Tend the Family Tree | A Brother is in Trouble, Follow the Dragon Tracks

Jul 17, 2025

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“Follow the money.” It’s an idiom we use in the West that conveys an effective method of exposing corruption, the kingpin at the top of a criminal chain, and how the system operates.[i] It is, in fact, quite effective and a menace to the best of criminal minds (pray technology doesn’t outpace it). I bring it up here as an excellent framework to talk about a corrupt operation of a spiritual nature, wrapped around the base of Abraham’s/Israel’s family tree, in dire need of exposure. Though the driving motive isn’t money, the idiom is still useful. In this case, the most effective formula, without question, is “follow the dragon tracks.” I’ll explain.

The book of Genesis tells us that Abram (later renamed Abraham), the patriarch of the biblical “first family” (Israel), received an everlasting promise from YHWH (the I AM, informal Yah, God of Israel) more than 3,000 years ago. Yah promised Abram that he would make him into a great nation, bless him, and make his name great, so that he would be a blessing to all nations. Moreover, Yah foretold that, though Abram and his wife Sarai were long past childbearing age, Abram’s offspring would be as numerous as the dust of the earth, and would be given possession of the land that he showed to Abram – Canaan.[ii]

These covenant promises—pre-confirmed in the creation record,[iii] reconfirmed in Abraham’s “son of promise,” Isaac,[iv] and carried forward through Isaac’s son, Jacob (Israel),[v] and his son (Judah), the fourth son and tribal head of the twelve tribes of Israel[vi]—are at the center of the spiritual vortex spinning around Israel and the Jews today, and have been generating friction around them since their first utterance.

Wherever a significant advancement of the promises is revealed in the biblical record, so also is the skulking shadow of the enemy of God (the ancient serpent, the dragon), scheming to thwart the good purposes of Yah. Consequently, because the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was chosen to carry Yah’s promises, so also are they the target of the dragon’s relentless genocidal pursuit.

Though Jesus was victorious over the enemy of YHWH in his death and resurrection—taking authority over all that Adam relinquished in the Garden[vii]—the time for Jesus’ enthronement in Jerusalem, when the fullness of his benefits will be poured out, has not yet come. Until then, the dragon has been given a season of partial freedom. Knowing his time is short, it is prophesied that he will empty out his rage against the “woman” (Israel, who bore the One who will rule the nations), and those grafted into her, until the kingdom of the Ruling One rule is established.[viii]

The dragon’s most effectual, versatile, and detrimental weapon, bent toward murder: deceit.[ix] But Jesus...

Some have questioned whether this is, indeed, the nature of the dynamic around Israel and the Jews, or whether it is a divorce of Yah from his people, a permanent condemnation.[x] What is invariably missed (ignored?) in this thinking is the rest of humanity’s equally rife rebellion against God and our collective culpability in Jesus’ death.[xi]

While gentiles (non-Jews) have enjoyed comparative anonymity and slippery deniability in our sin (for a time), Israel’s rebellion has been well-documented and ultra-publicized (in history’s #1 best-selling book of all time, no less) because, because, because they were chosen by God and set apart to reflect a witness to the rest of creation, of God’s person and purposes. Consequently, the biblical record has been misappropriated for millennia, to justify the rejection, defamation, persecution, unending exile, and mass murder of the Jews.[xii]

Again, I say, follow the dragon tracks. Take a step back and look at the biblical story-thread of the covenant promises in their entirety. See the pattern over their history, the hand of Yah at work in key moments of covenant advancement, and the shadow of the dragon following alongside, exerting his rageful but limited power to obstruct in those moments. Note, in particular, the times of birthing.

When YHWH confirmed his covenantal promise with Abram, in a ceremonial sealing of his word by passing between the parts of specified sacrificial animals as a smoking fire pot and a torch – the dragon was there, represented in birds of prey coming down upon the carcasses to impede the cutting of the covenant.[xiii]

When Israel’s family multiplied and grew strong in Egypt (as Yah foretold would happen)—the dragon was there, exploiting Pharaoh’s fear and greed to crush the Israelites with heavy burdens and ruthless oppression, unwittingly helping set the stage for YHWH’s mighty demonstration as the I AM, the one true God who would deliver his people from Egypt.[xiv]

When Moses, son of Israelite-Levite parents, was born under slavery in Egypt—the man through whom YHWH would deliver the Israelites, lead them to his holy mountain, and enter into the covenant of the Law with them—the dragon was there, co-conspiring the murder of every Israelite boy baby in Egypt in an attempt to stop the covenant promises from advancing.[xv]

When David, recipient of Yah’s promise of an everlasting royal line through which Israel’s messiah would come, was anointing as king over Israel (in failed King Saul’s place)—the dragon was there, tormenting and agitating King Saul into a murderous pursuit of David in the wilderness, in a concerted effort to disrupt the royal line through which the promised messiah would come.[xvi]

At the time of Jesus’ birth— the long-awaited Messiah who would grow up and hang on a cross, defeating death by his resurrection, and starting the clock for the day when he would bind the dragon and take his rightful place on the throne in Jerusalem—the dragon was there, exploiting Herod’s jealousy, fostering his plan to murder every Hebrew boy child under two years of age in the region of the messiah’s prophesied place birth, in an effort to kill the Son of the Promise himself.[xvii]

The clash of powers around covenant fulfillment did not cease with the end of the biblical record, but has continued on through history:

When the age of gentile inclusion in the covenant promise was ushered in (with Jesus’ resurrected ascension to his Father)—the dragon was still there, gleefully serving as the instrument of Jerusalem’s destruction, unwittingly moving the clock forward yet again, toward the time when Israel would be regathered and reconstituted as a geographical nation centuries later.[xviii]

When the time approached, nearly 2,000 years later, for the reconstitution of Israel as a nation—the dragon was there, reasoning deceitfully with men, endorsing a philosophy that dehumanized the Jews, and devising the mechanism by which nearly six million of them would be murdered.[xix]

(Add to these major moments since the 1^st century CE a parade of violent, Jew-hating chapters and events relegated to the back shelf of the gentile world’s collective memory.)[xx]

Another wave of heinous and barbaric violence hit Israel in the early morning hours of October 7^th, 2023, followed immediately by a tsunami of dragon-inspired, agent-perpetuated, technologically enhanced deceit, propagated worldwide in the aftershock of October 7th. In Israel’s counter-response to multi-front assaults, the desperate, existential battle to secure her borders has only added wood to the fire beneath her—

And the dragon was/is there, raising up jihadist agents of his sadistic rage, exploiting the lives of Israel’s neighbors in his determination to eliminate Israel and Jews around the world. This wave is only beginning to curl over our heads, preparing to crash over the earth in pursuit of scattered Jews and anyone who stands by them.

Some obvious questions: If God has divorced Israel and the Jews, why does the biblical pattern—covenant advancement/dragon obstruction—continue unchanged to the present day? If Israel had been replaced by the Church, as some purport, why does the dragon continue to thrash against Israel? Given his obviously undeterred fixation, what covenantal advancement he attempting to thwart this time? A better question: what is Yah preparing to birth?

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Revelation 12:1-6

Regardless of where we are on the timeline of Yah’s kingdom plan, the knowledge of, and alertness to, the nature of this battle will be critical as we move through unprecedented challenges, both now and to come. There are many false teachers and prophets in operation today, who profess allegiance to Jesus, yet deny his love for Israel and/or his Jewish brothers and sisters. We are confronted in this moment with a choice—nay, many minute-by-minute choices—which will serve to bear witness to the powers and authorities of the air, and to the world, of the coming kingdom of Christ.[xxi]

Some will choose a path of following in the ways commanded by Jesus, and will be judged positively by what they “do” for the least of his brothers and sisters.[xxii] Others will choose to follow the deception that has only the appearance of a less costly alternative to bearing up under intense persecution, suffering, and martyrdom alongside the first family-nation.[xxiii] Jesus communicated clearly about this as he set his face toward Jerusalem:

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

Matthew 16:24-26

And by what criteria will he judge and repay?

And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:3-40

But take heart, beloved of Yah, the Spirit has come, and:

...He will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come...

I [Jesus] have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:13, 33 (parenthesis mine)

Without a doubt, this road will be difficult to walk. We will need to be sober and alert, filled with the Word and the Spirit of Truth. Ignorance in our cyber-exposed world is no longer an excuse. We must learn how to choose the narrow way in discernment and trust, in a time that makes the narrow road appear as a furnace and the broad road a summer swim in comparison.

As in every instance of needing to discern right judgments, there is a ditch on both sides of the narrow road in regard to spotting human constructions of dragon-laid traps where Israel and the Jews are concerned—a spectrum of opportunities to lose one’s way.

On one side of the road, there resides the openly expressed, violent hatred of Israel and the Jews, more shape-shifting in professed motive than history can explain, and held with a fierceness that defies human logic. This ditch unequivocally rejects Israel’s legitimacy as a nation and the Jews’ dignity as a people. Those who entertain it have (wittingly or unwittingly) signed on to pulling up the state of Israel by its 3,000-year-old, archeologically prolific roots, and eradicating the Jewish people wherever they reside. Even taking on Christ-professing religious forms, the venomous attack is unashamed and unapologetic.

On the other side of the road is a much friendlier atmosphere toward those who love Israel, respect her “chosen” status, and affirm her permanence, both as a geographical nation and the “natural” family tree, into which we are grafted through faith in Christ. However...

On this side of the road, there resides a spirit of exploitation, able to both woo sincere brotherly hearts and wink slyly at false friends with self-serving motives. It promotes a ferocious sense of loyalty to something technically good, but to a destructive end. It is a loyalty to the nation of Israel so fierce that it displaces loyalty to the Holy One of Israel, and obstructs his redemptive plans and purposes for his beloved. (Even the apostle, Paul, genuinely zealous for his God, was fooled by this mirror-like deception before he was knocked down by Jesus himself on the road to Damascus.)[xxiv]

There’s a reluctance in this place to acknowledge (even deny) Israel’s continued rebellion against Yah and her existential need for redemptive intervention. Granted, YHWH’s means and methods of discipline are difficult to embrace since, again, they point to an unprecedented time of suffering and trouble for Israel (and those who are grafted into her), such as the world has not yet seen.[xxv] But this mysterious exertion of suffering leading to repentance and redemption will come, so embrace it we must.

A devastating consequence of drifting off this side of the road is a standing in opposition to God’s purposes in at least two ways: First, it undermines the witness-bearing church’s readiness to endure, trust, give an answer for, and share in the suffering of Israel in her coming “time of trouble.” Secondly, it cancels out the Church’s accurate reflection of God’s redemptive desire for the surrounding peoples of the MENACA region,[xxvi] many of whom already do, or will, carry the mark of the coming King while still living under ruling entities whose formations are for the singular intent of wiping Israel and the Jews (and her grafted-in siblings) from the face of the earth.

Down the center of the narrow road, always graciously illuminated at least one step ahead, there is the availability of a humble, uncompromising, obedient-unto-death love for Yah, and a suit of armor,[xxvii] bestowed by the Holy Spirit, who will help us to endure what comes, do everything that is asked of us, and then to stand when Jesus comes with his judgment and his reward.

On the narrow road, our uncompromising trust in YHWH will render global and national war and rumors of wars, governmental and military successes and defeats, inconsequential from a heavenly perspective—we having been warned of what to expect, and knowing who holds the scepter and unrolls the scrolls.

“...Do not fear... As for you [Joseph’s brothers and future heads of the tribes of Israel], you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear...”

Genesis 50:19b-21a

Maranatha...

[i] From the film All the President’s Men, 1976

[ii] Genesis 12:1-3, 7;13:14-17; 15:1-6; 17:4-8

[iii] Genesis 3:14-15

[iv] Genesis 17:19; 21:1-7; 26:1-5;

[v] Genesis 26:1-6

[vi] Genesis 49:9-12

[vii] John 12:31-32

[viii] Revelation 12:1-6, 12

[ix] John 8:44

[x] Replacement theology essentially teaches that the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan and that the many promises God made to Israel are fulfilled in the Church instead—Old Testament prophecies are allegorized in order to make them applicable to the church. Replacement theology presents major theological problems, because Scripture says that God has not forgotten or changed His promises to Israel (see Romans 11:1–2, 11, 23, 26, 29). Gotquestions.org.

[xi] Romans 3:9-18; Galatian 3:10-13; 2 Corinthians 5:21

[xii] For a lay-friendly summary of historical violence and persecution of the Jews, I recommend New York Times bestselling author, Joel Richardson’s, When a Jew Rules the World

[xiii] Genesis 15:7-11

[xiv] Exodus 1:6-14; chapters 1-15

[xv] Exodus 1:8-22

[xvi] 1 Samuel 16, 18:6 – 31:13

[xvii] Matthew 2:1-18

[xviii] Matthew 24:1-2; Mark 13:1-2; Luke 21:5-6. In AD 70, Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews scattered.

[xix] https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/holocaust

[xx] See reference xii

[xxi] Ephesians 3:7-10

[xxii] Matthew 5-7; Matthew 25:31-46

[xxiii] Matthew 24-25; Mark 13; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; 2 Thessalonians

[xxiv] Acts 6:8-8:1; 9:1-22