Out of Zion and into the World

 

The God of Scriptures is a God of Missions. His heartbeat is for his creatures to come to a saving knowledge of him. But in his great wisdom, he has chosen us as vessels to bring his light to others. When he called Abraham, God told him he would make his name great, so that Abraham would be a blessing. He also told him (Genesis 12:3), “I will bless those who bless you.” God’s purpose for making Abraham’s name great was so that he would be a blessing to others, to all the families of the earth. That same purpose is seen also in the call of God to the people of Israel.

Both prophets Isaiah and Micah reiterate the same message that out of Zion shall go forth the law and the Word of the LORD. The blessings that God grants to us, is not for us to keep, but rather to spread, to give away. And of course, the greatest blessing that we can give to anyone is the Word of God, since it can bring us salvation. In fact, the best way to bless people is by sharing with them the good news of the gospel.

In recent months, we at HaGefen, have expanded our publishing to include a few new languages. We did our first Farsi book, Betrayed, the beginning of this year. It is an evangelistic book that has been printed in many languages, and we have printed tens of thousands both in Hebrew and in Russian. In addition, we published a book and an evangelistic booklet in Amharic. The book is called Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Dr. Tedd Tripp, which in the past we had published in both Hebrew and Russian. The evangelistic booklet is LeChaim, meaning “to life” in Hebrew. We have published this evangelistic booklet not only in Hebrew and Russian, but also in Arabic, and now also in Amharic. We are now working on the Turkish version of it – as there are some 30,000 Jewish people who live in Turkey today, who need to hear the gospel!

We are in the process of sending about 700 books to various countries, including the Ukraine, Ethiopia, as well as Germany, Wales, and Finland. The books we are sending are in Russian, Farsi, and Amharic. We hope these books, sent out of Zion, will be a blessing to many who will receive and distribute them. They are being sent to places of great need, areas where there is not much available for the Jewish people.

But as Jewish believers, living in the land where Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus walked, we have the responsibility to continue their call and mission. Jesus commissioned his church to be his witness, beginning in Jerusalem and then to Judea, Samaria and to the most remote parts of the world. We live in exciting times as once again we have the opportunity and the privilege of being a blessing and a witness to the world, right from here. The mailing of books beyond our borders is yet another step toward fulfilling our call. We pray and long for the day when we can also send out people who will be a living testimony and witness to the needy world outside our borders.

We are thankful for your prayers and support (and if you are not doing that, today is the day!) which enables us to be a witness to the world and continue to fulfill the call to missions.

David Zadok