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JANUARY 1990 DEAR FRIENDS! We greet you in the lovely Name of our precious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! May the coming decade of the 90's be a time of BLESSED intimate unity with Him and with His body here on earth. We were tremendously privileged when the Lord called us to Israel again for 2 months in 1989. When we arrived in Jerusalem one of the first doors the Lord opened for us was to attend the Feast of Tabernacles. Although we have lived in Israel several times in the past, we never had the opportunity to attend this Feast that God had instituted in Leviticus 23. The annual celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles by Christians from all nations is a prophetic forerunner of the fulfillment of Zech 14:16,17. The theme for the 1989 Feast was: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." There was a very powerful anointing upon the Feast. The Holy Spirit was speaking to the Church of Jesus Christ that God is calling her to prepare for his Second Coming as never before. In this preparation the Lord emphasised prayer and spiritual warfare as well as repentance and strengthening our personal intimate walk with Him and one another. In this newsletter we feel prompted to go into further detail about these dimensions: First of all repentance and truly getting into a personal intimate relationship with the Lord: The Spirit spoke to me, Daniel, personally through different prophetic messages. If I want to touch God's heart I have to love his people, Israel, and commune with him. The quickest way to God's heart is still to spend time with Him - to commune with Him in an intimate way. The Lord also emphasised Ezek. 8 & 9 to me, where he visits Jerusalem with destroying weapons and kill those in sin. When God sees the unclean thing in our lives he withdraws. The hour of Judgment is upon the church and only those who sigh and groan (pray and fast) over the abominations in their own lives and in those of others will be spared (Ezek 9:4). God breaks our hearts to heal us. Ps. 51:17 - "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.." Of course only God can give us a pure heart by his spirit, but it is our duty to allow Him to do the surgery (not cringe away from it or escape it). to ask forgiveness for our sins and iniquities and to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. To be open to what God shows us in our lives and to cry out for a new heart in repentance. Allow Him to get to the root of my problems! We should be thankful for this breaking. It was fearful when I realised that Ezekiel is actually speaking about us: the end time temple of God. God was literally driven out of His temple because of the abominations in her! The second dimension is preparing the way of the Lord is through militant Christian prayer and spiritual warfare. First of all for ISRAEL: As Christians we have a responsibility to call into existence the promises in the Word of God regarding the restoration and salvation of Zion. We MUST intercede for Israel. Please read Isaiah 62. We strongly believe it is our duty to pray for Israel's repentance that would herald in the second Coming of the Lord (Zech 12:10-14). We also believe that her future spiritual restoration will bring the church into her fullness - Rom 11:15. The fullness of Israel will be AS LIFE OUT OF DEATH TO US! Israel is God's timetable in his dealings with man before his second coming. First God promised physical restoration of the land of Israel and its people and then spiritual restoration. The final spiritual restoration of Israel will also bring in the fullness of the Body of Christ. Again read Rom 11:15. There is a parallel working of God in preparing the Jewish people to receive their Messiah and at the same time He is preparing the church to be without spot or wrinkle for his return. What is left of Jerusalem to come under Jewish authority is the Temple Mount. It must take place: During the Feast of Tabernacles San Francisco was shaken by a earthquake and a band of Jewish Zealots "The Temple Mount Faithful", made first attempts to lay the cornerstone of the Third Temple! They cut the cornerstone and proceeded to the temple mount where they were stopped by authorities. Isn't this exciting! Why is Israel so important to us? 1. Israel confirms the assuredness of God's own Word in history through the prophetic fulfillment of Scripture. 2. She is a instrument of curse and blessing to individuals and nations (Gen 12:3). 3. As Israel gave us The Messiah, Jesus Christ, this nation also will usher in His era of reign here on earth. The King of king's millennium of peace. 4. Israel is the key to the fullness of the church. In short: Israel is the key to the fulfillment of man's history on planet earth, through God's dealings. Right now Israel is buffeted within by the Palestinian uprising (the so called "intifada") which is progressing steadily after two years. This uprising by Islam and the PLO fanatics (in no way recognising God's word or the state of Israel) is forming the spearhead for a worldwide renewed upsurge in anti-semitism. Will this finally lead to another holocaust against the Jewish people and the fulfillment of Jacob's trouble (Zech 13:8,9 and Dan 12:1)? To the allianced attack on Jerusalem by the world (Zech 14:1-3) and the return of the Messiah? Already the USA who has supported Israel financially for so many years is becoming ever more sour and resistant to Israel's actions in the intifada. President Bush was even reluctant to see president Shamir in the USA. Should the USA withdraw financial support from Israel she would be left by herself and only God to call upon. Meanwhile in the middle East the Arab buildup of arms is really alarming. Cash reserves by Arab nations through their oil resources has been channeled towards their hatred for Israel. 150 Billion dollars has been spent on weaponry in the last decade. The Arab nations have a tremendous numerical advantage. They outnumber Israel 5 to 1 in men, 4 to 1 in tanks and 4 to 1 in aircraft. Syria has missiles that can be launched to hit any city in Israel and they can possibly load them with nuclear weapons or gas warheads. Today Israel is facing the most serious threat against her existence since the creation of the state in 1948! Please pray earnestly for her. Then there is our intercession and warfare for THE NATIONS. God is calling people to militant prayer and intercession for countries to release them from ancient curses of innocent blood, idolatry (Communism, humanism, etc.) and sexual immorality. This warfare is also waged in going to the actual places and uprooting age old demon principalities (Eph 6:1), besides those who pray from a distance. During the Feast of Tabernacles a speaker shared how the Lord called them to the country of Austria to intercede and pray for this nation where her ancestors were persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ, and The Word of God. Many believers were killed and banished from their homes in that time of history. Austria consequently has never had a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit and for many years there has been no move of God at all since that persecution. God was calling a child of martyrs, to go on behalf of those people, to the towns and villages where they suffered and died, to break the powers of darkness over Austria. How? By repenting on behalf of those who did evil deeds and forgiving them; and by taking authority over evil in the Name of Jesus and by His Blood. In this way breaking the curse over the country so that the veil of religion can be removed and the land be redeemed. Another believer shared how God had called them to go to the Berlin wall and wage spiritual warfare for this wall and Communism to come down. Not long after these events Austria became the country that thousands of East Germans would past through in escaping from the tyranny of East Block Communism. This mass exodus would also trigger the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of Communism. We firmly believe that God is paving a way for the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit in history, worldwide. The so-called latter rains (Joel 2:23 and Zech 10:1). It is now the time to ask the Lord for this latter rain! But Communism also has to crumble to pave the way for the most terrible system the world will ever experience - that of the Antichrist. In 1988 the Lord had called us to a time of concentrated prayer and fasting for Israel while we were staying in Jerusalem. It was a tremendous encouragement to see so many answers to our prayers in 1989, this time when we were there. Mostly, too what is happening in the world today. We want to thank the Lord from the bottom of our Hearts for His love, goodness, faithfulness, provision and guidance while we were in Israel. We want to share a few things and to give all the glory to Him! When we arrived in Jerusalem we booked in at a youth hostel where we had stayed, prayed and worked before. The manager, an Arab, who is a very good friend of ours came back just before we arrived. A while after we left the youth hostel, he left again. He gave us a room at a very special rate. We have prayed a lot for the place before. In the meantime the new owner of the place has become a Christian and He wants to change it into a Christian youth hostel with Christian workers. Please pray for them. The day after we arrived we met up with old intercessory friends of ours in the streets of Jerusalem. We had lived and prayed with them before on the Mount of Olives. Their hotel was about five minutes walk from where we stayed. We attended the Feast of Tabernacles together and started to pray again, as a group. God used one of them to open the door for us to attend the feast of Tabernacles at a very reduced fee. Then God provided an apartment for the five of us to rent for a month in the center of Jerusalem. That was a real miracle! Places in town is scarce and very very expensive. We got it in exactly the area that was prayed for and at a very reasonable rent for such a short time too. Praise the Lord! After a time of fasting and prayer, the Lord started to send people into our lives to witness and minister to. So many that it was hard to handle all the work. We met a young Jewish believer whom we were bonded with and with whom we immediately fell in love. We had the privilege to disciple her a little bit and God also used her to open doors for us to pray and counsel with people. We visited our Jewish South African friends and others in Tel Aviv that we have met before in Israel. We could see that the Lord was working in their lives and we believe that they will receive Jesus as their Messiah soon. One of the ladies even wanted us to baptize her but she wasn't ready yet. When we left for Tel Aviv we felt the Lord wanted us to hitch hike. We got one lift soon that dropped us in front of our place in Tel Aviv. It was a powerful divine appointment to witness to the driver. We went to our other Jewish friend's place in Tel Aviv by bus. It started to rain heavily and we had to make a bee line for a shop's overhead covering. After a while another Jew joined us and he shared with us that he had just lost his purse after betting some money on a lottery for the first time in his life. What an opportunity to witness! We told him that God allowed it to happen to warn him that lottery is dangerous. We started a discussion on faith and we found out that he was in Eastern Mysticism (most of the Jews are involved in one or another form of occult). We really made contact with him and after a while Daniel asked if we could pray for him. He took authority over the enemies in his life by name, in the Name of Jesus. After we prayed he had tears in his eyes and we could really see a change in him. We gave him one or two good tracts about Jesus the Messiah in Hebrew and then he left. Then we started to intercede for him out aloud in Afrikaans and bound the strongman of the Antichrist over his life (Matt 12:29). The next moment a woman nearby started to scream and yell and she couldn't get away from us fast enough, running through streams of water and screaming as she went. Then we realized the reality, influence and power of the spiritual world. But praise God, we have authority over all the power of the enemy (Luk 10:19)! We went for a few days to Galilee before we left Israel. Interesting things are happening spiritually in Galilee. Jesus has appeared in visions to a few Jewish people individually and they became believers. There is a Scripture in Isa 9:1 that reads: ".., but in the latter time He will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations." It is happening now! While we were there God led us to go to Banias and do spiritual warfare there. It was during shabbat and there was no transportation available (all public transportation stops during shabbatt). We decided to hitch hike. Before we left Daniel felt to take a Hebrew Bible with and that he had to give it to a specific person. We had three lifts. With one we had a good conversation and we gave him a tract. The other one could not speak English but he liked us and before he dropped us he showed us his business. We felt maybe he is the one to give the bible to but we were not sure, so we left it. After he dropped us he came back with his son and insisted that we came to his house for something to drink and eat before we go further. His daughter spoke English very well and we had a wonderful time with the whole family sharing with them what we believe and our work. They were very open and they wanted us to come back and stay with them. The man that picked us up said that he is going to study English so that he can communicate with us next time. Then we realized that they were the people we had to give the bible to and we left it with them. God is so wonderful, even if we were not sure God made sure that the Bible was in the right hands. God only wants our willingness to obey Him and He will help us all the way. When we went back after we prayed at Banias (shrine of the God Pan and at the same place Peter declared that Jesus are the Christ, the Son of the living God - Matt 16:13-16), we were just in time to get a lift with a tour bus that drop us 10 minutes walk from our place! In the time that we were in Israel the Lord provided up to R2 000 to us in cash, special privileges, food, transport and the like. We would like to thank Him for all this from the depth of our hearts. The Lord is good! We want to take this opportunity to pray that God would give you a most blessed year and decade ahead! Thank you for your prayers, friendship, assistance and love. We appreciate you! Love in our Lord! Daniel & Drienie |