MAOZ NEWS March 15, 2001

Volume 3.49

HaGefen Publishing

Within the next weeks we plan to produce three books: Answers to Tough Questions (an evangelistic book), Between Two Mountains (God's law in the Christian life - based on the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount), and The Fruit and Work of the Spirit. Work has begun on a book dealing with church life and we will commence work on a book dealing with the Fundamentals of the Faith. We have also commenced editing Studies in Matthew, which we hope to produce later in the year. Some of the above are books written by Baruch (originally sermons) and are in partial fulfillment of his hope to produce a running commentary on the Bible. He is presently preaching through the Minor Prophets, and we plan to produce that series in book form once it is completed. Meanwhile, the Children's Bible in Hebrew progresses and we have been encouraged by the reception granted the first volume, consisting of the five books of Moses. The next volume is due to be published within the next two years.

Fire!

Incaution by one of our guests led to a fire in the HaGefen offices, which double as the church premises. The fire did not spread, but the soot and smoke that covered the office forced us to redo the ceiling, paint the walls and a good number of the doors, refurbish the damaged toilets (where the fire began) and undertake other major repairs. As a result, during the last few weeks our dedicated staff have been forced to work in spite of the constant banging, dust, paint fumes and general discomfort as they, their computers and their furniture were moved hither and thither while the renovations took place. Now we are more or less back to normal.

Retired

Vitali, our dedicated storeroom manager and gopher, has now retired. We have chosen not to take on a replacement. Instead, we will hire out most of his work, increasing efficiency and slightly reducing costs.

New Distribution Policy

For years we have fought against the stream by seeking to distribute our literature by selling it. The other Hebrew publisher of Christian literature distributes his material free of charge and, as a result, we have met with a growing reluctance to purchase our books, even at a heavily subsidised prices. Of course, publishing for the Christian community in Israel has never been a commercial enterprise. But we hoped to help educate the believers toward greater financial responsibility. We have failed. Consequently, we have been forced to change our own distribution policy and will now make most of our books available free of charge, to the exclusion of our Sabbath School materials, the Children's Bible and quantities published for evangelism.

Grace and Truth The new Church Building

Work on the site will have commenced before you receive this letter. Presently we are helped by a team of volunteers from Germany, but welcome others from other countries. Our special needs at the moment are for carpenters who can read building plans, and masons. We are also seeking for a carpenter with experience in building doors and partitions who would help us set up a workshop and create our own doors - this will enable us to save a great deal, as woodwork is very expensive in Israel.

Response to our appeal for volunteers has been encouraging. From the Netherlands we have a Construction Manager, who plans to be with us until August. There is an open post for another construction manager as of July 2001 so he/she can overlap with our present volunteer. Funds available now cover approximately half of the estimated building costs. If we average five volunteers each week, we will have saved $100,000 dollars by the time the first stage of construction is completed.

Grace and Truth Congregation

Preparing for the Future

Our new youth group seems to have begun with blessing from the Lord. The thirteen young people who attend the activities geared for them have become preoccupied with the issues of guilt, atonement and repentance unto life. Please pray with us that God will work savingly among them and that they will grow into mature, responsible dedicated servants of the Lord. Our Sabbath School begins at the age of two. When the children are thirteen, we commence a mid-week Bible study for them, overseen by a man assisted by a woman. These two accompany the children up to the age of eighteen, when the children are enlisted and join the young adults' fellowship. At present, we have two youth groups in church, one composed of youth between the ages of sixteen to eighteen, and the other a newly formed group made up of thirteen year olds. Anxious to train as many as possible for service in the church, we have commenced a training program. In mid-January, Raymond Perron taught a seminar on the doctrines of God as of Scripture. There was excellent attendance and very encouraging results. Two of the thirteen students completed the course with excellence and one was short by one more point to achieve a similar grade. Three of the students were from our sister church in Holon. There will be 14-18 such courses in all, and a minimum of a passing grade in ten of them is required for graduation. Our next instructor is to be Tom Ascol, from Florida. This program is organised with cooperation from the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches in America (ARBCA). We expect to be further assisted next year by the Rev. Cornelius Sonnevelt, from the Netherlands Reformed Congregations, who will spend some months with us, giving of his talents and knowledge as best he can.

On February of alternate years we renew our committees. Our goal is to give opportunity for active service to all and any who desire to serve, and to inculcate such a desire in all who worship with us. Three young have been accepted into our Trial and Training program for the Eldership, and three more for the Deaconate. Slowly but steadily, the number of those who affirm an intelligent understanding of and identification with our Reformed confession of faith is growing, so there is a growing stock of potential men to serve as officers in the church and of godly women to support them.

A Plea for Mercy

Vova* (a pseudonym, as are all names in MaozNews marked with an asterisk) had been attending church for a few months now. Following the service he had asked to speak with the Elders, and he was sitting on the edge of his arm chair, wringing his hands nervously, stealing glances at each of us as he spoke. Vova is a well educated man whose life had collapsed into ruins.

He was reduced to sleeping on the streets with nothing but a bottle to offer him lying comfort but, at the time, a deceitful comfort seemed to him better than no comfort at all. How awful! Now, converted by the grace of God, he runs a raging war with his drinking habit and, in spite his efforts, had lost some battles. Finally he was told by the church from which he had come to us that he was not welcome until he successfully pried himself away from the bottle absolutely, completely and beyond all doubt.

Please help me, he pleaded. I cannot live without church fellowship and without instruction from the word of God. But I am weak. Receive me as I am, I plead with you. Our hearts broke for him. We knew ourselves to be no better. Although not slaves to drinking, we all had weaknesses against which we were struggling, and all of us failed more often than we had hairs on our heads. Confessing that to him and reminding him of the grace of God, we compacted with Vova to support each other in our respective struggles and welcomed him into the church fellowship. No one in Grace and Truth is perfect' we explained. You are welcome to come and be a part of our united labour after holiness. I must confess that I felt a sense of sadness, a tinge of rancour, toward the leader (dare I call him a Pastor, a shepherd of God's flock?) of the previous church, who had so poor an understanding shallow of grace. Churches are not for the mighty in faith - none such really exist.

Churches are for forgiven, regenerated sinners who constantly cast themselves on the mercy of God in their ongoing war against the world, the flesh and the devil.

A Call for Prayer

The emphasis on being Jewish or 'acting as if one were Jewish' is inexorably leading a growing number in the Messianic movement toward a denial of those tenets of the Faith that jar Rabbinic sensitivities most pronouncedly. The twin doctrines of the trinity and of the deity of Christ included. A number of the prominent congregations in Jerusalem are presently being rocked by a controversy over the glorious deity of Christ. Some have crept into the congregations by disguising their views of Jesus, achieved positions of influence, and are now using their trusts in order to influence many away from the truth of the Gospel. Your prayers are earnestly sought for those caught up in the Movement, and for a wide recognition of the true glories of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus the Messiah. Over the years I have warned all who will listen (and some who refused to listen) that Messianic Judaism will lead its adherents to heresy. May this evil trend be undone. Pray, too, for wide distribution of my book on Messianic Judaism, to be published in the course of the present year.

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MaozNews A periodic report from Israel.

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