One For Israel

Guest (Male): It's the realization of God's grace that causes us to love God. And what does God do? He blesses and blesses and gives and forgives. Peace, it wasn't the absence of something; it was the presence of someone.

Dr. Erez Soref: How should we respond to God's grace?

Guest (Male): God, here's my life. I don't want to live for me anymore.

Dr. Erez Soref: When we approach God in repentance, let's set our eyes on His character.

I am Dr. Erez Soref. I was born and raised in the heart of Israel, but I never heard the Gospel message until on a journey abroad, my eyes were opened to the Jewish Messiah. From that point, my life has been dedicated to bringing this Gospel back to my people, Israel, equipping them to reach Israel and the world. Together as Jews and Gentiles, we are one in Messiah, one for Israel.

As we've been following Nehemiah's story, we saw him carry a burden for Jerusalem. He gathered the people together to rebuild the walls so they could resettle this holy city in safety. But after the walls went up, something remained unfinished. Another burden was drawing them together. They were becoming aware of both the weight of their sin and the weight of God's mercy. Today, we explore the people's response to God's grace as we continue to walk the walls with Nehemiah.

The people of Israel had returned from exile to the Promised Land. Under Nehemiah's leadership, they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem despite the opposition they faced. After the walls were completed, the priest Ezra read the Scriptures to all the people, most of them hearing it for the first time. Israel began to experience a spiritual awakening, and we believe we are seeing another awakening to the Word in our day. Nehemiah laid a groundwork in Israel for Messiah's first coming. In the same way, we in Israel today are laying groundwork for the revival that will welcome His second coming.

But as exciting as this is, there are certain things that need to be addressed for us to be revival-ready. Just like in the days of Nehemiah, revival requires preparation. As Ezra read the Torah, the people of Jerusalem listened to the Word of God for six hours straight. The crowd began to weep and mourn, awakening to the conviction and gravity of their sin. But Nehemiah stopped the weeping, saying that this was a day to celebrate: "The joy of the Lord is your strength." So the Israelites pivoted and celebrated God's joy.

But as the days went on, the Word of God kept permeating hearts. The people began to see themselves more and more in light of God's holiness. The weight of generations of sin pressed upon them. So, a few days later, they came back to the business of repentance. This wasn't about walls anymore; it was about recognizing God's mercy. And the Levites, the teachers of the Torah, led Israel in a prayer of repentance—the longest recorded prayer in Scripture.

With a long prayer of repentance, you might have the idea of a sad and introspective lament, confessing a long list of sins. But as the people of Jerusalem prayed, they did not begin this way. They didn't start by focusing on themselves at all. This wasn't about them. In fact, repentance is just the response to the grace of God. That's why they began their prayer in worship, recounting God's goodness and grace.

They prayed: "You are the Lord, You alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and You preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships You." The Hebrew word for "preserve" is m'chayyeh, "to give life." God is a giver. His grace is revealed in what He gives.

The prayer that the Levites prayed recounts His generosity. They remembered God giving Abraham his name, giving the covenant land, giving the Torah at Sinai, giving bread from heaven, water from a rock. In Hebrew, there's a beautiful word, le'hodot. Today, it often means to give thanks, but in the Bible, it carries the deeper meaning: worship through confession, agreeing with God about who He is. When we truly see the grace we've been given, the only natural response is adoration. Grace is our call to worship.

But as the Israelites prayed, worshipping God for His generosity, they also needed to confront the facts, honestly and humbly. Through the years, they had answered the gifts of God with rebellion. Their response to His grace for generations had been flagrant sin. The people that day began to confess their sins as a nation. It wasn't just little mistakes here and there; they confessed their constant rejection and refusal of God, the God that was always inviting them to covenant relationship with Him.

But please realize, when we confess our sins, God does not want us to be overwhelmed by the weight of condemnation. It's so important that we have God's character front and center instead of being stuck on ourselves. That's why John says that when we confess our sins, He is faithful and He is just to forgive and cleanse. Confession of our sins should point us back to the character of God.

They prayed: "Our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey Your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that You performed among them. But You are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them." They confessed not only their sin, but they confessed God's character. God's greatest glory is His mercy and justice, values that seem to be in contradiction but are in perfect harmony with Him. When we approach God in repentance, let's set our eyes on His character.

If you want to go deeper in Nehemiah's story, we're offering a free 31-day devotional as a companion to this book. Visit the link below to download the free devotional. And don't forget to get the new book, Walking the Walls with Nehemiah. It goes deeper into these powerful lessons of restoration, prayer, and perseverance.

Order our new book, Walking the Walls with Nehemiah, and discover how you can pick up bricks and build with God. For a limited time, get our new book, Walking the Walls with Nehemiah, with our devotional companion for a gift of any amount. Scan the QR code on your screen or visit oneforisrael.org/walk. Your gift will help us bring the Gospel back to Israel and equip believers in Israel to reach the world. Scan the QR code now or visit oneforisrael.org/walk and, for a gift of any amount, receive these free resources.

Israel was going through a time of revival—awakening under the leadership of Nehemiah. They had gathered together for a time of prayer and repentance. In their prayer, they recounted their sinful past as a nation, but they also acknowledged that God had always answered them when they cried out. God not only forgave them; He would also deliver them from the judgment that their sin had brought.

In Egypt, God heard their cry and sent Moses. In the wilderness, despite the golden calf, He provided His Spirit, manna, and water. In the Promised Land, when enemies oppressed them, He sent deliverers. Seeing the repeated cycles of sin, they praised God's character. When they turned and cried to You, You heard from heaven.

But as they prayed through their history, they reached their own story, their present-day circumstance. And they prayed something that sounded very open-ended: "Behold, we are slaves this day in the land You gave our fathers. Behold, look at us, God." What were they implying? Their ancestors had experienced forgiveness and deliverance. They themselves had received forgiveness, but they were still slaves. They still needed deliverance.

What kind of deliverer did they need? Another strong man to beat up the enemy? No, they needed someone greater, someone that could deliver them not only from the consequences of sin but also from the cycle of sin. They needed the Messiah.

Guest (Male): I was born into a secular Jewish home. We celebrated Passover, Sukkot, Hanukkah. And I remember going to synagogue a lot. The prayers were done in Hebrew; we didn't really understand what we were saying. Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha'olam, and we would be like, "This is what we do as Jewish people," but what are we actually saying? I remember being in temple and just sitting there, listening to the rabbi and just looking up at the stained-glass windows, and I didn't feel God in the congregation; I felt Him personally.

Growing up in a Jewish family, there's a lot of pressure on success, achievement: good grades, good school, good job. And so, as I left for high school and I left for college, and I went to a school for business, although all I really wanted to do was sing, dance, and do sports. But I felt that this is what I had to do, and it really tore me up. I'm not succeeding here; I'm not doing well. Not only did I feel like I was disappointing my parents, I was disappointing myself. I've had it; I'm out of here. And I left college.

That whole experience over those years of trying and effort and failure just primed me for a head-first dive into New Age spirituality. So here I am meditating, finding the silence and the peace and emptying my mind. I even had an out-of-body experience once where here I am laying on my bed and all of a sudden I come up out of my body. I turn over and I'm looking down upon myself, and I float away and I come back, and I come back into my body. Something was going on.

What I didn't know was what side it was on. Was it from the light or from the dark? And come to find out that sure enough, it was from the dark. I was doing everything I could to put on a happy face and not let anybody know what was happening inside of me, but people knew. So my wife started noticing that I was going into depression. I remember one day lying on the floor in my wife's arms, just bawling my eyes out.

And I'm crying and I'm looking up at her and I'm saying, "I'm sorry. I have no idea what I'm doing. I've spent 20 years in an effort to become more spiritual, successful, enlightened, and I have nothing to show for it. I'm empty." And to be honest, I really didn't have much strength or effort to live anymore. But I looked at my beautiful wife and I looked at my beautiful children and I said, "There's no way I could take myself out of this world, even though I have no desire to live."

I'm tired of pretending like I'm some sort of advanced spiritual being when deep down inside, I knew that I was broken. And I thought, "What's wrong with me?" I've dedicated the last 10 years, 12 years, 15 years to meditation and spiritual practice, positive affirmations, and I have nothing to show for it. So here I am, I'm going to the gym, and this really tall guy comes up to me and he looks at me and he says, "You know, I've been watching you and we're about the same age and I just want to know, what do you eat?"

And I said, "Okay, well, you don't really want to know what I eat." And he's like, "What, burgers and pizza and whatever you want?" And I was like, "No, I eat a plant-based diet." So the next day I come in and I look at this guy and he's over at the other side of the gym and I'm like, "I kind of feel drawn to this guy. I want to go ask him a question." So I walk over and I ask him, "Hey, what do you do, by the way?" And he goes, "I'm a pastor."

For some reason that sparked something in me. And so I started asking him these questions and he'd give me these really concise answers, and then I'd go home and I'd say, "Honey, I had this interesting experience at the gym and we talked a little bit about Christianity. We talked a little bit about him being a pastor and what he does." So one of the biggest things that my wife was having trouble with was how can she be Jewish and believe in Jesus?

Because everything that she'd heard up until that time was, "Jesus is not for the Jews." And so she was wrestling with that and she came upon videos from One For Israel—videos, testimony videos of Jewish people coming to faith in Jesus. And my son would come home and he's like, "I had these great experiences about learning about Jesus." And we were like, "Something's going on here."

And so I went back to the gym and I saw this other guy on the other side of the gym. I was like, "He has something in him that I want. He looks happy. There's a spark in him." So I went over and I introduced myself, and he goes, "Can I pray for you?" And I said, "Okay, why not?" And at the end of the prayer, he says, "In Jesus' name." Day after day, I kept coming back to the gym and I had this desire to look for this guy. And I would go up to him specifically for prayer.

And every day I said, "In Jesus' name," I started to feel like something was happening. And what I realized over time was that peace wasn't the absence of something; it was the presence of something—or should I say Someone. When I heard the name Jesus, when I heard the name Yeshua, when I started to study and read about Him, when my family went out into the Word, had experiences that were related to Jesus and we came home, we felt life.

For the first time, we felt life. And it was at that moment that my wife and I, we got on our knees and we gave our lives to Jesus, Yeshua. And I knew that Jesus was the only one. The only one. And it was at that moment, this energy went through me that I'd never felt before. The depression, the anxiety, the fear, chronic issues that I'd been carrying with me my entire life, in one moment, were gone.

Dr. Erez Soref: The Levites were leading Israel in the longest recorded prayer in Scripture, a recognition of God's grace. The Israelites ended their prayer by bringing their present-day circumstance to the Lord. They left it open-ended, implying their need—their need for a deliverer, the Messiah. In Israel today, just like then, we experience the pressures of war, propaganda, and division. We cry out to God for this nation.

And we at One For Israel recognize that the ultimate answer to our prayer is the Messiah, Yeshua. Only in Him is there reconciliation and true peace. And that's why we continue our efforts to bless Israel with the revelation of the Messiah. Our attitude toward Yeshua is the same as the early believers: Maranatha, come quickly. Today we are witnessing a spiritual awakening in Israel unlike anything we've ever seen.

Hearts are being opened, lives are being transformed, and the Good news of Jesus is spreading throughout Israel. Today we have over 700,000 Israelis subscribed to our Hebrew Gospel channel, making our channel that proclaims Yeshua one of the top YouTube channels in all of Israel. God is opening hearts, but for this ministry to succeed, we need to be supported by prayer—your prayer.

That's why we've created a free prayer guide to help you stand with Israel in this vital moment. This 31-day prayer guide will equip you to pray for Israel's peace, salvation, and restoration. God is doing amazing things in Israel. Join us in prayer and be part of this awakening. Scan the QR now to request your free prayer guide. Together, we can make an eternal impact. Call now and join us in prayer for Israel.

In Nehemiah 9, the people of Israel gathered in Jerusalem for a prayer of repentance—a prayer of confessing sin and confessing God's grace throughout their history. How should we respond to God's grace? His generous giving and forgiving? Let's explore three responses to grace: worship, bold asking, and commitment. We've already seen the example of worship in the Israelites' prayer.

They confessed God's faithfulness, declared His greatness, and remembered His love. The grace that we experience in Yeshua should also overflow into worship. Once a sinful woman came to Yeshua, pouring expensive perfume at His feet. Some criticized Him for accepting worship from such a sinful woman. But Yeshua answered that her sins, which are many, are forgiven. As a result, she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little. It's the realization of God's grace that causes us to love God.

We've also seen that grace produces in us the boldness to ask. In Israel's prayer, they boldly asked God to provide a deliverer once again. For those of us in Yeshua, grace becomes our motivation for bold prayer. The more we know God, the more confidently we approach God's throne. But there's another response to grace: commitment.

In Nehemiah, the Israelites finished their long prayer of repentance. As they saw God's grace in a powerful new way, they were led to respond. They made a written covenant, signed by all the leaders of the people, a commitment. First, they all committed that they would stay separate from the world. Second, they committed to trust God completely. Third, they committed to care for the house of God.

We're here with Dr. Seth Postell, our dean at the Bible college and an experienced pastor, to walk us through the gift of grace and what our proper response should be. Shalom, Seth, and thank you for coming to talk to me today. Where I wanted to begin our discussion is in how does grace change our worship?

Dr. Seth Postell: The more that you actually understand the grace of God, the more you want to thank Him. And here's what's really interesting: in modern Hebrew, we use the word toda, "thank you." And we say that if you give me something, I'll say to you toda. But what's interesting is that the word toda in the Bible is never used for human beings. It's a word that's actually translated as worship or praise.

Dr. Erez Soref: So if I give you a cup of coffee and you say toda, you're worshipping me?

Dr. Seth Postell: I'm worshipping you. I would say, "al tagidu li toda", "don't ever tell me thank you," because the word toda actually comes from the word le'hodot. And le'hodot, it's the word to confess. And so, in Western countries, the word "thank you" is tied to; you're focused on the gift. "Thank you for the gift." But the word toda in Hebrew, or to thank, hodeia, is not focusing on the gift; it's focusing on the giver.

You are confessing the worth of the giver. And so, you would never apply toda in the context of what you would give to a human being, because only God in the Bible is worthy of toda. And so that song or that prayer is the realization that they're confessing the character of God. Who is it that would continue to give and forgive while we continue to spit in His face, while we continue to rebel, while we continue—we deserve punishment. we deserve to be punished for our actions.

And what does God do? He blesses and blesses and gives and forgives. The more we focus on how good God is in spite of how not good I've been and the fact that He blesses, it leads us to our knees in a time of worship and praise.

Dr. Erez Soref: How can we today commit to God as a response to grace and not out of a sense of obligation, of a works-based duty? How do we make the differentiation?

Dr. Seth Postell: What's remarkable again in Nehemiah chapter nine is after they rehearse the grace of God with the keyword "give" and "forgive," they get to the place of the request: "God, please would You raise up a Messiah, a Savior? We need to be saved. We're slaves." And then in the very next chapter, they commit, they make a pledge. And the word, interestingly enough, the pledge is amanah, which comes from the word faithfulness.

And we live in a day and age today—I think it was Dietrich Bonhoeffer that talked about cheap grace. So cheap grace is that God gives and so you can take advantage and you can do whatever you want.

Dr. Erez Soref: He's an ATM of requests.

Dr. Seth Postell: Correct. You just have to punch in the code, "in Jesus' name," exactly, and you get and do and live however you want. But that's not what we see. The Levites, after they've confessed the grace of God and they've spent many verses going over how incredibly gracious God is, their request is, "God, now in light of all that You've done for us, we want to worship You, not just in our words but in our actions." It's a response to God's grace.

We've been through this really difficult war, and my son, he took the names of all of his friends that died in action—he lost 12 friends. And he put their names up over his bed. That stands with him over his bed. And he wrote down underneath the names, "This is the cost we paid for freedom."

For my son, those names are a reminder that he's been bought with a price, that his freedom has been bought with a price, that it comes with a responsibility and a desire to live well in the memory of those friends that fell on his behalf and on the behalf of our country. And it seems to me that that captures the essence of what it means to be truly grateful for the things that people give us—and especially if God gives us the ultimate gift of His Son. "God, here's my life. I don't want to live for me anymore. I want to live for You." And that's a true understanding of grace.

Dr. Erez Soref: Seth, thank you so much for this time discussing this incredible topic of grace. And for you, our viewer, we are praying for you that you will experience God's grace afresh in your life in a very real way, that you will have both the urge, as a response to this grace, to confess, to boldly ask, and to commit your life to God's amazing plan for your life.

Here in Jerusalem, these events unfolded. It was here that Yeshua died and rose. It's here where He will return. We see the continuous thread of grace from Nehemiah's day to ours. God remains the generous giver, the faithful forgiver, and saving deliverer. Just as the walls surround the city, God's chesed, His grace, surrounds those who trust in Him.

The grace that motivated the prayer in Nehemiah, it still calls us to worship, still emboldens our prayers, still empowers our commitment. Next time, we will experience the power of rejoicing as we continue to walk the walls with Nehemiah. We will explore the importance of preparation for the celebration.