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Appointed to Wrath?
I see Christians defending their belief in the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of Christians leaving Israel to go through it alone, based on the 1 Th 5:9 verse: “For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
For one thing, the Tribulation and God’s wrath are two separate things. The Tribulation will be extremely difficult for those whose peace does not spring from salvation in Yeshua; God’s wrath will be unbearable for the workers of iniquity and unbelief.John 16:33 Jesus says, “In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
and in Act 14:22 Paul and Barnabas were exhorting their Christian converts:
“Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”
To whom do God’s Promises to Israel belong today?
When we see the prophecies of the Hebrew scripture and decide that even though they were spoken to Israel that they no longer apply to Israel, but now apply only to Christians, this is a major mind trap set by the enemy. It has and will continue to cause millions of Christians to be UNABLE to see or accept all the scriptures of God’s continuing promises to Israel. Believing that to be true – despite a lack of scriptural evidence makes it IMPOSSIBLE to see the truth as it is written. -
Concubine or Honored?
Israel: A Concubine in the Eyes of the World, but Honored in the Eyes of God
By Guy Cohen, Harvest of Asher Congregation in Acco, Israel
The world sees a small nation. God sees a people with whom He made an everlasting covenant. There is a question that has troubled the world for generations. How is it possible that Israel is still standing?
Throughout history, powerful empires have risen and fallen. Kingdoms that once ruled the world have disappeared. Nations that seemed impossible to defeat are now little more than chapters in history books. Yet Israel, a small nation that has endured exile, persecution, wars, and countless attempts to destroy its identity, is still here.
For many people, this is difficult to understand. For me, as a Jewish believer in Yeshua the Messiah, the answer is found in the Word of God. God has never broken His covenant with Israel.
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Zion and the Greater David
What Zion means to me.
I think probably some of my Israeli friends might take exception to this because Zion is used throughout the Scriptures to indicate Jerusalem. In fact, from its first mention in 2 Samuel 5:7, Zion is specifically designated as Jerusalem.
“Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David.”
I want to take that ‘nevertheless’ to say that Jerusalem is the strong hold of Zion, and the same is the city of David – but that is but a seed of revealing how God envisions the ultimate strong hold of Zion as the Kingdom that is ruled by the “greater than David”.
Not only is Jerusalem the place Jesus will return to sit on the Throne ruling the whole earth. But Zion at that time will be the “greater than Jerusalem” ruled by the “greater than David.”
Only in acknowledging the plans God has to restore Israel spiritually, can we enter into the greater Zion that Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah of Israel, shall reign over in all the earth.
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God Judges False gods
There is a consistency in the Bible of how God and His prophets deal with the false gods of the nations, it is in mockery.
There is a consistency in the Bible of how God and His prophets deal with the false gods of the nations, it is in mockery.The point of this study is to say to Christians worried about the ancient gods rising up again in modern times that God is consistent in judging false gods of the people by MOCKING them as He showed how worthless they are to help anyone. The Ten Plagues of Egypt are exactly that, God is mocking false gods by showing the Egyptians gods cannot even protect themselves from the One True God, much less protect Egyptians.
If I were you, seeing how God has judged the false gods of ancient mythologies, I would be far more concerned about recognizing that modern idolatries take modern form, and how will God judge those false idols we worship in our current time? -
Ishtar is Mythos
The chicken feet of the “goddess” Ishtar standing on two lions.
I’m a believer in the steadily increasing reveal of God in the Bible. I would use the word “progressive” if politics hadn’t given it a negative connotation. The concept is simple, our mysterious God has allowed Himself to be only fully revealed over a long period of His dealings with human beings. He created us for a purpose and He is taking His time seeing which of us suit His purpose to be His family. It all starts in Eden with the first man and woman.
Genesis is the “seed bed” for the intents and purposes of God that He steadily reveals throughout the scriptures. Yeshua, Jesus in His earthly ministry, as John put it, was “the Word made flesh.” I could spend hours continuing to develop how God’s intention was not just to bring forth a human being who embodied the Divine attributes and ways completely, but God’s purposes in Yeshua were that He was to stand as the measure, or example, for ALL of us human beings indwelt by the Holy Spirit giving us the power to transform into the likeness of Yeshua/Jesus. This is the steadily increasing reveal of Messiah in us – the hope of glory.
As I said, I could camp out on this theme for hours, but my intent this morning is to go back to the questions I have raised about Jonathan Cahn’s books depicting ancient gods and goddesses as demonic entities, and an ancient temple of Zeus as the throne of Satan mentioned in the book of Revelation.
I am not trying to flog Cahn, but I do believe this is an issue that is not just hair-splitting over theology.
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Satan’s Altar
There is a lot of news coverage of the man who attacked Christian Messianic Jewish fiction writer, Jonathan Cahn on an airplane this week. There are some things that need to be said, lest we take this incident as proof of what Cahn’s fictional books propose. Those things do not line up with the biblical testimony, to which all of our faith convictions must align. – Donna Diorio
Excavated from a hillside in Turkey in 1870 and 1886 and shipped to Berlin, this large-scale
reproduction of the western facade stands in the Pergamon Museum. It uses a combination of original marble fragments and modern restorations. It was originally built in the first half of 2nd century BCE most likely 170 BCE. The monument consisted of a high U-shaped podium with a continuous high-relief frieze (the Giantomachy).
The Giantomachy was told to be a great and brutal war in Greek mythology between the Olympian gods battling giants. Some of the giants depicted with serpentine lower bodies. The original altar platform and some foundations remain on the hillside of Bergama, Turkey. The identification of this altar claimed by some to be the “throne of Satan” referred to in Revelation 2 is a popular but scholarly debated interpretation rather than a proven fact.
It is also known as the Great Altar of Zeus, a ‘god’ of Greek mythology.“I am the LORD/YHVH, and there is no other; there is no God but Me.
I will equip you for battle, though you have not known Me,
so that all may know, from where the sun rises to where it sets,
that there is none but Me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
Isaiah 45:5-6Sept 9, 2026: Satan sits on the throne of idolatry in the hearts of mankind and it is the demonic spirit of idolatry we are really dealing with both in America and throughout the world. Forget about the physical altar of Pergamos – it has no magical demonic powers attached to it. It is the demonic spirits controlling the hearts of human beings that is the spiritual warfare we fight.
It is the spirit of idolatry that expressed itself in ancient times as worship of mythological gods and goddesses that now expresses itself in a myriad of modern expressions from entertainment and sports stars to good old-fashioned greed for wealth.
It is the spirit of idolatry that the Revelation letter to Pergamus was addressing, not a geographical location.
The geographical location of the church in Pergamus was important only because it was the epicenter of Greek mythology. Even the name Pergamus is from Greek mythology because it was the name of a mythological son of a couple of mythological parents Neoptolemus and Andromache. -
The Waze or The Way?
Guest Column by Israeli born, Messianic Jewish leader, Guy Cohen.
Born and raised in Acco where he pastors the Harvest of Asher congregation
in the land given to the tribe of Asher.Last month, while we were traveling in Poland, we had an experience that stayed with me.
One evening we entered an address into Waze and followed the directions. It was already late, completely dark, there was almost no one around, and the signal was weak. Then Waze told us, “You have arrived.”
But we hadn’t.
We were close, maybe very close, but we still didn’t know where to go.
Only when we managed to contact the owner, someone who actually lived there and knew the area, did we get the final directions that brought us to the right place.Since then, I’ve been thinking about that experience in a spiritual way.
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Blind spots in the Body
Sept 4 2026: I wasn’t seduced by Judaizers! It’s just the Bible, man!
Like there has been a timing on Jews being able to see their Messiah (God’s timing!) there is also a timing for Christians to be able to recognize God’s ongoing purposes for Israel. It is exactly as Jesus already told us (Acts 1:6-7):
“So when they came together, they asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.My article from July 5, 2011 originally posted on my Fruit of the Fig Tree blog
When Martin Luther emerged as a groundbreaking man of faith after nailing his 95 Theses on the door of the Church in 1517, he also believed that God would return salvation to the Jews. In 1514 Luther wrote: “Conversion of the Jews will be the work of God alone operating from within, and not of man working — or rather playing — from without.”
He had that partially right. We can’t make anyone see if God has not given them eyes to see. God has to give the revelation to every man – Jew or Gentile – before they can see Jesus. Luther was completely right when he said that God would return salvation to the Jews.
The last nine years of his life though, Luther had become a bitter Christian anti-Semite, penning his infamous treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies. Apparently Luther came to resent the Jews for not appreciating his position advocating for them. I guess he expected the Jews to be more responsive to him because he was not antagonistic toward them for their rejection of Jesus.He understood that salvation comes by a revelation of Yeshua that only God can give a person, but what Luther did not understand is that there is a plan of God in operation. In other words, a plan that has a specific time table.
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Israel’s Harvest Season
Listen and hear My voice. Pay attention and hear what I say.
Isaiah 28:23-29It really grieves me when anointed Christians cannot see the plain word of God in their Bibles about His love and commitment to the Jews and the restoration of Israel even spiritual restoration by faith through the ONLY Door that exists to any of us: the Door of Yeshua, Jesus.
I thank God that He let me in on that understanding early. That I didn’t have to wrestle with God over that question of His faithfulness to them I saw it in every page of Isaiah that I read in 1984 – and it was easy for me to receive because I didn’t have teaching against Israel in my earliest exposure to the Bible stories and to Jesus.
Others have come up in churches that taught ‘God is done with Israel!’ Always behind that statement is a conceited arrogance about how much better gentiles are than jews were. It is a poor grasp of history that can manage to believe that. But many do, and they aren’t all low IQ people who just don’t know any better either.
Many highly educated, theologian-class believers have educated themselves right out of the faith I saw and grasped hold of reading in the Bible of how God purposed not to let go of Israel, but faithfully restore them by faith.
There is a truth that Jesus told His followers in Acts 1:6-7. The truth is about WHEN, NOT IF God will restore the kingdom to Israel. Maybe it is better said, when will God restore Israel to the Kingdom. That’s what it really is about.
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Communion: The Divided Table
Today I am writing about communion and several issues around it that hearken back to ancient times.
Track with me as I explore the biblical issues about taking communion. It is a subject that came up this week, and I know I want to address some of those issues. Some I already know, but others are part of the deeper dive of research that I will do into those issues today.
The first thing to say about communion is that the wine and the unleavened bread have been taken for thousands of years in the Passover. In fact, the Last Supper was the Passover dinner, something a great many Christians have no inkling of. In the gospel accounts, when Jesus took the Passover Feast with His disciples, in the Luke account Jesus gave the symbolic meanings of the Passover bread and wine. (Luke 22:19-20) They are symbols, not literal, but prophetic symbolism.
Yeshua/Jesus took the unleavened bread, gave thanks and told them, “This is my body which is given to you: this do in remembrance of me.” And he took the wine and said, “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.”
This is symbolic of Yeshua giving His body as the sacrificed Lamb, that His blood would be used as the covering once, for all, of sins.Back to Luke’s account, in verse 21, in the course of saying these things, Jesus hands a piece of the bread to Judas saying, “But, behold, the hand of him that betrays me is with me on this table. And truly the Son of man goes as it was determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed.”
The Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul warned in 1 Corinthians 11:26-28, that we are proclaiming the Lord’s death as often as we take the bread and wine, until He returns. Because of that if we take communion “in an unworthy manner” we are guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Therefore each one of us “must examine himself before” taking communion.