Dear friends:

Today I am both sad and joyful.  Sad at the passing of a friend and great man of God, but joyful that he has entered into the full joy of the Lord and no doubt great rewards for his humble life and service.

It has been confirmed to me that Yacov Rambsel went to be with the Lord on July 10, 2005, at age 75.  He suffered a heart attack in the early morning hours in his sleep.

Yacov, a Messianic Jew, was a wonderful man and a dear saint.  I met him in Orlando in the mid-1990s.  He was in town from his home in San Antonio, Texas for a TV interview and called me to have breakfast with him and his wife Yaphah.  We had previously spoken about his amazing Bible findings.

He was truly an expert in the Hebrew language and Scriptures.  While a Messianic rabbi, his passion and main calling was as a pioneer in the study of "equidistant letter spacing" in the Bible.  But unlike most all others who study this, Yakov's work was manual, slow, and laborious, without the use of computers, which he said he did not trust.  He found the letters "Y-e-s-h-u-a" embedded throughout the Messianic passages in the Hebrew Scriptures.  For example, in Isaiah 53:10, the suffering servant chapter, he found embedded  "Yeshua is my name," with the Lord clearly identifying Himself as the Person the passage is describing.

To all but the most closed minds, Yacov's work confirmed beyond all doubt that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah.  I believe God will use his work to bring Israel to salvation and understanding of the Scriptures in the final days before the return of the Lord in glory.

Yacov believed in the very near rapture, and with rare insight he saw it revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures.  He is one who I would have thought for sure would have remained here for the rapture, but the Lord had better plans.  Writer Bob Ulrich of Prophecy in the News magazine writes, "I'm sure Jesus has something special for him to do.  Someone has to teach heaven's new arrivals the intricacies of the Hebrew alphabet."

After that breakfast in Orlando, I helped Yacov and Yaphah with their luggage.  I noticed that his luggage tag had the name "James" on it, which is a Gentile or English derivative of Yacov, as is Jacob.  It reminded me that this was a Jewish man who was called to be a blessing to both Jew and Gentile, and he lived in the two worlds.

We have lost a great saint.  I am reminded of Isaiah 57:1: "Devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil."  The prophesied evil is coming, and has begun.  Yacov has now been taken away, and hopefully all of God's righteous ones will be taken up soon with him, to be spared the worsening evil.

Yacov was a truly gracious man, humble, brilliant, but with a sense of humor that manifested the joy of the Lord.

I thank God for him.

Jim