In Genesis 13:14-16 Yahweh our Heavenly Father promised Abram the land of Canaan as well as a promise of physical multiplicity of his zera or his seed (sperm). Abram was told that this promise of physical multiplicity will be so vast and so extensive that the entire earth will literally be full of his zera. Verse 16 reminds us that at the time that this promise is literally and physically brought to pass it will be absolutely impossible for mankind to even count it, or in any way census it, since mankind is totally impotent and unable to count the dust of the earth. This promise is straightforward, needing absolutely no interpretation or explanation. That same seed will inherit the land eventually to be known as Israel.
In Genesis 15 verses 1-6 we see Abram willing to help Yahweh fulfill the promise of Genesis 13 by prematurely and incorrectly choosing Eliezer, a Gentile, who is not a physical offspring of Abram's own sperm or zera, to be the one through whom that promise would be brought to pass. However Yahweh rebukes Abram and makes it clear to him that His promise of physical multiplicity that would become a number that man would not be able to number would not come through an adopted Gentile or a second class choice. No! Our Heavenly Father ordained that this promised heir would come from Abram's own body. He would not be adopted but he would be a physical descendent of Abram. It is through this physical descendent that Yahweh once again promises Abram that his physical offspring will be more than the stars of Heaven. Obviously through modern science we know that our solar system has billions of stars and of course that other solar systems have many more billions. These stars in totality produce a number that mankind cannot even fathom. Yahweh challenges Abram's lack of ability in counting the stars with the words "if you can" in verse five. It is because of Abram's pure faith and trust in Yahweh that he receives imputed righteousness as a result of his believing and trusting in Yahweh's promise. Notice there is only one promise not many promises. Abram was declared righteous by faith in Yahweh's one promise. Whoever this physical seed would turn out to be it would literally have to be more than the dust particles of the sea and the visible stars of heaven. This promise must be taken extremely and solely on a literal face value. Any tendency to somehow spiritualize this promise is a lack of faith in Yahweh's literal Word. That would be the very opposite of the faith of Abram himself.
This promise of physical multiplicity and blessing is renewed in Genesis 17 verse 4 where Abram is told that this promise will establish him as a father of many nations or "hamon goyim". This term "hamon goyim" is also found in verse 5 and literally means a noisy multitude of Gentile nations. This physical seed that will literally fill the globe will not be a silent group of religious folks, rather they will be a great and noisy multitude making a great noise and tumult about Yahweh and His gospel love for humanity. Verse 6 of Genesis 17 promises Abraham that through this seed of promise, kings would be manifest. This of course is talking about the kings that would one day make up the royal House of David through whom Messiah would come to His throne. In verse 7 Yahweh reassures Abraham that this promise of greatness through physical multiplicity would be unconditional and everlasting.
After the testing of Abraham's faith in Genesis 22, Yahweh renews the promise, due to Abraham's great obedience in the binding of Isaac on Mt Moriah. In verses 17&18 Yahweh reminds Abraham that it is he that will inherit the physical promise of physical multiplicity when his seed one day becomes more than the stars of heaven and the dust of the earth. In verse 18 we see that from this earth filling seed, will come one (Messiah), through whom all of the earth's families will be blessed. In Genesis 24 verse 60, Rebecca's family prophetically prays over her in order that her children may become "myriad's of peoples" and rule over their enemies.
In Genesis 26 verse 4 we see this promise of physical increase being renewed with Abraham's son Isaac. He is told that his zera will be more than the stars of heaven. Sound familiar? Isaac becomes the heir of this promise not Ishmael. Therefore when Yahweh brings to pass this great and precious promise it will not be through an adopted Gentile like Eliezer or a child of the flesh like Ishmael, but rather through the child of promise (Isaac) the heir proceeding from Abraham's own body. Galatians 4:28 confirms that only Isaac is the child of promise. What promise? The promise of physical multiplicity that would fill the earth, yet still possess the land of Canaan as it's own homeland.
Genesis 28 verse 3 finds Isaac blessing Jacob and prophesying that the promise that Yahweh gave Abraham and Isaac would now be bestowed upon Jacob and not Esau. We see that in verse three Isaac prays that Jacob's zera, would be blessed and become a "kehelat goyim" or "assembly of peoples." For the first time in scripture we get a glimpse of Yahweh's plan for filling the earth with the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Hebrew term found in verse three is "kehelat goyim" or an assembly of nations or even better an "assembly of goyim". Somehow the Father will fill the earth with the physical seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by putting together an assembly of goyim. Verse 4 confirms that what Isaac is bestowing upon Jacob is none other than the blessing of Abraham.
It is absolutely crucial for us to understand that there are not many promises to Abraham. There are not some that are spiritual and some others that are physical. Rather there is one promise and that one promise contains two aspects of physical blessing. One is the seed who would bless the nations, that being Messiah Yahshua Himself, the other being merely a promise of physical reproduction and multiplicity. In Genesis 28 in the account of Jacob's ladder we find Yahweh telling Jacob that his seed will be spread out as the dust of the earth and will break forth to the four corners of the globe. In other words his offspring would find its home in Canaan land, but would somehow through Yahweh's divine plan break forth and find its way to the four corners of the earth. This promise is none other than the bestowing upon Jacob of the promise and blessing of Abraham. The Hebrew term used in Genesis 28 verse 14 is the term "parats" meaning to break forth. It literally means to jump out and spread quickly. This promise of physical multiplicity must come through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob therefore nullifying any claims by Islam and Ishmaelites or any other misguided Bible scholars claiming that this promise is fulfilled in adding the Jews and Muslims together. That is wrong since this promise must come through Isaac and Jacob not Ishmael and Esau. The Ishmaelite, Arab and Muslim peoples are the physical descendants of Abraham alone, not of the promised heirs Isaac and Jacob. They do not, I repeat do not, meet the standards set down by Yahweh when He stated that the promise of physical multiplicity would come through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The faith of Islam is not the faith of Abraham because in order to have the faith of Abraham one must believe it was Isaac not Ishmael who was the chosen seed!
We find Yahweh elaborating on this promise to Jacob in Genesis 35:10-11 where He declares to Jacob that he would no longer be known as Jacob but as Israel. Israel means one who as a prince struggles with Yahweh and prevails. It is as Israel that Jacob will produce sperm that will lead to the establishment of a nation and a company of nations. The nation of course is destined to be the Jewish people and the company of nations will be the "kehelat goyim" or the assembly of nations (Gentiles) that will proceed from his own body.
As we jump forward in time we find Israel the great patriarch dying in the land of Goshen in Egypt and he summons all his sons to his bedside as he is dying. He somehow finds enough strength and leans on his staff and begins to prophecy through the Ruach HaKodesh the events that will befall his sons in the last days. The Brit Chadasha (New Covenant) refers to these deathbed prophecies of Israel as an act of worship. In Genesis 48:5 he adopts Joseph's children born in Egypt, Ephraim and Manasseh as his own. He is declaring his last will and testament right there in front of Joseph. He officially adopts these two boys so that Joseph his most beloved son can receive a double portion of blessing through both his sons (verse 22). In verse 16 of Genesis 48 he calls these two grandchildren "Israel", since he not only adopts them but prophetically declares that the physical promise of physical global multiplicity will come through them. After stating "let my name be called upon them," meaning they are Israel's children, he prays that they will become a multitude. The Hebrew term used here for multitude can be read as a "teeming multitude of fish". It is interesting to remember that it was none other than our Messiah Yahshua who declared that He would make us fishers of men. Could many of the men he was referring to be the "teeming multitude proceeding from Ephraim and Manasseh?
As Israel is about to pronounce blessing he lays his right hand on Ephraim instead of Manasseh who was Joseph's firstborn. The right hand is symbolic of the blessing of the first born and should have rightfully fallen to Manasseh. However above the protests of Joseph, Israel crosses his hands and place the right one on the second of Joseph's sons Ephraim. When Joseph objects Israel tells him not to worry that he knows exactly what he is doing and that while Manasseh will become a great nation, Ephraim will be greater than him. In Genesis 48:19 we have one of the most fascinating and important prophecies of scripture. In blessing Ephraim over and above his brother, Israel declares that the seed or zera of Ephraim will become the "maleh goyim", or the "fullness of the Gentiles". In other words the physical seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that was promised to one day literally fill the earth as the sand and dust of the earth and stars of heaven, will now come to pass in and through Ephraim. Ephraim will be the vehicle though which the great and precious single promise of physical multiplicity will literally come to pass. In English the words "maleh hagoyim" can best be translated as the "fullness of the Gentiles". If that term sounds familiar it should. It is a quotation from Romans 11:25 by Rav Shaul (Paul) as the method and means by which all Israel would be saved. The only other time this word maleh is used in Tanach is in Psalm 24:1, where the psalmist declares that the earth is Yahweh's and the fullness thereof. In other words the earth is full of peoples, places and things that belong to Yahweh and there is nothing found in the earth that does not belong to Yahweh. In like manner there will be virtually no one in the earth that is not somehow belonging to the seed of Ephraim since it is the seed of Ephraim where all the blessings of physical multiplicity will be found. More on that later.
Not only do we see Ephraim receiving the birthright of the first born over and above his older brother Manasseh, but Israel also removes it from Reuben in Genesis 49:3 & 4 since Reuben defiled his father's bed and was sexually impure regarding the privacy and intimacy of Israel's marriage bed. So in reality Ephraim is moved ahead of Reuben, Joseph and Manasseh to receive the blessing of the firstborn of Israel. First Kings 5:1-2 and Jeremiah 31:9, confirms this essential truth. There is however some needed insight at this point. In all ancient Mideast cultures the right of the firstborn was essential in establishing lordship over the house of the dying father. With the birthright went power, authority, respect, grandeur and the right to enact all family business and transactions pertaining to its sustenance, care and well being. In essence the birthright was the permission to the firstborn to take over and rule the fathers' house in the fathers absence through death. Isaac received this right from Abraham even as Jacob received it from Isaac, albeit deceitfully. With the birthright went power and therefore it was coveted greatly in that culture.
When Israel gave Ephraim the birthright, however, he gave it to him with one major reservation. We read about this in Genesis 49:8-10, where Judah is given the pre-eminence or power to rule and reign royally over the House Of Israel! In verse 9 it states that all Israel's children will bow before the royalty of Judah and verse 9 states that the pre-eminence will cause all Israel to pay homage to the Lion of Judah whom verse 10 refers to by the Messianic moniker of Shiloh. Shiloh means the "sent one" or the anointed King Messiah from the kingly line of Judah who would be manifest in the natural through the tribe of Judah. Hebrews 7:14 makes it clear that Yahshua was Shiloh and it is evident that He sprang forth from Judah. What a mess! Did Jacob make a major error? Did he go to all the trouble of establishing Ephraim as the firstborn with the firstborn birthright only to give him a title without authority and without preeminence over his brothers? Did he make Ephraim a puppet ruler with just a paper title much like the modern day Queen of England? One thing we know for sure. He brought a split into and among the sons of Israel since one son had a birthright but the other son Judah had the right to rule! What good is a birthright without the authority that goes along with it? The children of Israel would submit to Judah's seed not Ephraim's, yet Ephraim's seed would become the fullness of the Gentiles. Judah would rule over the House Of Israel, but Ephraim would bring forth the promised zera that would fill the globe with the promise to the patriarchs of physical multiplicity. Of course Israel knew what he was doing since he was ministering through the Ruach HaKodesh. He split the authority and blessing between the two brothers who would continue to wage war over the fullness of the blessing that would ultimately be played out in a battle royal over the title of who is Israel? How ironic that according to Genesis 49:10 it will be the Lion of Judah (Messiah Yahshua), that would gather the goyim or nations of the seed of Ephraim back into the House Of Israel! After Israel died and his children waxed great in Egypt this promise of physical multiplicity began to trouble a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. Of course he enslaved the Hebrews and it took Moshe Rabainu our great deliverer to rescue Israel from the house of bondage. As history teaches us Moshe took the twelve tribes out of Egypt to Sinai where they received Torah and the twelve tribes settled the land of Canaan. After a period of diverse judges and after King Saul, David was anointed King over all Israel. In the days of David the King, we see the house of Judah ruling and reigning over a united Israel with 12 tribes under David's monarchy. All was well until Solomon, David's' son, began whoring physically as well as spiritually and Yahweh revealed to Solomon that the kingdom would be broken in the life of his son Rehoboam because of Solomon's sins. (First Kings 11:11-14). Yahweh further revealed to Jeroboam an Ephraimite, one of Solomon's talented craftsman, that he would receive ten tribes resulting from this split in the kingdom of Israel after Solomon's death. This prophecy was acted out in front of Jeroboam by Ahiyah the prophet. The glory days under David was the last time that the kingdom belonged to all Israel, made up of all twelve tribes. In approximately 921 BC the ten northern tribes broke away from the House Of David and called themselves Israel making Samaria its capital. The southern tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi made up the southern kingdom under Rehoboam with Jerusalem as its capital (Read First Kings 11:26-43). As Rehoboam prepares an army to retake the ten renegade tribes in the north, Yahweh forbids it in First Kings 12:24 by telling Rehoboam that this split in the House Of David is from Him and that they should not fight against their brothers.
This split in 921 BC was simply the literal fulfillment of the prophetic unction's pronounced by Jacob over his sons when he split the family so to speak. He split the birthright between Ephraim and Judah and that is why Yahweh says in First Kings 12:24 that this family split is from Him. He ordained it and desired it so that He could bring to pass the promise He made to the patriarchs. Specifically the promise of physical multiplicity. The means by which our Heavenly Father chose to do this is through this split in David's House. We will see why later! What began with Jacob now was being played out in the natural. The Northern kingdom of ten tribes began to adopt pagan practices, holidays, customs, false worship and unfortunately Jeroboam became the father of Ephraimite pagans. In First Kings 12:26-33 we see the evil heart of Jeroboam son of Nebat at as he devised a scheme for the ten tribes collectively known as the House of Israel or Ephraim to begin to practice a false religion designed to keep Ephraim separate from Judah and separate from Judah's Elohim. As we will shortly come to realize this House of Ephraim would one day become hidden as individuals within the Christian Church through Yahweh's program of the regathering of Ephraim through Messiah Yahshua and would adopt all of the ungodly pagan practices of Jeroboam. This system of Jeroboam had as its basic design the creation of a separate entity from the House of David consisting of the ten tribes in the north.
This separation unto debauchery and unto Ephraim's departure from the family of Israel resulted in Yahweh's judgement in approximately 721 BCE when Yahweh send Tilgat Pilsger III, the Assyrian king to utterly destroy the House Of Ephraim or the ten northern tribes. Since Ephraim played the harlot and lifted her skirt to every foreign deity, Yahweh declared that he would in like manner sift her and cause her to be naked before the Gentile nations, by bringing an end to the northern kingdom, of Israel. This stern punishment would be enacted by the dispersing and swallowing up of these ten tribes by the world's pagan nations. Since Ephraim's lust, penchant and desire for paganism was so great Yahweh permitted the ten tribes to become the very thing that they so desperately and so wickedly craved to be! Thus we find that the children of Israel experienced their first holocaust in 721 BCE when ten tribes seemingly disappeared and became lost spiritually as well as physically. Thus was born the ten lost tribes of Israel.
As we are about to discover this breakage was the method by which Yahweh chose to fulfill the family split caused by Jacob himself as well as to fulfill the promise of physical multiplicity to the patriarchs. Are the ten tribes really lost? Can they be found? Have they been destroyed or somehow preserved? Did the Messiah come to restore the Tabernacle of David which had fallen in 920 BCE? Did the ten lost tribes of Israel become Gentiles later to be regathered back into the house Of Israel by the ministry of Moshiach? Is it possible that the ten tribes became the "maleh goyim" or the "fullness of the Gentiles" that we read about in Romans and that was promised to be the physical Israelite seed through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Ephraim? Let's find out!
The prophet Hosea is a great place to start our definitive search for the other house of Israel, the House of Ephraim. From this point forward the key to understanding prophecy related to the restoration of the twelve tribes into the House Of David is to understand that after the split in 921 BCE Yahweh almost never ever refers to one house but to two houses of Israel! When He speaks to the North (10) tribes He speaks of Israel or Ephraim. When He speaks to the South He speaks of Judah. He always separates these two entities and unless you learn to do likewise you cannot and will not understand any prophetic writings or prophecies given by any of Israel's prophets after the split of the House of David. Get it fully settled in your minds that after 921 BC there were and still are two separate houses of Israel!! If you can comprehend this truth you are well on your way to being an instant prophecy expert!
In Hosea chapter One, the prophet sent to the northern kingdom of Israel is told to take a wife who is a whore since that would give him a pretty good idea what the ten tribes have done to Yahweh. After cohabiting with Gomer, Hosea calls their daughter "Lo-Ruhammah" (verse 6), meaning no mercy or compassion. In verse 4 of Hosea One we see Yahweh putting an end to the northern House Of Israel and in verse 6 He promises to never again show Israel in the north any mercy. In verse 7 Yahweh stated that unlike Israel, He will show mercy to Judah in the south. The couple conceived a son in verse 9 and Yahweh commands Hosea to call his name "Lo-Ami" for you are not my people and I am not for you. When Yahweh is against you the party is over. Israel or Ephraim is called Lo-Ami, not my people. It is adios , good bye and good night Irene! No more mercy, no more my people, no more a kingdom, and Yahweh fighting against you. We see clearly the end of the ten northern tribes as a nation before Yahweh. A total divorce and rejection has taken place. Hosea 7:8,8:8,9:11,9:17,10:1,12:1 and other passages confirm that Ephraim's plight is to become Lo-Ami, swallowed up among the Gentiles. Yet in verse 10 we see a startling declaration. Despite a death sentence for the ten tribes as an identifiable kingdom or nation, miraculously they reappear and are born-again so to speak in the last days. Verse 10 of Hosea One begins with the words "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the seashore. Here we have a kingdom totally destroyed and swallowed up among the Gentiles, miraculously reappearing as the former children of Israel and are even called the sand of the sea! Sound familiar? It should! This is the sand of the sea promise made to the patriarchs and to Ephraim. This verse further reveals to us just where we are going to find the ten lost tribes or the sand of the sea that cannot be counted. The ones who call themselves and are called by Yahweh children of Elohim! Do you know any modern day group of people that run around referring to themselves and claiming themselves to be children of the living Yahweh! You got it! The born-again community of Gentile believers is nothing more than the former dispersed House Of Israel. Yahweh further states in this verse that when Ephraim is gathered they will be His people or His Ami and He will be their Elohim since they have become sons of the living Elohim by grace though faith (Hosea 2:21-23). This cannot possibly be made any clearer. A nation that has come to an end, disappeared or become lost if you will, all of a sudden showing up as sons and daughters of Yahweh in the last days! Elohim Himself reminds us in verse 10 that this group in nothing more than the former House of Jeroboam or House of Israel. In verse 11 of Hosea One we see this return of the ten lost tribes coming back into the House Of David in the days when these former lost Israelites appoint for themselves the same head that Messianic Jews are appointing for themselves. This one head is the head of the body made up of nothing more than Judahites and Ephraimites with perhaps some true Gentiles, now restored to Yahweh as redeemed individuals from both houses and are learning to trust and lean on the same Head by appointing that Head (Yahshua) as personal Elohim and Savior! Verse 11 goes on to say that when individual Ephraimites and Judahites are making this personal appointment of Yahshua as king of their lives it will not be a day to build something called "a church" where "the church" replaces the Jew, rather it will be the day of Jezreal. Jezreal means the replanting of those who were scattered! Baruch HaShem Yahweh. Notice the very next verse in Hosea 2:1, where both Judahites and Ephraimites who appoint Yahshua as their head (in the day of Jezreal's regathering and replanting into David's rebuilt Tabernacle), will no longer look at their brothers and sisters as spiritual brothers or sisters only, but will see them in a new light. What light is that? As "ami!" My own people. Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. When Ephraim and Judah are individually regenerated and regathered into the rebuilt Tabernacle of David then we will begin to recognize each other as blood brothers, as physical Israelites from different sides of the same family that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb!
Remember that in Matthew 15:24 Yahshua stated in the clearest possible terms that he was sent for no one except the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Notice He did not state that He came for Gentiles or Jews. He did not come only for Jews because Jews are Judahites physically descended from the two southern tribes that made up the Kingdom of Judah. He also has no interest in Gentiles. Why? Because those who respond to Yahshua's love, and come back to the restored Tabernacle of David, may look like Gentiles, act like Gentiles, behave like Gentiles, eat pork and break the Shabbat like Gentiles, but are in fact nothing more than the lost physical sheep of the house of Israel who became the Gentiles and have been living like Gentiles for 2700 years. Obviously when they come back they are not going to look like Israelites who practice and are faithful to Torah. Either you are going to believe Yahshua and scores of other prophets or you are going to make up your own theology. He said I have come only for all the lost sheep of the House of Israel. This includes the Jews but also includes the other house of Israel, who are my brothers in the flesh. Of course Paul, Peter and others were sharing the gospel with Gentiles because where else are you going to find the seed of Ephraim, except among the Gentiles filling the globe. Amos 9:9 tells us that though scattered among the Gentiles, not one grain or person will fall to be destroyed. In other words they will not disappear from the earth, but will mix and literally become the peoples of the earth, only to be brought back to Yahweh in the end times, on an individual basis. The Great Commission (Matt: 28 18-20) therefore is nothing more than a world wide search for the seed of Ephraim the sand of the sea, dust of the earth, the teeming multitudes of humanity. Part of that search of course will be to look for the dispersed of Judah as well. Yaakov (James) testifies to this truth by reminding the Jerusalem Council that Yahweh was just visiting the Gentiles nations through the preaching of the gospel, not to live there, but to rescue and pull out His people called by His Name ( Acts 15:14-17). Through this rescue James reminds us that Yahweh is rebuilding The Tabernacle Of David made up of all the twelve tribes of Israel. Since He is Israel's Elohim, He is pulling out and rescuing Israelites from the "outcast status" that had been their inheritance due to their disobedience to Torah. These people are Israelites regardless of whether they themselves realize it or not! Is not that what it means to be lost? Lost spiritually as well as physically!
Is it not fascinating that after three and a half years of Yahshua's earthly ministry as He is about to ascend back to heaven from the Mt. of Olives, all remaining eleven talmidim come to Him and ask Him the same exact question. This is almost unimaginable since these eleven rarely agreed on anything and were always fighting and asking questions, seeking to bolster their own agenda. Yet in total unanimity they all had the same final question. Master, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts1:6) That is what they were concerned with. Not the creation or building of a separate entity called "the church" which has sought to replace, annihilate and often destroy the Judahite people. Let it be clearly understood that the word "church" is nothing more than the ekklesia or assembly of the Tanach. It is the same assembly that was receiving Torah on Mt. Sinai (Acts7:37-38). There is one New Covenant assembly, called Israel by Rav Shaul (Galatians 6:16). There is no such thing as a separate entity called "the church", with a separate Shabbat and a separate holy day schedule. In Spanish and Portuguese and almost every language ekklesia meaning those "called out ones" maintains the basic idea of an assembly. Only in English do we have this "church" (derived from a pagan circular blood ritual called "church") word that appears to be teaching that Yahshua built something new called "the church", when all He was doing was rebuilding the mikra or assembly of the Tanach and filling it with power. When the Septuagint translation of the Tanach was translated from Hebrew to Greek around 175 B.C.E., every translator translated the word mikra into ekklesia and that is exactly what Yahshua Himself claims to have come to build (Matthew 16:16-19)! The oldest New Covenant manuscripts in our possession today and written in Aramaic (a dialect of Hebrew), confirm the absence of the word "church" again using in its place the word "assembly." Because of Ephraim's jealousy and hatred of his brother Judah, along with an ongoing addictive attraction to anything pagan or foreign to Torah (like father like son), he decided to become a separate man-made entity known as "the church" totally divorced from Jacob's family and it's rich Hebraic roots, which explains why today the "church" as it mostly stands is absolutely unrecognizable to both Jews and often to Yahweh Himself! This self-desired divorce from Israel has left "the church" without any tools with which to provoke Judah to jealousy. She is a man-made self willed religious divorcee from the covenant people of Israel!
The gospel is not merely a proclamation of personal salvation. It is a message of national restoration to Israel from a divided family which manifested itself in two still separate houses of Israel. Matthew 24:14 reminds us that the gospel is the gospel of the Kingdom. In Matthew chapter 12 Yahshua speaks of the principal of a divided house without any ability to withstand the fiery darts of Satan! What kingdom? The kingdom of Israel. In Luke 24:21 the talmidim were very disappointed since they fully and rightfully expected the twelve tribes to be resorted under Yahshua the Moshiach. Where would they get that idea from? Jeremiah 23 verses 3-6 Yahweh declares that He will bring Israel and Judah back from global dispersion in the days that Messiah arrives. In verse 5 and 6 it states that Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely. We see the reunification of both houses under the Messiah or the reunification of all twelve tribes all living in the land of Israel. Remember that in order for the House of David to be fully restored and rebuilt it has to be composed of the same composition that left Egypt, received Torah and made up the glory days of King David. All twelve tribes! Any revival or restoration movement that does not include the full restoration of all twelve parts of the family and merely focuses in on two parts of the twelve parts, is not flowing in a full vision of restoration. Messianic Judaism in order to continue to experience the full last days blessings of Yahweh, must expand it's vision to include all of Israel. The vision does not have to be changed at all and should be of no threat to Messianic Judaism's leadership, once it determines the truth of Israel's two houses and demands that Ephraim renounce all paganism and embrace the fabric of Israelite living and holiness which is Torah. The future of the last days revival of Israel and the very fabric and survival of the modern Messianic Jewish movement depends on a leadership ready to re-evaluate the preservation of Ephraim for 2,700 years amongst and as Gentiles. That is the final "Tikun HaOlam" (restoration between Judah & Ephraim), spoken of in Ezekiel 37:11-28! It is wrong for bible students & Messianic leaders to teach and believe that Judah, Ephraim, and Israel are all the same and are really analogous or synonymous interchangeable terms, whose usage varies, depending upon what mood Yahweh is in. That is historically inaccurate as well as theologically deceptive and if Yahweh is able to differentiate between the two still divided houses after 720 BCE, why can't we?
Go back now and read your Bible, understanding that when Yahweh refers to the ten tribes it is always Ephraim or Israel and when He refers to the two southern tribes it is always as Judah. Try it! Your eyes will be open to the true, everlasting and final Tikun HaOlam. If you refuse to read your Bible without that foundational premise, then you are bound to find an Elohim who is repetitive, confused and throws terms around referring to two nations when there is really one. Of course based on this faulty reasoning Yahweh is not too swift at identifying and locating the outcasts of Israel (Ephraim) either! Do you really believe that? Of course not! You and I may not know where to look for the ten tribes but rest assured Yahshua does, and that is exactly what He has been doing for two thousand years right under our collective nose, since that was His assignment according to Isaiah 49:5-6. During that same time period we were all busy fussing and fighting as two brothers engaged in sibling rivalry!
What it all boils down to is, whose report will you believe? An Israel made up of two tribes or one made up of twelve which Yahweh Himself vowed to fill the earth with. Since He is faithful you can rest assured that almost everyone on this planet has a drop of Israelite blood since Yahweh' blessing of physical multiplicity would fill the globe through Ephraim's banishment and subsequent intermarriage and assimilation. If the earth is full of Israelite blood how much room is there left for any other types of peoples without some Israelite blood? If this promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has been literally fulfilled only through the Jewish people alone, who continue to number only 16 million and can easily and readily be counted, censused and numbered, then the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is an outright lie! Yahweh lied! Sixteen million Jews does not constitute a multitude that cannot be numbered! Sixteen million or so Jews could all fit nicely into the land mass of the state of Florida. The promise of physical multiplicity was not fulfilled in Judah alone! That is a numerical and practical impossibility! The question before you is not can everyone on earth really have at least a drop of Israelite blood? The question before you is did Yahweh lie and speak in half truths? Are we to take him at his literal word? This teaching of the two houses submits the truth that Ephraim plus Judah with a few true Gentiles (?), equals billions of human beings and from those billions (5 or 6 billion), a remnant Israel is being saved from all twelve tribes and are being reconciled to Yahweh through the precious blood of the one who declared "I came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel"! Whose report will you believe? Those promoting separate entities and thus two Israels, one physical and the other spiritually adopted, or Yahweh who has only one physical Israel, that is spirit filled and led, taken from all twelve tribes, with no one being adopted into physical Israel, but requiring everyone Jew and non-Jew to be adopted into Yahweh's family! The choice is yours! Is it possible that the real reason behind the reason of saved Judah's carefree, careless attitude towards trying to discover where in the world the rest of his lost physical family really is, is nothing more than a colossal case of a self centered mindset! In Judah's defense it is perhaps possible that Judah is too busy trying to survive the Diaspora than to be concerned about finding his brother's whereabouts. Regardless of the real reason, Yahweh only deals with these two chosen families in the earth (Jeremiah 33:24).
Is it not interesting that the promised New Covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34 talks about Yahweh cutting a covenant with the House Of Israel and the House of Judah never once mentioning cutting one with Gentiles or Christians. The House of Israel mentioned in Jeremiah is Ephraim those born-again non-Jews. Remember that all Jews are Israelites but not all Israelites are Jews. In the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation 21:12 notice that all those born again folks planning on having everlasting life must enter the city through one of 12 gates, one for each of the twelve tribes. Isn't it funny and strange how Yahweh forgot to make a gate for Christians or "saved Gentiles". The reason is that everyone in New Covenant Israel from both sides of the physical family is a blood descendent of Israel with some few exceptions. Even those exceptions become Israelites according to Torah! I'll discuss more on that in the next issue.
In Jeremiah 31:3-22 we read detailed descriptions of Ephraim (ten tribes) returning to the land. Any aliyah or any program of returning Jews to Israel to live must and will include all Israel including Ephraim. In the verse mentioned above we see the ten tribes being replanted on the mountains of Israel. Do you have a problem with that? Yahweh doesn't! You see our vision is too small. Our vision must be the vision of Yahshua and the 12 disciples and must include a revival among all Israel, not just 2/12th's of Israel!! It was Yahshua Himself who promised the twelve talmidim a millennial rule over twelve verifiable and recognizable tribes of re-gathered millennial Israel (Matthew 19:28). Zechariah in chapter 8:22-23, specifically refers to ten men representing the ten returning tribes grabbing the tzitzit (fringes) of a Jew who has come to know Yahshua personally and declaring that they will also return to Zion and Torah. Notice that these ten returning men speak all of the world's known languages. In this passage we see the ongoing return of all Israel, to Israel!
In Yaakov (James) 1:1 Yaakov writes his epistle to the 12 tribes scattered abroad. Obviously James knew that the body of Yahshua that he was writing to was nothing more than the re-gathered 12 tribes of Israel that had been redeemed through Yahshua and he addressed them as such! If the ten tribes remained lost and nowhere to be found why would James write to them and call them brethren of faith in verse 2 of James chapter One? Obviously he had no problem with the body of Yahshua being New Covenant Israel made up of all twelve tribes and perhaps some very few exceptions. Have you ever written a post card to people that had disappeared from the earth or didn't exist? Obviously they had to exist in order to be written to and to be addressed.
Was it just Yahshua & James that had this revelation? In I Peter 1:1, Keefa writes to the chosen people living in the Diaspora. The Jewish Diaspora did not happen until 20 years after this epistle was penned in about 50 AD. Yet he refers to these other ten tribes' descendants who have come to faith as "the chosen people". Could it be that Ephraim is just as chosen as Judah? Does that burst your bubble? Poor thing! You thought that only two tribes (Jews) were chosen. The scriptures never once calls the Jewish people chosen. Rather it calls all Israel, of which the Jews are but two parts, the chosen people! Jeremiah 33:24 confirms this truth. Yahweh states that he has chosen two houses or two clans or two nations! Got that! That is the House Of Israel and the House Of Judah. Peter wrote to the re-gathered House of Israel when addressing his epistle! You want some more New Covenant proof texts that these folks calling themselves Christians are nothing more than the physical descendants of the ten lost tribes? No problem. In First Keefa (Peter) chapter 2 verses 8-10 we see Peter quoting Hosea chapter One. The people who are a royal priesthood a chosen generation and a holy nation are identified by Keefa as nothing more than the former lo-ami and lo-ruhammah of Hosea chapter One! In verse 11 of First Keefa chapter 2, Peter says: You who are now New Covenant Priests and New Covenant Israel once were not a people (lo-ami) and had not obtained compassion and mercy (lo-ruhammah).But now through Yahshua you are restored to a people called ami and receiving ruhammah. This is a clear and direct reference attributing and labeling the body of Yahshua as containing much of the old northern kingdom of Ephraim returning because of Yahweh's favor through the blood of Messiah.
Did Rav Shaul (Paul) also understand the re-gathering of the twelve tribes of Israel through Yahweh's Son? Was he able to identify "Christians" in Rome as nothing more than the former House of Ephraim? You bet he did. In Romans chapter 9 verse 24 Rav Shaul states that Yahweh calls Jews and Gentiles to make up His body as heirs of eternal life. Then in verse 25 of Romans 9 he quotes Hosea chapter One and identifies the born again redeemed Gentiles of his day as the Old Covenant House of Israel (Ephraim). He quotes the lo-ami passage of Hosea One and attributes this to "saved Gentiles". Verses 25 & 26 boldly declares this. Finally in verse 27 he puts the icing on the cake and declares that these "saved Gentiles" not only are the former house of Israel that became the "fullness of the Gentiles", but he even quotes Isaiah stating that out of the entire "sand of the sea" promise to Ephraim regarding physical multiplicity only a remnant of Israelites from all twelve tribes will be saved. Wow! Notice the transition and progression as the saved Gentiles of verse 24 in Romans 9 wind up being identified by Paul as the former house of Israel (ten tribes) spoken of by Isaiah, in the next two verses.
In Ephesians 2:11 Rav Shaul declares that those who got saved as Gentiles are no longer Gentiles! They have a new identity, and that identity is according to verse 12 a citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel. They are Israelites! You cannot be a citizen of a spiritual entity known as "the church" or any other spiritual entity. In order to be a physical citizen of the commonwealth of Massachusetts you have to be a physical being. In order for former Gentiles who by virtue of their acceptance of Messiah have become physical citizens of the house and commonwealth of Israel they must be and in fact are physical Israelites from a different side of the family than Messianic Jews. Verse 19 nails this down for us as Rav Shaul declares that these folks are no longer strangers to the house of Israel but fellow citizens. Citizenship always has been and always will be something on the physical plain. In Galatians 3:29 Rav Shaul refers to born again non Jews as the seed or sperma of Abraham. Now let me ask you an honest question! Does the Greek word for seed (sperma), from where we get the English word sperm, sound like something spiritual or something very physical? Therefore if you belong to Messiah through the new birth, regardless of who you think you are, you are Abraham's sperm! That's why verse 28 says there are no Jews, Greeks men or women there is only Abraham's physical seed that has been redeemed and should be known as new covenant Israel!
Further proof is found in Galatians 4:28 where Rav Shaul refers to non Jewish believers as being exactly like Isaac -- the heir of the physical promise of multiplicity. Was Isaac a physical being or just a spiritual being? He was a spirit-filled-and-led physical being! According to Rav Shaul, that is exactly who the non-Jewish believers are in the New Covenant! In First Corinthians 10:1 Rav Shaul reminds saved Ephraimites that they were once Gentiles, but not any longer. He reminds these non-Jewish Israelites that their fathers (Hebrews) who were led out of Egypt went through the Red Sea and eventually met the Rock (Messiah) just as they had (First Corinthians 10:1-4). In First Corinthians 5:7-8 we see these Ephraimite Israelites keeping Pesach! Only the people of Israel celebrate the Feasts Of Israel!
There are man-made teachings and teachers that place the word "spiritual" in front of the word "fathers" in First Corinthians 10:1 as well as Galatians 3:29 where they add the word "spiritual" before the word "seed", to make it seem as if Christians are only some kind of spiritual seed, or worse yet something called "spiritual Jews." May I remind these teachers that adding to the Word of Yahweh is a capital offence punishable by death (Proverbs 30:5, Deut. 4:2, Deut.12:32, Rev 22:18). Apparently there are some who either do not understand this truth or who do understand it, but desire to continue to suppress it so that they can keep "saved Ephraimites" in perpetual second class adopted chains worshiping at the throne of Judaism instead of His Son. If non-Jewish believers were totally honest with themselves, most of them carry a deep desire and therefore inner jealousy to be Jewish. That jealousy either causes them to want to convert to any kind of Judaism, even those forms that force a recanting of faith in Yahshua's finished work, or historically the jealousy has and can still turn into raging hatred against the Jew they can never become. Those days are over! This is the day divinely decreed for the restoration of all things (Acts 3:20-21). When Ephraim begins to believe that they are part of physical Israel they will act like Israelites and return to Shabbat, kashrut, moedim, Zionism and aliyah, and will cease to be jealous of the Jews (Isaiah 11:12-14). According to these same verses the day is coming when Jews will recognize Ephraim as their physical brothers in much the same way that all Jacob's sons came to recognize Joseph in Egypt. They thought he was a Gentile and all the while Joseph was an Israelite. Whether Judah recognizes born-again non-Jews as Ephraim does not change the fact that they, like Joseph, are unrecognizable to their brothers. Yet still like Joseph, Ephraim is Joseph's son and Jacob's grandson and is in fact an Israelite experiencing the same lack of recognition that his father Joseph experienced in Egypt. Joseph knew them but they knew not Joseph. Today large segments of Ephraim recognizes chosen, born-again Judah, yet Judah cannot and often will not recognize born-again Ephraim! Yahweh declares that this vexation of Ephraim by Judah will come to an end through Messiah (Isaiah 11:13-14), when He gathers the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah from all the earth. Notice how Judah was never outcast like Ephraim, only dispersed.
In Yochanan 10:16 Yahshua said "other sheep I have which are not of this fold. I have to bring them in as well. And they shall hear my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd". Notice that Yahshua had another Israelite flock that were still His fold even before He died and arose again. He did not say that he will create a new and separate fold called "the church" made up of pagans with separate practices replacing Torah sometime after His resurrection. He said that He already had two folds -- that He was sent to bring them in, and they will become one flock or one united house.
John (Yochanan) knew the same truth by virtue of his writings in Yochanan (11:49-52). John stated that when Ciaphas prophesied that it was good that Yahshua was dying for Judah, John added that Ciaphas was prophesying that Yahshua would not only die for that nation (Judah), but also the former house of Israel that were scattered abroad 721 years prior to Yahshua's birth! We know this is a reference to the House of Israel (ten tribes) since he calls them a nation (physical people), as well as children of Elohim! They were called children of Israel because Elohim is the Elohim of Israel and they were Israel or children of Elohim even before Yahshua went to the tree of Korban! Notice that the Father's' revealed plan in verse 52 of chapter 11 of John is to gather both nations or houses into one. Even at the time of Yahshua, people's eyes and hearts were being opened to the truth about the family feud perpetuated by Jacob widened by Jeroboam and Rehoboam and in the last two millennia inflamed by the Church vs. Jewish battle royal over the title of who is Israel! The question is fully answered when one realizes that there is only one people of Israel with one Elohim of Israel and one Messiah of Israel and one Torah of Israel and that both houses need to follow the same blueprint for the restoration of all Israel on a level playing field of common ground. Only with the full understanding of the divided two houses of Israel, will the hatred, bitterness, pride and arrogance of Christendom and Judaism towards each other come to a quick and deserving death. Any other solution to the Church vs. Jewish debate will result in more misunderstanding between brethren and the perpetuation of the family feud started by Jacob splitting the birthright between Ephraim and Judah though both were physical and spiritual Israel.
It is comforting to note that according to Isaiah 49 verses 1-6 the Messiah is promised to all Israel and is even referred to as Israel, since Israel's restoration is the personification and primary purpose of His mission. Hosea 11:1 also calls The Messiah, Israel! In Isaiah 49 verse six, we see the Father asking Him if He is prepared to raise up the twelve tribes of Israel by bringing back into the fold those who, though scattered and lost as a nation, would be individually preserved in and amongst the Gentiles in the four corners of the earth for the Messiah's ministry. He did come. He did go looking for preserved individuals physically descended from Ephraim and Judah and has in fact restored these preserved ones. Though these preserved ones may not know who they are, though they may look, act, smell, behave and conduct themselves with all of their father Jeroboam's filthy ways, our Messiah knew where to locate them. He has located them and He has brought them back to the fold on an individual basis not a national basis, as of yet. Interestingly enough the Hebrew word for preserved ones in Isaiah 49:6 is Notzrim or Nazarenes, which is the modern Hebrew word for Christians. It is these preserved born again Ephraimites that would be re-gathered in to the rebuilt Tabernacle of David and would return to the fold of Israel as Nazarenes. Let us recall that the entire early Messianic communities were known as The Nazarenes (Acts 24:5), the preserved ones of returning repentant Israel!