I have been planning for some time to talk about the Israeli Republic and the Jewish people again as it's been quite a few years since I last did and back then it caused a lot of controversy. When you tell the truth it loses you a lot of friends so truth-telling is a lonely business. So here I am, at Sukkot, 'at' it again.

It has long baffled Messianics that I, who am Torah-observant, am not a Zionist, yet I mostly 'do' what Messianics - and particularly Messianic Jews - expect of a Messianic (though they get upset when I tell them I don't believe in circumcision in the New Covenant). However, some of the things I say and believe are regarded by them as virtually treason to 'the race', whatever that is. I consider myself 'Messianic' and 'Christian' at the same time (a reason I call myself a 'Messianic Evangelical')...and neither...and I am comfortable using some of the symbols of Messianism (like the Menorah and tzitzit) and some of the symbols of Christianity (like the Latin Cross); but I don't use other Jewish symbols (like the occultic 'Star of David', kippah, phylacteries, and tallit) or other Christian symbols (like the fish sign consisting of two intersecting arcs, sign of the pagan sea-goddess Atargatis). I hate racism, I oppose anti-semitism but I also hate reverse discrimination and so I oppose Jewish supremacist organisations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which are largely self-serving Jewish organisations.

I have lots of Jewish friends - secular, Messianic and non-messianic - and I have lots of Arab friends too - Christian, and secular-Moslem, including Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians. I personally know Anis Shorrosh who wrote the book, The Liberated Palestinian, an Arab Palestinian Moslem who came to Christ and was a Zionist until his death last year! Believe it or not, I met him in a car park in Oxford quite by 'accident', a really nice fellow! Yet other Arab Palestinian Christians are militantly anti-Zionist. So there are all sorts.

Indeed, only the other day one Christian lady was so confused about who I was that she asked me what religion I followed as I don't fit any of existing categories or stereotypes. In her mind, and in the minds of others, simply being a disciple of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) is evidently not enough. So I am accused of being a 'Romanist Christian', an 'anti-Semite' and a 'holocaust denier' (amongst other unsavoury things), none of which are true, witness my anti-Roman paganism, witness all my Jewish friends, and witness that I absolutely believe there was a Holocaust in Europe even if the figures may me somewhat off the mark in order to stimulate the lucrative 'holocaust industry'. I just don't blindly accept everything Jews and their agencies tell me because I believe in finding out the truth for myself. I don't give anyone carte blanche although I trust some sources better than others.

Yesterday one of the things I talked about was the problem of the kind of double-mindedness that results when you try to simultaneously try to embrace mutually exclusive ideologies like Marxism and Islam, or Evolutionism and Christianity. So it shocks many fellow believers, both Messianics and Christians, when I tell them that I do not believe there is such a thing as 'the Jewish race' and that I am definitely not a Zionist, that I do not give special allegiance or approbation to the Israeli State. For one thing I do not believe the Israeli Republic is 'biblical Israel restored'. Indeed, from what I have studied about Israelis, they are, in reality, citizens of a "confused nation pretending to be a wandering people-race", to borrow the words of Israeli historian Shlomo Sand [1], and whilst I am not an atheist like Sand I do respect his clear thinking in many (though not all) areas. He has valid areas of councern about the official Israeli narrative.

I began my religious life as a born-again Christian and it wasn't long before I became a Zionist because that was the position the church I belonged to held. You might even say that I was quite zealous for the cause. And, yes, I am a very religious person and I don't deny that my religious experiences have very much shaped the way I view the world and life. But at the same time, I also have an academic background and I am a trained scientist, and scientists, if they are to do their job well, have to be sceptics. So I live my life between these two poles of faith and scepticism without ever feeling there is a contradiction between the two. I think they provide a healthy balance. Indeed I would claim that the Bible insists that we be careful about what we accept in faith - remembering that we all live by faith, even the most ardent atheists even though they would deny it vehemently! They also arrogantly have this totally absurd idea that that they alone are the 'freethinkers' on this planet, the 'brights' while religious people are dimwits. I consider myself a 'Christian Freethinker'. Indeed the Scriptures command us to test everything (1 Thes.5:21) carefully and to approach Elohim (God) honestly with areas of concern, and reason with Him (Is.1:18). We're told to carefully test ourselves to make sure that our motives are pure so that we can continue with honesty in this reasonable faith (2 Cor.13:5). Ours is an intelligent faith, not a blind one.

Personally I think both 'Israeli' and 'Palestinian' are artificial constructs. They're certainly relatively new inventions no more than (in the case of Israelis) 70 years old and (in the case of Arab Palestinians) no more than a century old even though both terms are much older: the Romans invented the term 'Palestinian', naming Judea 'Palestina' following the Jewish Revolt, after the former Philistines who lived in the coastal regions, and modern Jews for some reason calling modern citizens of Israel 'Israelis' even though in English we have always called the ancient inhabitants of that land 'Israelites'. Nearly all English Bible translations call the citizens of Israel 'Israelites' with only one or two modern paraphrases (like The Living Bible) calling them 'Israeli' which is not really very accurate, but then these same modern Bibles also call Asia Minor 'Turkey' and Babylonia 'Iraq', presumably to help those with some knowledge of modern political geography but little or no knowledge of ancient history, even though neither Turkey nor Iraq existed in biblical times. Indeed, as a point of historical interest, the Jews who founded the Israeli Republic came close to calling their new country 'Judea' which would have certainly been closer to the truth, though not very much closer, I have to say.

How can we be totally honest when all of us, as Sand points out, have accumulated "layers of of collective memory" and "assimilated multiple narratives shaped by past ideologial struggles" [2]? A rigorous seeker after truth must learn how to untangle all of this, an enterprise, I have to say, that does take a lot of time. We are often not even conscious of what has shaped us. Worse, others trying to be rigorous themselves often try to 'analyse' us and presume to tell us things which may or may not be true.

I know many people have accused me of entertaining beliefs (which they don't agree with) because of exposure to philosophies, religions or denominational teaching that I no longer profess to hold to. Some accuse me of being 'Mormon' because I was LDS for three years when I was young, others that I am 'Jew' because I observe Torah, and the latest (which I find quite hilarious), invented by some Scandinavian pentecostals upset with me because I defend the right of our people in Africa to continue practicing polygamy, is that I am some sort of renegade Anglican because I hold Anglican scholar N.T.Wright in such high esteem, because I was raised an Anglican, and no doubt also because Anglicans have the same marriage policy in Kenya and Tanzania as we do, never mind that Anglicans are Calvinists and I am anti-Calvinist!

People just love to label one another, don't they? I suspect the main reason is because they are either too lazy or prejudiced to find out what people of different beliefs actually believe and why. Yes, it's true, we do pick up ideas and beliefs from all over the place in our life journey and quietly integrate them in our overall perception. It can't be avoided. And I suppose that's one reason why about every 7 years I force myself to go through a thorough review of what I personally have come to believe in - where I 'am' in my ongoing spiritual journey. I just happen to be in one of those 'reviews' right now only this one has been taking me considerably longer to complete than I expected because some of the issues, like universalism, are just so controversial still. In the past holding such positions would have been impossible without being totally ostracised in a society firmly rooted in a different tradition, but even in a world where there is more freedom of expression in some areas, you still have to break surface circumspectly. New or forgotten ideas take time to be accepted and there is always the initial backlash. Pity, then, all pioneers like those who fought against slavery and paid heavily for 'daring' to go against the establishment!

We live in a world of constantly changing identity politics and so acquiring a true identity based on reality and truth is essential to personal well-being, happiness and wholeness. I can understand why people cling onto identity labels because we all need a mast to fasten our colours to so that we can both enter into community as well as relate to what's going on around us. But that's incredibly difficult if your identity is continually changing so we tend to become rather fixed in our attitudes because of our craving for stability and constancy. It's the basis of our mental and emotional security. We all need to 'belong' somewhere and to someone.

Now it's true that the Christian or Messianic has his or her ultimate identity in Christ/Messiah - or ought to - because that is really the only stable identity anyone can get anywhere. But the problem there is that the 'Christ' of a Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Catholic, Calvinist or Tradionalist (I'll have to explain what I mean by that another time) are not the same even if some may have more in common with others. When you've been around a while and got to know people of different traditions better you not only learn to discern the things you share in common but the differences soon become glaringly obvious. You hear me discussing Calvinists often because their 'Christ' is very different from the Provisionist one which we find revealed in the Scriptures.

The more information you have, the easier it becomes to resolve these differences. And it isn't always enough to simply talk about the 'Spirit' because clearly people are led by different spirits sometimes. So we need another foundational level to give us an even firmer base to put our feet on. That's where the Torah becomes very important because the Torah defines who our Heavenly Father, Yahweh-Elohim, is, and Yah'shua (Jesus) taught that to know the Father you have to know Him, because they are perfectly echad or one. If you think the Torah is somehow 'bad' or 'inferior' or that it has been entirely dismissed (not just the Levitical stuff) then you're going to end up with a very distorted view of Messiah, if not a false one. But at the same time, there are different views of Torah, not created by the Bible but by Jewish tradition. You're not likely to get an accurate view of the Torah if you go to Talmudic Judaism for it because Talmudic Judaism not only hates Yah'shua (Jesus) but places its own rabbis and their traditions above the Torah! So you have to be super-careful! Untangling this hopeless mess is a major part of the calling of this ministry to which I have devoted my life.

There are two important things I'd like you to take away when you have finished hearing me out today. The first is that race doesn't matter spiritually. One race is not 'better' than another simply because somebody says so, no matter what genes are, or aren't, present. There are no super-races or master-races. A race may be morally and culturally advanced in one age and morally depraved and culturally primitive in another, so the differences are cultural. (I don't, as you probably gather, buy into the modern liberal lie that 'all cultures are equal' because that is so blatantly and obviously false). In the eyes of Elohim (God), there are, ultimately, only people and the choices they make. The only 'apples of God's eye' (Dt.32:10; Ps.17:8: Zech.2:8) are those who love and know Elohim (God). The Besorah (Gospel) is for all human beings, and that's everyone no matter what colour their skin, nationality or present belief system. So to be someone who calls themselves a 'Jew' is just another person to be loved and witnessed to if they're not already believers. They're not a separate 'saved' category to authentic born-again, Torah-obedient Christians. There's only one covenant at any one time in history, not two as many Christian and Messianic Zionists claim. Secondly, nations matter, but they are secondary, if not tertiary, to individuals. Not all nations have survived historically and not all today's nations will survive either, but so long as they are around, they matter because nations are families consiting of nuclear families, and nuclear families matter too - in fact, nations are #3 in the hierarchy of value, after individuals and nuclear families.

Now I know that not all nations are recognised by the 'United Nations' or indeed even by individual nations. Israelis, Messianics, Zionist Christians and some others deny that 'Palestine' exists as a nation or that there is such a thing as a 'Palestinian'. Some Zionists go to great lengths to 'prove' that Palestinians have their own state in the Kingdom Jordan already. And yet there are those today who have a Palestinian identity that's arguably older than an Israeli identity.

Where enough people live together and regard themselves as a nation, there you have a nation, even if the UN says there isn't one. Here in Sweden there is a Sami nation which has its own flag and language even though politically Sweden is a unitary state. Sometimes Swedes forget that Sweden was originally three nations who fused into one, which is why we have three crowns on our coat-of-arms, one for each of the original nations. We are the Kingdom of the Svea (Swedes), Goths (Geats) and Gutes (the inhabitants of the island of Gotland), but few are conscious of that separate identity any more because of the way we have been educated to think about ourselves.

Georgians deny that Abkhasia and South Ossetia exist, most of the world denies that Transnistria exists (between Moldova and Ukraine), Greece that 'Macedeonia' exists (although they've sorted out that silly dispute now, I'm glad to say), and there are a whole host of other nations like Kurdistan, Baluchistan, Biafra, Chechenya, Komi, Tartarstan, Tibet, etc, most of them 'nations within nations'. The two Koreas don't recognise that each other exists, Communist China denies that the Republic of China (Taiwan) exists, Somalia and the rest of the world deny that Somaliland exists, and for many years West Germany didn't recognise that East Germany existed, and so on.

There is even one Jewish group called Naturei Karta which doesn't recongise that the Israeli Republic has the right to exist and campaigns for the right of a Palestinian State to solely exist. And, no, these are not secular Jews but very religious and outwardly look like Orthodox Jews - indeed, they are Orthodox Jews, just anti-Zionist! They claim that the Jews were expelled from Israel because of sin and that God has not told them to return! Not surprisingly, Zionist Jews, most of whom were originally atheist-communists, hate them. (Once again we have this strange and contradictory alliance between Marxists and religious Jews which exists to maintain the illusion that there is a national 'Israeli' identity with some sort of basis in history). And yet that identity, confused as it may be, may now be said to exist. So it's really quite complicated! And you can argue over definitions until the cows come home.

But the basic truth is this: if a group of people consider themselves to be a nation, even if they don't have political recognition from other nations under the system of International Law that now exists (and is flouted anyway), they're a nation. Like it or not, the Cherokees of the United States are a nation too, just as the Zulus of South Africa are, and the Palestinian Arabs are, and the Israeli Jews are whether you believe it is biblical Israel restored or not. I am going to go so far as to claim that Yahweh recognises all of these as 'nations' in the biblical sense simply because they are flesh-and-blood people who have a mutual affinity and usually a shared language and culture, and in most cases, a flag, national anthem, currency and system of laws and government. Somaliland and Transnistria have all these yet they're unrecognised. Sometimes nations use other nations' currencies, as Zimbabwe uses the US Dollar.

Now the reason I have said all of this is because I want people to know that I believe that the Israeli Republic (like Palestine) is a legitimate nation in the worldly sense. Furthermore, because they currently occupy the geographical Divine Real Estate area in the Promised Land today promised to true Israel, even if their residency is only temporary and permissive, means that they must of necessity be mentioned in the Bible even if under different and unexpected names. It would be very strange if they weren't, especially as I have already claimed that the British are mentioned in Scripture in connection with their defeat of the Turks in 1917 and their taking of Jerusalem which they controlled until 1948. You would expect Yahweh to be especially interested in His land, and though the whole planet technically belongs to Him, the land promised to Abraham and his descendants belongs to Him in a special and unique way (in the same way that believers will be uniquely saved in eternity - 1 Tim.4:10) because is it consecrated to Him. Therefore He is especially interested in anyone living on that territory at any time.

Thus we may safely conclude that Yahweh has a special eye on the Jews, Christians, Arabs, Samaritans, Druze and others occupying that land. Jerusalem will always be Jerusalem (at least until it is replaced by the New Jerusalem) whoever is occupying it in the interim. Populations may need to be shifted, as they have been historically with various expulsions and resettlements, and that will happen in Yahweh's own timing.

The Bible makes no mention of Iraqis, Israelis, Palestinian Arabs, Jordanians, Turks, Kurds, Saudis and others even if it does mention Syrians, Assyrians (which today are the Christian Arabs of Syria and Iraq), Lebanese, Egyptians, Persians (todays Iranians) and Amonites (after whom the Jordanian capital, Amman, is named, so today's Amon is certainly Jordan). What of those nations that have disappeared, like Media, Moab, Amalek, Midian and Edom (or Idumæa)? Some are extinct but some exist under different names even today.

Knowing who's who today is critical to understanding biblical prophecy particulary if some have stolen the names of other nations, as the modern Slavic Macedonians have, for example (which is why Greece is so upset about them). And interestingly, the two numerically largest inhabitants of the Promised Land today have stolen the names of other nations: the Arabs have stolen the Philistine name and the majority of Jews have stolen the Israelite name, for most of the latter are the descendants of EDOM or Idumæa which was founded by Esau, the brother of Isaac, which country was forcibly circumcised and converted to Talmudic Judaism during the time of the Maccabees, the Hasmoneans and who intermingled with the Yehudi (Judahites) or Judeans. Judea was a hybrid nation already in New Testament times, a mixing of Jacob and Esau. In the course of their post-expulsion wanderings they picked up numerous other races with whom they intermarried, including the enormous Japhethite Khazar nation (which converted to Judaism) and every nation they lived in across Europe, Asia and Africa. The modern Jews and Israelis are truly a 'mixed company', with a small amount (probably less than 10 per cent) having authentic Judahite blood.

This is very politically incorrect to say and anyone who says similar things runs the risk of being accused of being an 'anti-Semite' and put under various sorts of pressure and penalties owing to the strong political clout this group wields throughout the world, especially in the USA. The whole rational justification for the modern Jews having a right to own the Promised Land is based on their claim that they are the descendants of the original Israelites, if not in total, then at least the vast majority. And if they are not, then they are, in reality, simply foreign invaders no different from the Arabs who dubbed themselves 'Palestinian' were during the times of the Moslem conquests and later settlements.

Does that mean the Jews have no moral right to be in Israel? If you take that position, then you can challenge the legitimacy of most, if not all, the nations of the world, whose peoples are where they are because of conquest, expulsion (or extermination of the original population), and resettlement. Ethnic cleansing has been going on continually throughout earth's history, and is still going on. And whilst the de facto reality of this state of affairs does not make it morally acceptable, it is what it is and pretty much every nation may be said to be 'guilty' of such crimes. It is one of the ugly realities of life on this fallen world. I don't have time to run through all the modern genocides as I probably have angered or irritated enough people for one day already. But the truth must out otherwise any claim on our part that we are serious about pursuing the goal of Sukkot to be whole is just a farce. We must own up to our history.

The modern world is a giant pretence. We don't live in fair and just societies anywhere, even if some are more fair and just than others. Today the world is controlled by the Sabatean Cult who control the money supply of nearly every nation, owning nearly every central bank, and by that means they pull the strings of political power almost everywhere. The Bible calls this wicked group the "synagogue of Satan" (Rev.2:9) consisting of those "who say they are Jews and are not, but lie" (Rev.3:9, NKJV). In other words, they're counterfeit, imposters, and are using true Jews for their nefarious schemes and making them suffer as they did in the Holocaust. As Shlomo Sand points out, their base, which is in the Middle East - the Israeli Republic - is a very confused nation indeed. It has an identity of sorts but it's built on a lot of half-truths. It's citizens are being used - Jews and Palestinians alike - to stir the political pot to make unrest and war. They're both being lied to.

They're not alone in that, mind you. I've already mentioned Macedonia, which shared the historical territory of that nation with Greece, but there are others like Romania who, though they speak a related language to the Romans (Latin), they are in fact a Slavic mix and not, as they are taught, the descendants of Roman settlers in Dacia, even if there is undoubtedly some Roman blood in them (which is in nearly all modern Europeans, Middle Easterners and North Africans). But then Roman or Italic blood is in every nation of that former Empire.

Now you could argue, I suppose, that you are, in a sense, what you believe yourself to be. There are obviously racial Chinese and Ethiopians who believe themselves to be 'Jewish' and who practice Judaism even if there is enormous cultural diversity between Jews not living in the Israeli Republic. Not all biblical Israel was genetically descended from Abraham, witness Rahab the Canaanite from Jericho, Ruth the Moabite, and many others, some of whom were even in the Messianic line! So race is quite a fluid thing, even in nations that importantly feature in prophecy. Various spheres of memory coalesce into a national identity. Thus Étienne Balbar wrote:

"No nation possesses an ethnic base naturally, but as social formations are nationalized, the populations included within them, divided up among them or dominated by them, are ethnicized - that is, represented in the past or in the future as if they formed a natural community" (The Nation Form: History and Ideology).

In my own country of Great Britain many non-ethnic Britons - that is, those not of Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Cornish), Saxon, Angle, Norse, or Norman origin - who have assimilated into the culture from the Carribean countries and the Indian subcontinent, may rightly now be viewed as Britons. Indeed, England was originally a mishmash of different tribes from all over Western Europe, from Germany, Denmark, Norway, Holland, France and even Rome.

What, then, is a nation, given that nations absorb immigrants from other nations as well as change religion and culture. Nothing is very static in this world, is it? Look how Europe and the United States are changing demographically, culturally, linguistically and even religiously, and at an alarming rate which many are rightly troubled by, not because of the ethnic change but because of the cultural and religious change. This is pretty much how the Roman Empire collapsed, facilitated by corruption, of course. Parts of Europe will be Moslem before too long. Everything is changing, and fast. And if the European Union ever morphs into a superstate, the 'United States of Europe', as its ruling class seem hell-bent on forcing it to at any cost, nations therein may eventually disappear.

There is a great struggle going on in the Israeli Republic as I speak between Jews and Palestinians and people have taken sides, understandably. Radical groups in both communities want to exterminate each other - ethnically cleanse the region and make it 100 per cent Palestinian Arab or 100 per cent Jewish. Right now the Sabateans are trying to start a war between the USA and Iran to create the conditions so that the Anti-Messiah or Antichrist can be revealed in a fake 'Jewish Temple. And what you need to know is that this deep-state cult controls not only the Democrats in America but the Trump administration too...and Putin in Russia.

There is going to be a terrible conflagration in the Middle East centred around the Israeli Republic in the not-too-distant future and contrary to what the agents of the Sabateans are telling you - to 'make aliyah' (emigrate) to Israel - that's the last thing you need to be doing! It's a death sentence! And there is no shortage of false prophets and prophetesses these days who are steered by the same false spirit advising Messianics to do that too! Don't do it! Before that terrible conflagration, Yahweh will call His people in that land - Jews, Arabs, Druze, Samaritans, and others - to leave quickly and go to the places He has prepared for their safety.

The Enemy wants another genocide - and he'll keep on wanting them - of believers in Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) of every race and 'ethnicity'. The return to the Promised Land in the Second Exodus is NOT YET but SOON - but first there must be JUDGMENT and it will be terrible, not just in the Middle East but over all the world - not the Final Judgment, not the Great Tribulation, not the 'Day of Yahweh (the LORD)', not the Second Coming, but the judment immediately before the Final Judgment. So get prepared, warn your Jewish and Palestinian friends, and get on the right side of history.

Yahweh willing, we will continue tomorrow. May He bless you during the rest of this fourth day of Sukkot (Tabernacles) in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name! Amen.

Endnotes

[1] Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People (Verso, London: 2009), p.13
[2] Shlomo Sand, Ibid., p.14