [Yeshayahu/Isaiah 2:3]. Regarding this universal spiritual goal of our path, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes:
“Once all humankind will look to Zion as the lofty center of its sanctification, then all the earth will become known as His sacred mountain”.
[ Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Commentary on Psalm 15:1]
Our tradition teaches that one of the ways to prepare ourselves for the birth of the Messianic Age is to “anticipate” the arrival of this new age and the salvation that it will bring to Israel and the world. We should therefore give prior thought to the deep significance of this age of salvation and to expect its arrival. This is why the Talmud states that on the “Judgment Day” of each person, one of the questions the person will be asked is: “Did you anticipate the salvation?” [Babylonian Talmud/Tractate Shabbos 31a]. Why, however, should this question be asked of each person?
There is a danger that a person can become overly involved in the material pursuits of this world and thereby forget that the goal of our journey on earth is to enter the Messianic Age, when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Compassionate and Life-Giving One. As a result of this spiritual enlightenment, there will no longer be injustice, violence, and disunity on earth.
A person who forgets about this spiritual goal can therefore become indifferent to the injustice, violence, and disunity which are found within our unredeemed world. To avoid this forgetting, we are to anticipate the ultimate salvation. I learned from my teachers that to anticipate this salvation also means that we should strive to bring the age of salvation closer through Torah study, praying, improving our character traits, and doing good deeds. This process is known as tikun olam – the perfecting of the world – including our inner world.
Within our Sacred Scriptures, the birth of the Messianic Age is associated with the beginning of our return to the ideal state of the “Garden of Eden” — the peaceful and fruitful garden which is described at the beginning of the Torah [Bereshit/Genesis 2:8-17]. For example, the Prophet Ezekiel mentions that those who witness the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies regarding Zion will say:
“This very Land, which had been desolate, has become like the Garden of Eden!”
[ Yeshezkel/Ezekiel 36:35]
In this spirit, the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed:
“For HaShem will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her ruins; He will make her wilderness like Eden and her wasteland like the Garden of HaShem; joy and gladness will be found there, thanksgiving and the sound of music”.
[ Yeshayahu/Isaiah 51:3]
In the previous letter, we began to discuss how our story represents the human story. Does our return to the ideal state of the peaceful and fruitful Garden represent the return of humanity to this ideal state? An answer can be found in the following prophecy of the Prophet Micah regarding the Messianic Age:
“He (the Messiah) will judge between many Peoples, and will settle the arguments of mighty nations from far away. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore. They will sit, each person under his vine and under his fig tree, and none will make them afraid, for the mouth of HaShem, God of the hosts of Creation, has spoken”.
[ Micah 4:2-4]
The classical biblical commentators, Radak and Ibn Ezra, explain that the peaceful and pastoral vision of “each person under his vine and under his fig tree” includes all humankind; thus, all humankind will find their way back to the ideal state of the Garden.
Beginning with the summer of 1967, the hippies began to yearn for the Garden of Eden. This yearning was expressed in the following verse from a song by Joni Mitchell about the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969, which attracted several hundred thousand hippies:
“We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden”.
During the period when there was a renewed yearning among many Jews for the Messianic Age, when Zion will become like the Garden of Eden, the hippies began to experience a yearning for the Garden! This served as another reminder that our story is connected to the human story.
As we shall discuss at a later stage, the Torah is our path of return to the Garden, and when the Torah will go forth from Zion, all humanity will find the way back to the Garden.
May we be blessed with a healing and comforting Shabbos.
Shabbat Shalom from Yerushaliyim,
Mr. Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen
Advisory Board Member, Ecology Fellowship, Root & Branch Association, Ltd.
Advisory Board Member, Social Welfare Fellowship, Root & Branch Association, Ltd.
Author, “The Universal Jew” (Feldheim Publishers)
Editor, “Hazon: Our Universal Vision”
http://www.shemayisrael.co.il/publicat/hazon/
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