the acceptable year

Isaiah shows God’s mercy triumphing over His judgments, by describing the time of His gracious acceptance as a ‘year’, while His vengeance is seen as a ‘day’. We are in that day now. 

“The Spirit of Lord YHWH is upon Me, because YHWH has anointed Me to preach good news to the meek. He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of YHWH, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint for them that mourn in Zion …beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness – the planting of YHWH – that He might be glorified” (Isaiah 61:1-3).

Isaiah 61:1-2a began to be fulfilled when Yeshua read it in a Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:18-19), purposely stopping in the middle of a sentence. Look at history to see what has been happening to fulfill the rest of these verses. After Messiah’s return to His Father, the early Messianic Body began to obey His commission. As soon as His disciples received the fullness of the Spirit (Acts 2:1-4), they preached the good news, healed the hopeless ones, crushed in mind, declared liberty to and set free sin’s captives, and from Jerusalem, proclaimed “the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Isaiah shows God’s mercy triumphing over His judgments by describing the time of His gracious acceptance as a ‘year’, while His vengeance is seen as a ‘day’. We are in that day now. While everything before His sentence break is global, Zion is the reason for the time of God’s vengeance. Very old saints remember the great impact in 1948 as Israel declared statehood. They saw Psalm 102:13 come to pass: “You shall arise, and have mercy on Zion, for the time to favor her, yes, the appointed time, has come.” This verse follows Psalm 102:1-11, an incredible prophetic depiction of the Holocaust.

What God says about His “day of vengeance” includes meeting His people’s needs post-Holocaust: He comforts the mourners in Zion; He gives them beauty instead of the ashes of Nazi ovens; He provides joy for mourning, and praise for heaviness. And He did it and is still doing it for His glory (Ezek. 36:22-32)!

God’s controversy with the nations over Zion is also taking place now (Isa. 34:8). As we see the increasing intensity and frequency of prophetic events, we see God doing a quick work to wrap up this age in the glorious return of Messiah Yeshua. No wonder the devil has nations raging against God and His Anointed (Psa. 2:1-3). Satan knows his time is almost over (Rev. 12:12).

Trump’s “deal of the century”

At a Palestinian National Council session, PA President Abbas’ “history lesson” was filled with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, trying “to prove the 3,000 year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is false.” He also claimed “the Holocaust was not a result of anti Semitism “but of Jewish social and economic practices. (“Abbas says Jews’ behavior, not anti-Semitism, caused the Holocaust,” TOI, 1 May 2018). Netanyahu rebuked the speech, tweeting, “With utmost ignorance and brazen gall, he claimed that European Jews were persecuted and murdered, not because they were Jews, but because they gave loans with interest… the Holocaust-denier is still a Holocaust-denier.” And US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman tweeted, “To all those who think Israel is the reason that we don’t have peace, think again.” (“Time for Holocaust denier Abbas to step down,” Arutz 7, 2 May 2018)

The Palestinians, having no idea of Trump’s peace deal, have already rejected it. Since his December 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the PA leadership has refused all dealings with the Trump administration, except to receive financial aid, which America is stopping as we write. All top PA leaders have waged “a smear campaign of hate and incitement” against Trump’s team, especially his “Jewish & Zionist”advisors: Kushner,Greenblatt, and Friedman. Bassam Tawil reveals why the PA is rejecting “something they know nothing about.” The only peace plan they will accept is the one enabling “them to achieve the ‘phased solution’ of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.” Tawil emphasizes a truth most ‘peace advocates’miss, which is that “no Palestinian leader” could accept “any peace agreement with Israel,” since both the PA/Hamas have radicalized an entire generation to hate. Although the US government may have the best intentions, “there is no partner on the Palestinian side for any deal with Israel.” (“Palestinians: The Only Acceptable Peace Plan,” B. Tawil, Gatestone Institute, 25 June 2018).

Israel Today’s Ryan Jones said when Trump affirmed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and then moved the US Embassy there, many Israelis feared the “diplomatic price” they might be asked to pay. Trump seemed to validate those fears in a recent speech, telling a West Virginia crowd that, as he had fully backed Israel’s position on Jerusalem, now “Israel will have to pay a higher price,” and the Palestinians “will get something very good…” It’s that “something very good”that worries us, as most “Palestinian red-line demands pose very real existential threats to Israel’s future…”(“How worried should Israel be about Trump’s…remarks?” R. Jones, Israel Today, 22 Aug. 2018). In Jerusalem, US National Security Advisor John Bolton played down the “higher price” statement, saying Trump sees what he did with Jerusalem, “as the right and natural thing to do, and it’s not an issue of quid pro quo.” (“Bolton: No ‘quid pro quo’ in Jerusalem embassy move,” Arutz 7, 22 Aug. 2018)

Charles Bybelezer of The Media Line, said that in response to Trump’s “higher price” statement, the Chairman of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Dr. Abdullah, responded, “The only thing the Americans can do is to reverse the decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital of the Jewish people.” He added, “We started our movement in 1965 to rebuild our right to self-determination, and we will continue struggling by all legitimate means to regain our sovereignty.” Yet 1965 was two years before the ’67 war when Israel recaptured the so-called ‘occupied territories’. So the territory Abdullah wants restored is all of Israel! (“The cost of admission to Trump’s peace negotiations,” C. Bybelezer/ The Media Line, JP Op-ed, 23 Aug. 2018)

Basic Law: The Nation-State of the Jewish People

As Israel does not have a constitution, basic laws are occasionally passed which become the laws of the land. This recent basic law has been lied about and used to further demonize Israel, yet it only says what Israel’s Declaration of Independence said in 1948. Here are its basic principles: “The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established…The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination The right to exercise national self determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” (“The attacks expose the depths to which the left has sunk,” Arutz 7, 29 July 2018)

Many condemned this bill as racist/discriminatory, and antidemocratic. The EU’s Foreign Affairs chief said only a two-state solution can resolve the Israeli-Arab conflictand this bill hinders that, yet did not explain “why Israel’s being a Jewish state with equal rights for non-Jews” hinders that goal. Denis MacEoin, PhD in Persian Studies and Arabic and Islamic Studies teacher, commented the EU has for decades “taken an anti-Israel position” which emboldens the Palestinians to “launch wars and terrorist attacks,” preventing that two-state solution! Yet Palestinians also insist their state be from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which implies “massive ethnic cleansing or genocide.”

The basic law’s passage has simply given “a firm legal basis for the creation of Israel in 1948,” in line with the League of Nations Palestinian Mandate, whose preamble says: ‘Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect,”the 1917 Balfour Declaration, “in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing nonJewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country’.”False accusations against this law reveal an anti-Israel bias: “Israel is being wrongly condemned for something that not one Muslim state has ever been condemned for: identifying its nationality with its religion.” In Muslim nations, this often “excludes or restricts the rights, or even the very existence, of minorities…”This restriction of rights is also inflicted by the PA, as Article 4 of its 2003 Amended Basic Law, says, “Islam is the official religion in Palestine,” with sharia as its principal source of legislation…” Sharia religious law rules out all democratic laws which contradict it. (“On Israel’s NationState Law,’ D. MacEion, Gatestone Institute, 22 Aug. 2018)

Pray UK out of ‘all’!

The word “all” in biblical Hebrew and Greek does not always mean “everyone/everything inclusively” as in English. So when God gathers all nations to war against Jerusalem (Zech. 14:2), that does not have to mean your nation is among this damned horde. Intercessory prayer could guard your nation from coming against God’s city, land and people (Ezek. 22:30).

YHWH who made heaven and earth, bless you out of Zion. (Psalm 134:3)