One of the names of God is Baal-perazim, which means “Lord of the Breakthrough,” and it seems like a very good time to call on God by this name right now. We have seen God do some wonderful things in our midst here at ONE FOR ISRAEL, in our outreach and our Bible college, and we are expecting more breakthroughs to come!
The name “Lord of the Breakthrough” first appears in the Bible during the life of King David. The story appears in 2 Samuel chapter 5, and is repeated in the retelling of Israel’s history by the priests, in the book of Chronicles.1 It began when the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king, so they went to hunt him down. They gathered in the Valley of the Rephaim, or giants. In short, the situation was looking pretty scary. David, however, did what he always did when things started to look alarming. He prayed.
And David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?” And the Lord said to David,“ Go up, for I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand.” And David came to Baal-perazim, and David defeated them there. And he said, “The Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a breaking flood.” Therefore the name of that place is called Baal-perazim. (2 Samuel 5:19-20)
There is no wall, no barrier, that the Lord of the Breakthrough cannot overcome. As a friend of mine says, God loves to stack up the odds against Himself and then display His glorious might by overcoming them. Like He did at the Red Sea, for example. What a breakthrough! And He is still working wonders among us today.
Breakthrough at Our Bible College
We have seen the Lord of the Breakthrough at work in major ways here at ONE FOR ISRAEL. For much of the last century, it was extremely rare to hear of Israeli Jews coming to faith in Yeshua, but a big breakthrough came about 15 years ago, and the situation has changed radically. Once the internet was in everyone’s hands, we started to see many finding faith through Google searches. Israeli congregations have grown enormously. A large percentage of the new believers said they came to faith after finding our videos and materials online.
Another major breakthrough came, like a spiritual sonic boom, in 2014. It used to be that Jewish and Arab congregations had almost nothing to do with one another. Jewish and Arab congregations meet on different days (Saturday and Sunday, respectively), they worship in different languages (Hebrew and Arabic), and the cultural gap is vast. Most knew nothing about the other. There were occasional get-togethers for prayer, but these were annual events at best. There were very few real relationships between the two communities of believers, and the situation looked bleak. Not too bleak for God, though!
Baal-perezim, the Lord of the breakthrough,