Ben Israel Fellowship
Prayer Newsletter
Summer 2002
A Call to ‘Propheticness’ by Arthur Katz
The Church in every nation
has an obligation to represent something of God to the nation itself, to bring
a particular perspective to the nation’s consciousness, which for the lack of a
better word, I call prophetic. It is
a particular way of seeing, and of assessing a nation’s circumstances, history
and future, in view of the scriptures and the prophetic testimony of God. I
cannot think of a Church in a nation where this task and obligation is more
critical than in Israel. The Church that is not prophetic, or conscious of its
role in the nation, cannot, by that fact, be the Church. It may be a
congregation for services and blessing, but it voids its essential distinctive,
which is its moral character. The
failure to perform this task will, therefore, adversely affect the nation where
the Church is. This is more than individual men called to be prophets, as
critical as that is; it is the calling of the Church itself to come to a certain mindset of understanding.
The first challenge of being
a prophetic Church is whether to affirm the nation as it is, or to challenge
it, by raising certain questions for the nation that it would not itself have
considered, as for example, the crisis in which Israel presently finds itself.
How is that to be prophetically understood and interpreted? There are two basic
views, one in opposition to the other: the general, common-sense view, shared
by Israel and the Church there, is that the Palestinian, Islamic and Arabic
opposition is something to be prayed against; that they are the enemies of the
nation, and that they need to be subdued or even removed by God, because they
are supposedly attacking what is essentially from God; that the enemy is always opposed to God, and our
function, as the Church, is therefore to pray against their presence in the
Land, so that we may go on m peace to establish the purposes of God for the
nation.
That is essentially the
conventional perspective held by most, but what then would be an alternative
prophetic interpretation? One that suggests that God is utterly sovereign in
all things, and that Satan himself does not have an existence independent of
Him, and that indeed, the activity of Satan comes under the purposes of God,
and that certain purposes are being served in this present opposition to the
nation. The historic explanation for all of Israel’s calamities from the
perspective of scripture is that Israel’s calamities are in proportion to her
sins, and that there is no reason now to alter that view. In that sense, Islam
itself is surely a judgment, perhaps even for our prideful persistence in a
mono-theistic view of God. Islam is a mono-theistic heresy, inspired, after
all, by the example of Israel itself, in its failure to acknowledge the triune
God after the advent of Jesus, and to continue to hold a narrow and
monotheistic view of God after the
revelation of the breadth of God in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To do so
is to effectually turn an original truth into a heresy, and to make of God, in
effect, a ‘non-God.’ As sin always brings its own judgment, and the judgment is
Islam, inspired itself by Israel’s insistent monotheism, to a yet even more
perverse expression, hostile to Israel, and indeed, ironically Israel’s present
and greatest
threat—as coming from the
hand of God, in judgment, for that very sin!
If so, then how is the
threat to be alleviated? Through more force, more violence, more retaliation?
Or the repentant acknowledgment of the error and sin by which the threatening
Islamic heresy was born? This is prophetic thinking, which does not react at
the immediate and external level. It sees, in view of the present circumstance,
the underlying historic and spiritual reasons; it sees everything in terms of
divine causation, rather than ungovernable circumstances. God waits for this
awareness and acknowledgment, and for a repentance from the nation in order to
dislodge or nullify the thing that our own sin has caused. This is a thoroughly
biblical and even rabbinical interpretation of calamity.
Our first obligation as a
prophetic people, therefore, is not to automatically agree (because of our
identification and love) in joining the nation in its own assessment, which is
necessarily secular and self-justifying. We ourselves
need to see that the ultimate issue is a spiritual one, and that the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal, and need, therefore, to influence the
nation differently—especially Israel. The descendants of Abraham are under an
especial obligation to God, and though they do not acknowledge their God, they
are not absolved of the obligation and consequences of the covenant
relationship with Him. Israel, therefore, pays double for her sins, because of
her more distinguished and honored, historic relationship with God. Israel has
a greater privilege than any nation has known, which carries with it a greater
obligation.
So, are Israel’s enemies
something that can be removed by encouraging the nation to a more militant
posture, or even ultimately eliminate them through its nuclear power? Following
the logic of that perspective will bring you to one extreme position or the
other: you will either find yourself in increasing opposition to the consensus
of the nation, or looking to be legitimated as a valid religious entity, you
will do the more ‘prudent’ thing, and not involve yourselves in the affairs of
the nation, let alone be in disagreement with it, so as to conduct your
messianic services, enjoy your fellowship and leave the nation undisturbed! If
you choose this latter direction, in our opinion, you nullify yourself as the
Church. But on the other hand, if you choose the prophetic obligation, it will
invariably bring upon your heads necessary reproach and opposition.
Consider, then, how the
Church can be silent when the nation per
se is in complete indifference to its God and Creator? That in itself is a
fundamental immorality that contradicts reality itself. To be especially in the
Land, and not acknowledge the God of Israel as God, is the profoundest
contradiction of terms. Is God to tolerate that kind of rejection of Himself?
Is He indifferent to this question, and is He happy that Israel is continuing
as a nation whilst in its intrinsically immoral condition? Will God allow them
to go on like any other nation, and obtain a measure of success? In Jeremiah 15:6, we read, “You have forsaken Me,” says the Lord, “You have gone backward
Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; lam weary of
relenting.” In other words, Israel’s rejection of God causes Him to reject
them, and there is a severe consequence for that rejection.
God has not changed, and as
He has judged Israel then for their rejection of Himself, He must equally judge
Israel now. The Lord may for a long season defer His judgments; He is not under
obligation to be instant in cause and effect. He may give us a long opportunity
to reconsider and repent, but sin will bring its own inevitable consequence, or
God is not God. He is a righteous God, and judgments must follow. And if they are long deferred and long ignored, they
only accumulate and intensify—but are not ever dissolved. Israel is still under
obligation for the sins of her fathers as well as her own, and God yet waits
for that acknowledgment. But being modem Jews, we do not see things in the
context of history, and of the unchanging character of God, and of the unbroken
continuum with the sins of our fathers, which if we will not acknowledge their
sins as our sin, we make them our own, and place ourselves therefore under
judgment with them.
We must not be deceived by
the appearances of the modern world, which has reduced God to a triviality, and
rendered Him a non-God! You cannot deny God in an effectual, practical atheism
and continue as a nation, particularly as the nation of Israel. There has got
to be consequence, and the first installments of it are the intjfada (the Palestinian uprising). If
we continue in our practical denial of God, will He not intensify the threats,
waiting for an acknowledgment that they will hopefully produce? But if we see
the threat externally only as a trouble coming from the “enemy”, having nothing
to do with our spiritual condition, then how will we pray aright, or even at
all?
As I walk through the Land,
I think, “How can we Jews not consider the Messiah who was crucified here? What
was that, some minor note of history? Some confused man who ran afoul of the
authorities, and suffered the unhappy consequence as a criminal? Is that all
that the crucifixion of Jesus represents? Was this not the very Son of God? God
Himself made flesh, taking upon Himself the judgment and sin of the nation? The
Lamb of God? Can we dismiss this and continue with life as usual, and go on in
indifference to that fact?” It is necessarily a formula for unreality, and will
therefore bring disaster! The coming of the Messiah is the single epochal fact
of all history; that God Himself visited the earth, “came to His own, and His
own received Him not.” And His own are still
rejecting Him. Can that be without consequence in the Land itself’ After We have paid so bitterly for it in
Diaspora, that it should not haunt us here?
All the more here? And that we,
the church, should be silent, as if this is a luxury that the nation can be
allowed to enjoy! When we’re so insistent that the world recognizes the
Holocaust, are we recognizing the enormity of the Holocaust of Israel’s own
Messiah and God?
It seems to me that the very
earth cries out for the consideration of this great event. Yes, reject it if you
will, but reject it out of a very careful, conscious consideration of the
record! And then tell the Gentiles that they’ve made a mistake, and that
they’ve given their allegiance to a political misfit, whom they consider to be
the Messiah of Israel and their God! You can’t have it both ways. You cannot be
indifferent to history, the greatest event of all time, and live like that
without its consequence. It is a basic moral flaw. Once you’ve made a moral
compromise of a kind that takes the very ground out from under you, how can you
be moral about anything? And, the apparent fact is, you’re not moral about anything! And, truth to be told, is not
present Israel in fact one of the most immoral and profane nations iii the whole world? If your
basic morality is itself compromised, will not every other moral question
suffer proportionately?
Where is the church that is calling this to the nation‘s attention? If the Church fails in its prophetic obligation, how shall secular men
consider and understand these things? Jesus wept over the consequences of His
own rejection. He foresaw what they would be, even to and including the Nazi
Holocaust! But for that rejection to continue still, and
for a nation to establish its foundations in complete disregard of that, has got to be a formula for inevitable disaster.
That disaster is now at the door, and Israel is being increasingly troubled by
these first and preliminary judgments. The removal of Arafat will not bring
solution, if he himself is a provision of God, in as much as God has used any rod of chastisement in Israel’s history! Is the
church willing to recognize Arafat as a possible hand of God’s chastisement,
calling Israel to a repentant acknowledgment for an effectually atheistic
indifference to God as God, by
the nation created by God and for the
purposes of God?
Where is our prophetic cry?
Yet we cannot express it in indignation; we have to express it
compassionately. “Lord, they err
against themselves in their ignorance.” We’re not pointing a finger of
condemnation as if we are morally and spiritually superior. Like the Lord
before us, we identify ourselves with their sins. Not only must we therefore
see rightly, we must be rightly—tempered,
humbled, broken, sensitive and compassionate. We ourselves were so recently
sinners, and we cannot therefore condemn. We realize that their condition was
essentially no different from our own, and would still be our condition except
for the grace of God.
We are called to be a
witness unto God to a nation that continues to reject Him. But if we are silent
and hold ourselves back, we join that nation in its sin. Our silence will
condemn us, and we will find ourselves, sooner or later, even sharing in their
condition. Silence is not a luxury that the Church can afford! It takes courage,
even as Paul had to inform secular men of spiritual truth on Mars Hill in Acts
17. Spiritual truth is the only truth, and the fact that the Athenians were
secular does not exempt them from judgment to come. We have to announce what
the secular world does not want to consider; that there is a day of judgment;
that God has appointed a day by which He will judge all men—especially Jewish
men—by that One whom He has raised from the dead! These are foundational truths
of life itself. Paul was not afraid to preach that message to secular Greeks.
Shall we be ashamed to preach this message to Israel, or yet to our own
nations?
As a prophetic presence, the
Church of any nation needs to bring a perspective which is God’s, and by which
God will judge all men, not by what they think,
but by what He thinks! We have an
obligation to make His thoughts known, for it is by His thoughts and His ways
that men shall be eternally judged. Israel is suffering preliminary judgment,
which will only be altered by its repentance, brought about by hearing a word
prophetically proclaimed, in the authority of God, in righteousness and
compassion, by the Church that is the Church. Even if it will not be heeded, as
most likely it will not, it does not absolve us from this prophetic responsibility—lest
our silence testify against us.
The above is the edited version of a
transcribed message by Art given to a Messianic congregation in Tel Aviv in
March 2002. The cassette, with Hebrew translation, is available on request.