Joel of Jerusalem Feb/Mar 1970
Promises – Promises!
Just now the elections are on. All the promises which were made to the people during the campaign will soon be forgotten until the next elections come around.
We had in our home an invasion of all kinds of orthodox representatives, who came to persuade me to vote for their particular party. They always started with politics, but I quickly changed the subject to the matter of faith. The slogan of one of the parties was, “A Holy People in a Holy Land.”
They described the army as the heroes who were fighting for the holiness of the Torah, and that we must do everything to preserve the holiness of the Torah. Above all, they said we must remove the shame of missionary work in our land, and uproot it completely! “Give us your vote,” they said, “and you will see how we will do it. We are the messengers of God sent from above to save you, because we are the princes of the Torah.”
I said to them: “You advertise yourselves as the Princes of the Torah, but I am the ambassador of the Lord God without any advertising. I am trying to save everyone from the way of perdition, and to lead them to repentance and to eternal life. As it is written, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. You must know that according to our own Torah this means eternal death. Since you who call yourselves the Princes of the Torah are not doing your job, we, the ambassadors of the Lord, must help the people to find salvation through the love of God which is in the Messiah Jesus, who gave His life for our salvation. There is no salvation in mumbling prayers or in the study of talmudic volumes, which can only give you a hunched back or bad sight from eye strain. All this is not for me. If you will listen I will read to you from the Old and the New Testament.” Strangely enough they agreed to listen.
I opened to the epistle of Colossians 2:4-13 and read it to them. When I had finished reading I said: “I vote for this. This is my faith and my future, in this I put my trust. Your promises are vain and without any foundation.” They asked me, “But for which party are you going to vote? You know that the missionaries have no party of their own, so you might as well vote for us!”
“Are you asking me that I should hand you a knife so that you may cut my throat?” I asked. “You say yourselves that you fight against the missionaries and all believers. How can you expect me to vote for you?” Not knowing what to answer, they said: “Usually we allow only about ten minutes for each household, but we have already spent one hour here. What a waste of time!”
I told them: “As far as I am concerned, I am willing to spend not only one hour but if necessary a whole month and much more if this will only help you, and lead you into the way of light and life and love.”
I really don’t know what happened, but they listened to me carefully—perhaps because it was election time. Anyway, they were patient and heard me out. In any case I was able to give them something to think about. The Lord is able to do the rest.
