Don't Revise It Mr. Hagee - Incinerate It!

There is much more wrong with the book "In Defense Of Israel" than the 10th chapter which Mr. Hagee, on his website, has announced he is revising due to the furor it has created in the body of Messiah. There is much more that Mr. Hagee needs to apologize for than just the superficial one he offers for "any confusion my writing may have caused the body of Christ," intended or not!

Why has Hagee snubbed, or at least ignored, the respected leadership of the Messianic Jewish movement in not including them for feedback to the revisions he plans to make? Why are respected Messianic Jewish leaders and theologians such as Russ Resnick, Dan Juster, Michael Schiffman, John Fischer (to name a few) not in Hagee's "loop" for feedback. Why is he turning predominantly to leaders of predominantly Gentile Christian and Church ministries who (with the exception of Michael L. Brown) have little sensitivity to Jewish issues, not being Jewish themselves?

If Hagee is planning to revise this horrible book, then there are plenty of other errors, besides the blatant and blasphemous statements that Yeshua did not come to be the Messiah to the Jews in chapter 10, that need to be corrected. In chapter 8, for example, on page 95, Hagee uses the Luke 2 account of Yeshua going to the Temple for the Passover at the age of 12 as proof-text that this was Yeshua's bar mitzvah. This is a complete fabrication by Hagee. There is nothing in the Luke 2 text that even remotely suggests or imples that Yeshua had His bar mitzvah there. In fact there is nothing anywhere in the New Covenant Scriptures that has anything to say about Yeshua having a bar mitzvah, let alone that He did have one and that it was at the Temple in Jerusalem during the Passover when He was 12. Yeshua was simply accompanying his parents (as they would have done every year) to Jerusalem for the Passover in obedience to the command of Deut. 16:16 to appear before the Lord for the three major Feasts "in the place which He chooses," albeit, Jerusalem.

Then in Chapter 10, along with the heresy of stating that Yeshua did not come to be the Messiah to the Jews, Hagee also states on page 133: "The Holy Spirit of God announced through a Jewish prophet, Simeon, that the sovereign purpose (italics mine) for Jesus's life was to be a light to the Gentiles (these italics are Hagee's) (compare Isaiah 42:6)." Again, a fabrication and a lie. Part of Yeshua's purpose in coming was certainly to be a light to the Gentiles (or the nations), but to say that it was the sovereign purpose of God begs the question and is completely innacurate and inconsistent with the words of Yeshua Himself. What do you do then with Yeshua's command to His disciples in Matt. 10:5,6 - "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."? What then do you do with His statement concerning His own mission in Matt. 15:24 - "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."?

How in the world does Hagee justify a statement that the sovereign purpose of God for Yeshua's arrival on earth the first time was primarily for the Gentiles? This is the replacement theology that Hagee claims not to be a part of! How erroneous the idea is that Mr. Hagee puts forth in his book that Jewish people don't need to put their faith in Yeshua as the Messiah in order to be saved. What a horrible, blatant disregard of the clear statements and teachings of the Scriptures and of Yeshua Himself!

I am Jewish. I am a Jewish believer in Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah of Israel. Both my parents were Jewish. Both my parents, and my sister, were survivors of the Nazi holocaust. I hope that Mr. Hagee understands what a slap in the face his book is to all Jewish people in general and to Jewish believers in particular. Particularly Jewish believers whose loved ones went through the holocaust, believers who have paid a dear price to maintain a consistent witness of their testimony to salvation through faith in Yeshua the Jewish Messiah, when he comes along with the lies perpretated in his book. We have borne the anger, scorn, and derision of our unsaved loved ones, who themselves witnessed our grandparents (their parents), uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters go to the gas at Auschwitz, lined up, shot and dumped into mass graves. Hagee pulls the rug out from under our feet and insults and damages the witness of his Jewish brothers and sisters in the faith of Yeshua in order to placate unsaved, unregenrate Jewry who still need to come to faith in their Messiah.

Is Mr. Hagee not aware that according to the Scriptures, and according to what Yeshua Himself taught, the gospel (good news) is, always has been, and always will be an offense and stumbling block to the Jew? That doesn't mean that we water it down and even discard it so as not to offend Jewish sensibilities. It does mean we need to pray that God open their eyes and do what He said He would do, to remove the veil that covers their eyes and hearts to recognize the Jewish Messiah - Yeshua!

To tell the Jewish community that they're OK the way they are in keeping Torah to make it into heaven, when the Scripture clearly teaches that by the works of Torah no flesh is justified; to tell the Jewish community that they're not responsible for something that was never offered to them to begin with, i.e. faith in Yeshua Who, according to Hagee, didn't come to be their Messiah; is just as damaging to Jewish souls as were the pogroms, crusades, inquisitions and holocaust perpretated by those responsible in the name of Jesus. These statements made by Hagee are just as damaging as the writings of the Church Fathers and Martin Luther (whom Hagee quotes extensively in his book) for they offer the Jew a false sense of security and hope, a false sense of being right and not needing to come to faith in Yeshua. They lull the Church into a false belief that they are relieved of their responsibility to take the gospel message to the Jew. Again a contradiction of the Scriptures that tells us that the Gospel of Yeshua is for the Jew first and also for the Gentile.

Mr. Hagee, "In Defense Of Israel" doesn't need to be revised - it needs to be incinerated!