My zeal for Yeshua and the Kingdom far outweighed my knowledge of church history , and so I took on the assignment of a Messianic book table at American University together with another young Jewish believer , Larry Levy .
One day as Larry and I tended to our table of books and tracks , a Chabad rabbi came and sat right next to me . After a few short niceties the rabbi began to ask questions that grew in volume and intensity until he drew the attention of a small crowd around the table . I was fairly confident in my limited knowledge of the prophetic passages that pointed to Yeshua as Messiah , and I was holding my own fairly well until … he spoke several well positioned quotations of ‘ loving Christian fathers ’ about the Jewish people , including Martin Luther .
Needless to say , I was caught completely off guard . I was stunned , shocked , embarrassed and humiliated right there before God and a large , curious Jewish audience . After the rabbi finished slicing and dicing church history and my faith , he invited Larry and me to a Shabbat dinner at his house . I declined , but Larry went , and after that Shabbat we never saw Larry at services again .
Late that afternoon I returned home to my wife and one-year old son in a daze of hurt , confusion and disbelief . I had hit my very first wall of faith disillusionment so hard that I wasn ’ t really sure if I would recover . How is it possible that I could throw-in with such a nasty group of anti-Semites and not even know it ? It took me several weeks of prayer and conversations with my close , aforementioned friends before I could get free from the haunting questions and accusations of the rabbi about the anti-Semites of the church .
Some weeks back I heard Asher Intrater share on the war in Israel and three distinct levels of warfare : the heavenlies where angels and demons battle for strategic positions over nations and regions ; the media where men war for the minds and souls of the populace ; and the actual boots on the ground – the young men and women of the IDF ( Israeli Defense Forces ) who daily face the threat of a living hell in Gaza , Samaria , and southern Lebanon .
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