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Messianic Israel / Jew Evangelistic T-Shirt: Shema & Isa 53

God loves Israel! He loves Israel far more than did the Apostle Paul, who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. … 1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. (Romans 9:1-5; 3:1-2)

What does God say to those who harm Israel?  “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye” (Zechariah 2:8). As with the rest of mankind, Jews who do not believe the gospel will be eternally lost (Romans 11:28a), but nonetheless “as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” (Romans 11:28b-11:29).

 

What is the greatest blessing Jehovah has ever given Israel? The Messiah, the Savior of the world, God blessed for ever, Jesus!  To that end, we have designed the T-shirts pictured below, which have been added to the collection of evangelistic T-shirts and other materials I posted about some time ago. Both sides of the T-shirt reference the evangelistic pamphlet Truth From the Torah, Nevi’im, and Kethuvim (the Law, Prophets, and Writings) for Jews who Reverence the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, which is online at https://faithsaves.net/Messiah/.  The front has this evangelistic website as well as the text of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָֹה אֶחָד׃

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

Israeli flag Shema Deuteronomy 6:4 Messiah Jesus T Shirt

While the back has the evangelistic website and Isaiah 53:8b: “For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.”

along with, on both sides, the flag of Israel.  (We did not see a way to design the shirt so that the vowels and accents could be included, although we recognize the Biblical and historical case for their inspiration and preservation.)

We believe that these shirts can be blessed by the God of Israel for Jews to embrace their crucified and risen Messiah, Jesus, as well as to help Gentiles come to repentance and faith in Him.  If you get to evangelize Muslims because of this shirt, Isaiah 53 is good for them also, since Muslims deny the Lord Jesus died on the cross, claiming the Gospel accounts are fabrications. But Isaiah 53, which clearly predicts His death by crucifixion and resurrection, and which we have physical, pre-Christian evidence for in the Dead Sea Scrolls, cannot be so explained away by Muslims.  This T-shirt can also help you explain the powerful evidence for the Bible from prophecy for agnostics and atheists and the powerful impact of Isaiah 53 to both Jews and Muslims. Furthermore, God promises to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:1-3). Do you want to be blessed by the living God? Bless Israel!

The immediate motivation for our making these shirts was a pro-Hamas, anti-Jewish rally we saw in Los Angeles.  Jew haters there held signs such as “Resistance is not terrorism,” glorifying the murder of 1,200 Jews on October 7, 2023, the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust:

resistance is not terrorism pro Hamas anti Israel Jewish Semitic A. N. S. W. E. R. coalition

They also promoted “from the river to the sea,” advocating the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of the Jews:

from the river to the sea Hamas terrorism kill Jews

The protesters were part of the anti-Israel hate group, the A. N. S. W. E. R. coalition, who argue that to say “Hamas is a terrorist organization” is a “lie.” (By the way, if you need more reasons to stop using Google as a search engine, note the pro-terrorism, anti-Israel search results that come up first if you search for “answercoalition.org Hamas terrorism”; compare those results with what you get on Duck Duck Go, where the top result [as of the time I am writing this] is the Anti-Defamation League explaining why Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization that calls for the eradication of Israel.)  The protestors also reproduced lies pumped out by Hamas about civilian deaths in Gaza, while saying nothing about the fact that Hamas wants civilians in Gaza to die and Israel does not. Of course, Islam allows Muslims to lie–after all, Allah is the best of deceivers.

They were blocking the street so that we could not keep going on the bus we were on in Los Angeles.  Our destination was not far away–a museum in LA.  We decided to get off the bus and walk there.  A few blocks away we saw an orthodox Jewish man walking in the direction of the advocates of terrorism.  We told him about the protest; he thanked us, and re-routed.  After we got home from the museum we designed the T-shirts. It is right to stand against terrorism and for the Jewish people.  It is especially right to stand for the greatest Jew of all, the resurrected Lord, Jesus.

We saw posters like the following a few blocks away.  The anti-Jewish, pro-Hamas protestors did not say anything about these people.

Jewish babies kidnapped by Hamas poster

Jewish youth kidnapped by Hamas hostage

Jewish grandmother hostage kidnapped by Hamas

They also said nothing about United States citizens killed by or held hostage by Hamas. They are also not important, it seems. (Let me add that the large majority of inhabitants in Gaza and the West Bank support Hamas’ murder of Jewish civilians–the large majority “extremely support” terrorism, while in a recent survey only 7.3% of survey participants were “extremely against” such terrorism, combined with 5.4% who are “somewhat against” it, for a total of only 12.7% of the population who are against terrorism; it is certainly possible survey results reflect some bias, but the overall picture is likely to be accurate.)

What about here in the USA? When asked if they support Israel or Hamas, 95% of those over 65 support Israel.  The percentages get progressively lower the younger people are.  Among 18-24 year olds, only 55% support Israel, while 45% support Hamas.  This is a terrible trend, and awful evidence of the anti-God garbage taught in the public school and university systems.  Maybe consider getting some of these T-shirts for yourself or as presents for others.  Perhaps you are afraid of Muslim violence or anti-Jewish violence if you wear one, since true Islam in America–like all true Islam–is violent and bloodthirsty, not peaceful.  Perhaps if you are living in Saudi Arabia or Iran it would be unwise to wear one of these shirts; but if you live in the United States of America, and you will allow threats of Muslim violence to curtail your free speech, something is very wrong.  Obviously Christians have liberty to wear or not wear a T-shirt like this, and it is perfectly fine not to wear one, but our decisions must be made out of Biblical principle and for the glory of God, not out of fear.  If you say you would have protected Jews in the Holocaust, but are afraid to stand for them and against their murderers now, why should we believe you would have stood were you in Hitler’s Germany? There are Biblical principles here.  God’s love for Israel is not saying God loves everything the modern state of Israel does–but God still loves Israel, and Scripture still says to bless Israel.  (By the way, if you are born again, God loves you with an infinite and special love, but He still does not love everything you do–He does not love your sin, nor does He love Israel’s sin.)  Be salt and light: stand up for righteousness. Do not let the wicked pro-terrorist people be the only ones who are making their voices known.  Stand for the God of Israel, for the Messiah of Israel, and for the nation of Israel.

Postscriptum:

As FLAME: Facts and Logic About the Middle East points out concerning anti-Israel, pro-Hamas bias in media reports about Gaza civilian casualties:

[T]he media insist on treating Hamas’s notoriously unreliable information feed as fact. Conversely, they refuse to give precedence to proven, reliable sources of information, such as the Israeli or U.S. governments, the latter of which confirmed Al-Shifa’s use as a Hamas headquarters. Israel presents photographs of Hamas blocking exit highways, so Gazans cannot leave the war zone . . . but Hamas denies it, says NPR. Such is the inane, “he-said, she said” pablum we are fed by the media.

The media also steadfastly refuse to ask the questions demanded by the story—and by any curious reader, listener, or viewer. When reporters interview Palestinians on the street or doctors in hospitals, the viewer cries to know: “Do you ever see any Hamas guys around here? Have you seen any tunnels?” But never does the reporter ask this, let alone questions like, “Do you support Hamas? Do you think there should be a Palestine next to Israel? What do you think about the October 7th attack on Israel?” These are obvious queries that responsible, curious, fact-hungry journalists would and should normally ask their sources. But they never do. Why?

The short answer is that if they asked these questions, the stories they tell wouldn’t fit the narrative they are trying to sell—the narrative in which the Palestinians are an oppressed people, Israel is an evil, colonial aggressor, and Hamas is a product of legitimate Palestinian resistance.

To sell their perverse narrative, international media swallow the wildly inflated death-toll numbers cranked out by the Gaza Health Ministry. For this reason, the media simply repeat the daily growing casualty figures Hamas gives them.

Reuters reports, for example, that as of November 22nd, Gaza’s Hamas-run government says at least 13,300 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, including at least 5,600 children. But Luke Baker, a former Reuters bureau chief who led the organization’s coverage of Israel and the disputed territories from 2014 to 2017, said on X (formerly Twitter), “Hamas has a clear propaganda incentive to inflate civilian casualties as much as possible.”

Moreover, the media almost never give a breakdown of the casualties. They don’t say how many were Hamas terrorists or how many were human shields, killed in residences schools or hospitals where Hamas were hiding. They never tell how many were killed—not by Israeli forces, but by Hamas and other terrorist groups—because of misfired rockets, or by Hamas shooting at Palestinian civilians heeding Israeli orders to evacuate.

In addition, it’s probable that a significant number of the “children” reported killed or wounded by Hamas are youths aged 13 to 18, who were located in Hamas facilities or even took an active part in the fighting.

If you are not aware of the connection between Soviet communist propaganda and modern anti-Zionist lies about Israel as a colonialist oppressor, please read the article here.

God does NOT love everyone? A Hyper-Calvinist Error, part 2 of 3

Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? Hyper-Calvinism says “yes!” Scripture says “no!”  In part 1 of 3 in this series, I summarized the first portion of my recent composition God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error. John 3:16, Mark 10:21, and 1 John 2:2 refute the hyper-Calvinist idea that God loves only the elect. Scripture is plain that God loves the entire world-every single person.

 

If Hyper-Calvinists Were Right,

Then Christians Should Not Love Their Enemies

 

Christians should be like God. If God loves every person, then they should love all men.  If God has nothing but an everlasting hatred for the non-elect, then they should strive with all their might to purge out any love that they have for lost sinners from their bosoms and have nothing but an eternal and everlasting hatred for them, (allegedly) like God.  However, the Lord Jesus taught:

 

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

 

Christians must love their enemies because God loves His enemies.  When they love their wicked, unregenerate, Christ-and-Christian hating enemies, they are being like their Father in heaven. The Sermon on the Mount does not say, “Love your elect enemies and bless the elect when they curse and hate you. If the non-elect do it, though, show eternal hatred to them.” Believers must “increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) because God loves all men, not the elect alone.

 

The Quran Agrees with Hyper-Calvinism,

but the Bible does Not

 

Hyper-Calvinists need specific passages that teach God does NOT love the majority of the world that rejects Christ and is eternally lost. It would not have been hard for God to include such statements in the Bible. After all, the Quran is filled with them. For example:

 

 

Q 2:276 Allah hath blighted usury and made almsgiving fruitful. Allah loveth not the impious and guilty.

Q 3:32 Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance).

Q 3:57 And as for those who believe and do good works, He will pay them their wages in full. Allah loveth not wrong-doers.

 

The Quran is full of such statements-when I went through the Quran from cover to cover as part of my preparation for my debate with the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally I found the seemingly constant drum-beat of Allah’s lack of love for this group and that group a sharp contrast with the teaching of God’s Word, the Bible.

 

While the idea that God does not love unbelievers is all over the Quran, the number of statements in holy Scripture such as “God does not love person X” or “God does not love people like Y” are equal in number to the statements such as “Christ did not die for person X” or “Christ did not die for group Y”–namely, zero.  Both limited atonement and the hyper-Calvinist doctrine of God’s lack of love for the vast majority of mankind are completely absent from Scripture.

 

Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error for more information.

TDR

Millions of Muslims are NOT Becoming Christians Because of Dreams!

Many sources report that, in the words of Roman Catholic conservative Dinesh D’Souza, “Millions of Muslims are Converting to Christianity After Having Dreams and Visions of Jesus Christ.” Charismatic sources agree with the Catholics about millions of Muslims becoming Christians through dreams and visions. So do Southern Baptist mission agencies.

 

Muslims dream Jesus converts Christianity

 

These visions and dreams clearly prove that:

 

1.) Continuationism is true and cessationism is false.  God is continuing to give revelatory dreams and visions today.  We have lots of testimonials, and testimonials can’t be wrong.

 

2.) Any passages of Scripture that seem to teach the cessation of revelation with the completion of the canon must be reinterpreted in light of the overwhelming proof from the dreams and visions.

 

3.) If this can happen in Muslim lands, it can happen here. Instead of the hard work of teaching people to skillfully preach the gospel, and working so that they grow spiritually to the point where they love to go house to house, we should encourage people to seek after signs, wonders, and dreams, because that is how there will be millions of new converts here in our country as well.

 

Right?

 

Wrong.

 

Why?

 

Scripture is the sole authority for the believer’s faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:15-17).  Scripture is more sure than any experience–even hearing the audible voice of God Himself (2 Peter 1:16-21). Scripture, therefore, must never have its teaching ignored, altered, overlooked, or changed because of what someone claims he experienced.  Indeed, even if everyone in the whole world said something was true, but Scripture said otherwise, the Bible would be right and everyone would be wrong: “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).

 

Scripture teaches cessationism, as the studies linked to here clearly demonstrate.  There are no Apostles today or apostolic gifts (Ephesians 2:20), the canon of Scripture is complete (1 Corinthians 13:8-13), and God Word is His completed revelatory speech.

 

Furthermore, Scripture teaches that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17); conversion comes through Scripture (John 15:3). Men are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). So nobody has been born again because of a dream. The Holy Spirit produces the new birth as sinners, enabled by grace, respond to the gospel recorded in the Word of God. This is “thus saith the Lord.” I don’t care what someone says happened in his dream.  God’s Word is infinitely more reliable than someone’s dream, and Scripture teaches that people are born again through hearing the gospel, not having dreams and visions.

 

So how do I explain the dreams? I don’t need to explain people’s dreams.  The Bible tells me to live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), but it never tells me that I need to explain what someone said he saw in a dream. I don’t need to explain dreams of people who say they left Islam and rejected Allah and the Quran for Christianity. Nor do I need to explain the dreams of people who say they left Christianity for Islam after having a dream.  How am I supposed to know what is going on in someone else’s head when he is sleeping?  The vast majority of the time I can’t even remember my own dreams.  Yet I need to explain what someone tells me happened in his dream, or what someone tells someone else who tells someone else who tells someone else who prints an article with no documentation in a charismatic magazine about a dream?

 

I am suspicious that these “millions” of converts are allegedly taking place in lands far, far away where it is impossible to verify anything.  For example, in the Dinesh D’Souza video above, there are no sources provided and no way to verify anything.  This is typical–indeed, D’Souza is a scholarly man who tends to document his material far better than does the average charismatic magazine.  With these millions of alleged converts to Christianity, true churches–independent Baptist churches–should be overflowing in Muslim countries, as Islam is allegedly collapsing and true Christians are allegedly becoming a huge percentage of the population. But are these people-if they even exist–becoming true Christians, or leaving Islam for other demonic religions, like Roman Catholicism or Oneness Pentecostalism?  What would someone leaving one false religion for a different false religion prove?  Scripture teaches that we see Christ by faith, enabled by the Spirit, in the Word (2 Corinthians 3:18), and all images of Jesus Christ are idolatrous violations of the Second Commandment (see the relevant resources here).  So are they seeing the real Jesus in a dream? Also, where are all these people? Why is this only (allegedly) happening in places far, far away where we can’t actually verify it? I think of how Jack Hyles claimed that through “God’s power,” allegedly in conjunction with carnal promotion and marketing techniques that manipulated people and are found nowhere in Scripture, he had far more “saved” in one day than the Holy Ghost did on the Day of Pentecost, although not even one person was added to First Baptist of Hammond, Indiana on that day through these “saved” people, and people close enough to the situation to investigate claimed that the vast majority of these “saved” people were just as lost as before. I think of how Keswick continuationist John A. MacMillan, who is promoted among Independent Baptists at schools like Baptist College of Ministry. MacMillan claimed to have an amazing technique for casting out demons, which was copied by him and promoted at one of the yearly Victory Conferences at Baptist College of Ministry and Falls Baptist Church–but people who were close to the situation claimed, on the contrary, that the demons were in control of everything. I think of how Evan Roberts and Jessie Penn-Lewis, with their dreams and visions, destroyed the 1904-1905 Welsh revival. Scripture is sufficient, so even if I were confronted with signs and wonders of the quality that the Antichrist will perform in the Tribulation, I would still go by sola Scriptura–Scripture alone.  But the alleged evidence for these dreams and visions seems to be woefully lacking.  They aren’t like the real revelatory miracles in the Bible before the miraculous gifts ceased.

 

Note that the question is not if God is powerful enough to give people dreams.  The question is not one of God’s power. It is one of what He has said He would do in His inspired revelation, the Bible–and in that revelation He has said that the giving of revelation through dreams has ceased.  Nor is there a category of “non revelatory” dreams that are infallibly from God. If God gives infallible truth, then it is revelation. If it is not infallible truth, then God is not speaking in the dream, for God cannot lie, but only speaks and reveals infallible truth.

 

What if I come across someone who actually is serving the Lord faithfully in a true church, but who says that having a dream was part of how he became a Christian?  Doesn’t that mean that I need to reinterpret Scripture?  No.  God is sovereign, and He can use all kinds of things to get people thinking about religion or about His Word. I know someone who is a faithful Christian who, before his conversion, liked to watch creationist videos while smoking pot.  That doesn’t mean I commend the pot smoking.  I know someone else who called on a ghost (likely a demon) to come to him, and then says that the ghost came at night and almost killed him.  The demonic intervention led this person away from agnosticism to openness to the supernatural, and years later he became a Christian.  That doesn’t mean I support agnostics calling on ghosts or demons.  So if someone says he had a dream and that led him away from Islam to Christianity, I’m glad if he trusted in Christ, while everything contrary to Scripture that took place in his life–including the alleged revelatory dreams–are chalked up to God’s merciful and providential grace, and need no further explanation. (This is even apart from the fact that we cannot see people’s hearts, and even in true churches people without the new birth can enter and appear to be genuine believers for a time, so I cannot rule out the possibility that the person who claims to have been born again after seeing a dream is not a true child of God.)

 

So are millions of Muslims being born again because of dreams?  No. Nobody is being born again because of a dream.  Are Muslims having dreams that lead them to all kinds of religious experiences?  Very possibly.  Why?  There could be all kinds of reasons. I do not need to speculate.

 

What I do need to know is what Scripture teaches.  The Biblical truth of cessationism is being weakened in some independent Baptist churches because people are not thinking Biblically, but are allowing what people say is happening in their dreams to justify changes to Biblical beliefs on charismata.  You are dreaming if you think it is right to change one’s doctrine and practice from what Scripture teaches because of what some other person says he saw when he was sleeping.

 

Never change or set aside God’s Word because of an experience or what someone says.  That was part of Satan’s original technique that caused the Fall in Genesis 3.  Go with Scripture–not the dreams.  As Christ said, “thy word is truth” (John 17:17).  Give Muslims gospel truth, such as in The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible pamphlet.  Reject the dreams. Do not be deceived.

AUTHORS OF THE BLOG

  • Kent Brandenburg
  • Thomas Ross

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