|
Hebrews 11:14
For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. The second of November marks the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration when in 1917 British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, influenced the Jewish communities of the world to believe that Great Britain would support the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Though achieved within all legalities, Israel’s return from exile has not been an easy one. It is still in question today. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and later the whole nation of Israel coming from Egypt, none of them got a free pass into the Promised Land. All had to push and fight for their God-given inheritance. Genetics teach us that children possess within themselves the potential of their parents, so we can be assured that when ‘push’ comeS to ‘shove’, our people will again show enough stubbornness to claim what is ours. Alongside the modern-day Zionist movement we also have a new generation of messianic teenagers with a mission to reach out to their peers. They could also inherit being the messianic leaders of the World to Come, of the Kingdom of Messiah on earth. But as it was with our fathers it will not be an easy task. The promises are given to us for free, but LIKE Abraham, Rebecca, and Jacob, we have to show our will and worthiness to receive them by going to an all-out spiritual war for them. Again, genetics come to the rescue. Under the blessing of Abraham (Genesis 28:14), biological descendant of the patriarch as well as all who take refuge in his seed Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah, can find the strength, will, stamina, courage, if not plain sheer stubbornness (and by Hashem’s own definition we are a stubborn stiff-necked people) to accomplish the mission of the Master, Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is immersed will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover (Mark 16:15). Just like our youth seems to be engrossed in today’s distractions, the Zionist movement in Israel seems to be a passing fad. Can we blame them? Aren’t many of us adults so engrossed in our own lives, even in congregational activities and divisions that we have very little time left for our godly mission to reach out to our peers? We as adults need to show our teenagers the way to a godly life. It is our responsibility to blaze the trail for them by doing like Abraham, letting go of the baggage of the past in order to engage in the mission Messiah called us to (Genesis 12:1). Like Abraham, Moses and all our fathers, our eyes and hearts need to be so focused on our bright future that the present world and its concerns seem to us but husks. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city (Hebrews 11:15-16).
0 Comments
Hebrews11:20
By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. Rebecca's ruse in concealing Jacob and taking advantage of Isaac's blindness to extort from him the blessing that would otherwise be wasted on spiritually void and unworthy Esau lends itself to much speculating: does God endorse lying and deception? Certainly not! This text though can provide for the unspiritual soul an acceptable excuse for such practices. Far be it from Hashem to endorse the darkness of devilish lies; in presenting us with such a story, the God of Light actually reveals to us an eternal messianic truth. The Jewish people had certain expectation for a Messiah, expectations that are right, and true. Many expected the Messianic Redeemer to be a great military hero like King David or the judges of old, one who would deliver them from the tyrannical hand of Rome. The Messiah truly is all that, but as Balaam prophesied, I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh (Numbers 24:17), the Messiah’s coming follows a pattern of concealment. In musing on the coming of the Messiah we are reminded of Nehemiah. Before revealing his kingly mandate to rebuild Jerusalem, Nehemiah spent time under the cover of night to scout out Jerusalem incognito (Nehemiah 2:11-16). We see the same pattern in Queen Esther, who concealed her identity before she was able to put her life on the line to save the nation (Esther in Hebrew means: concealed). We also remember how Joseph received the brothers he would later save under the concealed identity of an Egyptian Viceroy so he could test them (Genesis 42-45). Jacob shows us that the Messiah will initiate His mission in a concealed manner. We also learn from the patriarch that the Messiah will spend a long time in the exile of the nations until He finally returns in glory to the land of His birth. The Messiah did come to His people to fulfill their deepest yearning and expectation, but His coming was concealed. Until this day He appears to them under the identity of a stranger but oh, what a rejoicing it will be for the whole world the day He reveals Himself to His people. It will dwarf the rejoicing of Joseph’s brothers, even that of the Hebrew nation as they were saved from the clutch of Haman. Far from teaching us to lie and deceive, the story of Jacob and Isaac teaches an eternal truth, a truth concealed under a seeming lie. Rebecca received the promise that Jacob should inherit the blessing of Abraham, so instead of deception, their story teaches us love, devotion, and faith for the Commandment and the Promises of God. In our daily discoveries in the Words of Truth, may we do more than read and study; may Abba grant us also to understand the Truth that is concealed underneath the Words. Galatians 5:6
… Only faith working through love …. I recently read a story about the mother of an Israeli soldier in the I.D.F. Like all good Jewish mothers, she had for her boy ambitions that defied the rules of the possible (Matthew 20:20-23). When approaching the Chief Officer of her son’s battalion to make her motherly impossible request, the officer replied: ‘Jewish mothers are one step above army chief officers, so we’ll see what we can do’. When she saw that God was ‘lingering’ in fulfilling His own Word, Sarah decided to help Him out (sarcasm intended) using the stratagem with Hagar. Rebecca who took over the role of matriarch after Sara’s death proved herself to be cut of the same cloth. She had received a personal prophecy that Jacob should receive Isaac’s blessing and not Esau, and she was going to make sure God did not ‘mess up’ (again, sarcasm intended!) about it. First we can wonder about God; ‘What takes Him so long anyways?’ (Don’t our wives always get on case for procrastinating on ‘important’ projects, especially theirs?) It is easy also to wonder about these two women’s ways. Did they not trust God? Other questions beg to be asked though: ‘Did these women by their actions show unreserved dedication and faith in the prophetic destiny of their lineage, even at the cost of a seeming lack of integrity? Could they maybe have been more interested in the Word of God being fulfilled than in themselves and their own reputation?’ It takes a mother, a Jewish one at that, to fight with the devil himself on these kinds of terms. We tend to judge people through the screening of personal virtue, but it seems that Hashem judges us more by virtue of the force of our dedication and love for him. About the kingdom of God, Yeshua did mention that we break into it through forceful determination. This is not to say that the ‘end justifies the means’. It is only to reiterate the words of dear Apostle Paul in which he explains that the most important element of our spiritual walk is a faith working through love (Galatians 5:6). Our love for the Master (oh, could it ever match Hashem’s love for us (John 3:16)) needs to go beyond the concerns of our personal posture. Our love for Him needs to expand; it needs to live in utter abandonment, above and beyond the restricted borders of the acceptable, breaking through the narrow confines of the possible. Does it in your life? Yeshua made Himself of no reputation for us. Can we, should we do the same for Him and what he asks us to do? 2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? We have mused with the idea of Abraham’s son Isaac as a foreshadow of Messiah. Isaac was bound to the wood and destined to a certain death which Hashem averted, thus he did not see corruption (psalms 16:10). Now things take a different turn. Isaac seems to disappear from the text of Torah while Abraham does not return to Sarah his wife. He only returns many years later to bury her. Abraham’s next concern is the choice a wife for Isaac who is now nearing forty. Keeping our analogy in mind, let’s see what happens. Abraham sends his servant Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac. First the old patriarch extols two promises from Eliezer: 1.to not choose a woman from among the Canaanites around them, 2. to not take Isaac out of the land; Isaac was to stay pure. Even though his wife would come from an idolatrous home, she would take on the God of Abraham as her own. She was also from the same genealogic stock as Abraham. Also, Isaac was to marry Rebecca, but she would come to him from Babylon; he would not go to her. It is Abraham’s servant Eliezer, which means in Hebrew: ‘the help of my God’ who goes to look for her. Today, as Eliezer was required to, the Holy Spirit also runs to and fro through this world seeking to gather the Bride. The Sprit is commissioned to bring to the Master a bride pure and undefiled. The Bride is to come out of Babylon; she is to clean herself from her Babylonish ways and culture in order to meet her husband. Isaac does not go to Babylon and tries to assimilate to the culture so he can be agreeable to a potential bride. He stays in the land, sends a messenger and the bride comes and changes her ways for Isaac. This teaches us something. Because of Paul’s injunction, ‘I have become all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9:22)’, we tend to think that Yeshua adapts Himself to every way and culture. Whereas He wants to be relevant to all, relevance cannot be taken to an extreme where today Yeshua has become a-cultural. From the minute we remove Yeshua from His Hebraic context, all that remains is an adulterated copy of the real thing. In the last 2,000 years, the world has created a Yeshua as a western person with western thoughts and ways, a Republican from the Bible Belt. We all want Yeshua to come and relate to us, but it is us who have to go to Him and become like Him, and whether we like it or not, He is nt a Western Caucasian from Europe, but a Semitic Jew form the M. East. Let us therefore learn to not only come out of Babylon, but also not to carry Babylon with us. Like Rebecca, let us rid ourselves of our Canaanitish/Babylonish/Helenistic Western ways and learn to endorse the culture of Messiah which is Torah culture: the culture of the Bible. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to teach us through the Word all the ways of the Master so that when we come to Him at the end of days, we are a pure bride, undefiled from the ways to the world. Luke 3:4
'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ This challenge from John the Immerser echoes the prophetic words of Isaiah, Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples (Isaiah 62:10). In the same manner John did, Isaiah was preparing the people of Jerusalem for the arrival of the promised Messianic King. This verse is actually written in the language of landscaping for road improvement and reparation projects in view of the arrival of a great dignitary; projects that had to be started before the onset of the event. Isaiah’s message continues with these words, "Behold, your salvation comes; behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him." And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Adonai; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken (Isaiah 62:11-12). In the ancient world a young maiden chosen to marry a king would ready herself for sometimes up to a year (Esther 2:12); she would go through body ‘improvements and reparations’ so to speak. She would regularly immerse herself in baths filled with aromatic herbs and plants with skin cleansing properties. She was also given food from the king’s table until the appointed time when she would finally marry the king.. As Rebecca left her past behind to marry he who is a shadow of Messiah, as she became a new creature, as she left her kinfolks behind in Babylon to be part of a new family, as she entered the tent of her mother-in law Sarah to continue in the matriarchs venue: we are this bride and we ought to behave as such. We are to make ourselves ready and immerse ourselves in the baths of repentance to present ourselves to Him in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that we might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:27); betrothed to one husband, as a pure virgin (2 Corinthians 11:2). Immersion in waters filled with His cleansing Words (John 15:3) is our preparation before we come to Him at the end of the age. May we let it clean us each day from the Canaanite culture that surrounds and snares us. As we do, may we sincerely and honestly pray in the same manner as King David, the great Messianic foreshadow did, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you (Psalms 51: 1-2; 7; 10; 13). Galatians 4:26
But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. Then Isaac brought her (Rebecca) into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. (Genesis 24:67. It is said that in seeking a wife a man looks for another mother. Today, our stubborn demand for individuality makes potential wives want to distinguish and define themselves against their husband’s mothers. A man will often refer to his mother’s cooking as the best. New wives who haven’t sat learning at the feet of an older Mom feel they can’t compete and this often creates deep issues within families. In the ancient world, a betrothed woman would spend her betrothal time until marriage learning about the things that please her husband. She would learn from his parents and others who knew him well. She would learn to prepare the food he likes, wear clothes and do her hair in the manner that he liked, as well as behave in the way that he liked. Today the mentality is more of, ‘if you love me, you take me as I am’. There is no respect for continuity, traditions, or culture and in the end, grand-children live in a different world than that of their grand-parents. This creates fragmented families. That’s why it is hard for old people; they feel everything they taught their children is gone and as a result they feel useless! Sarah was the matriarch. Whole traditions of hospitality, care, wisdom and even of the prophetic gift have developed around her. She was a tough act to follow; that’s why Eliezer’s mission of finding Isaac a wife was so crucial. Though coming from the idolatrous culture of Babylon, she had to have the right spirit and endorse the traditions of Sarah, and she did. Isaac wanted, Isaac needed her to enter into his mother’s tent, continue in the godly traditions of his Mom. Things would have been different if she would have said, ‘Look, I am not living in your mother’s tent; can’t you give me my own tent; I am my own person after all, I left my parents house for you so you take me as I am …etc …etc…’. Jewish prophetic eschatology compares Sarah to Jerusalem. After her second captivity, Sarah birthed Isaac. After the binding of Isaac, Sarah dies which the text narration follows with Isaac’s marriage to Rebecca, after a long time. This order of event is not coincidental. Classic Judaism always looked upon Isaac as foreshadow picture of the coming Messiah. Like Isaac, Yeshua had a miraculous birth and was sacrificed on the altar; the sacking and consequent dying of Jerusalem follows under the Roman Empire. A long time after, the text tells us, Yeshua will return to marry His bride. Even now today, like Eliezer (meaning: my God is my help) of old did, the Holy Spirit, roams in the earth in search of the bride who will enter ‘Jerusalem/Sarah’s tent’ and continue in the Jewish traditions of His Mom; the bride where the Sabbath’ candle burns continually and where the ‘dough’ is blessed. May we spend our time in preparation to please our Messiah, learning from the Torah all the things that please Him. |
Thanks for thinking of us... even a tiny donation is a blessing to us...
Order our new CD at: http://www.thelumbrosos.com/shop.html
Also available on itune. 
Our 'UNDER THE FIG TREE' atL:
http://www.thelumbrosos.com/shop.html 
Check our original judaica and other jewelery at:
http://www.thelumbrosos.com/shop.html Archives
May 2013
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed