February 15, 2021 · 8:00 AM

Warning: Global Antisemitism Is Growing!

Dear friend,

Shalom in His grace. There is another unseen virus wreaking destruction upon God’s chosen people today that demands our attention. That virus is antisemitism.

This newsletter will look at the unfortunate growth and virulence of modern antisemitism in North and South America. We will also look at contemporary European antisemitism, including the United Kingdom.

We witnessed synagogue members in Pittsburgh murdered in 2018 simply because they were Jewish. Anti-Jewish slogans and graffiti regularly mark our college campuses today, fueled by hatred of the Jewish people and often further inflamed by posts on social media.

Antisemitism all too often expresses itself through political opposition to the State of Israel. It leads to various movements such as BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) and other groups actively opposing the Jewish state. But antisemitism is not a term we want to throw around lightly, as this “oldest hatred” is now considered a hate crime.

The U.S. State Department in cooperation with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), developed a non-legally binding “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016, which is generally accepted across the globe: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”1

The Anti-Defamation League also provides an excellent definition of antisemitism, defining it as “the belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews.”2

Antisemitism is on the rise in the United States, and it is essential for us as a Jewish mission to address this crucial topic. My people often blame Christianity for antisemitism because of tragic events like the Crusades, Pogroms in Russia, and the Holocaust. WE believe that loving Jesus the Jewish Messiah is incompatible with antisemitism. Yet, the fear of Christianity because of past actions by alleged Christians created a deep antipathy on the part of Jewish people toward the gospel, which is why it is so crucial for us to dispel this association between Jesus and antisemitism.

The Spiritual Roots of Antisemitism

We always need to view life’s critical issues through the lens of Scripture. The roots of antisemitism are ancient and have changed dramatically over the centuries. What started as Greek and Roman disdain morphed into theological anti-Judaism in the early and medieval church. It became racial antisemitism in the nineteenth century leading to the murder of more than six million Jewish people. At the time Adolf Hitler implemented his catastrophic “Final Solution,” antisemitism was primarily racial. If you had a Jewish mother or father, or even a Jewish grandparent, you were declared Jewish, placed in a concentration camp, and likely put to death.

But, if we pull back the curtains of time and history and consider the role God gave to the Jewish people in the redemption of the world, it becomes evident that the roots of antisemitism are spiritual and satanic. When God chose Abram to become the father of the Jewish people, the devil chose the Jewish people to be his perennial enemy (Genesis 12:1–3).

Throughout biblical history, we see attempt after attempt to destroy the Jewish people, which was predicted by the ancient Jewish prophets, especially Daniel. He envisioned the Jewish people’s oppression by Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome in the post-Old Testament period. The Bible never mentions the antisemitism-inspired activities of the Crusaders, the Russian and Ukrainian pogroms, or the Holocaust. The Bible also did not predict the attacks in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 27, 2018, when eleven Jewish people were killed. Nor did it foresee the attack at the Chabad congregation in Poway, California, on April 27, 2019, when Lori Lynn Gilbert-Kaye was killed, and others shot, only for being Jewish.

The reasons for hating the Jewish people have changed over time, but the source remains the same. The devil is not all-knowing like God, but he truly believes he can thwart God’s plan. That is why he has focused on destroying the Jewish people throughout the ages. Satan hates the Jewish people because he knows that it was through the Jewish people the Lord revealed Himself through the Scriptures. At the right moment in history, God unveiled Himself through His Son by choosing a young Jewish virgin to give birth to the Jewish Messiah (Isaiah 7:14)!

God is not finished with His chosen people. There is so much more to come! One day, the Jewish people whom God promised to preserve—will repent, recognize Jesus as Messiah, and the Lord will return and establish His Messianic kingdom on earth (Romans 11:25–29).

Antisemitism is satanic. A good friend of mine once said, “We need to love what the devil hates!” As followers of the Jewish Messiah, we have a holy duty to bless the Jewish people, which fulfills His sacred purposes and demonstrates our loyalty to the One who chose the Jewish people for His divine purposes.

What Can We Do Today to Counter Antisemitism?

1. We should counter antisemitism and enlist the help of the church to do the same.

2. We should counter antisemitism as a witness of God’s love for Israel and the Jewish people.

3. We should help mobilize Christians to stand with the Jewish people in opposing antisemitism. These activities could save Jewish lives.

4. We should post messages of love and support for our local Jewish communities on Facebook, Twitter, or even encourage our pastors to use their church marquees.

5. We should provide believers with information about the Jewish people and antisemitism. Good communication helps believers better understand God’s love and plan for the Jewish people.

A Call to Action:

Some things are just too horrible to let pass! 

That was the theme of an article that appeared in a newspaper.3 The horrible act that could not go unnoticed was the writing of antisemitic statements on a subway car’s walls in New York City—my hometown. Several good Samaritans saw the remarks and came up with the idea of erasing them, using hand cleaner that had high alcohol content to cut through the thick, waxy strokes of a sharpie pen. I cannot tell you how happy I am that New Yorkers took the initiative to act on their outrage and eradicate these despicable statements. Their quick-thinking act of righteousness demonstrates to me that New Yorkers—and Americans, in general—believe we have a culture of freedom, respect, and goodness that is worth preserving. We are willing to put our most cherished values into action.

As a Jewish New Yorker who follows Jesus the Messiah, I am impressed by what these good citizens did on behalf of the Jewish people, especially since the newspaper does not indicate that those who erased the graffiti were Jewish. I long for my fellow believers to take the same kind of actions when we see antisemitism rear its ugly head in our local communities. I would love to see local churches make a public stand against antisemitism. What a testimony that would be of Christ’s love to your local Jewish community!

When believers in Jesus take personal or public stands against antisemitism, they express God’s heart for His chosen people, which is one way to bring your Jewish friend another step closer to thinking about Jesus.

Thanks for your prayers and generous support! I pray that you and your family will have a safe, healthy, and fruitful 2021.

In Him,
Mitch

1 “Defining Anti-semitism,” U.S. Department of State, https://www.state.gov/defining-anti-semitism/.

2 “Antisemitism,” ADL.org, https://www.adl.org/antisemitism.

3 Mark Sundstrom, “Police Investigating Anti-Semitic Graffiti in Upper West Side Subway Station: Officials,” Pix 11, November 11, 2019, https://www.pix11.com/2019/11/11/police-investigating-anti-semitic-graffiti-in-upper-west-side-subwaystation-officials/.

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February 1, 2021 · 8:00 AM

It’s Time to Look Up!

Dear friend of the Jewish people,

Shalom in His grace. I hope your new year is off to a good start. I am taking one step at a time and praying for the best. Our nation is struggling to control the virus, and hopefully, we will make further progress this month.

The Scriptures provide great comfort and encouragement during this trying time. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

Passages like this fill my soul with hope.

One of the blessings of leading a 127-year-old mission to the Jewish people is realizing that the Lord can guide us through the toughest of times. Throughout our history, Chosen People Ministries has survived antisemitism and persecution, the Holocaust, two world wars, the Great Depression, the struggles faced by the nation of Israel at her birth as a modern nation, and even a couple of pandemics!1 Yet, we are still serving the Lord and growing in our ministry’s scope and strength because He is faithful and has a heart for His chosen people.

I believe the Lord will sustain us as a ministry until He returns—when there will no longer be any need for Jewish ministries! I cannot wait until Jesus returns so I can begin my new career as a full-time worshipper of the Jewish Messiah!

TURNING OUR EYES TOWARD THE FUTURE

As we turn the corner and work our way through this pandemic, it is time, I believe, to think about the future. We have a hope that will never disappoint and is full of confidence in the Lord who sent His only Son to die for our sins, rise from the grave, ascended to the right hand of His Father, and will return at any moment!

My dear friend, it is time to turn our eyes toward the Second Coming of Yeshua and to allow Scripture to fuel our hope and transform the way we live!

According to the Bible, we know that Jesus will return in the same way He left—physically—with great glory. Luke wrote, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

The Lord of glory is on His way and could come at any moment. While there are still a few steps along the way, the next significant move for all who love the Lord is to spend eternity living in His presence. For you and me, that should cause us to smile and be encouraged.

A SURVEY OF THE END TIMES

A year ago, we co-sponsored a survey with Lifeway Research, an arm of the Southern Baptist Association. We discovered that many pastors say they are focused on the Second Coming and are confident in teaching and preaching about the “end times.”2

According to the survey of more than one thousand pastors, nine in ten see at least some current events matching those Jesus said would occur before He returns. Not surprisingly, 97 percent s say they believe Jesus Christ will literally and personally return to earth again.

Our board member, Dr. Darrell Bock, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, noted that the Bible lists several signs of Jesus’ return, such as in the Olivet Discourse passages of Matthew 24–25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. Some include concepts of global sicknesses. 

Dr. Bock notes,

“Numerous biblical texts speak of disturbances in the creation that disorient and trouble people,” said Bock. “These disturbances have quite a range with earthquakes and wars being the most common. However, Jesus mentions plagues or pestilence explicitly in Luke 21.” 3

The chart below is from the study and lists the signs and records the numbers of pastors and Christian leaders who believe these to be true!

One particular sign of the end times grabs our attention in Luke 21:10–11:

“Then He continued by saying to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.’”

Many English Bibles translate the Greek word loimos used by Jesus as “plague.”

In other words, when you see the signs, including the plagues, get ready, because He is coming soon!

LIVING LIFE IN LIGHT OF HIS SOON RETURN

In an encounter with the Jewish leaders of His day, Jesus asked the haunting question in Matthew 16:3, “Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?”

We should consider this question too. We do not want to see signs that are not there or become cynical and allow occasional misinterpretations to keep us from the joy of expecting His return!

In light of the signs of the times, let us move forward in faith through the pandemic and allow our eyes to be on His return, whenever that day or hour might be.

WHAT ABOUT THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND THE END OF DAYS?

Now, this is where Your Mission to the Jewish People plays a critical role. In passages such as Zechariah 12:10 and Matthew 23:37–39, we see a link between the end-time turning of the Jewish people to Jesus and the Second Coming.

Let us list a few signs of the times that might already be fulfilled.

  • The Jewish people are back in the land of Israel and returned in unbelief, as Ezekiel predicted in chapter 36.
  • Jerusalem is in Jewish hands.
  • Enemies still surround Israel—look east to Iran and Syria!

In 1 John 3:3, the Apostle John told us to prepare for His coming: “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

If we believe that Jesus is coming soon, then we should be drawing closer to the Lord, repenting of our sins, and getting ready for His return.

Yet, the Bible also tells us that we can do more to participate in Christ’s Second Coming by becoming involved with world evangelism, beginning with the Jew first, according to Romans 1:16.

Now why to the Jew first?

The Jewish people and the nation of Israel play a primary role in preparing the way for the Second Coming. Jewish people need to hear the gospel, as Paul told us that faith comes through hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Evangelism is the preparation that turns the hearts of Jewish people to the Lord and eventually leads to the salvation of an end-time remnant described by Paul in Romans 11:25–26.

Jewish people need to hear the gospel today, and we must pray for and stand with His chosen people in the United States, Israel, and worldwide so the good news of Messiah Jesus may be proclaimed to Jewish people—preparing the way for the return of the Lord.

The Jewish people’s role in world redemption will continue to the very end—when the remnant and the Jewish people as a whole cry out in repentance and turn their eyes to the One who was pierced.

He will return when the Jewish people turn!

PARTNERS ALWAYS!

My dear brothers and sisters, please join us as we turn our eyes to the future to the Second Coming of Jesus. Let us remember the importance of Jewish evangelism and the Jewish people’s role in these last days.

Thank you so much for your generous support and prayers.

Mitch

1 Since the founding of Chosen People Ministries in 1894, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies four global pandemics before the current COVID-19 outbreak: the Spanish flu (1919), the Asian flu (1957–1958), the H3N2 flu (1968), and the swine flu (2009). “Past Pandemics,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last modified August 10, 2018, https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/basics/past-pandemics.html.

2 The phone survey of 1,000 pastors from evangelical and historically black denominations was conducted from January 24 to February 11, 2020. It was sponsored by Chosen People Ministries, Alliance for the Peace of Jerusalem, Rich and Judy Hastings, and the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. The calling list was a stratified random sample, drawn from a list of all evangelical and historically black churches. Quotas were used for church size.

3 Aaron Earls, “Vast Majority of Pastors See Signs of End Times in Current Events,” LifeWay Research, April 7, 2020, https://lifewayresearch.com/2020/04/07/vast-majority-of-pastors-see-signs-of-endtimes-in-current-events/.

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January 15, 2021 · 8:00 AM

To the Jew First in 2021

Shalom, dear friend.

It is hard to believe that we are in the middle of January 2021! Time is moving forward so rapidly! Last January, I had such hope in the afterglow of celebrating Chosen People Ministries’ 125th year of ministry. We had a fabulous gala! The future looked so bright, the opportunities to serve the Lord and reach Jewish people with the gospel were electrifying, and the Chosen People Ministries staff was ready to go!

But then tragedy struck, and however you feel about the virus, it has impacted all of our lives in many ways. The effects of COVID-19 on our friends, families, and congregations have been severe. Our economy and the overall stability of our nation suffered as well.

My dear friend, 2020 was a challenging year!

But the Lord is ALWAYS in control. He is sovereign and loves us with an everlasting love. He created us, sent His Son to redeem us, and is coming back, so we are hopeful.

Job’s sentiments very well express how you and I might sometimes feel: “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him” (Job 13:15).

When there is nothing else to hold onto, we can always cling to the nature and character of our God! He will never disappoint, though His ways, thoughts, and will are so mysterious to us at times (Isaiah 55:8–9).

But we know in the depth of our souls that the Lord is always worthy of our trust!

While I anguish with those who have lost loved ones, businesses, and more to the virus, I believe that 2021 will be a year of restoration. I also have an even greater sense of urgency than ever before to proclaim the gospel to the Jewish people. Your Mission to the Jewish People will move forward in hope, fulfilling the mission and vision God gave Rabbi Leopold Cohn in 1894 when he founded Chosen People Ministries.

The Messianic Jewish Apostle Paul expressed our vision at Chosen People Ministries when he wrote,

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

I like to remind our staff and prayer partners of this verse every January. It is best to read this verse—and the entire Bible—as literally as possible. David L. Cooper, a missionary to the Jewish people who lived and ministered in the 40s and 50s in Los Angeles, said this about reading Scripture: “When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense.” He explained that, unless there is an obvious reason not to, we should apply Scripture literally.

A LITERAL APPROACH TO ROMANS 1:16

If we take Romans 1:16 literally, we see that we should not be ashamed of the gospel as it is the power of God for salvation. I know this is true, as I experienced God’s power when I was nineteen years old and accepted Jesus. He transformed my life!

This verse also teaches that we should not keep this glorious and powerful message to ourselves. It is the power of God for salvation, not just for us, but for everyone who believes. Our divinely appointed goal in life should be to present the gospel in ways that others might see the power of the good news and believe in Him as well.

Finally, the text tells us that the gospel should be proclaimed to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Here is where some people find it hard to take this verse literally.

The Greek word translated “first” is protos and does not need to be understood sequentially. I do not think Paul intended for the Roman believers to witness to all the Jewish people in Rome before sharing the gospel with non-Jews! Paul used a nonsequential application of the word first.

To the Jew first means that bringing the gospel to the Jewish people should be a heart priority for every believer in Jesus.

We must find a way to apply the plain truth of God’s Word to our lives. Whether through prayer, giving, or witnessing to Jewish people we know, we all need to be involved in sharing the good news with God’s chosen people.

REACHING THE HAREDIM IN THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL

We want to take Paul’s statement a little bit further in 2021.

We not only want to bring the gospel to the Jewish people first, but we also want to take the gospel to some of the most challenging and resistant Jewish people first. The group I have in mind is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, usually called the Haredim. A literal translation of the Hebrew word Haredim is “those who fear the Lord.”

This Jewish community represents close to one million of the more than fifteen million Jewish people in the world.

They are viewed as “old style” in their keeping of Jewish tradition and dress. Haredim follow the Torah diligently, live under the rabbis’ authority, and share a vibrant community life that includes schools, jobs, and synagogue life, which is central to this Jewish community.

My heart breaks for the Haredim for many reasons. But the primary reason is biblical, as Paul wrote in Romans 10:1–3. He noted that these beloved Jewish people have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. The Greek word Paul used is epignosis, a composite term that implies full or complete knowledge. The Haredim understand God to a degree, but this knowledge is incomplete because it lacks an understanding of Jesus, who fulfills all that the Bible promises.

I live in Brooklyn. Outside of Jerusalem and a few other enclaves in Israel and the greater New York area, my hometown is the epicenter of Haredi life. However, you will find Haredim in every major city in North America.

We have developed tools designed to reach these dear people through the use of social media in the United States, Israel, and other strategic places where many Haredim live. We are using the Yiddish language, which combines Old German and some Slavic and Hebrew terms but is written in Hebrew letters.

We have the New Testament in Yiddish and the Jesus Film in Yiddish as well, which we are offering for online viewing.

HAREDI SAFE HOUSE INITIATIVE

We are also establishing a fund to purchase a property somewhere outside the New York area where the Haredim who are seeking the Lord can safely stay when their community persecutes them. We call this the “Haredi Safe House Initiative.”

God has given us a big vision and ambitious goals. We have already done a lot, but now we are prepared to move full steam ahead.

We expect to receive quite a bit of opposition, and we need to have the prayer support to press on.

We have not yet located the site, though we have a good idea of where we want to be. So stay tuned, and we will tell you more about this later on in 2021.

We are prepared and available to God for this monumental task, and we hope and pray that, in the days ahead, the Lord will use us in the lives of this exceptional part of the global Jewish community.

We are not stopping anything else that we are doing; we are adding to what we have done in past years. This includes a more extensive outreach to campuses, initiatives among children, and more.

The gospel is still powerful, and it is still for everyone; it is the only solution that works for you, me, and every other citizen on earth. But as we apply the preaching of the gospel, we need to take Paul’s words seriously and present the gospel to the Jew first.

THANK YOU!

Thank you so much for your prayers. I see God’s hand on the Jewish people and especially the state of Israel as part of the unfolding of the end times. I believe with my whole heart that the Jewish people will turn to Jesus before He returns at the end of days. This makes reaching the Jewish people for the Messiah Jesus so very important.

As Paul wrote,

For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins” (Romans 11:25–27).

Let us lift our eyes and hearts together and, by His grace, reach the Jewish people for the Lord. Thank you for caring and for helping us bring the gospel to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles.

Your brother in the Messiah,
Mitch

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January 4, 2021 · 8:00 AM

We Thank God for Another Year!

Shalom, dear friend.

Happy New Year!

We made it to 2021, which is encouraging! I thank the Lord for bringing us this far!

I have found the well-known passage from Psalm 23:4 to be a source of strength and hope: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

Maybe, like me, you have rediscovered that all we need is Him!

The pandemic has tested our faith, but I believe we will slowly regain a sense of normalcy and return to the world we once knew. I am sure you have learned some great spiritual lessons in the last ten months. These past months have powerfully reminded me that this world is passing away, and we belong to a coming kingdom, which is unshakable. The hope of Jesus’ return is sweeter to me now than ever before, and I hope this is true for you too.

I long for His coming and the establishment of His righteous kingdom. The book of Revelation promises, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3–4).

What a wonderful promise!

Meanwhile, Your Mission to the Jewish People is ready for the challenges of 2021. With full dependence upon our good and glorious Savior, we are moving forward, doing what we have done for one hundred twenty-six years—reaching Jewish people with the gospel.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation” (Romans 10:1). I want to be part of God’s answer to Paul’s prayer!

Paul, a Messianic Jew, also penned the following words of Scripture, which became our marching orders when Rabbi Leopold Cohn founded Chosen People Ministries in 1894:

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

For one hundred twenty-six years, we have focused on this clear, biblical basis for Jewish evangelism every January. We start the year by reminding our staff and friends of this mandate that explains why we do what we do, day in and day out, using the tools God provides. Chosen People Ministries has endured incredible challenges in fulfilling our mission: World War I, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, World War II, the Holocaust, Israel’s establishment, and the wars fought to keep her safe—and today, we are facing a pandemic!

Your Mission to the Jewish People is still here serving the Jewish Messiah and making Him known among His kinsman according to the flesh!

By God’s grace, Chosen People Ministries has never changed its mission or theology. Irrespective of the circumstances, we exist to reach Jewish people worldwide for their Messiah, Jesus. With the help of an army of prayer warriors like you—including both individuals and local churches who love the Lord and the Jewish people—we will be able to continue the work!

OUR MISSIONARIES HAVE OVERCOME SERIOUS SETBACKS IN 2020

We have spoken in very few churches—about one thousand fewer churches than 2019! Still, He has provided through you. Thank you.

We struggle with not being able to worship and witness in person. Yet, we know His Spirit cannot be quarantined and still works powerfully in the lives of those seeking Him. He is never locked down!

In so many ways, our ministry has flourished during the pandemic. We have engaged with tens of thousands of individuals online. We have met many hurting people whose personal suffering and loss has drawn them to Jesus. We have seen many Jewish people come to faith, be baptized, and become part of our congregations and Bible studies.

I hope this openness continues and that we will continue to find both Jews and Gentiles seeking the Lord during the months ahead.

We are ready to move forward in 2021! We will take it one step at a time, but we see hope on the horizon! Our staff is filled with vision and overflowing with ideas and new strategies!

Will you pray for our workers in nineteen countries around the globe, as you have in the past?

By God’s grace, let us walk arm in arm toward the opportunities ahead. Together, we can meet the challenges of reaching the Jewish community in the United States, Israel, and worldwide!

USING DIGITAL MEDIA TO REACH JEWISH PEOPLE

It takes a village to reach the Jewish community for the Messiah, and both our missionary and administrative staff, which number about one hundred twenty-five in the United States, need our continued prayers and encouragement.

I am especially thrilled with the work of our digital media department. They do some of our most critically important missionary work by creating the videos and social media we use to proclaim the gospel.

We have learned a lot about ministering to Jewish people who understandably want to keep their search for Jesus private. They are concerned about their friends and relatives knowing about their interest in the gospel, which is why our digital media outreach is so critical. We have created four evangelistic websites and are working on a fifth as well.

AboutMessiah.com is an entry-level online outreach. The articles address an unbelieving Jewish audience open to the gospel and curious about Jesus.

FollowMessiah.com is a video-based Bible study based on the Sermon on the Mount. The videos help seekers who are further along in their search for the Lord, and they also serve to disciple Jewish believers who have come to faith.

ChosenPeopleAnswers.com focuses on the tough questions Jewish people ask about Jesus and the gospel. This site will help Jewish seekers, but it will also help gentile Christians who are trying to answer the questions their Jewish friends are asking about the Messiah.

IFoundShalom.com shares the testimonies of more than one hundred Jewish people who have come to faith in the Messiah.

OUTREACH AMONG RELIGIOUS JEWISH PEOPLE

Our newest website, still in development, reflects our growing burden to reach ultra-Orthodox Jewish people for the Lord. An online approach is perfect for an ultra-Orthodox audience since many religious Jewish people do not want their friends and family knowing that they are interested in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. The website will contain portions of the New Testament in Yiddish, part of the Jesus Film (also in Yiddish), and several other online resources to help ultra-Orthodox Jewish people find the Lord, like our Isaiah 53 Explained book in Hebrew. The ultra-Orthodox speak and read Yiddish, but many are also fluent in Hebrew. The book is available in print and as a downloadable pdf.

There are more than one million devoted ultra-Orthodox Jews in the world today, and we have recently had phone calls from many of them who are seeking the Lord. We feel a tremendous sense of urgency to produce this site and advertise it within the religious Jewish community.

IT IS TIME TO ADVANCE!

I cannot thank you enough for your faithful and generous prayers and support. Our staff joins me in being deeply appreciative of your partnership.

I know that we have been through a hard time, but I have hope! The Lord is all-powerful, and He has promised a glorious future for those who love Him.

It is my greatest desire to find as many Jewish people as possible to enjoy His eternal presence along with you and me!

Happy New Year and God bless you. We are looking forward to great things in 2021.

Your brother in the Messiah,

Mitch

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December 15, 2020 · 8:00 AM

The Christmas-Hanukkah Connection

Shalom,

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! I love this season of the year: lights, joy, lots of presents, and the ability to freely focus on our faith in Jesus—the reason for the season. When I say the reason for the season, I am including Hanukkah, not just Christmas!

There is an amazing connection between the two holidays. It is a bit hidden, but I am sure that, once you see it, you will be as thrilled about it as I am. We find this extraordinary link in John 10:30, where Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”

We know from the gospel that the events in John chapter ten occurred during the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22–23), also called Hanukkah. The Hebrew word hanukkah means “dedication.” It is still the most often used name for this great holiday.

Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah!

Curiously, the only biblical mention of Hanukkah is in the New Testament. The origin of Hanukkah is in the intertestamental literature, particularly in the First and Second books of Maccabees, which many people consider significant records of Jewish history.

The story of Hanukkah serves as the stunning backdrop to the words of Jesus, particularly in John chapter ten and especially in verse thirty.

The saga begins with a well-known historical figure—Alexander the Great.

Upon his death in 323 BC, Alexander’s kingdom was divided among four of his generals. Eventually, the lands that included Israel came under the control of Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 BC. His name alone tells the story—the word epiphanes means “revealed” or “manifestation” and refers to the Greek gods who often took on human form. In this instance, Antiochus probably had Zeus in mind as he desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem by sacrificing to Zeus (1 Maccabees 1:54; 2 Maccabees 6:2).

Antiochus demanded loyalty from the Jewish people to Greek culture and the Greek gods. He sent his emissaries with a statue of himself to each village in Israel and made them bow down to it. According to Jewish tradition, the emissaries entered the town of Modi’in and demanded that the Jewish people bow down and worship the Greek gods and their representative, Antiochus.

But a family of Levitical priests was living there. Mattathias and his five sons refused to bow and began a revolt. Mattathias cried out, “Let everyone who has zeal for the Law and who stands by the covenant follow me!” (1 Maccabees 2:7). His call is one of the grand statements of loyalty and unity that every young Jewish child learns at his mother’s knee.

His family and followers fled to the Judean foothills and waged guerrilla warfare against the Syrian Greeks for the next three years, between 167–164 BC. When Mattathias died, Judah became the leader of the rebel forces.

During that time, Antiochus perpetrated one of the most heinous acts against the Jewish people recorded in all of history. After defeating Antiochius, the Maccabees discovered that he had sacrificed a pig on the altar in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in Israel. The Maccabees retook Jerusalem and wanted to cleanse the Temple. However, when they realized that a pig’s blood had defiled the altar, they took it apart and stacked the stones off to one side. In a very intriguing tradition recorded in 1 Maccabees, they left the rocks for someone more powerful to do the cleansing (1 Maccabees 4:46).

They built a new altar, and according to Jewish tradition, only had one day of oil left in the Temple’s eternal light (the seven-branched menorah), although it took eight days to cure olive oil to keep the light shining. The miracle that took place, according to tradition, was that the oil lasted for eight days, which allowed the Maccabees to prepare the oil needed and prevented them from being extinguished.

This legend provides the rationale for why we celebrate Hanukkah over eight days and why the symbol of light is so important. It reminds us that the ner tamid, the ceremonial light that shone in the Temple, must never be extinguished. Of course, the physical Temple was destroyed in AD 70 when the Romans conquered Jerusalem. Many Jewish people fled, and the Romans took the remaining Jewish people as captives. The menorah and other holy implements were looted and brought to Rome by the armies of Titus. To celebrate the victory, the Romans engraved these historical events inside the Arch of Titus, which you can still see today in the Roman Forum, near the Roman Colosseum.

The Declaration of Divinity

Jesus made His declaration of divinity in John 10:30 amid the grand traditions observed during the magnificent Hanukkah celebrations at the Second Temple. These traditions are described in the Mishnah, a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Bible.

The story of Hanukkah, which would have taken place fewer than two hundred years earlier, was well-known by the Jewish people at that time. The average Jewish person living in Israel would have known that Antiochus Epiphanes, also called “Antiochus the Madman,” had declared himself to be a god. The Jewish people were commanded not to have any other gods but the Lord and were forbidden to worship idols (Exodus 20:3–4).

Indeed, the order to bow down and worship a statue would have been especially repugnant to the Jewish people. To this day, Jewish resistance to incarnation is rooted in the Jewish rejection of idolatry and the belief that God cannot be corporeal.

Resisting the claim that Jesus is God in the flesh has been viewed as a testimony of Jewish loyalty throughout the centuries. The fact that any Jewish person can overcome thousands of years of Jewish faith and tradition and accept Yeshua’s deity is a miracle.

The Deity of the Messiah Is Rooted in the Hebrew Bible

I was raised in a modern Orthodox Jewish home and taught to reject this possibility out of hand, not only for Jesus but for anyone.

I remember when I was thinking about becoming a believer in Jesus and was confronted with the idea that Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh. After reading the Gospels and seeing the way Jesus acted and spoke, I concluded that if anybody was God in the flesh—it would be Him. I am so glad that the Lord worked in my heart and enabled me to accept this glorious and fundamental truth—that Jesus is God, fully divine and fully human.

If Jesus was just a very bright and articulate itinerant Jewish rabbi, then you and I are still walking in our sins and face judgment on the last day. But because He is God in the flesh, His death provides a perfect atoning sacrifice for our sins, allowing you and me to receive forgiveness of sins and stand in the presence of the Lord forever.

I came to realize that the Hebrew Scriptures actually did teach that God could appear in the flesh. Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6–7, and several other prophetic passages in the Old Testament teach that God would take on flesh one day.

I understand why the Incarnation rubs Jewish people the wrong way. We were raised celebrating Hanukkah and taught that bowing to any corporeal God is idolatry.

I would agree that the Bible teaches against idolatry. Isaiah wrote with a combination of anger and humor, it seems, concerning how idolators worship:

Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he eats meat as he roasts a roast and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships; he also prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god.”
(Isaiah 44:16–17)

Yet, we do not worship a God made of wood or stone but one who became a man while fully retaining His divine nature—a glorious mystery!

There is no stipulation against the true God taking on flesh. Without the Incarnation, Jesus would not fulfill the Messiah’s prophetic description and qualify as the Savior of the world. There is no other way to be the Messiah as no human being could accomplish what the Bible prophesied the Messiah would achieve. The deity of the Messiah is essential to His Messianic role in the story of redemption.

With this background, we understand that Jesus’ declaration that He and the Father are one was a declaration that He is God in the flesh. There is no other. Antiochus Epiphanes was a fraud; the statue was merely an image that was eventually destroyed.

Jesus is not an idol made of wood or stone, nor is He just a man or a great rabbi or miracle-worker. He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that teach us that the true Messiah and Savior of the world would be God in the flesh.

Dear friend, it is the Incarnation that forms the magnificent bridge between the holidays. I cannot tell you how happy I am that our Messiah Jesus chose Hanukkah to declare Himself God in the flesh. What could be more appropriate? What could be more Jewish?

I hope you enjoy the additional teaching on this great topic in this newsletter.

We are so grateful for your prayers!

Blessings and Merry Christmas,
Mitch

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December 4, 2020 · 8:30 AM

Nothing Can Keep the Gospel Locked Down!

Dear brothers and sisters,

Merry almost Christmas and thank you for your prayers and partnership. Chosen People Ministries, Your Mission to the Jewish People, is positioned to reach thousands of Jewish people during December, and I am excited. We could not be where we are today without God working through you!

I am especially pleased with the opportunities we have for online evangelism. We are now in the midst of evangelistic campaigns in the United States, England, and Israel. We are offering a booklet about the Jewish holiday Hanukkah entitled Hanukkah: A Bright Light for Dark Times, who we know is Jesus, the Light of the World! We have been speaking to Jewish people about Jesus on Zoom and in person as restrictions allow, and a growing handful of Jewish people in Israel and across the globe are coming to faith. We have baptized some new believers in the past few months too. God is moving!

No one, and nothing the devil can throw at us, can keep the gospel locked down!

FACING HARD TIMES IN THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Our dedicated missionaries are working through the many challenges facing them daily in their ministries. And the Lord is using these hard times, caused by COVID-19, to bring out the best in our staff. They are more creative, sacrificial, and dependent upon the Holy Spirit than ever before!

I am concerned, however, with our missionaries who have been enduring hard times in hard places! Your prayers can help our staff power through the challenges by His Spirit.

Let me tell you what these wonderful missionaries are facing.

Our staff in Israel and Brooklyn face regular opposition from religious Jewish people who protest our Bible studies and services—especially at our Greater Tel Aviv Messianic Center in the suburb of Ramat Gan. Some of our staff also face the challenge of having limited resources, as the regions where they serve do not have an abundance of local churches committed to Jewish missions. I wish we could send the staff everything they need, but we cannot as our resources in the United States are also limited.

Our missionaries here at home are also having a tough time because the opportunities to speak in churches—one of the primary ways our missionaries raise their support—is still severely limited because of the pandemic.

We are not sure when churches will fully reopen their doors to our ministries.

Our staff who work in hard places need the freedom to travel to other places to raise prayer and financial support, but it is impossible for our overseas staff to come to the United States to raise support right now.

Our global staff also face the challenges of working in countries plagued by government instability. For example, the governments of England, Israel, and Argentina are under pressure. Policies are changing and uncertainty rules, which make people hesitant to give to missions, even if they can.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

We have to admit that even though we have endured some tough times over the last nine months, we also know there is a lot to be thankful for!

I hope you were able to gather with your family to celebrate Thanksgiving. Yet, I imagine you may have limited the number of your guests to protect your more vulnerable loved ones as we did. Our heavenly Father also protects those He loves. In one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture, Isaiah wrote:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you (Isaiah 43:1–3).

Like our heavenly Father, we are “wired” to protect those we love!

We do have so much to be thankful for in the midst of hardship, including the freedom to express our faith, the availability of Bibles and other Christian literature, and loving families, even though we might have to see them via Zoom.

God is good—all the time.

Let me list a few reasons why I am so thankful this year.

1. Our online outreaches have been very successful.

2. Many Jewish people have come to faith during the pandemic.

3. There is growing interest in the gospel among ultra-religious Jewish people. We have never received as many inquiries from religious Jewish people as we have during the last few months.

4. The Chosen People Ministries staff is healthy. We are still working mostly from our homes, but some of us are also in the office a few days a week. And our congregations—at least some of them—are meeting again in person, following their own state and local requirements.

There is a lot to be thankful for each day, even in light of what we have lost. The Lord always makes up for our hardship, but in His way.

He promised Israel, “Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25).

He loves each of us so deeply and personally. Jesus taught His disciples this as well. Matthew wrote:

Do not worry then, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear for clothing?” For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:31–33).

And He loves those who are preaching the gospel through Your Mission to the Jewish People.

I am grateful for you, too, as it is because of your sacrifice and generosity that the Lord cares for our dedicated staff worldwide, especially those serving in hard places! We currently have staff working in areas that cover 96 percent of the world’s Jewish population, which today is about 15 million!

We are thankful for you, and we pray regularly for the needs of our broader Chosen People Ministries family. Please feel free to send us your prayer requests at chosenpeople.com/pray. We want to thank God for what He is doing in your life and pray for your needs.

A belated Happy Thanksgiving and early Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Your brother,
Mitch

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November 30, 2020 · 8:00 AM

Thanksgiving: The Gateway to Joy in Difficult Times

I have thought a lot about what I would like to share with you as we approach the holiday season.

I am sure we all know someone or have even had a dear friend contract COVID-19, and maybe some of us have even lost friends and relatives due to complications from the virus.

I could tell you about all the churches the Chosen People Ministries staff did not visit in the last nine months or the evangelistic campaigns we never held. I could share about people we were unable to visit in person and Bible studies and services either never held or held online.

I could complain about how hard it was for me to stay home and not fly the usual 100,000-plus miles I have traveled annually for the last twenty years!

But this time has also been a blessing in disguise!

I really have enjoyed spending more time with my wife, and I have been able to write articles, study more, and spend time with our beloved staff on Zoom—maybe more than ever before! We have had thousands—and I mean thousands—of Jewish people engage with us online throughout this period, and we have had some great opportunities to share the gospel. Our services and Bible studies have all grown, and we served more than 20,000 people through our online high holiday services. I am amazed at His power and faithfulness.

We have also seen a new openness among very religious Jewish people, and we are regularly speaking with a number of these very devoted sons and daughters of Abraham about Jesus.

I am sure we have all done our best to find godly ways to get through this season. We have also probably asked the question, “Why, oh Lord?” a number of times. There is nothing wrong with asking! In fact, the Bible even gives us answers and sound advice for moving through difficult seasons. Yet, in our heart of hearts, we know we should trust God and look for biblical answers to our hearts’ deepest questions.

Throughout Scripture, we see many others who endured hardship and found a way not only to survive but thrive. My favorite place to look for help in tough times is in the Psalms. Today, I want to reflect upon one of my favorites, Psalm 118, and see if we can discover some truths that will help us along the way.

So, let us take a quick look at Psalm 118, which is best known for the great Messianic prophecy in verses 22–23: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”

This passage is quoted four times in the New Testament (Acts 4:11; Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:7, Matthew 21:42) and in one way or another, applied to Jesus, who is the chief cornerstone of our life and faith. But there is a lot more to this great psalm.

Psalm 118 is one of the psalms the Lord has used to guide me through the dark days of the pandemic.

The Hallel Psalms

It is identified as one of the thanksgiving psalms and is the last of the Passover or Egyptian Hallel Psalms (113–118), which eventually wound their way into the fabric of the Haggadah (which in Hebrew means “the telling”), the prayer and guidebook used by Jewish people for the last 2,000 years in celebrating the Passover Seder.

The psalm is also customarily recited during the other two pilgrimage festivals, Pentecost and Tabernacles, and also during Hanukkah and the new moon.

It is suggested that Psalms 113–118 were recited while the Israelites were marching towards the Temple to offer the great Paschal sacrifice. A celebration filled with pomp, circumstance, and enthusiasm of faith, Jesus would have viewed this parade many times, until the day came when He Himself became the sacrifice—the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Hebrew word hallel means “praise,” from which we get the word hallelujah. Psalm 118, like the others in the group, may be viewed as loud shouts of joy to the God who delivers His people from bondage! Psalm 118 begins with a passionate statement of thanksgiving and concludes twenty-eight verses later with the same explosion of praise.

Offering Thanksgiving

Read the first few verses of the psalm and you will see what I mean.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Oh let Israel say, ‘His lovingkindness is everlasting’” (Psalm 118:1–2).

There is a lot to learn about our relationship to God, especially in tough times, even from this one verse.

The psalmist used the word hodu, which is related to the word todah, which simply means “thank you.” Todah is also the name for the voluntary thanksgiving offering mentioned by Moses in Leviticus 7:12. The thanksgiving offering was often added to one of the mandatory offerings, such as the guilt or peace offerings.

“If he offers it by way of thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes of well stirred fine flour mixed with oil” (Leviticus 7:12).

The thanksgiving offering reflects an extra step of devotion by the worshipper and demonstrates a greater degree of love filling the heart of the one making this “extra” and voluntary offering.

You will notice immediately that the focus of the psalmist’s thanksgiving is not on the parting of the Red Sea, protection from Egyptian armies, or on any of the other great miracles God performed in delivering the Jewish people from Egypt. Instead, the focus of the psalmist is upon the person and promises of God.

The first lesson we learn about praise, prayer, and thanksgiving is that, like the psalmist, we should first give thanks to God for who He is before we show our gratitude for what He has done!

For His Goodness

If you look again at the text, you will see that, in part, the psalmist identifies the motivation for his thanksgiving in the phrase, “for He is good” (Psalm 118:1).

The Hebrew word for “good” is tov. One of the ways this word is used in Scripture is in reference to an internal quality of integrity, or ethical or moral goodness. With respect to God’s character, when we declare that He is good, we are referring to the goodness of His nature. He is always acting in goodness toward us, even in the midst of a pandemic. We might not understand the why, but we do know that He is still good even in the midst of personal and global tragedy. His nature is unchanging.

Throughout the difficulties of the exodus from Egypt, the forty years in the wilderness, and all of the challenges and threats faced by the psalmist, he still understood that God is good. We should not lose sight of this wonderful truth about the nature of the holy and eternal One: despite our suffering, He is still good.

Keith Green, a Jewish believer who passed away in a plane crash in the mid 1970s, wrote the following words in one of my favorite worship songs:

“Oh Lord, you’re beautiful, your face is all I seek, for when your eye is on this child, your grace abounds to me.”[1]

Imagine walking into the Holy of Holies and coming face to face with the Shekinah glory. If you were able to say anything, you might have cried out, “Oh Lord, you are beautiful. Your person is spectacular, magnificent. Neither my eyes nor yours have seen anything more beautiful than the person of our God.”

Do you remember what God said at the conclusion of creation?

“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31).

The phrase is a familiar one to those of us who are Jewish—tov m’od, which means “very good.” God saw His handiwork, especially the creation of man, and proclaimed that it was “very good.”

His creation reflects His beauty. I recall standing in front of the Grand Canyon, speechless at sunset, and all I could really say was, “It is beautiful!” Staring into the face of great beauty stops us in our tracks and leaves us without words to describe what we see. This is only elevated when we speak about the eternal character of God.

Moses may have been the only person in the Old Testament who ever came face to face with God’s goodness.

The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.” Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” Then the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33:17–23)

When this event actually transpired, Moses added,

Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Exodus 34:6–7).

What makes God beautiful is His character. We are thankful for who He is, and He is indeed beautiful. When I recognize His beauty, my heart and lips are filled with His praise.

Perhaps the clearest window into the beauty of His character occurred during the Incarnation. The beauty of His character was revealed most clearly in the person of Yeshua who the Apostle Paul described as follows, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

Similarly, the writer of the book of Hebrews wrote, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).

We offer praise and thanksgiving to God because He is good. We are thankful for His person, and our offering of praise raises our souls above the circumstances of life; Everything He gives or delivers us from, or provides fades in comparison to the beauty of His person.

We are grateful because He is good and beautiful.

For His Everlasting Loyalty

The second reason the psalmist offers thanksgiving to God is that he recognizes that the Lord’s lovingkindness is everlasting. Lovingkindness is a loaded term in the Hebrew language. The word chesed may be translated as “loyalty,” and particularly “covenant loyalty.” The psalmist praises God because He is loyal to His covenants and promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In Genesis 12:1–3, the God of our forefathers made a fourfold covenantal promise assuring Abram and his children that they would persevere as a nation, possess a land, fulfill a mission (to bless the world), and enjoy a unique relationship with their God. These covenantal promises would be eternally guarded by the very character of the One making the promises.

By His nature, God is loyal. He never breaks His word. He always keeps His promises. It would be against His eternal nature to break a commitment.

The psalmist offered a sacrifice of praise as he honored the One who fulfilled every promise He ever made. God’s faithfulness does not mean we will not experience distress in this life! It also does not mean the Lord will keep His promises according to our schedule or in the ways we expect!

Pandemics are painful, and from our viewpoint, this has been a dark and difficult season. In verses 17–18, the psalmist seems to be able to balance both hope and despair. He exclaimed, “I will not die, but live, and tell of the works of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but He has not given me over to death” (Psalm 118:17–18).

We struggle with the same dilemma, especially now! In our own way, each of us has suffered during the pandemic. Those of us still alive are able to praise Him here. Some of our brothers and sisters have passed into His presence and are now able to praise Him before His heavenly throne.

We might feel like asking the question, “Has God failed to protect us?” or “How could a good God let the circumstances of the last nine months fall upon us?” The answer is always going to be the same. God has not failed us! He has not broken His promises. He is incapable of doing so!

His timing is merely different than ours. His purposes, ways, and thoughts are higher than our own (Isaiah 55:8–9). He uses the darkness to shape our character and prepare us for living in His eternal light. Rabbi Paul penned the well-known passage in Romans 8, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

We may not understand why He allows us to experience difficulty, but we know that He is eternally good and faithful to His promises. He just has a different plan than we expected. It may be hard for us to comprehend, which is why we walk by faith, trusting in His unchanging character, and in the face of extraordinary hardship, we can continue to say, “Thank you, Lord!”

Thankful for Him

Like the psalmist, our thanksgiving is founded on His unchanging character and not on what He gives us. Yet, we often reverse this order. When asked to list what we are thankful for, we usually begin with what He has done for us. We list all the good things God has given to us, His protection, our family, our daily bread, and so much more. We know the list!

Yet, we really should begin with thanking God for His character because we know He always keeps His promises and that the future is bright.

We must grab a hold of God’s person and promises amid suffering and loss, persecution, and even during the dark days of a pandemic.

We cry out with Job, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him” (Job 13:15).

You see, in the end of it all, all we need is Him!

The Rest of the Psalm

Recognizing that His person and promises form the bedrock for our praise, you can see that there is no human circumstance that can or should keep us from being thankful and praising him. The following promises flow from the character of God:

“The Lord is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6).

“The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation” (Psalm 118:14).

“I shall give thanks to You, for You have answered me, and You have become my salvation” (Psalm 118:21).

“You are my God, and I give thanks to You; You are my God, I extol You” (Psalm 118:28).

What stunning sentiments of worship, praise and thanksgiving.

And finally, the psalmist concluded the way he started:

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting” (Psalm 118:29).

Thankful for Him!

In light of who He is, how can we not be thankful? I am grateful for the magnificence of His character. I am also thankful for all that He has done. But, if He did nothing for me, I would hopefully be just as thankful because my thanksgiving is focused on the beauty of His person.

The remainder of the psalm speaks about all He is and what that means to the psalmist and to us.

He is beautiful, loyal, everlasting, and true to His promises. We do not need to fear. He is our refuge, strength, song, and salvation. He is our God, and the chief cornerstone is our Messiah and Lord of all. We can say at all times, “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). If you feel overcome with COVID-19 anxiety or fear, try praising God and thanking Him for who He is and see if you are not able to push through the difficulties. I believe you will experience the joy of the Lord!

I am thankful for you, too—for your loving the Lord, supporting our common ministry, praying for the global work of Chosen People Ministries, and for allowing us to be part of your life.

Happy Thanksgiving! May the holy, awesome, and glorious Lord of glory fill your soul with praise, and may He bring healing, restoration, and joy to you and your family.

[1] Keith Green, “Oh Lord, You’re Beautiful,” track 9 on So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt, Sparrow Records, 1980.

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November 13, 2020 · 9:00 AM

Interview with Joel C. Rosenberg

Shalom, dear friends.

We are living in sensational days! Along with our concerns about COVID-19, the economy, political division, social unrest, the aftermath (hopefully) of wildfires, hurricanes, and more, we also see the unfolding of a new day for Israel and her relationships with her neighbors in the Middle East.

Perhaps this is a reminder that God’s plan for our world marches on in the midst of it all! It reminds me of the verse I latched onto as my guide during these last eight months. The writer of Proverbs says to each of us, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

Therefore, we always have hope, and no matter what happens, we know the Lord will fulfill His promises in Scripture. Those of us who know Him as our Savior and Messiah can count on His leading and caring for us throughout this life (Romans 8:28)! I take great comfort in knowing that He never loses control and that His Spirit is never locked down!

We can tangibly know this truth because tiny Israel remains at the very center of God’s prophetic plan. The events in the Middle East are unfolding quickly, and Israel is becoming even more established. I see this as the next phase of the fulfillment of end-times prophecies.

With everything else going on, I would not want us to miss the significant realignment of nations in the Middle East regarding Israel.

There is no one better to give us the backstory of these recent landmark events than our friend, Joel C. Rosenberg. Joel lives in Jerusalem, and we have partnered with him on more conferences than I can count. Joel agreed to let me interview him, so we dedicate the rest of this newsletter to the interview.

Joel is a best-selling author and founder of The Joshua Fund and the brand-new media outlet, Near East Media. I asked him to enlighten us on the importance of the recent Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

So, strap in, and off we go!

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

Joel, thank you for taking the time to tell us part of the backstory behind the recent peace agreements signed by Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain on September 15, 2020.

First of all, can you clarify the different terminology used to describe the nature of the agreements recently signed?

Joel C. Rosenberg:

In effect, the Abraham Accords are peace treaties and full normalization treaties between the State of Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain, with the United States as the broker and witness to the agreements. Those who criticize the accords, saying that these are not “real peace treaties,” are mistaken. It is narrow-minded to think, after a century of hostility in the Middle East, that two Arab states making real, warm peace treaties with Israel—the first two Arab countries to make peace with Israel in more than a quarter of a century—is somehow illegitimate or not serious. If you think about it, it is an offensive thought. I think it reflects more of the partisan nature of what is going on in Washington right now than the reality. Regardless of how one feels about President Trump, he deserves enormous credit for brokering these deals.

The most important element is that these agreements will lead to far warmer and far fuller peace relationships with Israel and these two Arab states than with the two previous peace treaty signers, Egypt and Jordan.

The one key difference is that Egypt and Jordan were in direct military conflict with Israel, and those peace treaties ended that. The 1979 and 1994 treaties kept those borders quiet for decades. While the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain never actually entered a military conflict, they were at war with Israel. They participated in the economic sanctions and embargoes against Israel. They constantly voted against Israel with the rest of the Arab world at the United Nations. They fully participated in the isolation and de-legitimization campaign against Israel for many years, though not recently. There has been real warming of those relationships in recent years, but they have decided to go public and make it formal. It is very exciting.

The flags of the United States, United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Bahrain flutter along a road in Netanya, Israel, September 14, 2020. REUTERS / Alamy Stock Phot

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

What practical differences do you think the treaties will make economically, politically, and even to tourism between the Gulf states and Israel?

Joel C. Rosenberg:

Well, if you notice, the first set of memorandums of understanding and other legal documents signed in the days leading up to and following the signing of the Abraham Accords were very practical. They indicate how much benefit both sides will get—or all sides are going to get—from these agreements. There are agreements on civil aviation. For instance, there will be direct flights between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and between Israel and Bahrain. Those are, by the way, going to go through Saudi airspace. The Saudis are not yet ready to make peace with Israel, but they have agreed to let Israeli, Emirati, Bahraini, and other planes fly through their airspace. This concession is a huge step forward.

The other agreements are regarding banking, private property rights, and setting up small business agreements. The United Arab Emirates has now required every hotel in the country to have kosher meals. That has not happened in Egypt; it has not happened in Jordan. We are talking about major financial deals already in motion.

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

Do you think that Oman and some of the other Gulf states are going to follow suit?

Joel C. Rosenberg:

Yes, I think there is a list of countries that are actively considering this. Oman would certainly be near or at the top of the list. The Sultan of Oman invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit two years ago, and then publicized that trip with photos and video. That was very dramatic. That sultan has since passed away. There is a new sultan in power, but there is no reason to think that he disagrees with his predecessor. But, does he feel like he has solidified his leadership and is ready to make such a big decision? That is a good question. I do not have an answer for that yet; we will see.

If Sudan were now to make peace with Israel, that would be exciting. It would be dramatic, but I would note that Sudan also figures prominently in a prophecy of a future war against Israel—the conflict known in Ezekiel 38 and 39 as the War of Gog and Magog. I would not hold your breath for a full normalization, but maybe that prophetic war is many, many years off. No one knows for sure, of course.

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

We do not know when these prophetic events will take place, right? So, we should take peace when we can get it!

Joel C. Rosenberg:

Exactly.

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

Have the UAE, Bahrain, or even some of the other countries you have mentioned considered Israel a place where they can invest funds? Such an investment would boost the Israeli economy.

Joel C. Rosenberg:

Yes. In talking to officials from both countries over the last few weeks since the signing of the Abraham Accords, I know that there are numerous business deals and venture capital deals in the works. Again, this is the most significant transformation in Arab-Israeli relations, I think, in the history of the modern State of Israel. These treaties will surpass the peace deals of Egypt and Jordan in the sense that the Abraham Accords are going to set the new model of what peace and normalization can be and what they should be.

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

Joel, I was privileged to follow your travels at times, as your friend, and was even invited to be part of one of those trips to visit some of the Middle Eastern countries. You brought several key evangelicals to visit, get to know, and extend goodwill to those countries. You were able to see the backstory unfolding in a lot of these nations. Can you tell us a little about what you have discovered?

Joel C. Rosenberg:

I would be happy to. It is extraordinary that evangelicals have had a front-row seat to what has been developing over the last several years. The Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, commonly known by his initials, MBZ, invited me to bring a delegation of evangelical leaders to visit him in the capital of Abu Dhabi in the fall of 2018. I took a group of about ten evangelical leaders with me. Among other meetings that we had in the country, we spent two hours in the palace in an off-the-record meeting with MBZ. There are many things, unfortunately, that I cannot share, but I can share this now:  We communicated to the crown prince that, when it came to the issue of peacemaking and Israel, there were three things we, as evangelicals, wanted him to know.

President Donald J. Trump, joined by Bahraini Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, acknowledge applause and wave to the crowd after delivering remarks at the Abraham Accords signing, September 15, 2020, on the South Lawn of the White House, Washington, D.C. Geopix / Alamy Stock Photo

Number one, we love Israel, and we love the Jewish people, and, for evangelicals, this is a theological position, not a political position. He needed to know that we are deeply committed to Israel’s security, freedom, prosperity, and sovereignty. We wanted him to know that. Number two, Jesus commands us to love our neighbors. We did not want him to think that, because we love Israel, we hate the Palestinians, or Arabs, or Muslims more broadly. Some evangelicals have struggled with language or even positions that are not reflective of Jesus’ command. We wanted to communicate to him that we are commanded to love our neighbors. We do not always know how. We find our way, but we wanted him to know that we do not see it as either/or, that we love both. And while we believe that Israel has a special and unique place in God’s plan and purpose in the region, we want there to be peace today, and we want to build better relations with the Arab and Muslim world.

The third point we made to him was that we are commanded in the Scriptures to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Sixty million evangelicals in the United States alone are praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and we are looking at who will be the next Arab leader to make peace with Israel. As the leader of the delegation, I was the one that made these three points and stressed a little on the third one, “We would love it to be you.” He shocked us by saying, “Joel, I’m ready. I am ready to make peace with Israel, and I believe that the time is coming very soon.” That shocked us because—and I am not saying that we would say these three things in some pro forma way—we did not expect anyone to say back to us what MBZ said. We have said this to numerous Arab leaders in the region; he was the first to say that he was ready.

The question we began to discuss with him is, “How did you get to that point, and where do you go from here?” In these last two years, I have stayed in very close communication with the inner circle around the crown prince. Even up through the summer, I was in direct communications with them because I am writing a non-fiction book that will come out in the fall of 2021, timed with the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Twenty years after 9/11, the book looks at who the bad guys were, who the good guys were, and how our fight with radical Islam is going. It also looks at which Arab countries are fighting radical Islam very actively, and which countries want a much closer relationship with the United States and are even trending toward peace with Israel. The third section will address, “What is the state of the Church and religious freedom in the Middle East?”

I have been working on this book with a lot of exclusive material from these six delegations that I have led. All that to say, it became clear in July, when I was here in Washington meeting with the UAE ambassador, that they were ready, that they had actually put an offer on the table for Netanyahu, through the White House, and that those negotiations were in motion. I said to myself, “You have got to be kidding me.” I knew they were heading in that direction, but it was dramatic.

I will say that I was surprised by how quickly things accelerated this summer, especially when the big topic in Israel was whether Netanyahu would annex or apply Israeli sovereign law over large swaths of Judea and Samaria, which the world commonly knows as the West Bank. That was Netanyahu’s objective all summer, and that seemed to preclude any possibility of peace with the Arab states.

I was making the argument that, while I support the expansion of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria—the biblical heartland—over time, I believed that a peace treaty with one of the Gulf states was a higher objective for Israel in the near term. And I was making that case publicly and in quite a lonely fashion. It is in part because I knew it was possible, but it still stunned me. It is like when you have been praying, as Christians, as Messianic Jews, for decades for the peace of Jerusalem. It is a little like praying for Peter to be released from prison, then he knocked on your front door, and you cannot even believe that he is standing there.

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

You are a bit stunned by it all.

Joel C. Rosenberg:

Yeah. We know that God can answer these prayers, but we do not always expect the answer to come so quickly! This summer was a game-changing moment.

The flags of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and the United States light up the Old City Walls of Jerusalem to celebrate the signing of the historic peace treaties in Washington, D.C. Nir Alon / Alamy Stock Photo

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

How are the Palestinians reacting to all of this? Then, if you could also tell us, how is the person-on-the-street, the average Israeli, responding to these new events?

Joel C. Rosenberg:

I have not seen any polling yet. Remember, and actually, it is hard to remember at times, that the Palestinian territories are not free societies. They really do not have the freedom to say whatever they want. It does not mean that you will not find Palestinians who tell you, but there, in Gaza, Hamas—the terrorist organization—is in charge. It is very hard to get somebody’s real, direct opinion. In the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, this is tyranny. Mahmoud Abbas is now serving, I think, the fifteenth year of his four-year elected term. There is no freedom there.

I think we are beginning to see fissures inside Palestinian society. And so, we need to pray, as Christians and as Messianic Jews, for the Palestinian people.

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

Could you take one minute and tell us all about All Arab News and All Israel News, and your role as President and CEO of Near East Media?

Joel C. Rosenberg:

Yes, I am continuing my work to advance the Joshua Fund, which is essentially a mutual fund to invest in the growth and the strength of the Church and the Messianic body in Israel and throughout five neighboring Arab countries, as well as the Palestinian territories. We also believe that the media bias against Israel, against peace, against the values that we hold dear—anti-Christian media—is so bad that I decided to launch two new websites. One is called All Israel News, and the other is All Arab News. All Israel News is allisrael.com, and the Arab news is allarab.news.

We will provide links to all the really good and credible coverage in the Israeli press, Arab press, and American and other media. There is good reporting out there, but most Christians and Messianic Jews do not have the time to go sifting through dozens of websites to figure out what is real, what is important, what is credible. These sites will become what I call one-stop shopping. We link to all the most important stories in the region. We are also providing original reporting, exclusive interviews, and analysis: what is happening, why is it important, and how do we fit it into the larger picture as evangelicals. We are very distinctly and specifically focused on communicating to the world’s 600 million evangelicals what is happening in Israel and the region and why it matters.

Dr. Mitch Glaser:

Joel, thank you so much. I appreciate it, and we pray God’s blessings on All Israel News and All Arab News, and we thank you for your time, so shalom and blessings.

I am grateful for the time you were willing to speak with me. I know that those who read The Chosen People newsletter will appreciate this insightful information and pray for Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East, and you.

Joel C. Rosenberg:

My pleasure.

I hope you enjoyed the interview! I hope it will help you continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And please remember to pray for our staff who are bringing the gospel to Jewish people worldwide, including Israel.

We are so grateful for you!

Your brother in the Messiah,

Mitch Glaser

P.S. There is much more to this conversation! To hear the full interview, visit ourhopepodcast.com.

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October 30, 2020 · 9:00 AM

God is opening hearts during lockdown!

Dear Friend,

Shalom in our Messiah Jesus.

My heart breaks for Israel and the ultra-religious Jewish community worldwide! These two Jewish communities, one localized and the other spanning the breadth of countries and cities where Jewish people are concentrated, live under life-threatening circumstances.

Israel keeps trying to fight its way back to national normalcy but the coronavirus continues to immobilize the country. Unemployment in Israel is also at an all-time high, and the economy is suffering terribly. The country recently experienced a lockdown that extended through the Jewish high holiday season and beyond.1

The infection, hospitalization rate, and death toll is massive for “little Israel!” The mortality rate per capita surpasses that of the United States. The death toll is highest among the Arab population of Israel and the ultra-religious Jewish community in Israel and worldwide.

The ultra-Orthodox segment of the Jewish population are called Haredim, which in Hebrew means “the ones that fear,” and the One they fear is God. This name expresses the character of the community. These beloved Jewish people dress differently, live their lives according to the most Orthodox version of the Jewish faith, and maintain that gathering for prayer, synagogue services, holidays, and religious events—like the Jewish high holidays—are more important to them than life itself. Followers of Jesus can learn a lot from their dedication.

The impact on the whole population of Israel during this “second wave” lockdown is still fresh, and we may not know if the country will successfully pass the danger point until next month. We hope and pray it will!

You can read more about the numbers of Israelis affected by the disease by visiting https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/israel.

A SPIRITUAL SLANT TO THE PRESENT CRISIS

We should remember two great Bible passages penned by King David that are calls for prayer to every believer in Jesus!

King David wrote, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you’” (Psalm 122:6). This is a biblical mandate for all of us—to pray for God’s peace to fall upon Israel and the Jewish people. And Israel needs our prayers desperately at this very moment.

The second issue is very sensitive! Due to the pandemic, the divisions between the ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis have grown wider and have become like open wounds.

Would you join me in praying for Israel’s national unity? I believe this unity, which builds bridges between the religious and secular in Israel, will be pleasing to God and good for the nation. The psalmist declares, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1).

Let us pray for the healing of the nation and the people of Israel. Ultimately, this vision for unity will only come about when the Jewish people— secular, Haredim, and in between—cry out to God in repentance and turn to Jesus the Messiah (Romans 11:25; Zechariah 12:10).

Many Haredim and even some secular Israelis recognize the spiritual side of the current crisis. A recent survey of Israelis reported that one-third of the prime minister’s voters believe God sent COVID-19! Most of the Haredim in Israel fall into this group.2 Recently, we have seen God move among Israelis, Haredim, and Jewish people across the globe. Hard times draw people to the Lord, and this season of darkness and difficulty is no different.

May I share some stories illustrating this fruitful season of ministry and how the gospel is breaking through to Jewish people’s hearts?

One of our staff members in the southwest recently had the opportunity to teach on the subject, “Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus.” This class was in person, following all COVID-19 protocols, of course! A friend of our staff member had invited a Jewish woman. After the first class, our worker met with this Jewish woman and asked her what she thinks of Jesus. She said, “I believe He’s the Messiah, the Son of God!”

On the other side of the world, the severe restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic caused just about all the ministries of Celebrate Messiah, our ministry partner in Australia, to go online. Celebrate Messiah has been hosting special seminars on YouTube and Facebook that have reached thousands of people. Online ministry so far is reaching more people than would typically walk through the doors of our services.

And in the north of Israel, a Jewish woman regularly attended the online services of the congregation led by one of our staff. She actively participated in the meetings, and came to faith in Messiah. Our Israeli worker wrote about the encounter: “She came up to our apartment, and we chatted for about forty minutes, maintaining social distance and wearing masks. The conversation was pleasant and most welcomed. I felt an urgency to ask her about her spiritual life and if she understood that Yeshua is the Messiah, the one who died for our sins and gives the gift of eternal life. She heartily agreed, and in our living room, socially distant, she prayed to receive Yeshua.”

All I can say is, “Hallelujah!” You cannot lock down the Holy Spirit from working powerfully in the lives of those who need salvation! God is moving among ultra-religious and secular Israelis, Jewish people in America, and Haredi enclaves in Brooklyn and across the globe.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

You can pray for our ministry!

Please pray for the Lord to touch the lives of Israelis, Haredim, and Jewish people around the globe who need the Lord. If you have a Jewish friend and want us to pray for them, please go to chosenpeople.com/pray, write in their name, and we will pray for them. If you wish, we can also send them a free copy of our book Isaiah 53 Explained.

God’s work is not locked down!

I would even say that our ministry has expanded during this season. For example, we held online high holiday services, which were attended by more than 20,000 people worldwide. We have also begun a series of virtual small group discipleship Bible studies across the United States. We have Jewish people who are not yet believers attending these studies. We have never done this before!

We are continuing our digital ad campaigns, which have introduced us to thousands of Jewish people. We are following up through personal emails, Zoom calls, new websites, online Bible studies, virtual discipleship, and more. You can see from the fantastic reports I just shared that this has also led to in-person contact and decisions for the Lord.

Additionally, we have spent $500 per day purchasing Facebook ads in the United States, Israel, and other countries. Again, this has led to interaction with thousands of Jewish people for the Lord.

Online ministries are also incredibly powerful in reaching the Haredim. They do not want their family and friends to know they are considering the gospel. We place Facebook ads in Yiddish—the language commonly spoken by most Haredim. In partnership with the Jesus Film, we also translated the movie about the life of the Messiah into Yiddish. We use geographic-specific advertising in ultra-Orthodox areas to offer an opportunity to view a small clip of the film in Yiddish, which leads them to the full movie.

Am I encouraged? Absolutely!

I do not need convincing that the lockdowns of society, or hearts usually resistant toward the gospel, cannot be opened by the power of God.

Please help us take advantage of these opportunities by praying as we reach Jewish people and anyone else who will listen to the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

In HOPE through the Messiah,

Mitch

Endnotes

1 “Government Resolution: 14 Day Total National Lockdown Effective This Friday with Optional Extension,” gov.il, September 24, 2020, https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/24092020_01.

2 Ben Sales, “One-Third of Netanyahu’s Voters Believe Covid-19 Was Sent by God – Survey,” Jerusalem Post, September 17, 2020, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/one-third-ofnetanyahus-voters-believe-covid-19-was-sent-by-god-642703.

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October 15, 2020 · 9:00 AM

Finding Hope

Shalom.

Maybe, like me, your sense of hope is running thin as we begin this eighth month of the pandemic. You are not alone. Optimism and hope may well be the most sought after, invaluable, and yet intangible life quality people are seeking today. We are all longing for hope—the belief that the future will be better and brighter than today!

We were entirely unprepared for the impact COVID-19 would have on our everyday lives. Most of us know very little about the Spanish flu of 1918 and how it ravaged American life and killed 675,000 Americans.[1] Some of what happened at that time would seem familiar today, including people wearing masks and socially distancing!

We remember more modern-day plagues like Ebola, AIDS, Legionnaires’ disease, polio, measles, mumps, and many others. Today, thank God, we have vaccines and treatments for most of these scourges.

Few of us remember World War II. However, many of us remember and maybe even served in more recent wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, in which we lost a combined total of more than 100,000 beloved American heroes.[2]

I remember the Cold War tensions, the Cuban missile crisis, and the atomic threat that drove school children to hide under their desks periodically (as if this would provide safety from a nuclear attack)!

We endured 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, and massive storms in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas that wreaked terrible devastation and death upon people we love and care about, not to mention costing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. We can now add the devastating West Coast wildfires to this list.

In some ways, COVID-19 is a crisis unlike any other as we face a deadly enemy we cannot see. Now, it seems that this dreaded disease will impact almost every area of our country, and, at the moment, we are hovering around 200,000 deaths. If we add the economic struggles and social unrest we are experiencing, who could blame someone tempted by hopelessness? How do we cope and find hope during these dark and difficult days? Ignoring what we are facing today is not going to work.

I especially appreciate those around me who are more upbeat and hopeful! May their tribe increase! I am grateful for every pair of smiling eyes peering above a mask, trying to help me look toward the brighter side and face the future in hope. I pray you have a few family and friends who bring you this kind of joy and inspiration, but even these wonderful people cannot always be by our side. So, how can we find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation? Is it possible? I believe it is!

Finding Unwavering Hope During a Pandemic

Hope comes from connecting with someone or something that is above and beyond the shifting circumstances of our day. We need to fix our hope on what is unchanging and eternal if we are going to find security and peace today. I believe we can find the hope we long for so desperately in a personal relationship with the God who made and loves us.

A God Who Keeps His Promises?

I find this hope in the story of the Bible. The Bible teaches us that God created a perfect world, but then something went wrong. Though He placed our first parents in an exquisite garden, they veered off the path He wanted them to follow. We followed suit, and every generation since then has suffered the results of these bad decisions. But, according to the Bible, God will reclaim and recreate the world He made.

God has not abandoned us and will one day heal our broken world.

In Judaism, this idea is called “tikkun olam,” the healing of the world, and it is vital to the Jewish view of life, as men and women may partner with God in the healing of the world. Jewish tradition understands that something is fundamentally wrong!

The Hope of Israel Fulfilled

How do we know what is written in the Bible is true?

So often we need something we can see to help us believe. I did! Let me tell you what convinced me. Briefly, here are three reasons.

He has kept His promises to Israel and the Jewish people. Despite the devastation of the Holocaust, the Jewish people—after multiple millennia and against incredible odds—have returned to the land of promise. This was predicted by the Jewish prophets, like the well-known Ezekiel who wrote thousands of years ago, “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24).

If God can orchestrate Israel’s regathering and return to the land, He can be trusted to fulfill His other promises in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and New Covenant Scriptures. This is undeniable. If the Bible was correct in predicting the unlikely restoration of Israel, then what else in the Bible is true?

The Hope of Messiah Fulfilled

I also believe God demonstrated His trustworthiness by sending the Messiah. His name is Yeshua, or Jesus in English, and there are hundreds of prophecies detailing His identity and mission penned by Israel’s prophets over multiple centuries. If what the Bible promised about His first coming has come to pass, then what is predicted about His second coming should be true as well.  

The prophets of old prophesied His place of birth (Bethlehem) (Micah 5:2), His death for our sins (Isaiah 53:1–12; Psalm 22), His resurrection from the grave (Psalm 16), and so much more! He will return as judge and king to: restore our planet; remove sin, death, and disease; and, according to the Bible, He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Isaiah promised, “He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 25:8, also Revelation 21:4).

This is a foundation for hope that will never disappoint.

Personal Experience

Finally, without being unrealistic about the level of tragedy we have experienced, I am convinced that God is trustworthy. When I accepted Yeshua as my Messiah, He filled my heart with hope. I cannot easily explain it or prove it logically. When you have a personal relationship with God and believe the promises in the Bible, hope invades your soul and enables you to face the future with confidence.

You will be able to read about the experience of others in this newsletter who had similar experiences to mine.

So, how should we respond to the hope God offers to humanity? We could just give up or become cynical about life in general. We could also choose to put our hope in our fellow human beings working hard to find a vaccine and a cure for COVID-19. Or, we could trust in the God who created us! Maybe a combination of the last two?

I can tell you that, even if we find a cure, we will still experience ongoing tragedies and challenges in this life and that only our relationship with our loving and immovable Creator will shelter us against the storms of life.

One More Thought

It is a mystery as to why God allows His beloved creation to endure difficult times: the loss of loved ones, jobs, educational opportunities, the separation from friends and family, and more that you and I have faced recently. It might be tempting at times to question if God is even good, whether or not you are a person of faith.

Right now, it might be a difficult season for some to keep the faith! It is understandable—times are tough! Maybe you would like to know and trust God but have a hard time believing what the Bible says about His unchanging character.

I wish I could give you an easy answer. I believe God is good by nature. He is Lord of all creation and mysteriously uses life’s most profound disappointments to shape us and make us strong.

I encourage you to hope in God! Even though the road may be dark, He is the Guide we need who lights our path and leads us through the valley of the shadow of death to green pastures.

You might have an unshakable faith in God, secured by the Messiah Jesus, or perhaps you are seeking hope that has been elusive so far. I wish you blessings on the journey, whatever your starting point might be, and thanks again for taking your precious time to read.

I hope you will enjoy the rest of the newsletter!

Sincerely,

Mitch

[1] Nina Strochlic, “U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Now Surpass Fatalities in the Vietnam War,” National Geographic, April 28, 2020, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/04/coronavirus-death-toll-vietnam-war-cvd/#close.

[2] Ibid.

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