From the Desk of Jeff King

The mark of God

Ten years ago the LORD revealed to Alisa and I the significance of the Biblical feasts, which were dress rehearsals for the first and second coming of Messiah Yeshua. We also learned that the Christian holidays we once regarded as sacred and honoring to God were in fact counterfeits and offensive to Him.

That introduction launched my study into the Hebraic roots of Christianity, the most enriching and amazing journey of my life. Reading Scripture is a hunt for buried treasure; I do my digging with Hebrew and Greek Bible software as well as other resources. I rejoice every time the Holy Spirit leads me to a nugget, but I am always humbled by this reality: the more I know, the less I know. God's Word is too vast and deep. Who can know it? Paul writes in Ephesians 3:8 that the riches of Maschiach (Christ) are unsearchable.

In spite of my limitations, God has used the Biblical feasts to build a foundation of understanding. In recent weeks that area of study yielded some fresh insights. The Hebrew word for "feasts," mow'ed, can describe a sign or signal. As Passover approached in late April, I felt the LORD was signaling His church to rally around this Old Testament festival. I didn't know why fully until I heard a teaching by Peter and Christie Michas of Messengers of Messiah, a Hebraic Roots ministry in Southern California. I reviewed the Scriptures they presented and agreed with their conclusion: Passover is linked to the sign or mark of God and our eternal security in Him. Here is what I gleaned from the Michas teaching and my own study:

Passover is the most significant Biblical feast because it points to God's finished work of redemption, the death and resurrection of His Son. Those who honor God's calendar, specifically Passover, receive the sign of God (Exodus 13:9), which we believe is the tav, the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In Rev. 22:13 Yeshua identifies Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. In Hebrew it is translated Aleph and Tav. In the ancient Hebrew alphabet, which is a pictographic script (see chart), the tav resembles two crossed sticks or a cross. It represents a mark, sign or signature.

Before a person can receive the tav of God, he or she must choose wisely. In Rev. 13:16 the beast causes people to receive a mark on their forehead or right hand. This is not an implanted chip, barcode or tattoo as many Christians believe. The mark reflects the belief system we take into our heart and mind, symbolically the forehead and hand. It is unseen by man. Verse 18 asks those with understanding to calculate the number of the beast. "Calculate" comes from the Greek verb psephizo, meaning to count or vote with pebbles. The ancient Greeks voted by dropping pebbles into urns. In a court of justice a white pebble represented acquittal and a black stone condemnation.

Yeshua uses the same Greek word in Luke 14:28 when he asks us to "count" the cost before following Him. The Greek noun psephos, which has the same word origin and meaning, is used to describe the white stone in Rev. 2:17 that the Lord will give those who overcome. The mark we receive is determined by how we cast our voting stone. Our vote reflects what we have in our heart and mind.

In Ezekiel 9:4, Jews who grieve over the idolatry polluting Jerusalem are sealed with a tav on their forehead. In the previous chapter, God shows the prophet a series of abominations in the city. The violations include an image of jealousy, which scholars identify as Astarte (also known as Ishtar or Easter), and women weeping for Tammuz, a sun god and counterfeit savior born on Dec. 25. Those two abominations flourish in the church today. Astarte (Easter) and Tammuz (Christmas) were assimilated into Christianity in the fourth century. Because the beast desires to corrupt God's calendar, his mark would be the antithesis of God's seal. Therefore Christmas and Easter would represent a black stone.

Choosing the white stone requires us to heed Exodus 13:3-9, a passage included in the cube-shaped boxes that Jewish males wear on their forehead and left arm in morning prayer: "Remember this day (Passover) in which you went out of Eygpt, out of the house of bondage . . . . It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the LORD's law (Torah) may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt." The Hebrew word for "sign," 'owth, can mean a mark, beacon or signal. The word "remember" in Hebrew, zakar, represents a mark that can be recognized. It is used in the infinitive form, meaning the subject should be remembered constantly. Why remember Passover? Not only did God's strong hand free the Israelites from slavery, it delivered us from the bondage of sin through the Passover sacrifice of His Son.

God grants that pardon freely when we place our trust in Yeshua alone, turn from sin and serve Him obediently. To maintain a healthy relationship with Him it is critical that we mature in our faith (1 Pet. 2:2), divide the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15) and worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). God will reveal the truth, including the significance of His calendar, to all who seek it earnestly. But with this knowledge comes accountability. When we are exposed to the truth we must choose between the white and black stone, and Yeshua asks us to count the cost. God will mark us accordingly.

Private Galione

Laborers from the Mittelbau Dora conentration camp in Germany assemble V-2 rockets in an underground cave. An estimated 20,000 workers died before the camp was liberated in 1945 (The National Archives).

A foul odor drifted into the camp of the American 104th Infantry Division. Private John Galione, resting with his unit on the front lines in Germany, told his sergeant the smell troubled him and suggested it was coming from a rumored labor camp in the area. He asked if he could organize a scouting party to follow railroad tracks in the direction of the odor. Permission was denied because of an ambush threat.

With a growing sense of urgency, Galione ignored the order. About 9 p.m. on April 5, 1945, he slipped out of camp on foot and into the blackness of night. Several hours later fatigue, hunger and a nagging leg wound began taking a toll. Just as Galione thought of quitting he felt a nudge from behind. He turned but saw no one. Then the force grabbed his elbows, pointed him in the original direction and gave him another push. Instantly his strength returned and pain disappeared.

Five days later the tracks led Galione to the mouth of a tunnel carved into the Harz Mountains. Hidden inside was the Nazi's top-secret V-2 missile factory. To the right of the tunnel was the Mittelbau Dora Concentration Camp. The discovery by this lone soldier set in motion the liberation of prisoner camps across Europe and impacted the future of America and the world.

Initially, Galione was unsure of what he had stumbled upon, although he was confident the God of Israel had guided him to this location. As he approached the tunnel he spotted a train car filled with naked corpses, which he learned later was bound for the nearby Buchenwald crematorium. Galione was spotted by a German guard and gunfire was exchanged before the guard, for an unknown reason, fled the area. Bullets had whizzed past Galione as he scrambled for cover above the tunnel. He marveled that he was not killed or wounded.

Galione then turned his attention to the camp and came face-to-face with prisoners at the front gate. These emaciated laborers – Jews and non-Jews – worked under brutal conditions in a labyrinth of caves, manufacturing the world's first ballistic missile, which the Nazis planned to aim at Britain and the United States. Unable to break in, Galione left but returned in a Jeep with two other soldiers. Before sunrise on April 11 the men broke the lock and drove slowly into the compound. Twisted, discolored corpses littered the ground. A gaunt prisoner approached the soldiers, pointed to the infirmary and said weakly "there are people in there." The driver pulled the Jeep close to the door, stepped inside and witnessed another horror scene: about a hundred living skeletons lying motionless in beds, barely breathing. "We were so frightened we put the Jeep in reverse and drove out backward real fast," Galione said. "We didn't know what was going on in there and we didn't want to end up like the people we saw. The German guards had abandoned the prisoners, but we didn't know that. To be safe we wanted to bring more men."

The soldiers who joined Galione were from another platoon. Galione, who had walked more than a hundred miles to reach the camp, took a three-hour Jeep ride back to his unit. He told his sergeant he'd located the camp and described the gruesome scene. At first the commander was reluctant to respond because he feared an ambush, but relented and ordered Galione to radio other troops for assistance. "I was so happy," said Galione, who led an infantry division to liberate Dora the next day. "The people were in such bad shape. I don't think they had another day left to live."

The Third Armored Division sped toward Dora to provide cover for the arriving infantry but got lost and located another camp, Nordhausen, by accident. It held more than 400 dying prisoners. When Galione's detachment entered Dora, many battle-hardened soldiers, encountering Holocaust victims for the first time, wept and vomited. Galione said the laborers "looked like the walking dead. They were skin and bones. The people were so happy to see us. They were tugging our clothes, feeling our uniforms between their fingers like they were gold." Some were so weak they died before they could reach the gate.

The Pentagon ordered the immediate search for other prisoner camps, motivated largely by the discovery of Nazi weapons. Galione had beaten the Russians to Germany's rocket technology by mere hours, a coup that helped America grow into a superpower. The missiles and German scientists were transferred to America and the knowledge base helped develop high-tech weapons and the space program. Galione never pinpointed the source of the odor. Camp Dora was ruled out because it was more than a hundred miles from Lippstadt, where the 104th had paused to rest. Galione said he encountered the odor on other occasions near train cars.

The son of an Italian immigrant, Galione had always prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but did not acknowledge Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah until the 1970s. He returned from the war undecorated because his story was silenced by the Army. But God honored him a different way – seven children and grandchildren were born on the liberation dates of concentration camps that had sent Jews and non-Jews to Camp Dora – Nordhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau. One of his daughters was born without vital signs but revived by a doctor. It was April 15, the anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald and Nordhausen.

According to another daughter, Mary Nahas, her father believed God had spent a lifetime building a memorial through these births. Galione wanted Holocaust survivors to know that the LORD was behind their rescue and that He loved them and never wanted them to suffer and die in camps. Galione confided to a family member before his death in 1999 at age 80 that his one regret was not arriving at Camp Dora sooner to save more prisoners. With her father's permission and a signed affidavit from his sergeant, Nahas broke the silence by writing a book entitled The Journey of Private Galione. She was interviewed by Sid Roth on the radio in March. You can listen here.