Friendship Covenants with Messianic Congregations in Israel.
Newsletter April 2016
- Passover: The Reason for the Season.
- Messianic Congregations: News.
- Isaac and Ishmael Conference: Feedback.
- Media and Tours
Edited and compiled by Jack Carstens. Please feel free to distribute to friends.
You can get involved by partnering with a messianic congregation in Israel. We would be happy to speak at your church or home group. Comments are encouraged.
- Passover: The Reason for the Season
Passover this year starts on 22 April. It’s almost a month after the Easter celebrations. Why the big difference in dates this year? The Biblical calendar is a Lunar calendar with the moon circling the earth every 354.364 days while the secular calendar is based on the sun which circles the earth every 365, 25 days. Every year the dates drift further apart until the Lunar calendar is adjusted every 4 years to ensure that the harvest cycle fits the agricultural season. The dates are then closer together again. Next year Passover will be on 10 April and Easter Friday is on 16 April.
How Passover morphed into Easter for Christians. One almost has sympathy for the new Christian convert, Emperor Constantine, who had to reconcile his majority pagan followers with the new found Christianity he adopted. He declared Christianity as the sole religion of the Roman Empire around 325 AD.
His plan to appease his majority pagan citizens? Take the pagan festival of Ishtar (the goddess of the harvest and fertility) and combine it with Passover, the Biblical event with which he was now associated. The pagans preserved the name “Ishtar/Easter” which brought with it the fertility god’s symbols of rabbits and eggs, while the Church introduced Good Friday, the Crucifixion and Resurrection Sunday to the proceedings.
Who won? The pagans or the Christians? The Christian message became established, but the pagans kept their symbols. However, the Passover narrative foreshadowing the death of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and the Passover meal where Jesus introduced the New Covenant in His blood, unfortunately lost its place as an important heritage. The early Church father’s decision to cut ties with “the Jews” means that Passover is nearly completely lost to the Church. A tiny portion, namely Jesus’ act of breaking the bread and drinking the wine with his disciples during the Passover Meal has been kept in the form of the communion sacrament. The richness and foundational importance of the Passover as a significant Biblical event has largely fallen by the wayside.
Are we worse off for losing the reason for the season? Yes we are. Apart from missing out on the yearly reminder of the great miracles that formed part of God’s redemption of the Jewish people by freeing them from slavery and bringing them into the Promised Land, we also miss the shadow of Messiah’s redemptive plan for the world which is interwoven in this story.
Paul encapsulates the deeper meaning of the Passover when he writes to the Corinthians: “1 Cor. 10:1-2. Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto (by) Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat (sustenance);
And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”
Paul was underlining the fact that the Passover happenings were the fore-shadow of our own salvation journey. That generation of Israelites were saved by the blood of the lamb and entered into the presence of God under the cloud. They were ‘baptized” as they moved through the Red Sea. They ate of the sustenance of the Word of God along while they drank from the fountain of the water which flowed from the Rock, which Paul says is Christ (Messiah) himself!
Is that not a great spiritual heritage which the church can appropriate to itself as the spiritual children of Abraham! Is it not time the church left behind the rabbits and the eggs of Ishtar and held onto the deeper truths of the Passover story? Let’s give Passover the rightful place in our remembrance of Jesus’ redemptive work, so that He alone can receive all the glory!
We wish all our Jewish friends a joy filled Passover and remind our supporters to wish their Jewish friends well over the Feast.
- Messianic Congregation News
Firstly, we thank all the supporters of D&J for giving so graciously towards this cause and helping the congregations fulfill their calling in Israel. At the end of February we were able to send R 134 362 and have just followed up with a further R 118 232 during the first week of April. Praise the Lord! May the seed that you have planted grow 100 fold and be visible in your lives as well.
For those who don’t know, we have 14 congregations that D&J presently support in Israel. When sufficient funds are received, we send each congregation around $500 per transfer, although some congregations get bigger amounts if donations greater than $500 are dedicated to a particular congregation. Thank you to our donors for making this possible.
Morning Star, Tiberius.
They are presently moving into bigger premises in the middle of town! It took almost 4 years to renovate and get all the permissions for their building, now they are there! The leadership is excited by their greater accessibility and visibility.
They are all set to embark on a new journey and to reach the people of Tiberius. Situated on the Sea of Galilee, Tiberius is a mixed Jewish and Arab city and the Gospel in going out to one and all! In Jesus’ day boats set out to fish in the sea from this town. Today, Pastor Claude and his congregation are fishers of men in this city! Please continue to assist this congregation in their efforts.
Be’ad Chaim (Pro –Life).
Director Sandy Shoshani will be in Cape Town from 20 to 27 May and in Durban from 28 to 30 May. Be’ad Chaim have councilors across Israel who speaks to pregnant mothers who are planning to abort their babies. Many of these ladies need guidance and few realise the emotional scars that are left behind. Be’ad Chaim also help care for mother and baby after the birth.
Shoshani speaks on marriage, emotional healing and the right to life of the unborn. Come and hear her speak and use the opportunity to speak to her after the meeting at any one of these venues:
Friday 20 May:
Evening: 19.00 pm – Shabbat speaker at Logos
Saturday 21 May:
Morning: 09:00am – 12:30pm – Morning conference and tea at Logos. All welcome!
Evening: 18:00pm – Beit Jezreel – Muizenberg
Sunday 22 May:
Morning: No morning service as yet. Please contact us if you have opportunities.
Evening: 18:00pm – Harvestime Christian fellowship in Brackenfell.
Monday 23 May:
Evening: 19:00pm – Meeting with students at Stellenbosch University
Tuesday 24 May:
Morning: 11:00am– Hermanus Town Hall.
Evening: 21:15pm – Salt and Light on Radio Tygerberg
Wednesday 25 May:
Morning: 10:00am – Pastors breakfast by invitation only.
Evening: 19:00pm – Stellenbosch home fellowship – Betsie de Hart.
Thursday 26 May:
Morning: 10:00am -11:00am – Beit Jezreel, in Constantia.
Afternoon: 14:30pm – Fish Hoek Full Gospel Church – Ladies meeting
Evening: 19:00pm – Calvary Chapel Church – Monica Duguid. Ladies group in Fish Hoek – not open to public
Friday 27 May:
Fly to Durban.
For details of opportunities to speak to Sandy Shoshani in Hillcrest and in the Durban area, please contact Hannah Lee Kaiser to make arrangements.dandjdurban@gmail.com.
Please support this very worthy cause! We hope Sandy’s time in SA will bring much needed exposure to the great work this organization is doing for the Kingdom in Israel. Please feel free to ph. our office if you need more details. 021 5592958.
- God’s heart for Isaac and Ishmael Conference :Feedback
During March, David and Jonathan teamed up with Emet Ministries to emphasize God’s love and compassion for Isaac (the Jewish people) and Ishmael (the Arab people). We all know John 3:16 “ for God so loved the whole world that He gave his only begotten Son, so that all who believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” God is no respecter of persons, but Israel is the “apple of His eye” because of his special covenant with them. Ishmael, too, received a special blessing and promise when he left Abraham’s house.
Manfred Nochomowitz shared his testimony with us about how Yeshua touched His life and brought him into a new relationship with Father God. He also explained how Jewish people feel about being confronted with the truth about Messiah and how to bring them the Gospel message of salvation and eternal life.
Hany Immanuel, the other speaker, was an Egyptian Orthodox believer who has come into a renewed relationship with Yeshua/Jesus. He testified how that changed his life. He has an endearing love for the Moslem people, having grown up with them in Egypt. He regards them as very hospitable people with a great sense of family. However, they are under the bondage of Islam and he stressed that we need to pray for them to be set free, something that only Jesus can do. Hany also explained how Jesus changed his attitude towards the Jewish people and how Manfred was instrumental in giving him a new found love for the Jewish people.
It was a timely conference as we are being confronted with difficult images of Moslems around the world and a hostile media towards the Jewish people as they try to cope with the Palestinian intifada against their citizens. Let’s remember God’s heart for the lost. In our case, where God has placed a special love for Israel in our hearts and we see the actions of their enemies, let us not stop praying for the Light to break through into the darkness.
- Media and Tours
This month we have some books titles from Derek Prince: Prayers & Proclamations-R90, Complete Salvation & How to Receive it-R60. Baptism in the Holy Spirit-R60 and Our Debt to Israel-R35.
Conrad le Roux has a group going to Israel 6 – 21 October 2016. Final date for payment is due on 15 July 2016. If you are interested in joining them, please don’t delay. Contact Conrad le Roux: email:jcleroux@tabernacleofdavid.co.za or phone 084 3630966.
Contact our office for other tours of which we may have details. Telephone: 021 5592958 or e-mail:dandj@mweb.co.za
BANK AND CONTACT DETAILS:
DAVID AND JONATHAN FOUNDATION
BANK: ABSA, ACC: 407 374 6477, BRANCH: 632005
TEL: 021 5592958 BETWEEN 8:30am – 16:00pm
E-MAIL: dandj@mweb.co.za
WEBSITE: www.davidandjonathan.org
FACEBOOK: David and Jonathan.
Blessings
Eleanor Kerkman
(Secretary)