August 1997: Volume 19, Number 8



Contents



The Palestinian Christians

by Zola Levitt

Our Lord warned us that in the End Times, Christians would be persecuted: "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake" (Matthew 24:9) — a verse also applicable to the Jews of Israel, since they were the Christians the Lord addressed. But there are other Christians in Israel who are presently feeling tremendous pressure, and those are the Palestinian believers in Jesus. Truth to tell, they vary in their commitment to the New Testament, being of a variety of denominations: Anglican, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, etc. A small number are what we would refer to as born-again believers; but the real issue is that they are Christian enough to be hounded by the Moslems, who have taken over large amounts of Christian territory in the Holy Land. I previously pointed out that the church was silent when the Moslems took over Bethlehem, the very birthplace of the founder of the Christian faith. In taking over the city, they also took over its largely Christian population. I personally interviewed a storekeeper in Bethlehem during the last year, and found him almost too scared to talk to me.

          We have printed information on the persecution of Christians in China, Sudan, Egypt, and other Moslem and Communist strongholds. But the persecuted Christians of the Holy Land are largely overlooked by the media and the Church. And they are suffering indeed. We detailed on a previous television program with Norma Archbold, our own Israeli news correspondent, the arrest and torture of a Christian Arab by Arafat's Jericho police for seemingly no reason other than his faith. The Red Cross rescued the badly injured prisoner when attention was called to his plight, but there are many others in dire straits in the very land where our Lord preached.

          Our Lord did not omit the witness to non-Jewish people in Israeli in His time. The Samaritan woman (John 4), the Roman centurion (Matthew 8), the Syro-Phenician woman (Mark 7), and others exemplify His outreach to those outside of the Jewish faith. Those in the same position today need our protection and our prayers.

          I want to be perfectly clear on one point: the Christians are being persecuted by Moslems, and not by Jews. The Jews of Israel have never persecuted Christians, though it has served Palestinian propaganda purposes to pretend that it has happened. When the Israelis have had to close their borders due to Palestinian terrorism, it has affected everyone in the Palestinian territories — Christian and Muslim alike. This security measure should not be confused with a specific targeting of Christians for oppression.

          As to the Moslems, their own holy writ teaches that the Christians as well as the Jews are their enemies, to be eliminated by whatever means necessary. And unfortunately, history shows that they have taken this particular tenet of their faith very seriously.

          Excerpts from the following March 16 Associated Press article deal with the hard subject of the fulfillment of our Lord's warning in answer to His disciples' question, "What will be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" (Matthew 24:3b).


          For 2,000 years, her people have lived and worshipped in the land where Jesus was born. But Norma Budreh, one of the last of Christianity's "living stones," has come to a sad conclusion: The Holy Land no longer has a place for them.

          "In the long run, you will not find any Christian in this country. All of us will leave," she says. . . . Palestinian Christians are fleeing the Holy Land in such numbers that they may be an insignificant presence by the end of the millennium. They have already been reduced to a small minority in growing cities such as Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where they were the majority earlier this century.

          In 1948, Christians were 10 percent of the population of the Holy Land, according to Bethlehem University sociologist Bernard Sabella. He puts the number today at only 2 percent for the region stretching from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank to the Lebanon border.

          Massive emigration has kept the number of Christians in the region at 150,000 to 180,000, about the same as it was in 1948, drowning them in a sea of exploding Palestinian Muslim and Jewish population growth. . . .

          Tensions between Palestinian Christians and Muslims is not something people here like to talk about. Community leaders on both sides prefer to speak of a shared cultural heritage that transcends religious divisions.

          "The Christians are part and parcel of the Palestinian people, indivisible," says Doris Saleh, executive director of the YWCA in Jerusalem.

          "We have one motto here," said Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij, a Christian. "We say religion is for God, but we say the city is for all."

          But in neighborhoods and city streets, tensions surface.

          "In Jerusalem, Muslims treat us very bad. They hate us," said 20-year-old veen Salem, sitting in a courtyard at Bethlehem University. "If they saw us walking in the street, they start to tell us bad things about the cross."

          For Christians there are increasingly frequent reminders of their minority status. In Jericho, for example, Friday prayers once limited to the mosque are broadcast on loudspeakers all over town.

          Christians such as the Budrehs say they no longer feel free to wear shorts or sleeveless dresses for fear of what their Muslim neighbors will think. What will happen, they wonder, as the power of conservative Islam continues to grow?

          Christian leaders here are saddened by Western tourists who, they say, kiss the stones Jesus trod on but ignore the living stones of the faith.

          The living stones are more important than the dead stones, said Catholic Bishop Boulos Marcuzzo of Nazareth. They represent the continuity of the faith from Jesus' time to the present.

          That's why the Rev. Faud Sakhnini, who runs a school and church in the center of Nazareth, is determined to stay, even though two of his sons have gone to America.

          "If I leave, if you leave, if that person leaves, who is going to witness?" he asks. "I always tell the Lord, 'Lord, I am very unworthy to serve you in your hometown.' I feel this is a great honor and privilege."


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A Note From Zola

Dear Friends,

          A few odds and ends of news caught my attention recently, and I'd like to share some commentary with you. Some current events have a bearing on prophecy and the approaching End Times.

          Campaign funding has been an issue again lately. The point here is not whether the officials of either political party are untrustworthy. The real issue in prophetic terms is the crisis of leadership in this country and so many others that will pave the way for the entrance of a new world leader. Americans, Western Europeans, Arabs and other Islamics, and virtually all of the third-world countries (including Russia) will possibly turn to the Antichrist out of utter frustration. His leadership will seem reasonable, spiritual, and peaceful compared to the borderline criminal leaders we are putting up with today in the majority of the nations of the world.

          On the subject of criminal leaders, it is costing us $40-50 billion a year simply to watch Iraq. The presence of one lunatic Arab dictator, Saddam Hussein, requires more money than it would take to solve the entire poverty problem of the U.S. Somebody estimated that relieving the former Ethiopian famine would have cost $40 million. So for the price of watching Saddam, we could solve 1,000 such famines.

          A terrorist group in Spain called the ETA has killed 876 people over the past several years. This is far worse than the Intifada in Israel, which took place over a like period of time, and yet we haven't foisted a phony peace process on Spain. If Israel requires it, what does Spain call for? And across the Straits from Spain, 60,000 have been murdered in Algeria by Islamic terrorists with barely any censure from Washington or the UN. Surely such carnage merits some protest, if Israel is to be saddled with the terrible liability of a fake peace process over far fewer casualties.

          Israel has had less than ten homicides so far this year, counting the Arab real estate dealers murdered by Arafat's thugs. The U.S. has 22,000 homicides in an average year.

          Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said recently, "Real progress toward peace would require the democratization of the Arab states." The fact is that all of the Palestinians, virtually all other Arabs, most of the American and Western European governments, and the United Nations are trying to force Netanyahu out of office. Could it be for such reasonable ideas as the one stated above that this intelligent and sensible man must be sacrificed?

          The C-SPAN television network travelled all the way to Israel to cover a doomed no-confidence vote brought against Netanyahu in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. All they caught on tape were some officials arguing with each other. In Israel, as in America, legislators argue daily without the government toppling, and more than 99% of the people go to work and come home without incident. Crime rates are down, poverty levels are down, the abortion rate is down. I could go on and on through a hundred such pieces of good news that are unreported by the profit-making media, which spends all of its time on murders in Florida, trials on sexy subjects, and, of course, ceaselessly pushing beer, psychic hotlines, and endless commodities of questionable worth. Days of coverage are devoted to such earth-shattering news as one boxer biting the ear of another boxer.

          When I worked in the media, our excuse was "we don't make the news, we just report it." Since "reporting" has become mere pushing of sensationalist news and mediocre products, that rationalization won't work any more. We are only a small step away from the media starting its own wars, which it comes close to doing in its coverage of Israel, in order to charge more for commercials (or to gratify its chief source of revenue — ads for the petroleum-based products supplied by our Arab masters).

          CNN featured a long story on Israel's "anti-missionary law," which has not even passed. (We included an article on it in last month's newsletter.) America has many Congressmen proposing many strange bills that never see the light of day, but they are not covered. Why was this Israeli legislation singled out?

          The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has attacked the new Jackie Chan film Operation Condor for its alleged stereotyping of Arab individuals. A recent news report stated, "Mr. Chan expels the two [Arab] men from a woman's house they are robbing. As they leave, the two shout, `Soldiers of the Faith will not give up the holy battle!'" The complaint is that Arabs don't make such inflammatory statements, but the July 26 Jerusalem Post International Edition contained the following quote: "Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his Prophet against the colonialist settlers [the Israelis], who are sons of monkeys and pigs." This was said by Mufti Sabri during an address to worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The article also quoted him as calling for the destruction of America.

          Sixty Minutes ran a story on the World War II cave killings in Italy, in which 335 Italians were shot in cold blood by German soldiers. The report dwelt on the horrific nature of this crime. If you multiply that number by ten, and by ten again, and by ten again, and by ten again, and then double the sum, you will arrive at the six million Jews killed by the Germans in the Holocaust. But of course, most were not shot in the back of the head by a single bullet. They rode in train box cars for a thousand miles, were worked nearly to death, and were finally gassed and burned. But somehow this doesn't merit the same outrage in the media as the deaths of the 335 innocent Italians.

          There was a great hoopla this summer over the UFOs that supposedly crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico several decades ago. Many people are convinced that there has been an ongoing government cover-up of the incident. As the End Times progress, more and more individuals believe in extraterrestrial sightings, and even seek contact with "visitors" from outer space. My book,Encounters with UFOs, explores this situation and how it is connected with the occult. You might be surprised to find out what is really going on.

          Interestingly, scientists have theorized that Mars underwent a great flood and is now lifeless. Was there no Martian Noah?

          We will soon be bringing you our new Champions of Faith series. The post-production work is progressing, and I know that you will be pleased with its quality and content. We look forward to blessing you and our other viewers with our studies on the heroes of faith of Hebrews 11. Look for them to begin next month.

          We are now taking registrations for our 1997 Fall Festival Tour. The deluxe Israel Tour will take place October 7 - 17. Our Grand Tour will be October 4 - 17, and for the first time we are offering an additional extension through October 24 for those who wish to stay in Jerusalem throughout the entire eight-day Feast of Tabernacles.

          October is a perfect time to visit Israel, after the heat of summer and before the rains of winter. Our Israel Tour offers you the major biblical sites in Israel. We have shown them to you on our program, but nothing can compare with seeing them yourself. How can mere words describe how it feels to stand on the Mount of Beatitudes as the Sea of Galilee sparkles beneath you, feeling the wind on your face as you listen to the stirring words of the Sermon on the Mount? Or climbing for yourself the very steps Jesus and His disciples used on their way into the Temple? Or pausing on the Mount of Olives to reflect on our Savior's agony as He faced the crucifixion?

          Those who come on our Grand Tour will experience southern Israel, with a stay in the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, as well as Mount Nebo and ancient Petra in Jordan. To register or receive your free tour brochure, please call Cynthia at 214-696-9760.

Your messenger,


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Our ministry frequently receives requests from the faithful for advice on writing and publishing articles or poetry. Due to our limited staff, it is impossible to answer each query we receive. The multi-talented Charlynn Johns, a free-lance writer and lyricist whose work has appeared on our TV program and in these pages, offered the following encouragement and response to a recent personal request. (Charlynn has established the Sunshine After Rain Ministry. If you want to know more about it, you can write to her at our ministry. She also accompanies our tours as worship leader. And believe it or not, she does a very convincing, very professional, and very spiritual clown act in full costume. Look for the lady with the big red nose on our Fall Tour!)

Forged in the Furnace (Is. 48:10)

by Charlynn Johns

          Whenever I am "graced" with the privilege of encouraging a fellow believer, I feel the brush of angels' wings. Often it is as if I were reading what I might have chanced to write only a few short years ago. Discouragement and feelings of inadequacy over qualifications are hard to dispel.

          To that, I respond by saying that I myself have little college experience or formal training, and I, too, experience the attacks of the adversary as to my "qualifications" for doing and pursuing a career in writing. However, our faithful Lord assures us He has equipped us fully for what He has purposed in each of our lives. He is able to bring it to pass. Our part is to trust, to move forward, and to press on.

          So, you may be asking, "How do I do that?" I will share my experience and testimony to illustrate just what the Lord can do.

          I have been working with Zola Levitt Ministries for the past five years. I first went to their office in response to an ad for a desktop publisher for their newsletter. I was heavily involved in a business venture and was not in need of a full-time position. I went in and merely stated that I felt the Lord had led me there to explain my skills (in desktopping) and to offer help when and where I could. Because they needed a full-time staff member, they were not really interested; however they assured me they would keep in touch.

          Through no small coincidence, a short time later they called me in to train their new employee on the software package they were using. I kept in touch doing various odd jobs, filling in on the newsletter where needed over the first year, and training several others in various computer programs. I developed a working relationship with Zola and in conversations mentioned that I "wrote." My thought for ministry writing opportunities was the monthly newsletter. While I had lofty intentions, I had never written one thing with a spiritual focus, not to mention lyrics. Zola, of course, diplomatically encouraged me but made no immediate offers to give me an opportunity to write anything.

          Then my world began to fall apart. I have long held fast to Romans 8:28 that all things work together for the good. I was just beginning to see and understand that reality.

          Not a day passed that I did not cry out to the Lord for understanding and insight. Not a breath was taken of my own strength. And for the most part, my voice was used to utter prayers of anguish and despair (and if you have heard any of my lyrics, you will know — and smile). But, in the midst of my heartbreak I received a call from Zola that a song for his series Tell it On the Mountains needed lyrics. The invitation finally came: would I listen to it and see what I could come up with?

          Astounded, broken and in disbelief, I said, "I am NO song writer!" But Zola encouraged me just to listen to the Lord, and if I "got something" it would be from Him. So just listen.

          And I have been listening ever since.

          My life hasn't gotten any easier. I am still, after ten years of single life, raising my three children on my own (with Him). From that first song, "The Thief," to now over 50, and a book of poetry on the Holy Land Sunshine After Rain: Promised Land Poetry and Prose, God has kept me listening and leaning on Him.

          I have shed many tears. I have asked many questions. I have prayed non-stop for relief. But I have also been given a "voice" for all of the above; and as I have learned to faithfully turn each over to Him, I write a new song, or poem, or word of encouragement to a fellow soldier in the battle.

          I would urge you to share what you write often. Gifts from the Lord are for sharing. I frequently use the analogy that not sharing your gift is like receiving a diamond ring from the love of your life and keeping it in a jewelry box and never showing it to anyone! The gift reflects the heart of the Giver, and also what He thinks of His love. Share it, show it, and practice. You will get better at the skills He has blessed you with, and there are hearts that need to be touched and edified by the experiences that you have gone through — your heartaches as well as your joys.

          One of the greatest blessings and testimonies of how an awesome God uses all things, occurred on my last trip to Israel. While we stood on the Mount of Olives, one of the passengers approached me shyly and shared that she had watched the Pilgrim's Journey video over and over until she had written down all the words to the song "Teach Me To Walk on Water." She wanted to share them with her Sunday School class. I recalled the bittersweet day that I sat down, broken again, crying still, looking up at the sky asking the Lord if through all the storms I was experiencing, He would just teach me to walk on water.

He has.

My greatest gift is not the ability to write, but the heart to listen.


Fight the good fight
          Even when it takes your ear off.
Finish the race
          Even though you cannot see the finish line.
And keep the faith,
          For one day you may find yourself writing
          an assurance such as this, to one who will
          come after you.



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Copyright © 1997 by Zola Levitt Ministries, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. All rights reserved. Brief passages may be quoted in reviews or other article. For all other use, please get our written approval.