September 2020 Newsletter

From the President
Appointed Times of the Lord
Ministry News
Finding Hope in Israel’s High Holy Days
Donate now

That My Children May Remember: A Missionary Braves the Holocaust

From A Hospital Bed – A Testimony

Christmas Party for Germany Refugees

Persian Jewish Woman Hears About Peace

Christmas with Israelis in Brazil!

A Final Warning Against Apostasy

Why Was It Important That God Came In The Flesh?

The Incarnation & Virgin Birth: Truth or Heresy

Christmas Through Jewish Eyes: The Promise of a King

2019 December Newsletter – Celebrate Messiah

Jesus celebrated the Jewish holidays and fulfilled them.

Dear friends,

September is the month that Jewish people worldwide observe the three major Jewish holy days commanded by God in Leviticus 23. These holy days are observed in the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, which usually falls during September and often spills over into October.
The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Tabernacles (Sukkot) are all within three weeks of one another.

This season is an important time for Your Mission to the Jewish People. Excluding Passover, we usually have more Jewish seekers attend our many services around the globe during this season than at any other time of the year!

The Jewish holy days, given to Israel at Mount Sinai, cannot be canceled. World wars, famines, even pandemics must bow to God’s commands and calendar! Your Mission to the Jewish  People will observe the festivals as we do every year, but this year we will give our celebrations a small “twist.”

In fact, we expect more people to join us this year than in years past since we will be holding services virtually and space is unlimited! We plan to host all three holiday celebrations online. We will enjoy our beautiful high holiday traditions and the wonderful Messianic Jewish music of Marty Goetz on Yom Kippur and MIQEDEM from Israel on the Feast of Tabernacles.

Each festival will focus on Jesus, who celebrated the Jewish holidays and fulfilled them as well.

Please Join Us

I am hoping that you will invite your Jewish friends to join our online services. Many Jewish people will have nowhere to go in person to observe the holy days this year. Join us in praying that Jewish non-believers will be drawn to our glorious and beautiful Savior through these holiday events.

The following is the list of services. Please visit chosenpeople.com/highholidays, register, and join us!

New Year’s Eve Friday, September 18 at 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. (EDT)
Day of Atonement Eve Sunday, September 27 at 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. (EDT)
Feast of Tabernacles Eve Friday, October 2 at 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. (EDT)

Hopeful Holidays in the Messiah

The holidays are a great time to celebrate the hope we have in Jesus, the Messiah. When you combine His Jewish background with the glory of His person as the fulfillment of all the Jewish people hoped for over multiple millennia, it is a stunning experience. So, please join us and allow the Lord to re-energize your sense of hope in Him.

The holidays also illustrate some of the great biblical themes we appreciate. The New Year points to new beginnings. One of the traditional themes of Rosh Hashanah, (literally, the head of the year in Hebrew), is repentance for our sins, leading to the next holiday focused on atonement and forgiveness.

The Day of Atonement foreshadows God’s provision of atoning blood through the death of Jesus on Golgotha. The festival of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, points to the great day when He returns, establishes His kingdom on earth, and the world is filled with His presence as the waters fill the seas (Habakkuk 2:14).

The theme of life-giving water is tied to the Feast of Tabernacles, which celebrates the final fruit harvest and ingathering of crops. Without water, we would never make it to the final harvest. Traditionally, Jewish people even pray for rain during the festival.

Jesus claims that, when we believe in Him, rivers of living water will flow from our souls!

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39)

Your Prayers and Support

Your prayers and support have been such a vital part of helping Chosen People Ministries advance the work of Rabbi Leopold Cohn, our founder. We continue to follow the rabbi’s vision—to reach out to Jewish people worldwide with the unchanging gospel of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

We are able to continue this historic ministry because of your love, generosity, and prayers. Meanwhile, pandemic or no pandemic, we are preaching the gospel, and Jewish people are coming to faith. We are intensifying our online outreach campaigns in the United States and Israel. And we are following up on the thousands of contacts with Jewish people we receive through Zoom and phone calls, and God is blessing these efforts.

What is Next for Chosen People Ministries?

The future for our 126-year-old ministry will be similar to what believers have been doing since the day Jesus rose from the dead. We will depend upon the Lord to lead us, and in obedience to the unchanging Word of God, we will continue to advance His kingdom! Where He leads we will follow, knowing that He is always with us, which was His promise to His disciples (Matthew 28:20).

Your Mission to the Jewish People will continue to preach the gospel to the Jew first and also to the Gentile—you can count on this. Whether in the United States, Israel, or anywhere else in the world, we will look for new and creative ways to tell others about our eternal hope: the forgiveness of sins and the abundant life through Jesus the Messiah, which is available to all who believe.

We will minister online through Zoom, video, social media, and personally whenever possible…face-to-face and mask-to-mask! We know this present pandemic will pass, and we will safely begin conducting larger-group Bible studies and in-person worship services. We look forward to future street campaigns, campus ministries, and more! We experimented this past year with a new “gap year” residential campus work at New York University that was highly successful. We will do it again thanks to the generous support of a foundation.

My dear friends, the Light of the world has not been extinguished. He shines even brighter in the darkness. As the Savior said, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world” (John 9:4–5).

And we will keep working for Him!

©Rafael Ben Ari | Bigstockphoto.com

We are building Chosen People Ministries for the future and hope you will join us! Please pray about giving generously to our Moving Forward in Hope Fund. Your donation will help advance Chosen People Ministries worldwide as we reach the Jewish people for Jesus.

We especially need your help in supporting our missionaries in Israel and in cities around the globe with large Jewish populations. Your generous gift today will also allow us to continue reaching Holocaust survivors, doing street evangelism and opposing antisemitism, and more.

You can give online by visiting chosenpeople.com/donate  or by using the enclosed card and envelope. You can also make a donation by phone by calling 1-800-969-3830. We have operators available to help you 24/7. In Canada, please call 1-888-442-5535 or visit chosenpeople.ca/donateonline.

I also hope that you will prayerfully consider becoming a regular supporter by indicating your desire to give a recurring gift. The option is available to you on the donation page or reply card.

Again, we hope you will join us for one of our special holiday services!

Your brother in the Messiah,

Mitch Glaser

P.S. Some years ago, my wife and I wrote a book entitled The Fall Feasts of Israel for Moody Press. We cover the festivals in depth and show how they point to Jesus.  I know you will enjoy it, and it will enrich this time of the year for you and your family. I will send it you free as a thank-you for any gift over $150.

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Appointed Times of the Lord

Leviticus 23

Leviticus 23 sets the calendar for the Jewish holidays. From the outset, God established the sovereignty of His timetable. He starts the conversation by saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord’s appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations—My appointed times are these’” (Leviticus 23:2). The chapter closes with the statement, “So Moses declared to the sons of Israel the appointed times of the Lord” (Leviticus 23:44). There is no room for confusion: the holidays belong to the Lord.

In 1965, the Day of Atonement began on Wednesday   evening, October 6. However, the holy day was not the   only event to start that evening. Major League Baseball had decided in early September that October 6, 1965, would be game one of the World Series. The commissioner of baseball did not know then that the Los Angeles Dodgers would face the Minnesota Twins that year, and scheduled to pitch for the Dodgers would be a twenty-nine-year-old Jewish man from Brooklyn. His name was Sanford Braun, although he is more commonly known as Sandy Koufax.

Nobody would likely have blamed Koufax if he had chosen to pitch that day. Arguably, starting in the first game of the World Series could be a once-in-a-lifetime event, but that was not what he decided to do. Instead “while he did not observe every religious holiday, he did feel a desire to observe Yom Kippur as a day of worship.” Further, the Baseball Hall of Fame website records his response to newspaper reporters for making the choice not to pitch: “From what I’ve been told, there are no dispensations for this particular day.”

The Bible does not leave much wiggle room concerning the observance of this day: “If there is any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut off from his people. As for any person who does any work on this same day, that person I will destroy from among his people” (Leviticus 23:29–30). Yom Kippur is the most solemn day on the Hebrew calendar, but it is not the only day that the Lord commanded His people to keep.

Yom Kippur is also not the only holiday that would keep Sandy Koufax off the mound. No matter what else was happening, “he never pitched on Passover, Rosh Hashanah, or Yom Kippur.” His decision not to violate these holidays also served as an example for many in his day. He was not just a hero on the mound; he was an unexpected hero of faith.

These days, plenty is going on in the world to draw our attention away from these remarkable holy moments and appointed times on the Jewish calendar. They come at the same time every year. The Feast of Trumpets, which is also called Rosh Hashanah, is always on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh Hebrew month. The Day of Atonement is always on the tenth day of the same month. And five days later, on the fifteenth, the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, begins. When orchestrated with the secular calendar, the days differ each year because the Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar based on the cycle of the moon, and our usual calendar is a solar calendar based upon the movements of the sun. We cannot avoid these holidays, nor can we cancel them. They always come right on time.

This year, the timing may be more significant than in years past. For many months, the world has been on “pause.” While there have been glimpses of movement here or there, the global community has been cautious and tentative. Where attempts to move forward have been bolder and more aggressive, a second pause may very well be imminent. Though it may feel as if time has stopped, more or less, the holidays are a brilliant reminder that time keeps marching on. And not only time, but God’s plan for humanity as revealed in the Scriptures. Nothing can stop Him!

The Jewish high holidays this fall and throughout the year are annual reminders of God’s faithfulness to the world He created and, come rain or shine, peace or war, pandemic or plague, the Lord, as the great hymn reminds us, is marching on. All we can say is Hallelujah!
In fact, the holidays are a road to redemption, and each one points to a critical element of His plan for humankind. The

New Year and the blowing of the shofar reminds us of the ram caught in a thicket by its horns, allowing Abraham to spare his son by sacrificing the ram instead (Genesis 22). This was the first clear and specific atoning sacrifice in the Bible. (You can read more about this in the Bible study on page six.) The Jewish New Year reminds us of our need to repent of our sins, resulting in a spiritually rewarding way to begin the year. The Day of Atonement points us to the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. His sacrifice made atonement for all who believe. The Feast of Tabernacles points us toward the day when God’s presence will fill the earth as the waters fill the sea. The entire planet will become His Tabernacle!

The great future He has planned for us is revealed through the festivals, and the regularity of these events reminds us each year that no matter what troubles befall us, His plan will be fulfilled. The coming of Jesus was a down payment on future glory, affirmed by His Spirit who lives in the hearts of all who believe.

This glorious future keeps us moving forward, which has been a theme for Chosen People Ministries for the past few months. We persevere because God has given us sure and trustworthy promises. As He told the children of Israel, “The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:8).

A Jewish Shopkeeper Hears the Gospel

Recently, two of our Brooklyn staff members were doing outreach in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As they were walking, they turned to see a middle-aged Orthodox Jewish man smiling and motioning to them to come inside his shop, “Hey, would you like to come out of the hot sun to rest and have a drink?” They both agreed and went into the store where Aaron* made them a refreshing drink and engaged them in conversation. Aaron’s phone began to ring, and other people wanted his attention. Not wishing to get in the way of his work, the workers thanked him for his hospitality and proceeded out the door. But as they walked away, they thought, “This is the opportunity of a lifetime.” Aaron was a bit perplexed as to why the men returned, but the conversation opened up when they apologized for not sharing the gospel earlier. For the next hour, the three of them had a rich discussion about religion, philosophy, and the Messianic claims of Yeshua. They spoke of how the Jewish people missed the time of Messiah’s visitation (Luke 19:41-44) resulting in the destruction of the Temple, the loss of the priesthood, their kippur (blood atonement), and the expulsion from their homeland for nearly 2,000 years, ultimately leading to terrible persecution. Aaron listened. While he did not agree, he understood the cases being made and their importance. Aaron agreed to meet with our staff again to discuss the Messiah.

Orthodox Jewish man Searches for Jesus Online

During the Jewish holiday season, our staff members are busy with special services and outreaches that the Lord continually blesses. One of our staff members met Yonatan,* an Orthodox Jewish man. They had an amazing conversation and our missionary came away from it with a heavy burden for him. Yonatan is open and searching for the truth about the Messiah. Even though he lives and works in a strict Orthodox community, he has been searching and studying, primarily through the internet. During the conversation, the two men discussed pop culture, joked a bit about politics, and discussed Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Our missionary posited that Jesus is the only one who could ever fulfill these prophecies, and, to his amazement, Yonatan was nodding in agreement. Finally, he just asked Yonatan who he thinks Jesus is. Yonatan’s entire tone and countenance changed, and with a humble sincerity he said, “I don’t know.” This was huge—he did not outright reject Jesus, he did not scoff at the mention of His name. Instead, he showed a genuine uncertainty. Our worker told him how Jesus changed his life and he encouraged him to pray and ask God to reveal the truth. Please pray that the Lord will reveal Himself to Yonatan and that he will come to know with confidence who Jesus is.

Jewish Woman Comes to Faith at Rosh Hashanah Service

“I have always had a love for Yeshua (Jesus),” said Shira,* a Jewish woman who attended a Jewish New Year service with her Christian friends. The congregational leader asked her if she liked the services and if she had any objections. Surprisingly, Shira had none! She said she loved the prayers, the music, the worshipful dancing, and the message. He asked her if she had ever invited Yeshua into her heart as her Messiah and Savior, and she said, “No.” Then he asked if she wanted to pray right then to receive Yeshua. She said YES! Shira prayed and asked Yeshua to come into her heart and be her Messiah and Savior! Since then, she has been coming out to services every week. Recently, after the service, she asked if she could pray again just like when she accepted the Lord. When he told her that it counted last time and that God had saved her, she said she believed, but wanted to do a video recording to send to her family, so they could see it happen. What a blessing!
*names changed